582 



unlucky in fishing. It is very important to note that the 

 taboo was called in this case Xehiir?/, and not Gora. Thus 

 the dead man's coconuts were called Xebiint (Una, and the^ 

 grave was said to be the Xehuru sign. And it was emphatic- 

 ally affirmed that the presence of the body was quite sufficient 

 to establish the taboo, and that never were any G6?r! signs 

 erected among the trees of the deceased or of the mourners. 

 But the presence of the body was the conditio ^ine qna non 

 of the Xehurn. Of this T was able to observe an interesting 

 concrete case. About four months previous to my arrival at 

 Mailu village, Bu'a, the former village constable and appar- 

 ently by far the most influential man in the village, died in 

 the jail at Port Moresby. His body remained there. As he 

 was a very important man, not only his relatives, but the whole 

 clan — and many men from the other clans^observed coconut 

 taboos on his account. Now, under normal conditions, his 

 and his mourners' trees would have been Xehvru, and no 

 Gora would have been placed among his trees. As his body 

 was not there, however, a Gora had been erected in the middle 

 of his plantations, and these were said to be Gora, and not 

 Xehuru. Thus his body, and his spirit, being far off, the 

 Gora, with its inherent magical sanction, had to be erected. 

 When the body was buried, not in the coconut grove, but 

 under the house, as was sometimes done in the olden days 

 (comp. chap, v., sec. 4), it nevertheless acted ns a Xehi/ru 

 token and sign of taboo, because it was near by. As a matter 

 of fact, the coconut plantations were never far away from 

 the village. 



A Gora was put up by all the other people who mourned 

 for the man (these were called Mc'igii raf/ji'ai), but were noti 

 the chief mourners (i.e., belonging to the Xandma and Do'd'e 

 groups). Also by all the other clansmen and tribesmen who 

 were not mourning, but who wished to honour the deceased 

 if he was a '"big man." The Gora sign consisted either of a 

 vertical sapling or of a kind of gallows, composed of two 

 verticals and one horizontal. Both used to be decorated with 

 coconut leaves : in fact, they had to be young leaves of a small 

 coconut tree. On coconut Goran the young leaves are said to 

 refer directly to coconuts. Thus I saw a mixed Gora standing 

 in the midst of a grove of mixed coconuts and betelnuts. On 

 it were coconut leaves, which were said to refer to the coco- 

 nuts, and betelnut stalks as a token of the betel. But it 

 must be noted that some Goras, having nothing to do with 

 coconuts, are also decorated with coconut leaves. 



When a Gora is to be erected the owner of the palms 

 gives away a quantity of nuts, to be eaten by the young men 



