a person being subject to the madness if one of his par- 
ents, or both, were similarly afflicted. But Miss Reay 
remarked in 1954 that certain individuals were homugl 
tai who ought not to have been. In those cases one said 
that either the father or mother was subject to the mad- 
ness without that fact being commonly known, or else 
that the individuals were pretending. Only one offspring 
in a susceptible family is susceptible. 
After we left the Wahgi Valley in 1968, Miss Reay 
picked up a remarkable story of which the hero is Tun- 
amp, an adolescent of 16 years, son of Kanant, the woman 
who had been subject to the madness but who had freed 
herself by bathing in the river. ‘Tunamp, though only 
16, is already subject to attacks of mushroom madness. 
This came about more or less as follows. Ombun, an 
aging man closely linked clan-wise with Tunamp, de- 
cided he should pass on his ‘madness’ to Tunamp. Om- 
bun told Tunamp that henceforth he, Tunamp, could go 
homugl tai instead of Ombun himself. Tunamp, remem- 
bering what Ombun said, ate the mushrooms in the ex- 
pectation that he would go homugl tat. He ate them 
with Nggoi, a man about 80 years old, who had fre- 
quently experienced the madness, and they both smoked 
the same cigar together. Nggoi’s ability to go hAmogul 
fai was communicated to Tunamp by contagion. They 
both rushed around breaking up bamboo and destroying 
gardens and fences. 
‘lo what Miss Reay says we can add little, though that 
little may be important. In Banz, which is in Danga 
country north of the Wahgi, not far from the Kuma 
but distinguishable from them by dialect and customs, 
Wilham Meuser, agricultural expert of the Lutheran 
Mission, presented us to Kondi, Medical Assistant, and 
Ginga (pronounced as in ‘gingham’), the native school 
teacher. Commenting on the hereditary aspect of the 
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