e who had remained.

113. After the funeral the lamentations ceased, although the eating
and drunkenness did not. On the contrary, the latter continued for a
greater or less time, according to the rank of the deceased. The widow
or widower and the orphans, and other relatives, who were most affected
by grief, fasted as a sign of mourning, and abstained from flesh, fish,
and other food, eating during those days naught but vegetables, and
those only sparingly. That manner of fasting or penitence for the dead
is called sipa by the Tagalogs. Mourning among the Tagalogs is black,
and among the Visayans white, and in addition the Visayans shave the
head and eyebrows. At the death of a chief silence must reign in the
village until the interdict was raised; and that lasted a greater or
less number of days, according to his rank. During that time no sound
or noise was to be heard anywhere, under penalty of infamy. In regard
to this even the villages along the river-bank placed a certain signal
aloft, so that no one might sail by that side, or enter or leave the
village, under penalty of death. They deprived anyone who broke that
silence of his life, with the greatest cruelty and violence. Those
who were killed in war were celebrated in their lamentations and in
their funeral rites, and much time was spent in offering sacrifices
to or for them, accompanied with many banquets and drunken revels. If
the death had happened through violence--in war or peace, by treason,
or any other manner--the mourning was not laid aside nor the interdict
raised until the children, brothers, or relatives, killed an equal
number not only of their enemies and the murderers, but also of
any strange persons who were not their friends. Like highwaymen and
robbers they prowled on land and sea, and went on the hunt for men,
killing as many as they could until their fury was appeased. That
barbarous kind of vengeance is called balata and in token of it the
neck was girt with a strap which was worn until the number of persons
prescribed had been killed. Then a great feast and banquet was made,
the interdict was raised, and at its proper time the mourning was
removed. In all the above are clearly seen the traces of heathendom
and of those ancient rites and customs so celebrated and noised
about by good authors, by which many other nations, more civilized,
were considered as famous and worthy of history.

CHAPTER XVI

Of the government and politic