(M217) Some of the Papuans on the northern coast of New Guinea also believe in the transmigration of souls. They hold that at death the souls of human beings sometimes pass into animals, such as cassowaries, fish, or pigs, and they abstain from eating the animals of the sort in which the spirits of the dead are supposed to have taken up their abode.(886) For example, at Masur in Dutch New Guinea there are people who imagine that the spirits of their ancestors transmigrated into cassowaries, and accordingly they will not partake of the flesh of the long-legged bird.(887) In Simbang, a village at the mouth of the Bubui river in German New Guinea, there is a family who will not harm crocodiles, not merely because they fear the vengeance of the creatures, but also because they reckon crocodiles their kinsfolk and expect that they themselves will turn into crocodiles at death. As head of the family they recognise a certain aged crocodile, everywhere known as “old Butong,” who is said to have been born of a woman at Simbang.(888) They think that while they are at work in the fields, and the houses stand empty, their ancestors come forth from the river and repair to the place in the roof where the mysterious bull-roarers are kept, which make a humming sound at the initiatory rites of young men. But when the people return from the fields they find the houses as empty and silent as when they left them: the spirits of their forefathers have plunged into the river again. If a crocodile carries off anybody, the natives are sure that the brute must be a stranger, not one of their own crocodile kinsfolk, who never would do such a thing; and if their neighbours at Yabim are so unfeeling as to kill a crocodile, the Bubui people protest against the outrage and demand satisfaction. Some Yabim people give out that after death their souls will be turned into certain fabulous cave-haunting swine, and accordingly their relatives refuse to spear or to eat the real wild swine. If these animals break into and ravage the fields, their human kinsfolk attempt to appease them with offerings of coco-nuts and other valuable articles.(889) Similarly in Tamara, an island off the coast of German New Guinea, the people will not eat pork, because it is their conviction that the souls of the dead transmigrate into the bodies of pigs.(890) The Kai people, who inhabit the rugged and densely wooded mountains inland from Finsch Harbour in German New Guinea, imagine that the gloomy depths of some wild ravines are haunted by the souls of the dead in the form of cuscuses and other animals. None but the owner has the right to kill game in these dark and awful gullies, and even he must propitiate the soul of every animal that he slays in such a spot. For this purpose he spreads out offerings on the carcase and presents them to the injured spirit, saying, “Take the gifts and leave us the animal, that we may eat it.” After leaving the articles