Note 55 — LECTURE III ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE GREEK EPIC TRADITION OUTSIDE HOMER

According to the White Book of Papua for 1907, containing the governor’s report to the Federal Government, the only murder of a white man committed during last year was due to a wish for this medicine. A native called Hariki had built a new house and wished to make it strong and paint it with a mixture of red-clay and coconut-oil. For this purpose, it seems, special medicine was necessary, and in order to have it as strong as possible, Hariki determined to get it from a white man. He obtained it by killing a market-gardener called Weaver, with whom he was on quite friendly terms. Indeed, when the medicine had been obtained, Hariki and his friends ‘proceeded, under the guidance of one of the party who was skilled in charms,’ to bring Weaver back to life. They began at the feet, and succeeded, so they said, in reviving all the lower part of the body; but there was a great wound in the chest which they could not pass. So at last they hid the corpse away, and arranged that it should seem to have been eaten by alligators.