Again, when a lizard was seen frequenting a house after a death, it
would be taken for the ghost returning to its old home; and many ghosts,
powerful to aid the mariner at sea, take up their quarters in
frigate-birds.[610]

[Sidenote: The belief in ghosts underlies the Melanesian conception of
magic.]

Again, a belief in powerful ghosts underlies to a great extent the
Melanesian conception of magic, as that conception is expounded by Dr.
Codrington. "That invisible power," he tells us, "which is believed by
the natives to cause all such effects as transcend their conception of
the regular course of nature, and to reside in spiritual beings, whether
in the spiritual part of living men or in the ghosts of the dead, being
imparted by them to their names and to various things that belong to
them, such as stones, snakes, and indeed objects of all sorts, is that
generally known as _mana_. Without some understanding of this it is
impossible to understand the religious beliefs and practices of the
Melanesians; and this again is the active force in all they do and
believe to be done in magic, white or black. By means of this men are
able to control or direct the forces of nature, to make rain or
sunshine, wind or calm, to cause sickness or remove it, to know what is
far off in time and space, to bring good luck and prosperity, or to
blast and curse. No man, however, has this power of his own; all that he
does is done by the aid of personal beings, ghosts or spirits."[611]

[Sidenote: Illness generally thought to be caused by ghosts.]

Thus, to begin with the medical profession, which is a branch of magic
long before it becomes a department of science, every serious sickness
is believed to be brought about by ghosts or spirits, but generally it
is to the ghosts of the dead that illness is ascribed both by the
Eastern and by the Western islanders. Hence recourse is had to ghosts
for aid both in causing and in curing sickness. They are thought to
inflict disease, not only because some offence, such as trespass, has
been committed against them, or because one who knows their ways has
instigated them thereto by sacrifice and spells, but because there is a
certain malignity in the feeling of all ghosts towards the living, who
offend them simply by being alive. All human faculties, apart from the
mere bodily functions, are supposed to be enhanced by death; hence the
ghost of a powerful and ill-natured man is only too ready to take