Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/364

342 acting; a man will imitate the voice and gestures of another, the gait of a cripple, the fury of a man in a rage, or will pretend to be a woman, for the amusement of a crowd.

(5) Toys. Kites, used in fishing in the Solomon Islands and Santa Cruz, are used as toys in the Banks' Islands and New Hebrides, though not commonly of late years. They have their season, being made and flown when the gardens are being cleared for planting. The kite is steadied by a long reed tail, and a good one will fly and hover very well. The name is in the Banks' Islands rea, in Lepers' Island mala, an eagle. The use of the bull-roarer, buro, in the Mysteries at Florida, has been mentioned. It is there only that any superstitious character belongs to it. There is no mystery about it when it is used in the Banks' Islands to drive away a ghost, as in Mota, where it is called nanamatea, death-maker, or to make a mourning sound, as in Merlav, where it is called worung-tamb, a wailer, and used the night after a death. It is a common plaything; in Vanua Lava they call it mala, a pig, from the noise it makes; in Maewo it is tal-viv, a whirring string; in Araga it is merely tavire bua, a bit of bamboo. Rattles are merely toys; in the Banks' Islands the dry seed-pods of a cassia are tied in a row between two strips of bamboo. In the same group the name of a toy, taplagolago, has been adopted for the English wheel, and after that for any wheeled vehicle or machine. Children used to make a broad hoop of a sago frond, and set it running down hill, with the cry taplagolago!' it runs of itself!' Tops are made in the Solomon Islands of the nut of a palm and a pin of wood, the whole visible length of which, between two and three inches long, is below the head. To spin the top a doubled string is wound round the shaft, and the two ends are pulled smartly asunder. A similar top was used in Pitcairn Island by the half Tahitian children of the Bounty Mutineers.

Whistling was hardly in native use as a way of producing a tune, though a song might be whistled without words. In the Banks' Islands there is a way of whistling a man's name to call him, woswos-loglog.