In any case the occasion of a man's death was marked by self-mutilation on the part of his wives and female relatives. These would commence by cutting their fingers, weeping bitterly all the while, and afterwards would take the spear of their deceased relative, and with it would prick themselves in various parts of the body and more especially in the arms, which were frequently pierced through and through. Azara was privileged to witness a number of these painful ceremonies, which must have been carried out with conscientious zeal, since he remarks that of all the adult women that he saw none was without mutilated fingers and numerous scars on the body. These methods of accentuating sorrow, however, were light when compared with the tortures that adult sons were wont to inflict upon themselves on the loss of their father. It was their duty first of all to hide themselves, fasting, in their huts for two days. This effected, it was customary to point a number of sticks and to transfix the arms with these from the wrist to the shoulder, with an interval of not more than an inch between each. In this porcupine-like condition they proceeded either to a wood or to a hill, bearing in their hands sharpened stakes. By means of these each would dig out a hole in the earth sufficiently deep to cover him to the height of the breast, and in this custom demanded him to remain during a whole night. On the next day the mourners rose up from their uncomfortable holes, and met together in a special hut that was set apart for the ceremonial purposes. Here they pulled the sticks from their arms, and remained for a fortnight, partaking of only the scantiest nourishment. After which they were at liberty to rejoin their comrades, and to resume the comparatively even tenor of their normal existence. The Charrúas afford one of the rare instances of a race who knew no religion. They neither worshipped a benevolent divinity nor endeavoured to propitiate a malignant spirit. They were, nevertheless, superstitious up to a certain point, and dreaded to leave their huts during the night. There is no doubt that some vague belief in an after-existence must have been implanted in their lowly minds. Although they do not seem ever to have referred openly to the belief, the sole fact of the burial of the dead man's arms in the same grave as the corpse is sufficient proof of their supposition that the weapons would be needed in some half-imagined and dim place beyond. But neither priest nor magician was in their midst to stimulate their wonderings on the point.