The tribe bury the dead, placing the corpse in the grave with the head
to the south. A little rice is buried with the corpse. In Bilaspur the
dead are buried in the forest, and the graves of old men are covered
with branches of the sal [609] tree. Then they go to a little distance
and make a fire, and pour ghi and incense on it as an offering to the
ancestors, and when they hear a noise in the forest they take it to
be the voice of the dead man. When a man dies his hut is broken down
and they do not live in it again. The bodies of children under five
are buried either in the house or under the shade of a banyan tree,
probably with the idea that the spirit will come back and be born
again. They say that a banyan tree is chosen because it lives longest
of all trees and is evergreen, and hence it is supposed that the
child's spirit will also live out its proper span instead of being
untimely cut off in its next birth.