| caption: |
burial of young man , protection against evil death |
| text: |
Later at night the Bala men carried the body into the village. It was set down into Medzong's house in the room with the pounding table. Only the household members gave food offerings to the deceased. Medzong's half-grown daughter had been told of the accident in the afternoon while in the fields but initially it was said only that her father had been injured so that she would not be totally overwhelmed by the dreadfulness of the accident. The body did not stay in the house for an hour. (165) The old men of the morung wrapped it into a mat and quietly carried it out of the village to bury it in the jungle below the place where the other corpse platforms are set up. They fastened the mat with the body to a single bamboo pole which they put across two pairs of crossed sticks |
