If the report be that the chief is to die, the special woman attendant will give him the blow on the head, as in the case of the ordinary villager. The shouting of the men outside when the chiefs death is announced is much louder than in the case of a commoner; and as they shout they brandish their spears, and strike the roof of the chiefs house with the spear points, and some of the men strike it with adzes and clubs. The spreading of the news to other communities is on a wider scale, and the number of people who respond to the news and come to the funeral is very great, and includes a larger number of chiefs and prominent men; there are more, and much larger, parties of them. The funeral song of the women, commenced on the announcement of death, lasts much longer--indeed for hours. In fact, as numerous large bodies of people keep coming in, and some of these coming from a distance may not arrive until just before the funeral, and as the funeral song has to be recommenced as each fresh party comes in, and lasts so much longer each time, it follows that this funeral song practically continues without ceasing from the moment when death is announced until the actual funeral. The immediate smearing by men and women of their bodies with mud is done by all the members of the entire community. When the guests reach the village, they are all, both men and women, smeared with mud, and they loudly call on the dead chief by his title _amidi_, or as _babe_ (father). Also the various chiefs' wives among the guests remain in the house after seeing the body, instead of coming out with the other guest women.
The funeral does not take place till thirty-six or forty-eight hours after the death. The various chiefs' wives take part in the wrapping up of the body; and to the ordinary wrappings are added large pieces of bark cloth.
The grave [105] is quite different from that of a commoner. There are two methods of sepulture adopted for chiefs, the grave being in both cases in or by the edge of the open village enclosure.
The first of these methods is a burial platform, a very rough erection of upright poles from 9 to 12 feet high, the number of which may be four, or less or more than that, at the top of which erection is a rude wooden box-shaped receptacle, about 2 or 3 feet square, and from 6 inches to a foot deep, and uncovered at the top, in which receptacle the corpse is placed. Sometimes the supporting structure, instead of being composed of a number of poles, is only a rough tree trunk, on which the lower ends of the branches are left to support the box.