hardly help applauding the ingenuity which among these savages
has discovered a bloodless mode of satisfying the ghost's craving for
blood.

[Sidenote: Preservation of the skulls of the dead.]

About a year after the death, when the flesh of the corpse is entirely
decayed, the skull is removed and placed solemnly in another
burying-ground, or rather charnel-house, where all the skulls of the
family are deposited. Every family has such a charnel-house, which is
commonly situated near the dwelling. It appears to be simply an open
space in the forest, where the skulls are set in a row on the
ground.[526] Yet in a sense it may be called a temple for the worship of
ancestors; for recourse is had to the skulls on various occasions in
order to obtain the help of the spirits of the dead. "The true worship
of the New Caledonians," says Father Lambert, "is the worship of
ancestors. Each family has its own; it religiously preserves their name;
it is proud of them and has confidence in them. Hence it has its
burial-place and its pious hearth for the sacrifices to be offered to
their ghosts. It is the most inviolable piece of property; an
encroachment on such a spot by a neighbour is a thing unheard of."[527]

[Sidenote: Examples of ancestor-worship among the New Caledonians.]

A few examples may serve to illustrate the ancestor-worship of the New
Caledonians. When a person is sick, a member of the family, never a
stranger, is appointed to heal him by means of certain magical
insufflations. To enable him to do so with effect the healer first
repairs to the family charnel-house and lays some sugar-cane leaves
beside the skulls, saying, "I lay these leaves on you that I may go and
breathe upon our sick relative, to the end that he may live." Then he
goes to a tree belonging to the family and lays other sugar-cane leaves
at its foot, saying, "I lay these leaves beside the tree of my father
and of my grandfather, in order that my breath may have healing virtue."
Next he takes some leaves of the tree or a piece of its bark, chews it
into a mash, and then goes and breathes on the patient, his breath being
moistened with spittle which is charged with particles of the leaves or
the bark.[528] Thus the healing virtue of his breath would seem to be
drawn from the spirits of the dead as represented partly by their skulls
and partly by the leaves and bark of the tree which belonged to them in
life, and to which their souls appear in some man