as that her husband's ghost was believed to
be lingering in the house all these days, and he would naturally expect
to see his wife in the nuptial chamber. At Motlav the people are not so
hard upon the poor ghosts: they do not drive away all ghosts from their
old homes, but only the ghosts of such as had in their lifetime the
misfortune to be afflicted with grievous sores and ulcers. The expulsion
of such ghosts may therefore be regarded as a sanitary precaution
designed to prevent the spirits from spreading the disease. When a man
who suffers severely from sores or ulcers lies dying, the people of his
village, taking time by the forelock, send word to the inhabitants of
the next village westwards, warning them to be in readiness to give the
ghost a warm reception. For it is well known that at their departure
from the body ghosts always go westward towards the setting sun. So when
the poor man is dead, they bury his diseased body in the village and
devote all their energies to the expulsion of his soul. By blowing
blasts on shell-trumpets and beating the ground with the stalks of
coco-nut fronds they chase the ghost clean away from their own village
and on to the next. The inhabitants of that village meantime are ready
to receive their unwelcome visitor, and beating their bounds in the most
literal sense they soon drive him onwards to the land of their next
neighbours. So the chase goes on from village to village, till the ghost
has been finally hunted into the sea at the point of the shore which
faces the setting sun. There at last the beaters throw away the stalks
which have served to whack the ghost, and return home in the perfect
assurance that he has left the island and gone to his own place down
below, so that he cannot afflict anybody with the painful disease from
which he suffered. But as for his ulcerated corpse rotting in the grave,
they do not give a thought to it. Their concern is with the spiritual
and the unseen; they do not stoop to regard the material and
carnal.[577]

[Sidenote: Special treatment of the ghosts of women who died in
childbed.]

A special treatment is accorded to the ghosts of women who died in
childbed. If the mother dies and the child lives, her ghost will not go
away to the nether world without taking the infant with her. Hence in
order to deceive the ghost, they wrap a piece of a banana-trunk loosely
in leaves and lay it on the bosom of the dead mother when they lower her
into the gr