unction and exposure to the sun; in the Carolines, upon the
farthest west, it is still cured in the smoke of the family hearth.
Head-hunting, besides, still lives around my doorstep in Samoa.
And not ten years ago, in the Gilberts, the widow must disinter,
cleanse, polish, and thenceforth carry about her, by day and night,
the head of her dead husband. In all these cases we may suppose
the process, whether of cleansing or drying, to have fully
exorcised the aitu.

But the Paumotuan belief is more obscure. Here the man is duly
buried, and he has to be watched. He is duly watched, and the
spirit goes abroad in spite of watches. Indeed, it is not the
purpose of the vigils to prevent these wanderings; only to mollify
by polite attention the inveterate malignity of the dead. Neglect
(it is supposed) may irritate and thus invite his visits, and the
aged and weakly sometimes balance risks and stay at home. Observe,
it is the dead man's kindred and next friends who thus deprecate
his fury with nocturnal watchings. Even the placatory vigil is
held perilous, except in company, and a boy was pointed out to me
in Rotoava, because he had watched alone by his own father. Not
the ties of the dead, nor yet their proved character, affect the
issue. A late Resident, who died in Fakarava of sunstroke, was
beloved in life and is still remembered with affection; none the
less his spirit went about the island clothed with terrors, and the
neighbourhood of Government House was still avoided after dark. We
may sum up the cheerful doctrine thus: All men become vampires,
and the vampire spares none. And here we come face to face with a
tempting inconsistency. For the whistling spirits are notoriously
clannish; I understood them to wait upon and to enlighten kinsfolk
only, and that the medium was always of the race of the