172 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



the same meaning in some islands of the Tabui group, ^^® with the emung 

 (Lhota) and amung (Ao) of other Naga tribes. ^^^ As in the Naga hills 

 the soul is liable by wandering to cause sickness of the body, but can be 

 recalled and brought back to it ^^^ ; and the Marquesan medicine man ^^® 

 removes disease in a concrete form precisely like the Naga thumomi, 

 chafing the limbs with aromatic leaves and producing after a little massage 

 the particular piece of ' dirt,' generally a fragment of rough stone, by 

 sleight of hand or from under the tongue and pretending it came from 

 inside the patient's body. 



Seven appears in the Marquesas to be an unlucky number,^^" as it is 

 to the Angami tribe, and thieves are divined both there and in the Naga 

 hills by looking into the globules of rain water that collect at the top 

 of the stalk in the leaf of the wild arum, while seers of both areas practise 

 ventriloquy. ^^^ 



Turning to their material culture, it is remarkable to find the taro 

 cultivated in the Marquesas on terraced and irrigated platforms ^^^ as 

 rice is by the Angami, who, like the Marquesans, used to use the much 

 valued conch shell as an article of barter almost as a currency,^^^ and who, 

 like the Marquesans again, practise stilt-walking ^^* on the paved areas 

 to be seen in most villages which form the scene of public entertainment. 

 In the Marquesas again we find the Fijian game of vei-tingga,^^^ which 

 the Angamis call phyelida, practised under the name of teka. 



All these parallels in the Marquesas have so far been with the Naga 

 rather than with the Kuki group, but two parallels appear with those 

 in existence in the Marquesas of men who adopted the life and habit 

 of women, ^^® a practice typical of the Lushei and found in some other 

 Kuki-Chin tribes, and in the practice of sacrificing a victim for a dead 

 man which formed an essential element of Marquesan funeral cere- 

 monies,^^^ and which one may suppose was intended to provide for his 

 service in the next world, as it was by the Kuki, Lushei and Chin tribes,^^* 

 who sacrificed victims on the graves of the dead, though they did not, 

 like the Marquesans, devour their bodies. 



Attention should probably be called to the apparent ferocity of the 

 Marquesan character, differentiating them from the Polynesians of the 

 South Pacific. It has been suggested that this ferocity was due to their 

 rugged environment with its deep valleys and high ranges, but it seems 

 more likely that it indicates the existence of some racial or cultural 

 element absent in Hawai and Tahiti. 



It is possible that Delmas's statement that among the Marquesans 

 hospitality forms a road to social distinction ^^^ indicates a system, or 



"6 Delmas, 62. "7 Mills, I, 26 ; II, 82, 252. 



^2* Delmas, 76. Cf. note "" above. 



1-5 Delmas, 76 ; Hutton, II, 231. "" Delmas, 133 ; Hutton, I, 252. 



"1 Delmas, 134, 77 ; Hutton, X, 36 sq. 



"2 Handy, 185 ; Hutton, I, 72. 



133 Voyage of the ' Duff,' 208 ; Hutton, I, 71. 



1'* Frazer, 339 sg. ; Mills, II, 155 ; Hutton, V. 



1^^ Handy, 297 sq. *^* Handy, 103 ; Shakespear, 55. 



1" Delmas, 116, 118. "s Shaw, 78 n." ; Parry, 206 ; Mills, II, 200. 



"9 Delmas, 87. 



