according to their usages, that his death should be avenged. The hunters of the tribe go out with their lances and arrows to kill the first living creature they meet with, whether a man, a stag, a wild hog, or a buffalo."[24] Dr. Steinmetz himself quotes some other instances from the same group of islands, in which, when a man dies, his nearest kinsmen go out to requite his death by the death of the first man who comes in their way.[25] It is worth noticing that the Philippine Islanders have the very worst opinion of their ghosts, and believe that these are particularly bloodthirsty soon after death.[26] [Footnote 18: Petitot, _Les Grands Esqimaux_, p. 207 _sq._] [Footnote 19: Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 127.] [Footnote 20: _Cf._ _ibid._ ii. 129.] [Footnote 21: The latter object is suggested by some funeral ceremonies which will be noticed in a following chapter. Among the Dyaks, "a father who lost his child would go out and kill the first man he met, as a funeral ceremony," believing that he thus provided the deceased with a slave to accompany him to the habitation of souls (Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 459). Among the Garos, it was formerly the practice, "whenever the death of a great man amongst them occurred, to send out a party of assassins to murder and bring back the head of the first Bengali they met. The victims so immolated would, it was supposed, be acceptable to their gods" (Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 68).] [Footnote 22: _Cf._ Steinmetz, _op. cit._ i. 343.] [Footnote 23: Taylor, _Te Ika a Maui_, p. 221.] [Footnote 24: Earl, _Papuans_, p. 132.] [Footnote 25: Steinmetz, _op. cit._ i. 335 _sq._] [Footnote 26: Blumentritt, 'Der Ahnencultus der Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels' in _Mittheilungen der Geogr. Gesellsch. in Wien_, xxv. 166 _sqq._ De Mas, _Informe sobre el estado de las Islas filipinas en 1842_, _Orijen, &c._ p. 15.]