wild static swaying of the body.

_SONGS._

It has nearly always been customary to sing songs at not only funerals,
but for varying periods of time afterwards, although these chants may no
doubt occasionally have been simply wailing or mournful ejaculation.
A writer[100] mentions it as follows:

At almost all funerals there is an irregular crying kind of singing,
with no accompaniments, but generally all do not sing the same
melody at the same time in unison. Several may sing the same song
and at the same time, but each begins and finishes when he or she
may wish. Often for weeks, or even months, after the decease of a
dear friend, a living one, usually a woman, will sit by her house
and sing or cry by the hour, and they also sing for a short time
when they visit the grave or meet an esteemed friend whom they have
not seen since the decease. At the funeral both men and women sing.
No. 11 I have heard more frequently some time after the funeral, and
No. 12 at the time of the funeral, by the Twanas. (For song see
p. 251 of the magazine quoted.) The words are simply an exclamation
of grief, as our word "alas," but they also have other words which
they use, and sometimes they use merely the syllable _la_. Often the
notes are sung in this order, and sometimes not, but in some order
the notes _do_ and _la_, and occasionally _mi_, are sung.

Some pages back will be found a reference, and the words of a peculiar
death dirge sung by the Senel of California, as related by Mr. Powers.
It is as follows:

Hel-lel-li-ly,
Hel-lel-lo,
Hel-lel-lo.

[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Ghost Gamble.]

Mr. John Campbell, of Montreal, Canada, has kindly called the attention
of the writer to death songs very similar in character; for instance,
the Basques of Spain ululate thus:

Lelo il Lelo, Lelo dead Lelo,
Lelo il Lelo,
Lelo zarat, Lelo zara,
Il Lelon killed Lelo.

This was called the "ululating Lelo." Mr. Campbell says:

This again connects with the Linus or Ailinus of the Greeks and
Egyptians * * * which Wilkinson connects with the Coptic "ya
lay-lee-ya lail." The Alleluia which Lescarbot heard the South
Americans sing must have been the same wail. The Greek verb
#ololuzo# and the Latin ululare, with an English howl and wail,
are probably derived from this ancient form of lamentation.

In our own time a writer on the manner and customs of the Creeks
describes a pecul