Among many of the sub-tribes--or tribal groups--of the Taiyal, especially those living in the eastern part of the Taiyal territory, the officiating priestess, in cases of serious illness, attempts to learn the decision of the ghost-ancestors, as to whether they will restore the patient to health, or whether they consider it time for him to join themselves. This she does by grasping tightly between her knees a bamboo tube which projects in front; on this tube she balances a stone with a hole pierced through it--an object which is considered sacred. Above this sacred object she waves her hands. If the stone remains balanced on the bamboo, it is thought the patient will recover. If it drops to the ground, it is believed that the ancestors have determined to call the ill man to themselves. In any case, if death is seen to be inevitable, relatives and friends of the dying man gather about his bedside and “wail his spirit across the bridge.”[85] The Dutch writers of the seventeenth century state that among certain of the aborigines of Formosa (which tribe is not specified) it was the custom to take the very ill man out of his hut, bind a rope of vegetable fibre or twisted vines about his body, and by means of this rope suspend him to the bent-down spring-branch of a tree, then release the branch, which release would have the effect of throwing the dying man violently to the ground, thus “breaking his neck and all his limbs.” The aborigines told the Dutch that they did this in order to shorten the suffering of the dying. But the Dutch missionary Fathers, who claimed to have witnessed this peculiar act of barbarity, seemed to think the real motive which actuated those responsible was to save themselves the trouble of tending the ill and dying. To whatever extent this custom may have prevailed in the days of the Dutch occupation of the island, it is, I think, no longer observed, either among the Taiyal nation of the North or among any of the various tribes of the South. Whether or not the giving up of this practice among those tribes where it formerly existed was due to the influence of the Dutch missionaries, I do not know. If so, it seems never to have been resumed. Among the tribes of both the North and the South, at the present time, the ill and dying are tended by priestesses and wailed over by members of the family--and, if a person of prominence, by other members of the village or community as well--until the breath has left the body.