l the
ghosts of these people swim across the sea to two little islands called
Marapa, which lie off Marau in Guadalcanar. There the ghosts of children
live in one island and the ghosts of grown-up people in another; for the
older people would be plagued by the chatter of children if they all
dwelt together in one island. Yet in other respects the life of the
departed spirits in these islands is very like life on earth. There are
houses, gardens, and canoes there just as here, but all is thin and
unsubstantial. Living men who land in the islands see nothing of these
things; there is a pool where they hear laughter and merry cries, and
where the banks are wet with invisible bathers. But the life of the
ghosts in these islands is not eternal. The spirits of common folk soon
turn into the nests of white ants, which serve as food for the more
robust ghosts. Hence a living man will say to his idle son, "When I die,
I shall have ants' nests to eat, but then what will you have?" The
ghosts of persons who were powerful on earth last much longer. So long
as they are remembered and worshipped by the living, their natural
strength remains unabated; but when men forget them, and turn to worship
some of the more recent dead, then no more food is offered to them in
sacrifice, so they pine away and change into white ants' nests just like
common folk. This is the second death. However, while the ghosts survive
they can return from the islands to Saa and revisit their village and
friends. The living can even discern them in the form of dim and
fleeting shadows. A man who wishes for any reason to see a ghost can
always do so very simply by taking a pinch of lime from his betel-box
and smearing it on his forehead. Then the ghost appears to him quite
plainly.[568]

[Sidenote: Burial customs in Saa. Preservation of the skull and jawbone.
Burial customs in Santa Cruz. Burial customs in Ysabel.]

In Saa the dead are usually buried in a common cemetery; but when the
flesh has decayed the bones are taken up and heaped on one side. But if
the deceased was a very great man or a beloved father, his body is
preserved for a time in his son's house, being hung up either in a canoe
or in the carved effigy of a sword-fish. Very favourite children are
treated in the same way. The corpse may be kept in this way for years.
Finally, there is a great funeral feast, at which the remains are
removed to the common burial-ground, but the skull and jawbone are