[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

VAO 99

high-caste after three hundred or even one thousand
days. The soul remains in CONTACT with the world of
the living, and may be perceived as a good or bad
spirit of as much power as the man had when alive.
To obtain the favour and assistance of these spirits
seems to be the fundamental idea, the main object
of religion in the New Hebrides. The spirit of an
ancestor will naturally favour his descendants, unless
they have offended him deeply ; and the more power—
ful the dead ancestor was, the stronger and safer do
his descendants feel under the protection of his spirit.
If a man has no powerful ancestral ghost, he joins
some strong clan, and strives for the favour of its
tutelary spirit by means of rich sacrifices. The spirits
admit those who bring many sacrifices to their special
favour‘and intimacy; these people are supposed to
have gone half-way to the spirit-world, and even in
this life they are dreaded and enormously influential ;
for the spirits will help him in every way, the elements
are his servants, and he can perform the most terrible
sorceries. Thus he terrorizes the country, becomes
chief, and after death he joins the other ghosts as a
powerful member of their company.

The “Suque” transferred the hierarchy of the
spirit-world into this world, and regulated the‘number
of castes and the method of rising in caste; it also
originated the rules for entering into connection with
the other world. Its origin probably goes back to
one of those secret societies so highly developed in
Melanesia, of which I shall speak later.

Caste is obtained by sacrificing tusked pigs ; it is