[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

132 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN. PACIFIC

on my shoulder, while legions of starved fleas
attacked my limbs, forcing me to beat a hasty
though belated retreat.

In the afternoon about sixty pigs were tied to
poles in front of the gamal, and the chief took an
old gun-barrel and smashed their heads. They
represented a value of about six hundred pounds!
Dogs and men approached the quivering victims,
the dogs to lick the blood that ran out of their
mouths, the men to carry the corpses away for the
feast. This was the prosaic end of the great “sing-
sing."

As it is not always easy to borrow the number
of pigs necessary to rise in caste, there are charms
which are supposed to help in obtaining them.
Generally, these are curiously shaped stones, some-
times carved in the shape of a pig, and are carried
in the hand or in little baskets in the belt. Such
charms are, naturally, very valuable, and are handed
down for generations or bought for large sums.
On this occasion the “big fellow-master” had
sacrificed enough to attain a very high caste indeed,
and had every reason to hold} Up his head with
great pride.

Formerly, these functions were generally graced
with a special feature, in the shape of the eating of a
man. As far as is known, the last cannibal meal took
place in 1906; the circumstances were these: Some
young men were walking through the forest, carrying ‘
their Snider rifles, loaded and cocked as usual, on their
shoulders. Unluckily, one of the rifles went off, and