friends generally purchase a capote, a shirt, a pair of trousers,
etc., which articles are also laid around the pile. If the doctor who
attended him has escaped uninjured, he is obliged to be present at the
ceremony, and for the last time tries his skill in restoring the
defunct to animation. Failing in this, he throws on the body a piece
of leather, or some other article, as a present, which in some measure
appeases the resentment of his relatives, and preserves the
unfortunate quack from being maltreated. During the nine days the
corpse is laid out the widow of the deceased is obliged to sleep along
side it from sunset to sunrise; and from this custom there is no
relaxation even during the hottest days of summer! While the doctor is
performing his last operations she must lie on the pile, and after the
fire is applied to it she cannot stir until the doctor orders her to
be removed, which, however, is never done until her body is completely
covered with blisters. After being placed on her legs, she is obliged
to pass her hands gently through the flame and collect some of the
liquid fat which issues from the corpse, with which she is permitted
to wet her face and body! When the friends of the deceased observe the
sinews of the legs and arms beginning to contract they compel the
unfortunate widow to go again on the pile, and by dint of hard
pressing to straighten those members.

"If during her husband's lifetime she has been known to have committed
any act of infidelity or omitted administering to him savory food or
neglected his clothing, etc, she is now made to suffer severely for
such lapses of duty by his relations, who frequently fling her in the
funeral pile, from which she is dragged by her friends; and thus
between alternate scorching and cooling she is dragged backwards and
forwards until she falls into a state of insensibility.