Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/83

Rh was blunted a fresh edge could be made by tearing off a strip from the blade. These knives are still used on the mainland of New Guinea, but in the islands they have been entirely superseded by iron knives of European manufacture. The well-known beheading knife is made of bamboo, and Dr. MacFarlane, the pioneer missionary, has informed me that he has seen dugong cut up with a bamboo knife. (6) An old coco-nut, in which one ‘eye’ is perforated, is the water-bottle of the district; these are carried in pairs by means of a string, the knotted ends of which are inserted into the hole in the nut, and this is then plugged by a rolled-up fragment of a pandanus leaf. The water is sucked through the latter.

The natives of Torres Straits believed that the spirit of a man left the body at death and went to dwell in an island to the westward. Among the western tribe the spirit is called mari, in the eastern it is lamar; the same word also signifies shadow or reflection. The island