Note 24 — Chapter III · RELIGIOUS AND MAGICAL BELIEFS

The powers of a dreamer, supernatural as they are, can only be acquired by supernatural means, through contact in one way or another with the spirits (i.e. the Lau or Čauga). One way of coming into contact with the spirits is by death. If a man should, as the natives put it, die and then come back to life again, he is, by that adventure, endowed with the power that makes a medicine-man. One man of the Aka-Ko̱ra tribe was pointed out to me as having obtained his powers in this way. It would seem that during a serious illness he was unconscious for some twelve hours or so, and his friends thought that he was dead. A medicine-man whom I met with in the A-Pučikwar tribe was said to have died and come to life again three times. Another man, whom I did not meet, was described to me as a great oko-ǰumu, and from the description given it seemed to me that he was subject to epileptic fits. As against this, however, Mr Man states that “epilepsy is a recognised form of malady, but the fits are not regarded in a superstitious light24.”