Here on the south coast the strange fashion obtains of deforming the head. This habit is very rare in the Pacific, and restricted to two small districts. It is now purely a matter of fashion or vanity,--the longer the head, the handsomer the individual is thought to be,--but probably there was originally some religious or hygienic notion at the bottom of the peculiar custom. The operation is begun about a month after birth, by rubbing the child's head with grease and soot, and then putting on a small cap of braided pandanus fibre, which is very tight and allows the head to develop only in the direction of the crown. When the cap becomes too tight, it is cut off, and another, a little larger, put on, until the parents are satisfied with the shape of the child's head. These baby skulls have an extreme shape which is very ugly, and the whole process can hardly be agreeable to the patient; but the operation does not seem to have any prejudicial effect on the intellect, and in later years the shape of the head becomes somewhat less marked, although a man from the south of Malekula is always unmistakable. This region is remarkable, too, for its highly developed ancestor-worship. Although the general ideas on the subject are the same here as elsewhere in the archipelago, there is a special veneration here for the head or skull of deceased ancestors. The bones are generally used in making arrow-heads and lance-points, and the head, which is useless, is thrown away in most islands, or buried again; but in the south of Malekula, the heads are kept, and the face is reproduced in a plastic material of fibres, clay and sticky juice. The work is very cleverly done, and the face looks quite natural, with fine, slightly Semitic features. The surface is varnished and painted with patterns corresponding to the caste of the dead. Often the face has eyes made of bits of shell, the real hair is stuck on, and the plumes and nose-stick are not forgotten, so that the whole becomes an exact portrait of the deceased. Whether this head is to have a body or not is a question of caste. The higher the caste of the dead, the more completely is his body modelled. The heads of low castes are simply stuck on poles, higher ones have bodies of carved wood, often branches to indicate arms; but the bodies of the highest castes are composed of bamboo, fibres and straw, and modelled throughout in the same way as the head. They are covered with varnish, and every detail reproduced, including dress, ornaments and caste signs. In their right hands these statues carry a "bubu" or shell horn, and in their left, a pig's jaw. The shoulders are modelled in the shape of faces, and from these, occasionally, sticks protrude, bearing the heads of dead sons, so that such a statue often has three or four heads. These figures stand along the walls of the gamal, smiling with expressionless faces on their descendants round the fires, and are given sacrifices of food.