world of ghosts; he ate of them, they say, when he was alive,
he will never eat again, and no one else shall have them." However, they
think that the ghost benefits by burial; for if a man is killed and his
body remains unburied, his restless ghost will haunt the place.[565] The
ghosts of such Florida people as have been duly buried depart to
Betindalo, which seems to be situated in the south-eastern part of the
great island of Guadalcanar. A ship waits to ferry them across the sea
to the spirit-land. This is almost the only example of a ferry-boat used
by ghosts in Melanesia. On their way to the ferry the ghosts may be
heard twittering; and again on the shore, while they are waiting for the
ferry-boat, a sound of their dancing breaks the stillness of night; but
no man can see the dancers. It is not until they land on the further
shore that they know they are dead. There they are met by a ghost, who
thrusts a rod into their noses to see whether the cartilage is pierced
as it should be; ghosts whose noses have been duly bored in life follow
the onward path with ease, but all others have pain and difficulty in
making their way to the realm of the shades. Yet though the souls of the
dead thus depart to Betindalo, nevertheless their ghosts as usual not
only haunt their burial-places, but come to the sacrifices offered to
them and may be heard disporting themselves at night, playing on pipes,
dancing, and shouting.[566]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Solomon Islanders that the souls of the dead
live in islands. The second death.]

Similarly at Bugotu in the island of Ysabel (one of the Solomon Islands)
the ghosts of the dead are supposed to go away to an island, and yet to
haunt their graves and shew themselves to the survivors by night. In the
island of the dead there is a pool with a narrow tree-trunk lying across
it. Here is stationed Bolafagina, the ghostly lord of the place. Every
newly arrived ghost must appear before him, and he examines their hands
to see whether they bear the mark of the sacred frigate-bird cut on
them; if they have the mark, the ghosts pass across the tree-trunk and
mingle with the departed spirits in the world of the dead. But ghosts
who have not the mark on their hands are cast into the gulf and perish
out of their ghostly life: this is the second death.[567] The same
notion of a second death meets us in a somewhat different form among the
natives of Saa in Malanta, another of the Solomon Islands. Al