LIEUTENANT ?43 ÇCMDK’s VOYAGE
C H A P. XIV.
The Ceremonies o f an Indian F uneral particularly defer ib ed :
General Obfer va t ions on the SubjeEl: A CharaEler fo u n d
among the Indians to which the A ncients p a id g rea t V e neration
: A Robbery a t the Fort, and its Confequences ;
with a Specimen o f Indian Cookery, and various In c idents.
1769. the 5th, we kept his Majefty’s birth-day; for though
. J“ne‘ , v y it is the 4th, we were unwilling to celebrate it during
Monday s. the abfence of the two parties who had been fent out to
obferve the Tranfit. We had feveral of the Indian Chiefs at
our entertainment, who drank his Majefty’s health by the
name of Kihiargo, which was the neareft imitation they
could produce of King George.
About this time died an old woman of fome rank, who
was related to Tomio, which gave us an opportunity to fee
how they difpofed of the body, and confirmed us in our opinion
that thefe people, contrary to the prefent cuftom of all
other nations now known, never bury their dead. In the
middle of a fmall fquare, neatly railed in with bamboo, the
awning o f a canoe was raifed upon two polls, and under
this the.body was depofited upon fuch a frame as has before
been'deferibed: it was covered with fine cloth, and near it
was placed bread-fruit, fifh, and other provifions: we fup-
pofed that the food was placed there for the fpirit of the de-
ceafed, and confequently, that thefe Indians had fome con-
fufed notion of a feparate ftate; but upon our applying for
further
R O U N D nr H fc w O R T. E». *43
further information to Tubourai Tamaide, he told us, that 1769.
the food was placed there as an offering to their gods. They ■ ^une' ■
do not, however, fuppofe, that the gods eat, any more than Monday 5'
the Jews fuppofed that Jehovah could dwell in a houfe: the
offering is made here upon the fame principle as the Temple
was built at Jerufalem, as an expreflion of reverence and
gratitude, and a folicitation o f the more immediate prefence
of the Deity. In the front of the area was a kind of flile,
where the relations of the deceafed flood to pay the tribute
of their forrow; and under the awning were innumerable
fmall pieces of cloth, on which the tears and blood of the
mourners had been fhed; for in their paroxyfms of grief it
is a univerfal cuftom to wound themfelves with the fhark’s
tooth. Within a few yards two occafional houfes were fet
up, in one of which fome relations of the deceafed conftantly
refided, and in the other the chief mourner, who is always
a man, and who keeps there a very lingular drefs in which
a ceremony is performed that will be deferibed in its turn»
Near the place where the dead are thus fet up to rot, the
bones are afterwards buried.
What can have introduced among thefe people the cuftom.
of expofing their dead above ground, till the flefh is con-
fumed by putrefaction, and then burying the bones, it is
perhaps impoffible to guefs ; but it is remarkable, that iElian,
and Apollonius Rhodius impute a fimilar practice to the ancient
inhabitants of Colchis, a country near Pontus in Alia,
now called Mingrelia; except that among them this manner
of difpofing of the dead did not extend to both fexes: the
women they buried ; but the men they wrapped in a hide,
and hung up in the air by a chain. This practice among the
Colchians is referred to a religious caufe. The principal objects
of their worfhip were the Earth and the Air; and it is,
fuppofed that, in confequence of fome fuperftitious notion,
they