Note 262.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF (continued 2)

This is not all. Mourners fast, abstaining altogether from food or indulging only in restricted diet, and that of an inferior kind. On the island of Aurora all who are in mourning refrain from certain food. The immediate relatives may not eat any cultivated food. They are limited to gigantic caladium, bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, mallow, and other things which must be sought in the bush where they grow.262.1 The ancient Hurons were forbidden, even in cold weather, to eat warm food.262.2 Among the Charruas of South America the adult sons of a dead man remain for two days entirely naked in their huts and almost without food.262.3 In Togoland the Ewhe widow is forbidden beans, flesh, fish, palm-wine and rum; any infringement of these prohibitions would cost her life.262.4