sed on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic: he
abstains from washing his face or working, lest the water or the sweat
trickling down his body should mimick rain and thereby cause it to
fall.[603]

[Sidenote: Prayers to the dead.]

The natives of Aneiteum, one of the Southern New Hebrides, worshipped
the spirits of their ancestors, chiefly on occasions of sickness.[604]
Again, the people of Vate or Efat, another of the New Hebrides,
worshipped the souls of their forefathers and prayed to them over the
_kava_-bowl for health and prosperity.[605] As an example of prayers
offered to the dead we may take the petition which the natives of
Florida put up at sea to Daula, a well-known ghost, who is associated
with the frigate-bird. They say: "Do thou draw the canoe, that it may
reach the land; speed my canoe, grandfather, that I may quickly reach
the shore whither I am bound. Do thou, Daula, lighten the canoe, that it
may quickly gain the land and rise upon the shore." They also invoke
Daula to help them in fishing. "If thou art powerful, O Daula," they
say, "put a fish or two into this net and let them die there." After a
good catch they praise him, saying, "Powerful is the ghost of the net."
And when the natives of Florida are in danger on the sea, they call upon
their immediate forefathers; one will call on his grandfather, another
on his father, another on some dead friend, calling with reverence and
saying, "Save us on the deep! Save us from the tempest! Bring us to the
shore!" In San Cristoval people apply to ghosts for victory in battle,
health in sickness, and good crops; but the word which they use to
signify such an application conveys the notion of charm rather than of
prayer. However, in the Banks' Islands what may be called prayer is
strictly speaking an invocation of the dead; indeed the very word for
prayer (_tataro_) seems to be identical with that for a powerful ghost
(_'ataro_ in San Cristoval). A man in peril on the sea will call on his
dead friends, especially on one who was in his lifetime a good sailor.
And in Mota, when an oven is opened, they throw in a leaf of cooked
mallow for a ghost, saying to him, "This is a lucky bit for your eating;
they who have charmed your food or clubbed you (as the case may be),
take hold of their hands, drag them away to hell, let them be dead." So
when they pour water on the oven, they pray to the ghost, saying, "Pour
it on the head of him down there who has l