Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/277

xv] paddle out with him, tie stones to his feet, and sink him. In Savo, near by, common men are thrown into the sea as a rule, and only great men buried. In Florida the funeral of a chief, or of one who is much esteemed, is delayed for two days after death; and after the funeral the relatives and friends assemble to kilo dato na tinoni mate, that is to say, to partake of a funeral feast, and to hang up on the dead man's house his cloth, his axes, spears, shield, and other properties, heaping yams and other food upon the ground. At the feast a bit of the food is thrown into the fire for the deceased, with the call, 'This is for you.' As the mourners eat, they are anxious about swallowing the food well down; if a morsel sticks in any one's throat, it is a butuli, a portent, the man will die. When they hang up the dead man's arms on his house, they make great lamentations; all remains afterwards untouched, the house goes to ruin, mantled as time goes on with the vines of the growing yams, a picturesque and indeed, perhaps, a touching sight; for these things are not set up that they may in a ghostly manner accompany their former owner, they are set there for a memorial of him as a great and valued man, like the hatchment of old times. With the same feeling they cut down a dead man's fruit-trees as a mark of respect and affection, not with any notion of these things serving him in the world of ghosts; he ate of them, they say, when he was alive, he will never eat again, and no one else shall have them. There is a certain notion that burial is a benefit to the ghost; if a man is killed anywhere and his body is not buried, his ghost will haunt the place; when a man's head has been taken, and his skull added to some chiefs collection, the ghost for a time, at least, haunts about; and so it is also when the arms and legs of men murdered or executed for crimes are sent to distant places to shew what has been done. Ghosts of men whose heads have been taken are seen without their heads. The abode of the departed is Betindalo; but yet ghosts not only haunt their burial-places and come to the sacrifices offered to them, but they are heard at play by night blowing panpipes,