of the dead are very powerful and visit bad people with their
displeasure. Famine and scarcity of fish and game are attributed to the
anger of the spirits. But they hearken to prayer and appear to their
friends in dreams, sometimes condescending to give them directions for
their guidance in time of trouble.[313]

[Sidenote: The Koita or Koitapu.]

Side by side with the Motu live the Koita or Koitapu, who appear to be
the aboriginal inhabitants of the country and to belong to the Papuan
stock. Their villages lie scattered for a distance of about forty miles
along the coast, from a point about seven miles south-east of Port
Moresby to a point on Redscar Bay to the north-west of that settlement.
They live on friendly terms with the Motu and have intermarried with
them for generations. The villages of the two tribes are usually built
near to or even in direct continuity with each other. But while the Motu
are mainly fishers and potters, the Koita are mainly tillers of the
soil, though they have learned some arts or adopted some customs from
their neighbours. They say to the Motu, "Yours is the sea, the canoes,
the nets; ours the land and the wallaby. Give us fish for our flesh, and
pottery for our yams and bananas." The Motu look down upon the Koita,
but fear their power of sorcery, and apply to them for help in sickness
and for the weather they happen to require; for they imagine that the
Koita rule the elements and can make rain or sunshine, wind or calm by
their magic. Thus, as in so many cases, the members of the immigrant
race confess their inability to understand and manage the gods or
spirits of the land, and have recourse in time of need to the magic of
the aboriginal inhabitants. While the Koita belong to the Papuan stock
and speak a Papuan language, most of the men understand the Motu tongue,
which is one of the Melanesian family. Altogether these two tribes, the
Koita and the Motu, may be regarded as typical representatives of the
mixed race to which the name of Papuo-Melanesian is now given.[314]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Koita concerning the human soul.]

The Koita believe that the human spirit or ghost, which they call _sua_,
leaves the body at death and goes away to live with other ghosts on a
mountain called Idu. But they think that the spirit can quit the body
and return to it during life; it goes away, for example, in dreams, and
if a sleeper should unfortunately waken before his soul has had time to