is heavy). May the billows calm down in the south, O in the south,
on the coast of Leming, that we may sail to the south, to Leming! Out
there may the sea be calm, that we may push off from the land for home!"
In this incantation a prayer to the spirit of the dead to relax his hold
on the sufferer appears to be curiously combined with a prayer or spell
to calm the sea when the people sail across to the coast of Leming to
fetch a cargo of tobacco. When the incantation has been recited and the
patient stroked with the bundle of herbs, one of his ears and both his
arm-pits are moistened with a blood-red spittle produced by the chewing
of betel-nut, pepper, and lime. Then they take hold of his fingers and
make each of them crack, one after the other, while they recite some of
the words of the preceding incantation. Next three men take each of them
a branch of the _volju_ tree, bend it into a bow, and stroke the sick
man from head to foot, while they recite another incantation, in which
they command the spirit to let the sick man alone and to go away into
the water or the mud. Often when a man is seriously ill he will remove
from his own house to the house of a relation or friend, hoping that the
spirit who has been tormenting him will not be able to discover him at
his new address.[372]

[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs in Tumleo.]

If despite of all these precautions the patient should die, he or she is
placed in a wooden coffin and buried with little delay in a grave, which
is dug either in the house or close beside it. The body is smeared all
over with clay and decked with many rings or ornaments, most of which,
however, are removed in a spirit of economy before the lid of the coffin
is shut down. Sometimes arrows, sometimes a rudder, sometimes the bones
of dead relations are buried with the corpse in the grave. When the
grave is dug outside of the house, a small hut is erected over it, and a
fire is kept burning on it for a time. In the house of mourning the
wife, sister, or other female relative of the deceased must remain
strictly secluded for a period which varies from a few weeks to three
months. In token of mourning the widow's body is smeared with clay, and
from time to time she is heard to chant a dirge in a whining, melancholy
tone. This seclusion lasts so long as the ghost is supposed to be still
on his way to the other world. When he has reached his destination, the
fire is suffered to die down on the gr