In a
sacred enclosure they were shown a row of dead or seemingly dead men
lying on the ground, their bodies cut open and covered with blood,
their entrails protruding. But at a yell from the high priest the
counterfeit dead men started to their feet and ran down to the river
to cleanse themselves from the blood and guts of pigs with which
they were beslobbered. Soon they marched back to the sacred
enclosure as if come to life, clean, fresh, and garlanded, swaying
their bodies in time to the music of a solemn hymn, and took their
places in front of the novices. Such was the drama of death and
resurrection.
The people of Rook, an island between New Guinea and New Britain,
hold festivals at which one or two disguised men, their heads
covered with wooden masks, go dancing through the village, followed
by all the other men. They demand that the circumcised boys who have
not yet been swallowed by Marsaba (the devil) shall be given up to
them. The boys, trembling and shrieking, are delivered to them, and
must creep between the legs of the disguised men.
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