he
forest, his native companions started with fear every moment, imagining
that they saw the missionary's ghost popping out from behind a
tree.[386]

[Sidenote: Treatment of the corpse. Secret Society called _Asa_.]

When death has taken place, the corpse is first exposed on a scaffold in
front of the house, where it is decked with ornaments and surrounded
with flowers. If the deceased was rich, a dog is hung on each side of
the scaffold, and the souls of the animals are believed to accompany the
ghost to the spirit-land. Taros, yams, and coco-nuts are also suspended
from the scaffold, no doubt for the refreshment of the ghost. Then the
melancholy notes of a horn are heard in the distance, at the sound of
which all the women rush away. Soon the horn-blower appears, paints the
corpse white and red, crowns it with great red hibiscus roses, then
blows his horn, and vanishes.[387] He is a member of a secret society,
called _Asa_, which has its lodge standing alone in the forest. Only men
belong to the society; women and children are excluded from it and look
upon it with fear and awe. If any one raises a cry, "_Asa_ is coming,"
or the sound of the musical instruments of the society is heard in the
distance, all the women and children scamper away. The natives are very
unwilling to let any stranger enter one of the lodges of the society.
The interior of such a building is usually somewhat bare, but it
contains the wooden masks which are worn in the ceremonial dances of the
society, and the horns and flutes on which the members discourse their
awe-inspiring music. In construction it scarcely differs from the
ordinary huts of the village; if anything it is worse built and more
primitive. The secrets of the society are well kept; at least very
little seems to have been divulged to Europeans. The most important of
its ceremonies is that of the initiation of the young men, who on this
occasion are circumcised before they are recognised as full-grown men
and members of the secret society. At such times the men encamp and
feast for weeks or even months together on the open space in front of
the society's lodge, and masked dances are danced to the accompaniment
of the instrumental music. These initiatory ceremonies are held at
intervals of about ten or fifteen years, when there are a considerable
number of young men to be initiated together.[388] Although we are still
in the dark as to the real meaning of this and indeed of almost