formers and the greater or less
display of scenic apparatus. The head-dresses or leafy masks worn by the
actors in the sacred drama were made secretly in the bush; no woman or
uninitiated man might witness the operation. When all was ready, and the
people were assembled, the men being stationed in front and the women
and children in the background, the disguised actors appeared on the
scene and played the part of the dead, each one of them mimicking the
gait and actions of the particular man or woman whom he personated; for
all the parts were played by men, no woman might act in these
ceremonies. The order in which the various ghosts were to appear on the
scene was arranged beforehand; so that when the actors came forward from
behind the screen, the spectators knew which of the dead they were
supposed to have before them. The performers usually danced in pairs,
and vanished behind the screen when their dance was finished. Thus one
pair would follow another till the play was over. Besides the actors who
played the serious and solemn part of the dead, there was usually a
clown who skipped about and cut capers, tumbling down and getting up
again, to make the spectators laugh and so to relieve the strain on
their emotions, which were deeply stirred by this dance of death. The
beat of the drums proclaimed that the sacred drama was at an end. Then
followed a great feast, at which special portions of food were assigned
by the relatives of the deceased to the actors who had personated
them.[297]

[Sidenote: Intention of the ceremonies.]

As to the intention of these curious dramatic performances we have no
very definite information. Dr. Haddon says: "The idea evidently was to
convey to the mourners the assurance that the ghost was alive and that
in the person of the dancer he visited his friends; the assurance of his
life after death comforted the bereaved ones."[298]

[Sidenote: Funeral ceremonies observed by the Eastern Islanders. The
soul of the dead carried away by a masked actor.]

In the Eastern Islands of Torres Straits the funeral ceremonies seem to
have been even more numerous and elaborate. The body was at first laid
on the ground on a mat outside the house, if the weather were fine.
There friends wept and wailed over it, the nearest relations, such as
the wife and mother, sitting at the head of the corpse. About an hour
after the sun had set, the drummers and singers arrived. All night the
drums beat and the peop