ts follow
like sleuth-hounds in the tracks of their retreating enemies, eager to
come up with them and by contact with the bloodstained weapons of their
slayers to recover the spiritual substance which they have lost. Not
till they have done so can they find rest and peace. That is why the
victors are careful not at first to bring back their weapons into the
village but to hide them somewhere in the bushes at a safe distance.
There they leave them for some days until the baffled ghosts may be
supposed to have given up the chase and returned, sad and angry, to
their mangled bodies in the charred ruins of their old home. The first
night after the return of the warriors is always the most anxious time;
all the villagers are then on the alert for fear of the ghosts; but if
the night passes quietly, their terror gradually subsides and gives
place to the dread of their surviving enemies.[455]

[Sidenote: Seclusion of man-slayers from fear of their victims' ghosts.]

As the victors in a raid are supposed to have more or less of the
soul-stuff or spiritual essence of their slain foes adhering to their
persons, none of their friends will venture to touch them for some time
after their return to the village. Everybody avoids them and goes
carefully out of their way. If during this time any of the villagers
suffers from a pain in his stomach, he thinks that he must have
inadvertently sat down where one of the warriors had sat before him. If
somebody endures the pangs of toothache, he makes sure that he must have
eaten a fruit which had been touched by one of the slayers. All the
refuse of the meals of these gallant men must be most carefully put away
lest a pig should devour it; for if it did do so, the animal would
certainly die, which would be a serious loss to the owner. Hence when
the warriors have satisfied their hunger, any food that remains over is
burnt or buried. The fighting men themselves are not very seriously
incommoded, or at all events endangered, by the ghosts of their victims;
for they have taken the precaution to disinfect themselves by the sap of
a certain creeper, which, if it does not render them absolutely immune
to ghostly influence, at least fortifies their constitution to a very
considerable extent.[456]

[Sidenote: Feigned indignation of a man who has connived at the murder
of a relative.]

Sometimes, instead of sending forth a band of warriors to ravage, burn,
and slaughter the whole male population