In the more recent cases the skeletons were entire, and fragments of the mats that had swathed the bodies still lay about them; but further in the bones had crumbled, bats' droppings had mingled with the dust, and the teeth and a few fragments of the jaws were all that was left. The attention now paid to graves in Niué is due less to the influence of the Mission than to the superstition of the people. The Mission has never been able to cure them of their belief in ghosts. When a man is sick to death his friends bring him food (which he is long past eating) and say, "Grant our request; if go you must, go altogether." But his dying promise is not enough. As soon as the breath is out of him they lay a fragment of white bark cloth beside the body, and sit watching for an insect to crawl on to it. The insect is the dead man's _mou'i_, the soul (literally, "life"), and it is carefully wrapped up and buried with the body. The grave having been dug and the body, washed, oiled, and wrapped in bark cloth, laid in it, heavy stones are piled upon it to keep the _aitu_ down. The dome of concrete, plastered without a crack, is generally enough to baffle the most restless ghost, but there have been cases when it has defied even this precaution. About the year 1898 a woman, who had thus buried her daughter, fell ill of a lingering malady, which could only have been caused by the malevolence of the dead girl's ghost. With infinite difficulty she collected a load of firewood, which she stacked over the grave and ignited, reducing the limestone rock to powder. From that day she steadily recovered, and in that village, at all events, superstition will die hard.