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

150 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

the more probable that mysterious influences are at
work, and the native suspects enemies everywhere,
whom he tries to render harmless by killing them.
This leads to endless murders and vendettas, which
decimate the population nearly as much as the
diseases do. The natives know probably something
about poisons, but they are always poisons that have
to be mixed with food, and this is not an easy thing
to do, as every native prepares his food himself.
Most of the dreaded poisons are therefore simply
charms, stones or other objects, which would be quite
harmless in themselves, but become capable of killing
by the mere terror they inspire in the victim. If
the belief in these charms could be destroyed, a great
deal of the so—called poisoning would cease, and it
may be a good policy to deny the existence of poison,
even at the risk of letting a murderer go unpunished.
I therefore felt justified in playing a little comedy,
all the more as I was sure that the woman had
died of consumption, and I promised the chief my
assistance for the next morning.

I had my bed made in the open air; even the
boys would not enter the dirty house any more, and
we slept well under the open sky, in spite of the
pigs that grunted around us and the dew that fell
like rain.

Next day the chief called all the men together;
he was convinced that I could see through every
one of them and tell who had done any wrong. So
he made them all sit round me, and I looked very
solemnly at each through the finder of my camera,