ourners. The next
of kin, especially the widow or widower, remain for about a week at the
grave, watching day and night, lest the body should be dug up and
devoured by a certain foul fiend with huge wings and long claws, who
battens on corpses. The mourning costume of men consists in smearing the
face with black and wearing a cord round the neck and a netted cap on
the head. Instead of such a cap a woman in mourning wraps herself in a
large net and a great apron of grass. While the other ensigns of woe are
soon discarded or disappear, the cord about the neck is worn for a
longer time, generally till next harvest. The sacrifice of a pig brings
the period of mourning to an end and after it the cord may be laid
aside. If any one were so hard-hearted as not to wear that badge of
sorrow, the people believe that the angry ghost would come back and
fetch him away. He would die.[399] Thus among these savages the mourning
costume is regarded as a protection against the dangerous ghost of the
departed; it soothes his wounded feelings and prevents him from making
raids on the living.

[Sidenote: Fate of the souls of the dead.]

As to the place to which the souls of the dead repair and the fate that
awaits them there, very vague and contradictory ideas prevail among the
natives of this district. Some say that the ghosts go eastward to Bukaua
on Huon Gulf and there lead a shadowy life very like their life on
earth. Others think that the spirits hover near the village where they
lived in the flesh. Others again are of opinion that they transmigrate
into animals and prolong their life in one or other of the bodies of the
lower creatures.[400]

[Sidenote: The Yabim and Bukaua tribes.]

Leaving Cape King William we pass eastward along the coast of German New
Guinea and come to Finsch Harbour. From a point some miles to the north
of Finsch Harbour as far as Samoa Harbour on Huon Gulf the coast is
inhabited by two kindred tribes, the Yabim and the Bukaua, who speak a
Melanesian language. I shall deal first with the Yabim tribe, whose
customs and beliefs have been described for us with a fair degree of
fulness by two German missionaries, Mr. Konrad Vetter and Mr. Heinrich
Zahn.[401] The following account is based chiefly on the writings of Mr.
Vetter, whose mission station is at the village of Simbang.

[Sidenote: Material and artistic culture of the Yabim.]

Like the other natives of New Guinea the Yabim build permanent houses,
liv