8( ) Tra n s action s . — M iscella neons . 



in bis " Kamilaroi and Kurnai," adds, " I could give many 

 similar instances which have come within my own knowledge 

 among the Fijians, and. strange to say, the dying man in all these 

 cases kept Ins appointment with the ghosts to the very day." 



Another phase of this fatal melancholia is frequently seen 

 in Fijian girls and youths who have sickened and died after the 

 sudden discovery and disruption of an amorous intrigue : an 

 interesting example of the profound mental shock which may 

 bs experienced by people who are generally unimpressionable. 

 Then again, when a Polynesian becomes ill of any save the most 

 ordinary malady he makes little or no struggle for life, but 

 becomes melancholic, and perhaps fixes the date of his death. 

 and dies on the appointed day. In times of epidemic sickness 

 these islanders become what the Fijians call tdqaya (overwhelmed, 

 dismayed, cowed), abandoning all hope of living, and becoming 

 incapable of any effort to save themselves or others. 



Profound and often fatal melancholy was also induced in people 

 who imagined or were told they had been bewitched. This was- 

 shown in a striking way when a sorcerer informed a white man 

 at Hawaii that he was about to bewitch him to death (anaana), 

 and the white man replied that he too could bewitch. The 

 priest, supposing that the white man was practising black arts 

 against him, sink into despondency and despair and finally died. 

 Codrington mentions a somewhat similar case, where a native 

 of Ava. in Melanesia, had declared his intention of bewitching 

 to death an enemy with his magic tamatetiqua, or " ghost-shooter," 

 .it an approaching feast : but he would not tell who it was he 

 mi ended to kill. To add force to the ghostly discharge he fasted 

 many days before the feast began, and became so weak that he 

 had to be carried to the dancing-place. There he sat, a fearful 

 object, black with dirt and wasted to a skeleton with fasting, 

 Ins "ghost-shooter" grasped in his bony hand and closed with 

 his thumb, and his bleary eye watching for his enemy. Every 

 man trembled as he danced by him. After a while, bewildered 

 and dazed by the tumult, he presented his magic bamboo charm 

 at the wrong man. The man he aimed at fell at once to the 

 ground, and the dancers stopped. Then the sorcerer saw his 

 mistake, and thai the wrong man was bewitched, and his distress 

 was greal : but the man that had fallen was ready to expire, 

 Wut after the true state of affairs was explained to him he took 

 courage again to live, and presently revived. No doubt, adds 

 Codrington, he would have died if the mistake had not been 

 known. 



Examples of deaths from this form of fright, technically 

 called ' thanatomania ' (death - mania), might be cited ad 

 infinitum from the anthropological records of the Maoris. South 



