age was sometimes
taken of a real or imputed crime to offer the criminal to some ghost.
So, for example, within living memory Dikea, chief of Ravu, convicted a
certain man of stealing tobacco, and sentenced him to be sacrificed; and
the grown lads ate pieces of him cooked in the sacrificial fire. Again,
the same chief offered another human sacrifice in the year 1886. One of
his wives had proved false, and he sent her away vowing that she should
not return till he had offered a human sacrifice to Hauri. Also his son
died, and he vowed to kill a man for him. The vow was noised abroad, and
everybody knew that he would pay well for somebody to kill. Now the Savo
people had bought a captive boy in Guadalcanar, but it turned out a bad
bargain, for the boy was lame and nearly blind. So they brought him to
Dikea, and he gave them twenty coils of shell money for the lad. Then
the chief laid his hand on the victim's breast and cried, "Hauri! here
is a man for you," and his followers killed him with axes and clubs. The
cripple's skull was added to the chief's collection, and his legs were
sent about the country to make known what had been done. In Bugotu of
Ysabel, when the people had slain an enemy in fight, they used to bring
back his head in triumph, cut slices off it, and burn them in sacrifice.
And if they took a prisoner alive, they would bring him to the sacred
place, the grave of the man whose ghost was to be honoured. There they
bound him hand and foot and buffeted him till he died, or if he did not
die under the buffets they cut his throat. As they beat the man with
their fists, they called on the ghost to take him, and when he was dead,
they burned a bit of him in the fire for the ghost.[595]

[Sidenote: Sacrifices to ghosts in Saa.]

At Saa in Malanta, one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifices are offered to
ghosts on various occasions. Thus on his return from a voyage a man will
put food in the case which contains the relics of his dead father; and
in the course of his voyage, if he should land in a desert isle, he will
throw food and call on father, grandfather, and other deceased friends.
Again, when sickness is ascribed to the anger of a ghost, a man of skill
is sent for to discover what particular ghost is doing the mischief.
When he has ascertained the culprit, he is furnished by the patient's
relatives with a little pig, which he is to sacrifice to the ghost as a
substitute for the sick man. Provided with this vica