food and pig's
flesh is made by the chiefs nearest male relative, with assistance,
here again the special dancer getting the largest share, and the
ceremony is then over, and the guests return to their villages.

And now a true desertion of the village by its inhabitants takes
place, as indeed is necessary, as the putrefying body is becoming
so offensive; and it will be at least two or three weeks before the
emission of the smells is over. The villagers all go off into the bush,
with the exception of two unhappy men, more or less close relatives of
the dead chief, who have to remain in the village. Whilst there alone
they are well ornamented, though not in their full dancing decoration,
but in particular, though not themselves chiefs, they wear on their
heads the cassowary feathers which are the distinctive decoration of
a chief, and they carry their spears. There they remain amidst the
awful stench of the decomposing body and all the mess and smell of the
pigs' blood and garbage about the village. It is a curious fact that,
in speaking of these two men, the natives do not speak of them as
watching over the body of the chief, but as watching over the blood
of the killed pigs.

When the stench is over, the villagers in the bush are informed, and
they then return to the village. Then follow the killing and eating
of wild pigs and sweeping down of the village, as in the case of the
death of an ordinary person, but again on a much larger scale.

It will be noticed that, though the desertion of the village after a
big feast lasts for six months, that which follows a chiefs funeral
only lasts for a few weeks.

The removal of the mourning takes place after an interval which may be
anything between one and six months. This is a special ceremony, and
will not be postponed for the purpose of tacking it on to some other
ceremony, as in the case of an ordinary person's mourning removal; but
other ceremonies will often be tacked on to it. The guests invited are
from only one other community. Here again the person actually dealt
with is the chief mourner, and the removal of mourning from him or
her terminates the mourning for everyone. The village pigs for this
occasion are provided by the dead man's family, and not by the whole
clan, as in the case of a chiefs funeral feast. There will probably
be two or three of such pigs provided; but, as the ceremony is also
available for various other ceremonies, there may be a considerable