THE DUK-DUK CEREMONIES. 239 



makes his visit. When the last dancer has entered the inclosure, 

 a thickly woven hurdle of canes is tied at the gangway, the 

 dancers prance in a constantly narrowing circle about the novi- 

 tiates, threatening them with clubs and spears and sharp stone 

 axes. At last the dance is finished ; the chief seats himself at his 

 appointed place, where a small mat lying on the ground marks 

 the spot ; the dancing extinguisher gives over his dancing for the 

 first time since he burst in upon the village, and stands behind 

 the chief; the others stand along the stockade except that side 

 opposite the entrance ; the novitiates stand in the center, and 

 their sponsors form a little group a few feet away. When all 

 have taken their places, the deeply masked figure moves toward 

 the novitiates, no longer with a dancing step, but so crouched that 

 his legs do not appear beneath the cone of reeds, which thus seems 

 to possess the power of independent locomotion. The young men 

 again make the signal which has met with a certain measure of 

 success, but this time no sponsors aid them. Before each in turn 

 the cone rests motionless, and the chief, then speaking for the first 

 time, cries out, " Let him be put to the proof ! " 



Obedient to the royal command, the two sponsors lead the 

 candidate to the vacant side of the yard where the battered wall 

 gives evidence that it has been many times put to the same use. 

 The masked figure also moves to a position close at hand, where 

 he can easily inspect the bearing of the young man under the 

 ordeal. The sponsors then draw back some space away and each 

 lets fly his spear, which whizzes by the novitiate and sings as it 

 sticks in the wall not an inch away from the flesh. If the novi- 

 tiate wince as the deadly weapons hiss upon him, the keen eye of 

 the Duk-duk would notice it, and at a signal every spear in the 

 inclosure would on the instant be hurled with unerring aim upon 

 the candidate who has been found unworthy. Having success- 

 fully passed this ordeal, the candidate is conducted before the 

 chief, and the sponsors fall back a step or two. With a quick 

 glance from one to the other to get the time, they swing their 

 clubs and let them fall as one upon the young man who is toiling 

 over this rocky path toward an insight into the mysteries. If he 

 bear this trial without a show of pain, he has passed all the tests 

 that will be required of him. At a sign from the chief, the hur- 

 dle will be cast off from the gate, and the procession reformed 

 will take its way still farther into the half twilight of the jungle. 

 Meanwhile in the village the women and the men who have not 

 shared the great mystery creep out from their houses in fear and 

 trembling and pick up the victims of the masked figure's mystic 

 vengeance. 



This ordeal of the spear and club is not the only preparation 

 of the young man for the mystery of the Duk-duk. When he 



