Among the Fang, back from the coast, who have not been influenced by contact with the white man, all the funeral customs are more rude and barbarous, and often revolting. The dead are buried without coffins, usually in a sitting posture, and in very shallow graves. Some of the tribes adjacent to the Fang on the south do not bury at all. They have regular cemeteries in which they leave the bodies above the ground and cover them with palm branches or woven mats. In most tribes offerings of food and drink are placed beside the grave. As the drink evaporates and the food wastes they say the spirit is consuming it. Fire-wood is left on the grave that the body may be kept warm. In the case of those accused of witchcraft they often seek to disable the spirit by burning the body. For the spirits of the dead still retain some connection with the body. For this same reason when slaves die, or others whom they have especial reason to fear, they sometimes beat the body with heavy clubs until they break every bone and reduce it to a shapeless mass. Wives charged with witchcraft are usually buried alive with the dead body of the husband. In one instance, in a certain town that I knew well, a very large grave was dug in the middle of the street, and the body of the man—a chief—was placed in the middle of it. Then his seven wives, charged with having bewitched him, were brought forward, and they were about to break their legs and throw them into the grave, when the timely arrival of the missionary prevented the deed and saved the women’s lives. He interposed no physical force; but, knowing his feelings, they were not willing to commit such an atrocity in his presence.