ABSTRACT
Burnt offerings formed a regular feature of the religion of Sa’a and Ulawa. The word used denoting the burnt offering is uunu ola, to burn things. The special thing burnt was a pig. The pig might be of either sex, but it must be very young and still with its mother. This restriction was imposed to prevent any chance of the pig having eaten anything unclean and so being unfit for use in sacrifice. The offering of the pig was carried out early in the morning and everybody concerned was fasting. A creeper was tied loosely round its neck, along with a sprig of dracaena, and the pig was then held up and a ghost was invoked and bidden to kill it ; this he could do because he had the power. The idea held was not that the pig had died from suffocation, but that the ghost had caused its death. After death the pig was burned at the altar. Since the offering of a pig was the norm for burnt offerings, every other thing offered, a dog, a flying fox, the egg of a mega-pode, a cuscus, might be spoken of as a pig, in that they also were burnt in sacrifice.
