To pass on to more unequivocal cases of stake-worship, where we can hardly doubt that the stake represents a dead man, Captain Cook noticed that in the Society Islands “the carved wooden images at burial-places were not considered mere memorials, but abodes into which the souls of the departed retired.” So Ellis observes of Polynesians generally that the sacred objects might be either mere stocks and stones, or carved wooden images, from six to eight feet long down to as many inches. Some of these were to represent “tu,” divine manes or spirits of the dead; while others were to represent “tu,” or deities of higher rank and power. To my mind, this is almost a distinction without a difference; the first being ghosts of recently deceased ancestors, the second ghosts of remoter progenitors. The ancient Araucanians again fixed over a tomb an upright log, “rudely carved to represent the human frame.” After the death of New Zealand chiefs, wooden images, 20 to 40 feet high, were erected as monuments. I might easily multiply instances; but I refrain lest the list grow tedious. Dr. Codrington notes that the large mouths and lolling tongues of many New Zealand and Polynesian gods are due to the habit of smearing the mouth with blood and other offerings. Where men preserve the corpses of their dead, images are not so likely to grow up; but where fear of the dead has brought about the practice of burial or burning, it is reasonable that the feelings of affection which prompted gifts and endearments to the mummy in the first stage of thought should seek some similar material outlet under the altered circumstances. Among ourselves, a photograph, a portrait, the toys of a dead child, are preserved and cherished. Among savages, ruder representations become necessary. They bury the actual corpse safely out of sight, but make some rough wooden imitation to represent {133}it. Thus it does not surprise us to find that while the Marianne Islanders keep the dried bodies of their dead ancestors in their huts as household gods, and expect them to give oracles out of their skulls, the New Zealanders, on the other hand, “set up memorial idols of deceased persons near the burial-place, talking affectionately to them as if still alive, and casting garments to them when they pass by,” while they also “preserve in their houses small carved wooden images, each dedicated to the spirit of an ancestor.” The Coast Negroes “place several earthen images on the graves.” Some Papuans, “after a grave is filled up, collect round an idol, and offer provisions to it.” The Javans dress up an image in the clothes of the deceased. So, too, of the Caribs of the West Indies, we learn that they “carved little images in the shape in which they believed spirits to have appeared to them; and some human figures bore the names of ancestors in memory of them.” From such little images, obviously substituted for the dead body which