Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/219

] with whom is the malete, which corresponds to the more common mana, and who has a duka belonging to himself; for example, at Neula, where Neobla is the duka in vogue, they always send for Neobla's mendeka. The doctor comes and sits by the sick person, expecting the coming of the duka to him. Presently he cries with a loud voice that he is come, and then he gives the reason, supplied him by the duka, why the man is sick, and directs what satisfaction is to be made. The doctor always receives a fee. If the patient dies, the reason

given is that some other duka with whom the doctor is not on good terms has been at work; if he recovers he gives a pig for the duka, and a bit of it is put before the stock which represents him. Sometimes an offended duka will shoot a man, and the mendeka will extract the arrow-head, working it down from above into the sick man's foot with sweet herbs and cocoa-nut juice, singing in a low voice and muttering his charms, and finally bringing out a splinter of tree-fern wood from the sole. Sometimes very bitter juice squeezed out of certain leaves is given to the patient to drink, sometimes the