Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/148

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126
Religion.
[ch.

same way they learnt what village they were to attack. Returning successful, they threw a spear into the roof of Ganindo's house, blew conchs, and danced around it crying, 'Our tindalo is strong to kill.' Then they sacrificed to him, fish and food. Then they built him a new house, and made four images for the four corners, one of Ganindo himself, two of his sisters, and another. Then, when eight men had carried up the ridge covering for the house, eight men translated the relics to the shrine. One carried the bones of Ganindo, another his betel-nuts, another his lime-box, another his shell trumpet. They all went in crouching, as if under a heavy weight[1], and singing slowly, 'Ma-i-i, ma-i-i, ka saka tua, hither, hither, let us lift the leg;' the eight legs were lifted together, and again they chanted 'ma-i-i, ma-i-i,' and at the last mai the eight legs went down together. With this solemn procession the relics were set upon a bamboo platform, and sacrifices to the new keramo were begun; by Nisi first, then by Satani, then by Begoni, the last, at whose death some four years ago the sacrifices ceased, and the shrine fell to ruin before the advance of Christian teaching. To the natives of Florida this Ganindo was a tindalo, a ghost of worship, a keramo, a ghost powerful for war; he would be spoken of now by some Europeans as a god, by others as a devil, and the pigeon-English speaking natives now, who think that 'devil' is the English for tindalo, would use the same word. The belief in Florida and the neighbouring parts is fixed that every tindalo was once a man; yet some whose names are known to every one, Daula and Hauri, associated respectively with the frigate-bird and the shark, have passed far away from any historical remembrance; Daula, indeed, under the name of Kaula[2], is venerated at Ulawa. Some also of the keramo, the tindalo of fighting, are known in Florida not to have been men of the island, but famous warriors of the western islands, where mana they think is

  1. The weight of mana, as in the palako logs, page 108.
  2. As the Florida dale, child, is in Ulawa kale, and Wango 'ataro is Saa 'akalo.