At the end of the kwod was a forked post; on this were hung, after the war-dance, the decapitated heads of the enemy that had been slain in battle. In front of this post are stones which mark the spot where the wedding-gifts were heaped of a certain legendary spirit named Tapĕbu who married a Mabuiag girl.
On some of the rocks beyond the ceremonial camp we found a few simple pictographs; we photographed and sketched some of these. One group consists of two mŭri dancing, and another beating a drum. A mŭri is a spirit that descends and ascends water-spouts. It has only two front teeth in each jaw. The water-spout is called in Mabuiag klak markai, or “the spear of the spirits.” It is with these that the spirits (markai) catch dugong and turtle.
Fig. 14.
Drawing by Gizu of Mŭri ascending a water-spout (baiu). The black cloud above is called baib, and the spray sap. One water-spout is spearing a dugong.
Under some of the boulders were a few human bones in a very bad state of repair.
Later on we struggled towards the centre of the island, scrambling up and over boulders, and forcing our way through dense tangled bush. Finally we came to an immense block of stone, the eastern face of which overhung to a considerable extent, forming a small, low cave, which some fifteen or twenty years ago had been nearly filled up with earth by a South Sea teacher. In the old days, this cave was the storehouse of the skulls that were obtained in the forays. Most of the skulls were placed in heaps at the back of the cave, while some were kept in two long baskets. In this cave were also kept the two ceremonial stone clubs and the sacred emblems, the mysterious kotibu and giribu. The skulls in the baskets were painted red, and were said to have been provided with noses made of beeswax and eyes of mother-of-pearl, but this was probably done in only a few cases. Forty-nine of the skulls from this cave were obtained by the British Museum (Natural History Museum) from the Rev. S. Macfarlane, and the collection has been described by Mr. Oldfield Thomas in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xiv. p. 328.
The mouth of the cave was built up on each side with large Fusus shells. Now the glory and mystery have departed, and earth and stones almost entirely fill up the space beneath the overhanging rock. We obtained one or two broken skulls and a number of fragments of skulls.
When any man was on his way to visit the augŭds kotibu and giribu, the latter left their respective baskets in which they were kept and came to the entrance of the cave, but when the visitor came close, the augŭds returned to their baskets and made a scraping noise; but the man never saw them moving, he only found them lying in their baskets.
Outside the cave are two oblong patches of Fusus shells, called respectively koi mat and mŭgi mat; the former belonged to the big augŭd, and the latter to the little one. Each mat was called the mari of the augŭd. A mari is a spirit, shadow, or reflection.