726 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



Wizards. 



The general name for this class of persons is natemate tabu. 

 Ti)e man is made a n. tabu by a communication from the 

 natemate. The natemate are of two kinds, the spirits of 

 deceased men, and the spirits Avhose origin is unknown. The 

 latter give the necessary character to the n. tabu. One of 

 them, for instance, appears to him in the form of a snake or 

 lizard, or in a dream. In the former case he makes a small 

 sacred enclosure called butut, and puts the snake or lizard 

 into it, when it becomes a stone. When he wishes to cure a 

 sick person, or to cause some one to die, he takes an olFering 

 to this stone (in which the natemate is supposed to dwell), in 

 the butut. It is the natemate that makes efficacious his koro 

 or incantation, Avhether this latter be for the discovery of 

 theft, the recovery of the sick, or the death of some one. A 

 peculiar class seems to claim the power of making rain. But 

 the above is generally true of all classes of n. tabu whatever 

 their special differences, though it leaves untouched all details. 

 By the above means a n. tabu finds out why, for instance, 

 the natemate are afflicting someone, perhaps the spirits of his 

 deceased relatives. He directs the sick to appease these 

 angry spirits by a sacrifice of a pig or a fowl, and to perform 

 the duty his neglect of which has made them angry. The 

 n. tabu is rewarded or paid for his services. 1 should say 

 that the angry spirits are supposed to possess the man afflicted, 

 and that the n. tabu exorcises them, on the above sacrifice 

 having been made, and after his koro. He bids them mtLrua, 

 that is, cease from the man for the reasons he has recited. 

 This is called Inalua, that is, the expelling or putting out the 

 natemate. 



Deaths. 



Natural death is supposed to be caused by the natemate. 

 The n. tabu who are able to visit the spiritual world, or rather 

 the under world inhabited by the shades, say in the case of a 

 man whom they have tried to cure in vain, and who is about 

 to die, that they in the exercise of their natabuen visited the 

 world of shades, and attempted to bring away the shade of 

 the sick man from there ; and that the assembled shades drew 

 the shade of the sick man into the cave where they dwell and 

 shut the door, telhng the n. tabu, to begone, as the man was 

 theirs {i.e. that he could not be saved from death). The 

 underlying idea undoubtedly is that the man is doomed to 

 death by fate or by the natemate because of some fault. 



