Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/223

] mana to the leaves. Then he climbed a tree and fastened the bamboo to the topmost branch; as the wind blew about the flexible bamboo the mana was cast abroad, and the sun shone out. To stop sunshine ginger-leaves were bound tight together with others and kept in the wizard's bag.

In the seafaring life of the Solomon Islands the maker of calms is a valuable citizen. The Santa Cruz people also are great voyagers, and their mendeka wizards control the weather on their expeditions, taking with them the stock which represents their duka, and setting it up in the cabin on the stage of the canoe. The presence of his familiar duka being thus secured, the weather-doctor will undertake to provide fair wind or calm. In the same island to get sunshine the wizard puts up some burnt wood into a tree; to get rain he throws down water at the foot of the stock of Tinota, an ancient duka; to make wind he waves the branch of the tree which has this power; in each case he chants the appropriate charm.

The same things were done and similar methods followed in the Banks' Islands with the mana songs and mana stones. The art is the same in the New Hebrides. To get rain the Aurora gismana puts a tuft of leaves which are mana for the purpose into the hollow of a stone, and upon this some branches of the piper methysticum, used for kava, pounded and crushed; to these he adds the one of his collection of stones which has mana for rain; all is done with the singing of charms with Tagaro's name, and the whole is covered over. The mass ferments, and steam charged with mana goes up and makes clouds and rain. It will not do to pound the pepper too hard, lest the wind should blow too strong. This pepper is very powerful also for weather-making in Lepers' Island. To make a hot sun, the wizards hold branches of the plant, which they have