Chapter XIX: Part 19

In the Solomon Islands the sacrificial ritual is more highly developed. It may be described in the words of a native of San Cristoval. "In my country," he wrote, "they think that ghosts are many, very many indeed, some very powerful, and some not. There is one who is principal in war; this one is truly mighty and strong. When our people wish to fight with any other place, the chief men of the village and the sacrificers and the old men, and the elder and younger men, assemble in the place sacred to this ghost; and his name is Harumae. When they are thus assembled to sacrifice, the chief sacrificer goes and takes a pig; and if it be not a barrow pig they would not sacrifice it to that ghost, he would reject it and not eat of it. The pig is killed (it is strangled), not by the chief sacrificer, but by those whom he chooses to assist, near the sacred place. Then they cut it up; they take great care of the blood lest it should fall upon the ground; they bring a bowl and set the pig in it, and when they cut it up the blood runs down into it. When the cutting up is finished, the chief sacrificer takes a bit of flesh from the pig, and he takes a cocoa-nut shell and dips up some of the blood. Then he takes the blood and the bit of flesh and enters into the house (the shrine), and calls that ghost and says, 'Harumae! Chief in war! we sacrifice to you with this pig, that you may help us to smite that place; and whatsoever we shall carry away shall be your property, and we also will be yours.' Then he burns the bit of flesh in a fire upon a stone, and pours down the blood upon the fire. Then the fire blazes greatly upwards to the roof, and the house is full of the smell of pig, a sign that the ghost has heard. But when the sacrificer went in he did not go boldly, but with awe; and this is the sign of it; as he goes into the holy house he puts away his bag, and washes his hands thoroughly, to shew that the ghost shall not reject him with disgust." The pig was afterwards eaten. It should be observed that this Harumae who received sacrifices as a martial ghost, mighty in war, had not been dead many years when the foregoing account of the mode of sacrificing to him was written. The elder men remembered him alive, nor was he a great warrior, but a kind and generous man, believed to be plentifully endowed with supernatural power. His shrine was a small house in the village, where relics of him were preserved.[588] Had the Melanesians been left to themselves, it seems possible that this Harumae might have developed into the war-god of San Cristoval, just as in Central Africa another man of flesh and blood is known to have developed into the war-god of Uganda.[589]

[Footnote 552: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), pp. 122, 123, 124, 180 _sq._]

[Footnote 553: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), pp. 247, 253.]

[Footnote 554: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 248.]

[Footnote 555: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 255 _sqq_., 264 _sqq_.]

[Footnote 556: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ 253 _sq_.]

[Footnote 557: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 254, 258, 261; compare _id._, pp. 125, 130.]

[Footnote 558: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 120, 254.]

[Footnote 559: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 118 _sqq._]

[Footnote 560: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 254 _sq._]

[Footnote 561: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 258 _sq._]

[Footnote 562: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 255.]

[Footnote 563: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 259.]

[Footnote 564: G. Brown, D.D., _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), pp. 214, 217.]

[Footnote 565: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 255.]

[Footnote 566: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 255 _sq._]

[Footnote 567: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 256 _sq._]

[Footnote 568: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 260 _sq._]

[Footnote 569: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 261 _sq._]

[Footnote 570: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 263 _sq._]

[Footnote 571: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 257.]

[Footnote 572: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 264, 273 _sq._, 275-277.]

[Footnote 573: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 274 _sq._]

[Footnote 574: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 266, 276, 277, 286.]

[Footnote 575: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 267-270.]

[Footnote 576: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 269.]

[Footnote 577: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 270 _sq._]

[Footnote 578: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 275.]

[Footnote 579: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 271 _sq._]

[Footnote 580: G. Turner, _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and long before_ (London, 1884), pp. 335 _sq._ This account is based on information furnished by Sualo, a Samoan teacher, who lived for a long time on the island. The statement that the fire kindled on the grave was intended "to enable the soul of the departed to rise to the sun" may be doubted; it may be a mere inference of Dr. Turner's Samoan informant. More probably the fire was intended to warm the shivering ghost. I do not remember any other evidence that the souls of the Melanesian dead ascend to the sun; certainly it is much more usual for them to descend into the earth.]

[Footnote 581: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 281 _sq._]

[Footnote 582: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 278 _sq._]

[Sidenote: Journey of the ghost to the other world.]

[Footnote 583: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 279 _sq._]

[Footnote 584: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 124 _sq._]

[Footnote 585: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 121.]

[Footnote 586: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 125 _sqq._]

[Footnote 587: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 127, 128.]

[Footnote 588: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 129 _sq._]

[Footnote 589: Rev. J. Roscoe, "Kibuka, the War God of the Baganda," _Man_, vii. (1907) pp. 161-166; _id._, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 301 _sqq._ The history of this African war-god is more or less mythical, but his personal relics, which are now deposited in the Ethnological Museum at Cambridge, suffice to prove his true humanity.]

LECTURE XVII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF CENTRAL MELANESIA (_concluded_)

[Sidenote: Public sacrifices to ghosts in the Solomon Islands.]

At the close of last lecture I described the mode in which sacrifices are offered to a martial ghost in San Cristoval, one of the Solomon Islands. We saw that the flesh of a pig is burned in honour of the ghost and that the victim's blood is poured on the flames. Similarly in Florida, another of the Solomon Islands, food is conveyed to worshipful ghosts by being burned in the fire. Some ghosts are known by name to everybody, others may be known only to individuals, who have found out or been taught how to approach them, and who accordingly regard such ghosts as their private property. In every village a public ghost is worshipped, and the chief is the sacrificer. He has learned from his predecessor how to throw or heave the sacrifice, and he imparts this knowledge to his son or nephew, whom he intends to leave as his successor. The place of sacrifice is an enclosure with a little house or shrine in which the relics are kept; it is new or old according as the man whose ghost is worshipped died lately or long ago. When a public sacrifice is performed, the people assemble near but not in the sacred place; boys but not women may be present. The sacrificer alone enters the shrine, but he takes with him his son or other person whom he has instructed in the ritual. Muttering an incantation he kindles a fire of sticks, but may not blow on the holy flame. Then from a basket he takes some prepared food, such as a mash of yams, and throws it on the fire, calling out the name of the ghost and bidding him take his food, while at the same time he prays for whatever is desired. If the fire blazes up and consumes the food, it is a good sign; it proves that the ghost is present and that he is blowing up the flame. The remainder of the food the sacrificer takes back to the assembled people; some of it he eats himself and some of it he gives to his assistant to eat. The people receive their portions of the food at his hands and eat it or take it away. While the sacrificing is going on, there is a solemn silence. If a pig is killed, the portion burned in the sacrificial fire is the heart in Florida, but the gullet at Bugotu. One ghost who is commonly known and worshipped is called Manoga. When the sacrificer invokes this ghost, he heaves the sacrifice round about and calls him, first to the east, where rises the sun, saying, "If thou dwellest in the east, where rises the sun, Manoga! come hither and eat thy _tutu_ mash!" Then turning he lifts it towards where sets the sun, and says, "If thou dwellest in the west, where sets the sun, Manoga! come hither and eat thy _tutu_!" There is not a quarter to which he does not lift it up. And when he has finished lifting it he says, "If thou dwellest in heaven above, Manoga! come hither and eat thy _tutu_! If thou dwellest in the Pleiades or Orion's belt; if below in Turivatu; if in the distant sea; if on high in the sun, or in the moon; if thou dwellest inland or by the shore, Manoga! come hither and eat thy _tutu_!"[590]

[Sidenote: First-fruits of the canarium nuts sacrificed to ghosts.]

Twice a year there are general sacrifices in which the people of a village take part. One of these occasions is when the canarium nut, so much used in native cookery, is ripe. None of the nuts may be eaten till the first-fruits have been offered to the ghost. "Devil he eat first; all man he eat behind," is the lucid explanation which a native gave to an English enquirer. The knowledge of the way in which the first-fruits must be offered is handed down from generation to generation, and the man who is learned in this lore has authority to open the season. He observes the state of the crop, and early one morning he is heard to shout. He climbs a tree, picks some nuts, cracks them, eats, and puts some on the stones in his sacred place for the ghost. Then the rest of the people may gather the nuts for themselves. The chief himself sacrifices the new nuts, mixed with other food, to the public ghost on the stones of the village sanctuary; and every man who has a private ghost of his own does the same in his own sacred place. About two months afterwards there is another public sacrifice when the root crops generally have been dug; pig or fish is then offered; and a man who digs up his yams, or whatever it may be, offers his private sacrifice besides.[591]

[Sidenote: Sacrifice of first-fruits to ancestral spirits in Tanna.]

In like manner the natives of Tanna, one of the Southern New Hebrides, offered the first-fruits to the deified spirits of their ancestors. On this subject I will quote the evidence of the veteran missionary, the Rev. Dr. George Turner, who lived in Tanna for seven months in 1841. He says: "The general name for gods seemed to be _aremha_; that means a _dead man_, and hints alike at the origin and nature of their religious worship. The spirits of their departed ancestors were among their gods. Chiefs who reach an advanced age were after death deified, addressed by name, and prayed to on various occasions. They were supposed especially to preside over the growth of the yams and the different fruit trees. The first-fruits were presented to them, and in doing this they laid a little of the fruit on some stone, or shelving branch of the tree, or some more temporary altar of a few rough sticks from the bush, lashed together with strips of bark, in the form of a table, with its four feet stuck in the ground. All being quiet, the chief acted as high priest, and prayed aloud thus: 'Compassionate father! here is some food for you; eat it; be kind to us on account of it.' And, instead of an _amen_, all united in a shout. This took place about mid-day, and afterwards those who were assembled continued together feasting and dancing till midnight or three in the morning."[592]

[Sidenote: Private ghosts. Fighting ghosts kept as auxiliaries.]

In addition to the public ghosts, each of whom is revered by a whole village, many a man keeps, so to say, a private or tame ghost of his own on leash. The art of taming a ghost consists in knowing the leaves, bark, and vines in which he delights and in treating him accordingly. This knowledge a man may acquire by the exercise of his natural faculties or he may learn it from somebody else. However he may obtain the knowledge, he uses it for his own personal advantage, sacrificing to the ghost in order to win his favour and get something from him in return. The mode of sacrificing to a private ghost is the same as to a public ghost. The owner has a sacred place or private chapel of his own, where he draws near to the ghost in prayer and burns his bit of food in the fire. A man often keeps a fighting ghost (_keramo_), who helps him in battle or in slaying his private enemy. Before he goes out to commit homicide, he pulls up his ginger-plant and judges from the ease or difficulty with which the plant yields to or resists his tug, whether he will succeed in the enterprise or not. Then he sacrifices to the ghost, and having placed some ginger and leaves on his shield, and stuffed some more in his belt and right armlet, he sallies forth. He curses his enemy by his fighting ghost, saying, "Siria (if that should be the name of the ghost) eats thee, and I shall slay thee"; and if he kills him, he cries to the ghost, "Thine is this man, Siria, and do thou give me supernatural power!" No prudent Melanesian would attempt to commit manslaughter without a ghost as an accomplice; to do so would be to court disaster, for the slain man's ghost would have power over the slayer; therefore before he imbrues his hands in blood he deems it desirable to secure the assistance of a valiant ghost who can, if need be, overcome the ghost of his victim in single combat. If he cannot procure such a useful auxiliary in any other way, he must purchase him. Further, he fortifies himself with some personal relic, such as a tooth or lock of hair of the deceased warrior, whose ghost he has taken into his service; this relic he wears as an amulet in a little bag round the neck, when he is on active service; at other times it is kept in the house.[593]

[Sidenote: Garden ghosts.]

Different from these truculent spirits are the peaceful ghosts who cause the garden to bear fruit. If the gardener happens to know such a ghost, he can pray and sacrifice to him on his own account; but if he has no such friend in the spirit world, he must employ an expert. The man of skill goes into the midst of the garden with a little mashed food in his left hand, and smiting it with his right hand he calls on the ghost to come and eat. He says: "This produce thou shall eat; give supernatural power (_mana_) to this garden, that food may be good and plentiful." He digs holes at the four corners of the garden, and in them he buries such leaves as the ghost loves, so that the garden may have ghostly power and be fruitful. And when the yams sprout, he twines them with the particular creeper and fastens them with the particular wood to which the ghost is known to be partial. These agricultural ghosts are very sensitive; if a man enters the garden, who has just eaten pork or cuscus or fish or shell-fish, the ghost of the garden manifests his displeasure by causing the produce of the garden to droop; but if the eater lets three or four days go by after his meal, he may then enter the garden with impunity, for the food has left his stomach. For a similar reason, apparently, when the yam vines are being trained, the men sleep near the gardens and never approach their wives; for should they tread the garden after conjugal intercourse, the yams would be blighted.[594]

[Sidenote: Human sacrifices to ghosts.]

Sometimes the favour of a ghost is obtained by human sacrifices. On these occasions the flesh of the victim does not, like the flesh of a pig, furnish the materials of a sacrificial banquet; but little bits of it are eaten by young men to improve their fighting power and by elders for a special purpose. Such sacrifices are deemed more effectual than the sacrifices of less precious victims; and advantage was sometimes taken of a real or imputed crime to offer the criminal to some ghost. So, for example, within living memory Dikea, chief of Ravu, convicted a certain man of stealing tobacco, and sentenced him to be sacrificed; and the grown lads ate pieces of him cooked in the sacrificial fire. Again, the same chief offered another human sacrifice in the year 1886. One of his wives had proved false, and he sent her away vowing that she should not return till he had offered a human sacrifice to Hauri. Also his son died, and he vowed to kill a man for him. The vow was noised abroad, and everybody knew that he would pay well for somebody to kill. Now the Savo people had bought a captive boy in Guadalcanar, but it turned out a bad bargain, for the boy was lame and nearly blind. So they brought him to Dikea, and he gave them twenty coils of shell money for the lad. Then the chief laid his hand on the victim's breast and cried, "Hauri! here is a man for you," and his followers killed him with axes and clubs. The cripple's skull was added to the chief's collection, and his legs were sent about the country to make known what had been done. In Bugotu of Ysabel, when the people had slain an enemy in fight, they used to bring back his head in triumph, cut slices off it, and burn them in sacrifice. And if they took a prisoner alive, they would bring him to the sacred place, the grave of the man whose ghost was to be honoured. There they bound him hand and foot and buffeted him till he died, or if he did not die under the buffets they cut his throat. As they beat the man with their fists, they called on the ghost to take him, and when he was dead, they burned a bit of him in the fire for the ghost.[595]

[Sidenote: Sacrifices to ghosts in Saa.]

At Saa in Malanta, one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifices are offered to ghosts on various occasions. Thus on his return from a voyage a man will put food in the case which contains the relics of his dead father; and in the course of his voyage, if he should land in a desert isle, he will throw food and call on father, grandfather, and other deceased friends. Again, when sickness is ascribed to the anger of a ghost, a man of skill is sent for to discover what particular ghost is doing the mischief. When he has ascertained the culprit, he is furnished by the patient's relatives with a little pig, which he is to sacrifice to the ghost as a substitute for the sick man. Provided with this vicarious victim he repairs to the haunt of the ghost, strangles the animal, and burns it whole in a fire along with grated yam, coco-nut, and fish. As he does so, he calls out the names of all the ghosts of his family, his ancestors, and all who are deceased, down even to children and women, and he names the man who furnished the pig for the ghostly repast. A portion of the mixed food he preserves unburnt, wraps it in a dracaena leaf, and puts it beside the case which contains the relics of the man to whose ghost the sacrifice has been offered. Sometimes, however, instead of burning a pig in the fire, which is an expensive and wasteful form of sacrifice, the relatives of the sick man content themselves with cooking a pig or a dog in the oven, cutting up the carcase, and laying out all the parts in order. Then the sacrificer comes and sits at the animal's head, and calls out the names of all the dead members of the ghost's family in order downwards, saying, "Help, deliver this man, cut short the line that has bound him." Then the pig is eaten by all present except the women; nothing is burnt.[596]

[Sidenote: Sacrifices of first-fruits to ghosts in Saa.]

The last sort of sacrifices to ghosts at Saa which we need notice is the sacrifice of first-fruits. Thus, when the yams are ripe the people fetch some of them from each garden to offer to the ghosts. All the male members of the family assemble at the holy place which belongs to them. Then one of them enters the shrine, lays a yam beside the skull which lies there, and cries with a loud voice to the ghost, "This is yours to eat." The others call quietly on the names of all the ancestors and give their yams, which are very many in number, because one from each garden is given to each ghost. If any man has besides a relic of the dead, such as a skull, bones, or hair, in his house, he takes home a yam and sets it beside the relic. Again, the first flying-fish of the season are sacrificed to ghosts, who may take the form of sharks; for we shall see presently that Melanesian ghosts are sometimes supposed to inhabit the bodies of these ferocious monsters. Some ghost-sharks have sacred places ashore, where figures of sharks are set up. In that case the first flying-fish are cooked and set before the shark images. But it may be that a shark ghost has no sacred place on land, and then there is nothing for it but to take the flying-fish out to sea and shred them into the water, while the sacrificer calls out the name of the particular ghost whom he desires to summon to the feast.[597]

[Sidenote: Vicarious sacrifices for the sick.]

Vicarious sacrifices for the sick are offered in San Cristoval to a certain malignant ghost called Tapia, who is believed to seize a man's soul and tie it up to a banyan tree. When that has happened, a man who knows how to manage Tapia intercedes with him. He takes a pig or fish to the sacred place and offers it to the grim ghost, saying, "This is for you to eat in place of that man; eat this, don't kill him." With that he can loose the captive soul and take it back to the sick man, who thereupon recovers.[598]

[Sidenote: Sacrifices to ghosts in Santa Cruz. The dead represented by a stock.]

In Santa Cruz the sacrifices offered to ghosts are very economical; for if the offering is of food, the living eat it up after a decent interval; if it is a valuable, they remove it and resume the use of it themselves. The principle of this spiritual economy probably lies in the common belief that ghosts, being immaterial, absorb the immaterial essence of the objects, leaving the material substance to be enjoyed by men. When a man of mark dies in Santa Cruz, his relations set up a stock of wood in his house to represent him. This is renewed from time to time, till after a while the man is forgotten or thrown into the shade by the attractions of some newer ghost, so that the old stock is neglected. But when the stock is first put up, a pig is killed and two strips of flesh from the back bone are set before the stock as food for the ghost, but only to be soon taken away and eaten by the living. Similar offerings may be repeated from time to time, as when the stock is renewed. Again, when a garden is planted, they spread feather-money and red native cloth round it for the use of the ghost; but his enjoyment of these riches is brief and precarious.[599]

[Sidenote: Native account of sacrifices to ghosts in Santa Cruz.]

To supplement the foregoing account of sacrifices to ghosts in Santa Cruz, I will add a description of some of them which was given by a native of Santa Cruz in his own language and translated for us by a missionary. It runs thus: "When anyone begins to fall sick he seeks a doctor (_meduka_), and when the doctor comes near the sick man he stiffens his body, and all those in the house think a ghost has entered into the doctor, and they are all very quiet. Some doctors tell the sick man's relatives to kill a pig for the ghost who has caused the sickness. When they have killed the pig they take it into the ghost-house and invite some other men, and they eat with prayers to the ghost; and the doctor takes a little piece and puts it near the base of the ghost-post, and says to it: 'This is thy food; oh, deliver up again the spirit of thy servant, that he may be well again.' The little portion they have offered to the ghost is then eaten; but small boys may not eat of it."[600] "Every year the people plant yams and tomagos; and when they begin to work and have made ready the place and begun to plant, first, they offer to the ghost who they think presides over foods. There is an offering place in the bush, and they go there and take much food, and also feather money. Men, women, and children do this, and they think the ghost notices if there are many children, and gives much food at harvest; and the ghost to whom they offer is named Ilene. When the bread-fruit begins to bear they take great care lest anyone should light a fire near the bole of the tree, or throw a stone at the tree. The ghost, who they think protects the bread-fruit, is called Duka-Kane or Kae Tuabia, who has two names; they think this ghost has four eyes."[601] "The heathen thinks a ghost makes the sun to shine and the rain. If it is continual sunshine and the yams are withering the people assemble together and contribute money, and string it to the man with whom the rain-ghost abides, and food also, and beseech him not to do the thing he was doing. That man will not wash his face for a long time, he will not work lest he perspire and his body be wet, for he thinks that if his body be wet it will rain. Then this man, with whom the rain-ghost is, takes water and goes into the ghost-house and sprinkles it at the head of the ghost-post (_duka_), and if there are many ghost-posts in the house he pours water over them all that it may rain."[602]

[Sidenote: Combination of magic with religion.]

In these ceremonies for the making of rain we see a combination of magic with religion. The appeal to the rain-ghost is religious; but the pouring of the water on the ghost-post is magical, being an imitation of the result which the officiating priest or magician, whichever we choose to call him, desires to produce. The taboos observed by the owner of the rain-ghost so long as he wishes to prevent the rain from falling are also based on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic: he abstains from washing his face or working, lest the water or the sweat trickling down his body should mimick rain and thereby cause it to fall.[603]

[Sidenote: Prayers to the dead.]

The natives of Aneiteum, one of the Southern New Hebrides, worshipped the spirits of their ancestors, chiefly on occasions of sickness.[604] Again, the people of Vaté or Efat, another of the New Hebrides, worshipped the souls of their forefathers and prayed to them over the _kava_-bowl for health and prosperity.[605] As an example of prayers offered to the dead we may take the petition which the natives of Florida put up at sea to Daula, a well-known ghost, who is associated with the frigate-bird. They say: "Do thou draw the canoe, that it may reach the land; speed my canoe, grandfather, that I may quickly reach the shore whither I am bound. Do thou, Daula, lighten the canoe, that it may quickly gain the land and rise upon the shore." They also invoke Daula to help them in fishing. "If thou art powerful, O Daula," they say, "put a fish or two into this net and let them die there." After a good catch they praise him, saying, "Powerful is the ghost of the net." And when the natives of Florida are in danger on the sea, they call upon their immediate forefathers; one will call on his grandfather, another on his father, another on some dead friend, calling with reverence and saying, "Save us on the deep! Save us from the tempest! Bring us to the shore!" In San Cristoval people apply to ghosts for victory in battle, health in sickness, and good crops; but the word which they use to signify such an application conveys the notion of charm rather than of prayer. However, in the Banks' Islands what may be called prayer is strictly speaking an invocation of the dead; indeed the very word for prayer (_tataro_) seems to be identical with that for a powerful ghost (_'ataro_ in San Cristoval). A man in peril on the sea will call on his dead friends, especially on one who was in his lifetime a good sailor. And in Mota, when an oven is opened, they throw in a leaf of cooked mallow for a ghost, saying to him, "This is a lucky bit for your eating; they who have charmed your food or clubbed you (as the case may be), take hold of their hands, drag them away to hell, let them be dead." So when they pour water on the oven, they pray to the ghost, saying, "Pour it on the head of him down there who has laid plots against me, has clubbed me, has shot me, has stolen things of mine (as the case may be), he shall die." Again, when they make a libation before drinking, they pray, saying, "Grandfather! this is your lucky drop of kava; let boars come in to me; the money I have spent, let it come back to me; the food that is gone, let it come back hither to the house of you and me." And on starting for a voyage they will say, "Uncle! father! plenty of boars for you, plenty of money; kava for your drinking, lucky food for your eating in the canoe. I pray you with this, look down upon me, let me go on a safe sea." Or when the canoe labours with a heavy freight, they will pray, "Take off your burden from us, that we may speed on a safe sea."[606]

[Sidenote: Sanctuaries of ghosts in Florida.]

In the island of Florida, the sanctuary of a powerful ghost is called a _vunuhu_. Sometimes it is in the village, sometimes in the garden-ground, sometimes in the forest. If it is in the village, it is fenced about, lest the foot of any rash intruder should infringe its sanctity. Sometimes the sanctuary is the place where the dead man is buried; sometimes it merely contains his relics, which have been translated thither. In some sanctuaries there is a shrine and in some an image. Generally, if not always, stones may be seen lying in such a holy place. The sight of one of them has probably struck the fancy of the man who founded the worship; he thought it a likely place for the ghost to haunt, and other smaller stones and shells have been subsequently added. Once a sanctuary has been established, everything within it becomes sacred (_tambu_) and belongs to the ghost. Were a tree growing within it to fall across the path, nobody would step over it. When a sacrifice is to be offered to the ghost on the holy ground, the man who knows the ghost, and whose duty it is to perform the sacrifice, enters first and all who attend him follow, treading in his footsteps. In going out no one will look back, lest his soul should stay behind. No one would pass such a sanctuary when the sun was so low as to cast his shadow into it; for if he did the ghost would seize his shadow and so drag the man himself into his den. If there were a shrine in the sanctuary, nobody but the sacrificer might enter it. Such a shrine contained the weapons and other properties which belonged in his lifetime to the man whose ghost was worshipped on the spot.[607]

[Sidenote: Sanctuaries of ghosts in Malanta.]

At Saa in Malanta, another of the Solomon Islands, all burial-grounds where common people are interred are so far sacred that no one will go there without due cause; but places where the remains of nobles repose, and where sacrifices are offered to their ghosts, are regarded with very great respect, they may indeed be called family sanctuaries. Some of them are very old, the powerful ghosts who are worshipped in them being remote ancestors. It sometimes happens that the man who used to sacrifice in such a place dies without having instructed his son in the proper chant of invocation with which the worshipful ghost should be approached. In such a case the young man who succeeds him may fear to go to the old sanctuary, lest he should commit a mistake and offend the ghost; so he will take some ashes from the old sacrificial fire-place and found a new sanctuary. It is not common in that part of Malanta to build shrines for the relics of the dead, but it is sometimes done. Such shrines, on the other hand, are common in the villages of San Cristoval and in the sacred places of that island where great men lie buried. To trespass on them would be likely to rouse the anger of the ghosts, some of whom are known to be of a malignant disposition.[608]

[Sidenote: Sanctuaries which are not burial-grounds.]

But burial-grounds are not the only sanctuaries in the Solomon Islands. There are some where no dead man is known to be interred, though in Dr. Codrington's opinion there are probably none which do not derive their sanctity from the presence of a ghost. In the island of Florida the appearance of something wonderful will cause any place to become a sanctuary, the wonder being accepted as proof of a ghostly presence. For example, in the forest near Olevuga a man planted some coco-nut and almond trees and died not long afterwards. Then there appeared among the trees a great rarity in the shape of a white cuscus. The people took it for granted that the animal was the dead man's ghost, and therefore they called it by his name. The place became a sanctuary; no one would gather the coco-nuts and almonds that grew there, till two Christian converts set the ghost at defiance and appropriated his garden, with the coco-nuts and almonds. Through the same part of the forest ran a stream full of eels, one of which was so big that the people were quite sure it must be a ghost; so nobody would bathe in that stream or drink from it, except at one pool, which for the sake of convenience was considered not to be sacred. Again, in Bugotu, a district of Ysabel, which is another of the Solomon Islands, there is a pool known to be the haunt of a very old ghost. When a man has an enemy whom he wishes to harm he will obtain some scraps of his food and throw them into the water. If the food is at once devoured by the fish, which swarm in the pool, the man will die, but otherwise his life may be saved by the intervention of a man who knows the habits of the ghost and how to propitiate him. In these sacred places there are stones, on which people place food in order to obtain good crops, while for success in fishing they deposit morsels of cooked fish. Such stones are treated with reverence and seem to be in a fair way to develop into altars. However, when the old ghost is superseded, as he often is, by younger rivals, the development of an altar out of the stones is arrested.[609]

[Sidenote: Ghosts in animals, such as sharks, alligators, snakes, bonitos, and frigate-birds.]

From some of these instances we learn that Melanesian ghosts can sometimes take up their abode in animals, such as cuscuses, eels, and fish. The creatures which are oftenest used as vehicles by the spirits of the dead are sharks, alligators, snakes, bonitos, and frigate-birds. Snakes which haunt a sacred place are themselves sacred, because they belong to or actually embody the ghost. Sharks, again, in all these islands are very often thought to be the abode of ghosts; for men before their death will announce that they will appear as sharks, and afterwards any shark remarkable for size or colour which haunts a certain shore or coast is taken to be somebody's ghost and receives the name of the deceased. At Saa certain food, such as coco-nuts from particular trees, is reserved to feed such a ghost-shark; and men of whom it is known for certain that they will be sharks after their death are allowed to anticipate the posthumous honours which await them by devouring such food in the sacred place, just as if they were real sharks. Sharks are very commonly believed to be the abode of ghosts in Florida and Ysabel, and in Savo, where they are particularly numerous; hence, though all sharks are not venerated, there is no living creature so commonly held sacred by the Central Melanesians as a shark; and shark-ghosts seem even to form a class of powerful supernatural beings. Again, when a lizard was seen frequenting a house after a death, it would be taken for the ghost returning to its old home; and many ghosts, powerful to aid the mariner at sea, take up their quarters in frigate-birds.[610]

[Sidenote: The belief in ghosts underlies the Melanesian conception of magic.]

Again, a belief in powerful ghosts underlies to a great extent the Melanesian conception of magic, as that conception is expounded by Dr. Codrington. "That invisible power," he tells us, "which is believed by the natives to cause all such effects as transcend their conception of the regular course of nature, and to reside in spiritual beings, whether in the spiritual part of living men or in the ghosts of the dead, being imparted by them to their names and to various things that belong to them, such as stones, snakes, and indeed objects of all sorts, is that generally known as _mana_. Without some understanding of this it is impossible to understand the religious beliefs and practices of the Melanesians; and this again is the active force in all they do and believe to be done in magic, white or black. By means of this men are able to control or direct the forces of nature, to make rain or sunshine, wind or calm, to cause sickness or remove it, to know what is far off in time and space, to bring good luck and prosperity, or to blast and curse. No man, however, has this power of his own; all that he does is done by the aid of personal beings, ghosts or spirits."[611]

[Sidenote: Illness generally thought to be caused by ghosts.]

Thus, to begin with the medical profession, which is a branch of magic long before it becomes a department of science, every serious sickness is believed to be brought about by ghosts or spirits, but generally it is to the ghosts of the dead that illness is ascribed both by the Eastern and by the Western islanders. Hence recourse is had to ghosts for aid both in causing and in curing sickness. They are thought to inflict disease, not only because some offence, such as trespass, has been committed against them, or because one who knows their ways has instigated them thereto by sacrifice and spells, but because there is a certain malignity in the feeling of all ghosts towards the living, who offend them simply by being alive. All human faculties, apart from the mere bodily functions, are supposed to be enhanced by death; hence the ghost of a powerful and ill-natured man is only too ready to take advantage of his increased powers for mischief.[612] Thus in the island of Florida illness is regularly laid at the door of a ghost; the only question that can arise is which particular ghost is doing the mischief. Sometimes the patient imagines that he has offended his dead father, uncle, or brother, who accordingly takes his revenge by stretching him on a bed of sickness. In that case no special intercessor is required; the patient himself or one of his kinsfolk will sacrifice and beg the ghost to take the sickness away; it is purely a family affair. Sometimes the sick man thinks that it is his own private or tame ghost who is afflicting him; so he will leave the house in order to escape his tormentor. But if the cause of sickness remains obscure, a professional doctor or medicine-man will be consulted. He always knows, or at least can ascertain, the ghost who is causing all the trouble, and he takes his measures accordingly. Thus he will bind on the sick man the kind of leaves that the ghost loves; he will chew ginger and blow it into the patient's ears and on that part of the skull which is soft in infants; he will call on the name of the ghost and entreat him to remove the sickness. Should all these remedies prove vain, the doctor is by no means at the end of his resources. He may shrewdly suspect that somebody, who has an ill-will at the patient, has set his private ghost to maul the sick man and do him a grievous bodily injury. If his suspicions are confirmed and he discovers the malicious man who is egging on the mischievous ghost, he will bribe him to call off his ghost; and if the man refuses, the doctor will hire another ghost to assault and batter the original assailant. At Wango in San Cristoval regular battles used to be fought by the invisible champions above the sickbed of the sufferer, whose life or death depended on the issue of the combat. Their weapons were spears, and sometimes more than one ghost would be engaged on either side.[613]

[Sidenote: Diagnosis of ghosts who have caused illness.]

In Ysabel the doctor employs an ingenious apparatus for discovering the cause of sickness and ascertaining its cure. He suspends a stone at one end of a string while he holds the other end in his hand. Then he recites the names of all the people who died lately, and when the stone swings at anybody's name, he knows that the ghost of that man has caused the illness. It remains to find out what the ghost will take to relax his clutch on the sick man, it may be a mash of yams, a fish, a pig, or perhaps a human substitute. The question is put and answered as before; and whatever the oracle declares to be requisite is offered on the dead man's grave. Thus the ghost is appeased and the sufferer is made whole.[614] In these islands a common cause of illness is believed to be an unwarrantable intrusion on premises occupied by a ghost, who punishes the trespasser by afflicting him with bodily pains and ailments, or it may be by carrying off his soul. At Maewo in Aurora, one of the New Hebrides, when there is reason to think that a sickness is due to ghostly agency, the friends of the sick man send for a professional dreamer, whose business it is to ascertain what particular ghost has been offended and to make it up with him. So the dreamer falls asleep and in his sleep he dreams a dream. He seems to himself to be in the place where the patient was working before his illness; and there he spies a queer little old man, who is really no other than the ghost. The dreamer falls into conversation with him, learns his name, and winning his confidence extracts from him a true account of the whole affair. The fact is that in working at his garden the man encroached, whether wittingly or not is no matter, on land which the ghost regards as his private preserve; and to punish the intrusion the ghost carried off the intruder's soul and impounded it in a magic fence in his garden, where it still languishes in durance vile. The dreamer at once tenders a frank and manly apology on behalf of his client; he assures the ghost that the trespass was purely inadvertent, that no personal disrespect whatever was intended, and he concludes by requesting the ghost to overlook the offence for this time and to release the imprisoned soul. This appeal to the better feelings of the ghost has its effect; he pulls up the fence and lets the soul out of the pound; it flies back to the sick man, who thereupon recovers. Sometimes an orphan child is made sick by its dead mother, whose ghost draws away the soul of the infant to keep her company in the spirit land. In such a case, again, a dreamer is employed to bring back the lost soul from the far country; and if he can persuade the mother's ghost to relinquish the tiny soul of her baby, the child will be made whole.[615] Once more certain long stones in the Banks' Islands are inhabited by ghosts so active and robust that if a man's shadow so much as falls on one of them, the ghost in the stone will clutch the shadow and pull the soul clean out of the man, who dies accordingly. Such stones, dangerous as they unquestionably are to the chance passer-by, nevertheless for that very reason possess a valuable property which can be turned to excellent account. A man, for example, will put one of these stones in his house to guard it like a watch-dog in his absence; and if he sends a friend to fetch something out of it which he has forgotten, the messenger, on approaching the house, will take good care to call out the owner's name, lest the ghost in the stone, mistaking him for a thief and a robber, should pounce out on him and do him a mischief before he had time to explain.[616]

[Sidenote: Contrast between Melanesian and European medicine.]

Thus it appears that for a medical practitioner in Melanesia the first requisite is an intimate acquaintance, not with the anatomy of the human frame and the properties of drugs, but with ghosts, their personal peculiarities, habits, and haunts. Only by means of the influence which such a knowledge enables him to exert on these powerful and dangerous beings can the good physician mitigate and assuage the sufferings of poor humanity. His professional skill, while it certainly aims at the alleviation of physical evils, attains its object chiefly, if not exclusively, by a direct appeal to those higher, though invisible, powers which encompass the life of man, or at all events of the Melanesian. The firm faith in the spiritual and the unseen which these sable doctors display in their treatment of the sick presents a striking contrast to the procedure of their European colleagues, who trust exclusively to the use of mere physical remedies, such as drugs and lancets, now carving the body of the sufferer with knives, and now inserting substances, about which they know little, into places about which they know nothing. Has not science falsely so called still much to learn from savagery?

[Sidenote: The weather believed to be regulated by ghosts and spirits. Weather-doctors.]

But it is not the departments of medicine and surgery alone, important as these are to human welfare, which in Melanesia are directed and controlled by spiritual forces. The weather in those regions is also regulated by ghosts and spirits. It is they who cause the wind to blow or to be still, the sun to shine forth or to be overcast with clouds, the rain to descend or the earth to be parched with drought; hence fertility and abundance or dearth and famine prevail alternately at the will of these spiritual directors. From this it follows that men who stand on a footing of intimacy with ghosts and spirits can by judicious management induce them to adapt the weather to the varying needs of mankind. But it is to be observed that the supernatural beings, who are the real sources of atmospheric phenomena, have delegated or deputed a portion of their powers not merely to certain material objects, such as stones or leaves, but to certain set forms of words, which men call incantations or spells; and accordingly all such objects and formulas do, by virtue of this delegation, possess in themselves a real and we may almost say natural influence over the weather, which is often manifested in a striking congruity or harmony between the things themselves and the effects which they are calculated to produce. This adaptation of means to end in nature may perhaps be regarded as a beautiful proof of the existence of spirits and ghosts working their purposes unseen behind the gaily coloured screen or curtain of the physical universe. At all events men who are acquainted with the ghostly properties of material objects and words can turn them to account for the benefit of their friends and the confusion of their foes, and they do so very readily if only it is made worth their while. Hence it comes about that in these islands there are everywhere weather-doctors or weather-mongers, who through their familiarity with ghosts and spirits and their acquaintance with the ghostly or spiritual properties of things, are able to control the weather and to supply their customers with wind or calm, rain or sunshine, famine or abundance, at a reasonable rate and a moderate figure.[617] The advantages of such a system over our own blundering method of managing the weather, or rather of leaving it to its own devices, are too obvious to be insisted on. To take a few examples. In the island of Florida, when a calm is wanted, the weather-doctor takes a bunch of leaves, of the sort which the ghost loves, and hides the bunch in the hollow of a tree where there is water, at the same time invoking the ghost with the proper charm. This naturally produces rain and with the rain a calm. In the seafaring life of the Solomon Islanders the maker of calms is a really valuable citizen.[618] The Santa Cruz people are also great voyagers, and their wizards control the weather on their expeditions, taking with them the stock or log which represents their private or tame ghost and setting it up on a stage in the cabin. The presence of the familiar ghost being thus secured, the weather-doctor will undertake to provide wind or calm according to circumstances.[619] We have already seen how in these islands the wizard makes rain by pouring water on the wooden posts which represent the rain-ghosts.[620]

[Sidenote: Black magic working through personal refuse or rubbish of the victim.]