Note (return) — LECTURE XVII

The natives of Aneiteum, one of the Southern New Hebrides, worshipped the spirits of their ancestors, chiefly on occasions of sickness.604 Again, the people of Vaté or Efat, another of the New Hebrides, worshipped the souls of their forefathers and prayed to them over the kava-bowl for health and prosperity.605 As an example of prayers offered to the dead we may take the petition which the natives of Florida put up at sea to Daula, a well-known ghost, who is associated with the frigate-bird. They say: "Do thou draw the canoe, that it may reach the land; speed my canoe, grandfather, that I may quickly reach the shore whither I am bound. Do thou, Daula, lighten the canoe, that it may quickly gain the land and rise upon the shore." They also invoke Daula to help them in fishing. "If thou art powerful, O Daula," they say, "put a fish or two into this net and let them die there." After a good catch they praise him, saying, "Powerful is the ghost of the net." And when the natives of Florida are in danger on the sea, they call upon their immediate forefathers; one will call on his grandfather, another on his father, another on some dead friend, calling with reverence and saying, "Save us on the deep! Save us from the tempest! Bring us to the shore!" In San Cristoval people apply to ghosts for victory in battle, health in sickness, and good crops; but the word which they use to signify such an application conveys the notion of charm rather than of prayer. However, in the Banks' Islands what may be called prayer is strictly speaking an invocation of the dead; indeed the very word for prayer (tataro) seems to be identical with that for a powerful ghost ('ataro in San Cristoval). A man in peril on the sea will call on his dead friends, especially on one who was in his lifetime a good sailor. And in Mota, when an oven is opened, they throw in a leaf of cooked mallow for a ghost, saying to him, "This is a lucky bit for your eating; they who have charmed your food or clubbed you (as the case may be), take hold of their hands, drag them away to hell, let them be dead." So when they pour water on the oven, they pray to the ghost, saying, "Pour it on the head of him down there who has laid plots against me, has clubbed me, has shot me, has stolen things of mine (as the case may be), he shall die." Again, when they make a libation before drinking, they pray, saying, "Grandfather! this is your lucky drop of kava; let boars come in to me; the money I have spent, let it come back to me; the food that is gone, let it come back hither to the house of you and me." And on starting for a voyage they will say, "Uncle! father! plenty of boars for you, plenty of money; kava for your drinking, lucky food for your eating in the canoe. I pray you with this, look down upon me, let me go on a safe sea." Or when the canoe labours with a heavy freight, they will pray, "Take off your burden from us, that we may speed on a safe sea."606