when the chief arrives on his mission of
vengeance. Balked by the absence of their victim the avengers of blood
breathe out fire and slaughter, but content themselves in fact with
smashing an old pot or two, knocking down a deserted hut, and perhaps
felling a banana-tree or a betel-palm. Having thus given the ghost of
the murdered man an unequivocal proof of the sincerity of their
friendship, they return quietly home.[459]

[Sidenote: The Kai afraid of ghosts.]

The habits of Kai ghosts are to some extent just the contrary of those
of living men. They sleep by day and go about their business by night,
when they frighten people and play them all kinds of tricks. Usually
they appear in the form of animals. As light has the effect of blinding
or at least dazzling them, they avoid everything bright, and hence it is
easy to scare them away by means of fire. That is why no native will go
even a short way in the dark without a bamboo torch. If it is absolutely
necessary to go out by night, which he is very loth to do, he will hum
and haw loudly before quitting the house so as to give notice to any
lurking ghost that he is coming with a light, which allows the ghost to
scuttle out of his way in good time. The people of a village live in
terror above all so long as a corpse remains unburied in it; after
nightfall nobody would then venture out of sight of the houses. When a
troop of people go by night to a neighbouring village with flaring
torches in their hands, nobody is willing to walk last on the path; they
all huddle together for safety in the middle, till one man braver than
the rest consents to act as rearguard. The rustling of a bush in the
evening twilight startles them with the dread of some ghastly
apparition; the sight of a pig in the gloaming is converted by their
fears into the vision of a horrible spectre. If a man stumbles, it is
because a ghost has pushed him, and he fancies he perceives the
frightful thing in a tree-stump or any chance object. No wonder a Kai
man fears ghosts, since he believes that the mere touch of one of them
may be fatal. People who fall down in fits or in faints are supposed to
have been touched by ghosts; and on coming to themselves they will tell
their friends with the most solemn assurance how they felt the
death-cold hand of the ghost on their body, and how a shudder ran
through their whole frame at contact with the uncanny being.[460]

[Sidenote: Services rendered to the living by gh