s or division
of labour obtains between the various families. All have not the same
gifts and graces. The prayers of one family offered to their ancestral
ghosts are thought to be powerful in procuring rain in time of drought;
the prayers of another will cause the sun to break through the clouds
when the sky is overcast; the supplications of a third will produce a
fine crop of yams; the earnest entreaties of a fourth will ensure
victory in war; and the passionate pleadings of a fifth will guard
mariners against the perils and dangers of the deep. And so on through
the whole gamut of human needs, so far as these are felt by savages. If
only wrestling in prayer could satisfy the wants of man, few people
should be better provided with all the necessaries and comforts of life
than the New Caledonians. And according to the special purpose to which
a family devotes its spiritual energies, so will commonly be the
position of its oratory. For example, if rain-making is their strong
point, their house of prayer will be established near a cultivated
field, in order that the crops may immediately experience the benefit to
be derived from their orisons. Again, if they enjoy a high reputation
for procuring a good catch of fish, the family skulls will be placed in
the mouth of a cave looking out over the great ocean, or perhaps on a
bleak little wind-swept isle, where in the howl of the blast, the
thunder of the waves on the strand, and the clangour of the gulls
overhead, the fancy of the superstitious savage may hear the voices of
his dead forefathers keeping watch and ward over their children who are
tossed on the heaving billows.[534] Thus among these fortunate islanders
religion and industry go hand in hand; piety has been reduced to a
co-operative system which diffuses showers of blessings on the whole
community.

[Sidenote: Prayer-posts.]

As it is clearly impossible even for the most devout to pray day and
night without cessation, the weakness of the flesh requiring certain
intervals for refreshment and repose, the New Caledonians have devised
an ingenious method of continuing their orisons at the shrine in their
own absence. For this purpose they make rods or poles of various
lengths, carve and paint them rudely, wind bandages of native cloth
about them, and having fastened large shells to the top, set them up
either in the sepulchral caves or in the place of skulls. In setting up
one of these poles the native will pray for