Persons slain in battle were not invariably eaten, for chiefs of high rank were often spared this indignity, and if a friend of the dead man happened to be of the victorious party he might intercede to save the body from the oven. In such cases a truce is called, and the relations are allowed to come and remove the body for burial. At the funeral the mourners cut out their thumb nails and fixed them on a spear, which was preserved in the temple to remind them of the service done to them, and at the close of the war they made valuable presents to their benefactor to extinguish the debt. The abolition of cannibalism cannot possibly have had any results unfavourable to the race. It was an excrescence upon the religious and social system, and it might have been swept away without disturbing them in any way. In its later development, moreover, it was responsible for raids in which many lives were lost. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 39: It is strange that the only act of cannibalism seen by any member of the United States Exploring Expedition in 1840 was the eating of an eye--a part of the body which was nearly always thrown away.] [Footnote 40: _The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia_, p. 8.] [Footnote 41: _Erskine's Voyage_, 1853.] [Footnote 42: There is a well-worn story that the chief of Mongondro received a leg from which the Wellington boot had not been removed. Taking the leather to be the white man's skin, the chief was much impressed with the toughness of the superior race.] [Footnote 43: _Mission to Viti._] [Footnote 44: The Rev. F. Langham was the first to point out the test for these forgeries. The genuine forks are carefully finished at the root of the prongs; the forgeries have inequalities and splinters. Mr. H. Ling Roth has questioned this distinction, but I have never known it fail in the specimens I have examined.] CHAPTER VII RELIGION Ancestor-gods--Gods of the After-world--The Ndengei Myth--Luve-ni-wai--Mbaki--The Priesthood--Witchcraft--Kalou-rere.