_How they guard the dead_. When anyone dies, the people light many fires near his house; and at night armed men go to act as sentinels about his coffin, for fear that the sorcerers (who are in this country also) may come and touch the coffin; for then the coffin would immediately burst open and a great stench issue from the corpse, which could not any longer remain in the coffin. For this reason they keep watch for several nights. _Slaves killed at the death of chiefs_. When any chief descended from Dumaguet dies, a slave is made to die by the same death as that of the chief. They choose the most wretched slave whom they can find, so that he may serve the chief in the other world. They always select for this a slave who is a foreigner, and not a native; for they really are not at all cruel. They say that the reason for their killing slaves, as we have said, at the death of any chief is very ancient. According to their story, a chief called Marapan more than ten thousand years ago, while easing his body asked a slave of his for some grass with which to clean himself. The slave threw to him a large stalk of reed-grass, which seems to have hit the chief on the knee, causing a wound. As he was at the time a very old man, he died, as they say, from the blow; but before his death he gave orders that, when he should die, the slave and all his children should be put to death. From this arose the custom of killing slaves at the death of a chief. _Mourning indicated by fasting_. When the father or mother or any near relative died, they promised to eat no rice until they should seize some captive in battle. The actual sign of mourning among them was the wearing of armlets made of bejucos [rattans] which covered the entire arm, with a similar band around the neck. They drank no pitarrilla, and their only food was bananas and camotes, until they had either taken a captive or killed some one, when they ceased their mourning; it might thus happen that they would eat no rice for a whole year, and therefore they would be, at the end of that period, very languid and weak. Sometimes a man determined, soon after a relative's death, to eat nothing, but to abandon himself to death. But his timaguas and slaves quickly assembled, and made a collection throughout the village; bananas were given him for food, and _tuba_ (which is a wine made from the palm-tree) for drink, so that he should not die. These gains were the perquisites of the chiefs. This kind of mourning is called among them _maglahe_.