its long home. It is the short soul which receives and carries away with
it the offerings that are made to the deceased. These offerings serve a
double purpose; they form the nucleus of the dead man's property in the
far country, and they ensure him a friendly reception on his arrival.
For example, the soul shivers with cold, when it first reaches the
subterranean realm, and the other ghosts, the old stagers, obligingly
heat stones to warm it up.[471]

[Sidenote: Dilemma of the Tami.]

However, the restless spirit returns from time to time to haunt and
terrify the sorcerer, who was the cause of its death. But its threats
are idle; it can really do him very little harm. Yet it keeps its
ghostly eye on its surviving relatives to see that they do not stand on
a friendly footing with the wicked sorcerer. Strictly speaking the Tami
ought to avenge his death, but as a matter of fact they do not. The
truth of it is that the Tami do a very good business with the people on
the mainland, among whom the sorcerer is usually to be found; and the
amicable relations which are essential to the maintenance of commerce
would unquestionably suffer if a merchant were to indulge his resentment
so far as to take his customer's head instead of his sago and bananas.
These considerations reduce the Tami to a painful dilemma. If they
gratify the ghost they lose a customer; if they keep the customer they
must bitterly offend the ghost, who will punish them for their
disrespect to his memory. In this delicate position the Tami endeavour
to make the best of both worlds. On the one hand, by loudly professing
their wrath and indignation against the guilty sorcerer they endeavour
to appease the ghost; and on the other hand, by leaving the villain
unmolested they do nothing to alienate their customers.[472]

[Sidenote: Funeral and mourning customs of the Tami.]

But if they do not gratify the desire for vengeance of the blood-thirsty
ghost, they are at great pains to testify their respect for him in all
other ways. The whole village takes part in the mourning and lamentation
for a death. The women dance death dances, the men lend a hand in the
preparations for the burial. All festivities are stopped: the drums are
silent. As the people believe that when anybody has died, the ghosts of
his dead kinsfolk gather in the village and are joined by other ghosts,
they are careful not to leave the mourners alone, exposed to the too
pressing attentions of t