it. The cure is now
complete, and if the patient does not recover, he cannot reasonably
blame the doctor, who has done all that humanly speaking could be done
to bring back the bloom of health to the poor sick man.[443]

[Sidenote: Extravagant demonstrations of grief at the death of a sick
man.]

If, however, the sick man obstinately persists in dying, there is a
great uproar in the village. For the fear of his ghost has now fallen
like a thunderclap on all the people. His disembodied spirit is believed
to be hovering in the air, seeing everything that is done, hearing every
word that is spoken, and woe to the unlucky wight who does not display a
proper degree of sorrow for the irreparable loss that has just befallen
the community. Accordingly shrieks of despair begin to resound, and
crocodile tears to flow in cataracts. The whole population assemble and
give themselves up to the most frantic demonstrations of grief. Cries
are raised on all sides, "Why must he die?" "Wherefore did they bewitch
him?" "Those wicked, wicked men!" "I'll do for them!" "I'll hew them in
pieces!" "I'll destroy their crops!" "I'll fell all their palm-trees!"
"I'll stick all their pigs!" "O brother, why did you leave me?" "O
friend, how can I live without you?" To make good these threats one man
will be seen prancing wildly about and stabbing with a spear at the
invisible sorcerers; another catches up a cudgel and at one blow shivers
a water-pot of the deceased into atoms, or rushes out like one demented
and lays a palm-tree level with the ground. Some fling themselves
prostrate beside the corpse and sob as if their very hearts would break.
They take the dead man by the hand, they stroke him, they straighten out
the poor feet which are already growing cold. They coo to him softly,
they lift up the languid head, and then lay it gently down. Then in a
frenzy of grief one of them will leap to his feet, shriek, bellow, stamp
on the floor, grapple with the roof beams, shake the walls, as if he
would pull the house down, and finally hurl himself on the ground and
roll over and over howling as if his distress was more than he could
endure. Another looks wildly about him. He sees a knife. He grasps it.
His teeth are set, his mind is made up. "Why need he die?" he cries,
"he, my friend, with whom I had all things in common, with whom I ate
out of the same dish?" Then there is a quick movement of the knife, and
down he falls. But he is not dead. He has