Psychosurgery is a medical technique that can be used to treat the symptoms of psychological disorders. The technique is the most invasive of all the biological therapies and is also the least used because its effects are irreversible. For many centuries a crude psychosurgical technique called trepanning was used to try and help patients suffering from mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Tr...

with the actions of evil-spirits, and the symptoms of both low and violent deliriums are considered by the villagers to be the plays of devils only. Various methods of treatment ave in vogue, and at times, resorted to, when a man has the ill-luck to be possessed by a devil. If a man gets seriously ill, just after fishing at night, he is supposed to be possessed by a water devil, which goes by t...

The Proto-Oceanic etymon *tabu has hardly been studied outside Polynesian, yet it is attested in other Oceanic languages — albeit with different meanings. This study describes the polysemies observed for modern reflexes of *tabu, an initial focus on Vanuatu. Sometimes, words simply refer to mundane warning signs put up various locations fend off unwelcome visitors. But are more often linked sup...