healthier than elsewhere.

In Vao I had occasion to attend a death-feast. The hero of the day
was still alive and in excellent health; but he did not quite trust
his family, and wishing to make sure that his death-feast would not
be forgotten, he held it during his lifetime. His anxiety about the
feast is explained by the following facts. According to Vao beliefs,
the souls of the dead travel to the island of Ambrym, and after five
days climb a narrow trail up to the volcano. In order that the soul
may not starve on the way, the survivors often make a small canoe,
load it with food and push it off into the sea, thinking it will drift
after the soul. It is generally stranded behind the nearest point,
bringing the neighbours a welcome addition to the day's rations. This
custom is in contradiction to the feeding of the body through a tube,
and proves that quite contradictory customs can exist simultaneously,
without the natives noticing it. Half-way up the volcano sits a
monster with two immense shears, like a crab. If no pigs have been
sacrificed for the soul by the fifth day, the poor soul is alone and
the monster swallows it; but if the sacrifice has been performed,
the souls of the sacrificed pigs follow after the human soul, and as
the monster prefers pig, the human has time to escape and to reach
the entrance to paradise on top of the volcano, where there are pigs,
women, dancing and feasting in plenty.

The feast I was to attend had been in preparation for some time. On all
the dancing-grounds long bamboos were in readiness, loaded with yams
and flowers, as presents to the host. Everything was brought to his
gamal, and the whole morning passed in distributing the gifts, each
family receiving a few yams, a little pig, some sprouted cocoa-nuts
and a few rolls of money. This money consists of long, narrow, fringed
mats, neatly rolled up; in this case they were supposed to be the mats
in which the dead are buried, and which are taken out of the grave
after a while. These mats formerly served as small coin, as similar
mats are still used on other islands, and they still represent a value
of about one shilling; but in daily life they have been quite replaced
by European coin, and only appear on such ceremonial occasions.

All the gifts were piled up, and when the host was convinced that
every guest had received his just dues, he took a stick and smashed
the heads of all the pigs that were tied up in readiness for this