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RITES OF BIRTH AND INITIATION 265
as hibiscus and wild ginger. Thus arrayed he steals at dead of
night into the ghamal where the novices are lying, and climbs
to the top of the lofty centre pole of the house. Here he begins
a low, Weird whistling. The awed novices, crouching on the
floor, whisper among themselves, and feel their flesh creep.
One of the guardians hurries in, tells them hastily that the
ghost of a famous ï¬Åghting chief who was killed in battle is about,
and then goes away again. The whistling becomes more and
more insistent and seems to come nearer. A light is brought
in, and in the dim shadow of the roof the boys discern a fearful
ï¬Ågure—unmistakably the ghost. Suddenly it slides down the
pole, lands at the bottom, and starts whirling and circling,
stamping rapidly and throwing up the dust among the terriï¬Åed
boys. As they shrink and try to flee from it, it makes as though
to clutch and grab them and after a. while rushes out of the
building and vanishes, again whistling weirdly in the darkness.
In another performance a man is painted and decorated like a.
corpse, and at night while the boys are sleeping he is strung up
aloft in the ghamal on a bamboo. The guardians depart. Then
this “corpseâ€ù begins to groan. The boys thus aroused get
a light and see hanging above them this ï¬Ågure groaning and
turning, whereat they are terriï¬Åed, believing it to be a ghost.
Again a number of men lie in rows with enormous nose-sticks
thrust through the septum. The novices believe that they are
ghosts asleep, and, quaking with fear, they are forced to go
up to them and touch them. In a fourth performance several
men stand in two rows and make a chain of their hands along
the top of which another man walks. In the darkness the boys
do not see the supporting hands, but are only aware of what
appears to be a giant striding along. Perhaps the most terrifying
experience which they have to endure is wrought by means of
luminous mushrooms. Forming a high barrier right across the
ghamal, faggot upon faggot of wild canes are laid down. To
the ends of these the luminous mushrooms are fastened, and
the men who are to perform rub their ï¬Ångers with these same
mushrooms to make them glow. Then in the dark they begin
to crack their thumb nails against the nails of their foreï¬Ångers
(as though squashing fleas), and thereby make thin clicking
sounds. This they do all together, and at the same time they
move about, opening and closing their hands, so that the luminous