containing the skull and all the bones of a chief, these platforms
and a special sort of tree being, as will be explained later on, the
only places where they and their families and important personages
are originally buried. If so, the people add to the bones on this
platform such of the other skulls and special arm and leg bones,
collected as above mentioned, as are not required for decorating the
posts. If, as is most improbable, there is no such burial platform,
then they erect one, and upon it place all the available skulls and
special bones not required for the posts.

These various preparations bring us to the evening before the day
of the feast, upon which evening the women, married and unmarried,
of the community, whose families have supplied pigs for the feast,
dance together in full dancing decorations in the village enclosure,
beginning at about sundown, and, if weather permits, dancing all
through the night. There is no ceremony connected with this dancing.

The next day is the feast day. The guests are in the special guest
houses outside the village, where they are dressing for the dance. They
have probably arrived the day before, in which case they may have
come into the village to watch the women dancing in the evening;
but they are not regarded as having formally arrived. These guests
include married and unmarried men, women and children, nobody of the
invited community being left behind, except old men and women who
cannot walk. The women have brought with them their carrying bags,
in which they carry all their men's and their own goods (_e.g._,
knives, feathers, ornaments, etc.), including not only the things
used for the ceremony, but all their other portable property, which
they do not wish to expose to risk of theft by leaving at home.