Secondly, the discharged excrement and urine.  This, for some reason, only applies to the case of an infant or quite young child.  Here again I could not learn the reason for the limitation; but it is confirmed by the fact that grown-up persons take no pains whatever to avoid the passing of these things into the possession of other people, whereas, as regards little children, the mothers or other persons having charge of them always take careful precautions.  The mother picks up her little child’s excrement, and wraps it in a leaf, and then either carefully hides it in a hole in the ground, or throws it into the river, or places it in a little raised-up nest-like receptacle, which is sometimes erected near the house for this purpose, and where also it is regarded as being safe.  One of these receptacles, shaped like an inverted cone, is shown in Plate 91, and a somewhat similar one is seen in Plate 64.  As regards the urine, she pours upon it, as it lies on the ground or on the house floor or platform, a little clean water which she obtains from any handy source, or sometimes from a little store which, when away from other water supply, she often carries about with her for the purpose.  I could get no information as to the way in which the sorcerer would use the excrement or urine as a medium for hostile purposes; though there is apparently no process similar to that of the fire used in connection with the inedible food remnants of the adult.

It will have been noticed that the mode of rendering the inedible food remnants of a grown-up person immune from sorcery, and one of the methods of making the infants’ excrement immune, is that of throwing them into the river; and even as regards infants’ urine, which apparently is not, and as a rule hardly could be, actually thrown into the river, the protection is obtained by pouring water upon it.  I think that the belief among the islands of the Pacific in the power of water to protect against the machinations of spirits or ghosts is not confined to the Mafulu natives, or indeed to those of New Guinea.  Dr. Codrington mentions its existence as regards human excrement in Melanesia. [113] I would also refer to a custom of the Mafulu women after childbirth of throwing the placenta into the river, a practice which is similar to that of the Koita women, who drop the placenta into the sea. [114] Probably these practices relating to placenta are also based upon some idea of protection from sorcerers and spirits, although I was informed that among the Mafulu there is no superstitious fear connected with the matter now.  If the custom is in fact superstitious in origin, the list of media for the use of sorcery already given by me requires enlarging. [115]

Serious illness or death of either an adult or an infant, if not caused by visible accident, is by the Mafulu, as by other natives, generally attributed, subject to limitations, to the sorcerers.  The belief of the Mafulu as to this arises if the victim, being an ordinary person, is comparatively young, or in the strength of life, say under forty or forty-five, or if the victim, being a chief or a member of a chief’s family or a person of very high position, is even over that age, unless he is very old, and old age is recognised as the natural cause of his illness or death.