[[Traditions of Conflict]] has really useful article about [traditions and folk rules about how to appease the dead](https://traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/appeasing-the-dead?s=r) in a variety of indigenous societies, i.e. how to make sure someone you murdered doesn't take revenge on you as a spirit. > The Kaingang of Brazil consider a widowed person to be inherently dangerous, “for the ghost of the departed clings to its last earthly vestiges in the hair of the surviving spouse…and under the nails…It follows its spouse about wherever it goes, for it is loath to give up its earthly attachments.” Confined in the middle space between the land of the living and the abode of the dead, the ghost is reluctant to give up the relationships and pleasures it enjoyed in life, and trails their surviving spouse wherever they go. > > The widowed person must live out of camp for some weeks or months, “until the attachment of the ghost is enfeebled.” A widowed husband must abstain from eating the foods he hunted for his wife while she lived, while a widowed wife similarly must not consume foods she cooked for her deceased husband. After this fasting period, the spouse returns to camp with their hair and nails cut, and “is thus freed from the dirt that was so close a link to the ghost.” The return to camp was traditionally an occasion for elaborate ceremony. The spouse’s head would be covered with feathers as a disguise to fool the ghost, while community members engaged in frantic singing and rattling to frighten the ghost away.