The corpse, having been prepared for burial by being dressed in its best robe, is laid upon the floor, the mother or nearest relation taking the head upon her lap and leading in the mourning. But, before this, all the relations put on their oldest rags and as few of them as decency will allow. The most civilized among them, unwilling to disrobe, often turn their dresses inside out. Owing to the peculiar climate bodies are not usually kept long. The funeral sometimes takes place within twelve or even eight hours after death. From the stories of natives one must conclude that premature burial is far from uncommon. The short interval which custom allows between death and burial is a partial explanation. And it may also be accounted for among many tribes by the frequency of religious trance, mistaken for death. The trance is usually self-induced, for the purpose of reading the future, or when they commune with the spirit of the moon; but the practice would probably make them subject to involuntary trance. They have abundant opportunity of proving the fact of premature burial, since they so frequently exhume the bodies of the dead; sometimes they find the body in an altered position. There are various reasons for exhuming the bodies of the dead. Sometimes the spirit of the departed is dissatisfied with the grave and becomes troublesome to the living, subjecting them to annoyance and injury until the body is placed in another grave. If the departed was a person of small importance the people may resent these posthumous activities and seek to disable the spirit by exhuming the body and throwing it into the sea, after cutting off the head. Among the interior tribes the body is frequently exhumed in order to obtain the brains or the skull for fetish purposes. Thus the evidences are found of premature burial. But, besides the haste with which they bury their dead, and the frequency of the trance, there is still another explanation of premature burial. They are disposed to regard a person as dead as soon as he becomes unconscious, although the heart may still be perceptibly beating. They cannot dissociate the personal spirit from seeing, hearing and feeling. They will therefore say of the unconscious one that he, the person, is gone, and that only the life of the body is left; and they will lose no time in preparing for the funeral. The spirit of the deceased knows all that is going on and is supposed to be very sensitive in regard to the amount of mourning and the details of the funeral. Among the Fang, the wives of a man who has died, when they are not put to death, are often beaten severely to augment their sorrow, and they are compelled to go entirely naked for a length of time—sometimes a whole year. No one must speak to them, nor give them food.