[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
57o MALEKULA asking him to manifest himself: " Natiii luau 111 atlanggu ran "mm gei ; mkmah nimaierou lvnggï¬Åmem av im, mbwztogh ar mbav tsemweh, mbwrmlgh malili m a1" (“ Children of me they they grasp on the bamboo here ; ghosts of old men of ours only, pull themthey go long way, pull return with them "). After a time the bamboo begins to jerk and sway about and all the men sing: “ Saul tzmah si I Mbiaviausur nimbu Mus. Save! temah si I " (" . ..ghostsl We will follow bamboo our own. . . .ghosts! "). Then presently the bamboo starts off on its career round the countryside, bearing with it its crew of singers. At one village it whirls round the gongs and beats them in the dead of night; at another it rises aloft and flies over it. If the ghost who is leading them be that of a " cranky " man, he will pull them round and round in circles until they tell him to go away and send another ghost. As in Seniang, it is believed that the bamboo and its crew can pass magically through the smallest nooks and er-zmnies and through the densest bush without touching a thing. The following morning men see by the tracks left whither it has pulled them. Thus, on one occasion when some men were performing taghtagh tzmah, one of the company cut his foot while they were going with the bamboo, and the next day they found his blood on a stone near a village several miles away from their own. In Lambumbu, as in Seniang, the connection of the ghost of the deceased with this performance is obscure; apparently his ghost may pull the bamboo, but the ghost of any other man is equally suitable as lielmsrnan. Deacon wrote concerning this ceremony: " The belief in the reality of the phenomena of taghtagh temah and similar rites is perhaps the most deeply rooted of all Malekulan beliefs concerning the actions of ghosts. Codrington records something very similar from Motlav.1 The resemblance to European “ spiritist " seances is unmistakable.â€ù On the ninth day after the death a ooeo-nut is put on the grave and left there during the night. This coco—nut is said to be “ all same " the soul (m'm'm'n) of the dead man. The following morning the soul departs for the Land of the Dead. The fathers sister (real, not classiï¬Åeatory) of the deceased comes to the grave and carries the coco-nut thence down to the sea. Here, standing at the water's edge, she pronounces the words 2 “ Kmm J * Codrington, 1891, pp. 211-12.
