covers all forms of evil magic or witchery. There is that which, directed against pigs, makes them run away from their owners into the bush; there is bulubwalata for alienating the affections of a wife or sweetheart; there is evil magic against gardens, and—perhaps the most dreaded one—evil magic against rain, producing drought and famine. The evil magic against canoes, making them slow, heavy, and unseaworthy, is also much feared. Many men profess to know it, but it is very difficult for the Ethnographer to obtain a formula, and I succeeded only in taking down one. It is always supposed to be practised by canoe-owners upon the craft which they regard as dangerous rivals of their own.
There are many taboos referring to an already constructed canoe, and we shall meet with them later when speaking about sailing and handling the canoe. But before that stage is reached, any defilement with any unclean substance of the log out of which the canoe is scooped, would make it slow and bad; or if anybody were to walk over a canoe log or stand on it there would be the same evil result.
One more point must be mentioned here. As we have seen, the first magical rite, of the second stage of construction, is performed over the prow-boards. The question obtrudes itself as to whether the designs on these boards have any magical meaning. It must be clearly understood that any guesswork or speculations about origins must be rigidly excluded from ethnographic field work like this. For a sociologically empirical answer, the Ethnographer must look to two classes of facts. First of all, he may directly question the natives as to whether the prow-boards themselves or any of the motives upon them are done for magical purposes. Whether he questions the average man, or even the specialist in canoe magic and carving, to this he will always receive in Kiriwina a negative answer. He can then enquire whether in the magical ritual for formulæ there are no references to the prow-boards, or to any of the decorative motives on them. Here also, the evidence on the whole is negative. In one spell perhaps, and that