gg ETHNOGRAPHY. 



certain kinds of fish may have its origin here, as at Banabe, in some 

 rude idea of a metempsychosis. 



The ancestors of chiefs are represented (so to speak) by their skulls, 

 which are carefully preserved by their descendants. When their 

 spirits are to be invoked, these skulls are taken down, placed on a 

 mat, and anointed with cocoa-nut oil; the brows are bound with 

 leaves, and food is set before the fleshless jaws. The general term 

 for spirit and divinity is anti. 



At Makin there are no priests, and the invocations are usually 

 made by the head of the family, or by each individual for himself. 

 On Tarawa and Apamama every family which has a tutelar divinity 

 has also a priest, whose duty it is to perform the rites of worship, and 

 whose perquisites consist in the food offered to the god, which, after 

 remaining a short time, is taken away by him and eaten in his own 

 house. These priests are called ibonga or tlbonga.* They do not 

 constitute a distinct class connected by any bond of union among 

 themselves ; but any young man of free birth, who is apt at reciting 

 prayers, may become a priest. 



The mode in which the priest receives the oracles of the god is as 

 follows. On the sandy beach, at the weather side of the island, are 

 several houses, called ba-ni-mata, or bata rianti (spirit-houses). They 

 are of the usual size and shape of dwelling-houses, but the walls are 

 of coral stone, and they have no loft, or upper division. The door- 

 way is always in the west end, because the Kainakaki, or country of 

 spirits, lies in that direction. In the middle of the house a sort of altar, 

 or stout pillar of coral stone, is built up to the height of three feet and 

 a half, having in the centre a hollow about ten or twelve inches in 

 diameter. To this hollow the priest applies his ear, and is supposed 

 to receive from thence the instructions of his divinity. The building, 

 it should be observed, is not considered essential, and the pillar some- 

 times stands uncovered on the beach. 



The true signification of anti seems to be deified spirit. The usual 

 expression for soul is tamune or tdmre, meaning properly shadow. 

 They believe that as soon as a person dies, his spirit or shade ascends 

 into the air, and is carried about for a time by the winds whitherso- 



* It was often impossible, in writing down words from the pronunciation of Kirby and 

 Grey to determine, when they began with t, whether this letter was a part of the word, 

 or merely the prefixed article te. In this case we at first supposed that tibonga was a 

 contraction of te ibonga ; it may, however, be merely a corruption of the Polynesian 

 word tufunga, the/ becoming b in the Tarawan language. 



