ording to the names which the Tarahumares apply to the three
functions for the dead, the main idea of the first is to give food;
of the second, to replenish the first supply; and of the third to give
drink. The three feasts are on an increasing scale of elaborateness,
the first being comparatively insignificant. Each generally lasts one
day and one night, and begins at the hour at which the dead breathed
his last. There is always a special patio prepared for the dead, and
another one for the hikuli cult, besides the ordinary dancing-place,
and much howling and singing goes on, especially at the last.

At the feasts, the shaman steeps herbs in water and Sprinkles this
medicine over the people. Hikuli dancing and singing always play a
prominent part at all the festivities, for the plant is thought to be
very powerful in running off the dead, chasing them to the end of the
world, where they join the other dead. Yumari is danced at intervals
and much tesvino is used, and at all feasts the survivors drink with
the dead.

There are three feasts for a mall, and four for a woman. She cannot
run so fast, and it is therefore harder to chase her off. Not until
the last function has been made will a widower or a widow marry again,
being more afraid of the dead than are other relatives.

After the death of a person, anyone who rendered him any service, as,
for instance, watching his cattle for a week, claims something of what
the dead left. He is satisfied, however, with a girdle or the like.

Once I was present at the burial-feast for a man who had hanged himself
a fortnight before, while under the influence of liquor and angry
over some property out of which he considered himself cheated. He had
changed into a lion. Two men and two women carried food and tesvino;
the wife did not go with them, as the deceased had died alone, and
she was afraid of being carried off by him. His father-in-law led the
procession, carrying a goat-skin with its four feet remaining. The
animal had belonged to the deceased and had been sacrificed for him,
and the skin was to be given to him that in his new life he might
rest on it. The suicide had been buried in a little cave with his
feet toward the entrance. Having deposited the food near the dead
man's head, the women sat down on a stone inside, while the men stood
up near the mouth of the cave, all faces turned toward the grave. The
father-in-law seated himself on a stone near the feet of the dead.