to them, and in doing this they laid a
little of the fruit on some stone, or shelving branch of the tree, or
some more temporary altar of a few rough sticks from the bush, lashed
together with strips of bark, in the form of a table, with its four feet
stuck in the ground. All being quiet, the chief acted as high priest,
and prayed aloud thus: 'Compassionate father! here is some food for you;
eat it; be kind to us on account of it.' And, instead of an _amen_, all
united in a shout. This took place about mid-day, and afterwards those
who were assembled continued together feasting and dancing till midnight
or three in the morning."[592]

[Sidenote: Private ghosts. Fighting ghosts kept as auxiliaries.]

In addition to the public ghosts, each of whom is revered by a whole
village, many a man keeps, so to say, a private or tame ghost of his own
on leash. The art of taming a ghost consists in knowing the leaves,
bark, and vines in which he delights and in treating him accordingly.
This knowledge a man may acquire by the exercise of his natural
faculties or he may learn it from somebody else. However he may obtain
the knowledge, he uses it for his own personal advantage, sacrificing to
the ghost in order to win his favour and get something from him in
return. The mode of sacrificing to a private ghost is the same as to a
public ghost. The owner has a sacred place or private chapel of his own,
where he draws near to the ghost in prayer and burns his bit of food in
the fire. A man often keeps a fighting ghost (_keramo_), who helps him
in battle or in slaying his private enemy. Before he goes out to commit
homicide, he pulls up his ginger-plant and judges from the ease or
difficulty with which the plant yields to or resists his tug, whether he
will succeed in the enterprise or not. Then he sacrifices to the ghost,
and having placed some ginger and leaves on his shield, and stuffed some
more in his belt and right armlet, he sallies forth. He curses his enemy
by his fighting ghost, saying, "Siria (if that should be the name of the
ghost) eats thee, and I shall slay thee"; and if he kills him, he cries
to the ghost, "Thine is this man, Siria, and do thou give me
supernatural power!" No prudent Melanesian would attempt to commit
manslaughter without a ghost as an accomplice; to do so would be to
court disaster, for the slain man's ghost would have power over the
slayer; therefore before he imbrues his hands in blood he deems it
desir