corpse, and such is their greed and appetite that they are also very dangerous to living men. People who collect round the dead body to mourn and wake over it often have a special spell against the mulukwausi recited over them, by the one who knows it. They are careful not to stray away from the others, and, during burial of the dead and afterwards, they believe the air to be infested with these dangerous witches, who spread the smell of carrion around them.
The mulukwausi will eat out the eyes, the tongue, and the ‘insides’ (lopoula) of the corpse; when they attack a living man they may simply hit him or kick him, and then he becomes more or less sick. But sometimes they get hold of an individual and treat him like a corpse and eat some of his organs, and then the man dies. It is possible to diagnose this, for such a person would quickly fail, losing his speech, his vision, sometimes suddenly being bereft of all power of movement. It is a less dangerous method to the living man when the mulukwausi instead of eating his ‘insides’ on the spot, simply remove them. They hide them in a place only known to themselves, in order to have provision for a future feast. In that case there is some hope for the victim. Another yoyova, summoned quickly by the relations of the dying and well paid by them, will, in the form of a mulukwausi, go forth, search for the missing organs, and, if she is fortunate enough to find and restore them, save the life of the victim.
Kenoriya, the favourite daughter of To’ulawa, the chief of Omarakana, while on a visit to another village, was deprived of her internal organs by the mulukwausi. When brought home, she could neither move nor speak, and lay down as if dead. Her mother and other relatives already began their mortuary wailing over her, the chief himself broke out into loud lamentations. But nevertheless, as a forlorn hope, they sent for a woman from Wawela, a well-known yoyova, who after receiving valuables and food, flew out as a mulukwausi, and the very next night found Kenoriya’s insides somewhere in the raybwag, near the beach of Kaulukuba, and restored her to health.
Another authentic story is that of the daughter of a Greek trader and a Kiriwinian woman from Oburaku. This story was told me by the lady herself, in perfectly correct English, learnt in one of the white settlements of New Guinea, where she had been brought up in the house of a leading missionary. But the story was not spoilt by any scepticism; it was told with perfect simplicity and conviction.
When she was a little girl, a woman called Sewawela, from the Island of Kitava, but married to a man of Wawela, came to her parents’ house and wanted to sell a mat. They did not buy it, and gave her only a little food, which, as she was a renowned yoyova and accustomed therefore to deferential treatment, made her angry. When night came, the little one was playing on the beach in front of the house, when the parents saw a big firefly hovering about the child. The insect then flew round the parents and went into the room. Seeing that there was something strange about the firefly, they called the girl and put her to bed at once. But she fell ill immediately, could not sleep all night, and the parents, with many native attendants, had to keep watch over her. Next morning, added the Kiriwinian mother, who was listening to her daughter telling me the tale, the girl “boge ikarige; kukula wala ipipisi,” “she was dead already, but her heart was still beating.” All the women present broke out into the ceremonial lamentations. The father of the girl’s mother, however, went to Wawela, and got hold of another yoyova, called Bomrimwari. She took some herbs and smeared her own body all over. Then she went out in the form of a mulukwausi in search of the girl’s lopoulo (inside). She searched about and found it in the hut of Sewawela, where it lay on the shelf on which are kept the big clay-pots, in which the mona (taro pudding), is cooked ceremonially. There it lay “red as calico.” Sewawela had left it there, while she went into the garden with her husband, meaning to eat it on her return. Had this happened, the girl