time the master of the ceremonies and some eight to twenty other men,
who have aided him in choosing the tree and in clearing the jungle,
become strictly holy or tabooed. They sleep by themselves in a house
into which no one else may intrude: they may not wash or drink water,
nor even allow it accidentally to touch their bodies: they are forbidden
to eat boiled food and the fruit of mango trees: they may drink only the
milk of a young coco-nut which has been baked, and they may eat certain
fruits and vegetables, such as paw-paws (_Carica papaya_) and
sugar-cane, but only on condition that they have been baked. All refuse
of their food is kept in baskets in their sleeping-house and may not be
removed from it till the festival is over. At the time when the men
begin to observe these rules of abstinence, some six to ten women,
members of the same clan as the master of the ceremonies, enter on a
like period of mortification, avoiding the company of the other sex, and
refraining from water, all boiled food, and the fruit of the mango tree.
These fasting men and women are the principal dancers at the festival.
The dancing takes place on a special platform in a temporary village
which has been erected for the purpose. When the platform is about to be
set up, the fasting men rub the stepping posts and then suck their hands
for the purpose of extracting the ghost of any dead man that might
chance to be in the post and might be injured by the weight of the
platform pressing down on him. Having carefully extracted these poor
souls, the men carry them away tenderly and set them free in the forest
or the long grass.

[The wild mango tree not allowed to touch the ground.]

On the day before the festival one of the fasting men cuts down the
chosen mango tree in the jungle with a stone adze, which is never
afterwards put to any other use; an iron tool may not be used for the