l human lives in his hand, detected the fraud and in anger cut
short the thread of life of the practical joker. Since then everybody
else has died; the door for death to enter into the world was opened by
the folly of that silly, though humorous, old man.[95] The natives about
the Murray River in Australia used to relate how the first man and woman
were forbidden to go near a tree in which a bat lived, lest they should
disturb the creature. One day, however, the woman was gathering firewood
and she went near the tree. The bat flew away, and after that death came
into the world.[96] Some of the Fijians accounted for human mortality as
follows. When the first man, the father of the human race, was being
buried, a god passed by the grave and asked what it meant, for he had
never seen a grave before. On learning from the bystanders that they had
just buried their father, "Do not bury him," said he, "dig the body up
again." "No," said they, "we cannot do that. He has been dead four days
and stinks." "Not so," pleaded the god; "dig him up, and I promise you
that he will live again." Heedless of the divine promise, these
primitive sextons persisted in leaving their dead father in the grave.
Then said the god to these wicked men, "By disobeying me you have sealed
your own fate. Had you dug up your ancestor, you would have found him
alive, and you yourselves, when you passed from this world, should have
been buried, as bananas are, for the space of four days, after which you
should have been dug up, not rotten, but ripe. But now, as a punishment
for your disobedience, you shall die and rot." And still, when they hear
this sad tale told, the Fijians say, "O that those children had dug up
that body!"[97]

[Sidenote: Admiralty Islanders' stories of the origin of death.]

The Admiralty Islanders tell various stories to explain why man is
mortal. One of them has already been related. Here is another. A Souh
man went once to catch fish. A devil tried to devour him, but he fled
into the forest and took refuge in a tree. The tree kindly closed on him
so that the devil could not see him. When the devil was gone, the tree
opened up and the man clambered down to the ground. Then said the tree
to him, "Go to Souh and bring me two white pigs." He went and found two
pigs, one was white and one was black. He took chalk and chalked the
black pig so that it was white. Then he brought them to the tree, but on
the way the chalk fell off the black