104 AUSTRALASIA. 



and extract cocoanut oil for exportation. Gold, either in fragments or wrought 

 into jewellery, is their only currency ; and the chiefs delight in decking their hair 

 with golden plumes and attaching a golden crescent like a moustache to the upper 

 lip. The southern districts are traversed by a few carefully paved roads skilfully 

 constructed over the crests of the hills. But, unlike the Battas, they have not 

 acquired a knowledge of Hindu letters, and their ancient usages have been slowly 

 modified under exclusive Malay and Mussulman influences. 



At present their religious systfem has approached the vanishing point. The 

 main function of the éré, priests or priestesses, usually chosen by the chief from 

 his own family, is to invoke the bela, or intermediate spirits, who are familiar with 

 both the good and evil genii, and who can therefore be enlisted as helpmates and 

 accomplices in all undertakings. The priests also bless the nuptials by pressing 

 together the heads of the betrothed and offering some flesh to the protecting deity. 

 Marriages are exogamous and always a matter of purchase. But the price is 

 generally so exorbitant that the husband often runs great risk of forfeiting his 

 own and his children's freedom, especially as the amount of the debt is doubled every 

 year. Whole families have thus fallen into slavery for a liability originally 

 contracted by the purchase perhaps of a few pins or a coil of metal wire. The 

 albinos, somewhat numerous among the southern Niassi, are accredited to some 

 prowling demon, and usually badly treated. Adultery involves heavy fines and 

 often capital punishment, while girls who have had an " accident " are strangled 

 and thrown to the bush. 



The priests are above all medicine-men, that is, exorcists. For every ailment 

 there is a wicked sjjirit, whom the infallible priest never fails to expel by his 

 incantations, but who is replaced by other devouring genii, that is, whenever the 

 malady persits and is followed by death. When the end approaches, the friends 

 and kindred gather round the bed, howling and yelling till the jjatient breathes 

 his last. In the south these wailings are followed by an honourable funeral, the 

 body being borne through the village and the weapons of the deceased exposed 

 along the route. At the extremity of the coffin is placed the effigy of a bird 

 carved in wood ; then the bier is suspended beneath a canopy of foliage, and the 

 friends lie in ambush along the wayside to surprise and behead a few passing 

 men and women to the greater glory of the departed. In the case of a great 

 chief custom requires at least some twenty heads, to raise which indiscriminate 

 warfare is waged against the surrounding villages. Sometimes they are satisfied 

 with slaves, who, however, must die a lingering death under torture in order to 

 render the sacrifice more agreeable to the cruel demons. 



The inheritance usually passes from father to eldest son ; but the rule is not 

 absolute, and whatever child contrives by means of a reed to capture the dying 

 man's last breath, or persuade the assistants that he has done so, becomes ipso facto 

 a claimant for the fortune and paternal or political power of the deceased. Chiefs, 

 all powerful in theory, are nevertheless often fain to share the sovereignty with 

 their rivals, and, as a matter of fact, they rarely venture to decide in weighty 

 affairs without consulting the notables, or even all freeholders. In the assemblies 



