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The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)

Note 150 — Chapter III · (continued 2)

Reading edition

G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 170 sq., 218 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 150 sq.; S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, pp. 641 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 184. According to Brown and Stair the ceremony described in the text was observed when a man had died a violent death, even when the relatives were in possession of the body, and in that case the insect, or whatever it might be, was buried with the corpse. I have followed Turner and Ella in supposing that the ceremony was only observed when the corpse could not be found. As to the fear of the spirits of the unburied dead, see also W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 58 sq., 151.

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