Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/363

.] either end from between the fences; a pig is counted for each goal. In the same island in waliweli tambagau two parties sit opposite to one another in the moonlight; a man or boy from one side comes forward holding the door-shutter of a house, tambagau, before him, and the other side guess who he is and call his name; if they fail a pig is counted against them; if they succeed one of their party takes the door. The women play the same among themselves. They have also a game like hunt-the-slipper, and play at hiding canarium almonds, counting pigs in success. Cat's-cradle, in Lepers' Island lelegaro, in Florida honggo, with many figures, is common throughout the islands. I have seen in Florida a game in which two parties of boys tossed backwards and forwards a rough ball on the points of sticks, the object being to keep it from the ground as long as possible. In the Solomon Islands the great game is throwing and dodging spears, or sticks instead of spears. This is to some extent represented in the Banks' Islands by two parties throwing native oranges at each other. At Lakona they used in a friendly way to resort to the sarevnate, the shooting-ground, and practise at one another with their bows and arrows. In the Banks' Islands and Torres Islands, and no doubt in other groups, they use the surf-board, tapa. In Mota, taptapui is racing to get first to a certain object; tititiro is throwing at a tree or some other mark. Archery is practised with banana trunks set up as targets. Counting is made into a kind of game; in the Banks' Islands strokes are arranged on the sand, or on a board, in a certain figure representing numbers, and these are counted with the finger accompanied by a whistled tune; something of the same kind is done in Florida, sticking fingers into the sand in number according to a counting song brought from Alite. Boys sitting together in a narrow ring toss from side to side another who stands among them, and holds himself as stiffly as he can, so that he is thrown like a log of wood. Children in the Banks' Islands, when a rainbow is seen, play at cutting off its end, tolo gasiosio; if they can cut it short there will be no more rain. There is in the Banks' Islands a certain approach to