ABSTRACT
The word in Sa’a and Ulawa which denotes the employment of a magical charm that causes the death of a person is sVonga. This is the noun of the verb si’o which denotes the practice of black magic ; the transitive form is si’ohi, to practice black magic on anyone. In another connotation si’ohi means to find an article, to pick it up, as we say ; and doubtless the use of the word si’onga to denote the employment of malign magical influences is due to the practice of those who ‘ pick up ’ that which will serve their purpose. 1 The objects which are thus picked up for the purposes of black magic are the skins of areca nut, a scrap of food dropped, the parings of finger nails, spittle, a piece of the earth on which a person has trodden, the strip of coconut leaf with which the body is scraped after bathing, a portion of a person’s excreta. A form of black magic practiced by women is to take the afterbirth of a child and bury it in the rear of a house, a place tabu to men, along with the skin of an areca nut which the proposed victim has been eating. Extreme care was taken with the malaohu boys to prevent anyone bewitching them through the means of their excreta ; so they relieved themselves over the sea.
