ABSTRACT
Sorcery is generally suspected as a cause of death if somebody dies in the prime of life after a short illness. Some deaths are believed to occur as a result of breaking a taboo. The commonest case is when a husband or a wife has extramarital intercourse, while she is pregnant. Funerary inversions are acts performed during funeral rites which are in reverse if compared with normal life. Among the Ambo, the mourners are shaven, especially the bereft spouse; all ornaments are taken off; the mourning spouse must lie on the bare ground and not on a mat. The bereft spouse with the help of his or her matrilineage pays death dues in order to be released from the shade of his or her former spouse, to whom he or she still belongs. Then the 'owner' of the dead sleeps with the death dues.
