Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/226

204 ever it may be, by which a man is charmed is called garata; this was made up by the wizard with a bit of human bone, and smeared with a magic decoction in which it would rot away. Or the garata would be burnt, and while it was burning the wizard sang his charm; as the garata was consumed, the wizard burning it by degrees day after day, the man from whom it came sickened, and would die, the ghost of the man whose bone was burning would take away his life. If then any man who knows he has an enemy has reason himself to think that something has been taken from him, or his friends hear that a garata from him is in some wizard's hands, he or they will give money to get the fragment back; and the enemy again and his friends will give more to secure the continuance of the charm. In Aurora the fragment of food is made up with certain leaves; as these rot and stink the man dies. In Lepers' Island the garata is boiled, together with certain magical substances, in a clam shell with charms which call on Tagaro. It is evident that no one who intends to bring mischief to a man by a fragment of his food will partake of that food himself, because by doing so he would bring the mischief also on himself. Hence a native offering even a single banana to a visitor will bite the end of it before he gives it, and a European giving medicine to a sick native gives confidence by taking a little first himself.

Another charm is common to both eastern and western islands, which is called in the Banks' Islands talamatai. A bit of human bone, a fragment of coral, a splinter of wood, or of an arrow by which a man has died, is bound up with the leaves which have mana for the purpose, with the mana song; by this means the power of the ghost is bound into the charm, and the talamatai is secretly planted in the path along