ime to see the poor little dead
baby, that I told you about, put into a hole in the ground. They fitted
it into a piece of bark, and stuck it in the grave they had made for it
on the edge of the clearing, and they put a flint and steel, and a
wood-knife, and some food and things in with it, though no living baby
could have had any use for half of them, let alone a dead one. Then the
old medicine man of the tribe recited the ritual over the grave. I took
the trouble to translate it once. It goes something like this:--

"O Thou who hast gone forth from among those who dwell upon the
surface of the earth, and hast taken for thy dwelling-place the
land which is beneath the earth! Fire have we given thee to
light thy fires, raiment wherewith thou mayest be clothed, food
to fill thy belly, and a knife to clear thy way. Go then and
make unto thyself friends among those who dwell beneath the
earth, and come back no more to trouble or molest those who live
upon the earth's surface."

'It was short and sweet, and then they stamped down the soil, while the
mother whimpered about the place like a cat that has lost its kittens. A
mangy, half starved dog came and smelt hungrily about the grave, until
it was sent howling away by a kick from one of the human animals near
it; and a poor little brat, who set up a piping song, a few minutes
later, was kicked, and cuffed, and knocked about, by every one who could
reach him, with hand, foot, or missile. The Sakai think it unlucky to
sing or dance for nine days after a death, so the tribesmen had to give
the poor little urchin, who had done the wrong, a fairly bad time of it
to propitiate the dead baby.

'Then they began to pack up all their household gods, and in about an
hour the last of the laden women, who was carrying so many babies, and
cooking pots, and rattan bags and things, that she looked like the
outside of a gipsy's cart at home, had filed out of the clearing, and
Juggins and I, with our three or four Malays, were left in possession.
The Sakai always shift camp like that when a death occurs, because they
think the ghost haunts the place where the body died, though what
particular harm the ghost of a mite of a baby could do, I cannot pretend
to say. When there is an epidemic among the Sakai, they are so busy
shifting camp, and building new huts, that they have not time to get
proper food, and half those who do not die of the disease die of
semi-