Sir Ghost is the central figure of Manus religion and, in Fortune's account, very nearly its whole pantheon: the Manus recognised no creator and told no cosmogonic myth, resting their religious life instead upon the moral guardianship of the household dead. Each dwelling keeps the skull of its most recently deceased senior man, and it is this man, addressed and cajoled as Sir Ghost, who watches over the conduct of his kin. He secures good fishing, prosperous trade and the health of children for those who meet their obligations, and sends illness, drowning and death upon those who lie, default on debts or transgress sexually. His will is read in divinatory seances. His tenure is provisional: when a member of the household dies despite him, the guardian is judged to have failed, his skull is reviled and flung into the lagoon, and the office passes to the next man to die.