It will have been noticed that the mode of rendering the inedible food remnants of a grown-up person immune from sorcery, and one of the methods of making the infants’ excrement immune, is that of throwing them into the river; and even as regards infants’ urine, which apparently is not, and as a rule hardly could be, actually thrown into the river, the protection is obtained by pouring water upon it. I think that the belief among the islands of the Pacific in the power of water to protect against the machinations of spirits or ghosts is not confined to the Mafulu natives, or indeed to those of New Guinea. Dr. Codrington mentions its existence as regards human excrement in Melanesia.[6] I would also refer to a custom of the Mafulu women after childbirth of throwing the placenta into the river, a practice which is similar to that of the Koita women, who drop the placenta into the sea.[7] Probably these practices relating to placenta are also based upon some idea of protection from sorcerers and spirits, although I was informed that among the Mafulu there is no superstitious fear connected with the matter now. If the custom is in fact superstitious in origin, the list of media for the use of sorcery already given by me requires enlarging.[8]
Serious illness or death of either an adult or an infant, if not caused by visible accident, is by the Mafulu, as by other natives, generally attributed, subject to limitations, to the sorcerers. The belief of the Mafulu as to this arises if the victim, being an ordinary person, is comparatively young, or in the strength of life, say under forty or forty-five, or if the victim, being a chief or a member of a chief’s family or a person of very high position, is even over that age, unless he is very old, and old age is recognised as the natural cause of his illness or death.
If the belief arises that the calamity, especially that of death, has been brought about by spiritualistic influence, the family will probably go to some person who is believed to be in touch with spirits and able to designate the culprit. I cannot say whether or not the person so employed is regarded as being a sorcerer in the full sense of the word, or as merely one of the inferior types of magic men above referred to. Probably he is only the latter, as I do not think there are any juvenile sorcerers among the Mafulu, and this particular person may be quite a young boy; indeed, there is in a village near to the Mafulu Mission Station a young boy who is supposed to have this power. As a matter of fact this boy is not quite right in his head; but this state of mind is not among the Mafulu in any way a necessary, or indeed a usual, qualification for a sorcerer or magic man of any sort. The person appealed to will perhaps tell them who has done the deed, or will make some oracular statement which will lead to his identification. The culprit identified by him will in any case be a member of another clan, and most probably of another community. When he has been discovered, there will probably be a fight, in which the members of the victim’s clan, or even, especially if the victim be a chief or big person, the whole of his community, will join the injured relatives, this question of suspected causing of death being, like that of non-repayment of the price paid for a runaway wife, one of the frequent causes of intercommunity fighting.
Reverting here to the matter of ghosts and spirits, one cannot help noting a similarity between, on the one hand, the ghostly element of living food plants and the ghostly element of human excrement, which constitute the food of the ghosts, and, on the other hand, the physical inedible remnants of food recently eaten by an adult victim and the physical excrement and urine of an infant victim, which are the media used for hostile sorcery through the power of spirits; though, as regards the latter, I have no evidence of a belief that the spirits eat them. I tried to get further into this matter, but was unable to do so. Again one is struck by the fact that the special gabi tree, which is the tree used for the interment of chiefs and notables, is one of the trees whose presence is regarded as indicating a place inhabited by spirits. These elements of similarity tend, I think, to suggest the possibility of some confusion in the native mind as to the difference between ghosts and spirits, or of some originally ghostly origin in what are now regarded as spirits.
The class of magic men who are something less than sorcerers, and whose powers are perhaps confined to the knowledge of certain specific forms of incantation, would probably include the person who does the nose-boring, and perhaps the person who detects the causes of death above referred to. It would also, I think, include the men who ascertain the whereabouts of a stolen article and discover the thief, and who perform the ceremony in connection with hunting, and the persons who effect, or profess to effect, cures of a more or less superstitious nature, all of whom are probably not regarded as full sorcerers.
The professional pig-killer is not, as such, either a sorcerer or a magic man in the minor sense; and, if there has originally been anything of a superstitious or magic character associated with him or his functions, I was unable to find any trace of it, except perhaps as regards the ceremony and incantation in connection with hunting, which apparently is commonly performed by him.
Charms.
The Mafulu people believe in charms. I have already referred to those used by young men desirous of marrying. But there are many other more important charms for various purposes, such as averting illness and death, success in hunting and fishing, and perhaps preservation in time of war. These charms may be stones, small pieces of different sorts of bark, flowers, or various kinds of poisons, though the poisons appear to be only used for averting illness and death. They are all procured from sorcerers, who may be of the same or of some other village, or of another community, and there are sorcerers who have specialities in certain sorts of charms. These charms are often carried inside the small charm bags already mentioned.
Omens.
They believe in omens; but of these I was only able to hear of two examples—namely, flying foxes,[9] and fireflies, the latter, though common in the plains, being rare on the mountains, and both of these are bad omens. Any person or party starting off on a journey, or on a hunting or fishing expedition, and meeting either of these creatures would probably at once turn back; and I was told that even a full war party starting off on a punitive expedition would turn back, or at least halt for a time, if it met one or other of them. I cannot help thinking there must be some other omens, which I have failed to discover.