Notes on the Customs of Mota, Banks Islands, 133 



use the word to describe the individual unsubstantial being 

 connected with the substantial body, but distinct from it, is 

 very natural, and does not imply the belief that shadow 

 and soul are the same thing. 



17. Exit of Soul in Dreams, &c. 



It is thought that the " atai" goes out of the body in some 

 dreams, but not in all, and sometimes in sleep which has no 

 dream. Persons are believed, and believe themselves, to 

 have their atai go out of them in sleep to eat the newly 

 dead, not the flesh of the corpse, but the lingering life. 

 They are called talamaur. One such was watched for not 

 long ago, and heard to approach a corpse. One of the 

 watchers aimed at him with a stone, and in the morning 

 the talamaur was found with a fresh bruise on his arm, 

 which he said he had received as he went to the corpse. 



18. Souls of Beasts or Inanimate Objects. 



The Mota people had a notion that the pigs killed for a 

 funeral feast, the food laid on the grave, and the ornaments 

 with which the corpse was dressed, had their " atai" to 

 accompany his ; but they deny that under other circum- 

 stances pigs, or birds, or inanimate objects have "atai." 



19. Dances. 



Dances in Mota are absolutely devoid of religious or 

 superstitious meaning. The men and women dance sepa- 

 rately, and the dances are quite innocent. In Bishop 

 Pattesons Life a letter of his is given describing a feast and 

 common dancing to the drum as a religious ceremony. But 

 he discovered next year that he had been completely mis- 

 taken. He had a Loyalty Island Christian with him, who 

 interpreted every native custom at Mota in the worst sense, 

 as is too often the way of converts. Sir John Lubbock's 

 statement that " Dancing among savages is no mere amuse- 

 ment" is wrong for Melanesians. 



[I have not been able to discover the slightest approach to religious 

 sentiment in the Fiji dances. Some of them are very fine — real dramatic 

 representations with dialogue and appropriate action ; others are rhythmic 

 movements to a chanted accompaniment, whose words are often very filthy. 

 In some of the dances both words and gestures are grossly indecent. — L. F.] 



