If the husband’s demands are less severe, his widow is not on that account always exempted from every duty towards him after his death. Among the Tacullies, she is compelled by the kinsfolk of the deceased to lie on the funeral pile where the body of her husband is placed, whilst the fire is lighting, until the heat becomes unbearable. Then, after the body is consumed, she is obliged to collect the ashes and deposit them in a small basket, which she must always carry about with her for two or three years, during which time she is not at liberty to marry again.[705] Among the Kutchin Indians, the widow, or widows, are bound to remain near the body for a year to protect it from animals, &c.; and only when it is quite decayed and merely the bones remain, are they permitted to remarry, “to dress their hair, and put on beads and other ornaments to attract admirers.”[706] Again, among the Minas on the Slave Coast, the widows are shut up for six months in the room where their husband is buried.[707] With the Kukis, according to Rennel, a widow was compelled to remain for a year beside the tomb of her deceased husband, her family bringing her food.[708] In the Mosquito tribe, “the widow was bound to supply the grave of her husband with provisions for a year, after which she took up the bones and carried them with her for another year, at last placing them upon the roof of her house, and then only was she allowed to marry again.”[709]
In Rotuma and the Marquesas Islands,[710] as well as among the Tartars and Iroquois,[711] a widow was never allowed to enter a second time into the married state. Among the ancient Peruvians, says Garcilasso de la Vega, very few widows who had no children ever married again, and even widows who had children continued to live single; “for this virtue was much commended in their laws and ordinances.”[712] Nor is it in China considered proper for a widow to contract a second marriage, and in genteel families such an event rarely, if ever, occurs. Indeed, a lady of rank, by contracting a second marriage, exposes herself to a penalty of eighty blows.[713] Again, the Arabs, according to Burckhardt, regard everything connected with the nuptials of a widow as ill-omened, and unworthy of the participation of generous and honourable men.[714]