president's' address — SECTION F. 175 



" Roasting Saijo." 



Sometimes one finds a phrase, a form of expression, which to 

 the older men bears a meaning of which the younger men know 

 nothing. 1 lememher an instance of this which I thought rather 

 interesting, and which came to my notice in a case I tried at Port 

 Moresby. It was, of course, a murder case- — they nearly all are 

 in our country — and I suppose the murder might be called a ritual 

 murder. There was a custom which allowed you, if you built a new 

 house, to paint the posts red, with a mixture of cocoanut oil and 

 clay, but only if you had killed a man. A prominent native had 

 built a house, and wanted to kill a man, so he sent round a 

 message to his acquaintances inviting them to assist — a little cour- 

 tesy which, of course, they could not, by Papuan etiquette, refuse. 

 The manner of his invitation was to ask them to come and " roast 

 some sago," the recognised periphrasis, apparently, for killing a 

 man ; and what I thought was interesting was that the old men 

 who got the message knew what it meant, whereas the younger 

 men did not. Thus two) men in Gaseri village received the invita- 

 tion, and both went, one of them a middle-aged man, the other 

 a youth. "Why have you not brought your ckib?" asked the 

 older man, when the two had gone some distance. " Why should 

 I?" said the other, " we are only going to roast some sago." 

 " Go back and get it," was the reply, " you will find that you will 

 want it." So, in an evil moment, he went back, and got his club; 

 he found that he did want it, and he used it, and was arrested, 

 and, though he escaped the gallows, he is, I think, still m gaol. 

 For it was a white man who was*killed, and where there is but a 

 handful of Europeans among a large number of natives a white 

 man's life must be held very sacred. 



Now, if we had had enough knowledge to enable us to modify 

 the ritual and substitute some other animal for the man who was 

 killed, we could have prevented this murder, just as many murders 

 have been prevented in the Gulf of Papua by the substitution of 

 the pig. The practice of painting the house, so far as I know, has 

 long since died cut, and the phrase about "roasting sago" is 

 ]n-obably forgotten. I should like to know its origin, but I never 

 shall. 



Ignoranrc of Natives of the Meaning of their Customs. 



Occasionally the custom seems to be merely grotesque and to 

 be incapable of any serious motive or meaning. I say " seems " 

 advisedly, because all these queer practices must have had some 

 motive at some time or other, though the motive may not be of 

 the kind which we should call rational, and may rather be con- 

 nected with the processes which originate from what, it appears, 

 is called by psychologists the " collective unconscious," and which, 

 to quote Mr. Marett once more, " seem to set the logic of pur- 

 posive life at defiance " (Marett, Psi/chologi/ and Folklore, p. 



