is a man and not a beast. The intelligent agents of this world are

to his mind the men who are alive, and the ghosts the men who are

dead.' Dr. Codrington speaks of Melanesia; from what I have

learned his words are equally true of the Polynesian. And yet

more. Among cannibal Polynesians a dreadful suspicion rests

generally on the dead; and the Marquesans, the greatest cannibals

of all, are scarce likely to be free from similar beliefs. I

hazard the guess that the Vehinehae are the hungry spirits of the

dead, continuing their life's business of the cannibal ambuscade,

and lying everywhere unseen, and eager to devour the living.

Another superstition I picked up through the troubled medium of

Tari Coffin's English. The dead, he told me, came and danced by

night around the paepae of their former family; the family were

thereupon overcome by some emotion (but whether of pious sorrow or

of fear I could not gather), and must 'make a feast,' of which

fish, pig, and popoi were indispensable ingredients. So far this

is clear enough. But here Tari went on to instance the new house

of Toma and the house-warming feast which was just then in

preparation as instances in point. Dare we indeed string them

together, and add the case of the deserted ruin, as though the dead

continually besieged the paepaes of the living: were kept at

arm's-length, even from the first foundation, only by propitiatory

feasts, and, so soon as the fire of life went out upon the hearth,

swarmed back into possession of their ancient seat?

I speak by guess of these Marquesan superstitions. On the cannibal

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>