oncealed by the piled-up fruits. When darkness has fallen, out comes
the ghost and prowling about espies the heap of yams and taro. At sight
of the devastation wrought in his field he flies into a passion, and
curses and swears in the feeble wheezy whisper in which ghosts always
speak. In the course of his fluent imprecations he expresses a wish that
the miscreants who have wasted his substance may suffer so and so at the
hands of the sorcerer. That is just what the men in hiding have been
waiting for. No sooner do they hear the name of the sorcerer than they
jump up with a great shout; the startled ghost takes to his heels; and
all the people in the village come pouring out of the houses. Very glad
they are to know that the murderer has been found out, and sooner or
later they will have his blood.[451]

[Sidenote: Another way of detecting the sorcerer.]

Another mode of eliciting the requisite information from the ghost is
this. In order to allow him to communicate freely with his mouldering
body, his relations insert a tube through the earth of the grave down to
the corpse; then they sprinkle powdered lime on the grave. At night the
ghost comes along, picks up the powdered lime, and makes off in a bee
line for the village where the sorcerer who bewitched him resides. On
the way he drops some of the powder here and there, so that next
morning, on the principle of the paper-chase, his relatives can trace
his footsteps to the very door of his murderer. In many districts the
people tie a packet of lime to the knee of a corpse so that his ghost
may have it to hand when he wants it.[452]

[Sidenote: Cross-questioning the ghost by means of fire.]

But the favourite way of cross-questioning the ghost on subject of his
decease is by means of fire. A few men go out before nightfall from the
village and sit down in a row, one behind the other, on the path. The
man in front has a leaf-mat drawn like a hood over his head and back in
order that the ghost may not touch him from behind unawares. In his hand
he holds a glowing coal and some tinder, and as he puts the one to the
other he calls to the ghost, "Come, take, take, take; come, take, take,
take," and so on. Meantime his mates behind him are reckoning up the
names of all the men near and far who are suspected of sorcery, and a
portion of the village youth have clambered up trees and are on the
look-out for the ghost. If they do not see his body they certainly see
his eye tw