128 Notes on the Customs of Mota, Banks Islands. 



from the first climbing for the cocoanuts through all the 

 processes of cooking ; fights, fishing, accidents at sea — every- 

 thing almost. Among them was a canoe attacked, as I sup- 

 posed when I first saw it, by demons. It was not till long after- 

 wards that I found out my supposed demons were only ghosts. 

 It is by ghosts (tamate), not by other spirits, that evils 

 are inflicted on mankind. Some are vaguely dreaded, as 

 that ghosts should eat men. The "ghosts of the sea" use 

 flying fishes and others as spears or arrows. If one of these 

 fishes strike a man he is supposed to have been shot by a 

 tamate. Men and children were sometimes possessed by 

 ghosts. When a man was possessed by a " wandering 

 ghost," as the natives say, he was supernaturally strong 

 and agile. He rushed from place to place, shouting and 

 making peculiar noises. Such a man was seized by the 

 neighbours and held in the fumes of strong-smelling herbs 

 while they called the names of the dead men whose ghosts 

 might be supposed to have possessed him. When the right 

 name was called the patient cried out that " It was he," and 

 forthwith recovered. A child was sometimes supposed to 

 be possessed when it was lingering in wasting sickness. It 

 had strayed, perhaps, on a grave, or some haunted place ; 

 and a tamate had entered it, and was drawing out its soul. 

 Certain women knew how to cure the child by muttered 

 charms, blowing on the eyes, and calling the name of the 

 man whose ghost was supposed to be killing the child. 

 When the right name was called the patient revived. 



[I have observed among many tribes in Fiji, and in Australia also, what 

 seems to be a notion that tbe ghost does not get free from the body until the 

 fourth day after death. Hence, perhaps, the blowing of conchs at Mota on the 

 fifth day to scare the " tamate" away. The atai has become a tamate, and 

 is now to be dreaded. Among the lower savages I think the dead are always 

 supposed to be malevolent towards the living; and even with those of higher 

 culture the old dread lingers long. The Fijian, for instance, deifies his ances- 

 tors, honours them, and worships them ; and yet he is terribly afraid of the 

 lately dead, and adopts all manner of queer precautions against them. Pro- 

 pitiation suggested by fear lies, I believe, at the root of ancestral worship. 



The very objectionable diet of the Mota ghosts seems to be the result of a 

 fair process of reasoning. Ghosts are dead men, and such matters may not 

 unnaturally be looked upon as "dead food." See Taylor's Te Ika, a Maui, 

 for an account of a like belief among the Maories. It is not, as far as I know, 

 a Fijian belief. 



1 he chaste young ghost of Mota would fare badly if he were to betake him- 

 self to the Fijian Hades, for there is a terrible god with a terrible name in the 

 path, who is utterly implacable towards bachelors. 



I have seen somewhere a long list of demons who are to be called by name 

 in cases of possession at the present day among Roman Catholics. This 

 method of exorcism was used, I believe, as late as 1861, during the prevalence 

 of the strange phenomena which appeared at Morzine.* This is a very 

 curious instance of the survival of a savage custom in civilisation. 



* See " The Devils of Morzine," Cornhill Magazine, Vol. XI., p. 468. 



