le sang, but just as the dawn was breaking the
wild music died away into silence. The wants of the living were now
attended to: the assembled people breakfasted on green coco-nuts; and
then, about an hour after sunrise, they withdrew from the body and took
up a position a little further off to witness the next act of the drama
of death. The drums now struck up again in quicker time to herald the
approach of an actor, who could be heard, but not seen, shaking his
rattle in the adjoining forest. Faster and faster beat the drums, louder
and louder rose the singing, till the spectators were wound up to a
pitch of excitement bordering on frenzy. Then at last a strange figure
burst from the forest and came skipping and posturing towards the
corpse. It was Terer, a spirit or mythical being who had come to fetch
the soul of the departed and to bear it far away to its place of rest in
the island beyond the sea. On his head he wore a wreath of leaves: a
mask made of the mid-ribs of coco-nut leaves or of croton leaves hid his
face: a long feather of the white tern nodded on his brow; and a mantle
of green coco-nut leaves concealed his body from the shoulders to the
knees. His arms were painted red: round his neck he wore a crescent of
pearl-shell: in his left hand he carried a bow and arrows, and in his
mouth a piece of wood, to which were affixed two rings of green coco-nut
leaf. Thus attired he skipt forwards, rattling a bunch of nuts in his
right hand, bending his head now to one side and now to another, swaying
his body backwards and forwards, but always keeping time to the measured
beat of the drums. At last, after a series of rapid jumps from one foot
to the other, he ended his dance, and turning round fled away westward
along the beach. He had taken the soul of the dead and was carrying it
away to the spirit-land. The excitement of the women now rose to the
highest pitch. They screamed and jumped from the ground raising their
arms in air high above their heads. Shrieking and wailing all pursued
the retreating figure along the beach, the mother or widow of the dead
man casting herself again and again prostrate on the sand and throwing
it in handfuls over her head. Among the pursuers was another masked man,
who represented Aukem, the mother of Terer. She, or rather he, was
dressed in dried banana leaves: long tufts of grass hung from her head
over her face and shoulders; and in her mouth she carried a lighted
bundle of dry coco