Note 591 — PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO (continued 2)

This ceremony, as it was practiced in the island of Bali (the only one of the East Indies to preserve the custom) is described by Crawfurd (Dictionary, pp. 30, 140–142). “The ordinary funeral rites of the Balinese much resemble those of the Buddhists of Siam and Ava, and the concremation is a modification of the Hindu Suttee, and the bloody ceremony of krising, a barbarism peculiar to the people of Bali themselves.” In that island, unless the dead man were of great wealth, the woman sacrificing herself was stabbed to death with a kris, instead of being burned with her husband’s corpse, as the expense accompanying the burning was so great. Barbosa (East African and Malabar Coasts, Hakluyt Society edition, p. 93) mentions this custom of one of the countries of India. See also Linschoten (Voyage, Hakluyt Society edition, pp. 249, 250, and note).