ghbourhood of the circumcision ground; any who intrude on it
are put to death. The mythical monster who is supposed to haunt the
ground is said to be very dangerous to the female sex. When the novices
go forth to be swallowed by him in the forest, the women who remain in
the village weep and wail; and they rejoice greatly when the lads come
back safe and sound.[467]

[Sidenote: The Tami Islanders of Huon Gulf.]

The last tribe of German New Guinea to which I shall invite your
attention are the Tami. Most of them live not on the mainland but in a
group of islands in Huon Gulf, to the south-east of Yabim. They are of a
purer Melanesian stock than most of the tribes on the neighbouring coast
of New Guinea. The German missionary Mr. G. Bamler, who lived amongst
them for ten years and knows the people and their language intimately,
thinks that they may even contain a strong infusion of Polynesian
blood.[468] They are a seafaring folk, who extend their voyages all
along the coast for the purpose of trade, bartering mats, pearls, fish,
coco-nuts, and other tree-fruits which grow on their islands for taro,
bananas, sugar-cane, and sago, which grow on the mainland.[469]

[Sidenote: The long soul and the short soul.]

In the opinion of these people every man has two souls, a long one and a
short one. The long soul is identified with the shadow. It is only
loosely attached to its owner, wandering away from his body in sleep and
returning to it when he wakes with a start. The seat of the long soul is
in the stomach. When the man dies, the long soul quits his body and
appears to his relations at a distance, who thus obtain the first
intimation of his decease. Having conveyed the sad intelligence to them,
the long soul departs by way of Maligep, on the west coast of New
Britain, to a village on the north coast, the inhabitants of which
recognise the Tami ghosts as they flit past.[470]

[Sidenote: Departure of the short soul to Lamboam, the nether world.]

The short soul, on the other hand, never leaves the body in life but
only after death. Even then it tarries for a time in the neighbourhood
of the body before it takes its departure for Lamboam, which is the
abode of the dead in the nether world. The Tami bury their dead in
shallow graves under or near the houses. They collect in a coco-nut
shell the maggots which swarm from the decaying corpse; and when the
insects cease to swarm, they know that the short soul has gone away to