attributed it to his being a foreigner, and being governed by different gods.”(502) Again, in Wallis Island “contact with a corpse subjects the hands to the law of taboo till they are washed, which is not done for several weeks. Until that purification has taken place, the tabooed persons may not themselves put food to their mouths; other people render them that service.”(503) A rule of the same sort is or was observed in various parts of Melanesia. Thus in Fiji the taboo for handling a dead chief lasted from one to ten months according to his rank; for a commoner it lasted not more than four days. It was commonly resorted to by the lazy and idle; for during the time of their seclusion they were not only provided with food, but were actually fed by attendants or ate their food from the ground.(504) Similarly in the Motu tribe of New Guinea a man is tabooed, generally for three days, after handling a corpse, and while the taboo lasts he may not touch food with his hands. At the end of the time he bathes and the taboo is over.(505) So in New Caledonia the two men who are charged with the duty of burying and guarding a corpse have to remain in seclusion and observe a number of rules of abstinence. They live apart from their wives. They may not shave or cut their hair. Their food is laid for them on leaves and they take it up with their mouth or a stick; but oftener an attendant feeds them, just as he might feed a man whose limbs were palsied.(506) So among the Nandi of British East Africa persons who have handled a corpse bathe in a river, anoint their bodies with fat, partially shave their heads, and live in the hut of the deceased for four days. All these days they may not be seen by boys or women: they may not drink milk; and they may not touch food with their hands, but must eat it with the help of a potsherd or chip of a gourd.(507) Similarly in the Ba-Pedi and Ba-Thonga tribes of South Africa men who have dug a grave may not touch food with their fingers till the rites of their purification are accomplished; meantime they eat with the help of special spoons. If they broke this rule, it is thought that they would be consumptive.(508) So in the Ngarigo tribe of New South Wales a novice who has just passed through the ceremony of initiation has to go away to the mountains and stay there for a while, sometimes for more than six months, under the charge of one or more old men; and all the time of his absence among the mountains he may not touch cooked food with his hands; the food is put into his mouth by the man who looks after him.(509)