The task of routing out the
demons and banishing them devolves chiefly on women. Dressed in
their finest array, they go in procession through the village. One
of them carries a small sucking pig in a basket on her back; and all
of them bear wands, with which they belabour the little pig at the
appropriate moment; its squeals help to attract the vagrant spirits.
At every house the women dance and sing, clashing castanets or
cymbals of brass and jingling bunches of little brass bells in both
hands. When the performance has been repeated at every house in the
village, the procession defiles down to the river, and all the evil
spirits, which the performers have chased from the houses, follow
them to the edge of the water. There a raft has been made ready and
moored to the bank. It contains offerings of food, cloth,
cooking-pots, and swords; and the deck is crowded with figures of
men, women, animals, and birds, all made out of the leaves of the
sago palm. The evil spirits now embark on the raft, and when they
are all aboard, it is pushed off and allowed to float down with the
current, carrying the demons with it.
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