The dead are buried with their feet to the west, ready to start for
the region of the setting sun. On their return from the funeral the
mourners stop on the way, and a fish is boiled and offered to the
dead. An egg is cut in half and placed on the ground, and pieces
of mango bark are laid beside it on which the mourners tread. The
women accompany the corpse, and in the meantime the house of the
dead person is cleaned with cowdung by the children left behind. On
the first day food is supplied to the mourners by their relatives,
and in the evening some cooked rice and vegetables are offered to the
dead. The mourning lasts for nine days, and on the last day a cow or
bullock is killed with the blunt head of an axe, the performance of
this function being hereditary in certain families of the caste. Some
blood from the animal and some cooked rice are put in leaf-cups and
placed on the grave by the head of the corpse. The animal is cooked
and eaten by the grave, and they then return to the cooking shed and
place its jawbone under a stick supported on two others, blood and
cooked rice being again offered. The old men and women bathe in warm
water, and all return to the place where the dead man breathed his
last. Here they drink and have another meal of rice and beef, which
is repeated on the following day, and the business of committing the
dead to the ancestors is complete. Liquor is offered to the ancestors
on feast days.