o constitute a source of wealth. Commanding the mouth of
the Vanigela River, the people of Kalo absorb the trade with the
interior; and their material prosperity is said to have rendered them
conceited and troublesome.[332]

[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the natives of
the Hood Peninsula. Seclusion of the widow or widower.]

The tribes inhabiting the Hood Peninsula are reported to have no belief
in any good spirit but an unlimited faith in bad spirits, amongst whom
they include the souls of their dead ancestors. At death the ghosts join
their forefathers in a subterranean region, where they have splendid
gardens, houses, and so forth. Yet not content with their life in the
underworld, they are always on the watch to deal out sickness and death
to their surviving friends and relations, who may have the misfortune to
incur their displeasure. So the natives are most careful to do nothing
that might offend these touchy and dangerous spirits. Like many other
savages, they do not believe that anybody dies a natural death; they
think that all the deaths which we should call natural are brought about
either by an ancestral ghost (_palagu_) or by a sorcerer or witch
(_wara_). Even when a man dies of snake-bite, they detect in the
discoloration of the body the wounds inflicted upon him by the fell art
of the magician.[333] On the approach of death the house of the sick man
is filled by anxious relatives and friends, who sit around watching for
the end. When it comes, there is a tremendous outburst of grief. The men
beat their faces with their clenched fists; the women tear their cheeks
with their nails till the blood streams down. They usually bury their
dead in graves, which among the inland tribes are commonly dug near the
houses of the deceased. The maritime tribes, who live in houses built on
piles over the water, sometimes inter the corpse in the forest. But at
other times they place it in a canoe, which they anchor off the village.
Then, when the body has dried up, they lay it on a platform in a tree.
Finally, they collect and clean the bones, tie them in a bundle, and
place them on the roof of the house. When the corpse is buried, a
temporary hut is erected over the grave, and in it the widow or widower
lives in seclusion for two or three months. During her seclusion the
widow employs herself in fashioning her widow's weeds, which consist of
a long grass petticoat reaching to the ankles. She wear