There is another and a very quaint myth of the Origin of Death in Banks
Island. At first, in Banks Island, as elsewhere, men were immortal. The
economical results were just what might have been expected. Property
became concentrated in the hands of the few--that is, of the first
generations--while all the younger people were practically paupers. To
heal the disastrous social malady, Qat (the maker of things, who was more
or less a spider) sent for Mate--that is, Death. Death lived near a
volcanic crater of a mountain, where there is now a by-way into Hades--or
Panoi, as the Melanesians call it. Death came, and went through the
empty forms of a funeral feast for himself. Tangaro the Fool was sent to
watch Mate, and to see by what way he returned to Hades, that men might
avoid that path in future. Now when Mate fled to his own place, this
great fool Tangaro noticed the path, but forgot which it was, and pointed
it out to men under the impression that it was the road to the _upper_,
not to the _under_, world. Ever since that day men have been constrained
to follow Mate's path to Panoi and the dead. {188} Another myth is
somewhat different, but, like this one, attributes death to the
imbecility of Tangaro the Fool.