Page:Folklore1919.djvu/432

 In the Banks Islands, on the other hand, where sacred chieftainship has come to form part of the ritual of the ghost societies, it would seem as if the concept of soul-substance appears in a form more nearly like the Indonesian prototype, especially in its application to the purposes of religion and magic.

Having now concluded my survey of the various forms of belief in New Guinea and Melanesia which seem to be in any way related to the Indonesian concept of soul-substance, I may consider briefly whether it is possible to formulate any scheme to account for their relations.

The chief facts which need explanation are as follows:—In Indonesia there is a belief in an entity within a living man which is altogether distinct from the ghost which exists after death, this latter only coming into being at the moment of death as a kind of double of the deceased person. In New Guinea there are beliefs so much like these that we can be confident that they are due to direct transmission either from Indonesia or from the source whence Indonesia itself obtained the beliefs in question. Such differences as there are would be due to the changes to be expected when abstract beliefs are transmitted to such lowly people as the Kai or the natives of the mountainous districts visited by Mr. Chinnery. It is noteworthy that, if one of Dr. Malinowski’s alternatives concerning the nature of the baloma be accepted, we have an almost exact reproduction of the Indonesian belief among the more advanced people of the Trobriand Islands.

When we pass from New Guinea eastwards we find far less similarity with the Indonesian point of view, and there is no evidence whatever for the belief in a soul-substance diffused throughout the body, although there are many customs which would be readily explained by such a concept. There is no obvious difference in intelligence between the natives of New Guinea and Melanesia—if anything the Melanesians have the advantage in this respect—and if migrants from Indonesia succeeded in implanting their