Men went into the forest to cut firewood for the pyre. Women cooked food for the spirits and cleaned the house for the ceremony. The headman and his deputy crawled into the tunnel and brought out the remains of the family, one by one: the thirty-three-year-old father, the twenty-nine-year-old mother, the eleven-year-old daughter, and the ten-year-old son. Villagers laid garlands of wildflowers on the bodies, now wrapped in white sheets and resting on freshly cut palm fronds. They lit incense and prayed.
