Soon after life is extinct the undertakers (awilo) are sent for. They are generally two in number. As a rule they are not relatives of the deceased, though from the derivation of their name I think they may have been so originally (kuwila, compare juakuwilwa, bereaved). Some make it a point that the undertakers must not have seen the deceased during his illness, but this is not universally observed. In some families the slaves of the deceased are the undertakers, and the slaves of a deceased chief may invest his successor with the insignia of office. The undertakers wash the body (mtembo) of the deceased. For this purpose they use water from the stream—the ordinary water used at the village (if the deceased be a woman her body is first partially washed by female attendants). They close the eyes; some fail in this, and are considered unskilful. They dress the body in calico, covering it all except the eyes and the upper part of the face, which may be left uncovered until they are on the point of carrying it to the graveyard. They tie up the deceased in a mat, the very mat which was his deathbed. The Wayao are buried with the legs bent, the Wanyasa with the legs straight. When all these ceremonies have been finished, the undertakers come out of the house and wash their hands, not in ordinary water but in water of medicine, “because they handled a corpse”. 35.—PROLONGED WAILING. If the wailing is to continue for a long time they procure the bark of a large tree and encase the body therein. The body is then set in a position nearly upright; a hole is dug in the floor of the house so that the putrid matter may drop (kusulula) into it. Should the body be in an advanced state of decomposition, they burn Indian hemp (chamba), and carry beside it on the way to the grave, this is done to neutralise the smell. But in cases of prolonged mourning the deceased is often buried in his own house. 36.—DEATH IN WAR. If a man be killed in war, his friends, if they can procure his body at all, do not “show it at the village,” but bury it on the war path. If his enemies find the body they disembowel it and cut off the head, taking certain parts for charms. Enemies allow no burial, but cast forth the mangled remains to the vultures and other carrion eaters. When a man is wounded in an engagement he is carried back, not to his own dwelling—there are bad spirits in it—but to a little hut made ready for him in the bush (19) at some distance from the village. If a person die through drinking mwai (and this constitutes an enormous percentage of the older natives), he is denied the ordinary rights of sepulture. Several years ago the burning of witches was practised. At present this would not be done unless the witch refused the poisoned cup, which she is, on the contrary, most eager to drink to show her innocence. 37.—JOURNEY TO THE GRAVE.