Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/402

380 because I see plainly that the seeds are still moist. So he presses his mother hard to tell him; and his mother tells him. And it was already evening, and she says to him, As you go along you will see a little path where the branches have their tips broken down, and you will pass through there and come out (upon the tree). So he follows the word his mother gave him; and as he goes along the sun is setting, but he arrives at the gaviga-tree and climbs up. And when he had climbed up to eat it was dark. Then he sees something flying to him on the gaviga and settling. Then says the ghost to the living man, Where do you come from? And the man says to him, It is not as you suppose. Mother came here to dig qauro and she found this gaviga, and then she went home and told me, and after that I came here. Then said the ghost to him, She is my sister to be sure, and my own nephew are you; come here and let me hide you, because we are many of us now coming here to eat gavigas. So he takes him and makes him sit down in the hollow of the gaviga; and his uncle sat over the mouth of the hollow of the gaviga in which the man was. Then while he is in the hollow he hears a whirring sound coming, like birds, and settling on the top of the gaviga. Then says the man to the ghost his uncle,What is this? And he says to him, They are here already, some ghosts who are come to eat gavigas, and if you hear them buzzing in talk together don't be afraid, and don't let your bones quake, here am I with you. So he sits within; and his uncle looks about, and sees two gavigas in a bunch, and says to another ghost, Pluck those two for me. And he gives them to him, and he eats one and gives the man the other. And he went on doing so for him till daylight; and when the day was dawning and some of the ghosts were taking flight he says to a damsel among them, Don't be in a hurry to fly off, you and I will fly together; and she says, Very well. But when they had all the lot of them taken flight, and it was clear daylight, the ghost says to the man, Well now, come out; and he comes out from the hollow of the gaviga-tree. Then says the ghost his uncle to him, Well, here is a damsel for