ng continues.

Pausing here for a moment, I may admit that, though I have told
the tale of this ceremony, with its private cogitations--real or
pretended--of the magic men, as it was told to me, the tale is open
to obvious questions. How can a magic man from a distant community
hear the wailing? What would happen if the results of the ceremonies
of the various magic men were to differ? What would be the situation
if a chief whose death was indicated by the ceremony lived, or if one
whose recovery was foretold became worse and died? All these points
I tried to elucidate without success; but possibly the answer to the
query as to divergence of results may be that the men take care that
the results of their experiments shall not differ.

It is believed by the natives that, if a hostile community can secure
some of the food remnants and band, and hand them to their own magic
man, for him to go through the same ceremony, he may maliciously
bring about an unfavourable result, and thus may cause the death
of the chief. If the belief that such a thing had happened arose,
it would be a _casus belli_ with that other community; and a case is
known in which an inter-community fight did occur on this ground.

If the report be that the chief is to die, the special woman attendant
will give him the blow on the head, as in the case of the ordinary
villager. The shouting of the men outside when the chiefs death is
announced is much louder than in the case of a commoner; and as they
shout they brandish their spears, and strike the roof of the chiefs
house with the spear points, and some of the men strike it with
adzes and clubs. The spreading of the news to other communities is
on a wider scale, and the number of people who respond to the news
and come to the funeral is very great, and includes a larger number
of chiefs and prominent men; there are more, and much larger, parties
of them. The funeral song of the women, commenced on the announcement
of death, lasts much longer--indeed for hours. In fact, as numerous
large bodies of people keep coming in, and some of these coming from
a distance may not arrive until just before the funeral, and as the
funeral song has to be recommenced as each fresh party comes in,
and lasts so much longer each time, it follows that this funeral song
practically continues without ceasing from the moment when death is
announced until the actual funeral. The immediate smearing by men and
women of their bod