most necessary purpose, may they quit the room that has been
assigned to them. More than that, so long as the vessel is believed
to be at sea they must remain absolutely motionless, crouched on
their mats with their hands clasped between their knees. They may
not turn their heads to the left or to the right or make any other
movement whatsoever. If they did, it would cause the boat to pitch
and toss; and they may not eat any sticky stuff, such as rice boiled
in coco-nut milk, for the stickiness of the food would clog the
passage of the boat through the water. When the sailors are supposed
to have reached their destination, the strictness of these rules is
somewhat relaxed; but during the whole time that the voyage lasts
the girls are forbidden to eat fish which have sharp bones or
stings, such as the sting-ray, lest their friends at sea should be
involved in sharp, stinging trouble.

Where beliefs like these prevail as to the sympathetic connexion
between friends at a distance, we need not wonder that above
everything else war, with its stern yet stirring appeal to some of
the deepest and tenderest of human emotions, should quicken in the
anxious relations left behind a desire to turn the sympathetic bond
to the utmost account for the benefit of the dear ones who may at
any moment be fighting and dying far away. Hence, to secure an end
so natural and laudable, friends at home are apt to resort to
devices which will strike us as pathetic or ludicrous, according as
we consider their object or the means adopted to effect it. Thus in
some districts of Borneo, when a Dyak is out head-hunting, his wife
or, if he is unmarried, his sister must wear a sword day and night
in order that he may always be thinking of his weapons; and she may
not sleep during the day nor go to bed before two in the morning,
lest her husband or brother should thereby be surprised in his sleep