667 



and brightening of the village life. The men, who rehearse- 

 the dance every evening, when they are not away on food 

 gathering or trading expeditions, decorate themselves more 

 and more sumptuously and completely. Their numbers 

 increase, the older men gradually joining in. Drums are hung 

 on the front parts of the verandahs, and so are arm-shells, 

 necklaces of Sapisapi and of other shell discs, with pendants 

 of boars' tusks, large shell discs, and plates inset with 

 Jequirity (the "Musikdha" of the Central Division). These 

 ornaments appear on the dancers during the performance. It 

 is to be noted that when the Govi is performed the drums are 

 hung in the house of the headman of the clan, who is also 

 the master of the feast. The houses are also decorated with 

 streamers of dry pandanus, twigs and palm-leaf ornaments, 

 which at certain dances are stuck into the belt and armlets. 

 When the Govi is danced, the Od\i leaves, which are also used 

 in the Udini magic (see below), are used to decorate the 

 houses. 



A very characteristic feature of the approaching feast is 

 the display of food, in which the houses of the headmen of all 

 the subclans are hung with sausages of sago. In the case of 

 a big Madnna this decoration is put up as many as four to six 

 months beforehand. Thus I saw the houses in Kiirere, where a 

 big feast was about to take place some time in March, decorated 

 with sago in October. The sago, as packed and prepared in 

 the Mailu district, goes bad in about four weeks, and the 

 packages fall to pieces in two months or so ; thus, as the final 

 display ought to be edible, the decoration has to be renewed 

 three or four times, with the result that immense quantities of 

 valuable food are wasted. In Mailu village, where the feast 

 in February, 1915, was to be a very small one, the sago 

 appeared at the beginning of January, and would have to be 

 replaced once only — or even the half -rotten material might be 

 distributed. A short time before the feast, the bananas are 

 hung up in long rows in front of the houses of the clan, or clans, 

 giving the feast. As the bananas are very perishable in the 

 hot tropical atmosphere, many of them rot before being used, 

 as I have myself seen in Mailu. 



This wasteful display of sago and bananas is parallel to 

 the accumulation and partial waste of coconuts connected with' 

 the various coconut taboos (Gora) described in chap, iii., sec. 5. 

 The coconuts are brought together in the palm groves, and 

 arranged in neat rectangular figures under the coconut trees,, 

 covering the ground at times for a couple of square metres. 

 Before their time comes many of the nuts have sprouted to 

 an extent that they are no longer edible, and the waste 



