INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1237 



is anything to be made out of the quarrel. When a war is decided upon, notice is 

 often sent to the other town to meet them on the boundary. A few spears are inter- 

 changed, and if anyone is hurt on either side it is generally sufficient for that day. 

 After hostilities are fairly begun, they simply wait for some opportunity to waylay and 

 attack each other. Peace-making is a much more interesting matter. The first proposals 

 are generally made by a neutral party. If both parties consent, they exchange plants of 

 a certain kind of draccena, which are then planted on their respective lands. They meet 

 in force, challenge each other, and some of the leaders, after pretending to fight, stop 

 opposite to each other, and by a sudden twist break off the points of their spears, 

 which are held under the heel for that purpose. Hostages are interchanged, and prepa- 

 rations made on both sides for a feast. The number of those killed on either side are 

 counted, and payment exchanged for each in diwara. The food brought by both parties 

 is mixed in one heap, and all eat together. They have no fear of treachery whilst this 

 peace-making is being carried on. 



And now we may suppose that To Ling has well nigh lived his life. His religious 

 ideas have been faint and indistinct, and yet he has the intuitive perception of good and 

 bad, of right and wrong, as he has also the consciousness of inferiority to some higher 

 power, the instinct of worship, and the feeling after God if haply he may find Him. 

 His idea of wrong-doing is to be mean, to thieve, to commit adultery or incest, to 

 fight without just cause, to murder, to accuse falsely, and to quarrel. If To Ling, 

 when feeling that death is near, desires to see again the old familiar places where he 

 has lived his life, his friends take him to look for the last time at the beach on 

 which he played when a lad, along the once accustomed paths, to his plantation, back 

 again to the tarcyu, or sacred ground, where he was first initiated into the Diik Duk 

 mysteries, then to the boundary ground where he had so often fought, and then home 

 again to die. His death is announced to all the village by the piteous wailings of 

 relatives and friends. After death he is washed and oiled and painted, as though he 

 were to take part in some great feast or ceremony. All his relatives and friends who 

 wish to honour him bring" their coils of money, beads, and other valuables, and place them 

 before him, or by his side. They do this, no doubt, that he may take it all with him 

 to the spirit-land, and so be a wealthy man there. It is, of course, only the spirit of 

 the property which he can take with him, and so long as they retain the substance 

 they are quite satisfied that he should take the remainder. As each man takes back 

 his property again, he breaks off a little from each article, and burns it in the fire 

 which is always kept burning near the corpse, and the friends have to pay for the 

 compliment. As to where To Ling has gone, and especially as to whether he stays 

 there all the time or not, his friends are not clear in their views. For some time after 

 death the spirit is supposed to be somewhere about the place where he lived, though 

 he must also have been to matana nioii (spirit-land) for a visit at all events. Their 

 ideas about this land, however, are very confused, as they . will also tell us that the 

 spirits live in the caves and rocks, that the good ones have plenty of good things to 

 eat, and are happy, that the bad ones have to eat filth, and are miserable. They had 

 a vague idea of a Superior Being, nara-i-lara-dat, which is Nara, who made us all, or 

 He who made us all. They have also traditions of the Creation, which was the 



