"Near one of the large houses I saw some piles; they were about ten inches thick, square, and two and a half feet high. At the upper end they had two holes, meeting in the middle like a cross; through them were plaited many coloured ribbons both of linen and of cloth, presenting the appearance of streamers; at their end there was a stick about as high as a man, at the end of this a piece of white linen was fastened of about two inches wide, looking like a flag; all this was surrounded by a sort of conical figure of the sheaths of the chamoerops, so that only in front a little piece of the streamers was to be seen. I made inquiries as to these things, and they told me they were monuments for the dead, and that lately three persons had died in this house. I saw some more of the same kind of stakes which were already old, but there was not one near every house.
"I saw some persons of both sexes wearing green fringes, and I inquired why they were in this manner distinguished from the others; as much as I could learn from my interpreter these were those who had held their feast of love. This is always celebrated in the woods, never anywhere else, and as a sign of this joy they wore these fringes; they were really made from long pisang[204] leaves split through the middle and fringed crossways. They are first worn round their neck, then across their shoulders, and at last round their loins.
"My attention was attracted by a continual murmuring; I inquired into its cause. It was the singing of some women, who wanted to cure another of her headache. This afforded me at the same time the opportunity of seeing the interior of their houses. I was admitted and allowed to mount, and I found the invalid sitting on her feet, some of the women lying near her, and four standing before her; one of them held something in her hand, which was supposed to be some article for fumigating; I could, however, neither see nor smell it. Their whole song consisted of one tone, which was taken first at a very high pitch, but by repeating it so often they slowly sank to the lowest notes, then they paused, and one of them commenced again very high, and the others chimed in until they had again arrived at the lowest notes. They kept on singing in this way as long as I was there, which, however, was not very long, because it soon grew dark. I felt the invalid's forehead, which was a little warmer than ordinarily and covered with weak perspiration. Her hands were also hot, and her pulse quicker than usual, which symptoms might point to a cold in a body inclined to laziness.