as the term for one of the two “souls” of the Bauro district.
In the Banks Islands and the New Hebrides the Indonesian word again becomes obvious, though it is only in Ambrim that, in the form of nin, the word is used for the soul. In Mota the shadow is niniai, while nunuai is used for a memory-image, such as the ringing of a sound in the ears. In Maewo in the New Hebrides nunu is used for the relation between a person and the influence which affected his mother before his birth.[1] At Nogugu in Espiritu Santo the shadow is nunin, and in the island of Malo nunu.
Nunu, or words evidently related to it, are thus used in many parts of Melanesia for the shadow, this being, so far as we know, the primary meaning of the word in Indonesia. In some parts of Melanesia, as in the Shortland Islands, San Cristoval, Ambrim, and probably in Duke of York Island, the word has also come to mean soul, while elsewhere it has acquired other meanings, all of which are related in some measure to the concept of soul.
It may be noted that if these ideas have passed from Indonesia to Melanesia and have become attached to the Melanesian concept of “soul,” they are all derived from the more personal aspect of the soul-substance of Indonesia. We have no evidence from any part of Melanesia of the belief in the impersonal form of soul-substance which justifies this name. Sympathetic magic, spitting as a medical remedy, cannibalism, head-hunting and other customs which are explained in Indonesia by the presence of soul-substance are widely prevalent in Melanesia, but nowhere have we any hint that these customs rest on a belief in an essence permeating every part of man, animal or thing, by means of which its properties can be imparted to another being or object.
In one part of Melanesia there is, however, an important set of beliefs which are possibly related to the Indonesian
- ↑ See History of Melanesian Society, vol. i. p. 151.
