selves in the background. As the
procession of men approached bearing the skull, the mourners shot arrows
over their heads as a sign of anger at them for having decapitated their
relation. But this was a mere pretence, probably intended to soothe and
flatter the angry ghost: the arrows flew over the men without hurting
them.[293] Similarly in ancient Egypt the man who cut open a corpse for
embalmment had no sooner done his office than he fled precipitately,
pursued by the relations with stones and curses, because he had wounded
and mangled the body of their kinsman.[294] Sometimes the skull was made
up to resemble the head of a living man: an artificial nose of wood and
beeswax supplied the place of a nose of flesh; pearl-shells were
inserted in the empty eye-balls; and any teeth that might be missing
were represented by pieces of wood, while the lower jaw was lashed
firmly to the cranium.[295] Whether thus decorated or not, the skulls of
the dead were preserved and used in divination. Whenever a skull was to
be thus consulted, it was first cleaned, repainted, and either anointed
with certain plants or placed upon them. Then the enquirer enjoined the
skull to speak the truth, and placing it on his pillow at night went to
sleep. The dream which he dreamed that night was the answer of the
skull, which spoke with a clappering noise like that of teeth chattering
together. When people went on voyages, they used to take a divining
skull with them in the stern of the canoe.[296]

[Sidenote: Great death-dance of the Western Islanders. The dead
personated by masked actors.]

The great funeral ceremony, or rather death-dance, of the Western
Islanders took place in the island of Pulu. When the time came for it, a
few men would meet and make the necessary preparations. The ceremony was
always performed on the sacred or ceremonial ground (_kwod_), and the
first thing to do was to enclose this ground, for the sake of privacy,
with a screen of mats hung on a framework of wood and bamboos. When the
screen had been erected, the drums which were to be used by the
orchestra were placed in position beside it. Then the relations were
summoned to attend the performance. The ceremony might be performed for
a number of recently deceased people at once, and it varied in
importance and elaboration according to the importance and the number of
the deceased whose obsequies were being celebrated. The chief
differences were in the number of the per