In Western Sarawak the custom of burning the dead is universal, in the districts near the Samarahan, they are indifferently burnt or buried, and when the Sadong is reached the custom of cremation ceases, the Dayaks of the last river being in the habit of burying their dead. In the grave a cocoa-nut, and areca-nut are thrown, and a small basket of rice, and that one containing the chewing condiments of the deceased are hung up near the grave, and if he were a noted warrior, a spear is stuck in the ground close by. The above articles of food are for the sustenance of the soul in his passage to the other world. The graves are very shallow, and not unfrequently the corpse is rooted up and devoured by wild pigs. The burning also is not unfrequently very inefficiently performed, and portions of the bones and flesh of a deceased person have been brought back by the dogs and pigs of the village to the space below the very houses of the relatives. In times of epidemic disease, and when the deceased is very poor, or the relatives do not feel inclined to be at much expense for the sexton’s services, corpses are not unfrequently thrown into some solitary piece of jungle not far from the village, and there left. The Dayaks have very little respect for the bodies of the departed, though they have an intense fear of their ghosts. The office of sexton is hereditary, descending from father to son, and when the line fails, great indeed is the difficulty of inducing another family to undertake its unpleasant duties, involving, as it is supposed, too familiar an association with the dead and the other world to be at all beneficial. Though the prospect of fees is good, and perhaps every family in the village offers six gallons of unpounded rice to start the sexton elect in his new, and certainly useful career, among the Quop Dayaks it is difficult to find a candidate. The usual burial fee is one jar, valued at a rupee, though if great care be bestowed on the interment, a dollar is asked; at other places as much as two dollars are occasionally demanded, and obtained when the corpse is offensive. On the day of a person’s death, a feast[7] is given by the family to their relations; if the deceased be rich, a pig and a fowl are killed, but if poor, a fowl is considered sufficient. The apartment, and the family in which the death occurs, are tabooed for seven days and nights, and if the interdict be not rigidly kept, the ghost of the departed will haunt the house. Among the Silakau, the Lara, and the true Lundu tribes, the bodies of the elders and rich are burned, while the others are buried.