ies with mud is done by all the members of the entire
community. When the guests reach the village, they are all, both men
and women, smeared with mud, and they loudly call on the dead chief
by his title _amidi_, or as _babe_ (father). Also the various chiefs'
wives among the guests remain in the house after seeing the body,
instead of coming out with the other guest women.

The funeral does not take place till thirty-six or forty-eight hours
after the death. The various chiefs' wives take part in the wrapping
up of the body; and to the ordinary wrappings are added large pieces
of bark cloth.

The grave [105] is quite different from that of a commoner. There are
two methods of sepulture adopted for chiefs, the grave being in both
cases in or by the edge of the open village enclosure.

The first of these methods is a burial platform, a very rough erection
of upright poles from 9 to 12 feet high, the number of which may be
four, or less or more than that, at the top of which erection is a
rude wooden box-shaped receptacle, about 2 or 3 feet square, and from
6 inches to a foot deep, and uncovered at the top, in which receptacle
the corpse is placed. Sometimes the supporting structure, instead
of being composed of a number of poles, is only a rough tree trunk,
on which the lower ends of the branches are left to support the box.

The second method is tree burial. The tree in which this is done is
a special form of fig tree called _gabi_, the burial box, similar to
the one above described, being placed in its lowest fork, or, if that
be already occupied, then in the next one, and so on. [106] A tree
has been seen with six of these boxes in it, one above another. This
tree is specially used for such burials. The natives will never cut it
down. In selecting a village site they will often specially choose one
where one of these trees is growing; and indeed the presence of such
a tree in the bush raises a probability that there is, or has been,
a native village there. [107]

If a burial platform afterwards falls down through decay, the people
throw away all the bones, except the skull and the larger bones of the
arms and legs; and these they deal with in one of three alternative
ways. They either (1) dig a shallow grave in the ground under the
fallen platform, and put the skull and special bones there, and then
fill in the grave with soil, on this put a heap of stones, and on these
put the wooden remains of the collapsed pla