Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/231

] in fact that of some one who has died and gone to Malanga, but has afterwards desired to come back to earth, and has been born as the infant that now is sick; and, moreover, that the mother in Malanga, not wishing to lose the society of her child there, is drawing back the re-born infant's soul. The dreamer having received his fee goes in a dream to Malanga, and intercedes with the mother there; he gets back the soul, and the child recovers. In Saa also in the Solomon Islands, if a child starts in its sleep it is believed that some ghost is snatching away what must be called in translation its shadow. A wizard doctor undertakes to go in sleep and bring it back; he dreams and goes; if those who have taken the 'shadow' let him take it back the child recovers, but if the child dies the dreamer reports that they would not let him come near them. In the same place when a thing is lost a wizard is engaged to find it in a dream. In Lepers' Island in case of theft or of any hidden crime some wizard who understands how to do it drinks kava, and so throws himself into a magic sleep. When he wakes he declares that he has seen the culprit and gives his name.

(5) Prophecy. The knowledge of future events is believed to be conveyed to the people by a spirit or a ghost speaking with the voice of a man, one of the wizards, who is himself unconscious while he speaks. In Florida the men of a village would be sitting in their kiala, canoe-house, and discussing some undertaking, an expedition probably to attack some unsuspecting village. One among them, known to have his own tindalo ghost of prophecy, would sneeze and begin to shake, a sign that the tindalo had entered into him; his eyes would glare, his limbs twist, his whole body be convulsed, foam would burst from his lips; then a voice, not his own, would be heard in his throat, allowing or disapproving of what was proposed. Such a man used no means of bringing on the ghost; it came upon him, as he believed himself, at its own will, its mana overpowered him, and when it departed it left him quite exhausted. Still a man to whom this happened, when he had a reputation as a prophet, would be employed to assist