ey were enveloped, each man revolving slowly on
his axis, while his attendant pulled at the bandage and gathered in the
slack. The weapons and the cloth were the offerings presented by the
novices to the ancestral spirits for the purpose of rendering themselves
acceptable to these powerful beings. The offerings were repeated in like
manner on four successive days; and as each youth was merely, as it
were, the central roller of a great bale of cloth, the amount of cloth
offered was considerable. It was all put away, with the spears and
clubs, in the sacred storehouse by the initiated men. A feast concluded
each day and was prolonged far into the night.

[Sidenote: Ceremony of death and resurrection.]

On the fifth day, the last and greatest of the festival, the heads of
the young men were shaven again and their bodies swathed in the largest
and best rolls of cloth. Then, taking their choicest weapons in their
hands, they followed their leader as before into the sacred enclosure.
But the outer compartment of the holy place, where on the previous days
they had been received by the grand chorus of initiated men, was now
silent and deserted. The procession stopped. A dead silence prevailed.
Suddenly from the forest a harsh scream of many parrots broke forth, and
then followed a mysterious booming sound which filled the souls of the
novices with awe. But now the priest moves slowly forward and leads the
train of trembling novices for the first time into the inner shrine, the
Holy of Holies, the _Nanga tambu-tambu_. Here a dreadful spectacle meets
their startled gaze. In the background sits the high priest, regarding
them with a stony stare; and between him and them lie a row of dead men,
covered with blood, their bodies seemingly cut open and their entrails
protruding. The leader steps over them one by one, and the awestruck
youths follow him until they stand in a row before the high priest,
their very souls harrowed by his awful glare. Suddenly he utters a great
yell, and at the cry the dead men start to their feet, and run down to
the river to cleanse themselves from the blood and filth with which they
are besmeared. They are initiated men, who represent the departed
ancestors for the occasion; and the blood and entrails are those of many
pigs that have been slaughtered for that night's revelry. The screams of
the parrots and the mysterious booming sound were produced by a
concealed orchestra, who screeched appropriately an