652 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



no courts of justice. The rule is, steal whatever you can 

 without it being found out. But a tubahan is a more effective 

 barrier to petty thieving than the penalties of any police 

 courts. " IMbahans " are generally used to prevent cocoa- 

 nuts being taken (by stealth or) before a certain time. And 

 so with other things. The process is more or less this. Some 

 reeds are cut close to the root. The leaves are pinched off. 

 A certain leaf, known to the " tubahaner," is taken and the 

 prepared reeds rubbed with it. Some of the leaf so used is 

 put in a cocoa-nut shell and buried in the ground. Around 

 this spot some of the dressed reeds are set up stuck in the 

 earth, the tops tied together, and one cocoa-nut or more 

 suspended from the tie. This is called the root of the tubahan. 

 The rest of the reeds are taken away to be used. These are 

 stuck in the earth wherever wanted. To every such tubahan 

 a penalty is attached, and no man will touch a thing so 

 tabooed. 



The penalties, self-inflicted, vary with the "tubahan." 

 The penalty may be wasting of a person's hmb or of the 

 whole body, boils, ulcers, ringworm, sore eyes, jilagues of 

 gnats, flies, lice, toothache, pains and aches of all kinds — in 

 short, all the ills that flesh is heir to. The person who can 

 make a " tubahan " can also cure its evil, should another 

 happen in some way to transgress a "tubahan." He can 

 cure either his own " ttibahan " or the same " tubahan " set 

 by another person. If, the natives say, a " tubahan " sick- 

 ness be neglected, it will result in death. But what is usually 

 done is this — if a person has something wrong with him, a 

 " tubahaner " is consulted ; if he tries to remove the evil 

 and fails, the conclusion is that it is some other " tubahan." 

 A succession of " tubahaners " may try and fail. Then the 

 conclusion is that it must be some foreign disease that no one 

 knows how to cure. If the sickness goes on, and death 

 ensues, the conclusion is that it was Niiruk, of which we 

 will speak presently. The points to notice are these : — 

 (1) " Tiibahans" are the vehicles through which spirits 

 work. (2) No disease is therefore regarded as having a 

 physical cause. Though remedies are used they are used to 

 expel or appease the spirit causing the sickness or pain. 

 (3) The penalties for transgressing " tubahans " are all minor 

 diseases. I must add now, what I should have said earher, 

 " Lumps " are sometimes used in making " tubahans," but 

 they are mostly made w^ithout. 



(3.) Nauveti nadi is a general term for the stones used in 



