When Sufficiently Dried, It Is Wrapped In Clothes
And Put Into A Coffin, Until The Money To Finish The Affair Is
Ready.
The Duallas are more tied down; their death-dances must be
celebrated, I am informed, on the third, seventh, and ninth day
after death.
On these days the spirit is supposed to be
particularly present in its old home. In all the other cases, I
should remark, the spirit does not leave the home until its devil is
made and if this is delayed too long he naturally becomes fractious.
Among the Congo Francais tribes there are many different kinds of
burial - as the cannibalistic of the Fan. I may remark, however,
that they tell me themselves that it is considered decent to bury a
relative, even if you subsequently dig him up and dispose of the
body to the neighbours. Then there is the earth-burial of the
Igalwas and M'pongwe, and the beating into unrecognisable pulp of
the body which, I am told on good native authority, is the method of
several Upper Ogowe tribes, including the Adoomas. I had no
opportunity of making quiet researches on burial customs when I was
above Njoli, because I was so busy trying to avoid qualifying for a
burial myself; so I am not quite sure whether this method is the
general one among these little-known tribes, as I am told by native
traders, who have it among them that it is - or whether it is
reserved for the bodies of people believed to have been possessed of
dangerous souls.
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