Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/92

70 The Florida mysteries were believed to have been brought from Ysabel, where nothing of the kind has as yet been

observed. This belief, however, serves to point to a connexion with the Dukduk of New Britain, in the name of which a further connexion may probably be found. In all these societies the ghosts of the dead were supposed to be present; in the Banks' Islands their name is 'The Ghosts;' in Santa Cruz a ghost is duka; in Florida one method of consulting the ghosts of the dead is paluduka. It is very likely therefore that in New Britain the Dukduk are also 'The Ghosts.'

One very important point of difference separates these from the bora of Australia, in which the grown youth of the tribe are 'made young men,' and have imparted to them some knowledge of the religious beliefs and practices of the elders. Grown men and infants, married and unmarried, are equally admitted to the societies of Florida and the New Hebrides; and if in the Banks' Islands it is not customary to admit boys very young, there is certainly no limit of age as regards admission. It is no doubt the case that where these societies flourish, a youth who has not become a member of one of them does not take a position of full social equality with the young men