Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/163

] is known to have a stone of power,—the spirit connected with which it is suggested that he has offended,—a short string of money, and a bit of the pepper root, gea, that is used for kava; the sick man is said to oloolo to the possessor of the stone. The latter takes the things offered to his sacred place and throws them down, saying, 'Let So-and-So recover.' When the sick man recovers he pays a fee. If a man desires to get the benefit of the stone, or whatever it is, known to another, with a view to increase of money, pigs or food, or success in fighting, the possessor of the stone will take him to his sacred place, where probably there are many stones, each good for its own purpose. The applicant will supply money, perhaps a hundred strings a few inches long. The introducer will shew him one stone and say, 'This is a big yam,' and the worshipper puts money down. Of another he says it is a boar, of another that it is a pig with tusks, and money is put down. The notion is that the spirit, vui, attached to the stone likes the money, which is allowed to remain upon or by the stone. In case the oloolo, the sacrifice, succeeds, the man benefited pays the man to whom the stones and spirits belong. If a man goes to sacrifice for success in fighting, he takes great care lest nothing sharp should prick or scratch him, or a stone bruise him; in the one case he would be shot, in the other he would be clubbed.

Some of these objects of sacrificial worship are well known, but can only be approached by the person to whom the right of access to them has been handed down; there must be between the worshipper who desires advantage and the spirit who bestows it not only the medium of the stone, or whatever other material object the spirit is connected with, but also the man who through the stone has got a personal acquaintance with the spirit. In Vanua Lava, at Sarewoana near Alo Sepere, the legendary home of Qat, there is still the stump of a tree which Qat cut down for his canoe, an aged stump with young shoots springing from it; men who are cutting a canoe make sacrifices at this stump, throwing down money there that their canoe may be swift and strong and never