he strikes the skull a second time
with the leaves, saying, "Take the food that has been made ready in
thine honour!" And again there is a crash of drums. After that he smites
the skull yet again and prays saying, "Guard me! Guard my people! Guard
my children!" And every prayer of the litany is followed by the solemn
roll of the drums. When these impressive invocations to the spirit of
the dead chief are over, the feasting begins. The skull is thenceforth
carefully preserved.[639]

[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead in the Kaniet Islands. Preservation of
the skull.]

In the Kaniet Islands, a small group to the north-west of the Admiralty
Islands, the dead are either sunk in the sea or buried in shallow
graves, face downward, near the house. All the movable property of the
deceased is piled on the grave, left there for three weeks, and then
burnt. Afterwards the skull is dug up, placed in a basket, and having
been decorated with leaves and feathers is hung up in the house. Thus
adorned it not only serves to keep the dead in memory, but is also
employed in many conjurations to defeat the nefarious designs of other
ghosts, who are believed to work most of the ills that afflict
humanity.[640] Apparently these islanders employ a ghost to protect them
against ghosts on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief.

[Sidenote: Death attributed to witchcraft.]

Amongst the natives of the Bismarck Archipelago few persons, if any, are
believed to die from natural causes alone; if they are not killed in war
they are commonly supposed to perish by witchcraft or sorcery, even when
the cause of death might seem to the uninstructed European to be
sufficiently obvious in such things as exposure to heavy rain, the
carrying of too heavy a burden, or remaining too long a time under
water. So when a man has died, his friends are anxious to discover who
has bewitched him to death. In this enquiry the ghost is expected to
lend his assistance. Thus on the night after the decease the friends
will assemble outside the house, and a sorcerer will address the ghost
and request him to name the author of his death. If the ghost, as
sometimes happens, makes no reply, the sorcerer will jog his memory by
calling out the name of some suspected person; and should the ghost
still be silent, the wizard will name another and another, till at the
mention of one name a tapping sound is heard like the drumming of
fingers on a board or on a mat The sound