However, to return to our muttons--that of sacred fire, as produced by the Taiyal. On the ceremonial day when the “new fire” is to be kindled, the chief priestess of each group carefully unsheathes her “fire machine” from the wrapping of bamboo leaves in which it is kept swathed during the greater part of the year. This “fire machine” consists of two pieces of bamboo. One piece, used as a saw, is sharpened on one edge to a knife-like keenness; the other edge is left blunt. This blunt edge is held in the hand of the officiating priestess. In a shallow groove cut in the other piece of bamboo the priestess inserts the sharp edge of the short, wedge-shaped, bamboo saw. To and fro she draws it, chanting as she does so. Usually she is seated in the open, before the door of her hut, her congregation of apparently awestruck subjects being seated in a semicircle, at a respectful distance from her. Gradually the bamboo saw “eats” down through the other piece of bamboo across which it is being drawn. The sawdust resulting is as hot as that which is produced by means of the fire stick, or “drill,” already described, and by applying to this dust tinder--very dry grass, usually--and by blowing upon it, flame is produced. When the tinder actually lights, the priestess gives a cry of exultation, which is echoed by the waiting people; then feasting and dancing begin. This kindling of the sacred fire by the Taiyal priestesses occurs at the time of the celebrations in honour of the spirits of the ancestors of this tribe. These celebrations take place on the night of the full moon at seed-time and at harvest-time. The day before “full-moon night,” on these semi-annual occasions, the people hang balls of boiled millet, usually wrapped in banana leaves, from the branches of trees, in or near their respective villages. These are to feed the ancestral spirits, which are supposed to descend through the air that night, from the high mountain on which they usually reside, into the trees at the moment of the kindling of the ceremonial fire. This fire lights the spirits on their way to the trees, from which the food is suspended--though moonlight also, it would seem, is necessary, since these “spirit-feeding” celebrations among the Taiyal occur always at full-moon time. In this connection I was much touched on one harvest-time occasion, when among the Taiyal, at being presented--by a grizzled warrior, tattooed with the successful head-hunter’s mark--with a mass of boiled millet carefully wrapped in a large banana leaf. This, he explained, was because he regarded me as a reincarnation of one of the Dutch “spiritual protectors” of his ancestors.