A few days after this the corpse, now reduced almost to a skeleton, was brought up from the tunnel, and bisected longitudinally. The halves were laid a few feet apart, parallel and a short distance away from the two sides of the house. We were gathered in two companies against the walls, and were told to advance toward each other, carefully stepping over, and by no means to tread on, our half of the remains. And the two companies met in the centre. We now felt we were free, though not formally told so. We had made a fearful oath of secrecy. We preferred to remain and assist in the final order of the house. The doctor and elders now disarticulated the skeleton (for such it was, the man being dead now at least five weeks, and the decomposed flesh having almost all fallen away). The bones were put into the bark box on which stood the image. They were an addition to the contents of the Yâkâ, or family fetich. Then, at the close of three weeks' confinement in the house, we emerged in procession, the elders bearing the box and the image on the top, and proceeded to the village street. There the box and image were set; and a joyous dance was started with drum and song, with all the people of the village, male and female. A sheep or goat was killed, and a feast prepared. While the dance was going on, the elders around the box were bowing and praying to the image on their knees. From time to time a man would parade by, lifting his steps high and bowing low, and as suddenly erecting himself and strongly aspirating, "Hah! hah!" And the village was glad, for it felt sure no evil could now come to it. I was safe, and ready, at the next time of danger, to assist in torturing the next younger set of lads, for was I not a freeman of the family guardian-spirit? The box and image were stowed away in a back room of the village headman's dwelling, who would often take a plate full of food to it, as a sacrifice, and sometimes an offering of cloth or other goods; and the village felt safe. Nevertheless, the house was not torn down; it stood empty and unused. But if, even a year later, evil still fell on the village, the elders knew that something about the Malanda had not been rightly performed. And it must all be done over again with the next dead adult male (never a female) and with a new lot of neophytes. A woman may be subjected to a part of the above ceremonies if she is suspected of witchcraft, or if, on examination, she confess to using black art. To purge her of this evil, and to counteract the consequences of what she may have done, she is taken to the little hut over the end of the tunnel, and some of the above described ceremonies are performed over her; but she is never taken into the house, nor into the presence of the corpse. XIII. THREE-THINGS CAME BACK TOO LATE.