the particular favour which
he desires to obtain from the ancestors for himself or his family; and
he appears to think that in some way the pole will continue to recite
the prayer in the ears of the ghosts, when he himself has ceased to
speak and has returned to his customary avocations. And when members of
his family visit the shrine and see the pole, they will be reminded of
the particular benefit which they are entitled to expect from the souls
of the departed. A certain rude symbolism may be traced in the materials
and other particulars of these prayer-posts. A hard wood signifies
strength; a tall pole overtopping all the rest imports a wish that he
for whose sake it was erected may out-top all his rivals; and so
on.[535]

[Sidenote: Religion combined with magic in the ritual of the New
Caledonians. Sacred stones endowed with special magical virtues. The
"stone of famine."]

We may assume with some probability that in the mind of the natives such
resemblances are not purely figurative or symbolic, but that they are
also magical in intention, being supposed not merely to represent the
object of the supplicant's prayer, but actually, on the principle of
homoeopathic or imitative magic, to contribute to its accomplishment. If
that is so, we must conclude that the religion of these savages, as
manifested in their prayers to the spirits of the dead, is tinctured
with an alloy of magic; they do not trust entirely to the compassion of
the spirits and their power to help them; they seek to reinforce their
prayers by a certain physical compulsion acting through the natural
properties of the prayer-posts. This interpretation is confirmed by a
parallel use which these people make of certain sacred stones, which
apart from their possible character as representatives of the ancestors,
seem to be credited with independent magical virtues by reason of their
various shapes and appearances. For example, there is a piece of
polished jade which is called "the stone of famine," because it is
supposed capable of causing either dearth or abundance, but is oftener
used by the sorcerer to create, or at least to threaten, dearth, in
order thereby to extort presents from his alarmed fellow tribesmen. This
stone is kept in a burial-ground and derives its potency from the dead.
The worshipper or the sorcerer (for he combines the two characters) who
desires to cause a famine repairs to the burial-ground, uncovers the
stone, rubs it with cert