Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/154

140 the second was duly fumigated and introduced to the company, and finally the performance was brought to a close by chaunting of a set of stanzas in which the spirits are requested to return to their own place. These latter commenced as follows:

The remaining stanzas are precisely similar, with the exception of the colours assigned to the bowl and the heavens, which are described successively as black, green, blue, red, purple, and yellow. The two sheaves were then carried out of the house and deposited on the ground underneath a banana-tree. I was told that if this closing part of the performance were not carried out with scrupulous care the spirits would not leave the house, and its inmates would be strange in their head for days, even if, indeed, none of them went mad.

The Dancing Fish-trap is a spiritualistic performance in which a fish-trap (lukah) is employed instead of the spray of palm-blossom, and a different invocation is used. The fish-trap, moreover, is dressed up much in the same way as one of our own "scare-crows," so as to present a rude sort of resemblance to the human figure. Its "dress" consists of a woman's jacket and plaid skirt (sarong), both of which should (if possible) have been worn previously. A stick is then run through the upper part of the trap to take the arms of the jacket and a cocoanut-shell (preferably a sterile one) is clapped on to the top to serve as the fish-trap's head. The trap, when fully dressed, is held a few inches above the ground by two or three people, each of whom applies both his hands to the bottom of the Fish-trap, in a manner similar to that employed in our own table-turning performances, and the invocation is forthwith chaunted in the same manner and to the same accompani-