to a dead man are in sound condition,
as it is supposed he will need them on his journey to the happy
hunting-grounds, while the Chinese put rice and chicken in sound
vessels on the graves of their brethren, believing they will need
refreshment when they start on the long journey to the land of the
shades. Tramps know where the Chinese are accustomed to bury their
dead in American cities. When food is placed before an Otaheite corpse
it is not for the dead, but for the gods, and is intended to secure
their good offices for the departed. While a Tagbanua corpse is above
ground it is liable to be eaten by a vampire called the balbal that
lives on Mindanao, has the form of a man with wings and great claws,
tears open the thatch of houses and consumes bodies by means of a
long tongue, which it thrusts through the opening in the roof. These
Tagbanuas do not believe in a heaven in the skies, because, they say,
you could not get up there. When a man dies he enters a cave that
leads into the depths of the earth, and after travelling for a long
time he arrives in the chamber where Taliakood sits,--a giant who
employs his leisure in stirring a fire that licks two tree trunks
without destroying them. The giant asks the new-comer if he has been
good or bad in the world overhead, but the dead man makes no reply. He
has a witness who has lived with him and knows his actions, and it is
the function and duty of this witness to state the case. This little
creature is a louse. On being asked what would happen if a native
were to die without one of these attendants, the people protest that
no such thing ever happens. So the louse, having neither to gain nor
lose, reports the conduct of his commissary and associate, and if
the man has been bad, Taliakood throws him into the fire, where he
is burned to ashes, and so an end of him. If he has been good, the
giant speeds him on his way to a happy hunting-ground, where he can
kill animals by thousands, and where the earth also yields fruits and
vegetables in plenty. Here he finds a house, without having the trouble
to build one, and a wife is also provided for him,--the deceased wife
of some neighbor usually, although he can have his own wife if she is
considerate enough to die when he does. Down here everybody is well
off, though the rich, having had much pleasure in the world, have
less of it than the poor. After a term of years the Tagbanua dies
again and goes at once to a heaven in a deeper