A curious local custom is that called “Feeding the Dead.” When they bury their dead, the relatives, before the earth is filled into the grave, place a tube, formed of bamboo, or pithy wood with the pith extracted, and sufficiently long to protrude from the earth heaped up over the body, into the mouth of the deceased; and down this they pour, from time to time, palm wine, water, palm oil, &c. They appear to imagine that dead men do not require solid food at all, and, as they only pour the liquids down two or three times a month, are not very thirsty souls. They believe that after death the deceased suffers from the same bodily ailments as he did in life, and sometimes very filial natives will go to the doctor of a steamer, and simulate the complaint from which the paternal or maternal ancestor suffered, in order that they may obtain the requisite medicine to pour down the grave. One day a lad, son of a late chief, came to the resident doctor of the river and said:--
“Doctor, my foot sick. Gimme some med’cine.”
“What’s the matter with it?” inquired the doctor.
“Him swell up--fit to burst--can’t walk no more.”
The Galen of the river examined the foot, and, finding it perfectly sound and healthy, and not swollen in the least, assumed an enraged aspect, and demanded fiercely--
“What d’you mean by telling me these lies?”
“Please, master, not my foot sick, my fader foot sick.”
“He can’t come--they put him ground already.”
“Yes, master--him dead now ’bout three month.”
“Then what d’you mean by coming here? Get out of this.”
“Master, I want the med’cine for sick foot same as I tell you. I want to give him my fader, he no get med’cine since he put in ground. I know him foot plenty sick now.”
“Well, I’ll give you some if you pay for it.”
The filial affection of these people is not such that they will expend coin of the realm in the purchase of medicine or drink for their dead parents. They do not give them rum for instance. The ancestral clay only gets moistened with palm wine or water, while the more exhilarating beverage goes down their own throats. Perhaps they think that ghosts have weak heads and cannot stand mundane spirits.