s or coco-nuts without offering any of them to their dead
ancestors. In presenting the pig they say, "There is a pig; accept it,
and remove the sickness." But if prayers and sacrifices are vain, and
the patient dies, then, while the relatives all stand round the open
grave, the chief's sister or cousin calls out in a loud voice: "You have
been angry with us for the bananas or the coco-nuts which we have
gathered, and in your anger you have taken away this child. Now let it
suffice, and bury your anger." So saying they lower the body into the
grave and shovel in the earth on the top of it. The spirits of the
departed, on quitting their bodies, paddle in canoes across the lagoon
and go away to the mountains, where they live in perfect bliss, with no
work to do and no trouble to vex them, chewing betel, dancing all night
and resting all day.[330]

[Sidenote: The Hood Peninsula. The town of Kalo.]

Between the Aroma District in the south-east and Port Moresby on the
north-west is situated the Hood Peninsula in the Central District of
British New Guinea. It is inhabited by the Bulaa, Babaka, Kamali, and
Kalo tribes, which all speak dialects of one language.[331] The village
or town of Kalo, built at the base of the peninsula, close to the mouth
of the Vanigela or Kemp Welch River, is said to be the wealthiest
village in British New Guinea. It includes some magnificent native
houses, all built over the water on piles, some of which are thirty feet
high. The sight of these great houses perched on such lofty and massive
props is very impressive. In front of each house is a series of large
platforms like gigantic steps. Some of the posts and under-surfaces of
the houses are carved with figures of crocodiles and so forth. The
labour of cutting the huge planks for the flooring of the houses and the
platforms must be immense, and must have been still greater in the old
days, when the natives had only stone tools to work with. Many of the
planks are cut out of the slab-like buttresses of tall forest trees
which grow inland. So hard is the wood that the boards are handed down
as heirlooms from father to son, and the piles on which the houses are
built last for generations. The inhabitants of Kalo possess gardens,
where the rich alluvial soil produces a superabundance of coco-nuts,
bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, and taro. Areca palms also flourish and
produce the betel nuts, which are in great demand for chewing with
quick-lime and s