Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/134

112 yellow colour. The Vui Ro Som in the Story of Ganviviris, when she made her appearance with all the ornaments that money could procure the right to wear, was thus adorned.

A feast of the same kind is held to commemorate a deliverance, a Vovo feast; when the famine and misery following on a disastrous hurricane had passed away at Mota, and food was once more abundant, then they celebrated a Vovo feast; such a feast was made by a native of the same island when he had quite recovered from a slight wound received at Santa Cruz; he danced about exhibiting his hat with the arrow through it.

In the northern part of Maewo, Aurora, in the New Hebrides, the Suqe is now nearly extinct; the old members use the gamal as a convenient resort, but no one cares for admission. The reason for this in a great measure is that a place in the Suqe was in old times valued for the advantages it carried with it after death. A native wrote that 'the reason for Suqe is this, that hereafter when a man comes to die, his soul may remain in happiness in that place Panoi; but if any one should die who has not killed a pig, his soul will just stay on a tree, hanging for ever on it like a flying fox. On this account no man likes his son to remain without anything being done; it is a matter of the first importance for him that he should get many pigs and seek money (i. e. mats), so that hereafter when all is prepared he may give that money to those who have already killed pigs, and that he may be all right.' Consequently, on the birth of a son a man's first care was to give a pig in his name to make a beginning of Suqe for him. But a place in the Suqe carried with it here also the same rank and consideration as in the Banks' Islands; among children even, one whose father had not given a pig for his admission would be despised; and when a man had killed his pigs properly afterwards on his own account his position in society was secured. 'He can adorn himself with pigs' tusks, and with that white shell-money that we have, and with the leaves of trees most thought of, croton and dracæna or cycas, and he thinks to himself, Now I am clear of trouble, there is nothing that weighs upon me now.' My friend adds that