other spirits.]

The people think that if they stand on a good footing with the souls of
the departed and with other spirits, these powerful beings will bring
them good luck in trade and on their voyages. Now the time when trade is
lively and the calm sea is dotted with canoes plying from island to
island or from island to mainland, is the season when the gentle
south-east monsoon is blowing. On the other hand, when the waves run
high under the blast of the strong north-west monsoon, the sea is almost
deserted and the people stay at home;[377] the season is to these
tropical islanders what winter is to the inhabitants of northern
latitudes. Accordingly it is when the wind is shifting round from the
stormy north-west to the balmy south-east that the natives set
themselves particularly to win the favour of ghosts and spirits, and
this they do by repairing the temples and clubhouses in which the
spirits and ghosts are believed to dwell, and by cleaning and tidying up
the open spaces around them. These repairs are the occasion of a
festival accompanied by dances and games. Early in the morning of the
festive day the shrill notes of the flutes and the hollow rub-a-dub of
the drums are heard to proceed from the interior of the temple,
proclaiming the arrival of the guardian spirit and his desire to partake
of fish and sago. So the men assemble and the feast is held in the
evening. Festivals are also held both in the temples and in the men's
clubhouses on the occasion of a successful hunt or fishing. Out of
gratitude for the help vouchsafed them by the ancestral spirits, the
hunters or fishers bring the larger game or fish to the temples or
clubhouses and eat them there; and then hang up some parts of the
animals or fish, such as the skeletons, the jawbones of pigs, or the
shells of turtles, in the clubhouses as a further mark of homage to the
spirits of the dead.[378]

[Sidenote: Guardian spirits (_tapum_) in Tumleo.]

So far as appears, the spirits who dwell in the temples are not supposed
to be ancestors. Father Erdweg describes them as guardian spirits or
goddesses, for they are all of the female sex. Every village has several
of them; indeed in the village of Sapi almost every family has its own
guardian spirit. The name for these guardian spirits is _tapum_, which
seems to be clearly connected with the now familiar word _tapu_ or
taboo, in the sense of sacred, which is universally understood in the
islands of the Pac