tight, it is cut off, and another,
a little larger, put on, until the parents are satisfied with the
shape of the child's head. These baby skulls have an extreme shape
which is very ugly, and the whole process can hardly be agreeable to
the patient; but the operation does not seem to have any prejudicial
effect on the intellect, and in later years the shape of the head
becomes somewhat less marked, although a man from the south of Malekula
is always unmistakable.

This region is remarkable, too, for its highly developed
ancestor-worship. Although the general ideas on the subject are
the same here as elsewhere in the archipelago, there is a special
veneration here for the head or skull of deceased ancestors. The
bones are generally used in making arrow-heads and lance-points,
and the head, which is useless, is thrown away in most islands,
or buried again; but in the south of Malekula, the heads are kept,
and the face is reproduced in a plastic material of fibres, clay and
sticky juice. The work is very cleverly done, and the face looks quite
natural, with fine, slightly Semitic features. The surface is varnished
and painted with patterns corresponding to the caste of the dead. Often
the face has eyes made of bits of shell, the real hair is stuck on,
and the plumes and nose-stick are not forgotten, so that the whole
becomes an exact portrait of the deceased. Whether this head is to have
a body or not is a question of caste. The higher the caste of the dead,
the more completely is his body modelled. The heads of low castes are
simply stuck on poles, higher ones have bodies of carved wood, often
branches to indicate arms; but the bodies of the highest castes are
composed of bamboo, fibres and straw, and modelled throughout in the
same way as the head. They are covered with varnish, and every detail
reproduced, including dress, ornaments and caste signs. In their right
hands these statues carry a "bubu" or shell horn, and in their left,
a pig's jaw. The shoulders are modelled in the shape of faces, and from
these, occasionally, sticks protrude, bearing the heads of dead sons,
so that such a statue often has three or four heads. These figures
stand along the walls of the gamal, smiling with expressionless faces
on their descendants round the fires, and are given sacrifices of food.

Side by side with this ancestor-worship there goes a simpler
skull-cult, by which a man carries about the head of a beloved son
or wife, as a d