This word is said by Wheeler to mean the lasting principle or essence of a human being and is also used for the shadow and the reflexion. When a man dies the nunu becomes a nitu or ghost, one cause of death being the catching of the nunu by a shooting-star, while some kinds of nitu also have the power of carrying off the soul. Defective intelligence is ascribed to loss of the nunu. In a case of this kind recorded by Wheeler the nunu, though taken in childhood, was said to be still present, and this apparent contradiction may possibly point to a duality in the concept.
In the Shortlands things have nunu, and a ghost to whom an offering is made eats the nunu of the offering. A dead man also takes with him to the next world the nunu of the objects which are destroyed at his death. There is thus much in common between the soul of the Shortlands and the personal form of the soul-substance of Indonesia.
In Eddystone Island (which, though only about fifty miles from the Shortlands, differs profoundly from those islands in culture), the soul is called ghalaghala, a word also used for the shadow and reflexion. When a man dreams, his ghalaghala leaves him so long as the dream lasts, and it leaves him permanently at death. The ghalaghala is said to be all over a man, thus accounting for the completeness of the reflexion seen in a mirror. Things also have ghalaghala. When an object is burnt in the rites after death its ghalaghala goes with the ghost to the place of the dead in Bougainville.
It is quite clear that there was only one word in Eddystone Island for the soul, but some of the death-rites[1] suggest the double nature of the corresponding concept. Soon after death a rite is performed in which the ghalaghala is caught and put under the ridge-pole of the house. While the ghalaghala is under the roof of the house a second ceremony takes place in connection with which the ghalaghala is said to go to a cave near the highest point of the
- ↑ I am indebted to Mr. Hocart for the account of these rites.
