night in the cavern and
assisted at the sports and diversions of the living.[549]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of the bones of the dead.]

The souls of the departed also kindly bore a hand in the making of rain.
In order to secure their co-operation for this beneficent purpose the
human rain-maker proceeded as follows. He blackened himself all over,
exhumed a dead body, carried the bones to a cave, jointed them, and
suspended the skeleton over some taro leaves. After that he poured water
on the skeleton so that it ran down and fell on the leaves underneath.
They imagined that the soul of the deceased took up the water, converted
it into rain, and then caused it to descend in refreshing showers. But
the rain-maker had to stay in the cavern fasting till his efforts were
crowned with success, and when the ghost was tardy in executing his
commission, the rain-maker sometimes died of hunger. As a rule, however,
they chose the showery months of March and April for the operation of
rain-making, so that the wizard ran little risk of perishing a martyr to
the cause of science. When there was too much rain, and they wanted fine
weather, the magician procured it by a similar process, except that
instead of drenching the skeleton with water he lit a fire under it and
burned it up,[550] which naturally induced or compelled the ghost to
burn up the clouds and let the sun shine out.

[Sidenote: Execution of maleficent sorcerers. Reincarnation of the dead
in white people.]

Another class of magicians were the maleficent sorcerers who caused
people to fall ill and die by burning their personal rubbish. When one
of these rascals was convicted of repeated offences of that sort, he was
formally tried and condemned. The people assembled and a great festival
was held. The condemned man was decked with a garland of red flowers;
his arms and legs were covered with flowers and shells, and his face and
body painted black. Thus arrayed he came dashing forward, rushed through
the people, plunged from the rocks into the sea, and was seen no more.
The natives also ascribed sickness to the arts of white men, whom they
identified with the spirits of the dead; and assigned this belief as a
reason for their wish to kill the strangers.[551]

[Footnote 517: F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, II. _Malaysia and the
Pacific Archipelagoes_ (London, 1894), p. 458.]

[Footnote 518: J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_ (London, 1900), pp. 498
_sq._ As to t