CH. vn TO SANGIB AND TALAUT 163 



which supports the roof, and the djugugus, capitains laut, 

 and other officers stood around him facing us. 



Suspended to a rafter above our heads, I noticed a 

 number of Kttle painted canoes hung with the torn leaves 

 of coco-nut pabns, and in the middle of them was a pyra- 

 midal cage made of short wooden sticks like a European 

 boy's birdtrap, covered with the spathes of the banana 

 flowers, and decorated with coco-nut leaves like the'canoes. 



The canoes are undoubtedly for the spirits of sickness, 

 and I beheve, although I could obtain no information on 

 this point, that the ' tampat Got,' or god-cage, as Manuel 

 always called it, was a temple for the protecting spirit 

 — corresponding with the Empung rengarengan of the 

 Alfurs of Minahassa — of the house. The use of the fetich 

 canoes may be explained in this way. The natives of 

 Nanusa, and, in fact, of most of these regions, believe that 

 when a man is ill his own spirit is released from his body 

 and is replaced by the Sakit, or spirit of sickness. In 

 accordance with this view, their cures consist of various 

 attempts to call the spirit of the patient back again into his 

 body and to drive out the Sakit. The obvious means of 

 preventing sickness, then, is to provide some resting-place 

 for the Sakit in their houses which is more attractive to him 

 than the body of man. Being islanders and spending the 

 greater part of their lives upon the water, these simple 

 people naturally suppose that the spirits, both good and evil, 

 are mariners, and consequently wiU be more attracted by a 

 handsome and gorgeous canoe than by anything else. 



I was very anxious to obtain these canoes and the god- 

 cage for our museums in England, and consequently the 

 first business I had to transact in this house was an 

 attempt to barter some Manchester sheetings for them. 

 One of the lads in the house who could talk a little Malay 

 tried to persuade me that they were very poor things after 



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