Note 315.3 — Chapter XIII · FUNERAL RITES.

Other means are also adopted. Among the Andaman Islanders, over a large part of the Southern Ocean, in various districts of America, and perhaps among the Wahuma of East Africa, certain of the bones, either whole or calcined, are worn. Naturally the widow is, above everybody, expected to do this. Among the Mosquitos of Central America and the tribes of Honduras the widow took up the bones after burial for a year and carried them for another year, sleeping with them at night. Not until she had ceased to do this was she permitted to marry again.315.3 In Australia the Kulin widow seems to have carried the head and arms of her husband for an indefinite time, if not for the rest of her life.316.1 Among the Kurnai the mummified corpse was carried about by the family in its migrations for years under special charge of the parents, the wife or other near relatives, and finally, after it was buried or stowed away in a hollow tree, the father or mother, if living, would carry the lower jaw “as a memento.”316.2 The Kiriwina widow in New Guinea hangs from her neck her husband’s lower jaw richly ornamented with glass and shell beads.316.3 The Mincopie widow is said to wear the entire skull.316.4 Among the natives of the western districts of Victoria the widow of a chief by his first marriage wears a bag containing some of his calcined bones for two years, or until she marries again; and she also gets the lower bones of the right arm entire, which are carried in an opossum skin for the same period. Conversely, a widower wears his wife’s calcined bones in a bag of opossum-skin for twelve moons, and then buries them.316.5 The Taw-wa-tins and Tacullies of British Columbia, and the Tolkotins of Oregon, compel a widow to wear her husband’s calcined bones for three years, during which time her life is made a burden to her by his kindred, so that widows marrying again have been known to commit suicide rather than undergo the suffering a second time.316.6 In many cases the bones are permanently worn by the relatives of the deceased: in other cases, only for a time. Sometimes they are expressly recognised as charms; but always they seem to be something more than mere memorials of the dead.317.1