ADDITIONS TO ETHNOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS ETHERID(iE. 193 



It may be tliat this stone is akin to the navilah of 

 Erromanga. The moon is symbolised by a navilah, in the 

 form of a ring or roughly-shaped crescent. Writing of this 

 stone cult, tlie Rev. Dr. H. A. Robertson remarked^'- : — " Stones, 

 large and small, of peculiar shape or origin, in which some 

 supernatural power is supposed to reside, because of their 

 connection with a spirit or spirits." ^'^ 



In many of the New Hebridean islands " the chiefs possess 

 strangely shaped stones to which they attribute remarkable 

 powers — of making the yams grow large, the cocoanuts 

 flourish, and the pigs to multiply. To some they ascribe 

 destructive powers. A spirit, sometimes a ghost, is supposed 

 to exercise its powers in connection with the stone ; and the 

 possessors of such stones have great mana which they will 

 employ on behalf of others in return for fees."!* The spirit 

 does not dwell in the stone, but is associated with it, and may 

 be near at hand.i^ 



This association of spirits with stones in the New Hebrides 

 is exhaustively dealt with by Codrington.^*' He said, "any 

 fanciful interpretation of a mark on a stone or of its shape 

 was enough to give a character to the stone ; and to the 

 spirit associated with it.''^'^ 



Loc. — From St. Phillip and St. James' Bay, or Big Bay, 

 Santo.' Mr. Fysh says : — " I have sent two Kava stones at 

 various times — one from off my land at South Big Bay, 

 about nine miles north of the Jordan River, and the other 

 about twenty-five miles north of the same." 



'- Robertson— Erromanga the Martyr Isle, p. 435. 



i"> A. W. Murray veiers, to the navilah — "a species of idolatry con- 

 nected with the worship of the moon, the image of which they 

 exhibit at their idolatrous feasts {Missions in Western Polynesia, 

 &c., 1863, p. 209). 



'^ Lamb — Saints and Savages. The Story of Five Years in the New 

 Hebrides, 1905, p. 213. 



15 Lamb — Loc. cit., p. 114. 



16 Codrington— The Melanesians, 1891, p.p. 181-5. 

 1' Codrington — Loc. cit., p. 182. 



