able to secure the assistance of a valiant ghost who can, if need
be, overcome the ghost of his victim in single combat. If he cannot
procure such a useful auxiliary in any other way, he must purchase him.
Further, he fortifies himself with some personal relic, such as a tooth
or lock of hair of the deceased warrior, whose ghost he has taken into
his service; this relic he wears as an amulet in a little bag round the
neck, when he is on active service; at other times it is kept in the
house.[593]

[Sidenote: Garden ghosts.]

Different from these truculent spirits are the peaceful ghosts who cause
the garden to bear fruit. If the gardener happens to know such a ghost,
he can pray and sacrifice to him on his own account; but if he has no
such friend in the spirit world, he must employ an expert. The man of
skill goes into the midst of the garden with a little mashed food in his
left hand, and smiting it with his right hand he calls on the ghost to
come and eat. He says: "This produce thou shall eat; give supernatural
power (_mana_) to this garden, that food may be good and plentiful." He
digs holes at the four corners of the garden, and in them he buries such
leaves as the ghost loves, so that the garden may have ghostly power and
be fruitful. And when the yams sprout, he twines them with the
particular creeper and fastens them with the particular wood to which
the ghost is known to be partial. These agricultural ghosts are very
sensitive; if a man enters the garden, who has just eaten pork or cuscus
or fish or shell-fish, the ghost of the garden manifests his displeasure
by causing the produce of the garden to droop; but if the eater lets
three or four days go by after his meal, he may then enter the garden
with impunity, for the food has left his stomach. For a similar reason,
apparently, when the yam vines are being trained, the men sleep near the
gardens and never approach their wives; for should they tread the garden
after conjugal intercourse, the yams would be blighted.[594]

[Sidenote: Human sacrifices to ghosts.]

Sometimes the favour of a ghost is obtained by human sacrifices. On
these occasions the flesh of the victim does not, like the flesh of a
pig, furnish the materials of a sacrificial banquet; but little bits of
it are eaten by young men to improve their fighting power and by elders
for a special purpose. Such sacrifices are deemed more effectual than
the sacrifices of less precious victims; and advant