ousehold spirit; but the time comes when he
is wholly forgotten.[473]

[Sidenote: Bones of the dead dug up and kept in the house for a time.]

Many families, however, not content with the observance of these
ordinary ceremonies, dig up the bodies of their dead when the flesh has
mouldered away, redden the bones with ochre, and keep them bundled up in
the house for two or three years, when these relics of mortality are
finally committed to the earth. The intention of thus preserving the
bones for years in the house is not mentioned, but no doubt it is to
maintain a closer intimacy with the departed spirit than seems possible
if his skeleton is left to rot in the grave. When he is at last laid in
the ground, the tomb is enclosed by a strong wooden fence and planted
with ornamental shrubs. Yet in the course of years, as the memory of the
deceased fades away, his grave is neglected, the fence decays, the
shrubs run wild; another generation, which knew him not, will build a
house on the spot, and if in digging the foundations they turn up his
bleached and mouldering bones, it is nothing to them: why should they
trouble themselves about the spirit of a man or woman whose very name is
forgotten?[474]

[Footnote 450: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 142 _sq._]

[Footnote 451: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 143.]

[Footnote 452: Ch. Keysser, _l.c._]

[Footnote 453: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 143 _sq._]

[Footnote 454: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 62 _sq._]

[Footnote 455: Ch. Keysser, pp. 64 _sqq._, 147 _sq._]

[Footnote 456: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 132.]

[Footnote 457: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 148.]

[Footnote 458: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 148 _sq._]

[Footnote 459: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 149.]

[Footnote 460: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 147.]

[Footnote 461: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 145.]

[Footnote 462: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 145.]

[Footnote 463: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 145 _sq._]

[Footnote 464: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 149 _sq._]

[Footnote 465: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 112, 150 _sq._]

[Footnote 466: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 151-154. In this passage the
ghosts are spoken of simply as spirits (_Geister_); but the context
proves that the spirits in question are those of the dead.]

[Footnote 467: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 34-40.]

[Footnote 468: G. Bamler, "Tami," in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_,
iii. (Berlin, 1911) p. 489; compare _ib._ p. vii.]

[Footnote 469: H. Zah