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THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AND THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD

by

J. G. FRAZER, D. C. L. , LL. D. , Litt. D. 

Fellow of Trinity College, CambridgeProfessor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool. 

VOL. I

The Belief Among the Aborigines of Australia, the Torres StraitsIslands, New Guinea and Melanesia

The Gifford Lectures, St. Andrews 1911-1912

MacMillan and Co. , LimitedSt. Martin's Street, London1913

 _Itaque unum illud erat insitum priscis illis, quos cascos appellat Ennius, esse in morte sensum neque excessu vitae sic deleri hominem, ut funditus interiret; idque cum multis aliis rebus; tum e pontificio jure et e caerimoniis sepulchrorum intellegi licet, quas maxumis ingeniis praediti nec tanta cura coluissent nec violatas tam inexpiabili religione sanxissent, nisi haereret in corum mentibus mortem non interitum esse omnia tollentem atque delentem, sed quandam quasi migrationem commutationemque vitae. _

 Cicero, _Tuscul. Disput. _ i. 12. 

TOMY OLD FRIEND

JOHN SUTHERLAND BLACK, LL. D. 

I DEDICATE AFFECTIONATELY

A WORK

WHICH OWES MUCH TO HIS ENCOURAGEMENT

PREFACE

The following lectures were delivered on Lord Gifford's Foundationbefore the University of St. Andrews in the early winters of 1911 and1912. They are printed nearly as they were spoken, except that a fewpassages, omitted for the sake of brevity in the oral delivery, havebeen here restored and a few more added. Further, I have compressed thetwo introductory lectures into one, striking out some passages which onreflection I judged to be irrelevant or superfluous. The volumeincorporates twelve lectures on "The Fear and Worship of the Dead" whichI delivered in the Lent and Easter terms of 1911 at Trinity College, Cambridge, and repeated, with large additions, in my course at St. Andrews. 

The theme here broached is a vast one, and I hope to pursue it hereafterby describing the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead, asthese have been found among the other principal races of the world bothin ancient and modern times. Of all the many forms which naturalreligion has assumed none probably has exerted so deep and far-reachingan influence on human life as the belief in immortality and the worshipof the dead; hence an historical survey of this most momentous creed andof the practical consequences which have been deduced from it can hardlyfail to be at once instructive and impressive, whether we regard therecord with complacency as a noble testimony to the aspiring genius ofman, who claims to outlive the sun and the stars, or whether we view itwith pity as a melancholy monument of fruitless labour and barreningenuity expended in prying into that great mystery of which foolsprofess their knowledge and wise men confess their ignorance. 

J. G. FRAZER. Cambridge, _9th February 1913. _

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Table of Contents

Lecture I. --Introduction

Natural theology, three modes of handling it, the dogmatic, thephilosophical, and the historical, pp. 1 _sq. _; the historical methodfollowed in these lectures, 2 _sq. _; questions of the truth and moralvalue of religious beliefs irrelevant in an historical enquiry, 3 _sq. _;need of studying the religion of primitive man and possibility of doingso by means of the comparative method, 5 _sq. _; urgent need ofinvestigating the native religion of savages before it disappears, 6_sq. _; a portion of savage religion the theme of these lectures, 7_sq. _; the question of a supernatural revelation dismissed, 8 _sq. _;theology and religion, their relations, 9; the term God defined, 9_sqq. _; monotheism and polytheism, 11; a natural knowledge of God, if itexists, only possible through experience, 11 _sq. _; the nature ofexperience, 12 _sq. _; two kinds of experience, an inward and an outward, 13 _sq. _; the conception of God reached historically through both kindsof experience, 14; inward experience or inspiration, 14 _sq. _;deification of living men, 16 _sq. _; outward experience as a source ofthe idea of God, 17; the tendency to seek for causes, 17 _sq. _; themeaning of cause, 18 _sq. _; the savage explains natural processes by thehypothesis of spirits or gods, 19 _sq. _; natural processes afterwardsexplained by hypothetical forces and atoms instead of by hypotheticalspirits and gods, 20 _sq. _; nature in general still commonly explainedby the hypothesis of a deity, 21 _sq. _; God an inferential orhypothetical cause, 22 _sq. _; the deification of dead men, 23-25; such adeification presupposes the immortality of the human soul or rather itssurvival for a longer or shorter time after death, 25 _sq. _; theconception of human immortality suggested both by inward experience, such as dreams, and by outward experience, such as the resemblances ofthe living to the dead, 26-29; the lectures intended to collect evidenceas to the belief in immortality among certain savage races, 29 _sq. _;the method to be descriptive rather than comparative or philosophical, 30. 

Lecture II. --The Savage Conception of Death

The subject of the lectures the belief in immortality and the worship ofthe dead among certain of the lower races, p. 31; question of the natureand origin of death, 31 _sq. _; universal interest of the question, 32_sq. _; the belief in immortality general among mankind, 33; belief ofmany savages that death is not natural and that they would never die iftheir lives were not cut prematurely short by sorcery, 33 _sq. _;examples of this belief among the South American Indians, 34 _sqq. _;death sometimes attributed to sorcery and sometimes to demons, practicalconsequence of this distinction, 37; belief in sorcery as the cause ofdeath among the Indians of Guiana, 38 _sq. _, among the Tinneh Indians ofNorth America, 39 _sq. _, among the aborigines of Australia, 40-47, amongthe natives of the Torres Straits Islands and New Guinea, 47, among theMelanesians, 48, among the Malagasy, 48 _sq. _, and among African tribes, 49-51; effect of such beliefs in thinning the population by causingmultitudes to die for the imaginary crime of sorcery, 51-53; somesavages attribute certain deaths to other causes than sorcery, 53;corpse dissected to ascertain cause of death, 53 _sq. _; the possibilityof natural death admitted by the Melanesians and the Caffres of SouthAfrica, 54-56; the admission marks an intellectual advance, 56 _sq. _;the recognition of ghosts or spirits, apart from sorcery, as a cause ofdisease and death also marks a step in moral and social progress, 57_sq. _

Lecture III. --Myths of the Origin of Death

Belief of savages in man's natural immortality, p. 59; savage stories ofthe origin of death, 59 _sq. _; four types of such stories:--

(1) _The Story of the Two Messengers_. --Zulu story of the chameleon andthe lizard, 60 _sq. _; Akamba story of the chameleon and the thrush, 61_sq. _; Togo story of the dog and the frog, 62 _sq. _; Ashantee story ofthe goat and the sheep, 63 _sq. _

(2) _The Story of the Waxing and Waning Moon_. --Hottentot story of themoon, the hare, and death, 65; Masai story of the moon and death, 65_sq. _; Nandi story of the moon, the dog, and death, 66; Fijian story ofthe moon, the rat, and death, 67; Caroline, Wotjobaluk, and Cham storiesof the moon, death, and resurrection, 67; death and resurrection afterthree days suggested by the reappearance of the new moon after threedays, 67 _sq. _

(3) _The Story of the Serpent and his Cast Skin_. --New Britain andAnnamite story of immortality, the serpent, and death, 69 _sq. _; Vuatomstory of immortality, the lizard, the serpent, and death, 70; Nias storyof immortality, the crab, and death, 70; Arawak and Tamanchier storiesof immortality, the serpent, the lizard, the beetle, and death, 70_sq. _; Melanesian story of the old woman and her cast skin, 71 _sq. _;Samoan story of the shellfish, two torches, and death, 72. 

(4) _The Story of the Banana_. --Poso story of immortality, the stone, the banana, and death, 72 _sq. _; Mentra story of immortality, thebanana, and death, 73. 

Primitive philosophy in the stories of the origin of death, 73 _sq. _;Bahnar story of immortality, the tree, and death, 74; rivalry for theboon of immortality between men and animals that cast their skins, suchas serpents and lizards, 74 _sq. _; stories of the origin of death toldby Chingpaws, Australians, Fijians, and Admiralty Islanders, 75-77;African and American stories of the fatal bundle or the fatal box, 77_sq. _; Baganda story how death originated through the imprudence of awoman, 78-81; West African story of Death and the spider, 81-83;Melanesian story of Death and the Fool, 83 _sq. _

Thus according to savages death is not a natural necessity, 84; similarview held by some modern biologists, as A. Weismann and A. R. Wallace, 84-86. 

Lecture IV. --The Belief in Immortality among the Aborigines of CentralAustralia

In tracing the evolution of religious beliefs we must begin with thoseof the lowest savages, p. 87; the aborigines of Australia the lowestsavages about whom we possess accurate information, 88; savagery a caseof retarded development, 88 _sq. _; causes which have retarded progressin Australia, 89 _sq. _; the natives of Central Australia on the wholemore primitive than those of the coasts, 90 _sq. _; little that can becalled religion among them, 91 _sq. _; their theory that the souls of thedead survive and are reborn in their descendants, 92 _sq. _; places wherethe souls of the dead await rebirth, and the mode in which they enterinto women, 93 _sq. _; local totem centres, 94 _sq. _; totemism defined, 95; traditionary origin of the local totem centres (_oknanikilla_) wherethe souls of the dead assemble, 96; sacred birth-stones or birth-sticks(_churinga_) which the souls of ancestors are thought to have dropped atthese places, 96-102; elements of a worship of the dead, 102 _sq. _;marvellous powers attributed to the remote ancestors of the _alcheringa_or dream times, 103 _sq. _; the Wollunqua, a mythical water-snake, ancestor of a totemic clan of the Warramunga tribe, 104-106; religiouscharacter of the belief in the Wollunqua, 106. 

Lecture V. --The Belief in Immortality among the Aborigines of CentralAustralia (_continued_)

Beliefs of the Central Australian aborigines concerning thereincarnation of the dead, p. 107; possibility of the development ofancestor worship, 107 _sq. _; ceremonies performed by the Warramunga inhonour of the Wollunqua, the mythical ancestor of one of their totemclans, 108 _sqq. _; union of magic and religion in these ceremonies, 111_sq. _; ground drawings of the Wollunqua, 112 _sq. _; importance of theWollunqua in the evolution of religion and art, 113 _sq. _; how totemismmight develop into polytheism through an intermediate stage of ancestorworship, 114 _sq. _; all the conspicuous features of the countryassociated by the Central Australians with the spirits of theirancestors, 115-118; dramatic ceremonies performed by them to commemoratethe deeds of their ancestors, 118 _sq. _; examples of these ceremonies, 119-122; these ceremonies were probably in origin not merelycommemorative or historical but magical, being intended to procure asupply of food and other necessaries, 122 _sq. _; magical virtue actuallyattributed to these dramatic ceremonies by the Warramunga, who thinkthat by performing them they increase the food supply of the tribe, 123_sq. _; hence the great importance ascribed by these savages to the dueperformance of the ancestral dramas, 124; general attitude of theCentral Australian aborigines to their dead, and the lines on which, ifleft to themselves, they might have developed a regular worship of thedead, 124-126. 

Lecture VI. --The Belief in Immortality among the other Aborigines ofAustralia

Evidence for the belief in reincarnation among the natives of otherparts of Australia than the centre, p. 127; beliefs of the Queenslandaborigines concerning the nature of the soul and the state of the dead, 127-131; belief of the Australian aborigines that their dead aresometimes reborn in white people, 131-133; belief of the natives ofSouth-Eastern Australia that their dead are not born again but go awayto the sky or some distant country, 133 _sq. _; beliefs and customs ofthe Narrinyeri concerning the dead, 134 _sqq. _; motives for theexcessive grief which they display at the death of their relatives, 135_sq. _; their pretence of avenging the death of their friends on theguilty sorcerer, 136 _sq. _; magical virtue ascribed to the hair of thedead, 137 _sq. _; belief that the dead go to the sky, 138 _sq. _;appearance of the dead to the living in dreams, 139; savage faith indreams, 139 _sq. _; association of the stars with the souls of the dead, 140; creed of the South-Eastern Australians touching the dead, 141;difference of this creed from that of the Central Australians, 141; thisdifference probably due in the main to a general advance of culturebrought about by more favourable natural conditions in South-EasternAustralia, 141 _sq. _; possible influence of European teaching on nativebeliefs, 142 _sq. _; vagueness and inconsistency of native beliefs as tothe state of the dead, 143; custom a good test of belief, 143 _sq. _;burial customs of the Australian aborigines as evidence of their beliefsconcerning the state of the dead, 144; their practice of supplying thedead with food, water, fire, weapons, and implements, 144-147; motivesfor the destruction of the property of the dead, 147 _sq. _; greateconomic loss entailed by developed systems of sacrificing to the dead, 149. 

Lecture VII. --The Belief in Immortality among the Aborigines ofAustralia (_concluded_)

Huts erected on graves for the use of the ghosts, pp. 150-152; theattentions paid by the Australian aborigines to their dead probablyspring from fear rather than affection, 152; precautions taken by theliving against the dangerous ghosts of the dead, 152 _sq. _; cuttings andbrandings of the flesh of the living in honour of the dead, 154-158; thecustom of allowing the blood of mourners to drip on the corpse or intothe grave may be intended to strengthen the dead for a new birth, 158-162; different ways of disposing of the dead according to the age, rank, manner of death, etc. , of the deceased, 162 _sq. _; some modes ofburial are intended to prevent the return of the spirit, others aredesigned to facilitate it, 163-165; final departure of the ghostsupposed to coincide with the disappearance of the flesh from his bones, 165 _sq. _; hence a custom has arisen in many tribes of giving the bonesa second burial or otherwise disposing of them when the flesh is quitedecayed, 166; tree-burial followed by earth-burial in some Australiantribes, 166-168; general conclusion as to the belief in immortality andthe worship of the dead among the Australian aborigines, 168 _sq. _

Lecture VIII. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of the TorresStraits Islands

Racial affinities of the Torres Straits Islanders, pp. 170 _sq. _; theirmaterial and social culture, 171 _sq. _; no developed worship of the deadamong them, 172 _sq. _; their fear of ghosts, 173-175; home of the dead amythical island in the west, 175 _sq. _; elaborate funeral ceremonies ofthe Torres Straits Islanders characterised by dramatic representationsof the dead and by the preservation of their skulls, which wereconsulted as oracles, 176. 

Funeral ceremonies of the Western Islanders, 177-180; part played by thebrothers-in-law of the deceased at these ceremonies, 177 _sq. _; removalof the head and preparation of the skull for use in divination, 178_sq. _; great death-dance performed by masked men who personated thedeceased, 179 _sq. _

Funeral ceremonies of the Eastern Islanders, 180-188; soul of the deadcarried away by a masked actor, 181 _sq. _; dramatic performance bydisguised men representing ghosts, 182 _sq. _; blood and hair ofrelatives offered to the dead, 183 _sq. _; mummification of the corpse, 184; costume of mourners, 184; cuttings for the dead, 184 _sq. _;death-dance by men personating ghosts, 185-188; preservation of themummy and afterwards of the head or a wax model of it to be used indivination, 188. 

Images of the gods perhaps developed out of mummies of the dead, and asacred or even secular drama developed out of funeral dances, 189. 

Lecture IX. --The Belief in Immortality Among the Natives Of British NewGuinea

The two races of New Guinea, the Papuan and the Melanesian, pp. 190_sq. _; beliefs and customs of the Motu concerning the dead, 192; theKoita and their beliefs as to the human soul and the state of the dead, 193-195; alleged communications with the dead by means of mediums, 195_sq. _; fear of the dead, especially of a dead wife, 196 _sq. _; beliefsof the Mafulu concerning the dead, 198; their burial customs, 198 _sq. _;their use of the skulls and bones of the dead at a great festival, 199-201; worship of the dead among the natives of the Aroma district, 201 _sq. _; the Hood Peninsula, 202 _sq. _; beliefs and customs concerningthe dead among the natives of the Hood Peninsula, 203-206; seclusion ofwidows and widowers, 203 _sq. _; the ghost-seer, 204 _sq. _; applicationof the juices of the dead to the persons of the living, 205; precautionstaken by manslayers against the ghosts of their victims, 205 _sq. _;purification for homicide originally a mode of averting the angry ghostof the slain, 206; beliefs and customs concerning the dead among theMassim of south-eastern New Guinea, 206-210; Hiyoyoa, the land of thedead, 207; purification of mourners by bathing and shaving, 207 _sq. _;foods forbidden to mourners, 208 _sq. _; fires on the grave, 209; theland of the dead, 209 _sq. _; names of the dead not mentioned, 210;beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the Papuans of Kiwai, 211-214; Adiri, the land of the dead, 211-213; appearance of the dead tothe living in dreams, 213 _sq. _; offerings to the dead, 214; dreams as asource of the belief in immortality, 214. 

Lecture X. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of German NewGuinea

Andrew Lang, pp. 216 _sq. _; review of preceding lectures, 217 _sq. _

The Papuans of Tumleo, their material culture, 218-220; their temples, 220 _sq. _; their bachelors' houses containing the skulls of the dead, 221; spirits of the dead as the causes of sickness and disease, 222_sq. _; burial and mourning customs, 223 _sq. _; fate of the human soulafter death, 224; monuments to the dead, 225; disinterment of the bones, 225; propitiation of ghosts and spirits, 226; guardian-spirits in thetemples, 226 _sq. _

The Monumbo of Potsdam Harbour, 227 _sq. _; their beliefs concerning thespirits of the dead, 228 _sq. _; their fear of ghosts, 229; theirtreatment of manslayers, 229 _sq. _

The Tamos of Astrolabe Bay, 230; their ideas as to the souls of thedead, 231 _sq. _; their fear of ghosts, 232 _sqq. _; their Secret Societyand rites of initiation, 233; their preservation of the jawbones of thedead, 234 _sq. _; their sham fights after a death, 235 _sq. _; thesefights perhaps intended to throw dust in the eyes of the ghost, 236_sq. _

Lecture XI. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of German NewGuinea (_continued_)

The Papuans of Cape King William, pp. 238 _sq. _; their ideas as tospirits and the souls of the dead, 239 _sq. _; their belief in sorcery asa cause of death, 240 _sq. _; their funeral and mourning customs, 241_sq. _; the fate of the soul after death, 242. 

The Yabim of Finsch Harbour, their material and artistic culture, 242_sq. _; their clubhouses for men, 243; their beliefs as to the state ofthe dead, 244 _sq. _; the ghostly ferry, 244 _sq. _; transmigration ofhuman souls into animals, 245; the return of the ghosts, 246; offeringsto ghosts, 246; ghosts provided with fire, 246 _sq. _; ghosts help in thecultivation of land, 247 _sq. _; burial and mourning customs, 248 _sq. _;divination to discover the sorcerer who has caused a death, 249 _sq. _;bull-roarers, 250; initiation of young men, 250 _sqq. _; the rite ofcircumcision, the novices supposed to be swallowed by a monster, 251_sq. _; the return of the novices, 253; the essence of the initiatoryrites seems to be a simulation of death and resurrection, 253 _sqq. _;the new birth among the Akikuyu of British East Africa, 254. 

Lecture XII. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of German NewGuinea (_continued_)

The Bukaua of Huon Gulf, their means of subsistence and men'sclubhouses, pp. 256 _sq. _; their ideas as to the souls of the dead, 257;sickness and death caused by ghosts and sorcerers, 257 _sq. _; fear ofthe ghosts of the slain, 258; prayers to ancestral spirits on behalf ofthe crops, 259; first-fruits offered to the spirits of the dead, 259;burial and mourning customs, 259 _sq. _; initiation of young men, novicesat circumcision supposed to be swallowed and afterwards disgorged by amonster, 260 _sq. _

The Kai, a Papuan tribe of mountaineers inland from Finsch Harbour, 262;their country, mode of agriculture, and villages, 262 _sq. _;observations of a German missionary on their animism, 263 _sq. _; theessential rationality of the savage, 264-266; the Kai theory of the twosorts of human souls, 267 _sq. _; death commonly thought to be caused bysorcery, 268 _sq. _; danger incurred by the sorcerer, 269; many hurts andmaladies attributed to the action of ghosts, 269 _sq. _; capturing lostsouls, 270 _sq. _; ghosts extracted from the body of a sick man orscraped from his person, 271; extravagant demonstrations of grief at thedeath of a sick man, 271-273; hypocritical character of thesedemonstrations, which are intended to deceive the ghost, 273; burial andmourning customs, preservation of the lower jawbone and one of the lowerarm bones, 274; mourning costume, seclusion of widow or widower, 274_sq. _; widows sometimes strangled to accompany their dead husbands, 275;house or village deserted after a death, 275. 

Lecture XIII. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of German NewGuinea (_continued_)

The Kai (continued), their offerings to the dead, p. 276; divination bymeans of ghosts to detect the sorcerer who has caused a death, 276-278;avenging the death on the sorcerer and his people, 278 _sq. _;precautions against the ghosts of the slain, 279 _sq. _; attempts todeceive the ghosts of the murdered, 280-282; pretence of avenging theghost of a murdered man, 282; fear of ghosts by night, 282 _sq. _;services rendered by the spirits of the dead to farmers and hunters, 283-285; the journey of the soul to the spirit land, 285 _sq. _; life ofthe dead in the other world, 286 _sq. _; ghosts die the second death andturn into animals, 287; ghosts of famous people invoked long after theirdeath, 287-289; possible development of ghosts into gods, 289 _sq. _;lads at circumcision supposed to be swallowed and disgorged by amonster, 290 _sq. _

The Tami Islanders of Huon Gulf, 291; their theory of a double humansoul, a long one and a short one, 291 _sq. _; departure of the short soulfor Lamboam, the nether world of the dead, 292; offerings to the dead, 292; appeasing the ghost, 292 _sq. _; funeral and mourning customs, dances in honour of the dead, offerings thrown into the fire, 293 _sq. _;bones of the dead dug up and kept in the house for a time, 294 _sq. _

Lecture XIV. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of German andDutch New Guinea

The Tami Islanders of Huon Gulf (continued), their doctrine of souls andgods, pp. 296 _sq. _; dances of masked men representing spirits, 297;worship of ancestral spirits and offerings to them, 297 _sq. _; life ofthe souls in Lamboam, the nether world, 299 _sq. _; evocation of ghostsby the ghost-seer, 300; sickness caused by ghosts, 300 _sq. _; novices atcircumcision supposed to be swallowed and disgorged by a monster, 301_sq. _; meaning of the bodily mutilations inflicted on young men atpuberty obscure, 302 _sq. _ The natives of Dutch New Guinea, 303-323; theNoofoors of Geelvink Bay, their material culture and arts of life, 303-305; their fear and worship of the dead, 305-307; wooden images(_korwar_) of the dead kept in the houses and carried in canoes to beused as oracles, 307 _sq. _; the images consulted in sickness and takenwith the people to war, 308-310; offerings to the images, 310 _sq. _;souls of those who have died away from home recalled to animate theimages, 311; skulls of the dead, especially of firstborn children and ofparents, inserted in the images, 312 _sq. _; bodies of young childrenhung on trees, 312 _sq. _; mummies of dead relatives kept in the houses, 313; seclusion of mourners and restrictions on their diet, 313 _sq. _;tattooing in honour of the dead, 314; teeth and hair of the dead worn byrelatives, 314 _sq. _; rebirth of parents in their children, 315. 

The natives of islands off the west coast of New Guinea, their woodenimages of dead ancestors and shrines for the residence of the ancestralspirits, 315 _sq. _; their festivals in honour of the dead, 316; souls ofancestors supposed to reside in the images and to protect the house andhousehold, 317. 

The natives of the Macluer Gulf, their images and bowls in honour of thedead, 317 _sq. _

The natives of the Mimika district, their burial and mourning customs, their preservation of the skulls of the dead, and their belief inghosts, 318. 

The natives of Windessi, their burial customs, 318 _sq. _; divinationafter a death, 319; mourning customs, 319 _sq. _; festival of the dead, 320 _sq. _; wooden images of the dead, 321; doctrine of souls and oftheir fate after death, 321 _sq. _; medicine-men inspired by the souls ofthe dead, 322 _sq. _; ghosts of slain enemies driven away, 323. 

Lecture XV. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of SouthernMelanesia (New Caledonia)

The Melanesians in general, their material culture, p. 324; SouthernMelanesia, the New Caledonians, and Father Lambert's account of them, 325; their ideas as to the spirit land and the way thither, 325 _sq. _;burial customs, 326; cuttings and brandings for the dead, 326 _sq. _;property of the dead destroyed, 327; seclusion of gravediggers andrestrictions imposed on them, 327; sham fight in honour of the dead, 327_sq. _; skulls of the dead preserved and worshipped on various occasions, such as sickness, fishing, and famine, 328-330; caves used ascharnel-houses and sanctuaries of the dead in the Isle of Pines, 330-332; prayers and sacrifices to the ancestral spirits, 332 _sq. _;prayer-posts, 333 _sq. _; sacred stones associated with the dead and usedto cause dearth or plenty, madness, a good crop of bread-fruit or yams, drought, rain, a good catch of fish, and so on, 334-338; the religion ofthe New Caledonians mainly a worship of the dead tinctured with magic, 338. 

Evidence as to the natives of New Caledonia collected by Dr. GeorgeTurner, 339-342; material culture of the New Caledonians, 339; theirburial customs, the skulls and nails of the dead preserved and used tofertilise the yam plantations, 339 _sq. _; worship of ancestors andprayers to the dead, 340; festivals in honour of the dead, 340 _sq. _;making rain by means of the skeletons of the dead, 341; execution ofsorcerers, 341 _sq. _; white men identified with the spirits of the dead, 342. 

Lecture XVI. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of CentralMelanesia

Central Melanesia divided into two archipelagoes, the religion of theWestern Islands (Solomon Islands) characterised by a worship of thedead, the religion of the Eastern Islands (New Hebrides, Banks' Islands, Torres Islands, Santa Cruz Islands) characterised by a worship ofnon-human spirits, pp. 343 _sq. _; Central Melanesian theory of the soul, 344 _sq. _; the land of the dead either in certain islands or in asubterranean region called Panoi, 345; ghosts of power and ghosts of noaccount, 345 _sq. _; supernatural power (_mana_) acquired through ghosts, 346 _sq. _

Burial customs in the Western Islands (Solomon Islands), 347 _sqq. _;land-burial and sea-burial, land-ghosts and sea-ghosts, 347 _sq. _;funeral feasts and burnt-offerings to the dead, 348 _sq. _; the land ofthe dead and the ghostly ferry, 350 _sq. _; ghosts die the second deathand turn into the nests of white ants, 350 _sq. _; preservation of theskull and jawbone in order to ensure the protection of the ghost, 351_sq. _; human heads sought in order to add fresh spiritual power (_mana_)to the ghost of a dead chief, 352. 

Beliefs and customs concerning the dead in the Eastern Islands (NewHebrides, Banks' Islands, Torres Islands), 352 _sqq. _; Panoi, thesubterranean abode of the dead, 353 _sq. _; ghosts die the second death, 354; different fates of the souls of the good and bad, 354 _sq. _;descent of the living into the world of the dead, 355; burial customs ofthe Banks' Islanders, 355 _sqq. _; dead sometimes temporarily buried inthe house, 355; display of property beside the corpse and funeraloration, 355 _sq. _; sham burial of eminent men, 356; ghosts driven awayfrom the village, 356-358; deceiving the ghosts of women who have diedin child-bed, 358; funeral feasts, 358 _sq. _; funeral customs in theNew Hebrides, 359 _sqq. _; the aged buried alive, 359 _sq. _; seclusion ofmourners and restrictions on their diet, 360; sacrifice of pigs, 360_sq. _; the journey of the ghost to the spirit land, 361 _sq. _;provisions made by the living for the welfare of the dead, 362. 

Only ghosts of powerful men worshipped, 362 _sq. _; institution of theworship of a martial ghost, 363 _sq. _; offerings of food and drink tothe dead, 364 _sq. _; sacrifice of pigs to ghosts in the Solomon Islands, 365 _sq. _

Lecture XVII. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of CentralMelanesia (_concluded_)

Public sacrifices to ghosts in the Solomon Islands, pp. 367 _sq. _;offering of first-fruits to ghosts, 368 _sq. _; private ghosts asdistinguished from public ghosts, 369 _sq. _; fighting ghosts kept asspiritual auxiliaries, 370; ghosts employed to make the gardens grow, 370 _sq. _; human sacrifices to ghosts, 371 _sq. _; vicarious and othersacrifices to ghosts at Saa in Malanta, 372 _sq. _; offerings offirst-fruits to ghosts at Saa, 373 _sq. _; vicarious sacrifices offeredfor the sick to ghosts in Santa Cruz, 374; the dead represented bystocks in the houses, 374; native account of sacrifices in Santa Cruz, 374 _sq. _; prayers to the dead, 376 _sq. _; sanctuaries of ghosts in theSolomon Islands, 377-379; ghosts lodged in animals, birds, and fish, especially in sharks, 379 _sq. _

The belief in ghosts underlies the Melanesian conception of magic, 380_sq. _; sickness commonly caused by ghosts and cured by ghost-seers, 381-384; contrast between Melanesian and European systems of medicine, 384; weather regulated by ghosts and spirits and by weather-doctors whohave the ear of ghosts and spirits, 384-386; witchcraft or black magicwrought by means of ghosts, 386-388; prophets inspired by ghosts, 388_sq. _; divination operating through ghosts, 389 _sq. _; taboos enforcedby ghosts, 390 _sq. _; general influence which a belief in the survivalof the soul after death has exercised on Melanesian life, 391 _sq. _

Lecture XVIII. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Northernand Eastern Melanesia

The natives of Northern Melanesia or the Bismarck Archipelago (NewBritain, New Ireland, etc. ), their material culture, commercial habits, and want of regular government, pp. 393-395; their theory of the soul, 395 _sq. _; their fear of ghosts, 396; offerings to the dead, 396 _sq. _;burial customs, 397 _sq. _; preservation of the skulls, 398; customs andbeliefs concerning the dead among the Sulka of New Britain, 398-400, among the Moanus of the Admiralty Islands, 400 _sq. _ and among thenatives of the Kaniet Islands, 401 _sq. _; natural deaths commonlyattributed to sorcery, 402; divination to discover the sorcerer whocaused the death, 402; death customs in the Duke of York Island, cursingthe sorcerer, skulls preserved, feasts and dances, 403; prayers to thedead, 403 _sq. _; the land of the dead and the fate of the departedsouls, hard lot of impecunious ghosts, 404-406. 

The natives of Eastern Melanesia (Fiji), their material culture andpolitical constitution, 406-408; means of subsistence, 408; moralcharacter, 408 _sq. _; scenery of the Fijian islands, 409 _sq. _; theFijian doctrine of souls, 410-412; souls of rascals caught in scarves, 412 _sq. _; fear of sorcery and precautions against it, 413 _sq. _;beneficial effect of the fear in enforcing habits of personalcleanliness, 414; fear of ghosts and custom of driving them away, 414_sq. _; killing a ghost, 415 _sq. _; outwitting grandfather's ghost, 416;special relation of grandfather to grandchild, 416; grandfather's soulreborn in his grandchild, 417 _sq. _

Lecture XIX. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of EasternMelanesia (Fiji) (_continued_)

Indifference of the Fijians to death, p. 419; their custom of killingthe sick and aged with the consent of the victims, 419-424; theirreadiness to die partly an effect of their belief in immortality, 422_sq. _; wives strangled or buried alive to accompany their husbands tothe spirit land, 424-426; servants and dependants killed to attend theirdead lords, 426; sacrifices of foreskins and fingers in honour of deadchiefs, 426 _sq. _; boys circumcised in order to save the lives of theirfathers or fathers' brothers, 427; saturnalia attending such rites ofcircumcision, 427 _sq. _; the _Nanga_, or sacred enclosure of stones, dedicated to the worship of ancestors, 428 _sq. _; first-fruits of theyams offered to the ancestors in the _Nanga_, 429; initiation of youngmen in the _Nanga_, drama of death and resurrection, sacrament of foodand water, 429-432; the initiation followed by a period of sexuallicence, 433; the initiatory rites apparently intended to introduce thenovices to the ancestral spirits and endow them with the powers of thedead, 434 _sq. _; the rites seem to have been imported into Fiji byimmigrants from the west, 435 _sq. _; the licence attending these ritesperhaps a reversion to primitive communism for the purpose ofpropitiating the ancestral spirits, 436 _sq. _; description of the_Nanga_ or sacred enclosure of stones, 437 _sq. _; comparison with thecromlechs and other megalithic monuments of Europe, 438. 

Lecture XX. --The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of EasternMelanesia (Fiji) (_concluded_)

Worship of parents and other dead relations in Fiji, pp. 439 _sq. _;Fijian notion of divinity (_kalou_), 440; two classes of gods, namely, divine gods and human gods or deified men, 440 _sq. _; temples (_bures_)441 _sq. _; worship at the temples, 443; priests (_betes_), theiroracular inspiration by the gods, 443-446; human sacrifices on variousoccasions, such as building a house or launching a new canoe, 446 _sq. _;high estimation in which manslaughter was held by the Fijians, 447_sq. _; consecration of manslayers and restrictions laid on them, probably from fear of the ghosts of their victims, 448 _sq. _; certainfuneral customs based apparently on the fear of ghosts, 450 _sqq. _;persons who have handled a corpse forbidden to touch food with theirhands, 450 _sq. _; seclusion of gravediggers, 451; mutilations, brandings, and fasts in honour of the dead, 451 _sq. _; the dead carriedout of the house by a special opening to prevent the return of theghost, 452-461; the other world and the way thither, 462 _sqq. _; theghostly ferry, 462 _sq. _; the ghost and the pandanus tree, 463 _sq. _;hard fate of the unmarried dead, 464; the Killer of Souls, 464 _sq. _;ghosts precipitated into a lake, 465 _sq. _; Murimuria, an inferior sortof heaven, 466; the Fijian Elysium, 466 _sq. _; transmigration andannihilation, the few that are saved, 467. 

Concluding observations, 467-471; strength and universality of thebelief in immortality among savages, 468; the state of war among savageand civilised peoples often a direct consequence of the belief inimmortality, 468 _sq. _; economic loss involved in sacrifices to thedead, 469; how does the savage belief in immortality bear on the truthor falsehood of that belief in general? 469; the answer depends to someextent on the view we take of human nature, 469-471; the conclusion leftopen, 471. 

Note. --Myth of the Continuance of Death

Index

LECTURE I

INTRODUCTION

[Sidenote: Natural theology, and the three modes of handling it, thedogmatic, the philosophical, and the historical. ]

The subject of these lectures is a branch of natural theology. Bynatural theology I understand that reasoned knowledge of a God or godswhich man may be supposed, whether rightly or wrongly, capable ofattaining to by the exercise of his natural faculties alone. Thusdefined, the subject may be treated in at least three different ways, namely, dogmatically, philosophically, and historically. We may simplystate the dogmas of natural theology which appear to us to be true: thatis the dogmatic method. Or, secondly, we may examine the validity of thegrounds on which these dogmas have been or may be maintained: that isthe philosophic method. Or, thirdly, we may content ourselves withdescribing the various views which have been held on the subject andtracing their origin and evolution in history: that is the historicalmethod. The first of these three methods assumes the truth of naturaltheology, the second discusses it, and the third neither assumes nordiscusses but simply ignores it: the historian as such is not concernedwith the truth or falsehood of the beliefs he describes, his business ismerely to record them and to track them as far as possible to theirsources. Now that the subject of natural theology is ripe for a purelydogmatic treatment will hardly, I think, be maintained by any one, towhatever school of thought he may belong; accordingly that method oftreatment need not occupy us further. Far otherwise is it with thephilosophic method which undertakes to enquire into the truth orfalsehood of the belief in a God: no method could be more appropriate ata time like the present, when the opinions of educated and thoughtfulmen on that profound topic are so unsettled, diverse, and conflicting. Aphilosophical treatment of the subject might comprise a discussion ofsuch questions as whether a natural knowledge of God is possible to man, and, if possible, by what means and through what faculties it isattainable; what are the grounds for believing in the existence of aGod; and, if this belief is justified, what may be supposed to be hisessential nature and attributes, and what his relations to the world ingeneral and to man in particular. Now I desire to confess at once thatan adequate discussion of these and kindred questions would far exceedboth my capacity and my knowledge; for he who would do justice to soarduous an enquiry should not only be endowed with a comprehensive andpenetrating genius, but should possess a wide and accurate acquaintancewith the best accredited results of philosophic speculation andscientific research. To such qualifications I can lay no claim, andaccordingly I must regard myself as unfitted for a purely philosophictreatment of natural theology. To speak plainly, the question of theexistence of a God is too deep for me. I dare neither affirm nor denyit. I can only humbly confess my ignorance. Accordingly, if Lord Giffordhad required of his lecturers either a dogmatic or a philosophicaltreatment of natural theology, I could not have undertaken to deliverthe lectures. 

[Sidenote: The method followed in these lectures is the historical. ]

But in his deed of foundation, as I understand it, Lord Gifford left hislecturers free to follow the historical rather than the dogmatic or thephilosophical method of treatment. He says: "The lecturers shall beunder no restraint whatever in their treatment of their theme: forexample, they may freely discuss (and it may be well to do so) allquestions about man's conceptions of God or the Infinite, their origin, nature, and truth. " In making this provision the founder appears to haveallowed and indeed encouraged the lecturers not only to discuss, if theychose to do so, the philosophical basis of a belief in God, but also toset forth the various conceptions of the divine nature which have beenheld by men in all ages and to trace them to their origin: in short, hepermitted and encouraged the lecturers to compose a history of naturaltheology or of some part of it. Even when it is thus limited to itshistorical aspect the theme is too vast to be mastered completely by anyone man: the most that a single enquirer can do is to take a general butnecessarily superficial survey of the whole and to devote himselfespecially to the investigation of some particular branch or aspect ofthe subject. This I have done more or less for many years, andaccordingly I think that without being presumptuous I may attempt, incompliance with Lord Gifford's wishes and directions, to lay before myhearers a portion of the history of religion to which I have paidparticular attention. That the historical study of religious beliefs, quite apart from the question of their truth or falsehood, is bothinteresting and instructive will hardly be disputed by any intelligentand thoughtful enquirer. Whether they have been well or ill founded, these beliefs have deeply influenced the conduct of human affairs; theyhave furnished some of the most powerful, persistent, and far-reachingmotives of action; they have transformed nations and altered the face ofthe globe. No one who would understand the general history of mankindcan afford to ignore the annals of religion. If he does so, he willinevitably fall into the most serious misconceptions even in studyingbranches of human activity which might seem, on a superficial view, tobe quite unaffected by religious considerations. 

[Sidenote: An historical enquiry into the evolution of religionprejudices neither the question of the ethical value of religiouspractice nor the question of the truth or falsehood of religiousbelief. ]

Therefore to trace theological and in general religious ideas to theirsources and to follow them through all the manifold influences whichthey have exerted on the destinies of our race must always be an objectof prime importance to the historian, whatever view he may take of theirspeculative truth or ethical value. Clearly we cannot estimate theirethical value until we have learned the modes in which they haveactually determined human conduct for good or evil: in other words, wecannot judge of the morality of religious beliefs until we haveascertained their history: the facts must be known before judgment canbe passed on them: the work of the historian must precede the work ofthe moralist. Even the question of the validity or truth of religiouscreeds cannot, perhaps, be wholly dissociated from the question of theirorigin. If, for example, we discover that doctrines which we hadaccepted with implicit faith from tradition have their close analogiesin the barbarous superstitions of ignorant savages, we can hardly helpsuspecting that our own cherished doctrines may have originated in thesimilar superstitions of our rude forefathers; and the suspicioninevitably shakes the confidence with which we had hitherto regardedthese articles of our faith. The doubt thus cast on our old creed isperhaps illogical, since even if we should discover that the creed didoriginate in mere superstition, in other words, that the grounds onwhich it was first adopted were false and absurd, this discovery wouldnot really disprove the beliefs themselves, for it is perfectly possiblethat a belief may be true, though the reasons alleged in favour of itare false and absurd: indeed we may affirm with great probability that amultitude of human beliefs, true in themselves, have been accepted anddefended by millions of people on grounds which cannot bear exactinvestigation for a moment. For example, if the facts of savage lifewhich it will be my duty to submit to you should have the effect ofmaking the belief in immortality look exceedingly foolish, those of myhearers who cherish the belief may console themselves by reflectingthat, as I have just pointed out, a creed is not necessarily falsebecause some of the reasons adduced in its favour are invalid, becauseit has sometimes been supported by the despicable tricks of vulgarimposture, and because the practices to which it has given rise haveoften been in the highest degree not only absurd but pernicious. 

[Sidenote: Yet such an enquiry may shake the confidence with whichtraditional beliefs have been held. ]

Thus an historical enquiry into the origin of religious creeds cannot, strictly speaking, invalidate, still less refute, the creeds themselves, though it may, and doubtless often does weaken the confidence with whichthey are held. This weakening of religious faith as a consequence of acloser scrutiny of religious origins is unquestionably a matter of greatimportance to the community; for society has been built and cemented toa great extent on a foundation of religion, and it is impossible toloosen the cement and shake the foundation without endangering thesuperstructure. The candid historian of religion will not dissemble thedanger incidental to his enquiries, but nevertheless it is his duty toprosecute them unflinchingly. Come what may, he must ascertain the factsso far as it is possible to do so; having done that, he may leave toothers the onerous and delicate task of adjusting the new knowledge tothe practical needs of mankind. The narrow way of truth may often lookdark and threatening, and the wayfarer may often be weary; yet even atthe darkest and the weariest he will go forward in the trust, if not inthe knowledge, that the way will lead at last to light and to rest; inplain words, that there is no ultimate incompatibility between the goodand the true. 

[Sidenote: To discover the origin of the idea of God we must study thebeliefs of primitive man. ]

Now if we are indeed to discover the origin of man's conception of God, it is not sufficient to analyse the ideas which the educated andenlightened portion of mankind entertain on the subject at the presentday; for in great measure these ideas are traditional, they have beenhanded down with little or no independent reflection or enquiry fromgeneration to generation; hence in order to detect them in theirinception it becomes necessary to push our analysis far back into thepast. Large materials for such an historical enquiry are provided for usin the literature of ancient nations which, though often sadly mutilatedand imperfect, has survived to modern times and throws much preciouslight on the religious beliefs and practices of the peoples who createdit. But the ancients themselves inherited a great part of their religionfrom their prehistoric ancestors, and accordingly it becomes desirableto investigate the religious notions of these remote forefathers ofmankind, since in them we may hope at last to arrive at the ultimatesource, the historical origin, of the whole long development. 

[Sidenote: The beliefs of primitive man can only be understood through acomparative study of the various races in the lower stages of culture. ]

But how can this be done? how can we investigate the ideas of peopleswho, ignorant of writing, had no means of permanently recording theirbeliefs? At first sight the thing seems impossible; the thread ofenquiry is broken off short; it has landed us on the brink of a gulfwhich looks impassable. But the case is not so hopeless as it appears. True, we cannot investigate the beliefs of prehistoric ages directly, but the comparative method of research may furnish us with the means ofstudying them indirectly; it may hold up to us a mirror in which, if wedo not see the originals, we may perhaps contemplate their reflections. For a comparative study of the various races of mankind demonstrates, orat least renders it highly probable, that humanity has everywherestarted at an exceedingly low level of culture, a level far beneath thatof the lowest existing savages, and that from this humble beginning allthe various races of men have gradually progressed upward at differentrates, some faster and some slower, till they have attained theparticular stage which each of them occupies at the present time. 

[Sidenote: Hence the need of studying the beliefs and customs ofsavages, if we are to understand the evolution of culture in general. ]

If this conclusion is correct, the various stages of savagery andbarbarism on which many tribes and peoples now stand represent, broadlyspeaking, so many degrees of retarded social and intellectualdevelopment, they correspond to similar stages which the ancestors ofthe civilised races may be supposed to have passed through at more orless remote periods of their history. Thus when we arrange all the knownpeoples of the world according to the degree of their savagery orcivilisation in a graduated scale of culture, we obtain not merely acomparative view of their relative positions in the scale, but also insome measure an historical record of the genetic development of culturefrom a very early time down to the present day. Hence a study of thesavage and barbarous races of mankind is of the greatest importance fora full understanding of the beliefs and practices, whether religious, social, moral, or political, of the most civilised races, including ourown, since it is practically certain that a large part of these beliefsand practices originated with our savage ancestors, and has beeninherited by us from them, with more or less of modification, through along line of intermediate generations. 

[Sidenote: The need is all the more urgent because savages are rapidlydisappearing or being transformed. ]

That is why the study of existing savages at the present day engrossesso much of the attention of civilised peoples. We see that if we are tocomprehend not only our past history but our present condition, with allits many intricate and perplexing problems, we must begin at thebeginning by attempting to discover the mental state of our savageforefathers, who bequeathed to us so much of the faiths, the laws, andthe institutions which we still cherish; and more and more men arecoming to perceive that the only way open to us of doing thiseffectually is to study the mental state of savages who to this dayoccupy a state of culture analogous to that of our rude progenitors. Through contact with civilisation these savages are now rapidlydisappearing, or at least losing the old habits and ideas which renderthem a document of priceless historical value for us. Hence we haveevery motive for prosecuting the study of savagery with ardour anddiligence before it is too late, before the record is gone for ever. Weare like an heir whose title-deeds must be scrutinised before he cantake possession of the inheritance, but who finds the handwriting of thedeeds so fading and evanescent that it threatens to disappear entirelybefore he can read the document to the end. With what keen attention, what eager haste, would he not scan the fast-vanishing characters? Withthe like attention and the like haste civilised men are now applyingthemselves to the investigation of the fast-vanishing savages. 

[Sidenote: Savage religion is to be the subject of these lectures. ]

Thus if we are to trace historically man's conception of God to itsorigin, it is desirable, or rather essential, that we should begin bystudying the most primitive ideas on the subject which are accessible tous, and the most primitive ideas are unquestionably those of the lowestsavages. Accordingly in these lectures I propose to deal with aparticular side or aspect of savage religion. I shall not trench on thesphere of the higher religions, not only because my knowledge of them isfor the most part very slight, but also because I believe that asearching study of the higher and more complex religions should bepostponed till we have acquired an accurate knowledge of the lower andsimpler. For a similar reason the study of inorganic chemistry naturallyprecedes the study of organic chemistry, because inorganic compounds aremuch simpler and therefore more easily analysed and investigated thanorganic compounds. So with the chemistry of the mind; we should analysethe comparatively simple phenomena of savage thought into itsconstituent elements before we attempt to perform a similar operation onthe vastly more complex phenomena of civilised beliefs. 

[Sidenote: But only a part of savage religion will be dealt with. ]

But while I shall confine myself rigidly to the field of savagereligion, I shall not attempt to present you with a complete survey evenof that restricted area, and that for more reasons than one. In thefirst place the theme, even with this great limitation, is far too largeto be adequately set forth in the time at my disposal; the sketch--forit could be no more than a sketch--would be necessarily superficial andprobably misleading. In the second place, even a sketch of primitivereligion in general ought to presuppose in the sketcher a fairlycomplete knowledge of the whole subject, so that all the parts mayappear, not indeed in detail, but in their proper relative proportions. Now though I have given altogether a good deal of time to the study ofprimitive religion, I am far from having studied it in all its branches, and I could not trust myself to give an accurate general account of iteven in outline; were I to attempt such a thing I should almostcertainly fall, through sheer ignorance or inadvertence, into themistake of exaggerating some features, unduly diminishing others, andomitting certain essential features altogether. Hence it seems to mebetter not to commit myself to so ambitious an enterprise but to confinemyself in my lectures, as I have always done in my writings, to acomparatively minute investigation of certain special aspects or formsof primitive religion rather than attempt to embrace in a general viewthe whole of that large subject. Such a relatively detailed study of asingle compartment may be less attractive and more tedious than abird's-eye view of a wider area; but in the end it may perhaps prove amore solid contribution to knowledge. 

[Sidenote: Introductory observations. The question of a supernaturalrevelation excluded. ]

But before I come to details I wish to make a few general introductoryremarks, and in particular to define some of the terms which I shallhave occasion to use in the lectures. I have defined natural theology asthat reasoned knowledge of a God or gods which man may be supposed, whether rightly or wrongly, capable of attaining to by the exercise ofhis natural faculties alone. Whether there ever has been or can be aspecial miraculous revelation of God to man through channels differentfrom those through which all other human knowledge is derived, is aquestion which does not concern us in these lectures; indeed it isexpressly excluded from their scope by the will of the founder, whodirected the lecturers to treat the subject "as a strictly naturalscience, " "without reference to or reliance upon any supposed specialexceptional or so-called miraculous revelation. " Accordingly, incompliance with these directions, I dismiss at the outset the questionof a revelation, and shall limit myself strictly to natural theology inthe sense in which I have defined it. 

[Sidenote: Theology and religion, how related to each other. ]

I have called natural theology a reasoned knowledge of a God or gods todistinguish it from that simple and comparatively, though I believenever absolutely, unreasoning faith in God which suffices for thepractice of religion. For theology is at once more and less thanreligion: if on the one hand it includes a more complete acquaintancewith the grounds of religious belief than is essential to religion, onthe other hand it excludes the observance of those practical dutieswhich are indispensable to any religion worthy of the name. In short, whereas theology is purely theoretical, religion is both theoretical andpractical, though the theoretical part of it need not be so highlydeveloped as in theology. But while the subject of the lectures is, strictly speaking, natural theology rather than natural religion, Ithink it would be not only difficult but undesirable to confine ourattention to the purely theological or theoretical part of naturalreligion: in all religions, and not least in the undeveloped savagereligions with which we shall deal, theory and practice fuse with andinteract on each other too closely to be forcibly disjoined and handledapart. Hence throughout the lectures I shall not scruple to referconstantly to religious practice as well as to religious theory, withoutfeeling that thereby I am transgressing the proper limits of my subject. 

[Sidenote: The term God defined. ]

As theology is not only by definition but by etymology a reasonedknowledge or theory of a God or gods, it becomes desirable, before weproceed further, to define the sense in which I understand and shallemploy the word God. That sense is neither novel nor abstruse; it issimply the sense which I believe the generality of mankind attach to theterm. By a God I understand a superhuman and supernatural being, of aspiritual and personal nature, who controls the world or some part of iton the whole for good, and who is endowed with intellectual faculties, moral feelings, and active powers, which we can only conceive on theanalogy of human faculties, feelings, and activities, though we arebound to suppose that in the divine nature they exist in higher degrees, perhaps in infinitely higher degrees, than the corresponding faculties, feelings, and activities of man. In short, by a God I mean a beneficentsupernatural spirit, the ruler of the world or of some part of it, whoresembles man in nature though he excels him in knowledge, goodness, andpower. This is, I think, the sense in which the ordinary man speaks of aGod, and I believe that he is right in so doing. I am aware that it hasbeen not unusual, especially perhaps of late years, to apply the name ofGod to very different conceptions, to empty it of all implication ofpersonality, and to reduce it to signifying something very large andvery vague, such as the Infinite or the Absolute (whatever these hardwords may signify), the great First Cause, the Universal Substance, "thestream of tendency by which all things seek to fulfil the law of theirbeing, "[1] and so forth. Now without expressing any opinion as to thetruth or falsehood of the views implied by such applications of the nameof God, I cannot but regard them all as illegitimate extensions of theterm, in short as an abuse of language, and I venture to protest againstit in the interest not only of verbal accuracy but of clear thinking, because it is apt to conceal from ourselves and others a real and veryimportant change of thought: in particular it may lead many to imaginethat the persons who use the name of God in one or other of theseextended senses retain certain theological opinions which they may infact have long abandoned. Thus the misuse of the name of God mayresemble the stratagem in war of putting up dummies to make an enemyimagine that a fort is still held after it has been evacuated by thegarrison. I am far from alleging or insinuating that the illegitimateextension of the divine name is deliberately employed by theologians orothers for the purpose of masking a change of front; but that it mayhave that effect seems at least possible. And as we cannot use words inwrong senses without running a serious risk of deceiving ourselves aswell as others, it appears better on all accounts to adhere strictly tothe common meaning of the name of God as signifying a powerfulsupernatural and on the whole beneficent spirit, akin in nature to man;and if any of us have ceased to believe in such a being we shouldrefrain from applying the old word to the new faith, and should findsome other and more appropriate term to express our meaning. At allevents, speaking for myself, I intend to use the name of Godconsistently in the familiar sense, and I would beg my hearers to bearthis steadily in mind. 

[Sidenote: Monotheism and polytheism. ]

You will have observed that I have spoken of natural theology as areasoned knowledge of a God or gods. There is indeed nothing in thedefinition of God which I have adopted to imply that he is unique, inother words, that there is only one God rather than several or manygods. It is true that modern European thinkers, bred in a monotheisticreligion, commonly overlook polytheism as a crude theory unworthy theserious attention of philosophers; in short, the champions and theassailants of religion in Europe alike for the most part tacitly assumethat there is either one God or none. Yet some highly civilised nationsof antiquity and of modern times, such as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and the modern Chinese and Hindoos, have accepted thepolytheistic explanation of the world, and as no reasonable man willdeny the philosophical subtlety of the Greeks and the Hindoos, to saynothing of the rest, a theory of the universe which has commended itselfto them deserves perhaps more consideration than it has commonlyreceived from Western philosophers; certainly it cannot be ignored in anhistorical enquiry into the origin of religion. 

[Sidenote: A natural knowledge of God can only be acquired byexperience. ]

If there is such a thing as natural theology, that is, a knowledge of aGod or gods acquired by our natural faculties alone without the aid of aspecial revelation, it follows that it must be obtained by one or otherof the methods by which all our natural knowledge is conveyed to us. Roughly speaking, these methods are two in number, namely, intuition andexperience. Now if we ask ourselves, Do we know God intuitively in thesame sense in which we know intuitively our own sensations and thesimplest truths of mathematics, I think most men will acknowledge thatthey do not. It is true that according to Berkeley the world exists onlyas it is perceived, and that our perceptions of it are produced by theimmediate action of God on our minds, so that everything we perceivemight be described, if not as an idea in the mind of the deity, at leastas a direct emanation from him. On this theory we might in a sense besaid to have an immediate knowledge of God. But Berkeley's theory hasfound little acceptance, so far as I know, even among philosophers; andeven if we regarded it as true, we should still have to admit that theknowledge of God implied by it is inferential rather than intuitive inthe strict sense of the word: we infer God to be the cause of ourperceptions rather than identify him with the perceptions themselves. Onthe whole, then, I conclude that man, or at all events the ordinary man, has, properly speaking, no immediate or intuitive knowledge of God, andthat, if he obtains, without the aid of revelation, any knowledge of himat all, it can only be through the other natural channel of knowledge, that is, through experience. 

[Sidenote: The nature of experience. ]

In experience, as distinct from intuition, we reach our conclusions notdirectly through simple contemplation of the particular sensations, emotions, or ideas of which we are at the moment conscious, butindirectly by calling up before the imagination and comparing with eachother our memories of a variety of sensations, emotions, or ideas ofwhich we have been conscious in the past, and by selecting orabstracting from the mental images so compared the points in which theyresemble each other. The points of resemblance thus selected orabstracted from a number of particulars compose what we call an abstractor general idea, and from a comparison of such abstract or general ideaswith each other we arrive at general conclusions, which define therelations of the ideas to each other. Experience in general consists inthe whole body of conclusions thus deduced from a comparison of all theparticular sensations, emotions, and ideas which make up the consciouslife of the individual. Hence in order to constitute experience the mindhas to perform a more or less complex series of operations, which arecommonly referred to certain mental faculties, such as memory, imagination, and judgment. This analysis of experience does not pretendto be philosophically complete or exact; but perhaps it is sufficientlyaccurate for the purpose of these lectures, the scope of which is notphilosophical but historical. 

[Sidenote: Two kinds of experience, the experience of our own mind andthe experience of an external world. ]

Now experience in the widest sense of the word may be convenientlydistinguished into two sorts, the experience of our own mind and theexperience of an external world. The distinction is indeed, like theothers with which I am dealing at present, rather practically usefulthan theoretically sound; certainly it would not be granted by allphilosophers, for many of them have held that we neither have nor withour present faculties can possibly attain to any immediate knowledge orperception of an external world, we merely infer its existence from ourown sensations, which are as strictly a part of our mind as the ideasand emotions of our waking life or the visions of sleep. According tothem, the existence of matter or of an external world is, so far as weare concerned, merely an hypothesis devised to explain the order of oursensations; it never has been perceived by any man, woman, or child whoever lived on earth; we have and can have no immediate knowledge orperception of anything but the states and operations of our own mind. Onthis theory what we call the world, with all its supposed infinitudes ofspace and time, its systems of suns and planets, its seemingly endlessforms of inorganic matter and organic life, shrivels up, on a closeinspection, into a fleeting, a momentary figment of thought. It is likeone of those glass baubles, iridescent with a thousand varied anddelicate hues, which a single touch suffices to shatter into dust. Thephilosopher, like the sorcerer, has but to wave his magic wand, "And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. "

[Sidenote: The distinction rather popular and convenient thanphilosophically strict. ]

It would be beyond my province, even if it were within my power, todiscuss these airy speculations, and thereby to descend into the arenawhere for ages subtle dialecticians have battled with each other overthe reality or unreality of an external world. For my purpose itsuffices to adopt the popular and convenient distinction of mind andmatter and hence to divide experience into two sorts, an inwardexperience of the acts and states of our own minds, and an outwardexperience of the acts and states of that physical universe by which weseem to be surrounded. 

[Sidenote: The knowledge or conception of God has been attained both byinward and by outward experience. ]

Now if a natural knowledge of God is only possible by means ofexperience, in other words, by a process of reasoning based onobservation, it will follow that such a knowledge may conceivably beacquired either by the way of inward or of outward experience; in otherwords, it may be attained either by reflecting on the processes of ourown minds or by observing the processes of external nature. In point offact, if we survey the history of thought, mankind appears to havearrived at a knowledge, or at all events at a conception, of deity byboth these roads. Let me say a few words as to the two roads which lead, or seem to lead, man to God. 

[Sidenote: The conception of God is attained by inward experience, thatis, by the observation of certain remarkable thoughts and feelings whichare attributed to the inspiration of a deity. Practical dangers of thetheory of inspiration. ]

In the first place, then, men in many lands and many ages haveexperienced certain extraordinary emotions and entertained certainextraordinary ideas, which, unable to account for them by reference tothe ordinary forms of experience, they have set down to the directaction of a powerful spirit or deity working on their minds and evenentering into and taking possession of their bodies; and in this excitedstate--for violent excitement is characteristic of thesemanifestations--the patient believes himself to be possessed ofsupernatural knowledge and supernatural power. This real or supposedmode of apprehending a divine spirit and entering into communion withit, is commonly and appropriately called inspiration. The phenomenon isfamiliar to us from the example of the Hebrew nation, who believed thattheir prophets were thus inspired by the deity, and that their sacredbooks were regularly composed under the divine afflatus. The belief isby no means singular, indeed it appears to be world-wide; for it wouldbe hard to point to any race of men among whom instances of suchinspiration have not been reported; and the more ignorant and savage therace the more numerous, to judge by the reports, are the cases ofinspiration. Volumes might be filled with examples, but through thespread of information as to the lower races in recent years the topichas become so familiar that I need not stop to illustrate it byinstances. I will merely say that among savages the theory ofinspiration or possession is commonly invoked to explain all abnormalmental states, particularly insanity or conditions of mind bordering onit, so that persons more or less crazed in their wits, and particularlyhysterical or epileptic patients, are for that very reason thought to bepeculiarly favoured by the spirits and are therefore consulted asoracles, their wild and whirling words passing for the revelations of ahigher power, whether a god or a ghost, who considerately screens histoo dazzling light under a thick veil of dark sayings and mysteriousejaculations. [2] I need hardly point out the very serious dangers whichmenace any society where such theories are commonly held and acted upon. If the decisions of a whole community in matters of the gravestimportance are left to turn on the wayward fancies, the whims andvagaries of the insane or the semi-insane, what are likely to be theconsequences to the commonwealth? What, for example, can be expected toresult from a war entered upon at such dictation and waged under suchauspices? Are cattle-breeding, agriculture, commerce, all the arts oflife on which a people depend for their subsistence, likely to thrivewhen they are directed by the ravings of epilepsy or the drivellings ofhysteria? Defeat in battle, conquest by enemies, death by famine andwidespread disease, these and a thousand other lesser evils threaten theblind people who commit themselves to such blind guides. The history ofsavage and barbarous tribes, could we follow it throughout, mightfurnish us with a thousand warning instances of the fatal effects ofcarrying out this crude theory of inspiration to its logicalconclusions; and if we hear less than might be expected of suchinstances, it is probably because the tribes who consistently acted upto their beliefs have thereby wiped themselves out of existence: theyhave perished the victims of their folly and left no record behind. Ibelieve that historians have not yet reckoned sufficiently with thedisastrous influence which this worship of insanity, --for it is oftennothing less--has exercised on the fortunes of peoples and on thedevelopment or decay of their institutions. 

[Sidenote: The belief in inspiration leads to the worship of living menas gods. Outward experience as a source of the idea of God. ]

To a certain extent, however, the evil has provided its own remedy. Formen of strong heads and ambitious temper, perceiving the exorbitantpower which a belief in inspiration places in the hands of thefeeble-minded, have often feigned to be similarly afflicted, and tradingon their reputation for imbecility, or rather inspiration, have acquiredan authority over their fellows which, though they have often abused itfor vulgar ends, they have sometimes exerted for good, as for example bygiving sound advice in matters of public concern, applying salutaryremedies to the sick, and detecting and punishing crime, whereby theyhave helped to preserve the commonwealth, to alleviate suffering, and tocement that respect for law and order which is essential to thestability of society, and without which any community must fall topieces like a house of cards. These great services have been rendered tothe cause of civilisation and progress by the class of men who inprimitive society are variously known as medicine-men, magicians, sorcerers, diviners, soothsayers, and so forth. Sometimes the respectwhich they have gained by the exercise of their profession has won forthem political as well as spiritual or ghostly authority; in short, frombeing simple medicine-men or sorcerers they have grown into chiefs andkings. When such men, seated on the throne of state, retain their oldreputation for being the vehicles of a divine spirit, they may beworshipped in the character of gods as well as revered in the capacityof kings; and thus exerting a two-fold sway over the minds of men theypossess a most potent instrument for elevating or depressing thefortunes of their worshippers and subjects. In this way the old savagenotion of inspiration or possession gradually develops into the doctrineof the divinity of kings, which after a long period of florescencedwindles away into the modest theory that kings reign by divine right, atheory familiar to our ancestors not long ago, and perhaps not whollyobsolete among us even now. However, inspired men need not alwaysblossom out into divine kings; they may, and often do, remain in thechrysalis state of simple deities revered by their simple worshippers, their brows encircled indeed with a halo of divinity but not weightedwith the more solid substance of a kingly crown. Thus certainextraordinary mental states, which those who experience and those whowitness them cannot account for in any other way, are often explained bythe supposed interposition of a spirit or deity. This, therefore, is oneof the two forms of experience by which men attain, or imagine that theyattain, to a knowledge of God and a communion with him. It is what Ihave called the road of inward experience. Let us now glance at theother form of experience which leads, or seems to lead, to the samegoal. It is what I have called the road of outward experience. 

[Sidenote: Tendency of the mind to search for causes, and the necessityfor their discovery. ]

When we contemplate the seemingly infinite variety, the endlesssuccession, of events that pass under our observation in what we callthe external world, we are led by an irresistible tendency to trace whatwe call a causal connexion between them. The tendency to discover thecauses of things appears indeed to be innate in the constitution of ourminds and indispensable to our continued existence. It is the link thatarrests and colligates into convenient bundles the mass of particularsdrifting pell-mell past on the stream of sensation; it is the cementthat binds into an edifice seemingly of adamant the loose sand ofisolated perceptions. Deprived of the knowledge which this tendencyprocures for us we should be powerless to foresee the succession ofphenomena and so to adapt ourselves to it. We should be bewildered bythe apparent disorder and confusion of everything, we should toss on asea without a rudder, we should wander in an endless maze without aclue, and finding no way out of it, or, in plain words, unable to avoida single one of the dangers which menace us at every turn, we shouldinevitably perish. Accordingly the propensity to search for causes ischaracteristic of man in all ages and at all levels of culture, thoughwithout doubt it is far more highly developed in civilised than insavage communities. Among savages it is more or less unconscious andinstinctive; among civilised men it is deliberately cultivated andrewarded at least by the applause of their fellows, by the dignity, ifnot by the more solid recompenses, of learning. Indeed as civilisationprogresses the enquiry into causes tends to absorb more and more of thehighest intellectual energies of a people; and an ever greater number ofmen, renouncing the bustle, the pleasures, and the ambitions of anactive life, devote themselves exclusively to the pursuit of abstracttruth; they set themselves to discover the causes of things, to tracethe regularity and order that may be supposed to underlie the seeminglyirregular, confused, and arbitrary sequence of phenomena. Unquestionablythe progress of civilisation owes much to the sustained efforts of suchmen, and if of late years and within our own memory the pace of progresshas sensibly quickened, we shall perhaps not err in supposing that somepart at least of the acceleration may be accounted for by an increase inthe number of lifelong students. 

[Sidenote: The idea of cause is simply that of invariable sequencesuggested by the observation of many particular cases of sequence. ]

Now when we analyse the conception of a cause to the bottom, we find asthe last residuum in our crucible nothing but what Hume found there longago, and that is simply the idea of invariable sequence. Whenever we saythat something is the cause of something else, all that we really meanis that the latter is invariably preceded by the former, so thatwhenever we find the second, which we call the effect, we may infer thatthe first, which we call the cause, has gone before it. All suchinferences from effects to causes are based on experience; havingobserved a certain sequence of events a certain number of times, weconclude that the events are so conjoined that the latter cannot occurwithout the previous occurrence of the former. A single case of twoevents following each other could not of itself suggest that the oneevent is the cause of the other, since there is no necessary linkbetween them in the mind; the sequence has to be repeated more or lessfrequently before we infer a causal connexion between the two; and thisinference rests simply on that association of ideas which is establishedin our mind by the reiterated observation of the things. Once the ideasare by dint of repetition firmly welded together, the one by sheer forceof habit calls up the other, and we say that the two things which arerepresented by those ideas stand to each other in the relation of causeand effect. The notion of causality is in short only one particular caseof the association of ideas. Thus all reasoning as to causes impliesprevious observation: we reason from the observed to the unobserved, from the known to the unknown; and the wider the range of ourobservation and knowledge, the greater the probability that ourreasoning will be correct. 

[Sidenote: The savage draws his ideas of natural causation fromobservation of himself. Hence he explains the phenomena of nature bysupposing that they are produced by beings like himself. These beingsmay be called spirits or gods of nature to distinguish them from livinghuman gods. ]

All this is as true of the savage as of the civilised man. He tooargues, and indeed can only argue on the basis of experience from theknown to the unknown, from the observed to the hypothetical. But therange of his experience is comparatively narrow, and accordingly hisinferences from it often appear to civilised men, with their widerknowledge, to be palpably false and absurd. This holds good mostobviously in regard to his observation of external nature. While heoften knows a good deal about the natural objects, whether animals, plants, or inanimate things, on which he is immediately dependent forhis subsistence, the extent of country with which he is acquainted iscommonly but small, and he has little or no opportunity of correctingthe conclusions which he bases on his observation of it by a comparisonwith other parts of the world. But if he knows little of the outerworld, he is necessarily somewhat better acquainted with his own innerlife, with his sensations and ideas, his emotions, appetites, anddesires. Accordingly it is natural enough that when he seeks to discoverthe causes of events in the external world, he should, arguing fromexperience, imagine that they are produced by the actions of invisiblebeings like himself, who behind the veil of nature pull the strings thatset the vast machinery in motion. For example, he knows by experiencethat he can make sparks fly by knocking two flints against each other;what more natural, therefore, than that he should imagine the greatsparks which we call lightning to be made in the same way by somebody upaloft, and that when he finds chipped flints on the ground he shouldtake them for thunder-stones dropped by the maker of thunder andlightning from the clouds?[3] Thus arguing from his limited experienceprimitive man creates a multitude of spirits or gods in his own likenessto explain the succession of phenomena in nature of whose true causes heis ignorant; in short he personifies the phenomena as powerfulanthropomorphic spirits, and believing himself to be more or lessdependent on their good will he woos their favour by prayer andsacrifice. This personification of the various aspects of externalnature is one of the most fruitful sources of polytheism. The spiritsand gods created by this train of thought may be called spirits and godsof nature to distinguish them from the human gods, by which I mean theliving men and women who are believed by their worshippers to beinspired or possessed by a divine spirit. 

[Sidenote: In time men reject polytheism as an explanation of naturalprocesses and substitute certain abstract ideas of ethers, atoms, molecules, and so on. ]

But as time goes on and men learn more about nature, they commonlybecome dissatisfied with polytheism as an explanation of the world andgradually discard it. From one department of nature after another thegods are reluctantly or contemptuously dismissed and their provincescommitted to the care of certain abstract ideas of ethers, atoms, molecules, and so forth, which, though just as imperceptible to humansenses as their divine predecessors, are judged by prevailing opinion todischarge their duties with greater regularity and despatch, and areaccordingly firmly installed on the vacant thrones amid the generalapplause of the more enlightened portion of mankind. Thus instead ofbeing peopled with a noisy bustling crowd of full-blooded andpicturesque deities, clothed in the graceful form and animated with thewarm passions of humanity, the universe outside the narrow circle of ourconsciousness is now conceived as absolutely silent, colourless, anddeserted. The cheerful sounds which we hear, the bright hues which wesee, have no existence, we are told, in the external world: the voicesof friends, the harmonies of music, the chime of falling waters, thesolemn roll of ocean, the silver splendour of the moon, the goldenglories of sunset, the verdure of summer woods, and the hectic tints ofautumn--all these subsist only in our own minds, and if we imagine themto have any reality elsewhere, we deceive ourselves. In fact the wholeexternal world as perceived by us is one great illusion: if we gave thereins to fancy we might call it a mirage, a piece of witchery, conjuredup by the spells of some unknown magician to bewilder poor ignoranthumanity. Outside of ourselves there stretches away on every side aninfinitude of space without sound, without light, without colour, asolitude traversed only in every direction by an inconceivably complexweb of silent and impersonal forces. That, if I understand it aright, isthe general conception of the world which modern science has substitutedfor polytheism. 

[Sidenote: But while they commonly discard the hypothesis of a deity asan explanation of all the particular processes of nature, they retain itas an explanation of nature in general. ]

When philosophy and science by their combined efforts have ejected godsand goddesses from all the subordinate posts of nature, it might perhapsbe expected that they would have no further occasion for the services ofa deity, and that having relieved him of all his particular functionsthey would have arranged for the creation and general maintenance of theuniverse without him by handing over these important offices to anefficient staff of those ethers, atoms, corpuscles, and so forth, whichhad already proved themselves so punctual in the discharge of the minorduties entrusted to them. Nor, indeed, is this expectation altogetherdisappointed. A number of atheistical philosophers have courageouslycome forward and assured us that the hypothesis of a deity as thecreator and preserver of the universe is quite superfluous, and that allthings came into being or have existed from eternity without the help ofany divine spirit, and that they will continue to exist without it tothe end, if end indeed there is to be. But on the whole these daringspeculators appear to be in a minority. The general opinion of educatedpeople at the present day, could we ascertain it, would probably befound to incline to the conclusion that, though every department ofnature is now worked by impersonal material forces alone, the universeas a whole was created and is still maintained by a great supernaturalspirit whom we call God. Thus in Europe and in the countries which haveborrowed their civilisation, their philosophy, and their religion fromit, the central problem of natural theology has narrowed itself down tothe question, Is there one God or none? It is a profound question, and Ifor one profess myself unable to answer it. 

[Sidenote: Whether attained by inward or outward experience, the idea ofGod is regularly that of a cause inferred, not perceived. ]

If this brief sketch of the history of natural theology is correct, manhas by the exercise of his natural faculties alone, without the help ofrevelation, attained to a knowledge or at least to a conception of Godin one of two ways, either by meditating on the operations of his ownmind, or by observing the processes of external nature: inwardexperience and outward experience have conducted him by different roadsto the same goal. By whichever of them the conception has been reached, it is regularly employed to explain the causal connexion of things, whether the things to be explained are the ideas and emotions of manhimself or the changes in the physical world outside of him. In short, aGod is always brought in to play the part of a cause; it is theimperious need of tracing the causes of events which has driven man todiscover or invent a deity. Now causes may be arranged in two classesaccording as they are perceived or unperceived by the senses. Forexample, when we see the impact of a billiard cue on a billiard ballfollowed immediately by the motion of the ball, we say that the impactis the cause of the motion. In this case we perceive the cause as wellas the effect. But, when we see an apple fall from a tree to the ground, we say that the cause of the fall is the force of gravitation exercisedby the superior mass of the earth on the inferior mass of the apple. Inthis case, though we perceive the effect, we do not perceive the cause, we only infer it by a process of reasoning from experience. Causes ofthe latter sort may be called inferential or hypothetical causes todistinguish them from those which are perceived. Of the two classes ofcauses a deity belongs in general, if not universally, to the second, that is, to the inferential or hypothetical causes; for as a rule at allevents his existence is not perceived by our senses but inferred by ourreason. To say that he has never appeared in visible and tangible formto men would be to beg the question; it would be to make an assertionwhich is incapable of proof and which is contradicted by a multitude ofcontrary affirmations recorded in the traditions or the sacred books ofmany races; but without being rash we may perhaps say that suchappearances, if they ever took place, belong to a past order of eventsand need hardly be reckoned with at the present time. For all practicalpurposes, therefore, God is now a purely inferential or hypotheticalcause; he may be invoked to explain either our own thoughts andfeelings, our impulses and emotions, or the manifold states andprocesses of external nature; he may be viewed either as the inspirer ofthe one or the creator and preserver of the other; and according as heis mainly regarded from the one point of view or the other, theconception of the divine nature tends to beget one of two very differenttypes of piety. To the man who traces the finger of God in the workingsof his own mind, the deity appears to be far closer than he seems to theman who only infers the divine existence from the marvellous order, harmony, and beauty of the external world; and we need not wonder thatthe faith of the former is of a more fervent temper and supplies himwith more powerful incentives to a life of active devotion than the calmand rational faith of the latter. We may conjecture that the piety ofmost great religious reformers has belonged to the former rather than tothe latter type; in other words, that they have believed in God becausethey felt, or imagined that they felt, him stirring in their own heartsrather than because they discerned the handiwork of a divine artificerin the wonderful mechanism of nature. 

[Sidenote: Besides the two sorts of gods already distinguished, namelynatural gods and living human gods, there is a third sort which hasplayed an important part in history, namely, the spirits of deified deadmen. Euhemerism. ]

Thus far I have distinguished two sorts of gods whom man discovers orcreates for himself by the exercise of his unaided faculties, to witnatural gods, whom he infers from his observation of external nature, and human gods or inspired men, whom he recognises by virtue of certainextraordinary mental manifestations in himself or in others. But thereis another class of human gods which I have not yet mentioned and whichhas played a very important part in the evolution of theology. I meanthe deified spirits of dead men. To judge by the accounts we possess notonly of savage and barbarous tribes but of some highly civilisedpeoples, the worship of the human dead has been one of the commonest andmost influential forms of natural religion, perhaps indeed the commonestand most influential of all. Obviously it rests on the supposition thatthe human personality in some form, whether we call it a soul, a spirit, a ghost, or what not, can survive death and thereafter continue for alonger or shorter time to exercise great power for good or evil over thedestinies of the living, who are therefore compelled to propitiate theshades of the dead out of a regard for their own safety and well-being. This belief in the survival of the human spirit after death isworld-wide; it is found among men in all stages of culture from thelowest to the highest; we need not wonder therefore that the custom ofpropitiating the ghosts or souls of the departed should be world-widealso. No doubt the degree of attention paid to ghosts is not the same inall cases; it varies with the particular degree of power attributed toeach of them; the spirits of men who for any reason were much feared intheir lifetime, such as mighty warriors, chiefs, and kings, are morerevered and receive far more marks of homage than the spirits of commonmen; and it is only when this reverence and homage are carried to a veryhigh pitch that they can properly be described as a deification of thedead. But that dead men have thus been raised to the rank of deities inmany lands, there is abundant evidence to prove. And quite apart fromthe worship paid to those spirits which are admitted by theirworshippers to have once animated the bodies of living men, there isgood reason to suspect that many gods, who rank as purely mythicalbeings, were once men of flesh and blood, though their true history haspassed out of memory or rather been transformed by legend into a myth, which veils more or less completely the real character of the imaginarydeity. The theory that most or all gods originated after this fashion, in other words, that the worship of the gods is little or nothing butthe worship of dead men, is known as Euhemerism from Euhemerus, theancient Greek writer who propounded it. Regarded as a universalexplanation of the belief in gods it is certainly false; regarded as apartial explanation of the belief it is unquestionably true; and perhapswe may even go further and say, that the more we penetrate into theinner history of natural religion, the larger is seen to be the elementof truth contained in Euhemerism. For the more closely we look at manydeities of natural religion, the more distinctly do we seem to perceive, under the quaint or splendid pall which the mythical fancy has wraptround their stately figures, the familiar features of real men, who onceshared the common joys and the common sorrows of humanity, who trodlife's common road to the common end. 

[Sidenote: The deification of dead men presupposes the immortality ofthe human soul, or rather its survival for a longer or shorter timeafter death. ]

When we ask how it comes about that dead men have so often been raisedto the rank of divinities, the first thing to be observed is that allsuch deifications must, if our theory is correct, be inferences drawnfrom experience of some sort; they must be hypotheses devised to explainthe unperceived causes of certain phenomena, whether of the human mindor of external nature. All of them imply, as I have said, a belief thatthe conscious human personality, call it the soul, the spirit, or whatyou please, can survive the body and continue to exist in a disembodiedstate with unabated or even greatly increased powers for good or evil. This faith in the survival of personality after death may for the sakeof brevity be called a faith in immortality, though the term immortalityis not strictly correct, since it seems to imply eternal duration, whereas the idea of eternity is hardly intelligible to many primitivepeoples, who nevertheless firmly believe in the continued existence, fora longer or shorter time, of the human spirit after the dissolution ofthe body. Now the faith in the immortality of the soul or, to speak morecorrectly, in the continued existence of conscious human personalityafter death, is, as I remarked before, exceedingly common among men atall levels of intellectual evolution from the lowest upwards; certainlyit is not peculiar to adherents of the higher religions, but is held asan unquestionable truth by at least the great majority of savage andbarbarous peoples as to whose ideas we possess accurate information;indeed it might be hard to point to any single tribe of men, howeversavage, of whom we could say with certainty that the faith is totallywanting among them. 

[Sidenote: The question of immortality is a fundamental problem ofnatural theology in the wider sense. ]

Hence if we are to explain the deification of dead men, we must firstexplain the widespread belief in immortality; we must answer thequestion, how does it happen that men in all countries and at all stagesof ignorance or knowledge so commonly suppose that when they die theirconsciousness will still persist for an indefinite time after the decayof the body? To answer that question is one of the fundamental problemsof natural theology, not indeed in the full sense of the word theology, if we confine the term strictly to a reasoned knowledge of a God; forthe example of Buddhism proves that a belief in the existence of thehuman soul after death is quite compatible with disbelief in a deity. But if we may use, as I think we may, the phrase natural theology in anextended sense to cover theories which, though they do not in themselvesaffirm the existence of a God, nevertheless appear to be one of thedeepest and most fruitful sources of the belief in his reality, then wemay legitimately say that the doctrine of human immortality does fallwithin the scope of natural theology. What then is its origin? How is itthat men so commonly believe themselves to be immortal?

[Sidenote: If there is any natural knowledge of immortality, it must beacquired either by intuition or experience; it is apparently not givenby intuition; hence it must be acquired, if at all, by experience. ]

If there is any natural knowledge of human immortality, it must beacquired either by intuition or by experience; there is no other way. Now whether other men from a simple contemplation of their own nature, quite apart from reasoning, know or believe themselves intuitively to beimmortal, I cannot say; but I can say with some confidence that formyself I have no such intuition whatever of my own immortality, and thatif I am left to the resources of my natural faculties alone, I can aslittle affirm the certain or probable existence of my personality afterdeath as I can affirm the certain or probable existence of a personalGod. And I am bold enough to suspect that if men could analyse their ownideas, they would generally find themselves to be in a similarpredicament as to both these profound topics. Hence I incline to lay itdown as a probable proposition that men as a rule have no intuitiveknowledge of their own immortality, and that if there is any naturalknowledge of such a thing it can only be acquired by a process ofreasoning from experience. [4]

[Sidenote: The idea of immortality seems to have been suggested to manboth by his inward and his outward experience, notably by dreams, whichare a case of inward experience. ]

What then is the kind of experience from which the theory of humanimmortality is deduced? Is it our experience of the operations of ourown minds? or is it our experience of external nature? As a matter ofhistorical fact--and you will remember that I am treating the questionpurely from the historical standpoint--men seem to have inferred thepersistence of their personality after death both from the one kind ofexperience and from the other, that is, both from the phenomena of theirinner life and from the phenomena of what we call the external world. Thus the savage, with whose beliefs we are chiefly concerned in theselectures, finds a very strong argument for immortality in the phenomenaof dreams, which are strictly a part of his inner life, though in hisignorance he commonly fails to discriminate them from what we popularlycall waking realities. Hence when the images of persons whom he knows tobe dead appear to him in a dream, he naturally infers that these personsstill exist somewhere and somehow apart from their bodies, of the decayor destruction of which he may have had ocular demonstration. How couldhe see dead people, he asks, if they did not exist? To argue that theyhave perished like their bodies is to contradict the plain evidence ofhis senses; for to the savage still more than to the civilised manseeing is believing; that he sees the dead only in dreams does not shakehis belief, since he thinks the appearances of dreams just as real asthe appearances of his waking hours. And once he has in this way gaineda conviction that the dead survive and can help or harm him, as theyseem to do in dreams, it is natural or necessary for him to extend thetheory to the occurrences of daily life, which, as I have said, he doesnot sharply distinguish from the visions of slumber. He now explainsmany of these occurrences and many of the processes of nature by thedirect interposition of the spirits of the departed; he traces theirinvisible hand in many of the misfortunes and in some of the blessingswhich befall him; for it is a common feature of the faith in ghosts, atleast among savages, that they are usually spiteful and mischievous, orat least testy and petulant, more apt to injure than to benefit thesurvivors. In that they resemble the personified spirits of nature, which in the opinion of most savages appear to be generally tricky andmalignant beings, whose anger is dangerous and whose favour is courtedwith fear and trembling. Thus even without the additional assuranceafforded by tales of apparitions and spectres, primitive man may come intime to imagine the world around him to be more or less thickly peopled, influenced, and even dominated by a countless multitude of spirits, among whom the shades of past generations of men and women hold a veryprominent, often apparently the leading place. These spirits, powerfulto help or harm, he seeks either simply to avert, when he deems thempurely mischievous, or to appease and conciliate, when he supposes themsufficiently good-natured to respond to his advances. In some such wayas this, arguing from the real but, as we think, misinterpretedphenomena of dreams, the savage may arrive at a doctrine of humanimmortality and from that at a worship of the dead. 

[Sidenote: It has also been suggested by the resemblance of the livingto the dead, which is a case of outward experience. ]

This explanation of the savage faith in immortality is neither novel nororiginal: on the contrary it is perhaps the commonest and most familiarthat has yet been propounded. If it does not account for all the facts, it probably accounts for many of them. At the same time I do not doubtthat many other inferences drawn from experiences of different kindshave confirmed, even if they did not originally suggest, man's confidentbelief in his own immortality. To take a single example of outwardexperience, the resemblances which children often bear to deceasedkinsfolk appear to have prompted in the minds of many savages the notionthat the souls of these dead kinsfolk have been born again in theirdescendants. [5] From a few cases of resemblances so explained it wouldbe easy to arrive at a general theory that all living persons areanimated by the souls of the dead; in other words, that the human spiritsurvives death for an indefinite period, if not for eternity, duringwhich it undergoes a series of rebirths or reincarnations. However ithas been arrived at, this doctrine of the transmigration orreincarnation of the soul is found among many tribes of savages; andfrom what we know on the subject we seem to be justified in conjecturingthat at certain stages of mental and social evolution the belief inmetempsychosis has been far commoner and has exercised a far deeperinfluence on the life and institutions of primitive man than the actualevidence before us at present allows us positively to affirm. 

[Sidenote: The aim of these lectures is to collect a number of factsillustrative of the belief in immortality and of the customs based on itamong some of the lower races. ]

Be that as it may--and I have no wish to dogmatise on so obscure atopic--it is certain that a belief in the survival of the humanpersonality after death and the practice of a propitiation or worship ofthe dead have prevailed very widely among mankind and have played a veryimportant part in the development of natural religion. While manywriters have duly recognised the high importance both of the belief andof the worship, no one, so far as I know, has attempted systematicallyto collect and arrange the facts which illustrate the prevalence of thisparticular type of religion among the various races of mankind. A largebody of evidence lies to hand in the voluminous and rapidly increasingliterature of ethnology; but it is dispersed over an enormous number ofprinted books and papers, to say nothing of the materials which stillremain buried either in manuscript or in the minds of men who possessthe requisite knowledge but have not yet committed it to writing. Todraw all those stores of information together and digest them into asingle treatise would be a herculean labour, from which even the mostindustrious researcher into the dusty annals of the human past mightshrink dismayed. Certainly I shall make no attempt to perform such afeat within the narrow compass of these lectures. But it seems to methat I may make a useful, if a humble, contribution to the history ofreligion by selecting a portion of the evidence and submitting it to myhearers. For that purpose, instead of accumulating a mass of facts fromall the various races of mankind and then comparing them together, Iprefer to limit myself to a few races and to deal with each of themseparately, beginning with the lowest savages, about whom we possessaccurate information, and gradually ascending to peoples who standhigher in the scale of culture. In short the method of treatment which Ishall adopt will be the descriptive rather than the comparative. I shallnot absolutely refrain from instituting comparisons between the customsand beliefs of different races, but for the most part I shall contentmyself with describing the customs and beliefs of each race separatelywithout reference to those of others. Each of the two methods, thecomparative and the descriptive, has its peculiar advantages anddisadvantages, and in my published writings I have followed now the onemethod and now the other. The comparative method is unquestionably themore attractive and stimulating, but it cannot be adopted without a gooddeal of more or less conscious theorising, since every comparisonimplicitly involves a theory. If we desire to exclude theories andmerely accumulate facts for the use of science, the descriptive methodis undoubtedly the better adapted for the arrangement of our materials:it may not stimulate enquiry so powerfully, but it lays a more solidfoundation on which future enquirers may build. It is as a collection offacts illustrative of the belief in immortality and of all the momentousconsequences which have flowed from that belief, that I desire thefollowing lectures to be regarded. They are intended to serve simply asa document of religious history; they make no pretence to discussphilosophically the truth of the beliefs and the morality of thepractices which will be passed under review. If any inferences canindeed be drawn from the facts to the truth or falsehood of the beliefsand to the moral worth or worthlessness of the practices, I prefer toleave it to others more competent than myself to draw them. My sight isnot keen enough, my hand is not steady enough to load the scales andhold the balance in so difficult and delicate an enquiry. 

[Footnote 1: Matthew Arnold, _Literature and Dogma_, ch. I. , p. 31(Popular Edition, London, 1893). ]

[Footnote 2: For a single instance see L. Sternberg, "Die Religion derGiljaken, " _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, viii. (1905) pp. 462_sqq. _, where the writer tells us that the Gilyaks have boundless faithin the supernatural power of their shamans, and that the shamans arenearly always persons who suffer from hysteria in one form or another. ]

[Footnote 3: As to the widespread belief that flint weapons arethunderbolts see Sir E. B. Tylor, _Researches into the Early History ofMankind_, Third Edition (London, 1878), pp. 223-227; Chr. Blinkenberg, _The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore_ (Cambridge, 1911); W. W. Skeat "Snakestones and Thunderbolts, " _Folk-lore_, xxiii. (1912) pp. 60_sqq. _; and the references in _The Magic Art and the Evolution ofKings_, ii. 374. ]

[Footnote 4: Wordsworth, who argues strongly, almost passionately, for"the consciousness of a principle of Immortality in the human soul, "admits that "the sense of Immortality, if not a coexistent and twinbirth with Reason, is among the earliest of her offspring. " See his_Essay upon Epitaphs_, appended to _The Excursion_ (_Poetical Works_, London, 1832, vol. Iv. Pp. 336, 338). This somewhat hesitating admissionof the inferential nature of the belief in immortality carries all themore weight because it is made by so warm an advocate of humanimmortality. ]

[Footnote 5: For instance, the Kagoro of Northern Nigeria believe that"a spirit may transmigrate into the body of a descendant bornafterwards, male or female; in fact, this is common, as is proved by thelikeness of children to their parents or grand-parents, and it is lucky, for the ghost has returned, and has no longer any power to frighten therelatives until the new body dies, and it is free again" (Major A. J. N. Tremearne, "Notes on some Nigerian Head-hunters, " _Journal of the R. Anthropological Institute_, xlii. (1912) p. 159). Compare _Taboo and thePerils of the Soul_, pp. 88 _sq. _; _The Dying God_, p. 287 (p. 288, Second Impression). ]

LECTURE II

THE SAVAGE CONCEPTION OF DEATH

[Sidenote: The subject of these lectures is the belief in immortalityand the worship of the dead. ]

Last day I explained the subject of which I propose to treat and themethod which I intend to follow in these lectures. I shall describe thebelief in immortality, or rather in the continued existence of the humansoul after death, as that belief is found among certain of the lowerraces, and I shall give some account of the religion which has beenbased upon it. That religion is in brief a propitiation or worship ofthe human dead, who according to the degree of power ascribed to them bythe living are supposed to vary in dignity from the humble rank of amere common ghost up to the proud position of deity. The elements ofsuch a worship appear to exist among all races of men, though in somethey have been much more highly developed than in others. 

[Sidenote: Preliminary account of savage beliefs concerning the natureand origin of death. ]

But before I address myself to the description of particular races, Iwish in this and the following lecture to give you some general accountof the beliefs of savages concerning the nature and origin of death. Theproblem of death has very naturally exercised the minds of men in allages. Unlike so many problems which interest only a few solitarythinkers this one concerns us all alike, since simpletons as well assages must die, and even the most heedless and feather-brained canhardly help sometimes asking themselves what comes after death. Thequestion is therefore thrust in a practical, indeed importunate form onour attention; and we need not wonder that in the long history of humanspeculation some of the highest intellects should have occupiedthemselves with it and sought to find an answer to the riddle. Some oftheir solutions of the problem, though dressed out in all the beauty ofexquisite language and poetic imagery, singularly resemble the rudeguesses of savages. So little, it would seem, do the natural powers evenof the greatest minds avail to pierce the thick veil that hides the endof life. 

[Sidenote: The problem of death is one of universal interest. ]

In saying that the problem is thrust home upon us all, I do not mean toimply that all men are constantly or even often engaged in meditating onthe nature and origin of death. Far from it. Few people troublethemselves about that or any other purely abstract question: the commonman would probably not give a straw for an answer to it. What he wantsto know, what we all want to know, is whether death is the end of allthings for the individual, whether our conscious personality perisheswith the body or survives it for a time or for eternity. That is theenigma propounded to every human being who has been born into the world:that is the door at which so many enquirers have knocked in vain. Statedin this limited form the problem has indeed been of universal interest:there is no race of men known to us which has not pondered the mysteryand arrived at some conclusions to which it more or less confidentlyadheres. Not that all races have paid an equal attention to it. On someit has weighed much more heavily than on others. While some races, likesome individuals, take death almost lightly, and are too busy with thecertainties of the present world to pay much heed to the uncertaintiesof a world to come, the minds of others have dwelt on the prospect of alife beyond the grave till the thought of it has risen with them to apassion, almost to an obsession, and has begotten a contempt for thefleeting joys of this ephemeral existence by comparison with thehoped-for bliss of an eternal existence hereafter. To the sceptic, examining the evidence for immortality by the cold light of reason, suchpeoples and such individuals may seem to sacrifice the substance for theshadow: to adopt a homely comparison, they are like the dog in the fablewho dropped the real leg of mutton, from his mouth in order to snap atits reflection in the water. Be that as it may, where such beliefs andhopes are entertained in full force, the whole activity of the mind andthe whole energy of the body are apt to be devoted to a preparation fora blissful or at all events an untroubled eternity, and life becomes, inthe language of Plato, a meditation or practising of death. Thisexcessive preoccupation with a problematic future has been a fruitfulsource of the most fatal aberrations both for nations and individuals. In pursuit of these visionary aims the few short years of life have beenfrittered away: wealth has been squandered: blood has been poured out intorrents: the natural affections have been stifled; and the cheerfulserenity of reason has been exchanged for the melancholy gloom ofmadness. 

 "Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain--_This_ Life flies; One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies. "

[Sidenote: The belief in immortality general among mankind. ]

The question whether our conscious personality survives after death hasbeen answered by almost all races of men in the affirmative. On thispoint sceptical or agnostic peoples are nearly, if not wholly, unknown. Accordingly if abstract truth could be determined, like the gravestissues of national policy, by a show of hands or a counting of heads, the doctrine of human immortality, or at least of a life after death, would deserve to rank among the most firmly established of truths; forwere the question put to the vote of the whole of mankind, there can beno doubt that the ayes would have it by an overwhelming majority. Thefew dissenters would be overborne; their voices would be drowned in thegeneral roar. For dissenters there have been even among savages. TheTongans, for example, thought that only the souls of noblemen are saved, the rest perish with their bodies. [6] However, this aristocratic viewhas never been popular, and is not likely to find favour in ourdemocratic age. 

[Sidenote: Belief of many savages that they would never die if theirlives were not cut short by sorcery. Belief of the Abipones. ]

But many savage races not only believe in a life after death; they areeven of opinion that they would never die at all if it were not for themaleficent arts of sorcerers who cut the vital thread prematurely short. In other words, they disbelieve in what we call a natural death; theythink that all men are naturally immortal in this life, and that everydeath which takes place is in fact a violent death inflicted by the handof a human enemy, though in many cases the foe is invisible and workshis fell purpose not by a sword or a spear but by magic. Thus theAbipones, a now extinct tribe of horse Indians in Paraguay, used toallege that they would be immortal and that none of them would ever dieif only the Spaniards and the sorcerers could be banished from America;for they were in the habit of attributing every death, whatever itscause, either to the baleful arts of sorcerers or to the firearms of theSpaniards. Even if a man died riddled with wounds, with his bonessmashed, or through the exhaustion of old age, these Indians would alldeny that the wounds or old age was the cause of his death; they firmlybelieved that the death was brought about by magic, and they would makecareful enquiries to discover the sorcerer who had cast the fatal spellon their comrade. The relations of the deceased would move every stoneto detect and punish the culprit; and they imagined that they could dothis by cutting out the heart and tongue of the dead man and throwingthem to a dog to be devoured. They thought that this in some way killedthe wicked magician who had killed their friend. For example, ithappened that in a squabble between two men about a horse a third manwho tried to make peace between the disputants was mortally wounded bytheir spears and died in a few days. To us it might seem obvious thatthe peacemaker was killed by the spear-wounds which he had received, butnone of the Abipones would admit such a thing for a moment. They stoutlyaffirmed that their comrade had been done to death by the magical artsof some person unknown, and their suspicions fell on a certain oldwoman, known to be a witch, to whom the deceased had lately refused togive a water-melon, and who out of spite had killed him by her spells, though he appeared to the European eye to have died of a spear-wound. [7]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Araucanians. ]

Similarly the warlike Araucanians of Chili are said to disbelieve innatural death. Even if a man dies peaceably at the age of a hundred, they still think that he has been bewitched by an enemy. A diviner ormedicine-man is consulted in order to discover the culprit. Some ofthese wizards enjoy a great reputation and the Indians will send ahundred miles or more to get the opinion of an eminent member of theprofession. In such cases they submit to him some of the remains of thedead man, for example, his eyebrows, his nails, his tongue, or the solesof his feet, and from an examination of these relics the man of skillpronounces on the author of the death. The person whom he accuses ishunted down and killed, sometimes by fire, amid the yells of an enragedcrowd. [8]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Bakaïri. ]

When the eminent German anthropologist was questioning a Bakaïri Indianof Brazil as to the language of his tribe, he gave the sentence, "Everyman must die" to be translated into the Bakaïri language. To hisastonishment, the Indian remained long silent. The same long pausealways occurred when an abstract proposition, with which he wasunfamiliar, was put before the Indian for translation into his nativetongue. On the present occasion the enquirer learned that the Indian hasno idea of necessity in the abstract, and in particular he has noconception at all of the necessity of death. The cause of death, in hisopinion, is invariably an ill turn done by somebody to the deceased. Ifthere were only good men in the world, he thinks that there would beneither sickness nor death. He knows nothing about a natural end of thevital process; he believes that all sickness and disease are the effectsof witchcraft. [9]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Indians of Guiana in sorcery as the cause ofsickness and death. ]

Speaking of the Indians of Guiana, an English missionary, who knew themwell, says that the worst feature in their character is their pronenessto blood revenge, "by which a succession of retaliatory murders may bekept up for a long time. It is closely connected with their system ofsorcery, which we shall presently consider. A person dies, --and it issupposed that an enemy has secured the agency of an evil spirit tocompass his death. Some sorcerer, employed by the friends of thedeceased for that purpose, pretends by his incantations to discover theguilty individual or family, or at any rate to indicate the quarterwhere they dwell. A near relative of the deceased is then charged withthe work of vengeance. He becomes a _kanaima_, or is supposed to bepossessed by the destroying spirit so called, and has to live apart, according to strict rule, and submit to many privations, until the deedof blood be accomplished. If the supposed offender cannot be slain, someinnocent member of his family--man, woman, or little child--must sufferinstead. "[10] The same writer tells us that these Indians of Guianaattribute sickness and death directly to the agency of certain evilspirits called _yauhahu_, who delight in inflicting miseries uponmankind. Pain, in the language of the Arawaks (one of the best-knowntribes of Guiana), is called _yauhahu simaira_ or "the evil spirit'sarrow. "[11] It is these evil spirits whom wicked sorcerers employ toaccomplish their fell purpose. Thus while the demon is the direct causeof sickness and death, the sorcerer who uses him as his tool is theindirect cause. The demon is thought to do his work by inserting somealien substance into the body of the sufferer, and a medicine-man isemployed to extract it by chanting an invocation to the maleficentspirit, shaking his rattle, and sucking the part of the patient's framein which the cause of the malady is imagined to reside. "After manyceremonies he will produce from his mouth some strange substance, suchas a thorn or gravel-stone, a fish-bone or bird's claw, a snake's tooth, or a piece of wire, which some malicious _yauhahu_ is supposed to haveinserted in the affected part. As soon as the patient fancies himselfrid of this cause of his illness his recovery is generally rapid, andthe fame of the sorcerer greatly increased. Should death, however, ensue, the blame is laid upon the evil spirit whose power and malignityhave prevailed over the counteracting charms. Some rival sorcerer willat times come in for a share of the blame, whom the sufferer hasunhappily made his enemy, and who is supposed to have employed the_yauhahu_ in destroying him. The sorcerers being supposed to have thepower of causing, as well as of curing diseases, are much dreaded by thecommon people, who never wilfully offend them. So deeply rooted in theIndian's bosom is this belief concerning the origin of diseases, thatthey have little idea of sickness arising from other causes. Death mayarise from a wound or a contusion, or be brought on by want of food, butin other cases it is the work of the _yauhahu_"[12] or evil spirit. 

[Sidenote: Some deaths attributed to sorcery and others to evil spirits:practical consequence of this distinction. ]

In this account it is to be observed that while all natural deaths fromsickness and disease are attributed to the direct action of evilspirits, only some of them are attributed to the indirect action ofsorcerers. The practical consequences of this theoretical distinctionare very important. For whereas death by sorcery must, in the opinion ofsavages, be avenged by killing the supposed sorcerer, death by theaction of a demon cannot be so avenged; for how are you to get at thedemon? Hence, while every death by sorcery involves, theoretically atleast, another death by violence, death by a demon involves no suchpractical consequence. So far, therefore, the faith in sorcery is farmore murderous than the faith in demons. This practical distinction isclearly recognised by these Indians of Guiana; for another writer, wholaboured among them as a missionary, tells us that when a person dies anatural death, the medicine-man is called upon to decide whether heperished through the agency of a demon or the agency of a sorcerer. Ifhe decides that the deceased died through the malice of an evil spirit, the body is quietly buried, and no more is thought of the matter. But ifthe wizard declares that the cause of death was sorcery, the corpse isclosely inspected, and if a blue mark is discovered, it is pointed outas the spot where the invisible poisoned arrow, discharged by thesorcerer, entered the man. The next thing is to detect the culprit. Forthis purpose a pot containing a decoction of leaves is set to boil on afire. When it begins to boil over, the side on which the scum firstfalls is the quarter in which the supposed murderer is to be sought. Aconsultation is then held: the guilt is laid on some individual, and oneof the nearest relations of the deceased is charged with the duty offinding and killing him. If the imaginary culprit cannot be found, anyother member of his family may be slain in his stead. "It is notdifficult to conceive, " adds the writer, "how, under such circumstances, no man's life is secure; whilst these by no means unfrequent murdersmust greatly tend to diminish the number of the natives. "[13]

[Sidenote: Among the Indians of Guiana death is oftener attributed tosorcery than to demons. ]

However, it would seem that among the Indians of Guiana sickness anddeath are oftener ascribed to the agency of sorcerers than to the agencyof demons acting alone. For another high authority on these Indians, SirEverard F. Im Thurn, tells us that "every death, every illness, isregarded not as the result of natural law, but as the work of a_kenaima_" or sorcerer. "Often indeed, " he adds, "the survivors or therelatives of the invalid do not know to whom to attribute the deed, which therefore perforce remains unpunished; but often, again, there isreal or fancied reason to fix on some one as the _kenaima_, and then thenearest relative of the injured individual devotes himself to retaliate. Strange ceremonies are sometimes observed in order to discover thesecret _kenaima_. Richard Schomburgk describes a striking instance ofthis. A Macusi boy had died a natural death, and his relativesendeavoured to discover the quarter to which the _kenaima_ who wassupposed to have slain him belonged. Raising a terrible and monotonousdirge, they carried the body to an open piece of ground, and thereformed a circle round it, while the father, cutting from the corpse boththe thumbs and little fingers, both the great and the little toes, and apiece of each heel, threw these pieces into a new pot, which had beenfilled with water. A fire was kindled, and on this the pot was placed. When the water began to boil, according to the side on which one of thepieces was first thrown out from the pot by the bubbling of the water, in that direction would the _kenaima_ be. In thus looking round to seewho did the deed, the Indian thinks it by no means necessary to fix onanyone who has been with or near the injured man. The _kenaima_ issupposed to have done the deed, not necessarily in person, but probablyin spirit. "[14] For these Indians believe that each individual man has abody and a spirit within it, and that sorcerers can despatch theirspirits out of their bodies to harm people at a distance. It is notalways in an invisible form that these spirits of sorcerers are supposedto roam on their errands of mischief. The wizard can put his spirit intothe shape of an animal, such as a jaguar, a serpent, a sting-ray, abird, an insect, or anything else he pleases. Hence when an Indian isattacked by a wild beast, he thinks that his real foe is not the animal, but the sorcerer who has transformed himself into it. Curiously enoughthey look upon some small harmless birds in the same light. One littlebird, in particular, which flits across the savannahs with a peculiarshrill whistle at morning and evening, is regarded by the Indians withespecial fear as a transformed sorcerer. They think that for every oneof these birds that they shoot they have an enemy the less, and theyburn its little body, taking great care that not even a single featherescapes to be blown about by the wind. On a windy day a dozen men andwomen have been seen chasing the floating feathers of these birds aboutthe savannah in order utterly to extinguish the imaginary wizard. Eventhe foreign substance, the stick, bone, or whatever it is, which thegood medicine-man pretends to suck from the body of the sufferer "isoften, if not always, regarded not simply as a natural body, but as thematerialised form of a hostile spirit. "[15]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Tinneh Indians in sorcery as the cause ofdeath. ]

Beliefs and practices of the same general character are reported to haveformerly prevailed among the Tinneh or Déné Indians of North-westAmerica. When any beloved or influential person died, nobody, we aretold, would think of attributing the death to natural causes; it wasassumed that the demise was an effect of sorcery, and the onlydifficulty was to ascertain the culprit. For that purpose the servicesof a shaman were employed. Rigged out in all his finery he would danceand sing, then suddenly fall down and feign death or sleep. On awakingfrom the apparent trance he would denounce the sorcerer who had killedthe deceased by his magic art, and the denunciation generally proved thedeath-warrant of the accused. [16]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Australian aborigines in sorcery as the causeof death. ]

Again, similar beliefs and customs in regard to what we should callnatural death appear to have prevailed universally amongst theaborigines of Australia, and to have contributed very materially to thinthe population. On this subject I will quote the words of an observer. His remarks apply to the Australian aborigines in general but to thetribes of Victoria in particular. He says: "The natives are much morenumerous in some parts of Australia than they are in others, but nowhereis the country thickly peopled; some dire disease occasionally breaksout among the natives, and carries off large numbers. .. . But there aretwo other causes which, in my opinion, principally account for theirpaucity of numbers. The first is that infanticide is universallypractised; the second, that a belief exists that no one can die anatural death. Thus, if an individual of a certain tribe dies, hisrelatives consider that his death has been caused by sorcery on the partof another tribe. The deceased's sons, or nearest relatives, thereforestart off on a _bucceening_ or murdering expedition. If the deceased isburied, a fly or a beetle is put into the grave, and the direction inwhich the insect wings its way when released is the one the avengerstake. If the body is burnt, the whereabouts of the offending parties isindicated by the direction of the smoke. The first unfortunates fallenin with are generally watched until they encamp for the night; when theyare buried in sleep, the murderers steal quietly up until they arewithin a yard or two of their victims, rush suddenly upon and butcherthem. On these occasions they always abstract the kidney-fat, and alsotake off a piece of the skin of the thigh. These are carried home astrophies, as the American Indians take the scalp. The murderers anointtheir bodies with the fat of their victims, thinking that by thatprocess the strength of the deceased enters into them. Sometimes ithappens that the _bucceening_ party come suddenly upon a man of astrange tribe in a tree hunting opossums; he is immediately speared, andleft weltering in his blood at the foot of the tree. The relatives ofthe murdered man at once proceed to retaliate; and thus a constant andnever-ending series of murders is always going on. .. . I do not mean toassert that for every man that dies or is killed another is murdered;for it often happens that the deceased has no sons or relatives who careabout avenging his death. At other times a _bucceening_ party willreturn without having met with any one; then, again, they are sometimesrepelled by those they attack. "[17]

[Sidenote: Belief of the natives of Western Australia in sorcery as acause of death. Beliefs of the tribes of Victoria and South Australia. ]

Again, speaking of the tribes of Western Australia, Sir George Greytells us that "the natives do not allow that there is such a thing as adeath from natural causes; they believe, that were it not for murderersor the malignity of sorcerers, they might live for ever; hence, when anative dies from the effect of an accident, or from some natural cause, they use a variety of superstitious ceremonies, to ascertain in whatdirection the sorcerer lives, whose evil practices have brought aboutthe death of their relative; this point being satisfactorily settled byfriendly sorcerers, they then attach the crime to some individual, andthe funeral obsequies are scarcely concluded, ere they start to revengetheir supposed wrongs. "[18] Again, speaking of the Watch-an-die tribe ofWestern Australia, another writer tells us that they "possess thecomfortable assurance that nearly all diseases, and consequently deaths, are caused by the enchantments of hostile tribes, and that were it notfor the malevolence of their enemies they would (with a few exceptions)live for ever. Consequently, on the first approach of sickness theirfirst endeavour is to ascertain whether the _boollia_ [magic] of theirown tribe is not sufficiently potent to counteract that of their foes. Should the patient recover, they are, of course, proud of thesuperiority of their enchantment over that of their enemies: but shouldthe _boollia_ [magical influence] within the sick man prove strongerthan their own, as there is no help for it, he must die, the utmost theycan do in this case is to revenge his death. "[19] But the same writerqualifies this general statement as follows: "It is not true, " he says, "that the New Hollanders impute _all_ natural deaths to the _boollia_[magic] of inimical tribes, for in most cases of persons wasting visiblyaway before death, they do not entertain the notion. It is chiefly incases of sudden death, or when the body of the deceased is fat and ingood condition, that this belief prevails, and it is only in suchcontingencies that it becomes an imperative duty to have revenge. "[20]Similarly, speaking of the tribes of Victoria in the early days ofEuropean settlement among them, the experienced observer Mr. JamesDawson says that "natural deaths are generally--but notalways--attributed to the malevolence and the spells of an enemybelonging to another tribe. "[21] Again, with regard to the Encounter Baytribe of South Australia we read that "there are but few diseases whichthey regard as the consequences of natural causes; in general theyconsider them the effects of enchantment, and produced bysorcerers. "[22] Similarly of the Port Lincoln tribes in South Australiait is recorded that "in all cases of death that do not arise from oldage, wounds, or other equally palpable causes, the natives suspect thatunfair means have been practised; and even where the cause of death issufficiently plain, they sometimes will not content themselves with it, but have recourse to an imaginary one, as the following case willprove:--A woman had been bitten by a black snake, across the thumb, inclearing out a well; she began to swell directly, and was a corpse intwenty-four hours; yet, another woman who had been present when theaccident occurred, stated that the deceased had named a certain nativeas having caused her death. Upon this statement, which was in theiropinion corroborated by the circumstance that the snake had drawn noblood from the deceased, her husband and other friends had a fight withthe accused party and his friends; a reconciliation, however, took placeafterwards, and it was admitted on the part of the aggressors that theyhad been in error with regard to the guilty individual; but nowise moresatisfied as to the bite of the snake being the true cause of thewoman's death, another party was now suddenly discovered to be the realoffender, and accordingly war was made upon him and his partisans, tillat last the matter was dropped and forgotten. From this case, as well asfrom frequent occurrences of a similar nature, it appears evident thatthirst for revenge has quite as great a share in these foul accusationsas superstition. "[23]

[Sidenote: Other testimonies as to the belief of the natives of SouthAustralia and Victoria. ]

However, other experienced observers of the Australian aborigines admitno such limitations and exceptions to the native theory that death is aneffect of sorcery. Thus in regard to the Narrinyeri tribe of SouthAustralia the Rev. George Taplin, who knew them intimately for years, says that "no native regards death as natural, but always as the resultof sorcery. "[24] Again, to quote Mr. R. Brough Smyth, who has collectedmuch information on the tribes of Victoria: "Mr. Daniel Bunce, anintelligent observer, and a gentleman well acquainted with the habits ofthe blacks, says that no tribe that he has ever met with believes in thepossibility of a man dying a natural death. If a man is taken ill, it isat once assumed that some member of a hostile tribe has stolen some ofhis hair. This is quite enough to cause serious illness. If the mancontinues sick and gets worse, it is assumed that the hair has beenburnt by his enemy. Such an act, they say, is sufficient to imperil hislife. If the man dies, it is assumed that the thief has choked hisvictim and taken away his kidney-fat. When the grave is being dug, oneor more of the older men--generally doctors or conjurors(_Buk-na-look_)--stand by and attentively watch the laborers; and if aninsect is thrown out of the ground, these old men observe the directionwhich it takes, and having determined the line, two of the young men, relations of the deceased, are despatched in the path indicated, withinstructions to kill the first native they meet, who they are assuredand believe is the person directly chargeable with the crime of causingthe death of their relative. Mr. John Green says that the men of theYarra tribe firmly believe that no one ever dies a natural death. A manor a woman dies because of the wicked arts practised by some member of ahostile tribe; and they discover the direction in which to search forthe slayer by the movements of a lizard which is seen immediately afterthe corpse is interred. "[25] Again, speaking of the aborigines ofVictoria, another writer observes: "All deaths from natural causes areattributed to the machinations of enemies, who are supposed to havesought for and burned the excrement of the intended victim, which, according to the general belief, causes a gradual wasting away. Therelatives, therefore, watch the struggling feet of the dying person, asthey point in the direction whence the injury is thought to come, andserve as a guide to the spot where it should be avenged. This is theduty of the nearest male relative; should he fail in its execution, itwill ever be to him a reproach, although other relatives may haveavenged the death. If the deceased were a chief, then the duty devolvesupon the tribe. Chosen men are sent in the direction indicated, who killthe first persons they meet, whether men, women, or children; and themore lives that are sacrificed, the greater is the honour to thedead. "[26] Again, in his account of the Kurnai tribe of Victoria thelate Dr. A. W. Howitt remarks: "It is not difficult to see how, amongsavages, who have no knowledge of the real causes of diseases which arethe common lot of humanity, the very suspicion even of such a thing asdeath from disease should be unknown. Death by accident they canimagine; death by violence they can imagine; but I question if they can, in their savage condition, imagine death by mere disease. Rheumatism isbelieved to be produced by the machinations of some enemy. Seeing aTatungolung very lame, I asked him what was the matter? He said, 'Somefellow has put _bottle_ in my foot. ' I asked him to let me see it. Ifound he was probably suffering from acute rheumatism. He explained thatsome enemy must have found his foot track, and have buried in it a pieceof broken bottle. The magic influence, he believed, caused it to enterhis foot. .. . Phthisis, pneumonia, bowel complaints, and insanity aresupposed to be produced by an evil spirit--Brewin--'who is like thewind, ' and who, entering his victims, can only be expelled by suitableincantations. .. . Thus the belief arises that death occurs only fromaccident, open violence, or secret magic; and, naturally, that thelatter can only be met by counter-charms. "[27]

[Sidenote: Belief of the aborigines of New South Wales in sorcery as thecause of sickness and death. ]

The beliefs and practices of the aborigines of New South Wales inrespect of death were similar. Thus we are told by a well-informedwriter that "the natives do not believe in death from natural causes;therefore all sickness is attributed to the agency of sorcery, andcounter charms are used to destroy its effect. .. . As a man's death isnever supposed to have occurred naturally, except as the result ofaccident, or from a wound in battle, the first thing to be done when adeath occurs is to endeavour to find out the person whose spells havebrought about the calamity. In the Wathi-Wathi tribe the corpse is askedby each relative in succession to signify by some sign the person whohas caused his death. Not receiving an answer, they watch in whichdirection a bird flies, after having passed over the deceased. This isconsidered an indication that the sorcerer is to be found in thatdirection. Sometimes the nearest relative sleeps with his head on thecorpse, which causes him, they think, to dream of the murderer. Thereis, however, a good deal of uncertainty about the proceedings, whichseldom result in more than a great display of wrath, and of vowing ofvengeance against some member of a neighbouring tribe. Unfortunatelythis is not always the case, the man who is supposed to have exercisedthe death-spell being sometimes waylaid and murdered in a most cruelmanner. "[28] With regard to the great Kamilaroi tribe of New South Waleswe read that "in some parts of the country a belief prevails that death, through disease, is, in many, if not in all cases, the result of anenemy's malice. It is a common saying, when illness or death comes, thatsome one has thrown his belt (_boor_) at the victim. There are variousmodes of fixing upon the murderer. One is to let an insect fly from thebody of the deceased and see towards whom it goes. The person thussingled out is doomed. "[29]

[Sidenote: Belief of the aborigines of Central Australia in sorcery asthe cause of death. ]

Speaking of the tribes of Central Australia, Messrs. Spencer and Gillenobserve that "in the matter of morality their code differs radicallyfrom ours, but it cannot be denied that their conduct is governed by it, and that any known breaches are dealt with both surely and severely. Invery many cases there takes place what the white man, not seeing beneaththe surface, not unnaturally describes as secret murder, but, inreality, revolting though such slaughter may be to our minds at thepresent day, it is simply exactly on a par with the treatment accordedto witches not so very long ago in European countries. Every case ofsuch secret murder, when one or more men stealthily stalk their preywith the object of killing him, is in reality the exacting of a life fora life, the accused person being indicated by the so-called medicine-manas one who has brought about the death of another man by magic, andwhose life must therefore be forfeited. It need hardly be pointed outwhat a potent element this custom has been in keeping down the numbersof the tribe; no such thing as natural death is realised by the native;a man who dies has of necessity been killed by some other man, orperhaps even by a woman, and sooner or later that man or woman will beattacked. In the normal condition of the tribe every death meant thekilling of another individual. "[30]

[Sidenote: Belief of the natives of the Torres Straits Islands and NewGuinea in sorcery as the cause of death. ]

Passing from Australia to other savage lands we learn that according tothe belief of the Torres Straits Islanders all sickness and death weredue to sorcery. [31] The natives of Mowat or Mawatta in British NewGuinea "do not believe in a natural death, but attribute even thedecease of an old man to the agency of some enemy known or unknown. "[32]In the opinion of the tribes about Hood Peninsula in British New Guineano one dies a natural death. Every such death is caused by the evilmagic either of a living sorcerer or of a dead relation. [33] Of theRoro-speaking tribes of British New Guinea Dr. Seligmann writes that"except in the case of old folk, death is not admitted to occur withoutsome obvious cause such as a spear-thrust. Therefore when vigorous andactive members of the community die, it becomes necessary to explaintheir fate, and such deaths are firmly believed to be produced bysorcery. Indeed, as far as I have been able to ascertain, the Papuasianof this district regards the existence of sorcery, not, as has beenalleged, as a particularly terrifying and horrible affair, but as anecessary and inevitable condition of existence in the world as he knowsit. "[34] Amongst the Yabim of German New Guinea "every case of death, even though it should happen accidentally, as by the fall of a tree orthe bite of a shark, is laid at the door of the sorcerers. They areblamed even for the death of a child. If it is said that a little childnever hurt anybody and therefore cannot have an enemy, the reply is thatthe intention was to injure the mother, and that the malady had beentransferred to the infant through its mother's milk. "[35]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Melanesians in sorcery as the cause of sicknessand death. ]

Again, in the island of Malo, one of the New Hebrides, a Catholicmissionary reports that according to a belief deeply implanted in thenative mind every disease is the effect of witchcraft, and that nobodydies a natural death but only as a consequence of violence, poison, orsorcery. [36] Similarly in New Georgia, one of the Solomon Islands, whena person is sick, the natives think that he must be bewitched by a manor woman, for in their opinion nobody can be sick or die unless he isbewitched; what we call natural sickness and death are impossible. Incase of illness suspicion falls on some one who is supposed to haveburied a charmed object with intent to injure the sufferer. [37] Of theMelanesians who inhabit the coast of the Gazelle Peninsula in NewBritain it is said that all deaths by sickness or disease are attributedby them to the witchcraft of a sorcerer, and a diviner is called in toascertain the culprit who by his evil magic has destroyed theirfriends. [38] "Amongst the Melanesians few, if any, are believed to diefrom natural causes only; if they are not killed in war, they aresupposed to die from the effects of witchcraft or magic. Whenever anyone was sick, his friends made anxious inquiries as to the person whohad bewitched (_agara'd_) him. Some one would generally be found toadmit that he had buried some portion of food or something belonging tothe sick man, which had caused his illness. The friends would pay him todig it up, and after that the patient would generally get well. If, however, he did not recover, it was assumed that some other person hadalso _agara'd_ him. "[39]

[Sidenote: The belief of the Malagasy in sorcery as a cause of death. ]

Speaking of the Malagasy a Catholic missionary tells us that inMadagascar nobody dies a natural death. With the possible exception ofcentenarians everybody is supposed to die the victim of the sorcerer'sdiabolic art. If a relation of yours dies, the people comfort you bysaying, "Cursed be the sorcerer who caused his death!" If your horsefalls down a precipice and breaks its back, the accident has been causedby the malicious look of a sorcerer. If your dog dies of hydrophobia oryour horse of a carbuncle, the cause is still the same. If you catch afever in a district where malaria abounds, the malady is still ascribedto the art of the sorcerer, who has insinuated some deadly substancesinto your body. [40] Again, speaking of the Sakalava, a tribe inMadagascar, an eminent French authority on the island observes: "Theyhave such a faith in the power of talismans that they even ascribe tothem the power of killing their enemies. When they speak of poisoning, they do not allude, as many Europeans wrongly suppose, to death byvegetable or mineral poisons; the reference is to charms or spells. Theyoften throw under the bed of an enemy an _ahouli_ [talisman], praying itto kill him, and they are persuaded that sooner or later their wish willbe accomplished. I have often been present at bloody vendettas which hadno other origin but this. The Sakalava think that a great part of thepopulation dies of poison in this way. In their opinion, only old peoplewho have attained the extreme limits of human longevity die a naturaldeath. "[41]

[Sidenote: Belief of African tribes in sorcery as the cause of sicknessand death. ]

In Africa similar beliefs are widely spread and lead, as elsewhere, tofatal consequences. Thus the Kagoro of Northern Nigeria refuse tobelieve in death from natural causes; all illnesses and deaths, in theiropinion, are brought about by black magic, however old and decrepit thedeceased may have been. They explain sickness by saying that a man'ssoul wanders from his body in sleep and may then be caught, detained, and even beaten with a stick by some evil-wisher; whenever that happens, the man naturally falls ill. Sometimes an enemy will abstract thepatient's liver by magic and carry it away to a cave in a sacred grove, where he will devour it in company with other wicked sorcerers. Awitch-doctor is called in to detect the culprit, and whomever hedenounces is shut up in a room, where a fire is kindled and pepperthrown into it; and there he is kept in the fumes of the burning peppertill he confesses his guilt and returns the stolen liver, upon which ofcourse the sick man recovers. But should the patient die, the miscreantwho did him to death by kidnapping his soul or his liver will be sold asa slave or choked. [42] In like manner the Bakerewe, who inhabit thelargest island in the Victoria Nyanza lake, believe that all deaths andall ailments, however trivial, are the effect of witchcraft; and theperson, generally an old woman, whom the witch-doctor accuses of havingcast the spell on the patient is tied up, severely beaten, or stabbed todeath on the spot. [43] Again, we are told that "the peoples of the Congodo not believe in a natural death, not even when it happens throughdrowning or any other accident. Whoever dies is the victim of witchcraftor of a spell. His soul has been eaten. He must be avenged by thepunishment of the person who has committed the crime. " Accordingly whena death has taken place, the medicine-man is sent for to discover thecriminal. He pretends to be possessed by a spirit and in this state henames the wretch who has caused the death by sorcery. The accused has tosubmit to the poison ordeal by drinking a decoction of the red bark ofthe _Erythrophloeum guiniense_. If he vomits up the poison, he isinnocent; but if he fails to do so, the infuriated crowd rushes on himand despatches him with knives and clubs. The family of the supposedculprit has moreover to pay an indemnity to the family of the supposedvictim. [44] "Death, in the opinion of the natives, is never due to anatural cause. It is always the result either of a crime or of sorcery, and is followed by the poison ordeal, which has to be undergone by aninnocent person whom the fetish-man accuses from selfish motives. "[45]

[Sidenote: Effect of such beliefs in thinning the population by causingmultitudes to die for the imaginary crime of sorcery. ]

Evidence of the same sort could be multiplied for West Africa, where thefear of sorcery is rampant. [46] But without going into further details, I wish to point out the disastrous effects which here, as elsewhere, this theory of death has produced upon the population. For when a deathfrom natural causes takes place, the author of the death being of courseunknown, suspicion often falls on a number of people, all of whom areobliged to submit to the poison ordeal in order to prove theirinnocence, with the result that some or possibly all of them perish. Avery experienced American missionary in West Africa, the Rev. R. H. Nassau, the friend of the late Miss Mary H. Kingsley, tells us that forevery person who dies a natural death at least one, and often ten ormore have been executed on an accusation of witchcraft. [47] AndrewBattel, a native of Essex, who lived in Angola for many years at the endof the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, informs usthat "in this country none on any account dieth, but they kill anotherfor him: for they believe they die not their own natural death, but thatsome other has bewitched them to death. And all those are brought in bythe friends of the dead whom they suspect; so that there many times comefive hundred men and women to take the drink, made of the foresaid root_imbando_. They are brought all to the high-street or market-place, andthere the master of the _imbando_ sits with his water, and gives everyone a cup of water by one measure; and they are commanded to walk in acertain place till they make water, and then they are free. But he thatcannot urine presently falls down, and all the people, great and small, fall upon him with their knives, and beat and cut him into pieces. But Ithink the witch that gives the water is partial, and gives to him whosedeath is desired the strongest water, but no man of the bye-standers canperceive it. This is done in the town of Longo, almost every weekthroughout the year. "[48] A French official tells us that among theNeyaux of the Ivory Coast similar beliefs and practices were visiblydepopulating the country, every single natural death causing the deathof four or five persons by the poison ordeal, which consisted indrinking the decoction of a red bark called by the natives _boduru_. Atthe death of a chief fifteen men and women perished in this way. TheFrench Government had great difficulty in suppressing the ordeal; forthe deluded natives firmly believed in the justice of the test andtherefore submitted to it willingly in the full consciousness of theirinnocence. [49] In the neighbourhood of Calabar the poison ordeal, whichhere consists in drinking a decoction of a certain bean, the_Physostigma venenosum_ of botanists, has had similar disastrousresults, as we learn from the testimony of a missionary, the Rev. HughGoldie. He tells us that the people have firm faith in the ordeal andtherefore not only accept it readily but appeal to it, convinced that itwill demonstrate their innocence. A small tribe named Uwet in thehill-country of Calabar almost swept itself off the face of the earth byits constant use of the ordeal. On one occasion the whole populationdrank the poison to prove themselves pure, as they said; about halfperished, "and the remnant, " says Mr. Goldie, "still continuing theirsuperstitious practice, must soon become extinct"[50] These words werewritten a good many years ago, and it is probable that by this timethese poor fanatics have actually succeeded in exterminating themselves. So fatal may be the practical consequences of a purely speculativeerror; for it is to be remembered that these disasters flow directlyfrom a mistaken theory of death. 

[Sidenote: General conclusion as to the belief in sorcery as the greatcause of death. ]

Much more evidence of the same kind could be adduced, but withoutpursuing the theme further I think we may lay it down as a general rulethat at a certain stage of social and intellectual evolution men havebelieved themselves to be naturally immortal in this life and haveregarded death by disease or even by accident or violence as anunnatural event which has been brought about by sorcery and which mustbe avenged by the death of the sorcerer. If that has been so, we seembound to conclude that a belief in magic or sorcery has had a mostpotent influence in keeping down the numbers of savage tribes; since asa rule every natural death has entailed at least one, often several, sometimes many deaths by violence. This may help us to understand whatan immense power for evil the world-wide faith in magic or sorcery hasbeen among men. 

[Sidenote: But some savages have attributed death to other causes thansorcery. ]

But even savages come in time to perceive that deaths are sometimesbrought about by other causes than sorcery. We have seen that some ofthem admit extreme old age, accidents, and violence as causes of deathwhich are independent of sorcery. The admission of these exceptions tothe general rule certainly marks a stage of intellectual progress. Iwill give a few more instances of such admissions before concluding thispart of my subject. 

[Sidenote: Some savages dissect the corpse to ascertain whether deathwas due to natural causes or to sorcery. ]

In the first place, certain savage tribes are reported to dissect thebodies of their dead in order to ascertain from an examination of thecorpse whether the deceased died a natural death or perished by magic. This is reported by Mr. E. R. Smith concerning the Araucanians of Chili, who according to other writers, as we saw, [51] believe all deaths to bedue to sorcery. Mr. Smith tells us that after death the services of the_machi_ or medicine-man "are again required, especially if the deceasedbe a person of distinction. The body is dissected and examined. If theliver be found in a healthy state, the death is attributed to naturalcauses; but if the liver prove to be inflamed, it is supposed toindicate the machinations of some evil-intentioned persons, and it restswith the medicine-man to discover the conspirator. This is accomplishedby much the same means that were used to find out the nature of thedisease. The gall is extracted, put in the magic drum, and after variousincantations taken out and placed over the fire, in a pot carefullycovered; if, after subjecting the gall to a certain amount of roasting, a stone is found in the bottom of the pot, it is declared to be themeans by which death was produced. These stones, as well as the frogs, spiders, arrows, or whatever else may be extracted from the sick man, are called _Huecuvu_--the 'Evil One. ' By aid of the _Huecuvu_ the_machi_ [medicine-man] throws himself into a trance, in which state hediscovers and announces the person guilty of the death, and describesthe manner in which it was produced. "[52]

Again, speaking of the Pahouins, a tribe of the Gaboon region in FrenchCongo, a Catholic missionary writes thus: "It is so rare among thePahouins that a death is considered natural! Scarcely has the deceasedgiven up the ghost when the sorcerer appears on the scene. With threecuts of the knife, one transverse and two lateral, he dissects thebreast of the corpse and turns down the skin on the face. Then hegrabbles in the breast, examines the bowels attentively, marks the lastmuscular contractions, and thereupon pronounces whether the death wasnatural or not. " If he decides that the death was due to sorcery, thesuspected culprit has to submit to the poison ordeal in the usual mannerto determine his guilt or innocence. [53]

[Sidenote: The possibility of natural death admitted by theMelanesians. ]

Another savage people who have come to admit the possibility of merelynatural death are the Melanesians of the New Hebrides and other parts ofCentral Melanesia. Amongst them "any sickness that is serious isbelieved to be brought about by ghosts or spirits; common complaintssuch as fever and ague are taken as coming in the course of nature. Tosay that savages are never ill without supposing a supernatural cause isnot true of Melanesians; they make up their minds as the sickness comeswhether it is natural or not, and the more important the individual whois sick, the more likely his sickness is to be ascribed to the anger ofa ghost whom he has offended, or to witchcraft. No great man would liketo be told that he was ill by natural weakness or decay. The sickness isalmost always believed to be caused by a ghost, not by a spirit. .. . Generally it is to the ghosts of the dead that sickness is ascribed inthe eastern islands as well as in the western; recourse is had to themfor aid in causing and removing sickness; and ghosts are believed toinflict sickness not only because some offence, such as a trespass, hasbeen committed against them, or because one familiar with them hassought their aid with sacrifice and spells, but because there is acertain malignity in the feeling of all ghosts towards the living, whooffend them by being alive. "[54] From this account we learn, first, thatthe Melanesians admit some deaths by common diseases, such as fever andague, to be natural; and, second, that they recognise ghosts and spiritsas well as sorcerers and witches, among the causes of death; indeed theyhold that ghosts are the commonest of all causes of sickness and death. 

[Sidenote: The possibility of natural death admitted by the Caffres ofSouth Africa. ]

The same causes of death are recognised also by the Caffres of SouthAfrica, as we learn from Mr. Dudley Kidd, who tells us that according tothe beliefs of the natives, "to start with, there is sickness which issupposed to be caused by the action of ancestral spirits or by fabulousmonsters. Secondly, there is sickness which is caused by the magicalpractices of some evil person who is using witchcraft in secret. Thirdly, there is sickness which comes from neither of these causes, andremains unexplained. It is said to be 'only sickness, and nothing more. 'This third form of sickness is, I think, the commonest. Yet most writerswholly ignore it, or deny its existence. It may happen that an attack ofindigestion is one day attributed to the action of witch or wizard;another day the trouble is put down to the account of ancestral spirits;on a third occasion the people may be at a loss to account for it, andso may dismiss the problem by saying that it is merely sickness. It isquite common to hear natives say that they are at a loss to account forsome special case of illness. At first they thought it was caused by anangry ancestral spirit; but a great doctor has assured them that it isnot the result of such a spirit. They then suppose it to be due to themagical practices of some enemy; but the doctor negatives that theory. The people are, therefore, driven to the conclusion that the trouble hasno ascertainable cause. In some cases they do not even trouble toconsult a diviner; they speedily recognise the sickness as due tonatural causes. In such a case it needs no explanation. If they thinkthat some friend of theirs knows of a remedy, they will try it on theirown initiative, or may even go off to a white man to ask for some of hismedicine. They would never dream of doing this if they thought they werebeing influenced by magic or by ancestral spirits. The Kafirs quiterecognise that there are types of disease which are inherited, and havenot been caused by magic or by ancestral spirits. They admit that someaccidents are due to nothing but the patient's carelessness orstupidity. If a native gets his leg run over by a waggon, the peoplewill often say that it is all his own fault through being clumsy. Inother cases, with delightful inconsistency, they may say that some onehas been working magic to cause the accident. In short, it is impossibleto make out a theory of sickness which will satisfy our Europeanconception of consistency. "[55]

[Sidenote: The admission that death may be due to natural causes, marksan intellectual advance. The recognition of ghosts or spirits as a causeof disease, apart from sorcery, also marks a step in intellectual, moral, and social progress. ]

From the foregoing accounts we see that the Melanesians and the Caffres, two widely different and widely separated races, agree in recognising atleast three distinct causes of what we should call natural death. Thesethree causes are, first, sorcery or witchcraft; second, ghosts orspirits; and third, disease. [56] That the recognition of disease initself as a cause of death, quite apart from sorcery, marks anintellectual advance, will not be disputed. It is not so clear, though Ibelieve it is equally true, that the recognition of ghosts or spirits asa cause of disease, quite apart from witchcraft, marks a real step inintellectual, moral, and social progress. In the first place, it marks astep in intellectual and moral progress; for it recognises that effectswhich before had been ascribed to human agency spring from superhumancauses; and this recognition of powers in the universe superior to manis not only an intellectual gain but a moral discipline: it teaches theimportant lesson of humility. In the second place it marks a step insocial progress because when the blame of a death is laid upon a ghostor a spirit instead of on a sorcerer, the death has not to be avenged bykilling a human being, the supposed author of the calamity. Thus therecognition of ghosts or spirits as the sources of sickness and deathhas as its immediate effect the sparing of an immense number of lives ofmen and women, who on the theory of death by sorcery would have perishedby violence to expiate their imaginary crime. That this is a great gainto society is obvious: it adds immensely to the security of human lifeby removing one of the most fruitful causes of its destruction. 

It must be admitted, however, that the gain is not always as great asmight be expected; the social advantages of a belief in ghosts andspirits are attended by many serious drawbacks. For while ghosts orspirits are commonly, though not always, supposed to be beyond the reachof human vengeance, they are generally thought to be well within thereach of human persuasion, flattery, and bribery; in other words, menthink that they can appease and propitiate them by prayer and sacrifice;and while prayer is always cheap, sacrifice may be very dear, since itcan, and often does, involve the destruction of an immense deal ofvaluable property and of a vast number of human lives. Yet if we couldreckon up the myriads who have been slain in sacrifice to ghosts andgods, it seems probable that they would fall far short of the untoldmultitudes who have perished as sorcerers and witches. For while humansacrifices in honour of deities or of the dead have been for the mostpart exceptional rather than regular, only the great gods and theillustrious dead being deemed worthy of such costly offerings, theslaughter of witches and wizards, theoretically at least, followedinevitably on every natural death among people who attributed all suchdeaths to sorcery. Hence if natural religion be defined roughly as abelief in superhuman spiritual beings and an attempt to propitiate them, we may perhaps say that, while natural religion has slain its thousands, magic has slain its ten thousands. But there are strong reasons forinferring that in the history of society an Age of Magic preceded an Ageof Religion. If that was so, we may conclude that the advent of religionmarked a great social as well as intellectual advance upon the precedingAge of Magic: it inaugurated an era of what might be described as mercyby comparison with the relentless severity of its predecessor. 

[Footnote 6: W. Martin, _An Account of the Natives of the TongaIslands_, Second Edition (London, 1818), ii. 99. ]

[Footnote 7: M. Dobrizhoffer, _Historia de Abiponibus_ (Vienna, 1784), ii. 92 _sq. _, 240 _sqq. _ The author of this valuable work lived as aCatholic missionary in the tribe for eighteen years. ]

[Footnote 8: C. Gay, "Fragment d'un Voyage dans le Chili et au Cusco, "_Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), Deuxième Série, xix. (1843) p. 25; H. Delaporte, "Une visite chez les Araucaniens, " _Bulletinde la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), Quatrième Série, x. (1855) p. 30. ]

[Footnote 9: K. Von den Steinen, _Unter den NaturvölkernZentral-Brasiliens_ (Berlin, 1894), pp. 344, 348. ]

[Footnote 10: Rev. W. H. Brett, _The Indian Tribes of Guiana_ (London, 1868), p. 357. ]

[Footnote 11: W. H. Brett, _op. Cit. _ pp. 361 _sq. _]

[Footnote 12: Rev. W. H. Brett, _op. Cit. _ pp. 364 _sq. _]

[Footnote 13: Rev. J. H. Bernau, _Missionary Labours in British Guiana_(London, 1847), pp. 56 _sq. _, 58. ]

[Footnote 14: (Sir) E. F. Im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_(London, 1883), pp. 330 _sq. _ For the case described see R. Schomburgk, _Reisen in Britisch-Guiana_, i. (Leipsic, 1847) pp. 324 _sq. _ The boydied of dropsy. Perhaps the mode of divination adopted, by boiling someportions of him in water, had special reference to the nature of thedisease. ]

[Footnote 15: (Sir) E. F. Im Thurn, _op. Cit. _ pp. 332 _sq. _]

[Footnote 16: Father A. G. Morice, "The Canadian Dénés, " _AnnualArchaeological Report, 1905_ (Toronto, 1906), p. 207. ]

[Footnote 17: Albert A. C. Le Souëf, "Notes on the Natives ofAustralia, " in R. Brough Smyth's _Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourne andLondon, 1878), ii. 289 _sq. _]

[Footnote 18: (Sir) George Grey, _Journals of two Expeditions ofDiscovery in Northwest and Western Australia_ (London, 1841), ii. 238. ]

[Footnote 19: A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Australia, " _Transactionsof the Ethnological Society of London_, N. S. Iii. (1865) p. 236. ]

[Footnote 20: A. Oldfield, _op. Cit. _ p. 245. ]

[Footnote 21: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_ (Melbourne, Sydney andAdelaide, 1881), p. 63. ]

[Footnote 22: H. E. A. Meyer, "Manners and Customs of the Aborigines ofthe Encounter Bay Tribe, " _Native Tribes of South Australia_ (Adelaide, 1879), p. 195. ]

[Footnote 23: C. W. Schürmann, "The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln inSouth Australia, " _Native Tribes of South Australia_, pp. 237 _sq. _]

[Footnote 24: Rev. G. Taplin, "The Narrinyeri, " _Native Tribes of SouthAustralia_ (Adelaide, 1879), p. 25. ]

[Footnote 25: R. Brough Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourneand London, 1878) i. 110. ]

[Footnote 26: W. E. Stanbridge, "Some Particulars of the GeneralCharacteristics, Astronomy, and Mythology of the Tribes in the CentralPart of Victoria, Southern Australia, " _Transactions of the EthnologicalSociety of London_, New Series, i. (1861) p. 299. ]

[Footnote 27: Lorimer Fison and A. W. Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_(Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, and Brisbane, 1880), pp. 250 _sq. _]

[Footnote 28: A. L. P. Cameron, "Notes on some Tribes of New SouthWales, " _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_ xiv. (1885) pp. 361, 362 _sq. _]

[Footnote 29: Rev. W. Ridley, _Kamilaroi_, Second Edition (Sydney, 1875), p. 159. ]

[Footnote 30: Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _Native Tribes ofCentral Australia_ (London, 1899), pp. 46-48. ]

[Footnote 31: _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition toTorres Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 248, 323. ]

[Footnote 32: E. Beardmore, "The Natives of Mowat, British New Guinea, "_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xix. (1890) p. 461. ]

[Footnote 33: R. E. Guise, "On the Tribes inhabiting the Mouth of theWanigela River, New Guinea, " _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxviii. (1899) p. 216. ]

[Footnote 34: C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_(Cambridge, 1910), p. 279. ]

[Footnote 35: K. Vetter, _Komm herüber und hilf uns! oder die Arbeit derNeuen-Dettelsauer Mission_, iii. (Barmen, 1898) pp. 10 _sq. _; _id. _, in_Nachrichten über Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land und den Bismarck-Archipel, 1897_, pp. 94, 98. Compare B. Hagen, _Unter den Papuas_ (Wiesbaden, 1899), p. 256; _Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte, 1900_, p. (415). ]

[Footnote 36: Father A. Deniau, "Croyances religieuses et moeurs desindigènes de l'Ile Malo, " _Missions Catholiques_, xxxiii. (1901) pp. 315_sq. _]

[Footnote 37: C. Ribbe, _Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen derSalomo-Inseln_ (Dresden-Blasewitz, 1903), p. 268. ]

[Footnote 38: P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Küstenbewohner derGazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Münster, N. D. ), p. 344. As to beliefs ofthis sort among the Sulka of New Britain, see _P. _ Rascher, "Die Sulka, "_Archiv für Anthropologie_, xxix. (1904) pp. 221 _sq. _; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 199-201. ]

[Footnote 39: G. Brown, D. D. , _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), p. 176. Dr. Brown's account, of the Melanesians applies to thenatives of New Britain and more particularly of the neighbouring Duke ofYork islands. ]

[Footnote 40: Father Abinal, "Astrologie Malgache, " _MissionsCatholiques_, xi. (1879) p. 506. ]

[Footnote 41: A. Grandidier, "Madagascar, " _Bulletin de la Société deGéographie_ (Paris), Sixième Série, iii. (1872) pp. 399 _sq. _ Thetalismans (_ahouli_) in question consist of the horns of oxen stuffedwith a variety of odds and ends, such as sand, sticks, nails, and soforth. ]

[Footnote 42: Major A. J. N. Tremearne, _The Tailed Head-hunters ofNigeria_ (London, 1912), pp. 171 _sq. _; _id. _, "Notes on the Kagoro andother Headhunters, " _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, xlii. (1912) pp. 160, 161. ]

[Footnote 43: E. Hurel, "Religion et vie domestique des Bakerewe, "_Anthropos_, vi. (1912) pp. 85-87. ]

[Footnote 44: Father Campana, "Congo Mission Catholique de Landana, "_Missions Catholiques_, xxvii. (1895) pp. 102 _sq_. ]

[Footnote 45: Th. Masui, _Guide de la Section de l'État Indépendant duCongo à l'Exposition de Bruxelles--Tervueren en 1874_ (Brussels, 1897), p. 82. ]

[Footnote 46: See for example O. Lenz, _Skizzen aus Westafrika_ (Berlin, 1878), pp. 184 _sq. _; C. Cuny, "De Libreville au Cameroun, " _Bulletin dela Société de Géographie_ (Paris), Septième Série, xvii. (1896) p. 341;Ch. Wunenberger, "La mission et le royaume de Humbé, sur les bords duCunène, " _Missions Catholiques_, xx. (1888) p. 262; Lieut. Herold, "Bericht betreffend religiöse Anschauungen und Gebräuche der deutschenEwe-Neger, " _Mittheilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten_, v. (1892)p. 153; Dr. R. Plehn, "Beiträge zur Völkerkunde des Togo-Gebietes, "_Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin_, ii. Dritte Abtheilung (1899), p. 97; R. Fisch, "Die Dagbamba, "_Baessler-Archiv_, iii. (1912) p. 148. For evidence of similar beliefsand practices in other parts of Africa, see Brard, "DerVictoria-Nyanza, " _Petermann's Mittheilungen_, xliii. (1897) pp. 79_sq. _; Father Picarda, "Autour du Mandéra, " _Missions Catholiques_, xviii. (1886) p. 342. ]

[Footnote 47: Rev. R. H. Nassau, _Fetichism in West Africa_ (London, 1904), pp. 241 _sq. _]

[Footnote 48: "Strange Adventures of Andrew Battel, " in John Pinkerton's_Voyages and Travels_, xvi. (London, 1814) p. 334. ]

[Footnote 49: _Gouvernement Général de l'Afrique Occidentale Française, Notices publiées par le Gouvernement Central à l'occasion del'Exposition Coloniale de Marseille, La Côte d'Ivoire_ (Corbeil, 1906), pp. 570-572. ]

[Footnote 50: Hugh Goldie, _Calabar and its Mission_, New Edition(Edinburgh and London, 1901), pp. 34 _sq. _, 37 _sq. _]

[Footnote 51: Above, p. 35. ]

[Footnote 52: E. R. Smith, _The Araucanians_ (London, 1855), pp. 236_sq. _]

[Footnote 53: Father Trilles, "Milles lieues dans l'inconnu; à traversle pays Fang, de la côte aux rives du Djah, " _Missions Catholiques_, xxxv. (1903) pp. 466 _sq. _, and as to the poison ordeal, _ib. _ pp. 472_sq. _]

[Footnote 54: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), p. 194. ]

[Footnote 55: Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), pp. 133_sq. _]

[Footnote 56: In like manner the Baganda generally ascribed naturaldeaths either to sorcery or to the action of a ghost; but when theycould not account for a person's death in either of these ways they saidthat Walumbe, the God of Death, had taken him. This last explanationapproaches to an admission of natural death, though it is still mythicalin form. The Baganda usually attributed any illness of the king toghosts, because no man would dare to practise magic on him. Amuch-dreaded ghost was that of a man's sister; she was thought to venther spite on his sons and daughters by visiting them with sickness. Whenshe proved implacable, a medicine-man was employed to catch her ghost ina gourd or a pot and throw it away on waste land or drown it in a river. See Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 98, 100, 101_sq. _, 286 _sq. _, 315 _sq. _]

LECTURE III

MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN OF DEATH

[Sidenote: Belief of savages in man's natural immortality. ]

In my last lecture I shewed that many savages do not believe in what wecall a natural death; they imagine that all men are naturally immortaland would never die, if their lives were not cut prematurely short bysorcery. Further, I pointed out that this mistaken view of the nature ofdeath has exercised a disastrous influence on the tribes who entertainit, since, attributing all natural deaths to sorcery, they considerthemselves bound to discover and kill the wicked sorcerers whom theyregard as responsible for the death of their friends. Thus in primitivesociety as a rule every natural death entails at least one and oftenseveral deaths by violence; since the supposed culprit being unknownsuspicion may fall upon many persons, all of whom may be killed eitherout of hand or as a consequence of failing to demonstrate theirinnocence by means of an ordeal. 

[Sidenote: Savage stories of the origin of death. ]

Yet even the savages who firmly believe in man's natural immortality areobliged sorrowfully to admit that, as things are at the present day, mendo frequently die, whatever explanation we may give of so unexpected andunnatural an occurrence. Accordingly they are hard put to it toreconcile their theory of immortality with the practice of mortality. They have meditated on the subject and have given us the fruit of theirmeditation in a series of myths which profess to explain the origin ofdeath. For the most part these myths are very crude and childish; yetthey have a value of their own as examples of man's early attempts tofathom one of the great mysteries which encompass his frail andtransient existence on earth; and accordingly I have here collected, inall their naked simplicity, a few of these savage guesses at truth. 

[Sidenote: Four types of such stories. ]

Myths of the origin of death conform to several types, among which wemay distinguish, first, what I will call the type of the Two Messengers;second, the type of the Waxing and Waning Moon; third, the type of theSerpent and his Cast Skin; and fourth, the type of the Banana-tree. Iwill illustrate each type by examples, and will afterwards cite somemiscellaneous instances which do not fall under any of these heads. 

[Sidenote: I. The tale of the Two Messengers. Zulu story of thechameleon and the lizard. The same story among other Bantu tribes. ]

First, then, we begin with the type of the Two Messengers. Stories ofthis pattern are widespread in Africa, especially among tribes belongingto the great Bantu family, which occupies roughly the southern half ofthe continent. The best-known example of the tale is the one told by theZulus. They say that in the beginning Unkulunkulu, that is, the Old OldOne, sent the chameleon to men with a message saying, "Go, chameleon, goand say, Let not men die. " The chameleon set out, but it crawled veryslowly, and it loitered by the way to eat the purple berries of the_ubukwebezane_ tree, or according to others it climbed up a tree to baskin the sun, filled its belly with flies, and fell fast asleep. Meantimethe Old Old One had thought better of it and sent a lizard posting afterthe chameleon with a very different message to men, for he said to theanimal, "Lizard, when you have arrived, say, Let men die. " So the lizardwent on his way, passed the dawdling chameleon, and arriving first amongmen delivered his message of death, saying, "Let men die. " Then heturned on his heel and went back to the Old Old One who had sent him. But after he was gone, the chameleon at last arrived among men with hisglad tidings of immortality, and he shouted, saying, "It is said, Letnot men die!" But men answered, "O! we have heard the word of thelizard; it has told us the word, 'It is said, Let men die. ' We cannothear your word. Through the word of the lizard, men will die. " And diedthey have ever since from that day to this. That is why some of theZulus hate the lizard, saying, "Why did he run first and say, 'Letpeople die?'" So they beat and kill the lizard and say, "Why did itspeak?" But others hate the chameleon and hustle it, saying, "That isthe little thing which delayed to tell the people that they should notdie. If he had only brought his message in time we should not have died;our ancestors also would have been still living; there would have beenno diseases here on the earth. It all comes from the delay of thechameleon. "[57] The same story is told in nearly the same form by otherBantu tribes, such as the Bechuanas, [58] the Basutos, [59] theBaronga, [60] and the Ngoni. [61] To this day the Baronga and the Ngoniowe the chameleon a grudge for having brought death into the world, sowhen children find a chameleon they will induce it to open its mouth, then throw a pinch of tobacco on its tongue, and watch with delight thecreature writhing and changing colour from orange to green, from greento black in the agony of death; for thus they avenge the wrong which thechameleon has done to mankind. [62]

[Sidenote: Akamba story of the chameleon and the thrush. ]

A story of the same type, but with some variations, is told by theAkamba, a Bantu tribe of British East Africa; but in their version thelizard has disappeared from the legend and has been replaced by the_itoroko_, a small bird of the thrush tribe, with a black head, abluish-black back, and a buff-coloured breast. The tale runs thus:--Onceupon a time God sent out the chameleon, the frog, and the thrush to findpeople who died one day and came to life again the next. So off theyset, the chameleon leading the way, for in those days he was a veryimportant personage. Presently they came to some people lying like dead, so the chameleon went up to them and said, _Niwe, niwe, niwe_. Thethrush asked him testily what he was making that noise for, to which thechameleon replied mildly, "I am only calling the people who go forwardand then came back again, " and he explained that the dead people wouldcome to life again. But the thrush, who was of a sceptical turn of mind, derided the idea. Nevertheless, the chameleon persisted in calling tothe dead people, and sure enough they opened their eyes and listened tohim. But here the thrush broke in and told them roughly that dead theywere and dead they must remain. With that away he flew, and though thechameleon preached to the corpses, telling them that he had come fromGod on purpose to bring them to life again, and that they were not tobelieve the lies of that shallow sceptic the thrush, they obstinatelyrefused to pay any heed to him; not one of those dead corpses wouldbudge. So the chameleon returned crestfallen to God and reported to himhow, when he preached the gospel of resurrection to the corpses, thethrush had roared him down, so that the corpses could not hear a word hesaid. God thereupon cross-questioned the thrush, who stated that thechameleon had so bungled his message that he, the thrush, felt it hisimperative duty to interrupt him. The simple deity believed the thrush, and being very angry with the chameleon he degraded him from his highposition and made him walk very slow, lurching this way and that, as hedoes down to this very day. But the thrush he promoted to the office ofwakening men from their slumber every morning, which he still doespunctually at 2 A. M. Before the note of any other bird is heard in thetropical forest. [63]

[Sidenote: Togo story of the dog and the frog. ]

In this version, though the frog is sent out by God with the other twomessengers he plays no part in the story; he is a mere dummy. But inanother version of the story, which is told by the negroes of Togolandin German West Africa, the frog takes the place of the lizard and thethrush as the messenger of death. They say that once upon a time mensent a dog to God to say that when they died they would like to come tolife again. So off the dog trotted to deliver the message. But on theway he felt hungry and turned into a house, where a man was boilingmagic herbs. So the dog sat down and thought to himself, "He is cookingfood. " Meantime the frog had set off to tell God that when men died theywould like not to come to life again. Nobody had asked him to give thatmessage; it was a piece of pure officiousness and impertinence on hispart. However, away he tore. The dog, who still sat watching thehell-broth brewing, saw him hurrying past the door, but he thought tohimself, "When I have had something to eat, I will soon catch froggyup. " However, froggy came in first and said to the deity, "When men die, they would like not to come to life again. " After that, up comes thedog, and says he, "When men die, they would like to come to life again. "God was naturally puzzled and said to the dog, "I really do notunderstand these two messages. As I heard the frog's request first, Iwill comply with it. I will not do what you said. " That is the realreason why men die and do not come to life again. If the frog had onlyminded his own business instead of meddling with other people's, thedead would all have come to life again to this day. [64] In this versionof the story not only are the persons of the two messengers different, the dog and the frog having replaced the chameleon and the lizard of theBantu version, but the messengers are sent from men to God instead offrom God to men. 

[Sidenote: Ashantee story of the goat and the sheep. ]

In another version told by the Ashantees of West Africa the persons ofthe messengers are again different, but as in the Bantu version they aresent from God to men. The Ashantees say that long ago men were happy, for God dwelt among them and talked with them face to face. For example, if a child was roasting yams at the fire and wanted a relish to eat withthe yams, he had nothing to do but to throw a stick in the air and say, "God give me fish, " and God gave him fish at once. However, these happydays did not last for ever. One unlucky day it happened that some womenwere pounding a mash with pestles in a mortar, while God stood bylooking on. For some reason they were annoyed by the presence of thedeity and told him to be off; and as he did not take himself off fastenough to please them, they beat him with their pestles. In a great huffGod retired altogether from the world and left it to the direction ofthe fetishes; and still to this day people say, "Ah, if it had not beenfor that old woman, how happy we should be!" However, after he hadwithdrawn to heaven, the long-suffering deity sent a kind message by agoat to men upon earth to say, "There is something which they callDeath. He will kill some of you. But even if you die, you will notperish completely. You will come to me in heaven. " So off the goat setwith this cheering intelligence. But before he came to the town he saw atempting bush by the wayside and stopped to browse on it. When God inheaven saw the goat thus loitering by the way, he sent off a sheep withthe same message to carry the glad tidings to men without delay. But thesheep did not give the message aright. Far from it: he said, "God sendsyou word that you will die and that will be an end of you. " Afterwardsthe goat arrived on the scene and said, "God sends you word that youwill die, certainly, but that will not be the end of you, for you willgo to him. " But men said to the goat, "No, goat, that is not what Godsaid. We believe that the message which the sheep brought us is the onewhich God sent to us. " That was the beginning of death among men. [65]However, in another Ashantee version of the tale the parts played by thesheep and the goat are reversed. It is the sheep who brings the tidingsof immortality from God to men, but the goat overruns him and offersthem death instead. Not knowing what death was, men accepted the seemingboon with enthusiasm and have died ever since. [66]

[Sidenote: II. The story of the Waxing and Waning Moon. Hottentot storyof the Moon, the hare, and death. ]

So much for the tale of the Two Messengers. In the last versions of itwhich I have quoted, a feature to be noticed is the perversion of themessage by one of the messengers, who brings tidings of death instead oflife eternal to men. The same perversion of the message reappears insome examples of the next type of story which I shall illustrate, namelythe type of the Waxing and Waning Moon. Thus the Namaquas or Hottentotssay that once the Moon charged the hare to go to men and say, "As I dieand rise to life again, so shall you die and rise to life again. " So thehare went to men, but either out of forgetfulness or malice he reversedthe message and said, "As I die and do not rise to life again, so youshall also die and not rise to life again. " Then he went back to theMoon, and she asked him what he had said. He told her, and when sheheard how he had given the wrong message, she was so angry that shethrew a stick at him and split his lip, which is the reason why thehare's lip is still split. So the hare ran away and is still running tothis day. Some people, however, say that before he fled he clawed theMoon's face, which still bears the marks of the scratching, as anybodymay see for himself on a clear moonlight night. So the Hottentots arestill angry with the hare for bringing death into the world, and theywill not let initiated men partake of its flesh. [67] There are traces ofa similar story among the Bushmen. [68] In another Hottentot version twomessengers appear, an insect and a hare; the insect is charged by theMoon with a message of immortality or rather of resurrection to men, butthe hare persuades the insect to let him bear the tidings, which heperverts into a message of annihilation. [69] Thus in this particularversion the type of the Two Messengers coincides with the Moon type. 

[Sidenote: Masai story of the moon and death. ]

A story of the same type, though different in details, is told by theMasai of East Africa. They say that in the early days a certain godnamed Naiteru-kop told a man named Le-eyo that if a child were to die hewas to throw away the body and say, "Man, die, and come back again;moon, die, and remain away. " Well, soon afterwards a child died, but itwas not one of the man's own children, so when he threw the body away hesaid, "Man, die, and remain away; moon, die, and return. " Next one ofhis own children died, and when he threw away the body he said, "Man, die, and return; moon, die, and remain away. " But the god said to him, "It is of no use now, for you spoilt matters with the other child. " Thatis why down to this day when a man dies he returns no more, but when themoon dies she always comes to life again. [70]

[Sidenote: Nandi story of the moon, the dog, and death. ]

Another story of the origin of death which belongs to this type is toldby the Nandi of British East Africa. They say that when the first peoplelived upon the earth a dog came to them one day and said: "All peoplewill die like the moon, but unlike the moon you will not return to lifeagain unless you give me some milk to drink out of your gourd, and beerto drink through your straw. If you do this, I will arrange for you togo to the river when you die and to come to life again on the thirdday. " But the people laughed at the dog, and gave him some milk and beerto drink off a stool. The dog was angry at not being served in the samevessels as a human being, and though he put his pride in his pocket anddrank the milk and the beer from the stool, he went away in highdudgeon, saying, "All people will die, and the moon alone will return tolife. " That is the reason why, when people die, they stay away, whereaswhen the moon goes away she comes back again after three days'absence. [71] The Wa-Sania of British East Africa believe that in daysgone by people never died, till one unlucky day a lizard came and saidto them, "All of you know that the moon dies and rises again, but humanbeings will die and rise no more. " They say that from that day peoplebegan to die and have persisted in dying ever since. [72]

[Sidenote: Fijian story of the moon, the rat, and death. CarolineIslands story of the moon, death, and resurrection. Wotjobaluk story ofthe moon, death, and resurrection. Cham story of the moon, death, andresurrection. ]

With these African stories of the origin of death we may compare onetold by the Fijians on the other side of the world. They say that onceupon a time the Moon contended that men should be like himself (for theFijian moon seems to be a male); that is, he meant that just as he growsold, disappears, and comes in sight again, so men grown old shouldvanish for a while and then return to life. But the rat, who is a Fijiangod, would not hear of it. "No, " said he, "let men die like rats. " Andhe had the best of it in the dispute, for men die like rats to thisday. [73] In the Caroline Islands they say that long, long ago death wasunknown, or rather it was a short sleep, not a long, long one, as it isnow. Men died on the last day of the waning moon and came to life againon the first appearance of the new moon, just as if they had awakenedfrom a refreshing slumber. But an evil spirit somehow contrived thatwhen men slept the sleep of death they should wake no more. [74] TheWotjobaluk of south-eastern Australia relate that, when all animals weremen and women, some of them died and the moon used to say, "Youup-again, " whereupon they came to life again. But once on a time an oldman said, "Let them remain dead"; and since then nobody has ever come tolife again except the moon, which still continues to do so down to thisvery day. [75] The Chams of Annam and Cambodia say that the goddess ofgood luck used to resuscitate people as fast as they died, till thesky-god, tired of her constant interference with the laws of nature, transferred her to the moon, where it is no longer in her power to bringthe dead to life again. [76]

[Sidenote: Cycle of death and resurrection after three days, like themonthly disappearance and reappearance of the moon. ]

These stories which associate human immortality with the moon areproducts of a primitive philosophy which, meditating on the visiblechanges, of the lunar orb, drew from the observation of its waning andwaxing a dim notion that under a happier fate man might have beenimmortal like the moon, or rather that like it he might have undergonean endless cycle of death and resurrection, dying then rising again fromthe dead after three days. The same curious notion of death andresurrection after three days is entertained by the Unmatjera andKaitish, two savage tribes of Central Australia. They say that long agotheir dead used to be buried either in trees or underground, and thatafter three days they regularly rose from the dead. The Kaitish tell howthis happy state of things came to an end. It was all through a man ofthe Curlew totem, who finding some men of the Little Wallaby totemburying a Little Wallaby man, fell into a passion and kicked the bodyinto the sea. Of course after that the dead man could not come to lifeagain, and that is why nowadays nobody rises from the dead after threedays, as everybody used to do long ago. [77] Although no mention is madeof the moon in this Australian story, we may conjecture that thesesavages, like the Nandi of East Africa, fixed upon three days as thenormal interval between death and resurrection simply because three daysis the interval between the disappearance of the old and thereappearance of the new moon. If that is so, the aborigines of CentralAustralia may be added to the many races of mankind who have seen in thewaning and waxing moon an emblem of human immortality. Nor does thisassociation of ideas end with a mere tradition that in some former agemen used to die with the old moon and come to life again with the newmoon. Many savages, on seeing the new moon for the first time in themonth, observe ceremonies which seem to be intended to renew andincrease their life and strength with the renewal and the increase ofthe lunar light. For example, on the day when the new moon firstappeared, the Indians of San Juan Capistrano in California used to calltogether all the young men and make them run about, while the old mendanced in a circle, saying, "As the moon dieth and cometh to life again, so we also having to die will again live. "[78] Again, an old writertells us that at the appearance of every new moon the negroes of theCongo clapped their hands and cried out, sometimes falling on theirknees, "So may I renew my life as thou art renewed. "[79]

[Sidenote: III. Story of the Serpent and his Cast Skin. New Britainstory of immortality, the serpent, and death. Annamite story ofimmortality, the serpent, and death. Vuatom story of immortality, thelizard, the serpent, and death. ]

Another type of stories told to explain the origin of death is the onewhich I have called the type of the Serpent and his Cast Skin. Somesavages seem to think that serpents and all other animals, such aslizards, which periodically shed their skins, thereby renew their lifeand so never die. Hence they imagine that if man also could only casthis old skin and put on a new one, he too would be immortal like aserpent. Thus the Melanesians, who inhabit the coast of the GazellePeninsula in New Britain, tell the following story of the origin ofdeath. They say that To Kambinana, the Good Spirit, loved men and wishedto make them immortal; but he hated the serpents and wished to killthem. So he called his brother To Korvuvu and said to him, "Go to menand take them the secret of immortality. Tell them to cast their skinevery year. So will they be protected from death, for their life will beconstantly renewed. But tell the serpents that they must thenceforthdie. " But To Korvuvu acquitted himself badly of his task; for hecommanded men to die and betrayed to the serpents the secret ofimmortality. Since then all men have been mortal, but the serpents casttheir skins every year and are immortal. [80] In this story we meet againwith the incident of the reversed message; through a blunder or throughthe malice of the messenger the glad tidings of immortality areperverted into a melancholy message of death. A similar tale, with asimilar incident, is told in Annam. They say that Ngoc hoang sent amessenger from heaven to men to say that when they had reached old agethey should change their skins and live for ever, but that when serpentsgrew old they must die. The messenger came down to earth and said, rightly enough, "When man is old, he shall cast his skin; but whenserpents are old, they shall die and be laid in coffins. " So far, sogood. But unfortunately there happened to be a brood of serpents withinhearing, and when they heard the doom pronounced on their kind they fellinto a fury and said to the messenger, "You must say it over again andjust the contrary, or we will bite you. " That frightened the messengerand he repeated his message, changing the words thus: "When he is old, the serpent shall cast his skin; but when he is old, man shall die andbe laid in the coffin. " That is why all creatures are now subject todeath, except the serpent, who, when he is old, casts his skin and livesfor ever. [81] The natives of Vuatom, an island in the BismarckArchipelago, say that a certain To Konokonomiange bade two lads fetchfire, promising that if they did so they should never die, but that ifthey refused their bodies would perish, though their shades or soulswould survive. They would not hearken to him, so he cursed them, saying, "What! You would all have lived! Now you shall die, though your soulshall live. But the iguana (_Goniocephalus_) and the lizard (_Varanusindicus_) and the snake (_Enygrus_), they shall live, they shall casttheir skin and they shall live for evermore. " When the lads heard that, they wept, for bitterly they rued their folly in not going to fetch thefire for To Konokonomiange. [82]

[Sidenote: Nias story of immortality, the crab, and death. Arawak andTamanachier stories of immortality, the serpent, the lizard, the beetle, and death. ]

Other peoples tell somewhat different stories to explain how men missedthe boon of immortality and serpents acquired it. Thus the natives ofNias, an island off the coast of Sumatra, say that, when the earth wascreated, a certain being was sent down by God from heaven to put thelast touches to the work of creation. He should have fasted for a month, but unable to withstand the pangs of hunger he ate some bananas. Thechoice of food was most unlucky, for had he only eaten river-crabsinstead of bananas men would have cast their skins like crabs and wouldnever have died. [83] The Arawaks of British Guiana relate that once upona time the Creator came down to earth to see how his creature man wasgetting on. But men were so wicked that they tried to kill him so hedeprived them of eternal life and bestowed it on the animals which renewtheir skin, such as serpents, lizards, and beetles. [84] A somewhatdifferent version of the story is told by the Tamanachiers, an Indiantribe of the Orinoco. They say that after residing among them for sometime the Creator took boat to cross to the other side of the great saltwater from which he had come. Just as he was shoving off from the shore, he called out to them in a changed voice, "You will change your skins, "by which he meant to say, "You will renew your youth like the serpentsand the beetles. " But unfortunately an old woman, hearing these words, cried out "Oh!" in a tone of scepticism, if not of sarcasm, which soannoyed the Creator that he changed his tune at once and said testily, "Ye shall die. " That is why we are all mortal. [85]

[Sidenote: Melanesian story of the old woman who renewed her youth bycasting her skin. ]

The natives of the Banks' Islands and the New Hebrides believe thatthere was a time in the beginning of things when men never died but casttheir skins like snakes and crabs and so renewed their youth. But theunhappy change to mortality came about at last, as it so often does inthese stories, through an old woman. Having grown old, this dame went toa stream to change her skin, and change it she did, for she stripped offher wizened old hide, cast it upon the waters, and watched it floatingdown stream till it caught on a stick. Then she went home a buxom youngwoman. But the child whom she had left at home did not know her and setup such a prodigious squalling that to quiet it the woman went straightback to the river, fished out her cast-off old skin, and put it onagain. From that day to this people have ceased to cast their skins andto live for ever. [86] The same legend of the origin of death has beenrecorded in the Shortlands Islands[87] and among the Kai of German NewGuinea. [88] It is also told with some variations by the natives of theAdmiralty Islands. They say that once on a time there was an old womanand she was frail. She had two sons, and they went a-fishing, and sheherself went to bathe. She stripped off her wrinkled old skin and cameforth as young as she had been long ago. Her sons came home from thefishing, and very much astonished were they to see her. The one said, "It is our mother, " but the other said, "She may be your mother, but sheshall be my wife. " Their mother heard them and said, "What were you twosaying?" The two said, "Nothing! We only said that you are our mother. ""You are liars, " said she, "I heard you both. If I had had my way, weshould have grown to be old men and women, and then we should have castour skin and been young men and young women. But you have had your way. We shall grow old men and old women and then we shall die. " With thatshe fetched her old skin, and put it on, and became an old woman again. As for us, her descendants, we grow up and we grow old. And if it hadnot been for those two young men there would have been no end of ourdays, we should have lived for ever and ever. [89]

[Sidenote: Samoan story of the shellfish, two torches, and death. ]

The Samoans tell how the gods held a council to decide what was to bedone with men. One of them said, "Bring men and let them cast theirskin; and when they die, let them be turned to shellfish or to acoco-nut leaf torch, which when shaken in the wind blazes out again. "But another god called Palsy (_Supa_) rose up and said, "Bring men andlet them be like the candle-nut torch, which when it is once out cannotbe blown up again. Let the shellfish change their skin, but let mendie. " While they were debating, a heavy rain came on and broke up themeeting. As the gods ran for shelter to their houses, they cried, "Letit be according to the counsel of Palsy! Let it be according to thecounsel of Palsy!" So men died, but shellfish cast their skins. [90]

[Sidenote: IV. The Banana Story. Poso story of immortality, the stone, the banana, and death. Mentra story of immortality, the banana, anddeath. ]

The last type of tales of the origin of death which I shall notice isthe one which I have called the Banana type. We have already seen thataccording to the natives of Nias human mortality is all due to eatingbananas instead of crabs. [91] A similar opinion is entertained by otherpeople in that region of the world. Thus the natives of Poso, a districtof Central Celebes, say that in the beginning the sky was very near theearth, and that the Creator, who lived in it, used to let down his goodgifts to men at the end of a rope. One day he thus lowered a stone; butour first father and mother would have none of it and they called out totheir Maker, "What have we to do with this stone? Give us somethingelse. " The Creator complied and hauled away at the rope; the stonemounted up and up till it vanished from sight. Presently the rope wasseen coming down from heaven again, and this time there was a banana atthe end of it instead of a stone. Our first parents ran at the bananaand took it. Then there came a voice from heaven, saying: "Because yehave chosen the banana, your life shall be like its life. When thebanana-tree has offspring, the parent stem dies; so shall ye die andyour children shall step into your place. Had ye chosen the stone, yourlife would have been like the life of the stone changeless andimmortal. " The man and his wife mourned over their fatal choice, but itwas too late; that is how through the eating of a banana death came intothe world. [92] The Mentras or Mantras, a shy tribe of savages in thejungles of the Malay Peninsula, allege that in the early days of theworld men did not die, but only grew thin at the waning of the moon andthen waxed fat again as she waxed to the full. Thus there was no checkwhatever on the population, which increased to a truly alarming extent. So a son of the first man brought this state of things to his father'snotice and asked him what was to be done. The first man said, "Leavethings as they are"; but his younger brother, who took a more Malthusianview of the situation, said, "No, let men die like the banana, leavingtheir offspring behind. " The question was submitted to the Lord of theUnderworld, and he decided in favour of death. Ever since then men haveceased to renew their youth like the moon and have died like thebanana. [93]

[Sidenote: Primitive philosophy in the stories of the origin of death. ]

Thus the three stories of the origin of death which I have called theMoon type, the Serpent type, and the Banana type appear to be productsof a primitive philosophy which sees a cheerful emblem of immortality inthe waxing and waning moon and in the cast skins of serpents, but a sademblem of mortality in the banana-tree, which perishes as soon as it hasproduced its fruit. But, as I have already said, these types of storiesdo not exhaust the theories or fancies of primitive man on the questionhow death came into the world. I will conclude this part of my subjectwith some myths which do not fall under any of the preceding heads. 

[Sidenote: Bahnar story of immortality, the tree, and death. Rivalry forthe boon of immortality between men and animals that cast their skins, such as serpents and lizards. ]

The Bahnars of eastern Cochinchina say that in the beginning when peopledied they used to be buried at the foot of a tree called Lông Blô, andthat after a time they always rose from the dead, not as infants but asfull-grown men and women. So the earth was peopled very fast, and allthe inhabitants formed but one great town under the presidency of ourfirst parents. In time men multiplied to such an extent that a certainlizard could not take his walks abroad without somebody treading on histail. This vexed him, and the wily creature gave an insidious hint tothe gravediggers. "Why bury the dead at the foot of the Lông Blô tree?"said he; "bury them at the foot of Lông Khung, and they will not come tolife again. Let them die outright and be done with it. " The hint wastaken, and from that day the dead have not come to life again. [94] Inthis story there are several points to be noticed. In the first placethe tree Lông Blô would seem to have been a tree of life, since all thedead who were buried at its foot came to life again. In the second placethe lizard is here, as in so many African tales, the instrument ofbringing death among men. Why was that so? We may conjecture that thereason is that the lizard like the serpent casts its skin periodically, from which primitive man might infer, as he infers with regard toserpents, that the creature renews its youth and lives for ever. Thusall the myths which relate how a lizard or a serpent became themaleficent agent of human mortality may perhaps be referred to an oldidea of a certain jealousy and rivalry between men and all creatureswhich cast their skin, notably serpents and lizards; we may suppose thatin all such cases a story was told of a contest between man and hisanimal rivals for the possession of immortality, a contest in which, whether by mistake or by guile, the victory always remained with theanimals, who thus became immortal, while mankind was doomed tomortality. 

[Sidenote: Chingpaw story of the origin of death. Australian story ofthe tree, the bat, and death. Fijian story of the origin of death. ]

The Chingpaws of Upper Burma say that death originated in a practicaljoke played by an old man who pretended to be dead in the ancient dayswhen nobody really died. But the Lord of the Sun, who held the threadsof all human lives in his hand, detected the fraud and in anger cutshort the thread of life of the practical joker. Since then everybodyelse has died; the door for death to enter into the world was opened bythe folly of that silly, though humorous, old man. [95] The natives aboutthe Murray River in Australia used to relate how the first man and womanwere forbidden to go near a tree in which a bat lived, lest they shoulddisturb the creature. One day, however, the woman was gathering firewoodand she went near the tree. The bat flew away, and after that death cameinto the world. [96] Some of the Fijians accounted for human mortality asfollows. When the first man, the father of the human race, was beingburied, a god passed by the grave and asked what it meant, for he hadnever seen a grave before. On learning from the bystanders that they hadjust buried their father, "Do not bury him, " said he, "dig the body upagain. " "No, " said they, "we cannot do that. He has been dead four daysand stinks. " "Not so, " pleaded the god; "dig him up, and I promise youthat he will live again. " Heedless of the divine promise, theseprimitive sextons persisted in leaving their dead father in the grave. Then said the god to these wicked men, "By disobeying me you have sealedyour own fate. Had you dug up your ancestor, you would have found himalive, and you yourselves, when you passed from this world, should havebeen buried, as bananas are, for the space of four days, after which youshould have been dug up, not rotten, but ripe. But now, as a punishmentfor your disobedience, you shall die and rot. " And still, when they hearthis sad tale told, the Fijians say, "O that those children had dug upthat body!"[97]

[Sidenote: Admiralty Islanders' stories of the origin of death. ]

The Admiralty Islanders tell various stories to explain why man ismortal. One of them has already been related. Here is another. A Souhman went once to catch fish. A devil tried to devour him, but he fledinto the forest and took refuge in a tree. The tree kindly closed on himso that the devil could not see him. When the devil was gone, the treeopened up and the man clambered down to the ground. Then said the treeto him, "Go to Souh and bring me two white pigs. " He went and found twopigs, one was white and one was black. He took chalk and chalked theblack pig so that it was white. Then he brought them to the tree, but onthe way the chalk fell off the black pig. And when the tree saw thewhite pig and the black pig, he chid the man and said, "You arethankless. I was good to you. An evil will overtake you; you will die. The devil will fall upon you, and you will die. " So it has been with usas it was with the man of Souh. An evil overtakes us or a spirit fallsupon us, and we die. If it had been as the tree said, we should not havedied. [98] Another story told by the Admiralty Islanders to account forthe melancholy truth of man's mortality runs thus. Kosi, the chief ofMoakareng, was in his house. He was hungry. He said to his two sons, "Goand climb the breadfruit trees and bring the fruit, that we may eat themtogether and not die. " But they would not. So he went himself andclimbed the breadfruit tree. But the north-west wind blew a storm, itblew and threw him down. He fell and his body died, but his ghost wenthome. He went and sat in his house. He tied up his hair and he paintedhis face with red ochre. Now his wife and his two sons had gone afterhim into the wood. They went to fetch home the breadfruits. They cameand saw Kosi, and he was dead. The three returned home, and there theysaw the ghost of Kosi sitting in his house. They said, "You there! Who'sthat dead at the foot of the breadfruit tree? Kosi, he is dead at thefoot of the breadfruit tree. " Kosi, he said, "Here am I. I did not fall. Perhaps somebody else fell down. I did not. Here I am. " "You're a liar, "said they. "I ain't, " said he. "Come, " said they, "we'll go and see. "They went. Kosi, he jumped into his body. He died. They buried him. Ifhis wife had behaved well, we should not die. Our body would die, butour ghost would go about always in the old home. [99]

[Sidenote: Stories of the origin of death: the fatal bundle or the fatalbox. ]

The Wemba of Northern Rhodesia relate how God in the beginning created aman and a woman and gave them two bundles; in one of them was life andin the other death. Most unfortunately the man chose "the little bundleof death. "[100] The Cherokee Indians of North America say that a numberof beings were engaged in the work of creation. The Sun was made first. Now the creators intended that men should live for ever. But when theSun passed over them in the sky, he told the people that there was notroom enough for them all and that they had better die. At last the Sun'sown daughter, who was with the people on earth, was bitten by a snakeand died. Then the Sun repented him and said that men might live always;and he bade them take a box and go fetch his daughter's spirit in thebox and bring it to her body, that she might live. But he charged themstraitly not to open the box until they arrived at the dead body. However, moved by curiosity, they unhappily opened the box too soon;away flew the spirit, and all men have died ever since. [101] Some of theNorth American Indians informed the early Jesuit missionaries that acertain man had received the gift of immortality in a small packet froma famous magician named Messou, who repaired the world after it had beenseriously damaged by a great flood. In bestowing on the man thisvaluable gift the magician strictly enjoined him on no account to openthe packet. The man obeyed, and so long as the packet was unopened heremained immortal. But his wife was both curious and incredulous; sheopened the packet to see what was in it, the precious contents flewaway, and mankind has been subject to death ever since. [102]

[Sidenote: Baganda story how death came into the world through theforgetfulness and imprudence of a woman. ]

As these American Indians tell how death came through the curiosity andincredulity of one woman, the Baganda of Central Africa relate how itcame through the forgetfulness and imprudence of another. According tothe Baganda the first man who came to earth in Uganda was named Kintu. He brought with him one cow and lived on its milk, for he had no otherfood. But in time a woman named Nambi, a daughter of Gulu, the king ofheaven, came down to earth with her brother or sister, and seeing Kintushe fell in love with him and wished to have him for her husband. Buther proud father doubted whether Kintu was worthy of his daughter'shand, and accordingly he insisted on testing his future son-in-lawbefore he would consent to the marriage. So he carried off Kintu's cowand put it among his own herds in heaven. When Kintu found that the cowwas stolen, he was in a great rage, but hunger getting the better ofanger, he made shift to live by peeling the bark of trees and gatheringherbs and leaves, which he cooked and ate. In time his future wife Nambihappened to spy the stolen cow among her father's herds and she toldKintu, who came to heaven to seek and recover the lost animal. Hisfuture father-in-law Gulu, Lord of Heaven, obliged him to submit to manytests designed to prove his fitness for marriage with the daughter of soexalted a being as the Lord of Heaven. All these tests Kintusuccessfully passed through. At last Gulu was satisfied, gave him hisdaughter Nambi to wife, and allowed him to return to earth with her. 

[Sidenote: The coming of Death. ]

But Nambi had a brother and his name was Death (_Walumbe_). So beforethe Lord of Heaven sent her away with her husband he called them both tohim and said, "You must hurry away before Death comes, or he will wishto go with you. You must not let him do so, for he would only cause youtrouble and unhappiness. " To this his daughter agreed, and she went topack up her things. She and her husband then took leave of the Lord ofHeaven, who gave them at parting a piece of advice. "Be sure, " said he, "if you have forgotten anything, not to come back for it; because, ifyou do, Death will wish to go with you, and you must go without him. " Sooff they set, the man and his wife, taking with them his cow and itscalves, also a sheep, a goat, a fowl, and a banana tree. But on the waythe woman remembered that she had forgotten the grain to feed the fowl, so she said to her husband, "I must go back for the grain to feed thefowl, or it will die. " Her husband tried to dissuade her, but in vain. She said, "I will hurry back and get it without any one seeing me. " Soback she went in an evil hour and said to her father the Lord of Heaven, "I have forgotten the grain for the fowl and I am come back to fetch itfrom the doorway where I put it. " Her father said sadly, "Did I not tellyou that you were not to return if you had forgotten anything, becauseyour brother Death would wish to go with you? Now he will accompanyyou. " The woman fled, but Death saw her and followed hard after her. When she rejoined her husband, he was angry, for he saw Death and said, "Why have you brought your brother with you? Who can live with him?"

[Sidenote: The importunity of Death. ]

When they reached the earth, Nambi planted her garden, and the bananassprang up quickly and formed a grove. They lived happily for a time tillone day Death came and asked for one of their daughters, that she mightgo away with him and be his cook. But the father said, "If the Lord ofHeaven comes and asks me for one of my children, what am I to say? ShallI tell him that I have given her to you to be your cook?" Death wassilent and went away. But he came back another day and asked again for achild to be his cook. When the father again refused, Death said, "I willkill your children. " The father did not know what that meant, so heasked Death, "What is that you will do?" However, in a short time one ofthe children fell ill and died, and then another and another. So the manwent to the Lord of Heaven and complained that Death was taking away hischildren one by one. The Lord of Heaven said, "Did I not tell you, whenyou were going away, to go at once with your wife and not to return ifyou had forgotten anything, but you let your wife return to fetch thegrain? Now you have Death living with you. If you had obeyed me, youwould have been free from him and not lost any of your children. "

[Sidenote: The hunt for Death. ]

However, the man pleaded with him, and the Lord Heaven at last consentedto send Death's brother Kaikuzi to help the woman and to prevent Deathfrom killing her children. So down came Kaikuzi to earth, and when hemet his brother Death they greeted each other lovingly. Then Kaikuzitold Death that he had come to fetch him away from earth to heaven. Death was willing to go, but he said, "Let us take our sister too. ""Nay, " said his brother, "that cannot be, for she is a wife and muststay with her husband. " The dispute waxed warm, Death insisting oncarrying off his sister, and his brother refusing to allow him to do so. At last the brother angrily ordered Death to do as he was bid, and sosaying he made as though he would seize him. But Death slipped frombetween his hands and fled into the earth. For a long time after thatthere was enmity between the two brothers. Kaikuzi tried in every way tocatch Death, but Death always escaped. At last Kaikuzi told the peoplethat he would have one final hunt for Death, and while the hunt wasgoing on they must all stay in their houses; not a man, a woman, achild, nor even an animal was to be allowed to pass the threshold; andif they saw Death passing the window, they were not to utter a cry ofterror but to keep still. Well, for some days his orders were obeyed. Not a living soul, not an animal, stirred abroad. All without wassolitude, all within was silence. Encouraged by the universal stillnessDeath emerged from his lair, and his brother was just about to catchhim, when some children, who had ventured out to herd their goats, sawDeath and cried out. Death's good brother rushed to the spot and askedthem why they had cried out. They said, "Because we saw Death. " So hisbrother was angry because Death had again made good his escape into theearth, and he went to the first man and told him that he was weary ofhunting Death and wished to return home to heaven. The first man thankedhim kindly for all he had done, and said, "I fear there is nothing moreto be done. We must only hope that Death will not kill all the people. "It was a vain hope. Since then Death has lived on earth and killedeverybody who is born into the world; and always, after the deed ofmurder is done, he escapes into the earth at Tanda in Singo. [103]

[Sidenote: In the preceding story Death is distinctly personified. Deathpersonified in a West African story of the origin of death. Death andthe spider and the spider's daughter. ]

If this curious tale of the origin of death reveals no very deepphilosophy, it is at least interesting for the distinctness with whichDeath is conceived as a personal being, the son of the Lord of Heaven, the brother of the first man's wife. In this personification of Deaththe story differs from all the others which we have examined and marksan intellectual advance upon them; since the power of picturing abstractideas to the mind with all the sharpness of outline and vividness ofcolour which are implied by personification is a faculty above the reachof very low intelligences. It is not surprising that the Baganda shouldhave attained to this power, for they are probably the most highlycultured and intellectual of all the many Bantu tribes of Africa. Thesame conception of Death as a person occurs in a story of the origin ofdeath which is told by the Hos, a negro tribe in Togoland, a district ofWest Africa. These Hos belong to the Ewe-speaking family of the truenegroes, who have reached a comparatively high level of barbarism in thenotorious kingdom of Dahomey. The story which the Hos tell as to theorigin of death is as follows. Once upon a time there was a great faminein which even the hunters could find no flesh to eat. Then Death wentand made a road as broad as from here to Sokode, and there he set manysnares. Every animal that tried to pass that way fell into a snare. SoDeath had much flesh to eat. One day the Spider came to Death and saidto him, "You have so much meat!" and she asked if she might have some totake home with her. Death gave her leave. So the Spider made a basket aslong as from Ho to Akoviewe (a distance of about five miles), crammed itfull of meat, and dragged it home. In return for this bounty the Spidergave Death her daughter Yiyisa to wife. So when Death had her for hiswife, he gave her a hint. He said, "Don't walk on the broad road which Ihave made. Walk on the footpath which I have not made. When you go tothe water, be sure to take none but the narrow way through the wood. "Well, some time afterwards it had rained a little; the grass was wet, and Yiyisa wished to go to the watering-place. When she tried to walk onthe narrow path through the forest, the tall damp grass wet her throughand through, so she thought to herself, "In future I will only go on thebroad road. " But scarce had she set foot on the beautiful broad roadwhen she fell into a snare and died on the spot. When Death came to thesnare and saw his wife in it dead, he cut her up into bits and toastedthem on the fire. One day the Spider paid a visit to her son-in-lawDeath, and he set a good meal before her. When she had eaten and drunkher fill and had got up to go home, she asked Death after her daughter. "If you take that meat from the fire, " said Death, "you will see her. "So the Spider took the flesh from the fire and there, sure enough, shefound her dead daughter. Then she went home in great wrath and whettedher knife till it was so sharp that a fly lighting on the edge was cutin two. With that knife she came back to attack Death. But Death shot anarrow at her. She dodged it, and the arrow whizzed past her and set allthe forest on fire. Then the Spider flung her sharp knife at Death, butit missed him and only sliced off the tops of the palms and all theother trees of the wood. Seeing that her stroke had failed, the Spiderfled away home and shut herself up in her house. But Death waited forher on the edge of the town to kill her as soon as she ventured out. Next morning some women came out of the town to draw water at thewatering-place, and as they went they talked with one another. But Deathshot an arrow among them and killed several. The rest ran away homeand said, "So and so is dead. " Then Death came and looked at the bodiesand said, "That is my game. I need go no more into the wood to hunt. "That is how Death came into the world. If the Spider had not done whatshe did, nobody would ever have died. [104]

[Sidenote: Death personified in a Melanesian story of the origin ofdeath. ]

Again, the Melanesians of the Banks Islands tell a story of the originof Death, in which that grim power is personified. They say that Death(_Mate_) used to live underground in a shadowy realm called Panoi, whilemen on earth changed their skins like serpents and so renewing theiryouth lived for ever. But a practical inconvenience of immortality wasthat property never changed hands; newcomers had no chance, everythingwas monopolised by the old, old stagers. To remedy this state of thingsand secure a more equitable distribution of property Death was inducedto emerge from the lower world and to appear on earth among men; he camerelying on an assurance that no harm would be done him. Well, when theyhad him, they laid him out on a board, covered him with a pall as if hewere a corpse, and then proceeded with great gusto to divide hisproperty and eat the funeral feast. On the fifth day they blew the conchshell to drive away the ghost, as usual, and lifted the pall to see whathad become of Death. But there was no Death there; he had abscondedleaving only his skeleton behind. They naturally feared that he had madeoff with an intention to return to his home underground, which wouldhave been a great calamity; for if there were no Death on earth, howcould men die and how could other people inherit their property? Theidea was intolerable; so to cut off the retreat of the fugitive, theFool was set to do sentinel duty at the parting of the ways, where oneroad leads down to the underworld, Death's home, and the other leads upto the upper world, the abode of the living. Here accordingly the Foolwas stationed with strict orders to keep his eye on Death if he shouldattempt to sneak past him and return to the nether world. However, theFool, like a fool as he was, sat watching the road to the upper world, and Death slipped behind him and so made good his retreat. Since thenall men have followed Death down that fatal path. [105]

[Sidenote: Thus according to savages death is not a necessary part ofthe order of nature. A similar view is held by some eminent modernbiologists. ]

So much for savage stories of the origin of death. They all imply abelief that death is not a necessary part of the order of nature, butthat it originated in a pure mistake or misdeed of some sort onsomebody's part, and that we should all have lived happy and immortal ifit had not been for that disastrous blunder or crime. Thus the talesreflect the same frame of mind which I illustrated in the last lecture, when I shewed that many savages still to this day believe all men to benaturally immortal and death to be nothing but an effect of sorcery. Inshort, whether we regard the savage's attitude to death at the presentday or his ideas as to its origin in the remote past, we must concludethat primitive man cannot reconcile himself to the notion of death as anatural and necessary event; he persists in regarding it as anaccidental and unnecessary disturbance of the proper order of nature. Toa certain extent, perhaps, in these crude speculations he hasanticipated certain views of modern biology. Thus it has been maintainedby Professor August Weissmann that death is not a natural necessity, that many of the lowest species of living animals do in fact live forever; and that in the higher animals the custom of dying has beenintroduced in the course of evolution for the purpose of thinning thepopulation and preventing the degeneration of the species, which wouldotherwise follow through the gradual and necessary deterioration of theimmortal individuals, who, though they could not die, might yet sustainmuch bodily damage through hard knocks in the hurly-burly of eternalexistence on earth. 

[Sidenote: Weissmann's view that death is not a natural necessity but anadaptation acquired in the course of evolution for the advantage of therace. ]

On this subject I will quote some sentences from Professor Weissmann'sessay on the duration of life. He says, "The necessity of death has beenhitherto explained as due to causes which are inherent in organicnature, and not to the fact that it may be advantageous. I do nothowever believe in the validity of this explanation; I consider thatdeath is not a primary necessity, but that it has been secondarilyacquired as an adaptation. I believe that life is endowed with a fixedduration, not because it is contrary to its nature to be unlimited, butbecause the unlimited existence of individuals would be a luxury withoutany corresponding advantage. The above-mentioned hypothesis upon theorigin and necessity of death leads me to believe that the organism didnot finally cease to renew the worn-out cell material because the natureof the cells did not permit them to multiply indefinitely, but becausethe power of multiplying indefinitely was lost when it ceased to be ofuse. .. . John Hunter, supported by his experiments on _anabiosis_, hopedto prolong the life of man indefinitely by alternate freezing andthawing; and the Veronese Colonel Aless. Guaguino made hiscontemporaries believe that a race of men existed in Russia, of whichthe individuals died regularly every year on the 27th of November, andreturned to life on the 24th of the following April. There cannothowever be the least doubt, that the higher organisms, as they are nowconstructed, contain within themselves the germs of death. The questionhowever arises as to how this has come to pass; and I reply that deathis to be looked upon as an occurrence which is advantageous to thespecies as a concession to the outer conditions of life, and not as anabsolute necessity, essentially inherent in life itself. Death, that isthe end of life, is by no means, as is usually assumed, an attribute ofall organisms. An immense number of low organisms do not die, althoughthey are easily destroyed, being killed by heat, poisons, etc. As long, however, as those conditions which are necessary for their life arefulfilled, they continue to live, and they thus carry the potentialityof unending life in themselves. I am speaking not only of the Amoebaeand the low unicellular Algae, but also of far more highly organizedunicellular animals, such as the Infusoria. "[106]

[Sidenote: Similar view expressed by Alfred Russel Wallace. ]

A similar suggestion that death is not a natural necessity but aninnovation introduced for the good of the breed, has been made by oureminent English biologist, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace. He says: "Ifindividuals did not die they would soon multiply inordinately and wouldinterfere with each other's healthy existence. Food would become scarce, and hence the larger individuals would probably decompose or diminish insize. The deficiency of nourishment would lead to parts of the organismnot being renewed; they would become fixed, and liable to more or lessslow decomposition as dead parts within a living body. The smallerorganisms would have a better chance of finding food, the larger onesless chance. That one which gave off several small portions to form eacha new organism would have a better chance of leaving descendants likeitself than one which divided equally or gave off a large part ofitself. Hence it would happen that those which gave off very smallportions would probably soon after cease to maintain their own existencewhile they would leave a numerous offspring. This state of things wouldbe in any case for the advantage of the race, and would therefore, bynatural selection, soon become established as the regular course ofthings, and thus we have the origin of _old age, decay, and death_; forit is evident that when one or more individuals have provided asufficient number of successors they themselves, as consumers ofnourishment in a constantly increasing degree, are an injury to theirsuccessors. Natural selection therefore weeds them out, and in manycases favours such races as die almost immediately after they have leftsuccessors. Many moths and other insects are in this condition, livingonly to propagate their kind and then immediately dying, some not eventaking any food in the perfect and reproductive state. "[107]

[Sidenote: Savages and some men of science agree that death is not anatural necessity. ]

Thus it appears that two of the most eminent biologists of our timeagree with savages in thinking that death is by no means a naturalnecessity for all living beings. They only differ from savages in this, that whereas savages look upon death as the result of a deplorableaccident, our men of science regard it as a beneficent reform institutedby nature as a means of adjusting the numbers of living beings to thequantity of the food supply, and so tending to the improvement andtherefore on the whole to the happiness of the species. 

[Footnote 57: H. Callaway, _The Religious System of the Amazulu_, Parti. Pp. 1, 3 _sq. _, Part ii. P. 138; Rev. L. Grout, _Zululand, or Lifeamong the Zulu-Kafirs_ (Philadelphia, N. D. ), pp. 148 _sq. _; Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), pp. 76 _sq. _ Compare A. F. Gardiner, _Narrative of a Journey to the Zoolu Country_ (London, 1836), pp. 178 _sq. _, T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, _Relation d'un voyaged'Exploration au Nord-Est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Espérance_(Paris, 1842), p. 472; Rev. J. Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal and theZulu Country_ (London, 1857), p. 159; W. H. I. Bleek, _Reynard the Fox inSouth Africa_ (London, 1864), p. 74; D. Leslie, _Among the Zulus andAmatongas_, Second Edition (Edinburgh, 1875), p. 209; F. Speckmann, _DieHermannsburger Mission in Afrika_ (Hermannsburg, 1876), p. 164. ]

[Footnote 58: J. Chapman, _Travels in the Interior of South Africa_(London, 1868), i. 47. ]

[Footnote 59: E. Casalis, _The Basutos_ (London, 1861), p. 242; E. Jacottet, _The Treasury of Ba-suto Lore_, i. (Morija, Basutoland, 1908), pp. 46 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 60: H. A. Junod, _Les Ba-Ronga_ Neuchâtel (1898), pp. 401_sq. _]

[Footnote 61: W. A. Elmslie, _Among the Wild Ngoni_ (Edinburgh andLondon, 1899), p. 70. ]

[Footnote 62: H. A. Junod and W. A. Elmslie, _ll. Cc. _]

[Footnote 63: C. W. Hobley, _Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East AfricanTribes_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 107-109. ]

[Footnote 64: Fr. Müller, "Die Religionen Togos in Einzeldarstellungen, "_Anthropos_, ii. (1907) p. 203. In a version of the story reported fromCalabar a sheep appears as the messenger of mortality, while a dog isthe messenger of immortality or rather of resurrection. See "CalabarStories, " _Journal of the African Society_, No. 18 (January 1906), p. 194. ]

[Footnote 65: E. Perregaux, _Chez les Achanti_ (Neuchâtel, 1906), pp. 198 _sq. _]

[Footnote 66: E. Perregaux, _op. Cit. _ p. 199. ]

[Footnote 67: Sir J. E. Alexander, _Expedition of Discovery into theInterior of Africa_ (London, 1838), i. 169; C. J. Andersson, _LakeNgami_, Second Edition (London, 1856), pp. 328 _sq. _; W. H. I. Bleek, _Reynard the Fox in South Africa_ (London, 1864), pp. 71-73; Th. Hahn, _Tsuni-Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi_ (London, 1881), p. 52. ]

[Footnote 68: W. H. I. Bleek, _A Brief Account of Bushman Folk-lore_(London, 1875), pp. 9 _sq. _]

[Footnote 69: W. H. I. Bleek, _Reynard the Fox in South Africa_, pp. 69_sq. _]

[Footnote 70: A. C. Hollis, _The Masai_ (Oxford, 1905), pp. 271 _sq. _]

[Footnote 71: A. C. Hollis, _The Nandi_ (Oxford, 1909), p. 98. ]

[Footnote 72: Captain W. E. H. Barrett, "Notes on the Customs andBeliefs of the Wa-Giriama, etc. , British East Africa, " _Journal of theR. Anthropological Institute_, xli. (1911) p. 37. ]

[Footnote 73: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition(London, 1860), i. 205. ]

[Footnote 74: _Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses_, Nouvelle Édition, xv. (Paris, 1781) pp. 305 _sq. _]

[Footnote 75: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_(London, 1904), pp. 428 _sq. _]

[Footnote 76: Antoine Cabaton, _Nouvelles Recherches sur les Chams_(Paris, 1901), pp. 18 _sq. _]

[Footnote 77: Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _Northern Tribes ofCentral Australia_ (London, 1904), pp. 513 _sq. _]

[Footnote 78: Father G. Boscana, "Chinigchinich, " in _Life inCalifornia, by an American_ [A. Robinson] (New York, 1846), pp. 298_sq. _]

[Footnote 79: Merolla, "Voyage to Congo, " in J. Pinkerton's _Voyages andTravels_, xvi. (London, 1814) p. 273. ]

[Footnote 80: P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Küstenbewohner derGazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Münster, N. D. ), p. 334. ]

[Footnote 81: A. Landes, "Contes et Légendes Annamites, " _Cochinchinefrançaise, Excursions et Reconnaissances_, No. 25 (Saigon, 1886), pp. 108 _sq. _]

[Footnote 82: Otto Meyer, "Mythen und Erzählungen von der Insel Vuatom(Bismarck-Archipel, Südsee), " _Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 724. ]

[Footnote 83: H. Sundermann, "Die Insel Nias und die Mission daselbst, "_Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift_, xi. (1884) p. 451; E. Modigliani, _UnViaggio a Nías_ (Milan, 1890), p. 295. ]

[Footnote 84: R. Schomburgk, _Reisen in Britisch-Guiana_ (Leipsig, 1847-1848), ii. 319. ]

[Footnote 85: R. Schomburgk, _op. Cit. _ ii. 320. ]

[Footnote 86: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), p. 265; W. Gray, "Some Notes on the Tannese, " _Internationales Archiv fürEthnographie_, vii. (1894) p. 232. ]

[Footnote 87: C. Ribbe, _Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen derSalomo-Inseln_ (Dresden-Blasowitz, 1903), p. 148. ]

[Footnote 88: Ch. Keysser, "Aus dem Leben der Kaileute, " in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_ (Berlin, 1911), iii. 161 _sq. _]

[Footnote 89: Josef Meier, "Mythen und Sagen der Admiralitätsinsulaner, "_Anthropos_, iii. (1908) p. 193. ]

[Footnote 90: George Brown, D. D. , _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), p. 365; George Turner, LL. D. , _Samoa_ (London, 1884), pp. 8_sq. _]

[Footnote 91: See above, p. 70. ]

[Footnote 92: A. C. Kruijt, "De legenden der Poso-Alfoeren aangaande deerste menschen, " _Mededeelingen van wege het NederlandscheZendelinggenootschap_, xxxviii. (1894) p. 340. ]

[Footnote 93: D. F. A. Hervey, "The Mêntra Traditions, " _Journal of theStraits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society_, No. 10 (December 1882), p. 190; W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, _Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula_(London, 1906), ii. 337 _sq. _]

[Footnote 94: Guerlach, "Moeurs et Superstitions des sauvages Ba-hnars, "_Missions Catholiques_, xix. (1887) p. 479. ]

[Footnote 95: (Sir) J. G. Scott and J. P. Hardiman, _Gazetteer of UpperBurma and the Shan States_, Part i. Vol. I. (Rangoon, 1900) pp. 408_sq. _]

[Footnote 96: R. Brough Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourneand London, 1878), i. 428. On this narrative the author remarks: "Thisstory appears to bear too close a resemblance to the Biblical account ofthe Fall. Is it genuine or not? Mr. Bulmer admits that it may have beeninvented by the aborigines after they had heard something of Scripturehistory. "]

[Footnote 97: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition(London, 1860), i. 204 _sq. _ For another Fijian story of the origin ofdeath, see above, p. 67. ]

[Footnote 98: Josef Meier, "Mythen und Sagen der Admiralitätsinsulaner, "_Anthropos_, iii. (1908) p. 194. ]

[Footnote 99: Josef Meier, _op. Cit. _ pp. 194 _sq. _]

[Footnote 100: C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau ofNorthern Rhodesia_ (London, 1911), pp. 80 _sq. _ A like tale is told bythe Balolo of the Upper Congo. See _Folk-lore_, xii. (1901) p. 461; andbelow, p. 472. ]

[Footnote 101: J. Mooney, "Myths of the Cherokee, " _Nineteenth AnnualReport of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, Part i. (Washington, 1900)p. 436, quoting "the Payne manuscript, of date about 1835. " Compare_id. _, pp. 252-254, 436 _sq. _]

[Footnote 102: _Relations des Jésuites_, 1634, p. 13 (Canadian reprint, Quebec, 1858). ]

[Footnote 103: Sir Harry Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_ (London, 1904), ii. 700-705 (the story was taken down by Mr. J. F. Cunningham);Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 460-464. The story isbriefly told by Mr. L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), pp. 439 _sq. _]

[Footnote 104: J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), pp. 590-593. ]

[Footnote 105: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), pp. 265 _sq. _]

[Footnote 106: A. Weissmann, _Essays upon Heredity and KindredBiological Problems_, vol. I. (Oxford, 1891) pp. 25 _sq. _]

[Footnote 107: A. R. Wallace, quoted in A. Weissmann's _Essays uponHeredity_, i. (Oxford, 1891) p. 24 note. ]

LECTURE IV

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE ABORIGINES OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA

[Sidenote: Proposed survey of the belief in immortality and the worshipof the dead, as these are found among the various races of men, beginning with the lowest savages. ]

In previous lectures we have considered the ideas which savages ingeneral entertain of death and its origin. To-day we begin our survey ofthe beliefs and practices of particular races in regard to the dead. Ipropose to deal separately with some of the principal races of men andto shew in detail how the belief in human immortality and the worship ofthe dead, to which that belief naturally gives rise, have formed a moreor less important element of their religion. And in order to trace asfar as possible the evolution of that worship in history I shall beginwith the lowest savages about whom we possess accurate information, andshall pass from them to higher races until, if time permitted, we mightcome to the civilised nations of antiquity and of modern times. In thisway, by comparing the ideas and practices of peoples on different planesof culture we may be able approximately to reconstruct or represent toourselves with a fair degree of probability the various stages throughwhich this particular phase of religion may be supposed to have passedin the great civilised races before the dawn of history. Of course allsuch reconstructions must be more or less conjectural. In the absence ofhistorical documents that is inevitable; but our reconstruction will bemore or less probable according to the degree in which the correspondingstages of evolution are found to resemble or differ from each other inthe various races of men. If we find that tribes at approximately thesame level of culture in different parts of the world have approximatelythe same religion, we may fairly infer that religion is in a sense afunction of culture, and therefore that all races which have traversedthe same stages of culture in the past have traversed also the samestages of religion; in short that, allowing for many minor variations, which flow inevitably from varying circumstances such as climate, soil, racial temperament, and so forth, the course of religious developmenthas on the whole been uniform among mankind. This enquiry may be calledthe embryology of religion, in as much as it seeks to do for thedevelopment of religion what embryology in the strict sense of the wordattempts to do for the development of life. And just as biology or thescience of life naturally begins with the study of the lowest sorts ofliving beings, the humble protozoa, so we shall begin our enquiry with astudy of the lowest savages of whom we possess a comparatively full andaccurate record, namely, the aborigines of Australia. 

[Sidenote: Savagery a case not of degeneracy but of arrested or ratherretarded development. ]

At the outset I would ask you to bear in mind that, so far as evidenceallows us to judge, savagery in all its phases appears to be nothing buta case of arrested or rather retarded development. The old view thatsavages have degenerated from a higher level of culture, on which theirforefathers once stood, is destitute alike of evidence and ofprobability. On the contrary, the information which we possess as to thelower races, meagre and fragmentary as it unfortunately is, all seems topoint to the conclusion that on the whole even the most savage tribeshave reached their low level of culture from one still lower, and thatthe upward movement, though so slow as to be almost imperceptible, hasyet been real and steady up to the point where savagery has come intocontact with civilisation. The moment of such contact is a critical onefor the savages. If the intellectual, moral, and social interval whichdivides them from the civilised intruders exceeds a certain degree, thenit appears that sooner or later the savages must inevitably perish; theshock of collision with a stronger race is too violent to be withstood, the weaker goes to the wall and is shattered. But if on the other handthe breach between the two conflicting races is not so wide as to beimpassable, there is a hope that the weaker may assimilate enough of thehigher culture of the other to survive. It was so, for example, with ourbarbarous forefathers in contact with the ancient civilisations ofGreece and Rome; and it may be so in future with some, for example, ofthe black races of the present day in contact with Europeancivilisation. Time will shew. But among the savages who cannotpermanently survive the shock of collision with Europe may certainly benumbered the aborigines of Australia. They are rapidly dwindling andwasting away, and before very many years have passed it is probable thatthey will be extinct like the Tasmanians, who, so far as we can judgefrom the miserably imperfect records of them which we possess, appear tohave been savages of an even lower type than the Australians, andtherefore to have been still less able to survive in the struggle forexistence with their vigorous European rivals. 

[Sidenote: Physical causes which have retarded progress in Australia. ]

The causes which have retarded progress in Australia and kept theaboriginal population at the lowest level of savagery appear to bemainly two; namely, first, the geographical isolation and comparativelysmall area of the continent, and, second, the barren and indeed desertnature of a great part of its surface; for the combined effect of thesecauses has been, by excluding foreign competitors and seriouslyrestricting the number of competitors at home, to abate the rigour ofcompetition and thereby to restrain the action of one of the mostpowerful influences which make for progress. In other words, elements ofweakness have been allowed to linger on, which under the sternerconditions of life entailed by fierce competition would long ago havebeen eliminated and have made way for elements better adapted to theenvironment. What is true of the human inhabitants of Australia in thisrespect is true also of its fauna and flora. It has long been recognisedthat the animals and plants of Australia represent on the whole morearchaic types of life than the animals and plants of the largercontinents; and the reason why these antiquated creatures have survivedthere rather than elsewhere is mainly that, the area of competitionbeing so much restricted through the causes I have mentioned, thesecomparatively weak forms of animal and vegetable life have not beenkilled off by stronger competitors. That this is the real cause appearsto be proved by the rapidity with which many animals and plantsintroduced into Australia from Europe tend to overrun the country and tooust the old native fauna and flora. [108]

[Sidenote: In the centre of Australia the natural conditions of life aremost unfavourable; hence the central aborigines have remained in a moreprimitive state than those of the coasts, where food and water are moreplentiful. ]

I have said that among the causes which have kept the aborigines ofAustralia at a very low level of savagery must be reckoned the desertnature of a great part of the country. Now it is the interior of thecontinent which is the most arid, waste, and barren. The coasts arecomparatively fertile, for they are watered by showers condensed from anatmosphere which is charged with moisture by the neighbouring sea; andthis condensation is greatly facilitated in the south-eastern andeastern parts of the continent by a high range of mountains which hereskirts the coast for a long distance, attracting the moisture from theocean and precipitating it in the form of snow and rain. Thus thevegetation and hence the supply of food both animal and vegetable inthese well-watered portions of the continent are varied and plentiful. In striking contrast with the fertility and abundance of these favouredregions are the stony plains and bare rocky ranges of the interior, where water is scarce, vegetation scanty, and animal life at certainseasons of the year can only with difficulty be maintained. It would beno wonder if the natives of these arid sun-scorched wildernesses shouldhave lagged behind even their savage brethren of the coasts in respectof material and social progress; and in fact there are many indicationsthat they have done so, in other words, that the aborigines of the morefertile districts near the sea have made a greater advance towardscivilisation than the tribes of the desert interior. This is the view ofmen who have studied the Australian savages most deeply at first hand, and, so far as I can judge of the matter without any such first-handacquaintance, I entirely agree with their opinion. I have given myreasons elsewhere and shall not repeat them here. All that I wish toimpress on you now is that in aboriginal Australia a movement of socialand intellectual progress, slow but perceptible, appears to have beensetting from the coast inwards, and that, so far as such things can bereferred to physical causes, this particular movement in Australia wouldseem to have been initiated by the sea acting through an abundantrainfall and a consequent abundant supply of food. [109]

[Sidenote: Backward state of the Central Australian aborigines. Theyhave no idea of a moral supreme being. ]

Accordingly, in attempting to give you some account of the belief inimmortality and the worship of the dead among the various races ofmankind, I propose to begin with the natives of Central Australia, first, because the Australian aborigines are the most primitive savagesabout whom we have full and accurate information, and, second, becauseamong these primitive savages the inhabitants of the central deserts areon the whole the most primitive. Like their brethren in the rest of thecontinent they were in their native condition absolutely ignorant ofmetals and of agriculture; they had no domestic animals except the dog, and they subsisted wholly by the products of the chase and the naturalfruits, roots, and seeds, which the ground yielded without cultivationof any sort. In regard to their intellectual outlook upon the world, they were deeply imbued, as I shewed in a former lecture, with a beliefin magic, but it can hardly be said that they possessed any religion inthe strict sense of the word, by which I mean a propitiation of real orimaginary powers regarded as personal beings superior to man: certainlythe Australian aborigines appear to have believed in no beings whodeserve to be called gods. On this subject Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, our best authorities on these tribes, observe as follows: "The CentralAustralian natives--and this is true of the tribes extending from LakeEyre in the south to the far north and eastwards across to the Gulf ofCarpentaria--have no idea whatever of the existence of any supreme beingwho is pleased if they follow a certain line of what we call moralconduct and displeased if they do not do so. They have not the vaguestidea of a personal individual other than an actual living member of thetribe who approves or disapproves of their conduct, so far as anythinglike what we call morality is concerned. Any such idea as that of afuture life of happiness or the reverse, as a reward for meritorious oras a punishment for blameworthy conduct, is quite foreign to them. .. . Weknow of no tribe in which there is a belief of any kind in a supremebeing who rewards or punishes the individual according to his moralbehaviour, using the word moral in the native sense. "[110]

[Sidenote: Central Australian theory that the souls of the dead surviveand are afterwards reborn as infants. ]

But if the aborigines of Central Australia have no religion properly socalled, they entertain beliefs and they observe practices out of whichunder favourable circumstances a religion might have been developed, ifits evolution had not been arrested by the advent of Europeans. Amongthese elements of natural religion one of the most important is thetheory which these savages hold as to the existence and nature of thedead. That theory is a very remarkable one. With a single exception, which I shall mention presently, they unanimously believe that death isnot the end of all things for the individual, but that the humanpersonality survives, apparently with little change, in the form of aspirit, which may afterwards be reborn as a child into the world. Infact they think that every living person without exception is thereincarnation of a dead person who lived on earth a longer or shortertime ago. This belief is held universally by the tribes which occupy animmense area of Australia from the centre northwards to the Gulf ofCarpentaria. [111] The single exception to which I have referred isfurnished by the Gnanji, a fierce and wild-looking tribe who eat theirdead enemies and perhaps also their dead friends. [112] These savagesdeny that women have spirits which live after death; when a woman dies, that, they say, is the end of her. On the other hand, the spirit of adead man, in their opinion, survives and goes to and fro on the earthvisiting the places where his forefathers camped in days of old anddestined to be born again of a woman at some future time, when the rainshave fallen and bleached his bones. [113] But why these primitivephilosophers should deny the privilege of immortality to women andreserve it exclusively for men, is not manifest. All other CentralAustralian tribes appear to admit the rights of women equally with therights of men in a life beyond the grave. 

[Sidenote: Central Australian theory as to the state of the dead. Certain conspicuous features of the landscape supposed to be tenanted bythe souls of the dead waiting to be born again. ]

With regard to the state of the souls of the dead in the intervalsbetween their successive reincarnations, the opinions of the CentralAustralian savages are clear and definite. Most civilised races whobelieve in the immortality of the soul have found themselves compelledto confess that, however immortal the spirits of the departed may be, they do not present themselves commonly to our eyes or ears, nor meddlemuch with the affairs of the living; hence the survivors have for themost part inferred that the dead do not hover invisible in our midst, but that they dwell somewhere, far away, in the height of heaven, or inthe depth of earth, or in Islands of the Blest beyond the sea where thesun goes down. Not so with the simple aborigines of Australia. Theyimagine that the spirits of the dead continue to haunt their native landand especially certain striking natural features of the landscape, itmay be a pool of water in a deep gorge of the barren hills, or asolitary tree in the sun-baked plains, or a great rock that affords awelcome shade in the sultry noon. Such spots are thought to be tenantedby the souls of the departed waiting to be born again. There they lurk, constantly on the look-out for passing women into whom they may enter, and from whom in due time they may be born as infants. It matters notwhether the woman be married or unmarried, a matron or a maid, ablooming girl or a withered hag: any woman may conceive directly by theentrance into her of one of these disembodied spirits; but the nativeshave shrewdly observed that the spirits shew a decided preference forplump young women. Hence when such a damsel is passing near a plot ofhaunted ground, if she does not wish to become a mother, she willdisguise herself as an aged crone and hobble past, saying in a thincracked voice, "Don't come to me. I am an old woman. " Such spots areoften stones, which the natives call child-stones because the souls ofthe dead are there lying in wait for women in order to be born aschildren. One such stone, for example, may be seen in the land of theArunta tribe near Alice Springs. It projects to a height of three feetfrom the ground among the mulga scrub, and there is a round hole in itthrough which the souls of dead plum-tree people are constantly peeping, ready to pounce out on a likely damsel. Again, in the territory of theWarramunga tribe the ghosts of black-snake people are supposed to gatherin the rocks round certain pools or in the gum-trees which border thegenerally dry bed of a water-course. No Warramunga woman would dare tostrike one of these trees with an axe, because she is firmly convincedthat in doing so she would set free one of the lurking black-snakespirits, who would immediately dart into her body. They think that thespirits are no larger than grains of sand and that they make their wayinto women through the navel. Nor is it merely by direct contact withone of these repositories of souls, nor yet by passing near it, thatwomen may be gotten with child against their wish. The Arunta believethat any malicious man may by magic cause a woman or even a child tobecome a mother: he has only to go to one of the child-stones and rub itwith his hands, muttering the words, "Plenty of young women. You lookand go quickly. "[114]

[Sidenote: As a rule, only the souls of persons of one particulartotemic clan are thought to congregate in one place. ]

A remarkable feature in these gathering-places of the dead remains to benoticed. The society at each of them is very select. The ghosts are veryclannish; as a rule none but people of one particular totemic clan aresupposed to for-gather at any one place. For example, we have just seenthat in the Arunta tribe the souls of dead people of the plum-tree totemcongregate at a certain stone in the mulga scrub, and that in theWarramunga tribe the spirits of deceased persons who had black snakesfor their totem haunt certain gum-trees. The same thing applies to mostof the other haunts of the dead in Central Australia. Whether the totemwas a kangaroo or an emu, a rat or a bat, a hawk or a cockatoo, a bee ora fly, a yam or a grass seed, the sun or the moon, fire or water, lightning or the wind, it matters not what the totem was, only theghosts of people of one totemic clan meet for the most part in oneplace; thus one rock will be tenanted by the spirits of kangaroo folkonly, and another by spirits of emu folk only; one water-pool will bethe home of dead rat people alone, and another the haunt of none butdead bat people; and so on with most of the other abodes of the souls. However, in the Urabunna tribe the ghosts are not so exclusive; some ofthem consent to share their abode with people of other totems. Forexample, a certain pool of water is haunted by the spirits of folk whoin their lifetime had for their totems respectively the emu, rain, and acertain grub. On the other hand a group of granite boulders is inhabitedonly by the souls of persons of the pigeon totem. [115]

[Sidenote: Totemism defined. ]

Perhaps for the sake of some of my hearers I should say a word as to themeaning of totems and totemism. The subject is a large one and is stillunder discussion. For our present purpose it is not necessary that Ishould enter into details; I will therefore only say that a totem iscommonly a class of natural objects, usually a species of animals orplants, with which a savage identifies himself in a curious way, imagining that he himself and his kinsfolk are for all practicalpurposes kangaroos or emus, rats or bats, hawks or cockatoos, yams orgrass-seed, and so on, according to the particular class of naturalobjects which he claims as his totem. The origin of this remarkableidentification of men with animals, plants, or other things is stillmuch debated; my own view is that the key to the mystery is furnished bythe Australian beliefs as to birth and rebirth which I have justdescribed to you; but on that subject I will not now dwell. [116] Allthat I ask you to remember is that in Central Australia there is nogeneral gathering-place for the spirits of the departed; the souls aresorted out more or less strictly according to their totems and dwellapart each in their own little preserve or preserves, on which ghosts ofother totems are supposed seldom or never to trespass. Thus the wholecountry-side is dotted at intervals with these spiritual parks orreservations, which are respected by the natives as the abodes of theirdeparted kinsfolk. In size they vary from a few square yards to manysquare miles. [117]

[Sidenote: Traditionary origin of the local totem centres(_oknanikilla_) where the souls of the dead are supposed to assemble. The sacred sticks or stones (_churinga_) which the totemic ancestorscarried about with them. ]

The way in which these spiritual preserves originated is supposed to beas follows. In the earliest days of which the aborigines retain atradition, and to which they give the name of the _alcheringa_ or dreamtimes, their remote ancestors roamed about the country in bands, eachband composed of people of the same totem. Thus one band would consistof frog people only, another of witchetty grub people only, another ofHakea flower people only, and so on. Now in regard to the nature ofthese remote totemic ancestors of the _alcheringa_ or dream times, theideas of the natives are very hazy; they do not in fact clearlydistinguish their human from their totemic nature; in speaking, forexample, of a man of the kangaroo totem they seem unable to discriminatesharply between the man and the animal: perhaps we may say that what isbefore their mind is a blurred image, a sort of composite photograph, ofa man and a kangaroo in one: the man is semi-bestial, the kangaroo issemi-human. And similarly with their ancestors of all other totems: ifthe particular ancestors, for example, had the bean-tree for theirtotem, then their descendants in thinking of them might, like the blindman in the Gospel, see in their mind's eye men walking like trees andtrees perambulating like men. Now each of these semi-human ancestors isthought to have carried about with him on his peregrinations one or moresacred sticks or stones of a peculiar pattern, to which the Arunta givethe name of _churinga_: they are for the most part oval or elongated andflattened stones or slabs of wood, varying in length from a few inchesto over five feet, and inscribed with a variety of patterns whichrepresent or have reference to the totems. But the patterns are purelyconventional, consisting of circles, curved lines, spirals, and dotswith no attempt to represent natural objects pictorially. Each of thesesacred stones or sticks was intimately associated with the spirit partof the man or woman who carried it; for women as well as men had their_churinga_. When these semi-human ancestors died, they went into theground, leaving their sacred stones or sticks behind them on the spot, and in every case some natural feature arose to mark the place, it mightbe a tree, a rock, a pool of water, or what not. The memory of all suchspots has been carefully preserved and handed down from generation togeneration by the old men, and it is to these spots that down to thepresent day the souls of all the dead regularly repair in order to awaitreincarnation. The Arunta call the places _oknanikilla_, and we may callthem local totem centres, because they are the centres where the spiritsof the departed assemble according to their totems. [118]

[Sidenote: Every living person has also his or her sacred stick or stone(_churinga_), with which his or her spirit is closely bound up. ]

But it is not merely the remote forefathers of the Central Australiansavages who are said to have been possessed of these sacred sticks orstones: every man and woman who is born into the world has one of them, with which his or her spirit is believed to be closely bound up. This isintelligible when we remember that every living person is believed to besimply the reincarnation of an ancestor; for that being so he naturallycomes to life with all the attributes which belonged to him in hisprevious state of existence on earth. The notion of the natives is thatwhen a spirit child enters into a woman to be born, he immediately dropshis sacred stick or stone on the spot, which is necessarily one of whatwe have called the local totem centres, since in the opinion of thenatives it is only at or near them that a woman can conceive a child. Hence when her child is born, the woman tells her husband the placewhere she fancies that the infant entered into her, and he goes withsome old men to find the precious object, the stick or stone dropped bythe spirit of the infant when it entered into the mother. If it cannotbe found, the men cut a wooden one from the nearest hard-wood tree, andthis becomes the sacred stick or _churinga_ of the newborn child. Theexact spot, whether a tree or a stone or what not, in which the child'sspirit is supposed to have tarried in the interval between itsincarnations, is called its _nanja_ tree or stone or what not. Adefinite relation is supposed to exist between each individual and his_nanja_ tree or stone. The tree or stone and any animal or bird thatlights upon it is sacred to him and may not be molested. A native hasbeen known earnestly to intercede with a white man to spare a treebecause it was his _nanja_ or birth-tree, and he feared that evil wouldbefall him if it were cut down. [119]

[Sidenote: Sanctity of the _churinga_. ]

Thus in these Central Australian tribes every man, woman, and child hashis or her sacred birth-stone or stick. But though every woman, likeevery man, has her sacred birth-stone or stick, she is never allowed tosee it under pain of death or of being blinded with a fire-stick. Indeednone but old women are aware even of the existence of such things. Uninitiated men are likewise forbidden under the same severe penaltiesever to look upon these most sacred objects. [120] The sanctity ascribedto the sticks and stones is intelligible when we remember that thespirits of all the people both living and dead are believed to beintimately associated with them. Each of them, we are told, is supposedto be so closely bound up with a person's spirit that it may be regardedas his or her representative, and those of dead people are believed tobe endowed with the attributes of their former owners and actually toimpart them to any one who happens to carry them about with him. Hencethese apparently insignificant sticks and stones are, in the opinion ofthe natives, most potent instruments for conveying to the living thevirtues and powers of the dead. For example, in a fight the possessionof one of these holy sticks or stones is thought to endow the possessorwith courage and accuracy of aim and also to deprive his adversary ofthese qualities. So firmly is this belief held, that if two men werefighting and one of them knew that the other carried a sacredbirth-stone or stick while he himself did not, he would certainly loseheart and be beaten. Again, when a man is sick, he will sometimes haveone of these sacred stones brought to him and will scrape a little dustoff it, mix the dust with water, and drink it. This is supposed tostrengthen him. Clearly he imagines that with the scrapings of the stonehe absorbs the strength and other qualities of the person to whom thestone belonged. [121]

[Sidenote: Sacred store-houses (_ertnatulunga_) of the _churinga_. ]

All the birth-stones or sticks (_churinga_) belonging to any particulartotemic group are kept together, hidden away from the eyes of women anduninitiated men, in a sacred store-house or _ertnatulunga_, as theArunta and Unmatjera call it. This store-house is always situated in oneof the local totem centres or _oknanikilla_, which, as we have seen, vary in size from a few yards to many square miles. In itself the sacredtreasure-house is usually a small cave or crevice in some lonely spotamong the rugged hills. The entrance is carefully blocked up with stonesarranged so artfully as to simulate nature and to awake no suspicion inthe mind of passing strangers that behind these tumbled blocks lieconcealed the most prized possessions of the tribe. The immediateneighbourhood of any one of these sacred store-houses is a kind of havenof refuge for wild animals, for once they have run thither, they aresafe; no hunter would spear a kangaroo or opossum which cowered on theground at one of these hallowed spots. The very plants which grow thereare sacred and may not be plucked or broken or interfered with in anyway. Similarly, an enemy who succeeds in taking refuge there, is safefrom his pursuer, so long as he keeps within the sacred boundaries: eventhe avenger of blood, pursuing the murderer hot-foot, would not dare tolift up his hand against him on the holy ground. Thus, these places aresanctuaries in the strict sense of the word; they are probably the mostprimitive examples of their class and contain the germ out of whichcities of refuge for manslayers and others might be developed. It isinstructive, therefore, to observe that these rudimentary sanctuaries inthe heart of the Australian wilderness derive their sacredness mainly, it would seem, from their association with the spirits of the dead, whose repose must not be disturbed by tumult, violence, and bloodshed. Even when the sacred birth-stones and sticks have been removed from thestore-house in the secret recesses of the hills and have been broughtinto the camp for the performance of certain solemn ceremonies, nofighting may take place, no weapons may be brandished in theirneighbourhood: if men will quarrel and fight, they must take theirweapons and go elsewhere to do it. [122] And when the men go to one ofthe sacred store-houses to inspect the treasures which it contains, theymust each of them put his open hand solemnly over the mouth of the rockycrevice and then retire, in order to give the spirits due notice of theapproach of strangers; for if they were disturbed suddenly, they wouldbe angry. [123]

[Sidenote: Exhibition of the _churinga_ to young men. ]

It is only after a young man has passed through the severe ceremonies ofinitiation, which include most painful bodily mutilations, that he isdeemed worthy to be introduced to the tribal arcana, the sacred sticksand stones, which repose in their hallowed cave among the mountainsolitudes. Even when he has passed through all the ordeals, many yearsmay elapse before he is admitted to a knowledge of these mysteries, ifhe shews himself to be of a light and frivolous disposition. When atlast by the gravity of his demeanour he is judged to have proved himselfindeed a man, a day is fixed for revealing to him the great secret. Thenthe headman of his local group, together with other grave and reverendseniors, conducts him to the mouth of the cave: the stones are rolledaway from the entrance: the spirits within are duly warned of theapproach of visitors; and then the sacred sticks and stones, tied up inbundles, are brought forth. The bundles are undone, the sticks andstones are taken out, one by one, reverently scrutinised, and exhibitedto the novice, while the old men explain to him the meaning of thepatterns incised on each and reveal to him the persons, alive or dead, to whom they belong. All the time the other men keep chanting in a lowvoice the traditions of their remote ancestors in the far-off dreamtimes. At the close the novice is told the secret and sacred name whichhe is thenceforth to bear, and is warned never to allow it to pass hislips in the hearing of anybody except members of his own totemicgroup. [124] Sometimes this secret name is that of an ancestor of whomthe man or woman is supposed to be a reincarnation: for women as well asmen have their secret and sacred names. [125]

[Sidenote: Number of _churinga_ in a store-house. Significance of the_churinga_. Use of the _churinga_ in magic. ]

The number of sacred birth-stones and sticks kept in any one store-housenaturally varies from group to group; but whatever their number, whethermore or less, in any one store-house they all normally belong to thesame totem, though a few belonging to other totems may be borrowed anddeposited for a time with them. For example, a sacred store-house of thehoney-ant totem was found to contain sixty-eight birth-sticks of thattotem with a few of the lizard totem and two of the wild-cat totem. [126]Any store-house will usually contain both sticks and stones, but as arule perhaps the sticks predominate in number. [127] Time after timethese tribal repositories are visited by the men and their contentstaken out and examined. On each examination the sacred sticks and stonesare carefully rubbed over with dry and powdered red ochre or charcoal, the sticks being rubbed with red ochre only, but the stones either withred ochre or charcoal. [128] Further, it is customary on these occasionsto press the sacred objects against the stomachs and thighs of all themen present; this is supposed to untie their bowels, which are thoughtto be tightened and knotted by the emotion which the men feel at thesight of these venerated sticks and stones. Indeed, the emotion issometimes very real: men have been seen to weep on beholding thesemystic objects for the first time after a considerable interval. [129]Whenever the sacred store-house is visited and its contents examined, the old men explain to the younger men the marks incised on the sticksand stones, and recite the traditions associated with the dead men towhom they belonged;[130] so that these rude objects of wood and stone, with the lines and dots scratched on them, serve the savages asmemorials of the past; they are in fact rudimentary archives as well as, we may almost say, rudimentary idols; for a stone or stick whichrepresents a revered ancestor and is supposed to be endowed with someportion of his spirit, is not far from being an idol. No wonder, therefore, that they are guarded and treasured by a tribe as its mostprecious possession. When a group of natives have been robbed of them bythoughtless white men and have found the sacred store-house empty, theyhave tried to kill the traitor who betrayed the hallowed spot to thestrangers, and have remained in camp for a fortnight weeping and wailingfor the loss and plastering themselves with pipeclay, which is theirtoken of mourning for the dead. [131] Yet, as a great mark of friendship, they will sometimes lend these sacred sticks and stones to aneighbouring group; for believing that the sticks and stones areassociated with the spiritual parts of their former and present owners, they naturally wish to have as many of them as possible and regard theirpossession as a treasure of great price, a sort of reservoir ofspiritual force, [132] which can be turned to account not only in battleby worsting the enemy, but in various other ways, such as by magicallyincreasing the food supply. For instance, when a man of the grass-seedtotem wishes to increase the supply of grass-seed in order that it maybe eaten by people of other totems, he goes to the sacred store-house, clears the ground all around it, takes out a few of the holy sticks andstones, smears them with red ochre and decorates them with birds' down, chanting a spell all the time. Then he rubs them together so that thedown flies off in all directions; this is supposed to carry with it themagical virtue of the sticks or stones and so to fertilise thegrass-seed. [133]

[Sidenote: Elements of a worship of the dead. Marvellous powersattributed by the Central Australians to their remote ancestors of the_alcheringa_ or dream time. ]

On the whole, when we survey these practices and beliefs of the CentralAustralian aborigines, we may perhaps conclude that, if they do notamount to a worship of the dead, they at least contain the elements outof which such a worship might easily be developed. At first sight, nodoubt, their faith in the transmigration of souls seems and perhapsreally is a serious impediment to a worship of the dead in the strictsense of the word. For if they themselves are the dead come to lifeagain, it is difficult to see how they can worship the spirits of thedead without also worshipping each other, since they are all byhypothesis simply these worshipful spirits reincarnated. But though intheory every living man and woman is merely an ancestor or ancestressborn again and therefore should be his or her equal, in practice theyappear to admit that their forefathers of the remote _alcheringa_ ordream time were endowed with many marvellous powers which their modernreincarnations cannot lay claim to, and that accordingly these ancestralspirits were more to be reverenced, were in fact more worshipful, thantheir living representatives. On this subject Messrs. Spencer and Gillenobserve: "The Central Australian native is firmly convinced, as will beseen from the accounts relating to their _alcheringa_ ancestors, thatthe latter were endowed with powers such as no living man now possesses. They could travel underground or mount into the sky, and could makecreeks and water-courses, mountain-ranges, sand-hills, and plains. Invery many cases the actual names of these natives are preserved in theirtraditions, but, so far as we have been able to discover, there is noinstance of any one of them being regarded in the light of a 'deity. 'Amongst the Central Australian natives there is never any idea ofappealing for assistance to any one of these Alcheringa ancestors in anyway, nor is there any attempt made in the direction of propitiation, with one single exception in the case of the mythic creature calledWollunqua, amongst the Warramunga tribe, who, it may be remarked, ismost distinctly regarded as a snake and not as a human being. "[134] Thusfar Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. From their testimony it appears thatwith a single possible exception, to which I will return immediately, the Central Australian aborigines are not known to worship any of theirdead ancestors; they indeed believe their remote forefathers of the_alcheringa_ age to have been endowed with marvellous powers which theythemselves do not possess; but they do not regard these ancestralspirits as deities, nor do they pray and sacrifice to them for help andprotection. The single possible exception to this general rule known toMessrs. Spencer and Gillen is the case of the mythical water-snakecalled Wollunqua, who is in a sense revered and propitiated by theWarramunga tribe. The case is interesting and instructive as indicativeof an advance from magic towards religion in the strict sense of theword. Accordingly I propose to consider it somewhat fully. 

[Sidenote: The Wollunqua, a mythical water-snake, one of the Warramungatotems. ]

The Wollunqua is one of the many totems of the Warramunga tribe. It isto be borne in mind that, though every Australian tribe has many totemswhich are most commonly animals or plants and more rarely other naturalobjects, all the totems are not respected by all the members of thetribe; each totem is respected only by a particular group of men andwomen in the tribe, who believe themselves to be descended from the sametotemic ancestor. Thus the whole tribe is broken up into many groups orbodies of men and women, each group knit together by a belief in acommon descent from the totem, by a common respect for the totemicspecies, whether it be a species of animals or plants, or what not, andfinally by the possession of a common name derived from the totem. Thus, for example, we have a group of men and women who believe themselvesdescended from an ancestor who had the bandicoot for his totem; they allrespect bandicoots; and they are all called bandicoot people. Similarlywith all the other totemic groups within the tribe. It is convenient tohave a name for these totemic groups or tribal subdivisions, andaccordingly we may call them clans, provided we remember that a totemicclan in this sense is not an independent political community such as theScottish Highland clans used to be; it is merely a subdivision of thetribe, and the members of it do not usually keep to themselves but livemore or less interfused with members of all the other totemic clanswhich together compose the tribe. Now amongst the Warramunga theWollunqua or mythical water-snake is the totem of such a clan or tribalsubdivision, the members of which believe themselves to be descendedfrom the creature and call themselves by its name. So far, therefore, the Wollunqua is merely a totem of the ordinary sort, an object ofrespect for a particular section of the tribe. Like other totemicancestors the Wollunqua is supposed to have wandered about the countryleaving supplies of spirit individuals at various points, individualswho are constantly undergoing reincarnation. But on the other hand theWollunqua differs from almost all other Australian totems in this, thatwhereas they are real objects, such as animals, plants, water, wind, thesun and moon, and so on, the Wollunqua is a purely mythical creature, which exists only in the imagination of the natives; for they believe itto be a water-snake so huge that if it were to stand up on its tail, itshead would reach far up into the sky. It now lives in a large poolcalled Thapauerlu, hidden away in a lonely valley of the MurchisonRange; but the Warramunga fear that it may at any moment sally out anddo some damage. They say that it actually killed a number of them on oneof its excursions, though happily they at last succeeded in beating itoff. So afraid are they of the creature, that in speaking of it amongstthemselves they will not use its proper name of Wollunqua but call itinstead _urkulu nappaurinnia_, because, as they told Messrs. Spencer andGillen, if they were to name it too often by its real name they wouldlose control over the beast and it would rush forth and devourthem. [135] Thus the natives do not distinguish the Wollunqua from therest of their actually existing totems, as we do: they have never beheldhim with their bodily eyes, yet to them he is just as real as thekangaroos which they see hopping along the sands, as the flies whichbuzz about their heads in the sunshine, or as the cockatoos which flapscreaming past in the thickets. How real this belief in the mythicalsnake is with these savages, was brought vividly home to Messrs. Spencerand Gillen when they visited, in company with some natives, the deep andlonely pool among the rocky hills in which the awful being is supposedto reside. Before they approached the spot, the natives had been talkingand laughing freely, but when they drew near the water their voices werehushed and their demeanour became solemn. When all stood silent on thebrink of the deep still pool, enclosed by a sandy margin on one side andby a line of red rocks on the other, two old men, the leaders of thetotemic group of the Wollunqua, went down to the edge of the water and, with bowed heads, addressed the Wollunqua in whispers, asking him toremain quiet and do them no harm, for they were mates of his, and hadbrought two great white men to see where he lived and to tell them allabout him. "We could plainly see, " add Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "thatit was all very real to them, and that they implicitly believed that theWollunqua was indeed alive beneath the water, watching them, though theycould not see him. "[136]

[Sidenote: Religious character of the belief in the Wollunqua. ]

I need hardly point out what a near approach all this is to religion inthe proper sense of the word. Here we have a firm belief in a purelyimaginary being who is necessarily visible to the eye of faith alone, since I think we may safely assume that a water-snake, supposed to bemany miles long and capable of reaching up to the sky, has no realexistence either on the earth or in the waters under the earth. Yet tothese savages this invisible being is just as real as the actuallyexisting animals and men whom they perceive with their bodily senses;they not only pray to him but they propitiate him with a solemn ritual;and no doubt they would spurn with scorn the feeble attempts of shallowsceptics to question the reality of his existence or the literal truthof the myths they tell about him. Certainly these savages are far on theroad to religion, if they have not already passed the Rubicon whichdivides it from the common workaday world. If an unhesitating faith inthe unseen is part of religion, the Warramunga people of the Wollunquatotem are unquestionably religious. 

[Footnote 108: On the zoological peculiarities of Australia regarded aseffects of its geographical isolation, see Alfred Newton, _Dictionary ofBirds_ (London, 1893-96), pp. 317-319. He observes (p. 318) that "theisolation of Australia is probably the next oldest in the world to thatof New Zealand, having possibly existed since the time when no mammalshigher than marsupials had appeared on the face of the earth. "]

[Footnote 109: For details see _Totemism and Exogamy_, i. 314 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 110: Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _Northern Tribes ofCentral Australia_ (London, 1904), p. 491. ]

[Footnote 111: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. Xi. ]

[Footnote 112: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ p. 545. ]

[Footnote 113: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ p. 546. ]

[Footnote 114: Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _Native Tribes ofCentral Australia_ (London, 1899), pp. 119-127, 335-338, 552; _id. , Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 145-153, 162, 271, 330 _sq. _, 448-451, 512-515. Compare _Totemism and Exogamy_, i. 188 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 115: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. 147. ]

[Footnote 116: See _Totemism and Exogamy_, i. 155 _sqq. _, iv. 40 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 117: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 123, 126. ]

[Footnote 118: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 119-127, 128 _sqq. _, 513; _id. , Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 145 _sqq. _, 257 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 119: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 132-135; _id. _, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 258, 268_sqq. _]

[Footnote 120: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 128, 134. ]

[Footnote 121: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 134 _sq. _]

[Footnote 122: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 133, 135; _id. _, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 269. ]

[Footnote 123: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. 267. ]

[Footnote 124: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 139 _sq. _]

[Footnote 125: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. 273. ]

[Footnote 126: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 141. ]

[Footnote 127: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ p. 140]

[Footnote 128: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes_, pp. 144, 145. ]

[Footnote 129: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes_, pp. 164, _sq. _;_id. _, _Northern Tribes_, pp. 261, 264. ]

[Footnote 130: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes_, p. 145. ]

[Footnote 131: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes_, p. 136. ]

[Footnote 132: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes_, pp. 158 _sq. _]

[Footnote 133: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, pp. 271 _sq. _]

[Footnote 134: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 490 _sq. _]

[Footnote 135: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 226 _sq. _ Another mythical being in which the Warramungabelieve is _the pau-wa_, a fabulous animal, half human and somewhatresembling a dog. See Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ pp. 195, 197, 201, 210 _sq. _ But the creature seems not to be a totem, for it is notincluded in the list of totems given by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (_op. Cit. _ pp. 768-773). ]

[Footnote 136: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 252 _sq. _]

LECTURE V

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE ABORIGINESOF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA (_continued_)

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Central Australian aborigines concerning thereincarnation of the dead. The mythical water-snake Wollunqua. ]

In the last lecture we began our survey of the belief in immortality andthe practices to which it has given rise among the aboriginal tribes ofCentral Australia. I shewed that these primitive savages hold a veryremarkable theory of birth and death. They believe that the souls of thedead do not perish but are reborn in human form after a longer orshorter interval. During that interval the spirits of the departed aresupposed to congregate in certain parts of the country, generallydistinguished by some conspicuous natural feature, which accordingly thenatives account sacred, believing them to be haunted by the souls of thedead. From time to time one of these disembodied spirits enters into apassing woman and is born as an infant into the world. Thus according tothe Central Australian theory every living person without exception isthe reincarnation of a dead man, woman, or child. At first sight thetheory seems to exclude the possibility of any worship of the dead, since it appears to put the living on a footing of perfect equality withthe dead by identifying the one with the other. But I pointed out thatas a matter of fact these savages do admit, whether logically or not, the superiority of their remote ancestors to themselves: theyacknowledge that these old forefathers of theirs did possess manymarvellous powers to which they themselves can lay no claim. In thisacknowledgment, accordingly, we may detect an opening or possibility forthe development of a real worship of ancestors. Indeed, as I said at theclose of last lecture, something closely approaching to ancestor worshiphas actually grown up in regard to the mythical ancestor of theWollunqua clan in the Warramunga tribe. The Wollunqua is a purelyfabulous water-snake, of gigantic dimensions, which is supposed to hauntthe waters of a certain lonely pool called Thapauerlu, in the MurchisonRange of mountains. Unlike the ancestors of the other totemic clans, this mythical serpent is never reborn in human form; he always lives inhis solitary pool among the barren hills; but the natives think that hehas it in his power to come forth and do them an injury, and accordinglythey pray to him to remain quiet and not to harm them. Indeed so afraidof him are they that speaking of the creature among themselves theyavoid using his proper name of Wollunqua and call him by a differentname, lest hearing himself called by his true name he should rush forthand devour them. More than that they even endeavour to propitiate him bythe performance of certain rites, which, however childish and absurdthey may seem to us, are very solemn affairs for these simple folk. Therites were witnessed by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, whose description Iwill summarise. It offers an interesting and instructive example of aritual observed by primitive savages, who are clearly standing on, ifthey have not already crossed, the threshold of religion. 

[Sidenote: Wanderings of the Wollunqua. Dramatic ceremonies in honour ofthe Wollunqua. ]

Like all other totemic ancestors the Wollunqua is said to have arisen ata particular spot, to have wandered about the country, and finally tohave gone down into the ground. Starting from the deep rocky pool in theMurchison Range he travelled at first underground, coming up, however, at various points where he performed ceremonies and left many spiritchildren, who issued from his body and remained behind, forming localtotemic centres when he had passed on. It is these spirit children whohave formed the Wollunqua clan ever since, undergoing an endless seriesof reincarnations. Now the ceremonies which the clan perform in honourof their mythical ancestor the Wollunqua all refer to his wanderingsabout the country. Thus there is a particular water-hole calledPitingari where the great old water-snake is said to have emerged fromthe ground and looked about him. Here, accordingly, two men performed aceremony. Each of them was decorated with a broad band of red down, which curved round both the front and the back of the performer andstood sharply out from the mass of white down with which all the rest ofthe upper part of his body was covered. These broad red bandsrepresented the Wollunqua. Each man also wore a tall, conical helmetadorned with a curved band of red down, which, no doubt, likewisesymbolised the mythical serpent. When the two actors in the little dramahad been attired in this quaint costume of red and white down, theyretired behind a bush, which served for the side scenes of a theatre. Then, when the orchestra, composed of adult men, struck up the music onthe ceremonial ground by chanting and beating boomerangs and stickstogether, the performers ran in, stopping every now and then to shakethemselves in imitation of the snake. Finally, they sat down closetogether with their heads bowed down on a few green branches ofgum-trees. A man then stepped up to them, knocked off theirhead-dresses, and the simple ceremony came to an end. [137]

[Sidenote: Ceremony in honour of the Wollunqua. ]

The next ceremony was performed on the following day at another placecalled Antipataringa, where the mythical snake is said to have halted inhis wanderings. The same two men acted as before, but this time one ofthem carried on his head a curious curved bundle shaped like an enormousboomerang. It was made of grass-stalks bound together with humanhair-string and decorated with white down. This sacred objectrepresented the Wollunqua himself. [138] From this spot the snake wasbelieved to have travelled on to another place called Tjunguniari, wherehe popped up his head among the sand-hills, the greater part of his bodyremaining underground. Indeed, of such an enormous length was theserpent, that though his head had now travelled very many miles his tailstill remained at the starting-point and had not yet begun to take partin the procession. Here accordingly the third ceremony, perhaps we maysay the third act in the drama, was performed on the third day. In itone of the actors personated the snake himself, while the other stoodfor a sand-hill. [139]

[Sidenote: Further ceremony in honour of the Wollunqua: the white moundwith the red wavy band to represent the mythical snake. ]

After an interval of three days a fourth ceremony was performed of anentirely different kind. A keel-shaped mound was made of wet sand, aboutfifteen feet long by two feet high. The smooth surface of the mound wascovered with a mass of little dots of white down, except for a long wavyband of red down which ran all along both sides of the mound. This wavyred band represented the Wollunqua, his head being indicated by a smallround swelling at one end and his tail by a short prolongation at theother. The mound itself represented a sand-hill beside which the snakeis said to have stood up and looked about. The preparation of thiselaborate emblem of the Wollunqua occupied the greater part of the day, and it was late in the afternoon before it was completed. When darknessfell, fires were lighted on the ceremonial ground, and as the night grewlate more fires were kindled, and all of the men sat round the moundsinging songs which referred to the mythical water-snake. This went onfor hours. At last, about three o'clock in the morning, a ring of fireswas lit all round the ceremonial ground, in the light of which the whitetrunks of the gum-trees and the surrounding scrub stood out weird andghastly against the blackness of darkness beyond. Amid the wildestexcitement the men of the Wollunqua totem now ranged themselves insingle file on their knees beside the mound which bore the red image oftheir great mythical forefather, and with their hands on their thighssurged round and round it, every man bending in unison first to one sideand then to the other, each successive movement being accompanied by aloud and simultaneous shout, or rather yell, while the other men, whowere not of the Wollunqua totem, stood by, clanging their boomerangsexcitedly, and one old man, who acted as a sort of choregus, walkedbackwards at the end of the kneeling procession of Wollunqua men, swaying his body about and lifting high his knees at every step. In thisway, with shouts and clangour, the men of the totem surged twice roundthe mound on their knees. After that, as the fires died down, the menrose from their knees, and for another hour every one sat round themound singing incessantly. The last act in the drama was played at fouro'clock in the morning at the moment when the first faint streaks ofdawn glimmered in the east. At sight of them every man jumped to hisfeet, the smouldering fires were rekindled, and in their blaze the longwhite mound stood out in strong relief. The men of the totem, armed withspears, boomerangs, and clubs, ranged themselves round it, andencouraged by the men of the other totems attacked it fiercely withtheir weapons, until in a few minutes they had hacked it to pieces, andnothing was left of it but a rough heap of sandy earth. The fires againdied down and for a short time silence reigned. Then, just as the sunrose above the eastern horizon, the painful ceremony of subincision wasperformed on three youths, who had recently passed through the earlierstages of initiation. [140]

[Sidenote: The rite aims both at pleasing and at coercing the mythicalsnake. ]

This remarkable rite is supposed, we are informed, "in some way to beassociated with the idea of persuading, or almost forcing, the Wollunquato remain quietly in his home under the water-hole at Thapauerlu, and todo no harm to any of the natives. They say that when he sees the moundwith his representation drawn upon it he is gratified, and wrigglesabout underneath with pleasure. The savage attack upon the mound isassociated with the idea of driving him down, and, taken altogether, theceremony indicates their belief that, at one and the same time, they canboth please and coerce the mythic beast. It is necessary to do things toplease him, or else he might grow sulky and come out and do them harm, but at the same time they occasionally use force to make him do whatthey want. "[141] In fact the ritual of the mound with its red image ofthe snake combines the principles of religion and magic. So far as therite is intended to please and propitiate the mythical beast, it isreligious; so far as it is intended to constrain him, it is magical. Thetwo principles are contradictory and the attempt to combine them isillogical; but the savage is heedless, or rather totally unaware, of thecontradiction and illogicality: all that concerns him is to accomplishhis ends: he has neither the wish nor the ability to analyse hismotives. In this respect he is in substantial agreement with the vastmajority of mankind. How many of us scrutinise the reasons of ourconduct with the view of detecting and eliminating any latentinconsistencies in them? And how many, or rather how few of us, on sucha scrutiny would be so fortunate as to discover that there were no suchinconsistencies to detect? The logical pedant who imagines that mencannot possibly act on inconsistent and even contradictory motives onlybetrays his ignorance of life. It is not therefore for us to cast stonesat the Warramunga men of the Wollunqua totem for attempting topropitiate and constrain their mythical serpent at the same time. Suchcontradictions meet us again and again in the history of religion: it isinteresting but by no means surprising to find them in one of itsrudimentary stages. 

[Sidenote: Thunder the voice of the Wollunqua. ]

On the evening of the day which succeeded the construction of theemblematic mound the old men who had made the emblem said they had heardthe Wollunqua talking, and that he was pleased with what had been doneand was sending them rain. What they took for the voice of the Wollunquawas thunder rumbling in the distance. No rain fell, but a few days laterthunder was again heard rolling afar off and a heavy bank of clouds laylow on the western horizon. The old men now said that the Wollunqua wasgrowling because the remains of the mound had been left uncovered; sothey hastily cut down branches and covered up the ruins. After that theWollunqua ceased to growl: there was no more thunder. [142]

[Sidenote: Ground drawings of the Wollunqua. ]

On the four following days ceremonies of an entirely different kind fromall the preceding were performed in honour of the Wollunqua. A space ofsandy ground was smoothed down, sprinkled with water, and rubbed so asto form a compact surface. The smooth surface was then overlaid with acoat of red or yellow ochre, and on this coloured background a number ofdesigns were traced, one after the other, by a series of white dots, which together made up a pattern of curved lines and concentric circles. These patterns represented the Wollunqua and some of his traditionaryadventures. The snake himself was portrayed by a broad wavy band, butall the other designs were purely conventional; for example, trees, ant-hills, and wells were alike indicated by circles. Altogether therewere eight such drawings on the earth, some of them very elaborate andentailing, each of them, not less than six or seven hours' labour: oneof them was ten feet long. Each drawing was rubbed out before the nextone was drawn. Moreover, the drawings were accompanied by little dramasacted by decorated men. In one of these dramas no fewer than eightactors took part, some of whom wore head-dresses adorned with a longwavy band to represent the Wollunqua. The last drawing of all wassupposed to portray the mythical snake as he plunged into the earth andreturned to his home in the rocky pool called Thapauerlu among theMurchison Ranges. [143]

[Sidenote: Religious importance of the Wollunqua. ]

I have dwelt at some length on these ceremonies of the Wollunqua totem, because they furnish a remarkable and perhaps unique instance inAustralia of a totemic ancestor in the act of developing into somethinglike a god. In the Warramunga tribe there are other snake totems besidesthe Wollunqua; for example, there is the black snake totem and the deafadder totem. But this purely mythical water-snake, the Wollunqua, is themost important of them all and is regarded as the great father of allthe snakes. "It is not easy, " say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "toexpress in words what is in reality rather a vague feeling amongst thenatives, but after carefully watching the different series of ceremonieswe were impressed with the feeling that the Wollunqua represented to thenative mind the idea of a dominant totem. "[144] Thus he is at once afabulous animal and the mythical ancestor of a human clan, but hisanimal nature apparently predominates over his semi-human nature, asshewn by the drawings and effigies of him, all of which are in serpentform. The prayers offered to him at the pool which he is supposed tohaunt, and the attempt to please him by drawing his likeness can only beregarded as propitiatory rites and therefore as rudimentary forms ofworship. And the idea that thunder is his voice, and that the rain is agift sent by him in return for the homage paid to him by the people, appears to prove that in course of time, if left to himself, he mighteasily have been elevated to the sky and have ranked as a celestialdeity, who dwells aloft and sends down or withholds the refreshingshowers at his good pleasure. Thus the Wollunqua, a rude creation of thesavage Australian imagination, possesses a high interest for thehistorian of religion, since he combines elements of ancestor worshipand totem worship with a germ of heaven worship; while on the purelymaterial side his representation, both in plastic form by a curvedbundle of grass-stalks and in graphic form by broad wavy bands of reddown, may be said in a sense to stand at the starting-point of that longdevelopment of religious art, which in so many countries and so manyages has attempted to represent to the bodily eye the mysteries of theunseen and invisible, and which, whatever we may think of the success orfailure of that attempt, has given to the world some of the noblestworks of sculpture and painting. 

[Sidenote: Possible religious evolution of totemism. ]

I have already pointed out the difficulty of seeing how a belief in thereincarnation of the dead, such as prevails universally among theaborigines of Central Australia, could ever be reconciled with ordevelop into a worship of the dead; for by identifying the living withthe dead, the theory of reincarnation seems to abolish that distinctionbetween the worshipper and the worshipped which is essential to theexistence of worship. But, as I also indicated, what seems a loophole ormode of escape from the dilemma may be furnished by the belief of thesesavages, that though they themselves are nothing but their ancestorscome to life again, nevertheless in their earliest incarnations of the_alcheringa_ or dream times their ancestors possessed miraculous powerswhich they have admittedly lost in their later reincarnations; for thissuggests an incipient discrimination or line of cleavage between theliving and the dead; it hints that perhaps after all the firstancestors, with their marvellous endowments, may have been entirelydifferent persons from their feebler descendants, and if this vague hintcould only grow into a firm conviction of the essential differencebetween the two, then the course would be clear for the development ofancestor worship: the dead forefathers, viewed as beings perfectlydistinct from and far superior to the living, might easily come toreceive from the latter the homage of prayer and sacrifice, might bebesought by their descendants to protect them in danger and to succourthem in all the manifold ills of life, or at least to abstain frominjuring them. Now, this important step in religious evolution appearsto have been actually taken by the Wollunqua, the mythical water-snake, who is the totem of one of the Warramunga clans. Unlike all the othertotems he is supposed to exist only in his invisible and animal form andnever to be reincarnated in a man. [145] Hence, withdrawn as he is fromthe real world of sense, the imagination is free to play about him andto invest him more and more with those supernatural attributes which menascribe to their deities. And what has actually happened to thisparticular totemic ancestor might under favourable circumstances happento many others. Each of them might be gradually detached from the lineof his descendants, might cease to be reincarnated in them, and mightgradually attain to the lonely pre-eminence of godhead. Thus a system ofpure totemism, such as prevails among the aborigines of CentralAustralia, might develop through a phase of ancestor worship into apantheon of the ordinary type. 

[Sidenote: Conspicuous features of the landscape associated withancestral spirits. ]

Although none of the other totemic ancestors of the Central Australianaborigines appears to have advanced so far on the road to religion asthe Wollunqua, yet they all contain in germ the elements out of which areligion might have been developed. It is difficult for us civilised mento conceive the extent to which the thoughts and lives of these savagesare dominated by the memories and traditions of the dead. Everyconspicuous feature in the landscape is not only associated with thelegendary doings of some ancestors but is commonly said to have arisenas a direct result of their actions. The mountains, the plains, therivers, the seas, the islands of ancient Greece itself were not morethickly haunted by the phantoms of a fairy mythology than are the barrensun-scorched steppes and stony hills of the Australian wilderness; butgreat indeed is the gulf which divides the beautiful creations of Greekfancy from the crude imaginings of the Australian savage, whoselegendary tales are for the most part a mere tissue of trivialabsurdities unrelieved by a single touch of beauty or poetry. 

[Sidenote: A journey through the Warramunga country. ]

To illustrate at once the nature and the abundance of these legends Iwill quote a passage in which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen describe ajourney they took in company with some Warramunga natives over part oftheir country:--"For the first two days our way lay across miserableplain country covered with poor scrub, with here and there low rangesrising. Every prominent feature of any kind was associated with sometradition of their past. A range some five miles away from Tennant Creekarose to mark the path traversed by the great ancestor of the Pittongu(bat) totem. Several miles further on a solitary upstanding column ofrock represented an opossum man who rested here, looked about thecountry, and left spirit children behind him; a low range of remarkablywhite quartzite hills indicated a large number of white ant eggs thrownhere in the _wingara_[146] by the Munga-munga women as they passedacross the country. A solitary flat-topped hill arose to mark the spotwhere the Wongana (crow) ancestor paused for some time to pierce hisnose; and on the second night we camped by the side of a waterhole wherethe same crow lived for some time in the _wingara_, and where now thereare plenty of crow spirit children. All the time, as we travelled along, the old men were talking amongst themselves about the natural featuresassociated in tradition with these and other totemic ancestors of thetribe, and pointing them out to us. On the third day we travelled, atfirst for some hours, by the side of a river-bed, --perfectly dry ofcourse, --and passed the spot where two hawks first made fire by rubbingsticks together, two fine gum-trees on the banks now representing theplace where they stood up. A few miles further on we came to awater-hole by the side of which the moon-man met a bandicoot woman, andwhile the two were talking together the fire made by the hawks creptupon them and burnt the woman, who was, however, restored to life againby the moon-man, with whom she then went up into the sky. Late in theafternoon we skirted the eastern base of the Murchison Range, the ruggedquartzite hills in this part being associated partly with the crowancestor and partly with the bat. Following up a valley leading into thehills we camped, just after sunset, by the side of a rather picturesquewater-pool amongst the ranges. A short distance before reaching this thenatives pointed out a curious red cliff, standing out amongst the lowhills which were elsewhere covered with thin scrub. This, which iscalled Tjiti, represents the spot where an old woman spent a long timedigging for yams, the latter being indicated by great heaps of stoneslying all around. On the opposite side of the valley a column of stonemarks the spot where the woman went into the earth. The water-hole bywhich we were camped was called Wiarminni. It was in reality a deep poolin the bed of a creek coming down from the hills. Behind it the rocksrose abruptly, and amongst them there was, or rather would have been ifa stream had been flowing, a succession of cascades and rockywater-holes. Two of the latter, just above Wiarminni, are connected witha fish totem, and represent the spot where two fish men arose in the_alcheringa_, fought one another, left spirit children behind, andfinally went down into the ground. We were now, so to speak, in the verymidst of _mungai_ [i. E. Of places associated with the totems], for theold totemic ancestors of the tribe, who showed a most commendablefondness for arising and walking about in the few picturesque spotswhich their country contained, had apparently selected these rockygorges as their central home. All around us the water-holes, gorges, androcky crags were peopled with spirit individuals left behind by one orother of the following totemic ancestors:--Wollunqua, Pittongu (bat), Wongana (crow), wild dog, emu, bandicoot, and fish, whose lines oftravel in the _alcheringa_ formed a regular network over the wholecountryside. "[147]

[Sidenote: Dramatic ceremonies to commemorate the doings of ancestors. ]

Similar evidence could be multiplied, but this may suffice to teach ushow to the minds of these Central Australian savages the whole countryis haunted, in the literal sense, not merely by the memories of theirdead, but by the spirits which they left behind them and which areconstantly undergoing reincarnation. And not only are the minds of theaborigines preoccupied by the thought of their ancestors, who arerecalled to them by all the familiar features of the landscape, but theyspend a considerable part of their time in dramatically representing thelegendary doings of their rude forefathers of the remote past. It isastonishing, we are told, how large a part of a native's life isoccupied with the performance of these dramatic ceremonies. The older hegrows, the greater is the share he takes in them, until at last theyactually absorb the greater part of his thoughts. The rites which seemso trivial to us are most serious matters to him. They are all connectedwith the great ancestors of the tribe, and he is firmly convinced thatwhen he dies his spirit will rejoin theirs and live in communion withthem until the time comes for him to be born again into the world. Withsuch solemnity does he look on the celebration of these commemorativeservices, as we may call them, that none but initiated men are allowedto witness them; women and children are strictly excluded from thespectacle. These sacred dramas are often, though by no means always, associated with the rites of initiation which young men have to passthrough before they are admitted to full membership of the tribe and toparticipation in its deepest mysteries. The rites of initiation are notall undergone by a youth at the same time; they succeed each other atlonger or shorter intervals of time, and at each of them he isprivileged to witness some of the solemn ceremonies in which thetraditions of the tribal ancestors are dramatically set forth beforehim, until, when he has passed through the last of the rites andordeals, he is free to behold and to take part in the whole series ofmystery plays or professedly historical dramas. Sometimes theperformance of these dramas extends over two or three months, duringwhich one or more of them are acted daily. [148] For the most part, theyare very short and simple, each of them generally lasting only a fewminutes, though the costumes of the actors are often elaborate and mayhave taken hours to prepare. I will describe a few of them as samples. 

[Sidenote: Ceremony of the Hakea flower totem. ]

We will begin with a ceremony of the Hakea flower totem in the Aruntatribe, as to which it may be premised that a decoction of the Hakeaflower is a favourite drink of the natives. The little drama was actedby two men, each of whom was decorated on his bare body by broad bandsof pearly grey edged with white down, which passed round his waist andover his shoulders, contrasting well with the chocolate colour of hisskin. On his head each of them wore a kind of helmet made of twigs, andfrom their ears hung tips of the tails of rabbit-bandicoots. The two saton the ground facing each other with a shield between them. One of themheld in his hand some twigs representing the Hakea flower in bloom;these he pretended to steep in water so as to brew the favouritebeverage of the natives, and the man sitting opposite him made believeto suck it up with a little mop. Meantime the other men ran round andround them shouting _wha! wha!_ This was the substance of the play, which ended as usual by several men placing their hands on the shouldersof the performers as a signal to them to stop. [149]

[Sidenote: Ceremony of a fish totem. ]

Again, to take another Arunta ceremony of a fish totem called_interpitna_. The fish is the bony bream (_Chatoessus horni_), whichabounds in the water-holes of the country. The play was performed by asingle actor, an old man, whose face was covered with a mass of whitedown contrasting strongly with a large bunch of black eagle-hawkfeathers which he wore on his head. His body was decorated with bands ofcharcoal edged with white down. Squatting on the ground he moved hisbody and extended his arms from his sides, opening and closing them ashe leaned forwards, so as to imitate a fish swelling itself out andopening and closing its gills. Then, holding twigs in his hands, hemoved along mimicking the action of a man who drives fish before himwith a branch in a pool, just as the natives do to catch the fish. Meantime an orchestra of four men squatted beside him singing andbeating time with a stick on the ground. [150]

[Sidenote: Ceremony of a plum-tree totem. ]

Again, another Arunta ceremony of the plum-tree totem was performed byfour actors, who simply pretended to knock down and eat imaginary plumsfrom an imaginary plum-tree. [151] An interesting point in this verysimple drama is that in it the men of the plum-tree totem arerepresented eating freely of their totem, which is quite contrary to thepractice of the present day, but taken along with many similarceremonies it goes far to prove that in the ancient days, to which allthese dramatic ceremonies refer, it was the regular practice for men andwomen of a totem to eat their totemic animals or plants. As anotherexample of a drama in which the performers are represented eating theirtotem we may take a ceremony of the ant totem in the Warramunga tribe. The legendary personages who figure in it are two women of the anttotem, ancestresses of the ant clan, who are said to have devoted alltheir time to catching and eating ants, except when they were engaged inthe performance of ceremonies. The two men who personated these women inthe drama (for no woman is allowed to witness, much less to act in, these sacred dramas) had the whole of the upper parts of their bodies, including their faces and the cylindrical helmets which they wore ontheir heads, covered with a dense mass of little specks of red down. These specks stood for the ants, alive or dead, and also for the stonesand trees on the spots where the two women encamped. In the drama thetwo actors thus arrayed walked about the ground as if they weresearching for ants to eat. Each of them carried a wooden trough andstooping down from time to time he turned over the ground and picked upsmall stones which he placed in the trough till it was full. The stonesrepresented the masses of ants which the women gathered for food. Aftercarrying on this pantomime for a time the two actors pretended todiscover each other with surprise and to embrace with joy, much to theamusement of the spectators. [152]

[Sidenote: In these ceremonies the action is appropriate to the totem. Ceremony of the witchetty grub totem. ]

In all these ceremonies you will observe that the action of the drama isstrictly appropriate to the totem. In the drama of the Hakea flowertotem the actors pretend to make and drink the beverage brewed fromHakea flowers; in the ceremony of the fish totem the actor feigns to bea fish and also to catch fish; in the ceremony of the plum-tree totemthe actors pretend to knock down and eat plums; and in the ceremony ofthe ant totem the actors make believe to gather ants for food. Similarly, to take a few more examples, in a ceremony of the witchettygrub totem of the Arunta tribe the body of the actor was decorated withlines of white and red down, and he had a shield adorned with a numberof concentric circles of down. The smaller circles represented the bushon which the grub lives first of all, and the larger circles representedthe bush on which the adult insect lays its eggs. When all was ready, the performer seated himself on the ground and imitated the grub, alternately doubling himself up and rising on his knees, while heextended his arms and made them quiver in imitation of the insect'swings; and every now and then he would bend over the shield and sway toand fro, and up and down, in imitation of the insect hovering over thebushes on which it lays its eggs. [153] In another ceremony of thewitchetty grub totem, which followed immediately the one I have justdescribed, the actor had two shields beside him. The smaller of theshields was ornamented with zigzag lines of white pipe-clay which weresupposed to indicate the tracks of the grub; the larger shield wascovered with larger and smaller series of concentric circles, the largerrepresenting the seeds of a bush on which the insect feeds, while thesmaller stood for the eggs of the adult insect. As before, the actorwriggled and flapped his arms in imitation of the fluttering of theinsect when it first leaves its chrysalis case in the ground andattempts to fly. In acting thus he was supposed to represent acelebrated ancestor of the witchetty grub totem. [154]

[Sidenote: Ceremony of the emu totem. ]

The last example of such ceremonies which I shall cite is one of the emutotem in the Arunta tribe. The body of the actor was decorated withperpendicular lines of white down reaching from his shoulders to hisknees; and on his head he supported a towering head-piece tipped with abunch of emu feathers in imitation of the neck and head of an emu. Thusarrayed he stalked backwards and forwards in the aimless fashion of thebird. [155]

[Sidenote: These dramatic ceremonies were probably at first magicalrites intended to supply the people with food and other necessaries. ]

What are we to think of the intention of these little dramas which theCentral Australian aborigines regard as sacred and to the performance ofwhich they devote so much time and labour? At first sight they aresimply commemorative services, designed to represent the ancestors asthey lived and moved in the far-past times, to recall their adventures, of which legend has preserved the memory, and to set them dramaticallybefore the eyes of their living descendants. So far, therefore, thedramas might be described as purely historical in intention, if not inreality. But there are reasons for thinking that in all cases a deepermeaning underlies, or formerly underlay, the performance of all theseapparently simple historical plays; in fact, we may suspect thatoriginally they were all magical ceremonies observed for the practicalpurpose of supplying the people with food, water, sunshine, andeverything else of which they stand in need. This conclusion issuggested first of all by the practice of the Arunta and other CentralAustralian tribes, who observe very similar ceremonies with the avowedintention of thereby multiplying the totemic animals and plants in orderthat they may be eaten by the tribe, though not by the particular clanwhich has these animals or plants for its totem. It is true that theArunta distinguish these magical ceremonies for the multiplication ofthe totems from what we may call the more purely commemorative orhistorical performances, and they have a special name for the former, namely _intichiuma_, which they do not bestow on the latter. Yet these_intichiuma_ or magical ceremonies resemble the commemorative ceremoniesso closely that it is difficult to suppose they can always have beenwholly distinct. For example, in the magical ceremonies for themultiplication of witchetty grubs the performers pretend to be theinsects emerging from their chrysalis cases, [156] just as the actors doin the similar commemorative ceremony which I have described; and againin a magical ceremony for the multiplication of emus the performers wearhead-dresses to represent the long neck and small head of the bird, andthey mimic its gait, [157] exactly as the actors do in the commemorativeceremony. It seems reasonable, therefore, to conjecture that theceremonies which now are, or seem to be, purely commemorative orhistorical were originally magical in intention, being observed for thepractical purpose of multiplying edible animals and plants or supplyingother wants of the tribe. 

[Sidenote: Among the Warramunga these dramatic ceremonies are avowedlyperformed as magical rites. ]

Now this conjecture is strongly confirmed by the actual usage of theWarramunga tribe, amongst whom the commemorative or historical dramasare avowedly performed as magical rites: in other words, the Warramungaattribute a magical virtue to the simple performance of such dramas:they think that by merely acting the parts of their totemic ancestorsthey thereby magically multiply the edible animals or plants which theseancestors had for their totems. Hence in this tribe the magicalceremonies and the dramatic performances practically coincide: withthem, as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, the _intichiuma_ or magicalceremonies (called by the Warramunga _thalamminta_) "for the most partsimply consist in the performance of a complete series representing the_alcheringa_ history of the totemic ancestor. In this tribe each totemicgroup has usually one great ancestor, who arose in some special spot andwalked across the country, making various natural features as he didso, --creeks, plains, ranges, and water-holes, --and leaving behind himspirit individuals who have since been reincarnated. The _intichiuma_[or magical] ceremony of the totem really consists in tracking theseancestors' paths, and repeating, one after the other, ceremoniescommemorative of what are called the _mungai_ spots, the equivalent ofthe _oknanikilla_ amongst the Arunta--that is, the places where he leftthe spirit children behind. "[158] Apparently the Warramunga imagine thatby imitating a totemic ancestor at the very place where he left spiritchildren of the same totem behind him, they thereby enable these spiritchildren to be born again and so increase the food supply, whenevertheir totem is an edible animal or plant; for we must always rememberthat in the mind of these savages the idea of a man or woman isinextricably confused with the idea of his or her totem; they seemunable to distinguish between the two, and therefore they believe thatin multiplying human beings at their local totemic centres (_mungai_ or_oknanikilla_) they simultaneously multiply their totems; and as thetotems are commonly edible animals and plants, it follows that in theopinion of the Warramunga the general effect of performing theseancestral plays is to increase the supply of food of the tribe. Nowonder, therefore, that the dramas are sacred, and that the nativesattribute the most serious significance to their performance: theneglect to perform them might, in their judgment, bring famine and ruinon the whole tribe. As Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, speaking of theseceremonies, justly observe: "Their proper performance is a matter ofvery great importance in the eyes of the natives, because, not only dothey serve to keep alive and hand down from generation to generation thetraditions of the tribe, but they are, at least amongst the Warramunga, intimately associated with the most important object of maintaining thefood supply, as every totemic group is held responsible for themaintenance of the material object the name of which it bears. "[159]

[Sidenote: General view of the attitude of the Central Australiannatives towards their dead. ]

To sum up the attitude of the Central Australian natives towards theirdead. They believe that their dead are constantly undergoingreincarnation by being born again of women into the world, in fact thatevery living man, woman, and child is nothing but a dead person come tolife again, that so it has been from the beginning and that so it willbe to the end. Of a special world of the departed, remote and differentfrom the material world in which they live and from the familiar scenesto which they have been accustomed from infancy, they have noconception; still less, if that is possible, have they any idea of adivision of the world of the dead into a realm of bliss and a realm ofwoe, where the spirits of the good live ineffably happy and the spiritsof the bad live unspeakably miserable. To their simple minds the spiritsof the dead dwell all about them in the rocky gorges, the barren plains, the wooded dells, the rustling trees, the still waters of their nativeland, haunting in death the very spots where they last entered intotheir mothers' wombs to be born, and where in future they will againenter into the wombs of other women to be born again as other childreninto the world. And so, they think, it will go on for ever and ever. Such a creed seems at first sight, as I have pointed out, irreconcilablewith a worship of the dead in the proper sense of the word; and soperhaps it would be, if these savages were strictly consistent andlogical in their theories. But they are not. They admit that theirremote ancestors, in other words, that they themselves in formerincarnations, possessed certain marvellous powers to which in thepresent degenerate days they can lay no claim; and in this significantadmission we may detect a rift, a real distinction of kind, between theliving and the dead, which in time might widen out into an impassablegulf. In other words, we may suppose that the Central Australians, ifleft to themselves, might come to hold that the dead return no more tothe land of the living, and that, acknowledging as they do the vastsuperiority of their remote ancestors to themselves, they might end byworshipping them, at first simply as powerful ancestral spirits, andafterwards as supernatural deities, whose original connexion withhumanity had been totally forgotten. In point of fact we saw that amongthe Warramunga the mythical water-snake Wollunqua, who is regarded as anancestor of a totemic clan, has made some progress towards deification;for while he is still regarded as the forefather of the clan which bearshis name, it is no longer supposed that he is born again of women intothe world, but that he lives eternal and invisible under the water of ahaunted pool, and that he has it in his power both to help and to harmhis people, who pray to him and perform ceremonies in his honour. Thisawful being, whose voice is heard in the peal of thunder and whosedreadful name may not be pronounced in common life, is not far fromgodhead; at least he is apparently the nearest approach to it which theimagination of these rude savages has been able to conceive. Lastly, asI have pointed out, the reverence which the Central Australiansentertain for their dead ancestors is closely bound up with theirtotemism; they fail to distinguish clearly or at all between men andtheir totems, and accordingly the ceremonies which they perform tocommemorate the dead are at the same time magical rites designed toensure an abundant supply of food and of all the other necessaries andconveniences which savage life requires or admits of; indeed, we maywith some probability conjecture that the magical intention of theseceremonies is the primary and original one, and that the commemorativeintention is secondary and derivative. If that could be proved to be so(which is hardly to be expected), we should be obliged to conclude thatin this as in so many enquiries into the remote human past we detectevidence of an Age of Magic preceding anything that deserves to bedignified with the name of religion. 

That ends what I have to say at present as to the belief in immortalityand the worship of the dead among the Central Australian aborigines. Inmy next lecture I propose to pursue the enquiry among the other tribesof Australia. 

[Footnote 137: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 228 _sq. _]

[Footnote 138: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 229 _sq. _]

[Footnote 139: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ pp. 230 _sq. _]

[Footnote 140: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 231-238. ]

[Footnote 141: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ p. 238. ]

[Footnote 142: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ pp. 238 _sq. _]

[Footnote 143: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 239-247. ]

[Footnote 144: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ p. 248. ]

[Footnote 145: "On the other hand there is a great difference betweenthe Wollunqua and any other totem, inasmuch as the particular animal ispurely mythical, and except for the one great progenitor of the totemicgroup, is not supposed to exist at the present day" (Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 248). ]

[Footnote 146: The _wingara_ is the equivalent of the Arunta_alcheringa_, that is, the earliest legendary or mythical times of whichthe natives profess to have knowledge. ]

[Footnote 147: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 249 _sq. _]

[Footnote 148: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 33 _sq. _, 177 _sq. _]

[Footnote 149: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 297 _sq. _]

[Footnote 150: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 316 _sq. _]

[Footnote 151: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ p. 320. ]

[Footnote 152: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 199-204. ]

[Footnote 153: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 179 _sq. _]

[Footnote 154: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 179 _sq. _]

[Footnote 155: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 358 _sq. _, and p. 343, fig 73. ]

[Footnote 156: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 176. ]

[Footnote 157: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ pp. 182 _sq. _]

[Footnote 158: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. 297. ]

[Footnote 159: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. 197. ]

LECTURE VI

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE OTHER ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA

[Sidenote: Customs and beliefs concerning the dead in the other tribesof Australia. ]

In the last lecture I concluded my account of the beliefs and practicesof the Central Australian aborigines in regard to the dead. To-day Ipropose to consider the customs and beliefs concerning the dead whichprevail among the native tribes in other parts of Australia. But at theoutset I must warn you that our information as to these other tribes isfar less full and precise than that which we possess as to the tribes ofthe centre, which have had the great advantage of being observed anddescribed by two highly qualified scientific observers, Messrs. Spencerand Gillen. Our knowledge of all other Australian tribes iscomparatively fragmentary, and accordingly it is impossible to give evenan approximately complete view of their notions concerning the state ofthe human spirit after death, and of the rites which they observe forthe purpose of disarming or propitiating the souls of the departed. Wemust therefore content ourselves with more or less partial glimpses ofthis side of native religion. 

[Sidenote: Belief in the reincarnation of the dead among the natives ofQueensland. The _ngai_ spirits. ]

The first question we naturally ask is whether the belief in thereincarnation of the dead, which prevails universally among the Centraltribes, reappears among tribes in other parts of the continent. Itcertainly does so, and although the evidence on this subject is veryimperfect it suffices to raise presumption that a similar belief in therebirth or reincarnation of the dead was formerly universal among theAustralian aborigines. Unquestionably the belief is entertained by someof the natives of Queensland, who have been described for us by Mr. W. E. Roth. Thus, for example, the aborigines on the Pennefather Riverthink that every person's spirit undergoes a series of reincarnations, and that in the interval between two reincarnations the spirit residesin one or other of the haunts of Anjea, a mythical being who causesconception in women by putting mud babies into their bodies. Such spots, haunted by the fabulous being Anjea and by the souls of the deadawaiting rebirth, may be a tree, a rock, or a pool of water; theyclearly correspond to the local totem centres (_oknanikilla_ among theArunta, _mungai_ among the Warramunga) of the Central Australian tribeswhich I described in former lectures. The natives of the PennefatherRiver observe a ceremony at the birth of a child in order to ascertainthe exact spot where its spirit tarried in the interval since its lastincarnation; and when they have discovered it they speak of the child asobtained from a tree, a rock, or a pool of water, according to the placefrom which its spirit is supposed to have passed into its mother. [160]Readers of the classics can hardly fail to be reminded of the Homericphrase to be "born of an oak or a rock, "[161] which seems to point to asimilar belief in the possibility of human souls awaiting reincarnationin the boughs of an oak-tree or in the cleft of a rock. In the opinionof the Pennefather natives all disembodied human spirits or _choi_, asthey call them, are mischief-makers and evildoers, for they make peoplesick or crazy; but the medicine-men can sometimes control them for goodor evil. They wander about in the bush, but there are certain hollowtrees or clumps of trees with wide-spreading branches, which they mostlove to haunt, and they can be heard in the rustling of the leaves orthe crackling of the boughs at night. Anjea himself, who puts babiesinto women, is never seen, but you may hear him laughing in the depthsof the forest, among the rocks, in the lagoons, and along the mangroveswamps; and when you hear his laugh you may be sure that he has got ababy. [162] If a native happens to hurt himself near a tree, he imaginesthat the spirit of some dead person is lurking among the branches, andhe will never cut that tree down lest a worse thing should befall him atthe hands of the vengeful ghost. [163] A curious feature in the beliefsof these Pennefather natives is that apart from the spirit called_choi_, which lives in a disembodied state between two incarnations, every person is supposed to have a spirit of a different sort called_ngai_, which has its seat in the heart; they feel it beating withintheir breast; it talks to them in sleep and so is the cause of dreams. At death a man's _ngai_ spirit does not go away into the bush to awaitreincarnation like his _choi_ spirit; on the contrary, it passes at onceinto his children, boys and girls alike; for before their father's deathchildren are supposed not to possess a _ngai_ spirit; if a child diesbefore its father, they think that it never had a _ngai_ spirit at all. And the _ngai_ spirit may leave a man in his lifetime as well as atdeath; for example, when a person faints, the natives think that he doesso because his _ngai_ spirit has departed from him, and they will stampon the ground to make it return. On the other hand the _choi_ spirit issupposed never to quit a man during life; it is thought to be in someundefined way related to the shadow, whereas the _ngai_ spirit, as wesaw, manifests itself in the beating of the heart. When a woman dies, her _ngai_ spirit goes not into her children but into her sisters, oneafter the other; and when all the sisters are dead, the woman's _ngai_spirit goes away among the mangroves and perishes altogether. [164]

Thus these savages explain the phenomena of birth and death, ofconscious and unconscious life, by a theory of a double human spirit, one associated with the heart and the other with the shadow. Thepsychology is rudimentary, still it is interesting as an attempt tosolve problems which still puzzle civilised man. 

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the natives of Cape Bedford in Queensland. ]

Other Queensland aborigines associate the vital principle not with theheart but with the breath. For example, at Cape Bedford the natives callit _wau-wu_ and think that it never leaves the body sleeping or wakingtill death, when it haunts its place of burial for a time and maycommunicate with the living. Thus, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, itwill often appear to a near kinsman or intimate friend, tell him thepitiful tale how he was done to death by an enemy, and urge him torevenge. Again, the soul of a man's dead father or friend may bear himcompany on a journey and, like the beryl-stone in Rossetti's poem _RoseMary_, warn him of an ambuscade lurking for him in a spot where the manhimself sees nothing. But the spirits of the dead do not always comewith such friendly intent; they may drive the living distracted; apeculiar form of mental excitement and bewilderment is attributed totheir action. Further, these aborigines at Cape Bedford, in Queensland, believe that all spirits of nature are in fact souls of the dead. Suchspirits usually leave their haunts in the forests and caves at night. Stout-hearted old men can see and converse with them and receive fromthem warnings of danger; but women and children fear these spirits andnever see them. But some spirits of the dead, when they have ceased tohaunt their places of burial, go away eastward and are reincarnated inwhite people; hence these savages often look for a resemblance to somedeceased tribesman among Europeans, and frequently wonder why it is thatthe white man, on whom their fancy has pitched, remembers nothing abouthis former life as a black man among blacks. [165]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the natives of the Tully River in Queensland. ]

The natives of the Tully River in Queensland associate the principle oflife both with the breath and with the shadow. It departs from the bodytemporarily in sleep and fainting-fits and permanently in death, afterwhich it may be heard at night tapping on the top of huts or creaking inthe branches of trees. It is everlasting, so far as these savages haveany idea of eternity, and further it is intangible; hence in itsdisembodied state it needs no food, and none is set out for it. Thedisposition of these disembodied spirits of the dead is good or bad, according to their disposition in life. Yet when a man is alone byhimself, the spirit even of one of his own dead kinsfolk will sometimescome and do him a mischief. On the other hand it can do nothing toseveral people together; there is safety in numbers. They may all seeand hear the ghost, but he will not attack them. Hence these savageshave been taught from childhood to beware of going alone: solitarypeople are liable at any moment to be assailed by the spirits of thedead. The only means they know of warding off these ghostly assailantsis by lighting good fires. [166]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Australian aborigines that their dead arereborn in white people. ]

I have mentioned the belief of the Cape Bedford natives that the spiritsof their dead are sometimes reincarnated in white people. A similarnotion is reported from other and widely separated parts of Australia, and wherever it exists may be taken as evidence of a general belief asto the rebirth or reincarnation of the dead, even where such a belief isnot expressly recorded. This superstition has sometimes proved ofservice to white people who have been cast among the blacks, for it hasensured them a hospitable and even affectionate welcome, where otherwisethey might have encountered suspicion and hostility, if not openviolence. Thus, for example, the convict Buckley, who escaped from thepenal settlement on Port Phillip Bay in 1803, was found by some of theWudthaurung tribe carrying a piece of a broken spear, which he hadabstracted from the grave of one of their people. So they took him to bethe dead man risen from the grave; he received the name of the deceased, was adopted by his relations, and lived with the tribe for thirty-twoyears without ever conversing with a white man; when at last he met one, he had forgotten the English language. [167] Again, a Mr. Naseby, wholived in the Kamilaroi country for fifty years, happened to have themarks of cupping on his back, and the natives could not be persuadedthat he was not one of themselves come to life again with the familyscars on his body, [168] for the Australian aborigines commonly raisescars on the bodies of young men at initiation. The late Sir George Greywas identified by an old Australian woman as her dead son come to lifeagain. It may be worth while to quote his account of this unlooked-formeeting with his long-lost mother; for it will impress on you, betterthan any words of mine could do, the firmness of the faith which thesesavages repose in the resurrection of the body, or at all events in thereincarnation of the soul. Grey writes as follows:--

[Sidenote: Experience of Sir George Grey. ]

"After we had tethered the horses, and made ourselves tolerablycomfortable, we heard loud voices from the hills above us: the effectwas fine, --for they really almost appeared to float in the air; and asthe wild cries of the women, who knew not our exact position, came byupon the wind, I thought it was well worth a little trouble to hearthese savage sounds under such circumstances. Our guides shouted inreturn, and gradually the approaching cries came nearer and nearer. Iwas, however, wholly unprepared for the scene that was about to takeplace. A sort of procession came up, headed by two women, down whosecheeks tears were streaming. The eldest of these came up to me, andlooking for a moment at me, said, --'_Gwa, gwa, bundo, bal_, '--'Yes, yes, in truth it is him'; and then throwing her arms round me, criedbitterly, her head resting on my breast; and although I was totallyignorant of what their meaning was, from mere motives of compassion, Ioffered no resistance to her caresses, however disagreeable they mightbe, for she was old, ugly, and filthily dirty; the other younger oneknelt at my feet, also crying. At last the old lady, emboldened by mysubmission, deliberately kissed me on each cheek, just in the manner aFrenchwoman would have done; she then cried a little more, and at lengthrelieving me, assured me that I was the ghost of her son, who had sometime before been killed by a spear-wound in his breast. The youngerfemale was my sister; but she, whether from motives of delicacy, or fromany imagined backwardness on my part, did not think proper to kiss me. My new mother expressed almost as much delight at my return to myfamily, as my real mother would have done, had I been unexpectedlyrestored to her. As soon as she left me, my brothers, and father (theold man who had previously been so frightened), came up and embraced meafter their manner, --that is, they threw their arms round my waist, placed their right knee against my right knee, and their breast againstmy breast, holding me in this way for several minutes. During the timethat the ceremony lasted, I, according to the native custom, preserved agrave and mournful expression of countenance. This belief, that whitepeople are the souls of departed blacks, is by no means an uncommonsuperstition amongst them; they themselves never having an idea ofquitting their own land, cannot imagine others doing it;--and thus, whenthey see white people suddenly appear in their country, and settlingthemselves down in particular spots, they imagine that they must haveformed an attachment for this land in some other state of existence; andhence conclude the settlers were at one period black men and their ownrelations. Likenesses, whether real or imagined, complete the delusion;and from the manner of the old woman I have just alluded to, from hermany tears, and from her warm caresses, I feel firmly convinced that shereally believed I was her son, whose first thought, upon his return toearth, had been to re-visit his old mother, and bring her apresent. "[169]

[Sidenote: In South-eastern Australia the natives believed that thesouls of the dead were not reborn but went up to the sky. ]

On the whole then we may conclude that a belief in the reincarnation ofthe dead has not been confined to the tribes of Central Australia, buthas been held by the tribes in many, perhaps at one time in all, otherparts of the continent. Yet, if we may judge from the imperfect recordswhich we possess, this faith in the return of the dead to life in humanform would seem to have given way and been replaced to some extent by adifferent creed among many tribes of South-eastern Australia. In thispart of the continent it appears to have been often held by the nativesthat after death the soul is not born again among men, but goes away forever to some distant country either in the sky or beyond the sea, whereall the spirits of the dead congregate. Thus Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, who was Governor of New South Wales in the early days of the colony, atthe end of the eighteenth century, reports that when the natives wereoften questioned "as to what became of them after their decease, someanswered that they went either on or beyond the great water; but by farthe greater number signified, that they went to the clouds. "[170] Again, the Narrinyeri tribe of South Australia believed that all the dead wentup to the sky and that some of them at least became stars. We possess anexcellent description of the beliefs and customs of this tribe from thepen of a missionary, the Rev. George Taplin, who lived among them formany years. His account of their theory of the state of the dead isinstructive. It runs thus:--

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Narrinyeri concerning the dead. ]

"The Narrinyeri point out several stars, and say that they are deceasedwarriors who have gone to heaven (_Wyirrewarre_). There are Wyungare, and Nepalle, and the Manchingga, and several others. Every nativeexpects to go to _Wyirrewarre_ after death. They also believe that thedead descend from thence, and walk the earth; and that they are able toinjure those whom they dislike. Consequently, men who have beennotorious in life for a domineering and revengeful disposition are verymuch dreaded after death. For instance, there is Karungpe, who comes inthe dead of night, when the camp fire has burned low, and like a rushingwind scatters the dying embers, and then takes advantage of the darknessto rob some sleeper of life; and it is considered dangerous to whistlein the dark, for Karungpe is especially attracted by a whistle. There isanother restless spirit--the deceased father of a boy whom I wellknow--who is said to rove about armed with a rope, with which he catchespeople. All the Narrinyeri, old and young, are dreadfully afraid ofseeing ghosts, and none of them will venture into the scrub after dark, lest he should encounter the spirits which are supposed to roam there. Ihave heard some admirable specimens of ghost stories from them. In onecase I remember the ghost was represented to have set fire to a _wurley_[hut], and ascended to heaven in the flame. The Narrinyeri regard thedisapprobation of the spirits of the dead as a thing to be dreaded; andif a serious quarrel takes place between near relatives, some of thefriends are sure to interpose with entreaties to the contentious partiesto be reconciled, lest the spirits of the dead should be offended atunseemly disputes between those who ought to be at peace. The name ofthe dead must not be mentioned until his body has decayed, lest a wantof sorrow should seem to be indicated by the common and flippant use ofhis name. A native would have the deceased believe that he cannot hearor speak his name without weeping. "[171]

[Sidenote: Narrinyeri fear of the dead. Mourning customs. ]

From this account it would appear that the Narrinyeri have no belief inthe reincarnation of the dead; they suppose that the souls of thedeparted live up aloft in the sky, from which they descend at night inthe form of ghosts to haunt and trouble the living. On the whole theattitude of the Narrinyeri towards their dead kinsfolk seems to bedominated by fear; of affection there is apparently little or no trace. It is true that like most Australian tribes they indulge in extravagantdemonstrations of grief at the death of their kinsfolk. A greatlamentation and wailing is made by all the relations and friends of thedeceased. They cut off their hair close to the head and besmudgethemselves with oil and pounded charcoal. The women besmear themselveswith the most disgusting filth. All beat and cut themselves and make aviolent show of sorrow; and all the time that the corpse, rubbed overwith grease and red ochre, is being dried over a slow fire in the hut, the women take it by turns to weep and wail before it, so that thelamentation never ceases for days. Yet Mr. Taplin was persuaded "thatfear has more to do with most of these exhibitions than grief"; and hetells us that "for one minute a woman will appear in the deepest agonyof grief and tears; a few minutes after, the conventional amount ofweeping having been accomplished, they will laugh and talk with themerriest. "[172] The principal motive, in fact, for all this excessivedisplay of sorrow would seem to be a fear lest the jealous ghost shouldthink himself slighted and should avenge the slight on the cold-heartedrelatives who do not mourn sufficiently for the irreparable loss theyhave sustained by his death. We may conjecture that the same train ofthought explains the ancient and widespread custom of hiringprofessional mourners to wail over the dead; the tears and lamentationsof his kinsfolk are not enough to soothe the wounded feelings of thedeparted, they must be reinforced by noisier expressions of regret. 

[Sidenote: Deaths attributed by the Narrinyeri to sorcery. ]

But there is another powerful motive for all these violentdemonstrations of grief, into the secret of which we are let by Mr. Taplin. He says that "all the relatives are careful to be present andnot to be wanting in the proper signs of sorrow, lest they should besuspected of complicity in causing the death. "[173] In fact theNarrinyeri, like many other savages, attribute all, or most, naturaldeaths to sorcery. When a person dies, they think that he or she hasbeen killed by the evil magic of some ill-wisher, and one of the firstthings to be done is to discover the culprit in order that his life maybe taken in revenge. For this purpose the Narrinyeri resort to a form ofdivination. On the first night after the death the nearest relation ofthe deceased sleeps with his head on the corpse, hoping thus to dream ofthe sorcerer who has done the mischief. Next day the corpse is placed ona sort of bier supported on men's shoulders. The friends of the deceasedgather round and call out the names of suspected persons to see whetherthe corpse will give any sign. At last the next of kin calls out thename of the person of whom he has dreamed, and if at the sound thecorpse makes a movement towards him, which the bearers say they cannotresist, it is regarded as a clear token that the man so named is themalefactor. It only remains for the kinsfolk of the dead to hunt downthe culprit and kill him. [174] Thus not only the relations but everybodyin the neighbourhood has the strongest motive for assuming at least anappearance of sorrow at a death, lest the suspicion of having caused itby sorcery should fall upon him. 

[Sidenote: Pretence made by the Narrinyeri of avenging the death oftheir friends on the guilty sorcerer. ]

It deserves to be noted, that while the Narrinyeri nominallyacknowledged the duty of killing the sorcerer who in their opinion hadcaused the death of their friend, they by no means always discharged theduty, but sometimes contented themselves with little more than apretence of revenge. Mr. Taplin's account of the proceedings observed onsuch an occasion is instructive. It runs thus: "The spirit of the deadis not considered to have been appeased until his relatives have avengedhis death. They will kill the sorcerer who has caused it if they cancatch him; but generally they cannot catch him, and often do not wishit. Most probably he belongs to some other tribe of the Narrinyeri. Messengers pass between the tribes relative to the affair, and thefriends of the accused person at last formally curse the dead man andall his dead relatives. This constitutes a _casus belli_. Arrangementsare forthwith made for a pitched battle, and the two tribes meet incompany with their respective allies. The tribe to which the dead manbelongs weep and make a great lamentation for him, and the opposingtribe sets some fellows to dance about and play antics in derision oftheir enemies. Then the whole tribe will set up a great laugh by way offurther provocation. If there is any other cause of animosity betweenthe tribes besides the matter of avenging the dead there will now be apretty severe fight with spears. If, however, the tribes have nothingbut the dead man to fight about, they will probably throw a few spears, indulge in considerable abuse of each other, perhaps one or two will getslightly wounded, and then some of the old men will declare that enoughhas been done. The dead man is considered to have been appeased by theefforts of his friends to avenge his death by fighting, and the twotribes are friendly again. In such a case the fight is a mereceremony. "[175] Thus among the Narrinyeri the duty of blood revenge wasoften supposed to be sufficiently discharged by a sham fight performedapparently for the satisfaction of the ghost, who was supposed to belooking on and to be gratified by the sight of his friends hurlingspears at the author of his death. Merciful pretences of the same sorthave been practised by other savages in order to satisfy the vengefulghost without the effusion of blood. Examples of them will come beforeus later on. [176]

[Sidenote: Magical virtue ascribed to the hair of the dead. ]

However, the attitude of the Narrinyeri towards their dead was notpurely one of fear and aversion. They imagined that they could derivecertain benefits from their departed kinsfolk, and the channel throughwhich these benefits flowed was furnished by their hair. They cut offthe hair of the dead and spun it into a cord, and this cord was commonlyworn by the men as a head-band. They said that thereby they "smelled thedead, " and that the smell made their eyes large and their sight keen, sothat in a fight they could see the spears coming and could parry oravoid them. [177] Similar magical virtues are ascribed to the hair of thedead by the Arunta. Among them the hair of a dead man is cut off andmade into a magic girdle, which is a valued possession and is only wornwhen a man is going out to engage in a tribal fight or to stalk a foefor the purpose of destroying him by witchcraft. The girdle is supposedto be endowed with magic power and to impart to its possessor all thewarlike qualities of the dead man from whose hair it was made; inparticular, it is thought to ensure accuracy of aim in the wearer, whileat the same time it destroys that of his adversary. [178] Hence thegirdle is worn by the man who takes the lead in avenging the death ofthe deceased on his supposed murderer; the mere sight of it, they think, so terrifies the victim that his legs tremble under him, he becomesincapable of fighting, and is easily speared. [179]

[Sidenote: Belief that the souls of the dead go up to the sky. ]

Among the tribes of South-eastern Australia the Narrinyeri were notalone in holding the curious belief that the souls of the dead go upinto the sky to live there for ever, but that their ghosts come downagain from time to time, roam about their old haunts on earth, andcommunicate with the living. This, for example, was the belief of theDieri, the Buandik, the Kurnai, and the Kulin tribes. [180] The Buandikthought that everything in skyland was better than on earth; a fatkangaroo, for example, was compared to a kangaroo of heaven, where, ofcourse, the animals might be expected to abound. [181] The Kulin imaginedthat the spirits of the dead ascended to heaven by the bright rays ofthe setting sun. [182] The Wailwun natives in New South Wales used tobury their dead in hollow trees, and when they dropped the body into itsplace, the bearers and the bystanders joined in a loud whirring sound, like the rush of the wind. They said that this represented the upwardflight of the soul to the sky. [183]

[Sidenote: Appearance of the dead to the living, especially in dreams. ]

With regard to the ghosts on earth, some tribes of South-easternAustralia believe that they can be seen by the living, can partake offood, and can warm themselves at a fire. It is especially the graves, where their mouldering bodies are deposited, that these restless spiritsare supposed to haunt; it is there that they shew themselves either topeople generally or to such as have the second sight. [184] But it ismost commonly in dreams that they appear to the living and holdcommunication with them. Often these communications are believed to behelpful. Thus the tribes of the Wotjobaluk nation thought that theghosts of their dead relations could visit them in sleep to protectthem. A Mukjarawaint man told Dr. Howitt that his father came to him ina dream and warned him to beware or he would be killed. This, the manbelieved, was the saving of his life; for he afterwards came to theplace which he had seen in his dream; whereupon, instead of going on, heturned back, so that his enemies, who might have been waiting for himthere, did not catch him. [185] Another man informed Dr. Howitt that hisdead uncle appeared to him in sleep and taught him charms againstsickness and other evils; and the Chepara tribe similarly believed thatmale ancestors visited sleepers and imparted to them charms to avertevil magic. [186]

[Sidenote: Savage faith in the truth of dreams. Association of the starswith the souls of the dead. ]

Such notions follow naturally from the savage theory of dreams. Almostall savages appear to believe firmly in the truth of dreams; they failto draw the distinction, which to us seems obvious, between theimaginary creations of the mind in sleep and the waking realities of thephysical world. Whatever they dream of must, they think, be actuallyexisting; for have they not seen it with their own eyes? To argue thatthe visions of sleep have no real existence is, therefore, in theiropinion, to argue against the plain evidence of their senses; and theynaturally treat such exaggerated scepticism with incredulity andcontempt. Hence when they dream of their dead friends and relations theynecessarily conclude that these persons are still alive somewhere andsomehow, though they do not commonly appear by daylight to people intheir waking hours. Unquestionably this savage faith in the reality ofdreams has been one of the principal sources of the widespread, almostuniversal, belief in the survival of the human soul after death. Itexplains why ghosts are supposed to appear rather by night than by day, since it is chiefly by night that men sleep and dream dreams. Perhaps itmay also partly account for the association of the stars with the soulsof the dead. For if the dead appear to the living mainly in the hours ofdarkness, it seems not unnatural to imagine that the bright points oflight which then bespangle the canopy of heaven are either the souls ofthe departed or fires kindled by them in their home aloft. For example, the Central Australian aborigines commonly suppose the stars to be thecamp-fires of natives who live on the banks of the great river which wecivilised men, by a survival of primitive mythology, call the Milky Way. However, these rude savages, we are told, as a general rule "appear topay very little attention to the stars in detail, probably because theyenter very little into anything which is connected with their dailylife, and more especially with their food supply. "[187] The sameobservation which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen here make as to the nativesof Central Australia might be applied to most savages who have remainedin the purely hunting stage of social development. Such men are not muchaddicted to star-gazing, since the stars have little or nothing to tellthem that they wish to know. It is not till people have betakenthemselves to sowing and reaping crops that they begin to scan theheavens more carefully in order to determine the season of sowing byobservation of the great celestial time-keepers, the rising and settingof certain constellations, above all, apparently, of the Pleiades. [188]In short, the rise of agriculture favours the rise of astronomy. 

[Sidenote: Creed of the South-eastern Australians touching the dead. ]

But to return to the ideas of the Australian aborigines concerning thedead, we may say of the natives of the south-eastern part of thecontinent, in the words of Dr. Howitt, that "there is a universal beliefin the existence of the human spirit after death, as a ghost, which isable to communicate with the living when they sleep. It finds its way tothe sky-country, where it lives in a land like the earth, only morefertile, better watered, and plentifully supplied with game. "[189] Thisbelief is very different from that of the Central Australian natives, who think that the souls of the dead tarry on earth in their oldfamiliar haunts until the time comes for them to be born again into theworld. Of the two different creeds that of the south-eastern tribes maybe regarded as the more advanced, since it admits that the dead do notreturn to life, and that their disembodied spirits do not hauntperpetually a multitude of spiritual parks or reservations dotted overthe face of the country. 

[Sidenote: The creed seems to form part of a general advance of culturein this part of the continent. ]

But how are we to account for this marked difference of belief betweenthe natives of the Centre and the natives of the South-east? Perhaps themost probable explanation is that the creed of the south-eastern tribesin this respect is part of a general advance of culture brought about bythe more favourable natural conditions under which they live as comparedwith the forlorn state of the rude inhabitants of the Central deserts. That advance of culture manifests itself in a variety of ways. On thematerial side it is seen in more substantial and permanent dwellings andin warmer and better clothing. On the social side it is seen in anincipient tendency to the rise of a regular chieftainship, a thing whichis quite unknown among the democratic or rather oligarchic savages ofthe Centre, who are mainly governed by the old men in council. [190] Butthe rise of chieftainship is a great step in political progress; since amonarchical government of some sort appears to be essential to theemergence of mankind from savagery. On the whole, then, the beliefs ofthe South-eastern Australian aborigines seem to mark a step on theupward road towards civilisation. 

[Sidenote: Possible influence of European teaching on native beliefs. ]

At the same time we must not forget that these beliefs may have beeninfluenced by the lessons which they have learned from white settlerswith whom in this part of Australia they have been so long in contact. The possibility of such a transfusion of the new wine of Europe into theold bottles of Australia did not escape the experienced Mr. JamesDawson, an early settler in Victoria, who has given us a valuableaccount of the natives of that region in the old days when they werestill comparatively little contaminated by intercourse with the whites. He describes as follows the views which prevailed as to the dead amongthe tribes of Western Victoria:--"After the disposal of the body of agood person, its shade walks about for three days; and although itappears to people, it holds no communication with them. Should it beseen and named by anyone during these three days, it instantlydisappears. At the expiry of three days it goes off to a beautifulcountry above the clouds, abounding with kangaroo and other game, wherelife will be enjoyed for ever. Friends will meet and recognize eachother there; but there will be no marrying, as the bodies have been lefton earth. Children under four or five years have no souls and no futurelife. The shades of the wicked wander miserably about the earth for oneyear after death, frightening people, and then descend to Ummekulleen, never to return. " After giving us this account of the native creed Mr. Dawson adds very justly: "Some of the ideas described above may possiblyhave originated with the white man, and been transmitted from Sydney byone tribe to another. "[191] The probability of white influence on thisparticular doctrine of religion is increased by the frank confessionwhich these same natives made of the religious deterioration (as theyregarded it) which they had suffered in another direction through theteaching of the missionaries. On this subject, to quote again from Mr. Dawson, the savages are of opinion that "the good spirit, Pirnmeheeal, is a gigantic man, living above the clouds; and as he is of a kindlydisposition, and harms no one, he is seldom mentioned, but always withrespect. His voice, the thunder, is listened to with pleasure, as itdoes good to man and beast, by bringing rain, and making grass and rootsgrow for their benefit. But the aborigines say that the missionaries andgovernment protectors have given them a dread of Pirnmeheeal; and theyare sorry that the young people, and many of the old, are now afraid ofa being who never did any harm to their forefathers. "[192]

[Sidenote: Vagueness and inconsistency of native beliefs as to the stateof the dead. Custom or ritual as the interpreter of belief. ]

However, it is very difficult to ascertain the exact beliefs of savagesas to the dead. The thought of the savage is apt to be vague andinconsistent; he neither represents his ideas clearly to his own mindnor can he express them lucidly to others, even if he wishes to do so. And his thought is not only vague and inconsistent; it is fluid andunstable, liable to shift and change under alien influence. For theseand other reasons, such as the distrust of strangers and the difficultyof language, which often interposes a formidable barrier between savageman and the civilised enquirer, the domain of primitive beliefs is besetby so many snares and pitfalls that we might almost despair of arrivingat the truth, were it not that we possess a clue to guide us on the darkand slippery way. That clue is action. While it is generally verydifficult to ascertain what any man thinks, it is comparatively easy toascertain what he does; and what a man does, not what he says, is thesurest touchstone to his real belief. Hence when we attempt to study thereligion of backward races, the ritual which they practise is generallya safer indication of their actual creed than the loudest profession offaith. In regard to the state of the human soul after death the beliefsof the Australian aborigines are clearly reflected in many of thecustoms which they observe at the death and burial of their friends andenemies, and it is accordingly with an account of some of these customsthat I propose to conclude this part of my subject. 

[Sidenote: Burial customs of the Australian aborigines as evidence oftheir beliefs concerning the state of the soul after death. Food placedon the grave for the use of the ghost and fires kindled to warm him. ]

Now some of the burial customs observed by the Australian savages revealin the clearest manner their belief that the human soul survives thedeath of the body, that in its disembodied state it retainsconsciousness and feeling, and can do a mischief to the living; inshort, they shew that in the opinion of these people the departed livein the form of dangerous ghosts. Thus, for example, when the deceased isa person of importance, the Dieri place food for many days on the grave, and in winter they kindle a fire in order that the ghost may warmhimself at it. If the food remains untouched on the grave, they thinkthat the dead is not hungry. [193] The Blanch-water section of that tribefear the spirits of the dead and accordingly take steps to prevent theirresurrection. For that purpose they tie the toes of the corpse togetherand the thumbs behind the back, which must obviously make it difficultfor the dead man to arise in his might and pursue them. Moreover, for amonth after the death they sweep a clear space round the grave at duskevery evening, and inspect it every morning. If they find any tracks onit, they assume that they have been made by the restless ghost in hisnocturnal peregrinations, and accordingly they dig up his moulderingremains and bury them in some other place, where they hope he will sleepsounder. [194] The Kukata tribe think that the ghost may be thirsty, sothey obligingly leave a drinking vessel on the grave, that he may slakehis thirst. Also they deposit spears and other weapons on the spot, together with a digging-stick, which is specially intended to ward offevil spirits who may be on the prowl. [195] The ghosts of the natives onthe Maranoa river were also thirsty souls, so vessels full of water weresometimes suspended for their use over the grave. [196] A custom oflighting a fire on the grave to warm the poor shivering ghost seems tohave been not uncommon among the aboriginal Australians. The WesternVictorians, for example, kept up large fires all night for thispurpose. [197] In the Wiimbaio tribe two fires were kept burning for awhole month on the grave, one to the right and the other to the left, inorder that the ghost might come out and warm himself at them in thechill night air. If they found tracks near the grave, they inferred, like the Dieri, that the perturbed spirit had quitted his narrow bed topace to and fro in the long hours of darkness; but if no footprints werevisible they thought that he slept in peace. [198] In some parts ofWestern Australia the natives maintained fires on the grave for morethan a month for the convenience of the ghost; and they clearly expectedhim to come to life again, for they detached the nails from the thumband forefinger of the corpse and deposited them in a small hole besidethe grave, in order that they might know their friend at hisresurrection. [199] The length of time during which fires were maintainedor kindled daily on the grave is said to have varied, according to theestimation in which the man was held, from a few days to three or fouryears. [200] We have seen that the Dieri laid food on the grave for thehungry ghost to partake of, and the same custom was observed by theGournditch-mara tribe. [201] However, some intelligent old aborigines ofWestern Victoria derided the custom as "white fellow's gammon. "[202]

[Sidenote: Property of the dead buried with them. ]

Further, in some tribes of South-eastern Australia it was customary todeposit the scanty property of the deceased, usually consisting of a fewrude weapons or implements, on the grave or to bury it with him. Thusthe natives of Western Victoria buried all a dead man's ornaments, weapons, and property with him in the grave, only reserving his stoneaxes, which were too valuable to be thus sacrificed: these wereinherited by the next of kin. [203] The Wurunjerri also interred thepersonal property of the dead with him; if the deceased was a man, hisspear-thrower was stuck in the ground at the head of the grave; if thedeceased was a woman, the same thing was done with her digging-stick. That these implements were intended for the use of the ghost and notmerely as headstones to mark the situation of the tomb and the sex ofthe departed, is clear from a significant exception to the custom. Whenthe departed brother was a man of violent temper, who had beenquarrelsome and a brawler in his life, no weapons were buried with him, obviously lest in a fit of ill-temper he should sally from the grave andassault people with them. [204] Similarly the Turrbal tribe, whodeposited their dead in the forks of trees, used to leave a spear andclub near the corpse "that the spirit of the dead might have weaponswherewith to kill game for his sustenance in the future state. Ayam-stick was placed in the ground at a woman's grave, so that she mightgo away at night and seek for roots. "[205] The Wolgal tribe were veryparticular about burying everything that belonged to a dead man withhim; spears and nets, though valuable articles of property, were thussacrificed; even a canoe has been known to be cut up in order that thepieces of it might be deposited in the grave. In fact "everythingbelonging to a dead man was put out of sight. "[206] Similarly in theGeawe-gal tribe all the implements and inanimate property of a warriorwere interred with him. [207] In the Gringai country not only was all aman's property buried with him, but every native present at the burialcontributed something, and these contributions were piled together atthe head of the corpse before the grave was filled in. [208] Among thetribes of Southern Victoria, when the grave has been dug and lined withfresh leaves and twigs so as to make a soft bed, the dead man's propertyis brought in two bags, and the sorcerer shakes out the contents. Theyconsist of such small articles as pieces of hard stone suitable forcutting or paring skins, bones for boring holes, twine made of opossumwool, and so forth. These are placed in the grave, and the bags and rugsof the deceased are torn up and thrown in likewise. Then the sorcererasks whether the dead man had any other property, and if he had, it isbrought forward and laid beside the torn fragments of the bags and rugs. Everything that a man owned in life must be laid beside him indeath. [209] Again, among the tribes of the Lower Murray, Lachlan, andDarling rivers in New South Wales, all a dead man's property, includinghis weapons and nets, was buried with his body in the grave. [210]Further, we are told that among the natives of Western Australia theweapons and personal property of the deceased are placed on the grave, "so that when he rises from the dead they may be ready to hishand. "[211] In the Boulia district of Queensland the things whichbelonged to a dead man, such as his boomerangs and spears, are eitherburied with him, destroyed by fire, or sometimes, though rarely, distributed among his tribal brothers, but never among hischildren. [212]

[Sidenote: Intention of destroying the property of the dead. Theproperty of the dead not destroyed in Central Australia. ]

Thus among certain tribes of Australia, especially in the south-easternpart of the continent, it appears that the custom of burying ordestroying a dead man's property has been very common. That theintention of the custom in some cases is to supply the supposed needs ofthe ghost, seems to be fairly certain; but we may doubt whether thisexplanation would apply to the practice of burning or otherwisedestroying the things which had belonged to the deceased. More probablysuch destruction springs from an overpowering dread of the ghost and awish to sever all connexion with him, so that he may have no excuse forreturning and haunting the survivors, as he might do if his propertywere either kept by them or deposited in the grave. Whatever the motivefor the burial or destruction of a dead man's property may be, thecustom appears not to prevail among the tribes of Central Australia. Inthe eastern Arunta tribe, indeed, it is said that sometimes a littlewooden vessel used in camp for holding small objects may be buried withthe man, but this is the only instance which Messrs. Spencer and Gillencould hear of in which any article of ordinary use is buried in thegrave. Far from wasting property in that way, these economical savagespreserve even a man's personal ornaments, such as his necklaces, armlets, and the fur string which he wore round his head; indeed, as wehave seen, they go so far as to cut off the hair from the head of thedeceased and to keep it for magical uses. [213] In the Warramunga tribeall the belongings of a dead man go to the tribal brothers of hismother. [214]

[Sidenote: Property of the dead hung up on trees, then washed anddistributed. Economic loss entailed by sacrifices to the dead. ]

The difference in this respect between the practice of the Centraltribes and that of the tribes nearer the sea, especially in Victoria andNew South Wales, is very notable. A custom intermediate between the twois observed by some tribes of the Darling River, who hang up theweapons, nets, and other property of the deceased on trees for about twomonths, then wash them, and distribute them among the relations. [215]The reason for hanging the things up and washing them is no doubt to ridthem of the infection of death in order that they may be used withsafety by the survivors. Such a custom points clearly to a growing fearof the dead; and that fear or reverence comes out still more clearly inthe practice of either burying the property of the dead with them ordestroying it altogether, which is observed by the aborigines ofVictoria and other parts of Australia who live under more favourableconditions of life than the inhabitants of the Central deserts. Thisconfirms the conclusion which we have reached on other grounds, thatamong the aboriginal population of Australia favourable naturalconditions in respect of climate, food, and water have exercised a mostimportant influence in stimulating social progress in many directions, and not least in the direction of religion. At the same time, while werecognise that the incipient tendency to a worship of the dead which maybe detected in these regions marks a step forward in religiousdevelopment, we must acknowledge that the practice of burying ordestroying the property of the dead, which is one of the ways in whichthe tendency manifests itself, is, regarded from the side of economicprogress, a decided step backward. It marks, in fact, the beginning of amelancholy aberration of the human mind, which has led mankind tosacrifice the real interests of the living to the imaginary interests ofthe dead. With the general advance of society and the accompanyingaccumulation of property these sacrifices have at certain stages ofevolution become heavier and heavier, as the demands of the ghostsbecame more and more exacting. The economic waste which the belief inthe immortality of the soul has entailed on the world is incalculable. When we contemplate that waste in its small beginnings among the rudesavages of Australia it appears insignificant enough; the world is notmuch the poorer for the loss of a parcel of boomerangs, spears, furstring, and skin rugs. But when we pass from the custom in this itsfeeble source and follow it as it swells in volume through the nationsof the world till it attains the dimensions of a mighty river of wastedlabour, squandered treasure, and spilt blood, we cannot but wonder atthe strange mixture of good and evil in the affairs of mankind, seeingin what we justly call progress so much hardly earned gain side by sidewith so much gratuitous loss, such immense additions to the substantialvalue of life to be set off against such enormous sacrifices to theshadow of a shade. 

[Footnote 160: W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5, Superstition, Magic, and Medicine_ (Brisbane, 1903), pp. 18, 23, §§68, 83. ]

[Footnote 161: Homer, _Odyssey_, xix. 163. ]

[Footnote 162: W. E. Roth, _ll. Cc. _]

[Footnote 163: W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5_ (Brisbane, 1903), p. 29. § 116. ]

[Footnote 164: W. E. Roth. _op. Cit. _ p. 18, § 68. ]

[Footnote 165: W. E. Roth, _op. Cit. _ pp. 17, 29, §§ 65, 116. ]

[Footnote 166: W. E. Roth, _op. Cit. _ p. 17, § 65. ]

[Footnote 167: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_ (Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881), pp. 110 _sq. _; A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes ofSouth-East Australia_ (London, 1904), p. 442. ]

[Footnote 168: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 445. ]

[Footnote 169: (Sir) George Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions ofDiscovery in North-West and Western Australia_ (London, 1841), i. 301-303. ]

[Footnote 170: Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins, _An Account of theEnglish Colony in New South Wales_, Second Edition (London, 1804), p. 354. ]

[Footnote 171: Rev. G. Taplin, "The Narrinyeri, " in _Native Tribes ofSouth Australia_ (Adelaide, 1879), pp. 18 _sq. _]

[Footnote 172: Rev. G. Taplin, "The Narrinyeri, " _op. Cit. _ pp. 20_sq. _]

[Footnote 173: Rev. G. Taplin, _op. Cit. _ p. 20. ]

[Footnote 174: Rev. G. Taplin, _op. Cit. _ pp. 19 _sq. _, 21. ]

[Footnote 175: Rev. G. Taplin, _op. Cit. _ p. 21. ]

[Footnote 176: See below, pp. 235 _sqq. _, 327 _sq. _]

[Footnote 177: Rev. G. Taplin, _op. Cit. _ p. 21. ]

[Footnote 178: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 538 _sq. _]

[Footnote 179: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 544 _sq. _]

[Footnote 180: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 434, 436, 437, 438. Compare E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions ofDiscovery into Central Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 357. ]

[Footnote 181: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 434. ]

[Footnote 182: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 438. ]

[Footnote 183: Rev. W. Ridley, _Kamilaroi_ (Sydney, 1875), p. 160. ]

[Footnote 184: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 434, 438, 439; J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 50. ]

[Footnote 185: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 435. ]

[Footnote 186: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 437. ]

[Footnote 187: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. 628. ]

[Footnote 188: As to the place occupied by the Pleiades in primitivecalendars, see _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, i. 309-319. ]

[Footnote 189: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 439 _sq. _]

[Footnote 190: See _Totemism and Exogamy_, i. 314 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 191: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 51. A man of theTa-ta-thi tribe in New South Wales informed Mr. A. L. P. Cameron thatthe natives believed in a pit of fire where bad men were roasted afterdeath. This reported belief, resting apparently on the testimony of asingle informant, may without doubt be ascribed to the influence ofChristian teaching. See A. L. P. Cameron, "Notes on some Tribes of NewSouth Wales, " _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xiv. (1885)pp. 364 _sq. _]

[Footnote 192: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 49. ]

[Footnote 193: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 448. ]

[Footnote 194: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _. P. 449. Compare E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 87: "The object sought in tying up the remainsof the dead is to prevent the deceased from escaping from the tomb andfrightening or injuring the survivors. "]

[Footnote 195: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 451. ]

[Footnote 196: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 467. ]

[Footnote 197: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 50. ]

[Footnote 198: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 452. ]

[Footnote 199: R. Salvado, _Mémoires historiques sur l' Australie_(Paris, 1854), p. 261; _Missions Catholiques_, x. (1878) p. 247. Formore evidence as to the lighting of fires for this purpose see A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ pp. 455, 470. ]

[Footnote 200: A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Australia, " _Transactionsof the Ethnological Society of London_, New Series, iii. (1865) p. 245. ]

[Footnote 201: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 455. ]

[Footnote 202: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, pp. 50 _sq. _]

[Footnote 203: J. Dawson, _op. Cit. _ p. 63. ]

[Footnote 204: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 458. ]

[Footnote 205: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 470. ]

[Footnote 206: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ pp. 461 _sq. _]

[Footnote 207: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 464. ]

[Footnote 208: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 464. ]

[Footnote 209: R. Brough Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 104. ]

[Footnote 210: P. Beveridge, "Of the Aborigines Inhabiting the GreatLacustrine and Riverine Depression of the Lower Murray, LowerMurrumbidgee, Lower Lachlan, and Lower Darling, " _Journal andProceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales_, xvii. (1883) p. 29. ]

[Footnote 211: A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Australia, " _Transactionsof the Ethnological Society of London_, New Series, iii. (1865) p. 245. ]

[Footnote 212: W. E. Roth, _Ethnological Studies among theNorth-West-Central Queensland Aborigines_ (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 164. ]

[Footnote 213: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 466, 497 _sq. _, 538 _sq. _ See above, p. 138. ]

[Footnote 214: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. 524. ]

[Footnote 215: F. Bonney, "On some Customs of the Aborigines of theRiver Darling, New South Wales, " _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, xiii. (1884) p. 135. ]

LECTURE VII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA(_concluded_)

[Sidenote: Attention to the comfort of the dead. Huts erected on gravesfor the use of the ghosts. ]

In the last lecture I shewed that in the maritime regions of Australia, where the conditions of life are more favourable than in the Centraldeserts, we may detect the germs of a worship of the dead in certainattentions which the living pay to the spirits of the departed, forexample by kindling fires on the grave for the ghost to warm himself at, by leaving food and water for him to eat and drink, and by depositinghis weapons and other property in the tomb for his use in the life afterdeath. Another mark of respect shewn to the dead is the custom oferecting a hut on the grave for the accommodation of the ghost. Thusamong the tribes of South Australia we are told that "upon the mounds, or tumuli, over the graves, huts of bark, or boughs, are generallyerected to shelter the dead from the rain; they are also frequentlywound round with netting. "[216] Again, in Western Australia a small hutof rushes, grass, and so forth is said to have been set up by thenatives over the grave. [217] Among the tribes of the Lower Murray, LowerLachlan, and Lower Darling rivers, when a person died who had beenhighly esteemed in life, a neat hut was erected over his grave so as tocover it entirely. The hut was of oval shape, about five feet high, androofed with thatch, which was firmly tied to the framework by cord manyhundreds of yards in length. Sometimes the whole hut was enveloped in anet. At the eastern end of the hut a small opening was left just largeenough to allow a full-grown man to creep in, and the floor was coveredwith grass, which was renewed from time to time as it became withered. Each of these graves was enclosed by a fence of brushwood forming adiamond-shaped enclosure, within which the tomb stood exactly in themiddle. All the grass within the fence was neatly shaved off and theground swept quite clean. Sepulchres of this sort were kept up for twoor three years, after which they were allowed to fall into disrepair, and when a few more years had gone by the very sites of them wereforgotten. [218] The intention of erecting huts on graves is notmentioned in these cases, but on analogy we may conjecture that they areintended for the convenience and comfort of the ghost. This is confirmedby an account given of a native burial on the Vasse River in WesternAustralia. We are told that when the grave had been filled in, thenatives piled logs on it to a considerable height and then constructed ahut upon the logs, after which one of the male relations went into thehut and said, "I sit in his house. "[219] Thus it would seem that the huton the grave is regarded as the house of the dead man. If only thesesepulchral huts were kept up permanently, they might develop intosomething like temples, in which the spirits of the departed might beinvoked and propitiated with prayer and sacrifice. It is thus that thegreat round huts, in which the remains of dead kings of Uganda aredeposited, have grown into sanctuaries or shrines, where the spirits ofthe deceased monarchs are consulted as oracles through the medium ofpriests. [220] But in Australia this development is prevented by thesimple forgetfulness of the savages. A few years suffice with them towipe out the memory of the deceased and with it his chance of developinginto an ancestral deity. Like most savages, the Australian aboriginesseem to fear only the ghosts of the recently departed; one writer tellsus that they have no fear of the ghost of a man who has been dead sayforty years. [221]

[Sidenote: Fear of the dead and precautions taken by the living againstthem. ]

The burial customs of the Australian aborigines which I have describedbetray not only a belief in the existence of the ghost, but also acertain regard for his comfort and convenience. However, we may suspectthat in most, if not in all, cases the predominant motive of theseattentions is fear rather than affection. The survivors imagine that anywant of respect for the dead, any neglect of his personal comforts inthe grave, would excite his resentment and draw down on them hisvengeance. That these savages are really actuated by fear of the dead isexpressly affirmed of some tribes. Thus we are told that the Yuin "werealways afraid that the dead man might come out of the grave and followthem. "[222] After burying a body the Ngarigo were wont to cross a riverin order to prevent the ghost from pursuing them;[223] obviously theyshared the common opinion that ghosts for some reason are unable tocross water. The Wakelbura took other measures to throw the poor ghostoff the scent. They marked all the trees in a circle round the placewhere the dead man was buried; so that when he emerged from the graveand set off in pursuit of his retiring relations, he would follow themarks on the trees in a circle and always come back to the point fromwhich he had started. And to make assurance doubly sure they put coalsin the dead man's ears, which, by bunging up these apertures, weresupposed to keep his ghost in the body till his friends had got a goodstart away from him. As a further precaution they lit fires and putbushes in the forks of trees, with the idea that the ghost would roostin the bushes and warm himself at the fires, while they were hasteningaway. [224] Here, therefore, we see that the real motive for kindlingfires for the use of the dead is fear, not affection. In this respectthe burial customs of the tribes at the Herbert River are still moresignificant. These savages buried with the dead man his weapons, hisornaments, and indeed everything he had used in life; moreover, theybuilt a hut on the grave, put a drinking-vessel in the hut, and cleareda path from it down to the water for the use of the ghost; and oftenthey placed food and water on the grave. So far, these measures might beinterpreted as marks of pure and disinterested affection for the soul ofthe departed. But such an interpretation is totally excluded by theferocious treatment which these savages meted out to the corpse. Tofrighten the spirit, lest he should haunt the camp, the father orbrother of the deceased, or the husband, if it was a woman, took a cluband mauled the body with such violence that he often smashed the bones;further, he generally broke both its legs in order to prevent it fromwandering of nights; and as if that were not enough, he bored holes inthe stomach, the shoulders, and the lungs, and filled the holes withstones, so that even if the poor ghost should succeed by a desperateeffort in dragging his mangled body out of the grave, he would be soweighed down by this ballast of stones that he could not get very far. However, after roaming up and down in this pitiable condition for a timein their old haunts, the spirits were supposed at last to go up aloft tothe Milky Way. [225] The Kwearriburra tribe, on the Lynd River, inQueensland, also took forcible measures to prevent the resurrection ofthe dead. Whenever a person died, they cut off his or her head, roastedit in a fire on the grave, and when it was thoroughly charred theysmashed it in bits and left the fragments among the hot coals. Theycalculated that when the ghost rose from the grave with the view offollowing the tribe, he would miss his head and go groping blindly aboutfor it till he scorched himself in the embers of the fire and was gladto shrink back into his narrow bed. [226]

Thus even among those Australian tribes which have progressed furthestin the direction of religion, such approaches as they have made towardsa worship of the dead appear to be determined far more by fear than byaffection and reverence. And we are told that it is the nearestrelations and the most influential men whose ghosts are mostdreaded. [227]

[Sidenote: Cuttings and brandings of the flesh of the living in honourof the dead. ]

There is another custom observed by the Australian aborigines inmourning which deserves to be mentioned. We all know that the Israeliteswere forbidden to make cuttings in their flesh for the dead. [228] Thecustom was probably practised by the heathen Canaanites, as it has beenby savages in various parts of the world. Nowhere, perhaps, has thepractice prevailed more generally or been carried out with greaterseverity than in aboriginal Australia. For example, with regard to thetribes in the central part of Victoria we are told that "the parents ofthe deceased lacerate themselves fearfully, especially if it be an onlyson whose loss they deplore. The father beats and cuts his head with atomahawk until he utters bitter groans. The mother sits by the fire andburns her breasts and abdomen with a small fire-stick till she wailswith pain; then she replaces the stick in the fire, to use again whenthe pain is less severe. This continues for hours daily, until the timeof lamentation is completed; sometimes the burns thus inflicted are sosevere as to cause death. "[229] It is especially the women, and aboveall the widows, who torture themselves in this way. Speaking of thetribes of Victoria, a writer tells us that on the death of her husband awidow, "becoming frantic, seizes fire-sticks and burns her breasts, arms, legs, and thighs. Rushing from one place to another, and intentonly on injuring herself, and seeming to delight in the self-inflictedtorture, it would be rash and vain to interrupt her. She would fiercelyturn on her nearest relative or friend and burn him with her brands. When exhausted, and when she can scarcely walk, she yet endeavours tokick the embers of the fire, and to throw them about. Sitting down, shetakes the ashes in her hands, rubs them into her wounds, and thenscratches her face (the only part not touched by the fire-sticks) untilthe blood mingles with the ashes which partly hide her cruelwounds. "[230] Among the Kurnai of South-eastern Victoria the relationsof the dead would cut and gash themselves with sharp stones andtomahawks until their heads and bodies streamed with blood. [231] In theMukjarawaint tribe, when a man died, his kinsfolk wept over him andslashed themselves with tomahawks and other sharp instruments for abouta week. [232] In the tribes of the Lower Murray and Lower Darling riversmourners scored their backs and arms, sometimes even their faces, withred-hot brands, which raised hideous ulcers; afterwards they flungthemselves prone on the grave, tore out their hair by handfuls, rubbedearth over their heads and bodies in great profusion, and ripped uptheir green ulcers till the mingled blood and grime presented a ghastlyspectacle. These self-inflicted sores remained long unhealed. [233] Amongthe Kamilaroi, a large tribe of eastern New South Wales, the mourners, and especially the women, used to cut their heads with tomahawks andallow the blood to dry on them. [234] Speaking of a native burial on theMurray River, a writer says that "around the bier were many women, relations of the deceased, wailing and lamenting bitterly, andlacerating their thighs, backs, and breasts, with shells or flint, untilthe blood flowed copiously from the gashes. "[235] In the Boulia districtof Queensland women in mourning score their thighs, both inside andoutside, with sharp stones or bits of glass, so as to make a series ofparallel cuts; in neighbouring districts of Queensland the men make muchdeeper cross-shaped cuts on their thighs. [236] In the Arunta tribe ofCentral Australia a man is bound to cut himself on the shoulder inmourning for his father-in-law; if he does not do so, his wife may begiven away to another man in order to appease the wrath of the ghost athis undutiful son-in-law. Arunta men regularly bear on their shouldersthe raised scars which shew that they have done their duty by their deadfathers-in-law. [237] The female relations of a dead man in the Aruntatribe also cut and hack themselves in token of sorrow, workingthemselves up into a sort of frenzy as they do so; yet in all theirapparent excitement they take care never to wound a vital part, but venttheir fury on their scalps, their shoulders, and their legs. [238]

[Sidenote: Cuttings for the dead among the Warramunga. ]

In the Warramunga tribe of Central Australia Messrs. Spencer and Gillenwitnessed the mourning for a dead man. Even before the sufferer hadbreathed his last the lamentations and self-inflicted wounds began. Whenit was known that the end was near, all the native men ran at full speedto the spot, and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen followed them to see whatwas to be seen. What they saw, or part of what they saw, was this. Someof the women, who had gathered from all directions, were lying prostrateon the body of the dying man, while others were standing or kneelingaround, digging the sharp ends of yam-sticks into the crown of theirheads, from which the blood streamed down over their faces, while allthe time they kept up a loud continuous wail. Many of the men, rushingup to the scene of action, flung themselves also higgledy-piggledy onthe sufferer, the women rising and making way for them, till nothing wasto be seen but a struggling mass of naked bodies all mixed up together. Presently up came a man yelling and brandishing a stone knife. Onreaching the spot he suddenly gashed both his thighs with the knife, cutting right across the muscles, so that, unable to stand, he droppeddown on the top of the struggling bodies, till his mother, wife, andsisters dragged him out of the scrimmage, and immediately applied theirmouths to his gaping wounds, while he lay exhausted and helpless on theground. Gradually the struggling mass of dusky bodies untwined itself, disclosing the unfortunate sick man, who was the object, or rather thevictim, of this well-meant demonstration of affection and sorrow. If hehad been ill before, he was much worse when his friends left him: indeedit was plain that he had not long to live. Still the weeping and wailingwent on; the sun set, darkness fell on the camp, and later in theevening the man died. Then the wailing rose louder than before, and menand women, apparently frantic with grief, rushed about cuttingthemselves with knives and sharp-pointed sticks, while the womenbattered each other's heads with clubs, no one attempting to ward offeither cuts or blows. An hour later a funeral procession set out bytorchlight through the darkness, carrying the body to a wood about amile off, where it was laid on a platform of boughs in a low gum-tree. When day broke next morning, not a sign of human habitation was to beseen in the camp where the man had died. All the people had removedtheir rude huts to some distance, leaving the place of death solitary;for nobody wished to meet the ghost of the deceased, who would certainlybe hovering about, along with the spirit of the living man who hadcaused his death by evil magic, and who might be expected to come to thespot in the outward form of an animal to gloat over the scene of hiscrime. But in the new camp the ground was strewed with men lyingprostrate, their thighs gashed with the wounds which they had inflictedon themselves with their own hands. They had done their duty by the deadand would bear to the end of their life the deep scars on their thighsas badges of honour. On one man Messrs. Spencer and Gillen counted thedints of no less than twenty-three wounds which he had inflicted onhimself at various times. Meantime the women had resumed the duty oflamentation. Forty or fifty of them sat down in groups of five or six, weeping and wailing frantically with their arms round each other, whilethe actual and tribal wives, mothers, wives' mothers, daughters, sisters, mothers' mothers, sisters' husbands' mothers, andgrand-daughters, according to custom, once more cut their scalps openwith yam-sticks, and the widows afterwards in addition seared the scalpwounds with red-hot fire-sticks. 

[Sidenote: Cuttings for the dead strictly regulated by custom. ]

In these mourning customs, wild and extravagant as the expression ofsorrow appears to be, everything is regulated by certain definite rules;and a woman who did not thus maul herself when she ought to do so wouldbe severely punished, or even killed, by her brother. Similarly with themen, it is only those who stand in certain relationships to the deceasedwho must cut and hack themselves in his honour, and these relationshipsare determined by the particular exogamous class to which the dead manhappened to belong. Of such classes there are eight in the Warramungatribe. On the occasion described by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen it was aman of the Tjunguri class who died; and the men who gashed their thighsstood to him in one or other of the following relationships: grandfatheron the mother's side, mother's brother, brother of the dead man's wife, and her mother's brother. [239]

[Sidenote: The cuttings and brandings which mourners inflict onthemselves may be intended to convince the ghost of the sincerity oftheir sorrow. ]

We naturally ask, What motive have these savages for inflicting all thisvoluntary and, as it seems to us, wholly superfluous suffering onthemselves? It can hardly be that these wounds and burns are merely anatural and unfeigned expression of grief. We have seen that byexperienced observers such extravagant demonstrations of sorrow are setdown rather to fear than to affection. Similarly Messrs. Spencer andGillen suggest that at least one motive is a fear entertained by thenative lest, if he does not make a sufficient display of grief, theghost of the dead man will be offended and do him a mischief. [240] Inthe Kaitish tribe of Central Australia it is believed that if a womandoes not keep her body covered with ashes from the camp fire during thewhole time of mourning, the spirit of her deceased husband, whoconstantly follows her about, will kill her and strip all the flesh fromher bones. [241] Again, in the Arunta tribe mourners smear themselveswith white pipeclay, and the motive for this custom is said to be torender themselves more conspicuous, so that the ghost may see and besatisfied that he is being properly mourned for. [242] Thus the fear ofthe ghost, who, at least among the Australian aborigines, is commonly ofa jealous temper and stands very firmly on his supposed rights, maysuffice to explain the practice of self-mutilation at mourning. 

[Sidenote: Custom of allowing the blood of mourners to drip on thecorpse or into the grave. ]

But it is possible that another motive underlies the drawing of blood onthese occasions. For it is to be observed that the blood of the mournersis often allowed to drop directly either on the dead body or into thegrave. Thus, for example, among the tribes on the River Darling severalmen used to stand by the open grave and cut each other's heads with aboomerang; then they held their bleeding heads over the grave so thatthe blood dripped on the corpse lying in it. If the deceased was highlyesteemed, the bleeding was repeated after some earth had been thrown onthe body. [243] Among the Arunta it is customary for the women kinsfolkof the dead to cut their own and each other's heads so severely withclubs and digging-sticks that blood streams from them on the grave. [244]Again, at a burial on the Vasse River, in Western Australia, a writerdescribes how, when the grave was dug, the natives placed the corpsebeside it, then "gashed their thighs, and at the flowing of the bloodthey all said, 'I have brought blood, ' and they stamped the footforcibly on the ground, sprinkling the blood around them; then wipingthe wounds with a wisp of leaves, they threw it, bloody as it was, onthe dead man. "[245] With these Australian practices we may compare acustom observed by the civilised Greeks of antiquity. Every year thePeloponnesian lads lashed themselves on the grave of Pelops at Olympia, till the blood ran down their backs as a libation in honour of the deadman. [246]

[Sidenote: The blood intended to strengthen the dead. ]

Now what is the intention of thus applying the blood of the living tothe dead or pouring it into the grave? So far as the ancient Greeks areconcerned the answer is not doubtful. We know from Homer that the ghostsof the dead were supposed to drink the blood that was offered to themand to be strengthened by the draught. [247] Similarly with theAustralian savages, their object can hardly be any other than that ofstrengthening the spirit of the dead; for these aborigines are in thehabit of giving human blood to the sick and the aged to drink for thepurpose of restoring them to health and strength;[248] hence it would benatural for them to imagine that they could refresh and fortify thefeeble ghost in like manner. Perhaps the blood was intended specially tostrengthen the spirits of the dead for the new birth or reincarnation, to which so many of these savages look forward. 

[Sidenote: Custom of burying people in the place where they were born. The custom perhaps intended to facilitate the rebirth of the soul. ]

The same motive may possibly explain the custom observed by someAustralian tribes of burying people, as far as possible, at the placewhere they were born. Thus in regard to the tribes of Western Victoriawe are informed that "dying persons, especially those dying from oldage, generally express an earnest desire to be taken to theirbirthplace, that they may die and be buried there. If possible, thesewishes are always complied with by the relatives and friends. Parentswill point out the spot where they were born, so that when they becomeold and infirm, their children may know where they wish their bodies tobe disposed of. "[249] Again, some tribes in the north and north-east ofVictoria "are said to be more than ordinarily scrupulous in interringthe dead. If practicable, they will bury the corpse near the spot where, as a child, it first drew breath. A mother will carry a dead infant forweeks, in the hope of being able to bury it near the place where it wasborn; and a dead man will be conveyed a long distance, in order that thelast rites may be performed in a manner satisfactory to the tribe. "[250]Another writer, speaking of the Australian aborigines in general, says:"By what I could learn, it is considered proper by many tribes that ablack should be buried at or near the spot where he or she was born, andfor this reason, when a black becomes seriously ill, the invalid iscarried a long distance to these certain spots to die, as in this case. They apparently object to place a body in strange ground. " The samewriter mentions the case of a blackfellow, who began digging a graveclose beside the kitchen door of a Mr. Campbell. When Mr. Campbellremonstrated with him, the native replied that he had no choice, for thedead man had been born on that very spot. With much difficulty Mr. Campbell persuaded him to bury his deceased friend a little further offfrom the kitchen door. [251] A practice of this sort would beintelligible on the theory of the Central Australians, who imagine thatthe spirits of all the dead return to the very spots where they enteredinto their mothers' wombs, and that they wait there until anotheropportunity presents itself to them of being born again into the world. For if people really believe, as do many Australian tribes, that whenthey die they will afterwards come to life again as infants, it isperfectly natural that they should take steps to ensure and facilitatethe new birth. The Unmatjera and Kaitish tribes of Central Australia dothis in the case of dead children. These savages draw a sharpdistinction between young children and very old men and women. When veryold people die, their bodies are at once buried in the ground, but thebodies of children are placed in wooden troughs and deposited onplatforms of boughs in the branches of trees, and the motive fortreating a dead child thus is, we are informed, the hope "that beforevery long its spirit may come back again and enter into the body of awoman--in all probability that of its former mother. "[252] The reasonfor drawing this distinction between the young and the old by disposingof their bodies in different fashions, is explained with greatprobability by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen as follows: "In the Unmatjeraand Kaitish tribes, while every old man has certain privileges denied tothe younger men, yet if he be decidedly infirm and unable to take hispart in the performance of ceremonies which are often closelyconcerned--or so at least the natives believe them to be--with thegeneral welfare of the tribe, then the feeling undoubtedly is that thereis no need to pay any very special respect to his remains. This feelingis probably vaguely associated with the idea that, as his body isinfirm, so to a corresponding extent will his spirit part be, andtherefore they have no special need to consider or propitiate this, asit can do them no harm. On the other hand they are decidedly afraid ofhurting the feelings of any strong man who might be capable of doingthem some mischief unless he saw that he was properly mourned for. Acting under much the same feeling they pay respect to the bodies ofdead children and young women, in the hope that the spirit will soonreturn and undergo reincarnation. It is also worth noticing that they donot bury in trees any young man who has violated tribal law by taking aswife a woman who is forbidden to him; such an individual is alwaysburied directly in the ground. "[253] Apparently these law-abidingsavages are not anxious that members of the criminal classes should beborn again and should have the opportunity of troubling society oncemore. 

[Sidenote: Different modes of disposing of the dead adopted in the sametribe. ]

I would call your attention particularly to the different modes ofburial thus accorded by these two tribes to different classes ofpersons. It is too commonly assumed that each tribe has one uniform wayof disposing of all its dead, say either by burning or by burying, andon that assumption certain general theories have been built as to thedifferent views taken of the state of the dead by different tribes. Butin point of fact the assumption is incorrect. Not infrequently the sametribe disposes of different classes of dead people in quite differentways; for instance, it will bury some and burn others. Thus amongst theAngoni of British Central Africa the corpses of chiefs are burned withall their household belongings, but the bodies of commoners are buriedwith all their belongings in caves. [254] In various castes or tribes ofIndia it is the custom to burn the bodies of married people but to burythe bodies of the unmarried. [255] With some peoples of India thedistinction is made, not between the married and the unmarried, butbetween adults and children, especially children under two years old; insuch cases the invariable practice appears to be to burn the old andbury the young. Thus among the Malayalis of Malabar the bodies of menand women are burned, but the bodies of children under two years areburied, and so are the bodies of all persons who have died of cholera orsmall-pox. [256] The same distinctions are observed by the Nayars, Kadupattans, and other castes or tribes of Cochin. [257] The old rulelaid down in the ancient Hindoo law-book _The Grihya-Sutras_ was thatchildren who died under the age of two should be buried, not burnt. [258]The Bhotias of the Himalayas bury all children who have not yet obtainedtheir permanent teeth, but they burn all other people. [259] Among theKomars the young are buried, and the old cremated. [260] The Coorgs burythe bodies of women and of boys under sixteen years of age, but theyburn the bodies of men. [261] The Chukchansi Indians of California aresaid to have burned only those who died a violent death or were bittenby snakes, but to have buried all others. [262] The Minnetaree Indiansdisposed of their dead differently according to their moral character. Bad and quarrelsome men they buried in the earth that the Master of Lifemight not see them; but the bodies of good men they laid on scaffolds, that the Master of Life might behold them. [263] The Kolosh or TlingitIndians of Alaska burn their ordinary dead on a pyre, but deposit thebodies of shamans in large coffins, which are supported on fourposts. [264] The ancient Mexicans thought that all persons who died ofinfectious diseases were killed by the rain-god Tlaloc; so they paintedtheir bodies blue, which was the rain-god's colour, and buried insteadof burning them. [265]

[Sidenote: Special modes of burial adopted to prevent or facilitate thereturn of the spirit. ]

These examples may suffice to illustrate the different ways in which thesame people may dispose of their dead according to the age, sex, socialrank, or moral character of the deceased, or the manner of his death. Insome cases the special mode of burial adopted seems clearly intended toguard against the return of the dead, whether in the form of ghosts orof children born again into the world. Such, for instance, was obviouslythe intention of the old English custom of burying a suicide at across-road with a stake driven through his body. And if some burialcustoms are plainly intended to pin down the dead in the earth, or atleast to disable him from revisiting the survivors, so others appear tobe planned with the opposite intention of facilitating the departure ofthe spirit from the grave, in order that he may repair to a morecommodious lodging or be born again into the tribe. For example, theArunta of Central Australia always bury their dead in the earth andraise a low mound over the grave; but they leave a depression in themound on the side which faces towards the spot where the spirit of thedeceased is supposed to have dwelt in the intervals between hissuccessive reincarnations; and we are expressly told that the purpose ofleaving this depression is to allow the spirit to go out and in easily;for until the final ceremony of mourning has been performed at thegrave, the ghost is believed to spend his time partly in watching overhis near relations and partly in the company of its _arumburinga_ orspiritual double, who lives at the old _nanja_ spot, that is, at theplace where the disembodied soul tarries waiting to be born again. [266]Thus the Arunta imagine that for some time after death the spirit of thedeceased is in a sort of intermediate state, partly hovering about theabode of the living, partly visiting his own proper spiritual home, towhich on the completion of the mourning ceremonies he will retire toawait the new birth. The final mourning ceremony, which marks the closeof this intermediate state, takes place some twelve or eighteen monthsafter the death. It consists mainly in nothing more or less than a ghosthunt; men armed with shields and spear-throwers assemble and with loudshouts beat the air, driving the invisible ghost before them from thespot where he died, while the women join in the shouts and buffet theair with the palms of their hands to chase away the dead man from theold camp which he loves to haunt. In this way the beaters graduallyadvance towards the grave till they have penned the ghost into it, whenthey immediately dance on the top of it, beating the air downwards as ifto drive the spirit down, and stamping on the ground as if to tramplehim into the earth. After that, the women gather round the grave and cuteach other's heads with clubs till the blood streams down on it. Thisbrings the period of mourning to an end; and if the deceased was a man, his widow is now free to marry again. In token that the days of hersorrow are over, she wears at this final ceremony the gay feathers ofthe ring-neck parrot in her hair. The spirit of her dead husband, lyingin the grave, is believed to know the sign and to bid her a lastfarewell. Even after he has thus been hunted into the grave and trampleddown in it, his spirit may still watch over his friends, guard them fromharm, and visit them in dreams. [267]

[Sidenote: Departure of the ghost supposed to coincide with thedisappearance of the flesh from his bones. ]

We may naturally ask, Why should the spirit of the dead be supposed atfirst to dwell more or less intermittently near the spot where he died, and afterwards to take up his abode permanently at his _nanja_ spot tillthe time comes for him to be born again? A good many years ago Iconjectured[268] that this idea of a change in the abode of the ghostmay be suggested by a corresponding change which takes place, or issupposed to take place, about the same time in the state of the body; infact, that so long as the flesh adheres to the bones, so long the soulof the dead man may be thought to be detained in the neighbourhood ofthe body, but that when the flesh has quite decayed, the soul iscompletely liberated from its old tabernacle and is free to repair toits true spiritual home. In confirmation of this conjecture I pointed tothe following facts. Some of the Indians of Guiana bring food and drinkto their dead so long as the flesh remains on the bones; but when it hasmouldered away, they conclude that the man himself has departed. [269]The Matacos Indians of the Gran Chaco in Argentina believe that the soulof a dead man does not pass down into the nether world until his body isdecomposed or burnt. Further, the Alfoors of Central Celebessuppose that the spirits of the departed cannot enter the spirit-landuntil all the flesh has been removed from their bones; for until thathas been done, the gods (_lamoa_) in the other world could not bear thestench of the corpse. Accordingly at a great festival the bodies of allwho have died within a certain time are dug up and the decaying fleshscraped from the bones. Comparing these ideas, I suggested thatthey may explain the widespread custom of a second burial, that is, thepractice of disinterring the dead after a certain time and disposing oftheir bones otherwise. 

[Sidenote: Second burial of the bones among the tribes of CentralAustralia. Final burial ceremony among the Warramunga. ]

Now so far as the tribes of Central Australia are concerned, myconjecture has been confirmed by the subsequent researches of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen in that region. For they have found that the tribesto the north of the Arunta regularly give their dead a second burial, that a change in the state of the ghosts is believed to coincide withthe second burial, and apparently also, though this is not so definitelystated, that the time for the second burial is determined by thedisappearance of the flesh from the bones. Amongst the tribes whichpractise a second burial the custom is first to deposit the dead onplatforms among the branches of trees, till the flesh has quitemouldered away, and then to bury the bones in the earth: in short, theypractise tree-burial first and earth-burial afterwards. [270] Forexample, in the Unmatjera and Kaitish tribes, when a man dies, his bodyis carried by his relations to a tree distant a mile or two from thecamp. There it is laid on a platform by itself for some months. When theflesh has disappeared from the bones, a kinsman of the deceased, instrictness a younger brother (_itia_), climbs up into the tree, dislocates the bones, places them in a wooden vessel, and hands themdown to a female relative. Then the bones are laid in the grave with thehead facing in the direction in which his mother's brother is supposedto have camped in days of old. After the bones have been thus interred, the spirit of the dead man is believed to go away and to remain in hisold _alcheringa_ home until such time as he once more undergoesreincarnation. [271] But in these tribes, as we saw, very old men andwomen receive only one burial, being at once laid in an earthy grave andnever set up on a platform in a tree; and we have seen reason to thinkthat this difference in the treatment of the aged springs from theindifference or contempt in which their ghosts are held by comparisonwith the ghosts of the young and vigorous. In the Warramunga tribe, whoregularly deposit their dead in trees first and in the earth afterwards, so long as the corpse remains in the tree and the flesh has notcompletely disappeared from the bones, the mother of the deceased andthe women who stand to him or her in the relation of tribal motherhoodare obliged from time to time to go to the tree, and sitting under theplatform to allow its putrid juices to drip down on their bodies, intowhich they rub them as a token of sorrow. This, no doubt, is intended toplease the jealous ghost; for we are told that he is believed to hauntthe tree and even to visit the camp, in order, if he was a man, to seefor himself that his widows are mourning properly. The time during whichthe mouldering remains are left in the tree is at least a year and maybe more. [272] The final ceremony which brings the period of mourning toan end is curious and entirely different from the one observed by theArunta on the same occasion. When the bones have been taken down fromthe tree, an arm-bone is put carefully apart from the rest. Then theskull is smashed, and the fragments together with all the rest of thebones except the arm-bone, are buried in a hollow ant-hill near thetree. Afterwards the arm-bone is wrapt up in paper-bark and wound roundwith fur-string, so as to make a torpedo-shaped parcel, which is kept bya tribal mother of the deceased in her rude hovel of branches, till, after the lapse of some days or weeks, the time comes for the lastceremony of all. On that day a design emblematic of the totem of thedeceased is drawn on the ground, and beside it a shallow trench is dugabout a foot deep and fifteen feet long. Over this trench a number ofmen, elaborately decorated with down of various colours, standstraddle-legged, while a line of women, decorated with red and yellowochre, crawl along the trench under the long bridge made by thestraddling legs of the men. The last woman carries the arm-bone of thedead in its parcel, and as soon as she emerges from the trench, the boneis snatched from her by a kinsman of the deceased, who carries it to aman standing ready with an uplifted axe beside the totemic drawing. Onreceiving the bone, the man at once smashes it, hastily buries it in asmall pit beside the totemic emblem of the departed, and closes theopening with a large flat stone, signifying thereby that the season ofmourning is over and that the dead man or woman has been gathered to hisor her totem. The totemic design, beside which the arm-bone is buried, represents the spot at which the totemic ancestor of the deceasedfinally went down into the earth. When once the arm-bone has thus beenbroken and laid in its last resting-place, the soul of the dead person, which they describe as being of about the size of a grain of sand, issupposed to go back to the place where it camped long ago in a previousincarnation, there to remain with the souls of other men and women ofthe same totem until the time comes for it to be born again. [273]

[Sidenote: General conclusion as to the belief in immortality and theworship of the dead among the Australian aborigines. ]

This must conclude what I have to say as to the belief in immortalityand the worship of the dead among the aborigines of Australia. Theevidence I have adduced is sufficient to prove that these savages firmlybelieve both in the existence of the human soul after death and in thepower which it can exert for good or evil over the survivors. On thewhole the dominant motive in their treatment of the dead appears to befear rather than affection. Yet the attention which many tribes pay tothe comfort of the departed by providing them with huts, food, water, fire, clothing, implements and weapons, may not be dictated by purelyselfish motives; in any case they are clearly intended to please andpropitiate the ghosts, and therefore contain the germs of a regularworship of the dead. 

[Footnote 216: E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery intoCentral Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 349. ]

[Footnote 217: A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Victoria, " _Transactionsof the Ethnological Society of London_, N. S. Iii. (1865) p. 245. ]

[Footnote 218: P. Beveridge, in _Journal and Proceedings of the RoyalSociety of New South Wales_, xvii. (1883) pp. 29 _sq. _ Compare R. BroughSmyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 100 note. ]

[Footnote 219: (Sir) G. Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions ofDiscovery_, ii. 332 _sq. _]

[Footnote 220: Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 109_sqq. _]

[Footnote 221: E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_ (Melbourne and London, 1886-1887), i. 87. ]

[Footnote 222: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 463. ]

[Footnote 223: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 461. ]

[Footnote 224: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 473. ]

[Footnote 225: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit. _ p. 474. ]

[Footnote 226: F. C. Urquhart, "Legends of the Australian Aborigines, "_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xiv. (1885) p. 88. ]

[Footnote 227: E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 87. ]

[Footnote 228: Leviticus xix. 28; Deuteronomy xiv. 1. ]

[Footnote 229: W. Stanbridge, "Tribes in the Central Part of Victoria, "_Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London_, N. S. I. (1861) p. 298. ]

[Footnote 230: R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 105. ]

[Footnote 231: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 459. ]

[Footnote 232: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit_. P. 453. ]

[Footnote 233: P. Beveridge, in _Journal and Proceedings of the RoyalSociety of New South Wales_, xvii. (1883) pp. 28, 29. ]

[Footnote 234: A. W. Howitt, _op. Cit_. P. 466. ]

[Footnote 235: E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery intoCentral Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 347. ]

[Footnote 236: W. E. Roth, _Studies among the North-West-CentralQueensland Aborigines_ (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 164; compare p. 165. ]

[Footnote 237: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 500. ]

[Footnote 238: Spencer and Gillen, _op. Cit. _ p. 510. ]

[Footnote 239: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 516-552. ]

[Footnote 240: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes_, p. 510. ]

[Footnote 241: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, p. 507. ]

[Footnote 242: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes_, p. 511. ]

[Footnote 243: F. Bonney, "On some Customs of the Aborigines of theRiver Darling, " _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xiii. (1884)pp. 134 _sq. _]

[Footnote 244: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 507, 509 _sq. _]

[Footnote 245: (Sir) G. Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions ofDiscovery_, ii. 332, quoting Mr. Bussel. ]

[Footnote 246: Scholiast on Pindar, _Olymp. _ i. 146. ]

[Footnote 247: Homer, _Odyssey_, xi. 23 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 248: _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 91 _sq. _]

[Footnote 249: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 62. ]

[Footnote 250: R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 108. ]

[Footnote 251: J. F. Mann, "Notes on the Aborigines of Australia, "_Proceedings of the Geographical Society of Australasia_, i. (Sydney, 1885) p. 48. ]

[Footnote 252: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. 506. ]

[Footnote 253: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, p. 512. ]

[Footnote 254: R. Sutherland Rattray, _Some Folk-lore Stories and Songsin Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), pp. 99-101, 182. ]

[Footnote 255: F. Fawcett, "The Kondayamkottai Maravars, a DravidianTribe of Tinnevelly, Southern India, " _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, xxxiii. (1903) p. 64; Captain Wolsley Haig, "Notes on theRangari Caste in Barar, " _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, lxx. Part iii. (1901) p. 8; E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of SouthernIndia_ (Madras, 1909), iv. 226 (as to the Lambadis), vi. 244 (as to theRaniyavas); compare _id. _, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_(Madras, 1906), p. 155. ]

[Footnote 256: E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 207. ]

[Footnote 257: L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, _The Cochin Tribes andCastes_ (Madras, 1909-1912), ii. 91, 112, 157, 360, 378. ]

[Footnote 258: _The Grihya Sutras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part i. P. 355 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. Xxix. ). Compare W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896), i. 245. ]

[Footnote 259: Ch. A. Sherring, _Western Tibet and the BritishBorderland_ (London, 1906), pp. 123 _sq. _]

[Footnote 260: P. N. Bose, "Chhattisgar, " _Journal of the AsiaticSociety of Bengal_, lix. , Part i. (1891) p. 290. ]

[Footnote 261: E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 205. ]

[Footnote 262: S. Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, 1877), p. 383. ]

[Footnote 263: Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, _Reise in das InnereNord-America_ (Coblenz, 1839-1841), ii. 235. ]

[Footnote 264: T. De Pauly, _Description Ethnographique des Peuples dela Russie, Peuples de l'Amérique Russe_ (St. Petersburg, 1862), p. 13. ]

[Footnote 265: E. Seler, _Altmexikanische Studien_, ii. (Berlin, 1899)p. 42 (_Veröffentlichungen aus dem Königlichen Museum für Völkerkunde_, vi. 2/4). ]

[Footnote 266: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 497; _id. _, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 506. ]

[Footnote 267: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 503-508. The name of the final mourning ceremony among the Arunta is_urpmilchima_. ]

[Footnote 268: _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition (London, 1900), i. 434_sq. _]

[Footnote 269: A. Biet, _Voyage de la France Equinoxiale en l'Isle deCayenne_ (Paris, 1664), p. 392. ]

[Footnote 270: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 505 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 271: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 506-508. ]

[Footnote 272: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, p. 530. ]

[Footnote 273: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of CentralAustralia_, pp. 530-543. ]

LECTURE VIII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF THE TORRES STRAITSISLANDS

[Sidenote: The Islanders of Torres Straits. The CambridgeAnthropological Expedition to Torres Straits. ]

In the last lecture I concluded my account of the belief in immortalityand worship of the dead, or rather of the elements out of which such aworship might have grown, among the aborigines of Australia. To-day wepass to the consideration of a different people, the islanders of TorresStraits. As you may know, Torres Straits are the broad channel whichdivides Australia on the south from the great island of New Guinea onthe north. The small islands which are scattered over the strait fallroughly into two groups, a Western and an Eastern, of which the easternis at once the more isolated and the more fertile. In appearance, character, and customs the inhabitants of all these islands belong tothe Papuan family, which inhabits the western half of New Guinea, but inrespect of language there is a marked difference between the natives ofthe two groups; for while the speech of the Western Islanders is akin tothat of the Australians, the speech of the Eastern Islanders is akin tothat of the Papuans of New Guinea. The conclusion to be drawn from thesefacts appears to be that the Western Islands of Torres Straits wereformerly inhabited by aborigines of the Australian family, and that at alater time they were occupied by immigrants from New Guinea, who adoptedthe language of the aboriginal inhabitants, but gradually extinguishedthe aboriginal type and character either by peaceful absorption or byconquest and extermination. [274] Hence the Western Islanders of TorresStraits form a transition both geographically and ethnographicallybetween the aborigines of Australia on the one side and the aboriginesof New Guinea on the other side. Accordingly in our survey of the beliefin immortality among the lower races we may appropriately consider theIslanders of Torres Straits immediately after the aborigines ofAustralia and before we pass onward to other and more distant races. These Islanders have a special claim on the attention of a Cambridgelecturer, since almost all the exact knowledge we possess of them we oweto the exertions of Cambridge anthropologists and especially to Dr. A. C. Haddon, who on his first visit to the islands in 1888 perceived theurgent importance of procuring an accurate record of the old beliefs andcustoms of the natives before it was too late, and who never rested tillthat record was obtained, as it happily has been, first by his ownunaided researches in the islands, and afterwards by the unitedresearches of a band of competent enquirers. In the history ofanthropology the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits in 1898 willalways hold an honourable place, to the credit of the University whichpromoted it and especially to that of the zealous and devotedinvestigator who planned, organised, and carried it to a successfulconclusion. Practically all that I shall have to tell you as to thebeliefs and practices of the Torres Straits Islanders is derived fromthe accurate and laborious researches of Dr. Haddon and his colleagues. 

[Sidenote: Social culture of the Torres Straits Islanders. ]

While the natives of Torres Straits are, or were at the time of theirdiscovery, in the condition which we call savagery, they stand on a farhigher level of social and intellectual culture than the rude aboriginesof Australia. To indicate roughly the degree of advance we need only saythat, whereas the Australians are nomadic hunters and fishers, entirelyignorant of agriculture, and destitute to a great extent not only ofhouses but even of clothes, the natives of Torres Straits live insettled villages and diligently till the soil, raising a variety ofcrops, such as yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, sugar-cane, andtobacco. [275] Of the two groups of islands the eastern is the morefertile and the inhabitants are more addicted to agriculture than arethe natives of the western islands, who, as a consequence of the greaterbarrenness of the soil, have to eke out their subsistence to aconsiderable extent by fishing. [276] And there is other evidence to shewthat the Eastern Islanders have attained to a somewhat higher stage ofsocial evolution than their Western brethren;[277] the more favourablenatural conditions under which they live may possibly have contributedto raise the general level of culture. One of the most markeddistinctions in this respect between the inhabitants of the two groupsis that, whereas a regular system of totemism with its characteristicfeatures prevails among the Western Islanders, no such system nor evenany very clear evidence of its former existence is to be found among theEastern Islanders, whether it be that they never had it or, what is morelikely, that they once had but have lost it. [278]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Torres Straits Islanders in the existence ofthe human spirit after death. ]

On the other hand, so far as regards our immediate subject, the beliefin immortality and the worship of the dead, a general resemblance may betraced between the creed and customs of the Eastern and Western tribes. Both of them, like the Australian aborigines, firmly believe in theexistence of the human spirit after death, but unlike the Australiansthey seem to have no idea that the souls of the departed are ever bornagain into the world; the doctrine of reincarnation, so widespread amongthe natives of Australia, appears to have no place in the creed of theirnear neighbours the Torres Straits Islanders, whose dead, like our own, though they may haunt the living for a time, are thought to depart atlast to a distant spirit-land and to return no more. At the same timeneither in the one group nor in the other is there any clear evidence ofwhat may be called a worship of the dead in the strict sense of theword, unless we except the cults of certain more or less mythicalheroes. On this point the testimony of Dr. Haddon is definite as to theWestern Islanders. He says: "In no case have I obtained in the WesternIslands an indication of anything approaching a worship of deceasedpersons ancestral or otherwise, with the exception of the heroes shortlyto be mentioned; neither is there any suggestion that their ownancestors have been in any way apotheosized. "[279]

[Sidenote: Fear of the ghosts of the recently departed. ]

But if these savages have not, with the possible exception of the cultof certain heroes, any regular worship of the dead, they certainly havethe germ out of which such a worship might be developed, and that is afirm belief in ghosts and in the mischief which they may do to theliving. The word for a ghost is _mari_ in the West and _mar_ in theEast: it means also a shadow or reflection, [280] which seems to shewthat these savages, like many others, have derived their notion of thehuman soul from the observation of shadows and reflections cast by thebody on the earth or on water. Further, the Western Islanders appear todistinguish the ghosts of the recently departed (_mari_) from thespirits of those who have been longer dead, which they call_markai_;[281] and if we accept this distinction "we may assert, "according to Dr. Haddon, "that the Torres Straits Islanders feared theghosts but believed in the general friendly disposition of the spiritsof the departed. "[282] Similarly we saw that the Australian aboriginesregard with fear the ghosts of those who have just died, while they areeither indifferent to the spirits of those who have died many years agoor even look upon them as beings of higher powers than theirdescendants, whom they can benefit in various ways. This sharpdistinction between the spirits of the dead, according to the date atwhich they died, is widespread, perhaps universal among mankind. Howevertruly the dead were loved in their lifetime, however bitterly they weremourned at their death, no sooner have they passed beyond our ken thanthe thought of their ghosts seems to inspire the generality of mankindwith an instinctive fear and horror, as if the character of even thebest friends and nearest relations underwent a radical change for theworse as soon as they had shuffled off the mortal coil. But amongsavages this belief in the moral deterioration of ghosts is certainlymuch more marked than among civilised races. Ghosts are dreaded both bythe Western and the Eastern tribes of Torres Straits. Thus in Mabuiag, one of the Western Islands, the corpse was carried out of camp feetforemost, else it was thought that the ghost would return and troublethe survivors. Further, when the body had been laid upon a stage orplatform on clear level ground away from the dwelling, the remains ofany food and water of which the deceased might have been partaking inhis last moments were carried out and placed beside the corpse lest theghost should come back to fetch them for himself, to the annoyance andterror of his relations. This is the reason actually alleged by thenatives for what otherwise might have been interpreted as a delicatemark of affection and thoughtful care for the comfort of the departed. If next morning the food was found scattered, the people said that theghost was angry and had thrown it about. [283] Further, on the day of thedeath the mourners went into the gardens, slashed at the taro, knockeddown coco-nuts, pulled up sweet potatoes, and destroyed bananas. We aretold that "the food was destroyed for the sake of the dead man, it was'like good-bye. '"[284] We may suspect that the real motive for thedestruction was the same as that for laying food and water beside thecorpse, namely, a wish to give the ghost no excuse for returning tohaunt and pester his surviving relatives. How could he have the heart toreturn to the desolated garden which in his lifetime it had been hispride and joy to cultivate?

[Sidenote: Fear of the ghosts of the recently departed among the MurrayIslanders. ]

In Murray Island, also, which belongs to the Eastern group, the ghost ofa recently deceased person is much dreaded; it is supposed to haunt theneighbourhood for two or three months, and the elaborate funeralceremonies which these savages perform appear to be based on this beliefand to be intended, in fact, to dismiss the ghost from the land of theliving, where he is a very unwelcome visitor, to his proper place in theland of the dead. [285] "The Murray Islanders, " says Dr. Haddon, "performas many as possible of the necessary ceremonies in order that the ghostof the deceased might not feel slighted, for otherwise it was sure tobring trouble on the relatives by causing strong winds to destroy theirgardens and break down their houses. "[286] These islanders still believethat a ghost may feel resentment when his children are neglected orwronged, or when his lands or goods are appropriated by persons who haveno claim to them. And this fear of the wrath of the ghost, Dr. Haddontells us, no doubt in past times acted as a wholesome deterrent onevil-doers and helped to keep the people from crime, though now-a-daysthey look rather to the law than to ghosts for the protection of theirrights and the avenging of their wrongs. [287] Yet here, as in so manyplaces, it would seem that superstition has proved a useful crutch onwhich morality can lean until it is strong enough to walk alone. In theabsence of the police the guardianship of law and morality may beprovisionally entrusted to ghosts, who, if they are too fickle anduncertain in their temper to make ideal constables, are at least betterthan nothing. With this exception it does not appear that the moral codeof the Torres Straits Islanders derived any support or sanction fromtheir religion. No appeal was made by them to totems, ancestors, orheroes; no punishment was looked for from these quarters for anyinfringement of the rules and restraints which hold societytogether. [288]

[Sidenote: The island home of the dead. ]

The land of the dead to which the ghosts finally depart is, in theopinion of the Torres Straits Islanders, a mythical island in the farwest or rather north-west. The Western Islanders name it Kibu; theEastern Islanders call it Boigu. The name Kibu means "sundown. " It isnatural enough that islanders should place the home of the dead in somefar island of the sea to which no canoe of living men has ever sailed, and it is equally natural that the fabulous island should lie towestward where the sun goes down; for it seems to be a common thoughtthat the souls of the dead are attracted by the great luminary, likemoths by a candle, and follow him when he sinks in radiant glory intothe sea. To take a single example, in the Maram district of Assam it isforbidden to build houses facing westward, because that is the directionin which the spirits of the dead go to their long home. [289] But theTorres Straits Islanders have a special reason, as Dr. Haddon has wellpointed out, for thinking that the home of the dead is away in thenorth-west; and the reason is that in these latitudes the trade windblows steady and strong from the south-east for seven or eight months ofthe year; so that for the most part the spirits have only to letthemselves go and the wind will sweep them away on its pinions to theirplace of rest. How could the poor fluttering things beat up to windwardin the teeth of the blast?[290]

[Sidenote: Elaborate funeral ceremonies observed by the Torres StraitsIslanders. ]

The funeral ceremonies observed by the Torres Straits Islanders werenumerous and elaborate, and they present some features of specialinterest. They succeeded each other at intervals, sometimes of months, and amongst the Eastern Islanders in particular there were so many ofthem that, were it not that the bodies of the very young and the veryold were treated less ceremoniously, the living would have beenperpetually occupied in celebrating the obsequies of the dead. [291] Theobsequies differed somewhat from each other in the East and the West, but they had two characteristics in common: first, the skulls of thedead were commonly preserved apart from the bodies and were consulted asoracles; and, second, the ghosts of the recently deceased wererepresented in dramatic ceremonies by masked men, who mimicked the gaitand gestures of the departed and were thought by the women and childrento be the very ghosts themselves. But in details there were a good manyvariations between the practice of the Eastern and the WesternIslanders. We will begin with the customs of the Western Islanders. 

[Sidenote: Funeral ceremonies observed by the Western Islanders. Removaland preservation of the skull. Skulls used in divination. ]

When a death had taken place, the corpse was carried out of the houseand set on a staging supported by four forked posts and covered by aroof of mats. The office of attending to the body devolved properly onthe brothers-in-law (_imi_) of the deceased, who, while they wereengaged in the duties of the office, bore the special title of _mariget_or "ghost-hand. " It deserves to be noticed that these men were always ofa different totem from the deceased; for if the dead person was a man, the _mariget_ were his wife's brothers and therefore had the same totemas the dead man's wife, which, on account of the law of exogamy, alwaysdiffered from the totem of her husband. And if the dead person was awoman, the _mariget_ were her husband's brothers and therefore had histotem, which necessarily differed from hers. When they had dischargedthe preliminary duties to the corpse, the brothers-in-law went andinformed the relations and friends. This they did not in words but by aprescribed pantomime. For example, if the deceased had had the crocodilefor his totem, they imitated the ungainly gait of crocodiles waddlingand resting, if the deceased had the snake for his totem, they in likemanner mimicked the crawling of a snake. The relations then paintedtheir bodies with white coral mud, cut their hair, plastered mud overtheir heads, and cut off their ear ornaments or severed the distendedlobe of the ear as a sign of mourning. Then, armed with bows and arrows, they came out to the stage where the corpse was lying and let fly arrowsat the men who were in attendance on it, that is, at the brothers-in-lawof the deceased, who warded off the shafts as best they could. [292] Themeaning of this sham attack on the men who were discharging the lastoffices of respect to the dead comes out clearly in another ceremonywhich was performed some time afterwards, as we shall see presently. Forfive or six days the corpse remained on the platform or bier watched bythe brothers-in-law, who had to prevent certain large lizards fromdevouring it and to frighten away any prowling ghosts that might belured to the spot by the stench. After the lapse of several days therelations returned to the body, mourned, and beat the roof of the bier, while they raised a shout to drive off any part of the dead man's spiritthat might be lingering about his mouldering remains. The reason fordoing so was, that the time had now arrived for cutting off the head ofthe corpse, and they thought that the head would not come off easily ifthe man's spirit were still in the body; he might reasonably be expectedto hold on tight to it and not to resign, without a struggle, sovaluable a part of his person. When the poor ghost had thus been chasedaway with shouts and blows, the principal brother-in-law came forwardand performed the amputation by sawing off the head. Having done so, heusually placed it in a nest of termites or white ants in order that theinsects might pick it clean; but sometimes for the same purpose hedeposited it in a creek. When it was thoroughly clean, the grinningwhite skull was painted red all over and placed in a decorated basket. Then followed the ceremony of formally handing over this relic of thedead to the relations. The brothers-in-law, who had been in attendanceon the body, painted themselves black all over, covered their heads withleaves, and walked in solemn procession, headed by the chiefbrother-in-law, who carried the skull in the basket. Meantime the malerelatives were awaiting them, seated on a large mat in the ceremonialground, while the women grouped themselves in the background. As theprocession of men approached bearing the skull, the mourners shot arrowsover their heads as a sign of anger at them for having decapitated theirrelation. But this was a mere pretence, probably intended to soothe andflatter the angry ghost: the arrows flew over the men without hurtingthem. [293] Similarly in ancient Egypt the man who cut open a corpse forembalmment had no sooner done his office than he fled precipitately, pursued by the relations with stones and curses, because he had woundedand mangled the body of their kinsman. [294] Sometimes the skull was madeup to resemble the head of a living man: an artificial nose of wood andbeeswax supplied the place of a nose of flesh; pearl-shells wereinserted in the empty eye-balls; and any teeth that might be missingwere represented by pieces of wood, while the lower jaw was lashedfirmly to the cranium. [295] Whether thus decorated or not, the skulls ofthe dead were preserved and used in divination. Whenever a skull was tobe thus consulted, it was first cleaned, repainted, and either anointedwith certain plants or placed upon them. Then the enquirer enjoined theskull to speak the truth, and placing it on his pillow at night went tosleep. The dream which he dreamed that night was the answer of theskull, which spoke with a clappering noise like that of teeth chatteringtogether. When people went on voyages, they used to take a diviningskull with them in the stern of the canoe. [296]

[Sidenote: Great death-dance of the Western Islanders. The deadpersonated by masked actors. ]

The great funeral ceremony, or rather death-dance, of the WesternIslanders took place in the island of Pulu. When the time came for it, afew men would meet and make the necessary preparations. The ceremony wasalways performed on the sacred or ceremonial ground (_kwod_), and thefirst thing to do was to enclose this ground, for the sake of privacy, with a screen of mats hung on a framework of wood and bamboos. When thescreen had been erected, the drums which were to be used by theorchestra were placed in position beside it. Then the relations weresummoned to attend the performance. The ceremony might be performed fora number of recently deceased people at once, and it varied inimportance and elaboration according to the importance and the number ofthe deceased whose obsequies were being celebrated. The chiefdifferences were in the number of the performers and the greater or lessdisplay of scenic apparatus. The head-dresses or leafy masks worn by theactors in the sacred drama were made secretly in the bush; no woman oruninitiated man might witness the operation. When all was ready, and thepeople were assembled, the men being stationed in front and the womenand children in the background, the disguised actors appeared on thescene and played the part of the dead, each one of them mimicking thegait and actions of the particular man or woman whom he personated; forall the parts were played by men, no woman might act in theseceremonies. The order in which the various ghosts were to appear on thescene was arranged beforehand; so that when the actors came forward frombehind the screen, the spectators knew which of the dead they weresupposed to have before them. The performers usually danced in pairs, and vanished behind the screen when their dance was finished. Thus onepair would follow another till the play was over. Besides the actors whoplayed the serious and solemn part of the dead, there was usually aclown who skipped about and cut capers, tumbling down and getting upagain, to make the spectators laugh and so to relieve the strain ontheir emotions, which were deeply stirred by this dance of death. Thebeat of the drums proclaimed that the sacred drama was at an end. Thenfollowed a great feast, at which special portions of food were assignedby the relatives of the deceased to the actors who had personatedthem. [297]

[Sidenote: Intention of the ceremonies. ]

As to the intention of these curious dramatic performances we have novery definite information. Dr. Haddon says: "The idea evidently was toconvey to the mourners the assurance that the ghost was alive and thatin the person of the dancer he visited his friends; the assurance of hislife after death comforted the bereaved ones. "[298]

[Sidenote: Funeral ceremonies observed by the Eastern Islanders. Thesoul of the dead carried away by a masked actor. ]

In the Eastern Islands of Torres Straits the funeral ceremonies seem tohave been even more numerous and elaborate. The body was at first laidon the ground on a mat outside the house, if the weather were fine. There friends wept and wailed over it, the nearest relations, such asthe wife and mother, sitting at the head of the corpse. About an hourafter the sun had set, the drummers and singers arrived. All night thedrums beat and the people sang, but just as the dawn was breaking thewild music died away into silence. The wants of the living were nowattended to: the assembled people breakfasted on green coco-nuts; andthen, about an hour after sunrise, they withdrew from the body and tookup a position a little further off to witness the next act of the dramaof death. The drums now struck up again in quicker time to herald theapproach of an actor, who could be heard, but not seen, shaking hisrattle in the adjoining forest. Faster and faster beat the drums, louderand louder rose the singing, till the spectators were wound up to apitch of excitement bordering on frenzy. Then at last a strange figureburst from the forest and came skipping and posturing towards thecorpse. It was Terer, a spirit or mythical being who had come to fetchthe soul of the departed and to bear it far away to its place of rest inthe island beyond the sea. On his head he wore a wreath of leaves: amask made of the mid-ribs of coco-nut leaves or of croton leaves hid hisface: a long feather of the white tern nodded on his brow; and a mantleof green coco-nut leaves concealed his body from the shoulders to theknees. His arms were painted red: round his neck he wore a crescent ofpearl-shell: in his left hand he carried a bow and arrows, and in hismouth a piece of wood, to which were affixed two rings of green coco-nutleaf. Thus attired he skipt forwards, rattling a bunch of nuts in hisright hand, bending his head now to one side and now to another, swayinghis body backwards and forwards, but always keeping time to the measuredbeat of the drums. At last, after a series of rapid jumps from one footto the other, he ended his dance, and turning round fled away westwardalong the beach. He had taken the soul of the dead and was carrying itaway to the spirit-land. The excitement of the women now rose to thehighest pitch. They screamed and jumped from the ground raising theirarms in air high above their heads. Shrieking and wailing all pursuedthe retreating figure along the beach, the mother or widow of the deadman casting herself again and again prostrate on the sand and throwingit in handfuls over her head. Among the pursuers was another masked man, who represented Aukem, the mother of Terer. She, or rather he, wasdressed in dried banana leaves: long tufts of grass hung from her headover her face and shoulders; and in her mouth she carried a lightedbundle of dry coco-nut fibre, which emitted clouds of smoke. With anunsteady rickety gait the beldame hobbled after her rapidly retreatingson, who turned round from time to time, skipping and posturingderisively as if to taunt her, and then hurrying away again westward. Thus the two quaint figures retreated further and further, he in frontand she behind, till they were lost to view. But still the drumscontinued to beat and the singers to chant their wild song, when nothingwas to be seen but the deserted beach with the sky and the driftingclouds above and the white waves breaking on the strand. Meantime thetwo actors in the sacred drama made their way westward till theirprogress was arrested by the sea. They plunged into it and swimmingwestward unloosed their leafy envelopes and let them float away to thespirit-land in the far island beyond the rolling waters. But the menthemselves swam back to the beach, resumed the dress of ordinarymortals, and quietly mingled with the assembly of mourners. [299]

[Sidenote: Personation of ghosts by masked men. ]

Such was the first act of the drama. The second followed immediatelyabout ten o'clock in the morning. The actors in it were twenty or thirtymen disguised as ghosts or spirits of the dead (_zera markai_). Theirbodies were blackened from the neck to the ankles, but the lower part oftheir faces and their feet were dyed bright red, and a red triangle waspainted on the front of their bodies. They wore head-dresses of grasswith long projecting ribs of coco-nut leaves, and a long tail of grassbehind reaching down to the level of the knees. In their hands they heldlong ribs of coco-nut leaf. They were preceded by a curious figurecalled _pager_, a man covered from head to foot with dry grass and deadbanana leaves, who sidled along with an unsteady rolling gait in azigzag course, keeping his head bowed, his red-painted hands clasped infront of his face, and his elbows sticking out from both sides of hisbody. In spite of his erratic course and curious mode of progression hedrew away from the troop of ghosts behind him and came on towards thespectators, jerking his head from side to side, his hands shaking, andwailing as he went. Behind him marched the ghosts, with their handscrossed behind their backs and their faces looking out to sea. When theydrew near to the orchestra, who were singing and drumming away, theyhalted and formed in two lines facing the spectators. They now allassumed the familiar attitude of a fencer on guard, one foot and armadvanced, the other foot and arm drawn back, and lunged to right andleft as if they were stabbing something with the long ribs of thecoco-nut leaves which they held in their hands. This manoeuvre theyrepeated several times, the orchestra playing all the time. Then theyretreated into the forest, but only to march out again, form in line, stand on guard, and lunge again and again at the invisible foe. Thisappears to have been the whole of the second act of the drama. Noexplanation of it is given. We can only conjecture that the band of men, who seem from their name (_zera markai_) to have represented the ghostsor spirits of the dead, came to inform the living that the departedbrother or sister had joined the majority, and that any attempt torescue him or her would be vain. That perhaps was the meaning of thesolemn pantomime of the lines of actors standing on guard and lungingagain and again towards the spectators. But I must acknowledge that thisis a mere conjecture of my own. [300]

[Sidenote: Blood and hair offered to the dead. ]

Be that as it may, when this act of the drama was over, the mournerstook up the body and with weeping and wailing laid it on a woodenframework resting on four posts at a little distance from the house ofthe deceased. Youths who had lately been initiated, and girls who hadattained to puberty, now had the lobes of their ears cut. The bloodstreamed down over their faces and bodies and was allowed to drip on thefeet of the corpse as a mark of pity or sorrow. [301] The other relativescut their hair and left the shorn locks in a heap under the body. Bloodand hair were probably regarded as offerings made to the departedkinsman or kinswoman. We saw that the Australian aborigines in likemanner cut themselves and allow the blood to drip on the corpse; andthey also offer their hair to the dead, cutting off parts of theirbeards, singeing them, and throwing them on the corpse. [302] Havingplaced the body on the stage and deposited their offerings of hair underit, the relatives took some large yams, cut them in pieces, and laid thepieces beside the body in order to serve as food for the ghost, who wassupposed to eat it at night. [303] This notion seems inconsistent withthe belief that the soul of the departed had already been carried off toBoigu, the island of the dead; but consistency in such matters is aslittle to be looked for among savages as among ourselves. 

[Sidenote: Mummification of the corpse. ]

When the body had remained a few days on the stage in the open air, steps were taken to convert it into a mummy. For this purpose it waslaid in a small canoe manned by some young people of the same sex as thedeceased. They paddled it across the lagoon to the reef and there rubbedoff the skin, extracted the bowels from the abdomen and the brain fromthe skull, and having sewed up the hole in the abdomen and thrown thebowels into the sea, they brought the remains back to land and lashedthem to the wooden framework with string, while they fixed a small stickto the lower jaw to keep it from drooping. The framework with itsghastly burden was fastened vertically to two posts behind the house, where it was concealed from public view by a screen of coco-nut leaves. Holes were pricked with an arrow between the fingers and toes to allowthe juices of decomposition to escape, and a fire was kindled and keptburning under the stage to dry up the body. [304]

[Sidenote: Garb of mourners. Cuttings for the dead. ]

About ten days after the death a feast of bananas, yams, and germinatingcoco-nuts was partaken of by the relations and friends, and portionswere distributed to the assembled company, who carried them home inbaskets. It was on this occasion that kinsfolk and friends assumed thegarb of mourners. Their faces and bodies were smeared with a mixture ofgreyish earth and water: the ashes of a wood fire were strewn on theirheads; and fringes of sago leaves were fastened on their arms and legs. A widow wore besides a special petticoat made of the inner bark of thefig-tree; the ends of it were passed between her legs and tucked upbefore and behind. She had to leave her hair unshorn during the wholeperiod of her widowhood; and in time it grew into a huge mop of a lightyellow colour in consequence of the ashes with which it was smeared. This coating of ashes, as well as the grey paint on her face and body, she was expected to renew from time to time. [305] It was also on theoccasion of this feast, on or about the tenth day after death, thatyoung kinsfolk of the deceased had certain patterns cut in their fleshby a sharp shell. The persons so operated on were young adults of bothsexes nearly related to the dead man or woman. Women generally operatedon women and men on men. The patients were held down during theoperation, which was painful, and they sometimes fainted under it. Thepatterns were first drawn on the skin in red paint and then cut in withthe shell. They varied a good deal in shape. Some consisted ofarrangements of lines and scrolls; a favourite one, which was onlycarved on women, represented a centipede. The blood which flowed fromthe wounds was allowed to drip on the corpse, thus forming a sacrificeor tribute to the dead. [306]

[Sidenote: The Dance of Death. The nocturnal dance. ]

When the body had remained some time, perhaps four or six months, on thescaffold, and the process of mummification was far advanced, a dance ofdeath was held to celebrate the final departure of the spirit for itslong home. Several men, seldom exceeding four in number, were chosen toact the part of ghosts, including the ghost of him or her in whosehonour the performance was specially held. Further, about a dozen menwere selected to form a sort of chorus; their business was to act asintermediaries between the living and the dead, summoning up the shades, serving as their messengers, and informing the people of their presence. The costume of the ghosts was simple, consisting of nothing but ahead-dress and shoulder-band of leaves. The chorus, if we may call themso, wore girdles of leaves round their waists and wreaths of leaves ontheir heads. When darkness had fallen, the first act of the drama wasplayed. The chorus stood in line opposite the mummy. Beyond them stoodor sat the drummers, and beyond them again the audience was crowded onthe beach, the women standing furthest from the mummy and nearest to thesea. The drummers now struck up, chanting at the same time to the beatof the drums. This was the overture. Then a shrill whistle in the forestannounced the approach of a ghost. The subdued excitement among thespectators, especially among the women, was intense. Meantime thechorus, holding each other's hands, advanced sidelong towards the mummywith strange gestures, the hollow thud of their feet as they stamped onthe ground being supposed to be the tread of the ghosts. Thus theyadvanced to the red-painted mummy with its grinning mouth. Behind it bythis time stood one of the ghosts, and between him and the chorus adialogue ensued. "Whose ghost is there?" called out the chorus; and astrident voice answered from the darkness, "The ghost of so and so ishere. " At that the chorus retreated in the same order as they hadadvanced, and again the hollow thud of their feet sounded in the ears ofthe excited spectators as the tramp of the dead. On reaching thedrummers in their retreat the chorus called out some words of uncertainmeaning, which have been interpreted, "Spirit of so-and-so, away at sea, loved little. " At all events, the name of a dead person was pronounced, and at the sound the women, thrilled with excitement, leaped from theground, holding their hands aloft; then hurled themselves prone on thesand, throwing it over their heads and wailing. The drums now beatfaster and a wild weird chant rose into the air, then died away and allwas silent, except perhaps for the lapping of the waves on the sand orthe muffled thunder of the surf afar off on the barrier reef. Thus oneghost after another was summoned from the dusty dead and vanished againinto the darkness. When all had come and gone, the leader of the chorus, who kept himself invisible behind the screen save for a moment when hewas seen by the chorus to glide behind the mummy on its stage, blew awhistle and informed the spectators in a weird voice that all the ghoststhat had been summoned that night would appear before them in broad daylight on the morrow. With that the audience dispersed. But the men whohad played the parts of the ghosts came forward and sat down with thechorus and the drummers on mats beside the body. There they remainedsinging to the beat of the drums till the first faint streaks of dawnglimmered in the east. 

[Sidenote: The noonday dance. The ghosts represented by masked actors. ]

Next morning the men assembled beside the body to inspect the actors whowere to personate the ghosts, in order to make sure that they hadlearned their parts well and could mimick to the life the figure andgait of the particular dead persons whom they represented. By the timethat these preparations were complete, the morning had worn on to noon. The audience was already assembled on the beach and on the long stretchof sand left by the ebbing tide; for the hour of the drama was alwaysfixed at low water so as to allow ample space for the spectators tostand at a distance from the players, lest they should detect thefeatures of the living under the masks of the dead. All being ready, thedrummers marched in and took up their position just above the beach, facing the audience. The overture having been concluded, the first ghostwas seen to glide from the forest and come dancing towards the beach. Ifhe represented a woman, his costume was more elaborate than it had beenunder the shades of evening the night before. His whole body was paintedred. A petticoat of leaves encircled his waist: a mask of leaves, surmounted by tufts of cassowary and pigeon feathers, concealed hishead; and in his hands he carried brooms of coco-nut palm leaf. If hepersonated a man, he held a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other, and his costume was the usual dress of a dancer, with the addition of ahead-dress of leaves and feathers and a diamond-shaped ornament ofbamboo, which he held in his teeth and which entirely concealed hisfeatures. He approached dancing and mimicking the gestures of the personwhom he represented. At the sight the women wailed, and the widow wouldcry out, "That's my husband, " the mother would cry out, "That's my son. "Then suddenly the drummers would call out, "Ah! Ah! Ai! Ai!" at whichthe women would fall to the ground, while the dancer retreated into theforest. In this way one ghost after the other would make his appearance, play his part, and vanish. Occasionally two of them would appear anddance together. The women and children, we are told, really believedthat the actors were the ghosts of their dead kinsfolk. When the firstdancer had thus danced before the people, he advanced with the drummerstowards the framework on which the mummy was stretched, and there herepeated his dance before it. But the people were not allowed to witnessthis mystery; they remained wailing on the beach, for this was themoment at which the ghost of the dead man or woman was supposed to bedeparting for ever to the land of shades. [307]

[Sidenote: Preservation of the mummy. ]

Some days afterwards the mummy was affixed to a new framework of bambooand carried into the hut. In former times the huts were of a beehiveshape, and the framework which supported the mummy was fastened to thecentral post on which the roof rested. The body thus stood erect withinthe house. Its dried skin had been painted red. The empty orbits of theeyes had been filled with pieces of pearl-shell of the nautilus toimitate eyes, two round spots of black beeswax standing for the pupils. The ears were decorated with shreds of the sago-palm or with grey seeds. A frontlet of pearl-shell nautilus adorned the head, and a crescent ofpearl-shell the breast. In the darkness of the old-fashioned huts thebody looked like a living person. In course of time it became almostcompletely mummified and as light as if it were made of paper. Swingingto and fro with every breath of wind, it turned its gleaming eyes ateach movement of the head. The hut was now surrounded by posts and ropesto prevent the ghost from making his way into it and taking possessionof his old body. Ghosts were supposed to appear only at night, and itwas imagined that in the dark they would stumble against the posts andentangle themselves in the ropes, till in despair they desisted from theattempt to penetrate into the hut. In time the mummy mouldered away andfell to pieces. If the deceased was a male, the head was removed and awax model of it made and given to the brother, whether blood or tribalbrother, of the dead man. The head thus prepared or modelled in wax, with eyes of pearl-shell, was used in divination. The decaying remainsof the body were taken to the beach and placed on a platform supportedby four posts. That was their last resting-place. [308]

[Sidenote: General summary. Dramas of the dead. ]

To sum up the foregoing evidence, we may say that if the beliefs andpractices of the Torres Straits Islanders which I have described do notamount to a worship of the dead, they contain the elements out of whichsuch a worship might easily have been developed. The preservation of thebodies of the dead, or at least their skulls, in the houses, and theconsultation of them as oracles, prove that the spirits of the dead aresupposed to possess knowledge which may be of great use to the living;and the custom suggests that in other countries the images of the godsmay perhaps have been evolved out of the mummies of the dead. Further, the dramatic representation of the ghosts in a series of striking andimpressive performances indicates how a sacred and in time a seculardrama may elsewhere have grown out of a purely religious celebrationconcerned with the souls of the departed. In this connexion we arereminded of Professor Ridgeway's theory that ancient Greek tragedyoriginated in commemorative songs and dances performed at the tomb forthe purpose of pleasing and propitiating the ghost of the mightydead. [309] Yet the mortuary dramas of the Torres Straits Islanders canhardly be adduced to support that theory by analogy so long as we areignorant of the precise significance which the natives themselvesattached to these remarkable performances. There is no clear evidencethat the dramas were acted for the amusement and gratification of theghost rather than for the edification of the spectators. One importantact certainly represented, and might well be intended to facilitate, thefinal departure of the spirit of the deceased to the land of souls. Butthe means taken to effect that departure might be adopted in theinterests of the living quite as much as out of a tender regard for thewelfare of the dead, since the ghost of the recently departed iscommonly regarded with fear and aversion, and his surviving relationsresort to many expedients for the purpose of ridding themselves of hisunwelcome presence. 

[Footnote 274: S. H. Ray, in _Reports of the Cambridge AnthropologicalExpedition to Torres Straits_, iii. (Cambridge, 1907) pp. 509-511; A. C. Haddon, "The Religion of the Torres Straits Islanders, " _AnthropologicalEssays presented to E. B. Tyler_ (Oxford, 1907), p. 175. ]

[Footnote 275: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, iv. 92 _sqq. _, 144 _sqq. _, v. 346, vi. 207 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 276: A. C. Haddon, in _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor_, p. 186. ]

[Footnote 277: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 254 _sq. _]

[Footnote 278: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 254 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 279: A. C. Haddon, in _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor_, p. 181. ]

[Footnote 280: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 355 _sq. _, vi. 251; A. C. Haddon, in _Anthropological Essayspresented to E. B. Tylor_, p. 179. ]

[Footnote 281: For authorities see the references in the precedingnote. ]

[Footnote 282: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 253. ]

[Footnote 283: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 248, 249. ]

[Footnote 284: _Id. _, p. 250. ]

[Footnote 285: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 253; A. C. Haddon, in _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor_, p. 180. ]

[Footnote 286: A. C. Haddon, _l. C. _]

[Footnote 287: A. C. Haddon, _op. Cit. _ pp. 182 _sq. _; _CambridgeAnthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 127. ]

[Footnote 288: A. C. Haddon, _op. Cit. _ p. 183. ]

[Footnote 289: T. C. Hodson, _The Naga Tribes of Manipur_ (London, 1911), p. 43. ]

[Footnote 290: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 355 _sq. _, vi. 252. In the former passage Dr. Haddon seems toidentify Boigu with the island of that name off the south coast of NewGuinea; in the latter he prefers to regard it as mythical. ]

[Footnote 291: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 127. ]

[Footnote 292: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 248 _sq. _]

[Footnote 293: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 250 _sq. _]

[Footnote 294: Diodorus Siculus, i. 91. ]

[Footnote 295: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 258. ]

[Footnote 296: _Id. _, p. 362. ]

[Footnote 297: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 252-256. ]

[Footnote 298: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 256. ]

[Footnote 299: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 129-133. ]

[Footnote 300: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 133 _sq. _]

[Footnote 301: _Id. _, pp. 135, 154. ]

[Footnote 302: (Sir) George Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions ofDiscovery in North-West and Western Australia_ (London, 1841), ii. 335. ]

[Footnote 303: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 135. ]

[Footnote 304: _Op. Cit. _ p. 136. ]

[Footnote 305: _Op. Cit. _ pp. 138, 153, 157 _sq. _]

[Footnote 306: _Op. Cit. _ pp. 154 _sq. _]

[Footnote 307: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 139-141. ]

[Footnote 308: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 148 _sq. _ As to divination with skulls or waxen models, see _id. _, pp. 266 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 309: W. Ridgeway, _The Origin of Tragedy, with specialreference to the Greek Tragedians_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 26 _sqq. _]

LECTURE IX

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF BRITISH NEW GUINEA

[Sidenote: The two races of New Guinea, the Papuan and the Melanesian. ]

In my last lecture I dealt with the islanders of Torres Straits, andshewed that these savages firmly believe in the existence of the humansoul after death, and that if their beliefs and customs in this respectdo not always amount to an actual worship of the departed, they containat least the elements out of which such a worship might easily bedeveloped. To-day we pass from the small islands of Torres Straits tothe vast neighbouring island, almost continent, of New Guinea, thegreater part of which is inhabited by a race related by physical typeand language to the Torres Straits Islanders, and exhibitingapproximately the same level of social and intellectual culture. NewGuinea, roughly speaking, appears to be occupied by two different races, to which the names of Papuan and Melanesian are now given; and it is tothe Papuan race, not to the Melanesian, that the Torres StraitsIslanders are akin. The Papuans, a tall, dark-skinned, frizzly-hairedrace, inhabit apparently the greater part of New Guinea, including thewhole of the western and central portions of the island. TheMelanesians, a smaller, lighter-coloured, frizzly-haired race, inhabitthe long eastern peninsula, including the southern coast from about CapePossession eastward, [310] and tribes speaking a Melanesian language arealso settled about Finsch Harbour and Huon Gulf in German NewGuinea. [311] These Melanesians are most probably immigrants who havesettled in New Guinea from the north and east, where the great chain ofislands known as Melanesia stretches in an immense semicircle from NewIreland on the north to New Caledonia on the south-east. The natives ofthis chain of islands or series of archipelagoes are the trueMelanesians; their kinsmen in New Guinea have undergone admixture withthe Papuan aborigines, and accordingly should rather be calledPapuo-Melanesians than Melanesians simply. Their country appears to bewholly comprised within the limits of British and German New Guinea; sofar as I am aware, the vast area of Dutch New Guinea is inhabited solelyby tribes of the Papuan race. In respect of material culture both racesstand approximately on the same level: they live in settled villages, they practise agriculture, they engage in commerce, and they have afairly developed barbaric art. Thus they have made some progress in thedirection of civilisation; certainly they have far outstripped thewandering savages of Australia, who subsist entirely on the products ofthe chase and on the natural fruits of the earth. 

[Sidenote: Scantiness of our information as to the natives of NewGuinea. ]

But although the natives of New Guinea have now been under the rule ofEuropean powers, Britain, Germany, and Holland, for many years, weunfortunately possess little detailed information as to their mental andsocial condition. It is true that the members of the CambridgeAnthropological Expedition to Torres Straits visited some parts of thesouthern coasts of British New Guinea, and several years later, in 1904, Dr. Seligmann was able to devote somewhat more time to the investigationof the same region and has given us the results of his enquiries in avaluable book. But the time at his disposal did not suffice for athorough investigation of this large region; and accordingly hisinformation, eked out though it is by that of Protestant and Catholicmissionaries, still leaves us in the dark as to much which we shouldwish to know. Among the natives of British New Guinea our information isespecially defective in regard to the Papuans, who occupy the greaterpart of the possession, including the whole of the western region; forDr. Seligmann's book, which is the most detailed and systematic work yetpublished on the ethnology of British New Guinea, deals almostexclusively with the Melanesian portion of the population. Accordingly Ishall begin what I have to say on this subject with the Melanesian orrather Papuo-Melanesian tribes of south-eastern New Guinea. 

[Sidenote: The Motu, their beliefs and customs concerning the dead. ]

Amongst these people the best known are the Motu, a tribe of fishermenand potters, who live in and about Port Moresby in the Central Districtof British New Guinea. Their language conforms to the Melanesian type. They are immigrants, but the country from which they came isunknown. [312] In their opinion the spirits of the dead dwell in a happyland where parted friends meet again and never suffer hunger. They fish, hunt, and plant, and are just like living men, except that they have nonoses. When they first arrive in the mansions of the blest, they arelaid out to dry on a sort of gridiron over a slow fire in order to purgeaway the grossness of the body and make them ethereal and light, asspirits should be. Yet, oddly enough, though they have no noses theycannot enter the realms of bliss unless their noses were pierced intheir lifetime. For these savages bore holes in their noses and insertornaments, or what they regard as such, in the holes. The operation isperformed on children about the age of six years; and if children diebefore it has been performed on them, the parents will bore a hole inthe nose of the corpse in order that the spirit of the child may go tothe happy land. For if they omitted to do so, the poor ghost would haveto herd with other whole-nosed ghosts in a bad place called Tageani, where there is little food to eat and no betelnuts to chew. The spiritsof the dead are very powerful and visit bad people with theirdispleasure. Famine and scarcity of fish and game are attributed to theanger of the spirits. But they hearken to prayer and appear to theirfriends in dreams, sometimes condescending to give them directions fortheir guidance in time of trouble. [313]

[Sidenote: The Koita or Koitapu. ]

Side by side with the Motu live the Koita or Koitapu, who appear to bethe aboriginal inhabitants of the country and to belong to the Papuanstock. Their villages lie scattered for a distance of about forty milesalong the coast, from a point about seven miles south-east of PortMoresby to a point on Redscar Bay to the north-west of that settlement. They live on friendly terms with the Motu and have intermarried withthem for generations. The villages of the two tribes are usually builtnear to or even in direct continuity with each other. But while the Motuare mainly fishers and potters, the Koita are mainly tillers of thesoil, though they have learned some arts or adopted some customs fromtheir neighbours. They say to the Motu, "Yours is the sea, the canoes, the nets; ours the land and the wallaby. Give us fish for our flesh, andpottery for our yams and bananas. " The Motu look down upon the Koita, but fear their power of sorcery, and apply to them for help in sicknessand for the weather they happen to require; for they imagine that theKoita rule the elements and can make rain or sunshine, wind or calm bytheir magic. Thus, as in so many cases, the members of the immigrantrace confess their inability to understand and manage the gods orspirits of the land, and have recourse in time of need to the magic ofthe aboriginal inhabitants. While the Koita belong to the Papuan stockand speak a Papuan language, most of the men understand the Motu tongue, which is one of the Melanesian family. Altogether these two tribes, theKoita and the Motu, may be regarded as typical representatives of themixed race to which the name of Papuo-Melanesian is now given. [314]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Koita concerning the human soul. ]

The Koita believe that the human spirit or ghost, which they call _sua_, leaves the body at death and goes away to live with other ghosts on amountain called Idu. But they think that the spirit can quit the bodyand return to it during life; it goes away, for example, in dreams, andif a sleeper should unfortunately waken before his soul has had time toreturn, he will probably fall sick. Sneezing is a sign that the soul hasreturned to the body, and if a man does not sneeze for many weekstogether, his friends look on it as a grave symptom; his soul, theyimagine, must be a very long way off. [315] Moreover, a man's soul may beenticed from his body and detained by a demon or _tabu_, as the Koitacall it. Thus, when a man who has been out in the forest returns homeand shakes with fever, it is assumed that he has fallen down and beenrobbed of his soul by a demon. In order to recover that pricelesspossession, the sufferer and his friends repair to the exact spot in theforest where the supposed robbery was perpetrated. They take with them along bamboo with some valuable ornaments tied to it, and two men supportit horizontally over a pot which is filled with grass. A light is put tothe grass, and as it crackles and blazes a number of men standing roundthe pot strike it with stones till it breaks, whereat they all groan. Then the company returns to the village, and the sick man lies down inhis house with the bamboo and its ornaments hung over him. This issupposed to be all that is needed to effect a perfect cure; for thedemon has kindly accepted the soul of the ornaments and released thesoul of the sufferer, who ought to recover accordingly. [316]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Koita concerning the state of the dead. Alleged communications with the dead by means of mediums. ]

However, at death the soul goes away for good and all; at least thereappears to be no idea that it will ever return to life in the form of aninfant, as the souls of the Central Australian aborigines are supposedto do. All Koita ghosts live together on Mount Idu, and their life isvery like the one they led here on earth. There is no distinctionbetween the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked, the strongand the weak, the young and the old; they all fare alike in thespirit-land, with one exception. Like the Motu, the Koita are in thehabit of boring holes in their noses and inserting ornaments in theholes; and they think that if any person were so unfortunate as to beburied with his nose whole and entire, his ghost would have to go aboutin the other world with a creature like a slow-worm depending from hisnostrils on either side. Hence, when anybody dies before the operationof nose-boring has been performed on him or her, the friends take careto bore a hole in the nose of the corpse in order that the ghost may notappear disfigured among his fellows in dead man's land. There the ghostsdwell in houses, cultivate gardens, marry wives, and amuse themselvesjust as they did here on earth. They live a long time, but not for ever;for they grow weaker and weaker and at last die the second death, neverto revive again, not even as ghosts. The exact length of time they livein the spirit-land has not been accurately ascertained; but there seemsto be a notion that they survive only so long as their names and theirmemories survive among the living. When these are utterly forgotten, thepoor ghosts cease to exist. If that is so, it is obvious that the deaddepend for their continued existence upon the recollection of theliving; their names are in a sense their souls, so that oblivion of thename involves extinction of the soul. [317] But though the spirits of thedead go away to live for a time on Mount Idu, they often return to theirnative villages and haunt the place of their death. On these visits theyshew little benevolence or lovingkindness to their descendants. Theypunish any neglect in the performance of the funeral rites and anyinfringement of tribal customs, and the punishment takes the form ofsickness or of bad luck in hunting or fishing. This dread of the ghostcommonly leads the Koita to desert a house after a death and to let itfall into decay; but sometimes the widow, or in rare cases a brother orsister, will continue to inhabit the house of the deceased. Children whoplay near dwellings which have been deserted on account of death mayfall sick; and if people who are not members of the family partake offood which has been hung up in such houses, they also may sicken. It isin dreams that the ghosts usually appear to the survivors; butoccasionally they may be seen or at least felt by people in the wakingstate. Some years ago four Motuan girls persuaded many natives of PortMoresby that they could evoke the spirit of a youth named Tamasi, whohad died three years before. The mother and other sorrowing relatives ofthe deceased paid a high price to the principal medium, a young womannamed Mea, for an interview with the ghost. The meeting took place in ahouse by night. The relations and friends squatted on the ground inexpectation; and sure enough the ghost presented himself in the darknessand went round shaking hands most affably with the assembled company. However, a sceptic who happened to assist at this spiritual sitting, hadthe temerity to hold on tight to the proffered hand of the ghost, whileanother infidel assisted him to obtain a sight as well as a touch of thevanished hand by striking a light. It then turned out that the supposedapparition was no spirit but the medium Mea herself. She was broughtbefore a magistrate, who sentenced her to a short term of imprisonmentand relieved her of the property which she had amassed by the exerciseof her spiritual talents. [318] It is hardly for us, or at least for someof us, to cast stones at the efforts of ignorant savages to communicateby means of such intermediaries with their departed friends. Similarattempts have been made in our own country within our lifetime, and Ibelieve that they are still being made, in perfect good faith, byeducated ladies and gentlemen, who like their black brethren and sistersin the faith are sometimes made the dupes of designing knaves. If NewGuinea has its Meas, Europe has its Eusapias. Human credulity and vulgarimposture are much the same all the world over. 

[Sidenote: Fear of the dead. ]

The fear of the dead is strongly marked in some funeral customs whichare observed by the Roro-speaking tribes who occupy a territory at themouth of the St. Joseph river in British New Guinea. [319] When a deathtakes place, the female relations of the deceased lacerate their skulls, faces, breasts, bellies, arms, and legs with sharp shells, till theystream with blood and fall down exhausted. Moreover, a fire is kindledon the grave and kept up almost continually for months for the purpose, we are told, of warming the ghost. [320] These attentions might beinterpreted as marks of affection rather than of fear; but in othercustoms of these people the dread of the ghost is unmistakable. For whenthe corpse has been placed in the grave a near kinsman strokes it twicewith a branch from head to foot in order to drive away the dead man'sspirit; and in Yule Island, when the ghost has thus been brushed awayfrom the body, he is pursued by two men brandishing sticks and torchesfrom the village to the edge of the forest, where with a last curse theyhurl the sticks and torches after him. [321]

[Sidenote: Ghost of dead wife feared by widower. ]

Among these people the visits of ghosts, though frequent, are far fromwelcome, for all ghosts are supposed to be mischievous and to take nodelight but in injuring the living. Hence, for example, a widower inmourning goes about everywhere armed with an axe to defend himselfagainst the spirit of his dead wife, who might play him many an ill turnif she caught him defenceless and off his guard. And he is subject tomany curious restrictions and has to lead the life of an outcast fromsociety, apparently because people fear to come into contact with a manwhose steps are dogged by so dangerous a spirit. [322] This account ofthe terrors of ghosts we owe to a Catholic missionary. But according tothe information collected by Dr. Seligmann among these people the dreadinspired by the souls of the dead is not so absolute. He tells us, indeed, that ghosts are thought to make people ill by stealing theirsouls; that the natives fear to go alone outside the village in the darklest they should encounter a spectre; and that if too many quarrelsoccur among the women, the spirits of the dead may manifest theirdispleasure by visiting hunters and fishers with bad luck, so that itmay be necessary to conjure their souls out of the village. On the otherhand, it is said that if the ghosts abandoned a village altogether, theluck of the villagers would be gone, and if such a thing is supposed tohave happened, measures are taken to bring back the spirits of thedeparted to the old home. [323]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Mafulu concerning the dead. ]

Inland from the Roro-speaking tribes, among the mountains at the head ofthe St. Joseph River, there is a tribe known to their neighbours as theMafulu, though they call themselves Mambule. They speak a Papuanlanguage, but their physical characteristics are believed to indicate astrain of Negrito blood. [324] The Mafulu hold that at death the humanspirit leaves the body and becomes a malevolent ghost. Accordingly theydrive it away with shouts. It is supposed to go away to the tops of themountains there to become, according to its age, either a shimmeringlight on the ground or a large sort of fungus, which is found only onthe mountains. Hence natives who come across such a shimmering light orsuch a fungus are careful not to tread on it; much less would they eatthe fungus. However, in spite of their transformation into these things, the ghosts come down from the mountains and prowl about the villages andgardens seeking what they may devour, and as their intentions are alwaysevil their visits are dreaded by the people, who fill up the crevicesand openings, except the doors, of their houses at night in order toprevent the incursions of these unquiet spirits. When a mission stationwas founded in their country, the Mafulu were amazed that themissionaries should sleep alone in rooms with open doors and windows, through which the ghosts might enter. [325]

[Sidenote: Burial customs of the Mafulu. ]

Common people among the Mafulu are buried in shallow graves in thevillage, and pigs are killed at the funeral for the purpose of appeasingthe ghost. Mourners wear necklaces of string and smear their faces, sometimes also their bodies, with black, which they renew from time totime. Instead of wearing a necklace, a widow, widower, or other nearrelative may abstain during the period of mourning from eating afavourite food of the deceased. A woman who has lost a child, especiallya first-born or dearly loved child, will often amputate the first jointof one of her fingers with an adze; and she may repeat the amputation ifshe suffers another bereavement. A woman has been seen with three of herfingers mutilated in this fashion. [326] The corpses of chiefs, theirwives, and other members of their families are not buried in graves butlaid in rude coffins, which are then deposited either on rough platformsin the village or in the fork of a species of fig-tree. This sort oftree, called by the natives _gabi_, is specially used for such burials;one of them has been seen supporting no less than six coffins, one abovethe other. The Mafulu never cut down these trees, and in seeking a newsite for a village they will often choose a place where one of them isgrowing. So long as the corpse of a chief is rotting and stinking on theplatform or the tree, the village is deserted by the inhabitants; onlytwo men, relatives of the deceased, remain behind exposed to the stenchof the decaying body and the blood of the pigs which were slaughtered atthe funeral feast. When decomposition is complete, the people return tothe village. Should the coffin fall to the ground through the decay ofthe platform or the tree on which it rests, the people throw away allthe bones except the skull and the larger bones of the arms and legs;these they bury in a shallow grave under the platform, or put in a boxon a burial tree, or hang up in the chief's house. [327]

[Sidenote: Use made of the skulls and bones at a great festival. ]

The skulls and leg and arm bones of chiefs, their wives, and othermembers of their families, which have thus been preserved, play aprominent part in the great feasts which the inhabitants of a Mafuluvillage celebrate at intervals of perhaps fifteen or twenty years. Greatpreparations are made for such a celebration. A series of tall posts, one for each household, is erected in the open space which intervenesbetween the two rows of the village houses. Yams and taro are fastenedto the upper parts of the posts; and below them are hung in circles theskulls and arm and leg bones of dead chiefs, their wives, and kinsfolk, which have been preserved in the manner described. Any skulls and bonesthat remain over when all the posts have been thus decorated are placedon a platform, which has either served for the ordinary exposure of achief's corpse or has been specially erected for the purpose of thefestival. At a given moment of the ceremony the chief of the clan cutsdown the props which support the platform, so that the skulls and bonesroll on the ground. These are picked up and afterwards distributed, along with some of the skulls and bones from the posts, by the chief ofthe clan to the more important of the invited guests, who wear them asornaments on their arms in a great dance. None but certain of the maleguests take part in the dance; the villagers themselves merely look on. All the dancers are arrayed in full dancing costume, including heavyhead-dresses of feathers, and they carry drums and spears, sometimesalso clubs or adzes. The dance lasts the whole night. When it is over, the skulls and bones are hung up again on the tall posts. Afterwards thefruits and vegetables which have been collected in large quantities aredivided among the guests. On a subsequent morning a large number of pigsare killed, and certain of the hosts take some of the human bones fromthe posts and dip them in the blood which flows from the mouths of theslaughtered pigs. With these blood-stained bones they next touch theskulls and all the other bones on the posts, which include all theskulls and arm and leg bones of all the chiefs and members of theirfamilies and other prominent persons who have been buried in the villageor in any other village of the community since the last great feast washeld. These relics of mortality may afterwards be kept in the chief'shouse, or hung on a tree, or simply thrown away in the forest; but in nocase are they ever again used for purposes of ceremony. The slaughteredpigs are cut up and the portions distributed among the guests, who carrythem away for consumption in their own villages. [328]

[Sidenote: Trace of ancestor worship among the Mafulu. ]

This preservation of the skulls and bones of chiefs and other notablesfor years, and the dipping of them in the blood of pigs at a greatfestival, must apparently be designed to propitiate or influence in someway the ghosts of the persons to whom the skulls and bones belonged intheir lifetime. But Mr. R. W. Williamson, to whom we are indebted forthe description of this interesting ceremony, was not able to detect anyother clear indications of ancestor worship among the people. [329]

[Sidenote: Worship of the dead among the natives of the Aroma district. ]

However, a real worship of the dead, or something approaching to it, isreported to exist among some of the natives of the Aroma district inBritish New Guinea. Each family is said to have a sacred place, whitherthey carry offerings for the spirits of dead ancestors, whom theyterribly fear. Sickness in the family, death, famine, scarcity of fish, and so forth, are all set down to the anger of these dreadful beings, who must accordingly be propitiated. On certain occasions the help ofthe spirits is especially invoked and their favour wooed by means ofofferings. Thus, when a house is being built and the central post hasbeen erected, sacrifices of wallaby, fish, and bananas are presented tothe souls of the dead, and a prayer is put up that they will be pleasedto keep the house always full of food and to prevent it from fallingdown in stormy weather. Again, when the natives begin to plant theirgardens, they first take a bunch of bananas and sugar-cane and standingin the middle of the garden call over the names of dead members of thefamily, adding, "There is your food, your bananas and sugar-cane; letour food grow well, and let it be plentiful. If it does not grow welland plentifully, you all will be full of shame, and so shall we. " Again, before the people set out on a trading expedition, they present food tothe spirits at the central post of the house and pray them to go beforethe traders and prepare the people, so that the trade may be good. Oncemore, when there is sickness in the family, a pig is killed and itscarcase carried to the sacred place, where the spirits are asked toaccept it. Sins, also, are confessed, such as that people have gatheredbananas or coco-nuts without offering any of them to their deadancestors. In presenting the pig they say, "There is a pig; accept it, and remove the sickness. " But if prayers and sacrifices are vain, andthe patient dies, then, while the relatives all stand round the opengrave, the chief's sister or cousin calls out in a loud voice: "You havebeen angry with us for the bananas or the coco-nuts which we havegathered, and in your anger you have taken away this child. Now let itsuffice, and bury your anger. " So saying they lower the body into thegrave and shovel in the earth on the top of it. The spirits of thedeparted, on quitting their bodies, paddle in canoes across the lagoonand go away to the mountains, where they live in perfect bliss, with nowork to do and no trouble to vex them, chewing betel, dancing all nightand resting all day. [330]

[Sidenote: The Hood Peninsula. The town of Kalo. ]

Between the Aroma District in the south-east and Port Moresby on thenorth-west is situated the Hood Peninsula in the Central District ofBritish New Guinea. It is inhabited by the Bulaa, Babaka, Kamali, andKalo tribes, which all speak dialects of one language. [331] The villageor town of Kalo, built at the base of the peninsula, close to the mouthof the Vanigela or Kemp Welch River, is said to be the wealthiestvillage in British New Guinea. It includes some magnificent nativehouses, all built over the water on piles, some of which are thirty feethigh. The sight of these great houses perched on such lofty and massiveprops is very impressive. In front of each house is a series of largeplatforms like gigantic steps. Some of the posts and under-surfaces ofthe houses are carved with figures of crocodiles and so forth. Thelabour of cutting the huge planks for the flooring of the houses and theplatforms must be immense, and must have been still greater in the olddays, when the natives had only stone tools to work with. Many of theplanks are cut out of the slab-like buttresses of tall forest treeswhich grow inland. So hard is the wood that the boards are handed downas heirlooms from father to son, and the piles on which the houses arebuilt last for generations. The inhabitants of Kalo possess gardens, where the rich alluvial soil produces a superabundance of coco-nuts, bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, and taro. Areca palms also flourish andproduce the betel nuts, which are in great demand for chewing withquick-lime and so constitute a source of wealth. Commanding the mouth ofthe Vanigela River, the people of Kalo absorb the trade with theinterior; and their material prosperity is said to have rendered themconceited and troublesome. [332]

[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the natives ofthe Hood Peninsula. Seclusion of the widow or widower. ]

The tribes inhabiting the Hood Peninsula are reported to have no beliefin any good spirit but an unlimited faith in bad spirits, amongst whomthey include the souls of their dead ancestors. At death the ghosts jointheir forefathers in a subterranean region, where they have splendidgardens, houses, and so forth. Yet not content with their life in theunderworld, they are always on the watch to deal out sickness and deathto their surviving friends and relations, who may have the misfortune toincur their displeasure. So the natives are most careful to do nothingthat might offend these touchy and dangerous spirits. Like many othersavages, they do not believe that anybody dies a natural death; theythink that all the deaths which we should call natural are brought abouteither by an ancestral ghost (_palagu_) or by a sorcerer or witch(_wara_). Even when a man dies of snake-bite, they detect in thediscoloration of the body the wounds inflicted upon him by the fell artof the magician. [333] On the approach of death the house of the sick manis filled by anxious relatives and friends, who sit around watching forthe end. When it comes, there is a tremendous outburst of grief. The menbeat their faces with their clenched fists; the women tear their cheekswith their nails till the blood streams down. They usually bury theirdead in graves, which among the inland tribes are commonly dug near thehouses of the deceased. The maritime tribes, who live in houses built onpiles over the water, sometimes inter the corpse in the forest. But atother times they place it in a canoe, which they anchor off the village. Then, when the body has dried up, they lay it on a platform in a tree. Finally, they collect and clean the bones, tie them in a bundle, andplace them on the roof of the house. When the corpse is buried, atemporary hut is erected over the grave, and in it the widow or widowerlives in seclusion for two or three months. During her seclusion thewidow employs herself in fashioning her widow's weeds, which consist ofa long grass petticoat reaching to the ankles. She wears a largehead-dress made of shells; her head is shaved, and her body blackened. Further, she wears round her neck the waistband of her deceased husbandwith his lower jaw-bone attached to it. The costume of a widower issomewhat similar, though he does not wear a long grass petticoat. Instead of it he has a graceful fringe, which hangs from his waist halfway to the knees. On his head he wears an elaborate head-dress made ofshells, and on his arms he has armlets of the same material. His hair iscut off and his whole skin blackened. Round his neck is a string, fromwhich depends his dead wife's petticoat. It is sewn up into small bulkand hangs under his right arm. While the widow or widower is living inseclusion on the grave, he or she is supplied with food by relations. Atsundown on the day of the burial, a curious ceremony is performed. Anold woman or man, supposed to be gifted with second-sight, is sent for. Seating herself at the foot of the grave she peers into the deepeningshadows under the coco-nut palms. At first she remains perfectly still, while the relations of the deceased watch her with painful anxiety. Soonher look becomes more piercing, and lowering her head, while she stillgazes into the depth of the forest, she says in low and solemn tones, "Isee coming hither So-and-So's grandfather" (mentioning the name of thedead person). "He says he is glad to welcome his grandson to his abode. I see now his father and his own little son also, who died in infancy. "Gradually, she grows more and more excited, waving her arms and swayingher body from side to side. "Now they come, " she cries, "I can see allour forefathers in a fast-gathering crowd. They are coming closer andyet closer. Make room, make room for the spirits of our departedancestors. " By this time she has worked herself up into a frenzy. Shethrows herself on the ground, beating her head with her clenched fists. Foam flies from her lips, her eyes become fixed, and she rolls overinsensible. But the fit lasts only a short time. She soon comes toherself; the vision is past, and the visionary is restored to commonlife. [334]

[Sidenote: Application of the juices of the dead to the persons of theliving. ]

Some of the inland tribes of this district have a peculiar way ofdisposing of their dead. A double platform about ten feet high iserected near the village. On the upper platform the corpse is placed, and immediately below it the widow or widower sleeps on the lowerplatform, allowing juices of the decaying body to stream down on her orhim. This application of the decomposing juices of a corpse to thepersons of the living is not uncommon among savages; it appears to be aform of communion with the dead, the survivors thus in a manneridentifying themselves with their departed kinsfolk by absorbing aportion of their bodily substance. Among the tribes in question awidower marks his affection for his dead wife by never washing himselfduring the period of mourning; he would not rid himself of thoseproducts of decomposition which link him, however sadly, with her whomhe has lost. Every day, too, reeking with these relics of mortality, hesolemnly stalks through the village. [335]

[Sidenote: Precautions taken by man-slayers against the ghosts of theirvictims. ]

But there is a distinction between ghosts. If all of them are feared, some are more dreadful than others, and amongst the latter may naturallybe reckoned the ghosts of slain enemies. Accordingly the slayer has toobserve special precautions to guard against the angry and vengefulspirit of his victim. Amongst these people, we are told, a man who hastaken life is held to be impure until he has undergone certainceremonies. As soon as possible after the deed is done, he cleanseshimself and his weapon. Then he repairs to his village and seats himselfon the logs of sacrificial staging. No one approaches him or takes anynotice whatever of him. Meantime a house is made ready, in which he mustlive by himself for several days, waited on only by two or three smallboys. He may eat nothing but toasted bananas, and only the central partsof them; the ends are thrown away. On the third day a small feast isprepared for him by his friends, who also provide him with some newwaistbands. Next day, arrayed in all his finery and wearing the badgeswhich mark him as a homicide, he sallies forth fully armed and paradesthe village. Next day a hunt takes place, and from the game captured akangaroo is selected. It is cut open, and with its spleen and liver theback of the homicide is rubbed. Then he walks solemnly down to thenearest water and standing straddle-legs in it washes himself. All younguntried warriors then swim between his legs, which is supposed to imparthis courage and strength to them. Next day at early dawn he dashes outof his house fully armed and calls aloud the name of his victim. Havingsatisfied himself that he has thoroughly scared the ghost of the deadman, he returns to his house. Further, floors are beaten and fireskindled for the sake of driving away the ghost, lest he should still belingering in the neighbourhood. A day later the purification of thehomicide is complete and he is free to enter his wife's house, which hemight not do before. [336] This account of the purification of a homicidesuggests that the purificatory rites, which have been observed insimilar cases by many peoples, including the ancient Greeks, areprimarily intended to free the slayer from the dangerous ghost of hisvictim, which haunts him and seeks to take his life. Such rites in factappear designed, not to restore the homicide to a state of moralinnocence, but merely to guard him against a physical danger; they areprotective, not reformatory, in character; they are exorcisms, notpurifications in the sense which we attach to the word. Thisinterpretation of the ceremonies observed by manslayers among manypeoples might be supported by a large array of evidence; but to go intothe matter fully would lead me into a long digression. I have collectedsome of the evidence elsewhere. [337]

[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the Massim ofsouth-eastern New Guinea. Hiyoyoa, the land of the dead. Mourners batheand shave their heads. Food deposited in the grave. Dietary restrictionsimposed on mourners. ]

We now pass to that branch of the Papuo-Melanesian race which occupiesthe extreme south-eastern part of British New Guinea, and to which Dr. Seligmann gives the name of Massim. These people have been observed moreespecially at three places, namely Bartle Bay, Wagawaga, and Tubetube, asmall island of the Engineer group lying off the south-eastern extremityof New Guinea. Among them the old custom was to bury the dead on theoutskirts of the hamlet and sometimes within a few yards of the houses, and apparently the remains were afterwards as a rule left undisturbed;there was no general practice of exhuming the bones and depositing themelsewhere. [338] At Wagawaga the name for the spirit or soul of a deadperson is _arugo_, which also signifies a man's shadow or reflection ina glass or in water; and though animals and trees are not supposed tohave spirits, their reflections bear the same name _arugo_. [339] Thesouls of the dead are believed to depart to the land of Hiyoyoa, whichis under the sea, near Maivara, at the head of Milne Bay. The land ofthe dead, as usual, resembles in all respects the land of the living, except that it is day there when it is night at Wagawaga, and the deadspeak of the upper world in the language of Milne Bay instead of in thatof Wagawaga. A certain being called Tumudurere receives the ghosts ontheir arrival and directs them where to make their gardens. The souls ofliving men and women can journey to the land of the dead and return toearth; indeed this happens not unfrequently. There is a man at Wagawagawho has often gone thither and come back; whenever he wishes to make thejourney, he has nothing to do but to smear himself with a magical stuffand to fall asleep, after which he soon wakes up in Hiyoyoa. At firstthe ghosts whom he met in the other world did not invite him to partakeof their food, because they knew that if he did so he could not returnto the land of the living; but apparently practice has rendered himimmune to the usually fatal effects of the food of the dead. [340] ThoughHiyoyoa, at the head of Milne Bay, lies to the west of Wagawaga, thedead are buried in a squatting posture with their faces turned to theeast, in order that their souls may depart to the other world. [341]Immediately after the funeral the relations who have taken part in theburial go down to the sea and bathe, and so do the widow and children ofthe deceased because they supported the dying husband and father in hisextremity. After bathing in the sea the widow and children shave theirheads. [342] Both the bathing and the shaving are doubtless forms ofceremonial purification; in other words, they are designed to rid thesurvivors of the taint of death, or perhaps more definitely to removethe ghost from their persons, to which he may be supposed to cling likea burr. At Bartle Bay the dead are buried on their sides with theirheads pointing in the direction from which the totem clan of thedeceased is said to have come originally; and various kinds of food, ofwhich the dead man had partaken in his last illness, are deposited, along with some paltry personal ornaments, in the grave. Apparently thefood is intended to serve as provision for the ghost on his journey tothe other world. Curiously enough, the widow is forbidden to eat of thesame kinds of food of which her husband ate during his last illness, andthe prohibition is strictly observed until after the last of the funeralfeasts. [343] The motive of the prohibition is not obvious; perhaps itmay be a fear of attracting the ghost back to earth through the savouryfood which he loved in the body. At Wagawaga, after the relatives whotook part in the burial have bathed in the sea, they cut down several ofthe coco-nut trees which belonged to the deceased, leaving both nuts andtrees to rot on the ground. During the first two or three weeks afterthe funeral these same relatives may not eat boiled food, but onlyroast; they may not drink water, but only the milk of young coco-nutsmade hot, and although they may eat yams they must abstain from bananasand sugar-cane. [344] A man may not eat coco-nuts grown in his deadfather's hamlet, nor pigs and areca-nuts from it during the wholeremainder of his life. [345] The reasons for these dietary restrictionsare not mentioned, but no doubt the abstinences are based on a fear ofthe ghost, or at all events on a dread of the contagion of death, towhich all who had a share in the burial are especially exposed. 

[Sidenote: Funeral customs at Tubetube. The fire on the grave. The happyland. ]

At Tubetube, in like manner, immediately after a funeral a brother ofthe deceased cuts down two or three of the dead man's coco-nut trees. There, also, the children of the deceased may not eat any coco-nuts fromtheir father's trees nor even from any trees grown in his hamlet; nay, they may not partake of any garden produce grown in the vicinity of thehamlet; and similarly they must abstain from the pork of all pigsfattened in their dead father's village. But these prohibitions do notapply to the brothers, sisters, and other relatives of the departed. Therelations who have assisted at the burial remain at the grave for fiveor six days, being fed by the brothers or other near kinsfolk of thedeceased. They may not quit the spot even at night, and if it rains theyhuddle into a shelter built over the grave. During their vigil at thetomb they may not drink water, but are allowed a little heated coco-nutmilk; they are supposed to eat only a little yam and other vegetablefood. [346] On the day when the body is buried a fire is kindled at thegrave and kept burning night and day until the feast of the dead hasbeen held. "The reason for having the fire is that the spirit may beable to get warm when it rises from the grave. The natives regard thespirit as being very cold, even as the body is when the life hasdeparted from it, and without this external warmth provided by the fireit would be unable to undertake the journey to its final home. The feastfor the dead is celebrated when the flesh has decayed, and in someplaces the skull is taken from the grave, washed and placed in thehouse, being buried again when the feast is over. At Tubetube thiscustom of taking the skull from the grave is not regularly followed, insome instances it is, but the feast is always held, and on the night ofthe day on which the feast takes place, the fire, which has been in somecases kept burning for over a month, is allowed to burn out, as thespirit, being now safe and happy in the spirit-land, has no further needof it. "[347] "In this spirit-land eternal youth prevails, there are noold men nor old women, but all are in the full vigour of the prime oflife, or are attaining thereto, and having reached that stage never growolder. Old men and old women, who die as such on Tubetube, renew theiryouth in this happy place, where there are no more sickness, no evilspirits, and no death. Marriage, and giving in marriage, continue; if aman dies, his widow, though she may have married again, is at her deathre-united to her first husband in the spirit-land, and the secondhusband when he arrives has to take one of the women already there whomay be without a mate, unless he marries again before his death, inwhich case he would have to wait until his wife joins him. Children areborn, and on arriving at maturity do not grow older. Houses are built, canoes are made but they are never launched, and gardens are planted andyield abundantly. The spirits of their animals, dogs, pigs, etc. , whichhave died on Tubetube, precede and follow them to the spirit-land. Fighting and stealing are unknown, and all are united in a commonbrotherhood. "[348]

[Sidenote: The names of the dead not mentioned. ]

In the south-eastern part of New Guinea the fear of the dead is furthermanifested by the common custom of avoiding the mention of their names. If their names were those of common objects, the words are dropped fromthe language of the district so long as the memory of the departedpersists, and new names are substituted for them. For example, when aman named Binama, which means the hornbill, died at Wagawaga, the nameof the bird was changed to _ambadina_, which means "the plasterer. "[349]In this way many words are either permanently lost or revived withmodified or new meanings. Hence the fear of the dead is here, as in manyother places, a fertile source of change in language. Another indicationof the terror inspired by ghosts is the custom of abandoning ordestroying the house in which a death has taken place; and this customused to be observed in certain cases at Tubetube and Wagawaga. [350]

[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead in the island ofKiwai. ]

Thus far I have dealt mainly with the beliefs and practices of thePapuo-Melanesians in the eastern part of British New Guinea. With regardto the pure Papuan population in the western part of the possession ourinformation is much scantier. However, we learn that in Kiwai, a largeisland at the mouth of the Fly River, the dead are buried in thevillages and the ghosts are supposed to live in the ground near theirdecaying bodies, but to emerge from time to time into the upper air andlook about them, only, however, to return to their abode beneath thesod. Nothing is buried with the corpse; but a small platform is madeover the grave, or sticks are planted in the ground along its sides, andon these are placed sago, yams, bananas, coco-nuts, and cooked crabs andfish, all for the spirit of the dead to eat. A fire is also kindledbeside the grave and kept up by the friends for nine days in order thatthe poor ghost may not shiver with cold at night. These practices provenot merely a belief in the survival of the soul after death but a desireto make it comfortable. Further, when the deceased is a man, his bow andarrows are stuck at the head of the grave; when the deceased is a woman, her petticoat is hung upon a stick. No doubt the weapons and the garmentare intended for the use of the ghost, when he or she revisits the upperair. On the ninth day after the burial a feast is prepared, the drum isbeaten, the conch shell blown, and the chief mourner declares that nomore fires need be lighted and no more food placed on the grave. [351]

[Sidenote: Adiri, the land of the dead, and Sido, the first man who wentthither. The fear of ghosts. ]

According to the natives of Kiwai the land of the dead is called Adirior Woibu. The first man to go thither and to open up a road for othersto follow him, was Sido, a popular hero about whom the people tell manytales. But whereas in his lifetime Sido was an admired and beneficentbeing, in his ghostly character he became a mischievous elf who playedpranks on such as he fell in with. His adventures after death furnishthe theme of many stories. However, it is much to his credit that, finding the land of the dead a barren region without vegetation of anysort, he, by an act of generation, converted it into a garden, wherebananas, yams, taro, coco-nuts and other fruits and vegetables grew andripened in a single night. Having thus fertilised the lower region, heannounced to Adiri, the lord of the subterranean realm, that he was theprecursor of many more men and women who would descend thereafter intothe spirit world. His prediction has been amply fulfilled; for eversince then everybody has gone by the same road to the same place. [352]However, when a person dies, his or her spirit may linger for a few daysin the neighbourhood of its old home before setting out for the farcountry. During that time the spirit may occasionally be seen byordinary people, and accordingly the natives are careful not to go outin the dark for fear of coming bolt on the ghost; and they sometimesadopt other precautions against the prowling spectre, who mightotherwise haunt them and carry them off with him to deadland. Someclasses of ghosts are particularly dreaded on account of theirmalignity; such, for example, are the spirits of women who have died inchildbed, and of people who have hanged themselves or been devoured bycrocodiles. Such ghosts loiter for a long time about the places wherethey died, and they are very dangerous, because they are for ever luringother people to die the same death which they died themselves. Yetanother troop of evil ghosts are the souls of those who were beheaded inbattle; for they kill and devour people, and at night you may see theblood shining like fire as it gushes from the gaping gashes in theirthroats. [353]

[Sidenote: The path of the ghosts to Adiri. Adiri, the land of thedead. ]

The road to Adiri or deadland is fairly well known, and the people canpoint to many landmarks on it. For example, in the island of Paho thereis a tree called _dani_, under which the departing spirits sit down andweep. When they have cried their fill and rubbed their poortear-bedraggled faces with mud, they make little pellets of clay andthrow them at the tree, and anybody can see for himself the pelletssticking to the branches. It is true that the pellets resemble the nestsof insects, but this resemblance is only fortuitous. Near the tree is arocking stone, which the ghosts set in motion, and the sound that theymake in so doing is like the muffled roll of a drum. And while the stonerocks to and fro with a hollow murmur, the ghosts dance, the men on oneside of the stone and the women on the other. Again at Mabudavane, wherethe Mawata people have gardens, you may sometimes hear, in the stillnessof night, the same weird murmur, which indicates the presence of aghost. Then everybody keeps quiet, the children are hushed to silence, and all listen intently. The murmur continues for a time and then endsabruptly in a splash, which tells the listeners that the ghost hasleaped over the muddy creek. Further on, the spirits come to Boigu, where they swim in the waterhole and often appear to people in theirreal shape. But after Boigu the track of the ghosts is lost, or at leasthas not been clearly ascertained. The spirit world lies somewhere awayin the far west, but the living are not quite sure of the way to it, andthey are somewhat vague in their accounts of it. There is no differencebetween the fate of the good and the fate of the bad in the far country;the dead meet the friends who died before them; and people who come fromthe same village probably live together in the same rooms of the longhouse of the ghosts. However, some native sceptics even doubt whetherthere is such a place as Adiri at all, and whether death may not be theend of consciousness to the individual. [354]

[Sidenote: Appearance of the dead to the living in dreams. ]

The dead often appear to the living in dreams, warning them of danger orfurnishing them with useful information with regard to the cultivationof their gardens, the practice of witchcraft, and so on. In order toobtain advice from his dead parents a man will sometimes dig up theirskulls from the grave and sleep beside them; and to make sure ofreceiving their prompt attention he will not infrequently providehimself with a cudgel, with which he threatens to smash their skulls ifthey do not answer his questions. Some persons possess a special facultyof communicating with the departing spirit of a person who has justdied. Should they desire to question it they will lurk beside the roadwhich ghosts are known to take; and in order not to be betrayed by theirsmell, which is very perceptible to a ghost, they will chew the leaf orbark of a certain tree and spit the juice over their bodies. Then theghost cannot detect them, or rather he takes them to be ghosts likehimself, and accordingly he may in confidence impart to them mostvaluable information, such for example as full particulars with regardto the real cause of his death. This priceless intelligence theghost-seer hastens to communicate to his fellow tribesmen. [355]

[Sidenote: Offerings to the dead. ]

When a man has just died and been buried, his surviving relatives laysome of his weapons and ornaments, together with presents of food, uponhis grave, no doubt for the use of the ghost; but some of these thingsthey afterwards remove and bring back to the village, probablyconsidering, with justice, that they will be more useful to the livingthan to the dead. But offerings to the dead may be presented to them atother places than their tombs. "The great power, " says Dr. Landtman, "which the dead represent to the living has given rise to a sort ofsimple offering to them, almost the only kind of offering met with amongthe Kiwai Papuans. The natives occasionally lay down presents of food atplaces to which spirits come, and utter some request for assistancewhich the spirits are supposed to hear. "[356] In such offerings andprayers we may detect the elements of a regular worship of the dead. 

[Sidenote: Dreams as a source of the belief in immortality. ]

With regard to the source of these beliefs among the Kiwai people Dr. Landtman observes that "undoubtedly dreams have largely contributed insupplying the natives with ideas about Adiri and life after death. Agreat number of dreams collected by me among the Kiwai people tell ofwanderings to Adiri or of meetings with spirits of dead men, and asdreams are believed to describe the real things which the soul seeswhile roaming about outside the body, we understand that they mustgreatly influence the imagination of the people. "[357]

That concludes what I have to say as to the belief in immortality andthe worship of the dead among the natives of British New Guinea. In thefollowing lectures I shall deal with the same rudimentary aspect ofreligion as it is reported to exist among the aborigines of the vastregions of German and Dutch New Guinea. 

[Footnote 310: C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_(Cambridge, 1910), pp. 1 _sq. _]

[Footnote 311: See below, pp. 242, 256, 261 _sq. _, 291. ]

[Footnote 312: A. C. Haddon, _Headhunters, Black, White, and Brown_(London, 1901), pp. 249 _sq. _ As to the Motu and their Melanesian orPolynesian affinities, see Rev. W. Y. Turner, "The Ethnology of theMotu, " _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vii. (1878) pp. 470_sqq. _]

[Footnote 313: Rev. J. Chalmers, _Pioneering in New Guinea_ (London, 1887), pp. 168-170. Compare Rev. W. Y. Turner, "The Ethnology of theMotu, " _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vii. (1878) pp. 484_sqq. _; Rev. W. G. Lawes, "Ethnological Notes on the Motu, Koitapu andKoiari Tribes of New Guinea, " _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, viii. (1879) pp. 370 _sq. _]

[Footnote 314: A. C. Haddon, _Headhunters, Black, White, and Brown_, pp. 249 _sq. _; C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_, pp. 16, 41. As to the Koita (or Koitapu) and the Motu, see further the Rev. W. Y. Turner, "The Ethnology of the Motu, " _Journal of theAnthropological Institute_, vii. (1878) pp. 470 _sqq. _; Rev. W. G. Lawes, "Ethnological Notes on the Motu, Koitapu and Koiari Tribes of NewGuinea, " _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, viii. (1879) pp. 369 _sq. _]

[Footnote 315: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 189-191. ]

[Footnote 316: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 185 _sq. _]

[Footnote 317: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ p. 192. ]

[Footnote 318: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 190-192. As to thedesertion of the house after death, see _id. _, pp. 89 _sq. _]

[Footnote 319: The territory of the Roro-speaking tribes extends fromKevori, east of Waimatuma (Cape Possession), to Hiziu in theneighbourhood of Galley Reach. Inland of these tribes lies a regioncalled by them Mekeo, which is inhabited by two closely related tribes, the Biofa and Vee. Off the coast lies Yule Island, which is commonlycalled Roro. See C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ p. 195. ]

[Footnote 320: V. Jouet, _La Société des Missionaires du Sacré Coeurdans les Vicariats Apostoliques de la Mélanésie et de la Micronésie_(Issoudun, 1887), p. 30; Father Guis, "Les Canaques: Mort-deuil, "_Missions Catholiques_, xxxiv. (1902) pp. 186, 200. ]

[Footnote 321: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 274 _sq. _]

[Footnote 322: Father Guis, "Les Canaques: Mort-deuil, " _MissionsCatholiques_, xxxiv. (1902) pp. 208 _sq. _ See _Psyche's Task_, pp. 75_sq. _]

[Footnote 323: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ p. 310. ]

[Footnote 324: R. W. Williamson, _The Mafulu Mountain People of BritishNew Guinea_ (London, 1912), pp. 2 _sq. _, 297 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 325: R. W. Williamson, _op. Cit. _ pp. 243 _sq. _, 246, 266-269. ]

[Footnote 326: R. W. Williamson, _op. Cit. _ pp. 245-250. ]

[Footnote 327: R. W. Williamson, _op. Cit. _ pp. 256-258, 261-263. ]

[Footnote 328: R. W. Williamson, _op. Cit. _ pp. 125-152. ]

[Footnote 329: R. W. Williamson, _op. Cit. _ pp. 270 _sq. _]

[Footnote 330: J. Chalmers and W. Wyatt Gill, _Work and Adventure in NewGuinea_ (London, 1885), pp. 84-86. ]

[Footnote 331: R. E. Guise, "On the Tribes inhabiting the Mouth of theWanigela River, New Guinea, " _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxviii. (1899) p. 205. ]

[Footnote 332: A. C. Haddon, _Headhunters, Black, White, and Brown_, p. 213. ]

[Footnote 333: R. E. Guise, _op. Cit. _ pp. 216 _sq. _]

[Footnote 334: R. E. Guise, _op. Cit. _ pp. 210 _sq. _]

[Footnote 335: R. E. Guise, _op. Cit. _ p. 211. ]

[Footnote 336: R. E. Guise, _op. Cit. _ pp. 213 _sq. _]

[Footnote 337: _Psyche's Task_, pp. 52 _sqq. _; _Taboo and the Perils ofthe Soul_, pp. 167 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 338: C. G. Seligmann, _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_, p. 607. ]

[Footnote 339: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ p. 655. ]

[Footnote 340: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 655 _sq. _]

[Footnote 341: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ p. 610. ]

[Footnote 342: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ p. 611. ]

[Footnote 343: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 616 _sq. _]

[Footnote 344: C. G. Seligmann. _op. Cit. _ p. 611. ]

[Footnote 345: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 618 _sq. _]

[Footnote 346: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 613 _sq. _]

[Footnote 347: The Rev. J. T. Field of Tubetube (Slade Island), quotedby George Brown, D. D. , _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), pp. 442 _sq. _]

[Footnote 348: Rev. J. T. Field, _op. Cit. _ pp. 443 _sq. _]

[Footnote 349: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 629-631. Dr. Seligmannseems to think that the custom is at present dictated by courtesy and areluctance to grieve the relatives of the deceased; but the originalmotive can hardly have been any other than a fear of the ghost. ]

[Footnote 350: C. G. Seligmann, _op. Cit. _ pp. 631 _sq. _]

[Footnote 351: Rev. J. Chalmers, "Notes on the Natives of Kiwai Island, Fly River, British New Guinea, " _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, xxxiii. (1903) pp. 119, 120. ]

[Footnote 352: G. Landtman, "Wanderings of the Dead in the Folk-lore ofthe Kiwai-speaking Papuans, " _Festskrift tillägnad Edvard Westermarck_(Helsingfors, 1912), pp. 59-66. ]

[Footnote 353: G. Landtman, _op. Cit. _ pp. 67 _sq. _]

[Footnote 354: G. Landtman, _op. Cit. _ pp. 68-71. ]

[Footnote 355: G. Landtman, _op. Cit. _ pp. 77 _sq. _]

[Footnote 356: G. Landtman, _op. Cit. _ pp. 78 _sq. _]

[Footnote 357: G. Landtman, _op. Cit. _ p. 71. ]

LECTURE X

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN NEW GUINEA

[Sidenote: Andrew Lang. ]

I feel that I cannot begin my second course of lectures withoutreferring to the loss which the study of primitive religion has latelysustained by the death of one of my predecessors in this chair, one whowas a familiar and an honoured figure in this place, Mr. Andrew Lang. Whatever may be the judgment of posterity on his theories--and all ourtheories on these subjects are as yet more or less tentative andprovisional--there can be no question but that by the charm of hiswritings, the wide range of his knowledge, the freshness and vigour ofhis mind, and the contagious enthusiasm which he brought to bear onwhatever he touched, he was a great power in promoting the study ofprimitive man not in this country only, but wherever the Englishlanguage is spoken, and that he won for himself a permanent place in thehistory of the science to which he devoted so much of his remarkablegifts and abilities. As he spent a part of every winter in St. Andrews, I had thought that in the course on which I enter to-day I might perhapsbe honoured by his presence at some of my lectures. But it was not tobe. Yet a fancy strikes me to which I will venture to give utterance. You may condemn, but I am sure you will not smile at it. It has beensaid of Macaulay that if his spirit ever revisited the earth, it mightbe expected to haunt the flagged walk beside the chapel in the greatcourt of Trinity College, Cambridge, the walk which in his lifetime heloved to pace book in hand. And if Andrew Lang's spirit could be seenflitting pensively anywhere, would it not be just here, in "the collegeof the scarlet gown, " in the "little city worn and grey, " looking out onthe cold North Sea, the city which he knew and loved so well? Be that asit may, his memory will always be associated with St. Andrews; and ifthe students who shall in future go forth from this ancient universityto carry St. Andrew's Cross, if I may say so, on their banner in theeternal warfare with falsehood and error, --if they cannot imitate AndrewLang in the versatility of his genius, in the variety of hisaccomplishments, in the manifold graces of his literary art, it is to behoped that they will strive to imitate him in qualities which are morewithin the reach of us all, in his passionate devotion to knowledge, inhis ardent and unflagging pursuit of truth. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Review of preceding lectures. ]

In my last course of lectures I explained that I proposed to treat ofthe belief in immortality from a purely historical point of view. Myintention is not to discuss the truth of the belief or to criticise thegrounds on which it has been maintained. To do so would be to trench onthe province of the theologian and the philosopher. I limit myself tothe far humbler task of describing, first, the belief as it has beenheld by some savage races, and, second, some of the practicalconsequences which these primitive peoples have deduced from it for theconduct of life, whether these consequences take the shape of religiousrites or moral precepts. Now in such a survey of savage creed andpractice it is convenient to begin with the lowest races of men aboutwhom we have accurate information and to pass from them gradually tohigher and higher races, because we thus start with the simplest formsof religion and advance by regular gradations to more complex forms, andwe may hope in this way to render the course of religious evolution moreintelligible than if we were to start from the most highly developedreligions and to work our way down from them to the most embryonic. Inpursuance of this plan I commenced my survey with the aborigines ofAustralia, because among the races of man about whom we are wellinformed these savages are commonly and, I believe, justly supposed tostand at the foot of the human scale. Having given you some account oftheir beliefs and practices concerning the dead I attempted to do thesame for the islanders of Torres Straits and next for the natives ofBritish New Guinea. There I broke off, and to-day I shall resume thethread of my discourse at the broken end by describing the beliefs andpractices concerning the dead, as these beliefs are entertained andthese practices observed by the natives of German New Guinea. 

[Sidenote: German New Guinea. ]

As you are aware, the German territory of New Guinea skirts the Britishterritory on the north throughout its entire length and comprisesroughly a quarter of the whole island, the British and Germanpossessions making up together the eastern half of New Guinea, while thewestern half belongs to Holland. 

[Sidenote: Information as to the natives of German New Guinea. ]

Our information as to the natives of German New Guinea is veryfragmentary, and is confined almost entirely to the tribes of the coast. As to the inhabitants of the interior we know as yet very little. However, German missionaries and others have described more or lessfully the customs and beliefs of the natives at various points of thislong coast, and I shall extract from their descriptions some notices ofthat particular aspect of the native religion with which in theselectures we are specially concerned. The points on the coast as to whicha certain amount of ethnographical information is forthcoming are, totake them in the order from west to east, Berlin Harbour, PotsdamHarbour, Astrolabe Bay, the Maclay Coast, Cape King William, FinschHarbour, and the Tami Islands in Huon Gulf. I propose to say somethingas to the natives at each of these points, beginning with BerlinHarbour, the most westerly of them. 

[Sidenote: The island of Tumleo. ]

Berlin Harbour is formed by a group of four small islands, which herelie off the coast. One of the islands bears the name of Tumleo orTamara, and we possess an excellent account of the natives of thisisland from the pen of a Catholic missionary, Father Mathias JosefErdweg, [358] which I shall draw upon in what follows. We have also apaper by a German ethnologist, the late Mr. R. Parkinson, on the samesubject, [359] but his information is in part derived from Father Erdwegand he appears to have erred by applying too generally the statementswhich Father Erdweg strictly limited to the inhabitants of Tumleo. [360]

[Sidenote: The natives of Tumleo, their material and artistic culture. ]

The island of Tumleo lies in 142° 25" of East Longitude and 3° 15" ofSouth Latitude, and is distant about sixty sea-miles from thewesternmost point of German New Guinea. It is a coral island, surroundedby a barrier reef and rising for the most part only a few feet above thesea. [361] In stature the natives fall below the average European height;but they are well fed and strongly built. Their colour varies from blackto light brown. Their hair is very frizzly. Women and children wear itcut short; men wear it done up into wigs. They number less than threehundred, divided into four villages. The population seems to havedeclined through wars, disease, and infanticide. [362] Like the Papuansgenerally, they live in settled villages and engage in fishing, agriculture, and commerce. The houses are solidly built of wood and areraised above the ground upon piles, which consist of a hard and durabletimber, sometimes iron-wood. [363] The staple food of the people is sago, which they obtain from the sago-palm. These stately palms, with theirfan-like foliage, are rare on the coral island of Tumleo, but growabundantly in the swampy lowlands of the neighbouring mainland. Accordingly in the months of May and June, when the sea is calm, thenatives cross over to the mainland in their canoes and obtain a supplyof sago in exchange for the products of their island. The sago is eatenin the form both of porridge and of bread. [364] Other vegetable foodsare furnished by sweet potatoes, taro, yams, bananas, sugar-cane, andcoco-nuts, all of which the natives cultivate. [365] Fishing is aprincipal industry of the people; it is plied by both sexes and by oldand young, with nets, spears, and bows and arrows. [366] Pottery isanother flourishing industry. As among many other savages, it ispractised only by women, but the men take the pots to market; for theseislanders do a good business in pots with the neighbouring tribes. [367]They build large outrigger canoes, which sail well before the wind, butcan hardly beat up against it, being heavy to row. In these canoes thenatives of Tumleo make long voyages along the coast; but as the craftare not very seaworthy they never stand out to sea, if they can help it, but hug the shore in order to run for safety to the beach in stormyweather. [368] In regard to art the natives display some taste and skillin wood-carving. For example, the projecting house-beams are sometimescarved in the shape of crocodiles, birds, and grotesque human figures;and their canoes, paddles, head-rests, drums, drum-sticks, and vesselsare also decorated with carving. Birds, fish, crocodiles, foliage, andscroll-work are the usual patterns. [369]

[Sidenote: The temples (_paraks_) of Tumleo. ]

A remarkable feature in the villages of Tumleo and the neighbouringislands and mainland consists of the _paraks_ or temples, the highgables of which may be seen rising above the bushes in all the villagesof this part of the coast. No such buildings exist elsewhere in thisregion. They are set apart for the worship of certain guardian spirits, and on them the native lavishes all the resources of his elementary artsof sculpture and painting. They are built of wood in two storeys andraised on piles besides. The approach to one of them is always by one ortwo ladders provided on both sides with hand-rails or banisters. Thesebanisters are elaborately decorated with carving, which is always of thesame pattern. One banister is invariably carved in the shape of acrocodile holding a grotesque human figure in its jaws, while on theother hand the animal's tail is grasped by one or more human figures. The other banister regularly exhibits a row of human or rather ape-likeeffigies seated one behind the other, each of them resting his arms onthe shoulders of the figure in front. Often there are seven such figuresin a row. The natives are so shy in speaking of these temples that it isdifficult to ascertain the meaning of the curious carvings by which theyare adorned. Mr. Parkinson supposed that they represent spirits, notapes. He tells us that there are no apes in New Guinea. The interior ofthe temple (_parak_) is generally empty. The only things to be seen inits two rooms, the upper and lower, are bamboo flutes and drums made outof the hollow trunks of trees. On these instruments men concealed in thetemple discourse music in order to signify the presence of thespirit. [370]

[Sidenote: The bachelors' houses (_alols_) of Tumleo. ]

Different from these _paraks_ or temples are the _alols_, which arebachelors' houses and council-houses in one. Like the temples, they areraised above the ground and approached by a ladder, but unlike thetemples they have only one storey. In them the unmarried men live andthe married men meet to take counsel and to speak of things which maynot be mentioned before women. On a small stand or table in each ofthese _alols_ or men's clubhouses are kept the skulls of dead men. Andas the temple (_parak_) is devoted to the worship of spirits, so themen's clubhouse (_alol_) is the place where the dead ancestors areworshipped. Women and children may not enter it, but it is not regardedwith such superstitious fear as the temple. The dead are buried in theirhouses or beside them. Afterwards the bones are dug up and the skulls ofgrown men are deposited, along with one of the leg bones, on the standor table in the men's clubhouse (_alol_). The skulls of youths, women, and children are kept in the houses where they died. When the table inthe clubhouse is quite full of grinning trophies of mortality, the oldskulls are removed to make room for the new ones and are thrown away ina sort of charnel-house, where the other bones are deposited after theyhave been dug up from the graves. Such a charnel-house is called a_tjoll páru_. There is one such place for the bones of grown men andanother for the bones of women and children. Some bones, however, arekept and used as ornaments or as means to work magic with. For the deadare often invoked, for example, to lay the wind or for other usefulpurposes; and at such invocations the bones play a part. [371]

[Sidenote: Spirits of the dead thought to be the causes of sickness anddisease. ]

But while the spirits of the dead are thus invited to help their livingrelations and friends, they are also feared as the causes of sicknessand disease. Any serious ailment is usually attributed to magic orwitchcraft, and the treatment which is resorted to aims rather atbreaking the spell which has been cast on the sick man than at curinghis malady by the application of physical remedies. In short the remedyis exorcism rather than physic. Now the enchantment under which thepatient is supposed to be labouring is often, though not always, ascribed to the malignant arts of the spirits of the dead, or the _mġs_, as the natives of Tumleo call them. In such a case the ghosts arethought to be clinging to the body of the sufferer, and the object ofthe medical treatment is to detach them from him and send them far away. With this kindly intention some men will go into the forest and collecta number of herbs, including a kind of peppermint. These are tied intoone or more bundles according to the number of the patients and thentaken to the men's clubhouse (_alol_), where they are heated over afire. Then the patient is brought, and two men strike him lightly withthe packet of herbs on his body and legs, while they utter anincantation, inviting the ancestral spirits who are plaguing him toleave his body and go away, in order that he may be made whole. One suchincantation, freely translated, runs thus: "Spirit of thegreat-grandfather, of the father, come out! We give thee coco-nuts, sago-porridge, fish. Go away (from the sick man). Let him be well. Do noharm here and there. Tell the people of Leming (O spirit) to give ustobacco. When the waves are still, we push off from the land, sailingnorthward (to Tumleo). It is the time of the north-west wind (when thesurf is heavy). May the billows calm down in the south, O in the south, on the coast of Leming, that we may sail to the south, to Leming! Outthere may the sea be calm, that we may push off from the land for home!"In this incantation a prayer to the spirit of the dead to relax his holdon the sufferer appears to be curiously combined with a prayer or spellto calm the sea when the people sail across to the coast of Leming tofetch a cargo of tobacco. When the incantation has been recited and thepatient stroked with the bundle of herbs, one of his ears and both hisarm-pits are moistened with a blood-red spittle produced by the chewingof betel-nut, pepper, and lime. Then they take hold of his fingers andmake each of them crack, one after the other, while they recite some ofthe words of the preceding incantation. Next three men take each of thema branch of the _volju_ tree, bend it into a bow, and stroke the sickman from head to foot, while they recite another incantation, in whichthey command the spirit to let the sick man alone and to go away intothe water or the mud. Often when a man is seriously ill he will removefrom his own house to the house of a relation or friend, hoping that thespirit who has been tormenting him will not be able to discover him athis new address. [372]

[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs in Tumleo. ]

If despite of all these precautions the patient should die, he or she isplaced in a wooden coffin and buried with little delay in a grave, whichis dug either in the house or close beside it. The body is smeared allover with clay and decked with many rings or ornaments, most of which, however, are removed in a spirit of economy before the lid of the coffinis shut down. Sometimes arrows, sometimes a rudder, sometimes the bonesof dead relations are buried with the corpse in the grave. When thegrave is dug outside of the house, a small hut is erected over it, and afire is kept burning on it for a time. In the house of mourning thewife, sister, or other female relative of the deceased must remainstrictly secluded for a period which varies from a few weeks to threemonths. In token of mourning the widow's body is smeared with clay, andfrom time to time she is heard to chant a dirge in a whining, melancholytone. This seclusion lasts so long as the ghost is supposed to be stillon his way to the other world. When he has reached his destination, thefire is suffered to die down on the grave, and his widow or other femalerelative is free to quit the house and resume her ordinary occupations. Through her long seclusion in the shade her swarthy complexion assumes alighter tint, but it soon deepens again when she is exposed once more tothe strong tropical sunshine. [373]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Tumleo people as to the fate of the human soulafter death. ]

The people of Tumleo firmly believe in the existence of the human soulafter death, though their notions of the disembodied soul or _mġs_, asthey call it, are vague. They think that on its departure from the bodythe soul goes to a place deep under ground, where there is a greatwater. Over that water every soul must pass on a ladder to reach theabode of bliss. The ladder is in the keeping of a spirit called _Su asintjakin_ or "the Great Evil, " who takes toll of the ghosts before he letsthem use his ladder. Hence an ear-ring and a bracelet are deposited withevery corpse in the grave in order that the dead man may havewherewithal to pay the toll to the spirit at the great water. When theghost arrives at the place of passage and begs for the use of theladder, the spirit asks him, "Shall I get my bracelet if I let youpass?" If he receives it and happens to be in a good humour, he will letthe ghost scramble across the ladder to the further shore. But woe tothe stingy ghost, who should try to sneak across the ladder withoutpaying toll. The ghostly tollkeeper detects the fraud in an instant androars out, "So you would cheat me of my dues? You shall pay for that. "So saying he tips the ladder up, and down falls the ghost plump into thedeep water and is drowned. But the honest ghost, who has paid his waylike a man and arrived on the further shore, is met by two other ghostswho ferry him in a canoe across to Sisano, which is a place on themainland a good many miles to the north of Tumleo. A great river flowsthere and in the river are three cities of the dead, in one of which thenewly arrived ghost takes up his abode. Then it is that the fire on hisgrave is allowed to go out and his widow may mingle with her fellowsagain. However, the ghosts are not strictly confined to the spirit-land. They can come back to earth and roam about working good or evil for theliving and especially for their friends and relations. [374]

[Sidenote: Monuments to the dead in Tumleo. Disinterment of the bones. ]

It is perhaps this belief not only in the existence but in the return ofthe spirits of the dead which induces the survivors to erect monumentsor memorials to them. In Tumleo these monuments consist for the mostpart of young trees, which are cut down, stripped of their leaves, andset up in the ground beside the house of the deceased. The branches ofsuch a memorial tree are hung with fruits, coco-nuts, loin-cloths, pots, and personal ornaments, all of which we may suppose are intended for thecomfort and convenience of the ghost when he returns from deadland topay his friends a visit. [375] But the remains of the dead are notallowed to rest quietly in the grave for ever. After two or three yearsthey are dug up with much ceremony at the point of noon, when the sun ishigh overhead. The skull of the deceased, if he was a man, is thendeposited, as we saw, with one of the thigh bones in the men'sclubhouse, while of the remaining bones some are kept by the relationsand the others thrown away in a charnel-house. Among the relics whichthe relations preserve are the lower arm bones, the shoulder-blades, theribs, and the vertebra. The vertebra is often fastened to a bracelet; acouple of ribs are converted into a necklace; and the shoulder-bladesare used to decorate baskets. The lower arm bones are generally strungon a cord, which is worn on solemn occasions round the neck so that thebones hang down behind. They are especially worn thus in war, and theyare made use of also when their owner desires to obtain a favourablewind for a voyage. No doubt, though this is not expressly affirmed, thespirit of the departed is supposed to remain attached in some fashion tohis bones and so to help the possessor of these relics in time of need. When the bones have been dug up and disposed of with all due ceremony, several men who were friends or relations of the deceased must keepwatch and ward for some days in the men's clubhouse, where his grinningskull now stands amid similar trophies of mortality on a table or shelf. They may not quit the building except in case of necessity, and theymust always speak in a whisper for fear of disturbing the ghost, who isvery naturally lurking in the neighbourhood of his skull. However, inspite of these restrictions the watchers enjoy themselves; for basketsof sago and fish are provided abundantly for their consumption, and iftheir tongues are idle their jaws are very busy. [376]

[Sidenote: Propitiation of the souls of the dead and other spirits. ]

The people think that if they stand on a good footing with the souls ofthe departed and with other spirits, these powerful beings will bringthem good luck in trade and on their voyages. Now the time when trade islively and the calm sea is dotted with canoes plying from island toisland or from island to mainland, is the season when the gentlesouth-east monsoon is blowing. On the other hand, when the waves runhigh under the blast of the strong north-west monsoon, the sea is almostdeserted and the people stay at home;[377] the season is to thesetropical islanders what winter is to the inhabitants of northernlatitudes. Accordingly it is when the wind is shifting round from thestormy north-west to the balmy south-east that the natives setthemselves particularly to win the favour of ghosts and spirits, andthis they do by repairing the temples and clubhouses in which thespirits and ghosts are believed to dwell, and by cleaning and tidying upthe open spaces around them. These repairs are the occasion of afestival accompanied by dances and games. Early in the morning of thefestive day the shrill notes of the flutes and the hollow rub-a-dub ofthe drums are heard to proceed from the interior of the temple, proclaiming the arrival of the guardian spirit and his desire to partakeof fish and sago. So the men assemble and the feast is held in theevening. Festivals are also held both in the temples and in the men'sclubhouses on the occasion of a successful hunt or fishing. Out ofgratitude for the help vouchsafed them by the ancestral spirits, thehunters or fishers bring the larger game or fish to the temples orclubhouses and eat them there; and then hang up some parts of theanimals or fish, such as the skeletons, the jawbones of pigs, or theshells of turtles, in the clubhouses as a further mark of homage to thespirits of the dead. [378]

[Sidenote: Guardian spirits (_tapum_) in Tumleo. ]

So far as appears, the spirits who dwell in the temples are not supposedto be ancestors. Father Erdweg describes them as guardian spirits orgoddesses, for they are all of the female sex. Every village has severalof them; indeed in the village of Sapi almost every family has its ownguardian spirit. The name for these guardian spirits is _tapum_, whichseems to be clearly connected with the now familiar word _tapu_ ortaboo, in the sense of sacred, which is universally understood in theislands of the Pacific. On the whole the _tapum_ are kindly andbeneficent spirits, who bring good luck to such as honour them. A hunteror a fisherman ascribes his success in the chase or in fishing to theprotection of his guardian spirit; and when he is away from home tradingfor sago and other necessaries of life, it is his guardian spirit whogives him favour in the eyes of the foreigners with whom he is dealing. Curiously enough, though these guardian spirits are all female, theyhave no liking for women and children. Indeed, no woman or child may setfoot in a temple, or even loiter in the open space in front of it. Andat the chief festivals, when the temples are being repaired, all thewomen and children must quit the village till the evening shadows havefallen and the banquet of their husbands, fathers, and brothers at thetemple is over. [379]

On the whole, then, we conclude that a belief in the continued existenceof the spirits of the dead, and in their power to help or harm theirdescendants, plays a considerable part in the life of the Papuans ofTumleo. Whether the guardian spirits or goddesses, who are worshipped inthe temples, were originally conceived as ancestral spirits or not, mustbe left an open question for the present. 

[Sidenote: The Monumbo of Potsdam Harbour. ]

Passing eastward from Tumleo along the northern coast of German NewGuinea we come to Monumbo or Potsdam Harbour, situated about the 145thdegree of East Longitude. The Monumbo are a Papuan tribe numbering aboutfour hundred souls, who inhabit twelve small villages close to theseashore. Their territory is a narrow but fertile strip of country, wellwatered and covered with luxuriant vegetation, lying between the sea anda range of hills. The bay is sheltered by an island from the open sea, and the natives can paddle their canoes on its calm water in almost anyweather. The villages, embowered on the landward side in groves of treesof many useful sorts and screened in front by rows of stately coco-nutpalms, are composed of large houses solidly built of timber and are keptvery clean and tidy. The Monumbo are a strongly-built people, of theaverage European height, with what is described as a remarkably Semitictype of features. The men wear their hair plaited about a long tube, decorated with shells and dogs' teeth, which sticks out stiffly from thehead. The women wear their hair in a sort of mop, composed of countlessplaits, which hang down in tangle. In disposition the Monumbo arecheerful and contented, proud of themselves and their country; theythink they are the cleverest and most fortunate people on earth, andlook down with pity and contempt on Europeans. According to them thebusiness of the foreign settlers in their country is folly, and theteaching of the missionaries is nonsense. They subsist by agriculture, hunting, and fishing. Their well-kept plantations occupy the levelground and in some places extend up the hill-sides. Among the plantswhich they cultivate are taro, yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, variouskinds of vegetables, and sugar-cane. Among their fruit-trees are thesago-palm, the coco-nut palm, and the bread-fruit tree. They make useboth of earthenware and of wooden vessels. Their dances, especiallytheir masked dances, which are celebrated at intervals of four or fiveyears, have excited the warm admiration of the despised European. [380]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Monumbo concerning the spirits of the dead. Dread of ghosts. ]

With regard to their religion and morality I will quote the evidence ofa Catholic missionary who has laboured among them. "The Monumbo areacquainted with no Supreme Being, no moral good or evil, no rewards, noplace of punishment or joy after death, no permanent immortality. .. . When people die, their souls go to the land of spirits, a place wherethey dwell without work or suffering, but which they can also quit. Betel-chewing, smoking, dancing, sleeping, all the occupations that theyloved on earth, are continued without interruption in the other world. They converse with men in dreams, but play them many a shabby trick, take possession of them and even, it may be, kill them. Yet they alsohelp men in all manner of ways in war and the chase. Men invoke them, pray to them, make statues in their memory, which are called _dva_(plural _dvaka_), and bring them offerings of food, in order to obtaintheir assistance. But if the spirits of the dead do not help, they arerated in the plainest language. Death makes no great separation. Theliving converse with the dead very much as they converse with eachother. Time alone brings with it a gradual oblivion of the departed. Falling stars and lightning are nothing but the souls of the dead, whostick dry banana leaves in their girdles, set them on fire, and then flythrough the air. At last when the souls are old they die, but are notannihilated, for they are changed into animals and plants. Such animalsare, for example, the white ants and a rare kind of wild pig, which issaid not to allow itself to be killed. Such a tree, for example, is the_barimbar_. That, apparently, is the whole religion of the Monumbo. Yetthey are ghost-seers of the most arrant sort. An anxious superstitiousfear pursues them at every step. Superstitious views are the motivesthat determine almost everything that they do or leave undone. "[381]Their dread of ghosts is displayed in their custom of doing no work inthe plantations for three days after a death, lest the ghost, touched tothe quick by their heartless indifference, should send wild boars toravage the plantations. And when a man has slain an enemy in war, he hasto remain a long time secluded in the men's clubhouse, touching nobody, not even his wife and children, while the villagers celebrate hisvictory with song and dance. He is believed to be in a state ofceremonial impurity (_bolobolo_) such that, if he were to touch his wifeand children, they would be covered with sores. At the end of hisseclusion he is purified by washings and other purgations and is cleanonce more. [382] The reason of this uncleanness of a victorious warrioris not mentioned, but analogy makes it nearly certain that it is a dreadof the vengeful ghost of the man whom he has slain. A similar fearprobably underlies the rule that a widower must abstain from certainfoods, such as fish and sauces, and from bathing for a certain timeafter the death of his wife. [383]

[Sidenote: The Tamos of Astrolabe Bay. Mistake of attempting to combinedescriptive with comparative anthropology. ]

Leaving Potsdam Harbour and the Monumbo, and moving still eastward alongthe coast of German New Guinea, we come to a large indentation known asAstrolabe Bay. The natives of this part of the coast call themselvesTamos. The largest village on the bay bears the name of Bogadyim and in1894 numbered about three hundred inhabitants. [384] Our principalauthority on the natives is a German ethnologist, Dr. B. Hagen, whospent about eighteen months at Stefansort on Astrolabe Bay. Unfortunately he has mixed up his personal observations of theseparticular people not merely with second-hand accounts of natives ofother parts of New Guinea but with discussions of general theories ofthe origin and migrations of races and of the development of socialinstitutions; so that it is not altogether easy to disentangle the factsfor which he is a first-hand witness, from those which he reports atsecond, third, or fourth hand. Scarcely anything, I may observe inpassing, more impairs the value and impedes the usefulness of personalobservations of savage races than this deplorable habit of attempting tocombine the work of description with the work of comparison andgeneralisation. The two kinds of work are entirely distinct in theirnature, and require very different mental qualities for their properperformance; the one should never be confused with the other. The taskof descriptive anthropology is to record observations, without anyadmixture of theory; the task of comparative anthropology is to comparethe observations made in all parts of the world, and from the comparisonto deduce theories, more or less provisional, of the origin and growthof beliefs and institutions, always subject to modification andcorrection by facts which may afterwards be brought to light. There isno harm, indeed there is great positive advantage, in the descriptiveanthropologist making himself acquainted with the theories of thecomparative anthropologist, for by so doing his attention will probablybe called to many facts which he might otherwise have overlooked andwhich, when recorded, may either confirm or refute the theories inquestion. But if he knows these theories, he should keep his knowledgestrictly in the background and never interlard his descriptions of factswith digressions into an alien province. In this way descriptiveanthropology and comparative anthropology will best work hand in handfor the furtherance of their common aim, the understanding of the natureand development of man. 

[Sidenote: The religion of the Tamos. Beliefs of the Tamos as to thesouls of the dead. ]

Like the Papuans in general, the Tamos of Astrolabe Bay are a settledagricultural people, who dwell in fixed villages, subsist mainly by theproduce of the ground which they cultivate, and engage in a commerce ofbarter with their neighbours. [385] Their material culture thus does notdiffer essentially from that of the other Papuans, and I need not giveparticulars of it. With regard to their religious views Dr. Hagen tellsus candidly that he has great hesitation in expressing an opinion. "Nothing, " he says very justly, "is more difficult for a European thanto form an approximately correct conception of the religious views of asavage people, and the difficulty is infinitely increased when theenquirer has little or no knowledge of their language. " Dr. Hagen had, indeed, an excellent interpreter and intelligent assistant in the personof a missionary, Mr. Hoffmann; but Mr. Hoffmann himself admitted that hehad no clear ideas as to the religious views of the Tamos; however, inhis opinion they are entirely destitute of the conception of God and ofa Creator. Yet among the Tamos of Bogadyim, Dr. Hagen tells us, a beliefin the existence of the soul after death is proved by their assertionthat after death the soul (_gunung_) goes to _buka kure_, which seems tomean the village of ghosts. This abode of the dead appears to besituated somewhere in the earth, and the Tamos speak of it with ashudder. They tell of a man in the village of Bogadyim who died and wentaway to the village of the ghosts. But as he drew near to the village, he met the ghost of his dead brother who had come forth with bow andarrows and spear to hunt a wild boar. This boar-hunting ghost was veryangry at meeting his brother, who had just died, and drove him back tothe land of the living. From this narrative it would seem that in theother world the ghosts are thought to pursue the same occupations whichthey followed in life. The natives are in great fear of ghosts (_buka_). Travelling alone with them in the forest at nightfall you may mark theirtimidity and hear them cry anxiously, "Come, let us be going! The ghostis roaming about. " The ghosts of those who have perished in battle donot go to the Village of Ghosts (_buka kure_); they repair to anotherplace called _bopa kure_. But this abode of the slain does not seem tobe a happy land or Valhalla; the natives are even more afraid of it thanof the Village of Ghosts (_buka kure_). They will hardly venture atnight to pass a spot where any one has been slain. Sometimes fires arekindled by night on such spots; and the sight of the flames flickeringin the distance inspires all the beholders with horror, and nothing inthe world would induce them to approach such a fire. The souls of menwho have been killed, but whose death has not been avenged, are supposedto haunt the village. For some time after death the ghost is believed tolinger in the neighbourhood of his deserted body. When Mr. Hoffmann wentwith some Tamos to another village to bring back the body of a fellowmissionary, who had died there, and darkness had fallen on them in theforest, his native companions started with fear every moment, imaginingthat they saw the missionary's ghost popping out from behind atree. [386]

[Sidenote: Treatment of the corpse. Secret Society called _Asa_. ]

When death has taken place, the corpse is first exposed on a scaffold infront of the house, where it is decked with ornaments and surroundedwith flowers. If the deceased was rich, a dog is hung on each side ofthe scaffold, and the souls of the animals are believed to accompany theghost to the spirit-land. Taros, yams, and coco-nuts are also suspendedfrom the scaffold, no doubt for the refreshment of the ghost. Then themelancholy notes of a horn are heard in the distance, at the sound ofwhich all the women rush away. Soon the horn-blower appears, paints thecorpse white and red, crowns it with great red hibiscus roses, thenblows his horn, and vanishes. [387] He is a member of a secret society, called _Asa_, which has its lodge standing alone in the forest. Only menbelong to the society; women and children are excluded from it and lookupon it with fear and awe. If any one raises a cry, "_Asa_ is coming, "or the sound of the musical instruments of the society is heard in thedistance, all the women and children scamper away. The natives are veryunwilling to let any stranger enter one of the lodges of the society. The interior of such a building is usually somewhat bare, but itcontains the wooden masks which are worn in the ceremonial dances of thesociety, and the horns and flutes on which the members discourse theirawe-inspiring music. In construction it scarcely differs from theordinary huts of the village; if anything it is worse built and moreprimitive. The secrets of the society are well kept; at least verylittle seems to have been divulged to Europeans. The most important ofits ceremonies is that of the initiation of the young men, who on thisoccasion are circumcised before they are recognised as full-grown menand members of the secret society. At such times the men encamp andfeast for weeks or even months together on the open space in front ofthe society's lodge, and masked dances are danced to the accompanimentof the instrumental music. These initiatory ceremonies are held atintervals of about ten or fifteen years, when there are a considerablenumber of young men to be initiated together. [388] Although we are stillin the dark as to the real meaning of this and indeed of almost allsimilar secret societies among savages, the solemn part played by amember of the society at the funeral rites seems very significant. Whyshould he come mysteriously to the melancholy music of the horn, paintthe corpse red and white, crown it with red roses, and then vanish againto music as he had come? It is scarcely rash to suppose that thisceremony has some reference to the state of the dead man's soul, and wemay conjecture that just as the fruits hung on the scaffold aredoubtless intended for the consumption of the ghost, and the souls ofthe dogs are expressly said to accompany him to the spirit-land, so thepainting of the corpse and the crown of red roses may be designed insome way to speed the parting spirit on the way to its long home. In theabsence of exact information as to the beliefs of these savages touchingthe state of the dead we can only guess at the meaning which they attachto these symbols. Perhaps they think that only ghosts who are paintedred and white and who wear wreaths of red roses on their heads areadmitted to the Village of the Ghosts, and that such as knock at thegate with no paint on their bodies and no wreath of roses on their browsare refused admittance and must turn sorrowfully away, to haunt theirundutiful friends on earth who had omitted to pay the last marks ofrespect and honour to the dead. 

[Sidenote: Burial customs of the Tamos. Removal of the lower jawbone. ]

When the corpse has lain in all its glory, with its ornaments, its paintand its flowers, for a short time on the scaffold, it is removed andburied. The exposure never lasts more than a day. If the man died in themorning, he is buried at night. The grave is dug in the house itself. Itis only about three feet deep and four feet long. If the corpse is toolong for the grave, as usually happens, the legs are remorselesslydoubled up and trampled in. It is the relations on the mother's side whodig the grave and lower the body, shrouded in mats or leaves, into itsnarrow bed. Before doing so they take care to strip it of its ornaments, its rings, necklaces, boar's teeth, and so forth, which no doubt areregarded as too valuable to be sacrificed. Yet a regard for the comfortof the dead is shewn by the custom of covering the open grave with woodand then heaping the mould on the top, in order, we are told, that theearth may not press heavy on him who sleeps below. _Sit tibi terralevis!_ After some months the grave is opened and the lower jaw removedfrom the corpse and preserved. This removal of the jaw is the occasionof solemnities and ceremonial washings, in which the whole malepopulation of the village takes part. But as to the meaning of theseceremonies, and as to what is done with the jawbone, we have no exactinformation. [389] According to the Russian traveller, Baron N. VonMiklucho-Maclay, who has also given us an account of the Papuans ofAstrolabe Bay, [390] though not apparently of the villages described byDr. Hagen, the whole skull is dug up and separated from the corpse afterthe lapse of about a year, but only the lower jawbone is carefully keptby the nearest kinsman as a memorial of the deceased. BaronMiklucho-Maclay had great difficulty in inducing a native to part withone of these memorials of a dead relation. [391] In any case thepreservation of this portion of the deceased may be supposed to have forits object the maintenance of friendly relations between the living andthe dead. Similarly in Uganda the jawbone is the only part of the bodyof a deceased king which, along with his navel-string, is carefullypreserved in his temple-tomb and consulted oracularly. [392] We mayconjecture that the reason for preserving this part of the human framerather than any other is that the jawbone is an organ of speech, andthat therefore it appears to the primitive mind well fitted to maintainintercourse with the dead man's spirit and to obtain oracularcommunications from him. 

[Sidenote: Sham fight as a funeral ceremony at Astrolabe Bay. ]

The Russian traveller, Baron Miklucho-Maclay, has described a curiousfuneral ceremony which is observed by some of the Papuans of AstrolabeBay. I will give the first part of his description in his own words, which I translate from the German. He says: "The death of a man isannounced to the neighbouring villages by a definite series of beats onthe drum. On the same day or the next morning the whole male populationassembles in the vicinity of the village of the deceased. All the menare in full warlike array. To the beat of drum the guests march into thevillage, where a crowd of men, also armed for war, await the new-comersbeside the dead man's hut. After a short parley the men divide into twoopposite camps, and thereupon a sham fight takes place. However, thecombatants go to work very gingerly and make no use of their spears. Butdozens of arrows are continually discharged, and not a few are woundedin the sham fight, though not seriously. The nearest relations andfriends of the deceased appear especially excited and behave as if theywere frantic. When all are hot and tired and all arrows have been shotaway, the pretended enemies seat themselves in a circle and in whatfollows most of them act as simple spectators. " Thereupon the nearestrelations bring out the corpse and deposit it in a crouching position, with the knees drawn up to the chin, on some mats and leaves of thesago-palm, which had previously been spread out in the middle of theopen space. Beside the corpse are laid his things, some presents fromneighbours, and some freshly cooked food. While the men sit round in acircle, the women, even the nearest relatives of the deceased, may onlylook on from a distance. When all is ready, some men step out from thecircle to help the nearest of kin in the next proceedings, which consistin tying the corpse up tightly into a bundle by means of rattans andcreepers. Then the bundle is attached to a stout stick and carried backinto the house. There the corpse in its bundle is fastened under theroof by means of the stick, and the dead man's property, together withthe presents of the neighbours and the food, are left beside it. Afterthat the house is abandoned, and the guests return to their ownvillages. A few days later, when decomposition is far advanced, thecorpse is taken down and buried in a grave in the house, which continuesto be inhabited by the family. After the lapse of about a year, the bodyis dug up, the skull separated from it, and the lower jawbone preservedby the nearest relation, as I have already mentioned. [393]

[Sidenote: The sham fight perhaps intended to deceive the ghost. ]

What is the meaning of this curious sham fight which among these peopleseems to be regularly enacted after a death? The writer who reports thecustom offers no explanation of it. I would conjecture with all duecaution that it may possibly be intended as a satisfaction to the ghostin order to make him suppose that his death has been properly avenged. In a former lecture I shewed that natural deaths are regularly imaginedby many savages to be brought about by the magical practices of enemies, and that accordingly the relations of the deceased take vengeance onsome innocent person whom for one reason or another they regard as theculprit. It is possible that these Papuans of Astrolabe Bay, instead ofactually putting the supposed sorcerer to death, have advanced so far asto abandon that cruel and unjust practice and content themselves withthrowing dust in the eyes of the ghost by a sham instead of a realfight. But that is only a conjecture of my own, which I merely suggestfor what it is worth. 

Altogether, looking over the scanty notices of the beliefs and practicesof these Papuans of Astrolabe Bay concerning the departed, we may say ingeneral that while the fear of ghosts is conspicuous enough among them, there is but little evidence of anything that deserves to be called aregular worship of the dead. 

[Footnote 358: P. Mathias Josef Erdweg, "Die Bewohner der Insel Tumleo, Berlin-hafen, Deutsch-Neu-Guinea, " _Mittheilungen der AnthropologischenGesellschaft in Wien_, xxxii. (1902) pp. 274-310, 317-399. ]

[Footnote 359: R. Parkinson, "Die Berlinhafen Section, ein Beitrag zurEthnographie der Neu-Guinea-Küste, " _Internationales Archiv fürEthnographie_, xiii. (1900) pp. 18-54. ]

[Footnote 360: See the note of Father P. W. Schmidt on Father Erdweg'spaper, _op. Cit. _ p. 274. ]

[Footnote 361: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ p. 274. ]

[Footnote 362: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 277 _sq_. The frizzly character ofthe hair is mentioned by Mr. R. Parkinson, _op. Cit. _]

[Footnote 363: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 355 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 364: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 342-346. ]

[Footnote 365: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 335 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 366: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 330 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 367: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 350 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 368: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 363 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 369: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 374. ]

[Footnote 370: R. Parkinson, "Die Berlinhafen Section, ein Beitrag zurEthnographie der Neu-Guinea-Küste, " _Internationales Archiv fürEthnographie_, xiii. (1900) pp. 33-35. Father Erdweg speaks of the_parak_ as a spirit-temple or spirit-house in which the deities of theTumleo dwell (_op. Cit. _ p. 377): he tells us that as a rule eachvillage has only one _parak_. As to the spirits which dwell in thesetemples, see below, pp. 226 _sq. _]

[Footnote 371: R. Parkinson, _op. Cit. _ pp. 35, 42 _sq. _; Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 292 _sq. _, 306. ]

[Footnote 372: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 284-287. ]

[Footnote 373: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 288-291. ]

[Footnote 374: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 297 _sq. _]

[Footnote 375: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ p. 291. ]

[Footnote 376: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 291-293. ]

[Footnote 377: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 298, 371. ]

[Footnote 378: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 295 _sqq. _, 299 _sq. _, 334 _sq. _]

[Footnote 379: Erdweg, _op. Cit. _ pp. 295-297. ]

[Footnote 380: P. Franz Vormann, "Dorf und Hausanlage beiden Monumbo, Deutsch-Neuguinea, " _Anthropos_, iv. (1909) pp. 660 _sqq. _; _id. _, "ZurPsychologie, Religion, Soziologie und Geschichte der Monumbo-Papua, Deutsch-Neuguinea, " _Anthropos_, v. (1910) pp. 407-409. ]

[Footnote 381: P. Franz Vormann, in _Anthropos_, v. (1910) pp. 409_sq. _]

[Footnote 382: P. Franz Vormann, in _Anthropos_, v. (1910) pp. 410, 411. ]

[Footnote 383: P. Franz Vormann, _ibid. _, p. 412. ]

[Footnote 384: B. Hagen, _Unter den Papua's_ (Wiesbaden, 1899), pp. 143, 221. ]

[Footnote 385: For the evidence see B. Hagen, _op. Cit. _ pp. 193 _sqq. _As to barter he tells us (p. 216) that all articles in use at Bogadyimare imported, nothing is made on the spot. ]

[Footnote 386: B. Hagen, _Unter den Papua's_ (Wiesbaden, 1899), pp. 264-266. ]

[Footnote 387: B. Hagen, _op. Cit. _ pp. 258 _sq. _]

[Footnote 388: B. Hagen, _op. Cit. _ pp. 270 _sq. _ As to the period anddetails of the circumcision ceremonies see _id. _, pp. 234-238. ]

[Footnote 389: B. Hagen, _op. Cit. _ p. 260. ]

[Footnote 390: N. Von Miklucho-Maclay, "Ethnologische Bemerkungen überdie Papuas der Maclay-Küste in Neu-Guinea, " _Natuurkundig Tijdschriftvoor Nederlandsch Indie_, xxxv. (1875) pp. 66-93; _id. _, xxxvi. (1876)pp. 294-333. ]

[Footnote 391: N. Von Miklucho-Maclay, _op. Cit. _ xxxvi. (1876) p. 302. ]

[Footnote 392: Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 109_sqq. _; _Totemism and Exogamy_, ii. 470. ]

[Footnote 393: N. Von Miklucho-Maclay, _op. Cit. _ xxxvi. (1876) pp. 300-302. ]

LECTURE XI

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN NEW GUINEA(_continued_)

[Sidenote: The Papuans of Cape King William. ]

In my last lecture I gave you some account of the beliefs and practicesconcerning the dead which have been recorded among the Papuans of GermanNew Guinea. To-day I resume the subject and shall first speak of thenatives on the coast about Cape King William, at the foot of MountCromwell. We possess an account of their religion and customs from thepen of a German missionary, Mr. Stolz, who has lived three years amongthem and studied their language. [394] His description applies to theinhabitants of two villages only, namely Lamatkebolo and Quambu, orSialum and Kwamkwam, as they are generally called on the maps, whotogether number about five hundred souls. They belong to the Papuanstock and subsist chiefly by the cultivation of yams, which they plantin April or May and reap in January or February. But they also cultivatesweet potatoes and make some use of bananas and coco-nuts. They clearthe land for cultivation by burning down the grass and afterwardsturning up the earth with digging-sticks, a labour which is performedchiefly by the men. The land is not common property; each family tillsits own fields, though sometimes one family will aid another in thelaborious task of breaking up the soil. Moreover they trade with thenatives of the interior, who, inhabiting a more fertile andbetter-watered country, are able to export a portion of theirsuperfluities, especially taro, sweet potatoes, betel-nuts, and tobacco, to the less favoured dwellers on the sea-coast, receiving mostly driedfish in return. Curiously enough the traffic is chiefly in the hands ofold women. [395]

[Sidenote: Propitiation of ghosts and spirits. The spirit Mate. Spiritscalled _Nai_. ]

With regard to the religion of these people Mr. Stolz tells us that theyknow nothing of a deity who should receive the homage of hisworshippers; they recognise only spirits and the souls of the dead. Tothese last they bring offerings, not because they feel any need to dothem reverence, but simply out of fear and a desire to win their favour. The offerings are presented at burials and when they begin to cultivatethe fields. Their purpose is to persuade the souls of the dead to wardoff all the evil influences that might thwart the growth of the yams, their staple food. The ghosts are also expected to guard the fieldsagainst the incursions of wild pigs and the ravages of locusts. At aburial the aim of the sacrifice is to induce the soul of the departedbrother or sister to keep far away from the village and to do no harm tothe people. Sacrifices are even offered to the souls of animals, such asdogs and pigs, to prevent them from coming back and working mischief. However, the ghosts of these creatures are not very exacting; a fewpieces of sugar-cane, a coco-nut shell, or a taro shoot suffice tocontent their simple tastes and to keep them quiet. Amongst the spiritsto whom the people pay a sort of worship there is one named Mate, whoseems to be closely akin to Balum, a spirit about whom we shall hearmore among the Yabim further to the east. However, not very much isknown about Mate; his worship, if it can be called so, flourisheschiefly among the inland tribes, of whom the coast people stand so muchin awe that they dare not speak freely on the subject of this mysteriousbeing. Some of them indeed are bold enough to whisper that there is nosuch being as Mate at all, and that the whole thing is a cheat devisedby sly rogues for the purpose of appropriating a larger share of roastpork at their religious feasts, from which women are excluded. Whatevermay be thought of these sceptical views, it appears to be certain thatthe name of Mate is also bestowed on a number of spirits who disportthemselves by day in open grassy places, while they retire by night tothe deep shades of the forest; and the majority of these spirits arethought to be the souls of ancestors or of the recently departed. Again, there is another class of spirits called _Nai_, who unlike all otherspirits are on friendly terms with men. These are the souls of deadvillagers, who died far away from home. They warn people of danger andvery obligingly notify them of the coming of trading steamers. When aman dies in a foreign land, his soul appears as a _Nai_ to his sorrowingrelatives and announces his sad fate to them. He does so always atnight. When the men are gathered round the fire on the open square ofthe village, the ghost climbs the platform which usually serves forpublic meetings and banquets, and from this coin of vantage, plunged inthe deep shadow, he lifts up his voice and delivers his message ofwarning, news, or prediction, as the case may be. [396]

[Sidenote: The creator Nemunemu. Sickness and death often regarded asthe effects of sorcery. ]

However, ghosts of the dead are not the only spiritual beings with whomthese people are acquainted. They know of a much higher being, of thename of Nemunemu, endowed with superhuman power, who made the heaven andthe earth with the assistance of two brothers; the elder brotherconstructed the mainland of New Guinea, while the younger fashioned theislands and the sea. When the natives first saw a steamer on the horizonthey thought it was Nemunemu's ship, and the smoke at the funnel theytook to be the tobacco-smoke which he puffed to beguile the tedium ofthe voyage. [397] They are also great believers in magic and witchcraft, and cases of sickness and death, which are not attributed to themalignity of ghosts and spirits, are almost invariably set down to themachinations of sorcerers. Only the deaths of decrepit old folks areregarded as natural. When a man has died, and his death is believed tohave been caused by magic, the people resort to divination in order todiscover the wicked magician who has perpetrated the crime. For thispurpose they place the corpse on a bier, cover it with a mat, and set iton the shoulders of four men, while a fifth man taps lightly with anarrow on the mat and enquires of the departed whether such and such avillage has bewitched him to death. If the bier remains still, it means"No"; but if it rocks backward and forward, it means "Yes, " and theavengers of blood must seek their victim, the guilty sorcerer, in thatvillage. The answer is believed to be given by the dead man's ghost, whostirs his body at the moment when his murderer's village is named. It isuseless for the inhabitants of that village to disclaim all knowledge ofthe sickness and death of the deceased. The people repose implicit faithin this form of divination. "His soul itself told us, " they say, andsurely he ought to know. Another form of divination which they employfor the same purpose is to put the question to the ghost, while two menhold a bow which belonged to him and to which some personal articles ofhis are attached. The answer is again yes or no according as the bowmoves or is still. [398]

[Sidenote: Funeral and mourning customs. ]

When the author of the death has been discovered in one way or another, the corpse is decked with all the ornaments that can be collected fromthe relatives and prepared for burial. A shallow grave is dug under thehouse and lined with mats. Then the body is lowered into the grave: oneof the sextons strikes up a lament, and the shrill voices of the womenin the house join in the melancholy strain. When he lies in his narrowbed, the ornaments are removed from his person, but some of his tools, weapons, and other belongings are buried with him, no doubt for his usein the life hereafter. The funeral celebration, in which the wholevillage commonly takes part, lasts several days and consists in thebringing of offerings to the dead and the abstinence from all labour inthe fields. Yams are brought from the field of the departed and cooked. A small pot filled with yams and a vessel of water are placed on thegrave; the rest of the provisions is consumed by the mourners. The nextof kin, especially the widow or widower, remain for about a week at thegrave, watching day and night, lest the body should be dug up anddevoured by a certain foul fiend with huge wings and long claws, whobattens on corpses. The mourning costume of men consists in smearing theface with black and wearing a cord round the neck and a netted cap onthe head. Instead of such a cap a woman in mourning wraps herself in alarge net and a great apron of grass. While the other ensigns of woe aresoon discarded or disappear, the cord about the neck is worn for alonger time, generally till next harvest. The sacrifice of a pig bringsthe period of mourning to an end and after it the cord may be laidaside. If any one were so hard-hearted as not to wear that badge ofsorrow, the people believe that the angry ghost would come back andfetch him away. He would die. [399] Thus among these savages the mourningcostume is regarded as a protection against the dangerous ghost of thedeparted; it soothes his wounded feelings and prevents him from makingraids on the living. 

[Sidenote: Fate of the souls of the dead. ]

As to the place to which the souls of the dead repair and the fate thatawaits them there, very vague and contradictory ideas prevail among thenatives of this district. Some say that the ghosts go eastward to Bukauaon Huon Gulf and there lead a shadowy life very like their life onearth. Others think that the spirits hover near the village where theylived in the flesh. Others again are of opinion that they transmigrateinto animals and prolong their life in one or other of the bodies of thelower creatures. [400]

[Sidenote: The Yabim and Bukaua tribes. ]

Leaving Cape King William we pass eastward along the coast of German NewGuinea and come to Finsch Harbour. From a point some miles to the northof Finsch Harbour as far as Samoa Harbour on Huon Gulf the coast isinhabited by two kindred tribes, the Yabim and the Bukaua, who speak aMelanesian language. I shall deal first with the Yabim tribe, whosecustoms and beliefs have been described for us with a fair degree offulness by two German missionaries, Mr. Konrad Vetter and Mr. HeinrichZahn. [401] The following account is based chiefly on the writings of Mr. Vetter, whose mission station is at the village of Simbang. 

[Sidenote: Material and artistic culture of the Yabim. ]

Like the other natives of New Guinea the Yabim build permanent houses, live in settled villages, and till the ground. Every year they make afresh clearing in the forest by cutting down the trees, burning thefallen timber, and planting taro, bananas, sugar-cane, and tobacco inthe open glade. When the crops have been reaped, the place is abandoned, and is soon overgrown again by the rank tropical vegetation, while thenatives move on to another patch, which they clear and cultivate in likemanner. This rude mode of tillage is commonly practised by many savages, especially within the tropics. Cultivation of this sort is migratory, and in some places, though apparently not in New Guinea, the peopleshift their habitations with their fields as they move on from one partof the forest to another. Among the Yabim the labour of clearing a patchfor cultivation is performed by all the men of a village in common, butwhen the great trees have fallen with a crash to the ground, and thetrunks, branches, foliage and underwood have been burnt, with a roar offlames and a crackling like a rolling fire of musketry, each familyappropriates a portion of the clearing for its own use and marks off itsboundaries with sticks. But they also subsist in part by fishing, andfor this purpose they build outrigger canoes. They display considerableskill and taste in wood-carving, and are fond of ornamenting theirhouses, canoes, paddles, tools, spears, and drums with figures ofcrocodiles, fish, and other patterns. [402]

[Sidenote: Men's clubhouses (_lum_). ]

The villages are divided into wards, and every ward contains itsclubhouse for men, called a _lum_, in which young men and lads areobliged to pass the night. It consists of a bedroom above and a parlourwith fireplaces below. In the parlour the grown men pass their leisurehours during the day, and here the councils are held. The wives cook thefood at home and bring it for their husbands to the clubhouse. Thebull-roarers which are used at the initiatory ceremonies are kept in theprincipal clubhouse of the village. Such a clubhouse serves as anasylum; men fleeing from the avenger of blood who escape into it aresafe. It is said that the spirit (_balum_) has swallowed or concealedthem. But if they steal out of it and attempt to make their way toanother village, they carry their life in their hand. [403] Among theYabim, according to Mr. Zahn, religion in the proper sense does notexist, but on the other hand the whole people is dominated by the fearof witchcraft and of the spirits of the dead. [404] The following is theaccount which Mr. Vetter gives of the beliefs and customs of thesepeople concerning the departed. 

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Yabim concerning the state of the dead. Theghostly ferry. ]

They do not believe that death is the end of all things for theindividual; they think that his soul survives and becomes a spirit orghost, which they call a _balum_. The life of human spirits in the otherworld is a shadowy continuation of the life on earth, and as such it haslittle attraction for the mind of the Papuan. Of heaven and hell, aplace of reward and a place of punishment for the souls of the good andbad respectively, he has no idea. However, his world of the dead is tosome extent divided into compartments. In one of them reside the ghostsof people who have been slain, in another the ghosts of people who havebeen hanged, and in a third the ghosts of people who have been devouredby a shark or a crocodile. How many more compartments there may be forthe accommodation of the souls, we are not told. The place is in one ofthe islands of Siasi. No living man has ever set foot in the island, forsmoke and mist hang over it perpetually; but from out the mist you mayhear the sound of the barking of dogs, the grunting of swine, and thecrowing of cocks, which seems to shew that in the opinion of thesepeople animals have immortal souls as well as men. The natives of theSiasi islands say that the newly arrived ghosts may often be seenstrolling on the beach; sometimes the people can even recognise thefamiliar features of friends with whom they did business in the flesh. The mode in which the spirits of the dead arrive at their destinationfrom the mainland is naturally by a ferry: indeed, the prow of theghostly ferry-boat may be seen to this day in the village of Bogiseng. The way in which it came to be found there was this. A man of thevillage lay dying, and on his deathbed he promised to give his friends asign of his continued existence after death by appearing as a ghost intheir midst. Only he stipulated that in order to enable him to do sothey would place a stone club in the hand of his corpse. This was done. He died, the club was placed in his cold hand, and his sorrowing buthopeful relations awaited results. They had not very long to wait. Forno sooner had the ghost, armed with the stone club, stepped down to thesea-shore than he called imperiously for the ferry-boat. It soon hove insight, with the ghostly ferryman in it paddling to the beach to receivethe passenger. But when the prow grated on the pebbles, the artfulghost, instead of stepping into it as he should have done, lunged out atit with the stone club so forcibly that he broke the prow clean off. Ina rage the ferryman roared out to him, "I won't put you across! You andyour people shall be kangaroos. " The ghost had gained his point. Heturned back from the ferry and brought to his friends as a trophy theprow of the ghostly canoe, which is treasured in the village to thisday. I should add that the prow in question bears a suspiciousresemblance to a powder-horn which has been floating about for some timein the water; but no doubt this resemblance is purely fortuitous andwithout any deep significance. 

[Sidenote: Transmigration of human souls into animals. ]

From this veracious narrative we gather that sometimes the souls of thedead, instead of going away to the spirit-land, transmigrate into thebodies of animals. The case of the kangaroos is not singular. In thevillage of Simbang Mr. Vetter knows two families, of whom the ghostspass at death into the carcases of crocodiles and a species of fabulouspigs respectively. Hence members of the one family are careful not toinjure crocodiles, lest the souls of their dead should chance to belodged in the reptiles; and the members of the other family would beequally careful not to hurt the fabulous pigs if ever they fell in withthem. However, the crocodile people, not to be behind their neighbours, assert that after death their spirits can also roam about the wood asghosts and go to the spirit-land. In explanation they say that everyhuman being has two souls; one of them is his reflection on the water, the other is his shadow on the land. No doubt it is the water-soul whichgoes to the island of Siasi, while the land-soul is free to occupy thebody of a crocodile, a kangaroo, or some other animal. [405]

[Sidenote: Return of the ghosts. ]

But even when the ghosts have departed to their island home, they are byno means strictly confined to it. They can return, especially at night, to roam about the woods and the villages, and the living are very muchafraid of them, for the ghosts delight in doing mischief. It isespecially in the first few days after a death that the ghost is anobject of terror, for he is then still loitering about the village. During these days everybody is afraid to go alone into the forest forfear of meeting him, and if a dog or a pig strays in the wood and islost, the people make sure that the ghost has made off with the animal, and the aggrieved owners roundly abuse the sorrowing family, tellingthem that their old father or mother, as the case may be, is no betterthan a thief. They are also very unwilling to mention the names of deadpersons, imagining that were the ghost to hear his name pronounced hemight fancy he was being called for and might accordingly suspend hishabitual occupation of munching sour fruits in the forest to come andtrouble the living. 

[Sidenote: Offerings to ghosts. ]

Hence in order to keep the short-tempered ghost in good humour bysatisfying his wants, lest he should think himself neglected and wreakhis vexation on the survivors, the people go a-fishing after a death, orthey kill a pig or a dog; sometimes also they cut down a fruit-tree. Butit is only the souls of the animals which are destined for theconsumption of the ghost; their bodies are roasted and eaten by theliving. On a grave you may sometimes see a small basket suspended from astick; but if you look into it you will find nothing but a little sootand some fish scales, which is all that remains of the fried fish. 

[Sidenote: Ghosts provided with fire. ]

The Yabim also imagine that the ghost has need of fire to guide him tothe door of the man who has done him to death by sorcery. Accordinglythey provide the spirit with this necessary as follows. On the eveningof the day on which the body has been buried, they kindle a fire on apotsherd and heap dry leaves on it. As they do so they mention the namesof all the sorcerers they can think of, and he at whose name thesmouldering leaves burst into a bright flame is the one who has done thedeed. Having thus ascertained the true cause of death, beyond reach ofcavil, they proceed to light up the ghost to the door of his murderer. For this purpose a procession is formed. A man, holding the smoulderingfire in the potsherd with one hand and a bundle of straw with the other, leads the way. He is followed by another who draws droning notes from awater-bottle of the deceased, which he finally smashes. After these twomarch a number of young fellows who make a plumping sound by smackingtheir thighs with the hollow of their hands. This solemn processionwends its way to a path in the neighbouring forest. By this time theshades of night have fallen. The firebearer now sets the fire on theground and calls on the ghost to come and take it. They firmly believethat he does so and that having got it he hies away to cast the glowingembers down at the door of the man who has done him to death. They evenfancy they see the flickering light carried by the invisible handretreating through the shadows into the depth of the forest; and inorder to follow it with their eyes they will sometimes climb tall treesor launch a canoe and put out to sea, gazing intently at the glimmeringray till it vanishes from their sight in the darkness. Perhaps the gleamof fire-flies, which abound in these tropical forests, or the flashingof a meteor, as it silently drops from the starry heaven into the sea, may serve to feed this superstitious fancy. [406]

[Sidenote: Ghosts thought to help in the cultivation of the land. ]

But the spirits of the dead are supposed to be able to help as well asharm the living. Good crops and a successful hunt are attributed totheir influence. It is especially the spirits of the ancient owners ofthe land who are credited with the power of promoting the growth of thecrops. Hence when a clearing has been made in the forest and plantedwith taro, and the plants are shewing a good head of leaves, preparations are made to feast the ghosts of the people to whom the landbelonged in days gone by. For this purpose a sago-palm is cut down, sago-porridge made, and a wild boar killed. Then the men arrayed in alltheir finery march out in solemn procession by day to the taro field;and the leader invites the spirits in a loud voice to come to thevillage and partake of the sago-porridge and pork that have been madeready for them. But the invisible guests content themselves as usualwith snuffing up the fragrant smell of the roast pork and the steam ofthe porridge; the substance of these dainties is consumed by the living. Yet the help which the ghosts give in the cultivation of the land wouldseem to be conceived as a purely negative one; the offerings are made tothem for the purpose of inducing them to keep away and not injure thegrowing crops. It is also believed that the ghosts of the dead makecommunications to the living in dreams or by whistling, and even thatthey can bring things to their friends and relations. But on the whole, Mr. Vetter tells us, the dominant attitude of the living to the dead isone of fear; the power of the ghosts is oftener exerted for evil thanfor good. [407] The ghost of a murdered man in particular is dreaded, because he is believed to haunt his murderer and to do him a mischief. Hence they drive away such a dangerous ghost with shouts and the beatingof drums; and by way of facilitating his departure they launch a modelof a canoe, laden with taro and tobacco, in order to transport him withall comfort to the land of souls. [408]

[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs among the Yabim. ]

Among the Yabim the dead are usually buried in shallow graves close tothe houses where they died. Some trifles are laid with the body in thegrave, in order that the dead man or woman may have the use of them inthe other world. But any valuables that may be deposited with the corpseare afterwards dug up and appropriated by the survivors. If the deceasedwas the householder himself or his wife, the house is almost alwaysdeserted, however solidly it may be built. The reason for thusabandoning so valuable a piece of property is not mentioned; but we mayassume that the motive is a fear of the ghost, who is supposed to haunthis old home. A temporary hut is built on the grave, and in it thefamily of the deceased take up their abode for six weeks or more; herethey cook, eat, and sleep. A widower sits in a secluded corner byhimself, invisible to all and unwashed; during the period of fullmourning he may not shew himself in the village. When he does come forthagain, he wears a mourning hat made of bark in the shape of a cylinderwithout crown or brim; a widow wears a great ugly net, which wraps herup almost completely from the head to the knees. Sometimes in memory ofthe deceased they wear a lock of his hair or a bracelet. Other relationswear cords round their necks in sign of mourning. The period of mourningvaries greatly; it may last for months or even years. Sometimes thebodies of beloved children or persons who have been much respected arenot buried but tied up in bundles and set up in a house until the fleshhas quite mouldered away; then the skull and the bones of the arms andlegs are anointed, painted red, and preserved for a time. Mr. Vetterrecords the case of a chief whose corpse was thus preserved in theassembly-house of the village, after it had been dried over a fire. Whenit had been reduced to a mummy, the skull and the arm-bones andleg-bones were detached, oiled, and reddened, and then kept for someyears in the house of the chief's eldest son, till finally they weredeposited in the grave of a kinsman. In some of the inland villages ofthis part of New Guinea the widow is sometimes throttled by herrelations at the death of her husband, in order that she may accompanyhim to the other world. [409]

[Sidenote: Deaths attributed by the Yabim to sorcery. ]

The Yabim believe that except in the case of very old people every deathis caused by sorcery; hence when anybody has departed this life, hisrelations make haste to discover the wicked sorcerer who has killedtheir kinsman. For that purpose they have recourse to various forms ofdivination. One of them has been already described, but they haveothers. For example, they put a powder like sulphur in a piece of bambootube and kindle a fire under it. Then an old man takes a bull-roarer andtaps with it on the bamboo tube, naming all the sorcerers in theneighbouring villages. He at the mention of whose name the fire catchesthe powder and blazes up is the guilty man. Another way of detecting theculprit is to attach the feather of a bird of paradise to a staff andgive the staff to two men to hold upright between the palms of theirright hands. Then somebody names the sorcerers, and he at whose name thestaff turns round and the feather points downwards is the one who causedthe death. When the avengers of blood, wrought up to a high pitch offury, fall in with the family of the imaginary criminal, they may putthe whole of them to death lest the sons should afterwards avenge theirfather's murder by the black art. Sometimes a dangerous and dreadedsorcerer will be put out of the way with the connivance of the chief ofhis own village; and after a few days the murderers will boldly shewthemselves in the village where the crime was perpetrated and willreassure the rest of the people, saying, "Be still. The wicked man hasbeen taken off. No harm will befall you. "[410]

[Sidenote: Bull-roarers (_balum_). Initiation of young men. ]

It is very significant that the word _balum_, which means a ghost, isapplied by the Yabim to the instrument now generally known amonganthropologists as a bull-roarer. It is a small fish-shaped piece ofwood which, being tied to a string and whirled rapidly round, produces ahumming or booming sound like the roaring of a bull or the muttering ofdistant thunder. Instruments of this sort are employed by savages inmany parts of the world at their mysteries; the weird sound which theimplement makes when swung is supposed by the ignorant and uninitiatedto be the voice of a spirit and serves to impress them with a sense ofawe and mystery. So it is with the Papuans about Finsch Harbour, withwhom we are at present concerned. At least one such bull-roarer is keptin the _lum_ or bachelors' clubhouse of every village, and the women anduninitiated boys are forbidden to see it under pain of death. Theinstrument plays a great part in the initiation of young men, whichtakes place at intervals of several years, when there are a number ofyouths ready to be initiated, and enough pigs can be procured to furnishforth the feasts which form an indispensable part of the ceremony. Theprincipal initiatory rite consists of circumcision, which is performedon all youths before they are admitted to the rank of full-grown men. The age of the candidates varies considerably, from four years up totwenty. Many are married before they are initiated. The operation isperformed in the forest, and the procession of the youths to the placeappointed is attended by a number of men swinging bull-roarers. As theprocession sets out, the women look on from a distance, weeping andhowling, for they are taught to believe that the lads, their sons andbrothers, are about to be swallowed up by a monster called a _balum_ orghost, who will only release them from his belly on condition ofreceiving a sufficient number of roast pigs. How, then, can the poorwomen be sure that they will ever see their dear ones again? So amid thenoise of weeping and wailing the procession passes into the forest, andthe booming sound of the bull-roarers dies away in the distance. 

[Sidenote: The rite of circumcision; the lads supposed to be swallowedby a monster (_balum_). The sacred flutes. ]

The place where the operation is performed on the lads is a long hut, about a hundred feet in length, which diminishes in height towards therear. This represents the belly of the monster which is to swallow upthe candidates. To keep up the delusion a pair of great eyes are paintedover the entrance, and above them the projecting roots of a betel-palmrepresent the monster's hair, while the trunk of the tree passes for hisbackbone. As the awe-struck lads approach this imposing creature, he isheard from time to time to utter a growl. The growl is in fact no otherthan the humming note of bull-roarers swung by men, who are concealedwithin the edifice. When the procession has come to a halt in front ofthe artificial monster, a loud defiant blast blown on shell-trumpetssummons him to stand forth. The reply follows in the shape of anothermuffled roar of the bull-roarers from within the building. At the soundthe men say that "Balum is coming up, " and they raise a shrill song likea scream and sacrifice pigs to the monster in order to induce him tospare the lives of the candidates. When the operation has been performedon the lads, they must remain in strict seclusion for three or fourmonths, avoiding all contact with women and even the sight of them. Theylive in the long hut, which represents the monster's belly, and theirfood is brought them by elder men. Their leisure time is spent inweaving baskets and playing on certain sacred flutes, which are neverused except at such seasons. The instruments are of two patterns. One iscalled the male and the other the female, and they are supposed to bemarried to each other. No woman may see these mysterious flutes; if shedid she would die. Even if she hears their shrill note in the distance, she will hasten to hide herself in a thicket. When the initiatoryceremonies are over, the flutes are carefully kept in the men'sclubhouse of the village till the next time they are wanted for asimilar occasion. On the other hand, if the women are obliged to go nearthe place where the lads are living in seclusion, they beat on certainbamboo drums in order to warn them to keep out of the way. Sometimes, though perhaps rarely, one of the lads dies under the operation; in thatcase the men explain his disappearance to the women by saying that themonster has a pig's stomach as well as a human stomach, and thatunfortunately the deceased young man slipped by mistake into the wrongstomach and so perished miserably. But as a rule the candidates passinto the right stomach and after a sufficient period has been allowedfor digestion, they come forth safe and sound, the monster having kindlyconsented to let them go free in consideration of the roast pigs whichhave been offered to him by the men. Indeed he is not very exacting, forhe contents himself with devouring the souls of the pigs, while heleaves their bodies to be consumed by his worshippers. This is a kindlyand considerate way of dealing with sacrifice, which our New Guineaghost or monster shares with many deities of much higher socialpretensions. However, lest he should prove refractory and perhaps runaway with the poor young men in his inside, or possibly make a dart atany women or children who might be passing, the men take the precautionof tying him down tight with ropes. When the time of seclusion is up, one of the last acts in the long series of ceremonies is to cast off theropes and let the monster go free. He avails himself of his liberty toreturn to his subterranean abode, and the young men are brought back tothe village with much solemnity. 

[Sidenote: The return of the novices to the village. ]

An eye-witness has described the ceremony. The lads, now ranking asfull-grown men, were first bathed in the sea and then elaboratelydecorated with paint and so forth. In marching back to the village theyhad to keep their eyes tightly shut, and each of them was led by a manwho acted as a kind of god-father. As the procession moved on, an oldbald-headed man touched each boy solemnly on the chin and brow with abull-roarer. In the village preparations for a banquet had meanwhilebeen made, and the women and girls were waiting in festal attire. Thewomen were much moved at the return of the lads; they sobbed and tearsof joy ran down their cheeks. Arrived in the village the newly-initiatedlads were drawn up in a row and fresh palm leaves were spread in frontof them. Here they stood with closed eyes, motionless as statues. Then aman passed behind them, touching each of them in the hams with thehandle of an axe and saying, "O circumcised one, sit down. " But stillthe lads remained standing, stiff and motionless. Not till another manhad knocked repeatedly on the ground with the stalk of a palm-leaf, crying, "O circumcised ones, open your eyes!" did the youths, one afteranother, open their eyes as if awaking from a profound stupor. Then theysat down on the mats and partook of the food brought them by the men. Young and old now ate in the open air. Next morning the circumcised ladswere bathed in the sea and painted red instead of white. After that theymight talk to women. This was the end of the ceremony. [411]

[Sidenote: The essence of the initiatory rites seems to be a simulationof death and resurrection; the novice is supposed to be killed and tocome to life or be born again. The new birth among the Akikuyu ofBritish East Africa. ]

The meaning of these curious ceremonies observed on the return of thelads to the village is not explained by the writer who describes them;but the analogy of similar ceremonies observed at initiation by manyother races allows us to divine it with a fair degree of probability. AsI have already observed in a former lecture, the ceremony of initiationat puberty is very often regarded as a process of death andresurrection; the candidate is supposed to die or to be killed and tocome to life again or be born again; and the pretence of a new birth isnot uncommonly kept up by the novices feigning to have forgotten all themost common actions of life and having accordingly to learn them allover again like newborn babes. We may conjecture that this is why theyoung circumcised Papuans, with whom we are at present concerned, marchback to their village with closed eyes; this is why, when bidden to sitdown, they remain standing stiffly, as if they understood neither thecommand nor the action; and this, too, we may surmise, is why theirmothers and sisters receive them with a burst of emotion, as if theirdead had come back to them from the grave. This interpretation of theceremony is confirmed by a curious rite which is observed by the Akikuyuof British East Africa. Amongst them every boy or girl at or about theage of ten years has solemnly to pretend to be born again, not in amoral or religious, but in a physical sense. The mother of the child, or, if she is dead, some other woman, goes through an actual pantomimeof bringing forth the boy or girl. I will spare you the details of thepantomime, which is very graphic, and will merely mention that thebouncing infant squalls like a newborn babe. Now this ceremony of thenew birth was formerly enacted among the Akikuyu at the rite ofcircumcision, though the two ceremonies are now kept distinct. [412]Hence it is not very rash to conjecture that the ceremony performed bythe young Papuans of Finsch Harbour on their return to the village afterundergoing circumcision is merely a way of keeping up the pretence ofbeing born again and of being therefore as ignorant and helpless asbabes. 

[Sidenote: The mock death of the novices as a preliminary to the mockbirth. ]

But if the end of the initiation is a mock resurrection, or rather newbirth, as it certainly seems to be, we may infer with some confidencethat the first part of it, namely the act of circumcision, is a mockdeath. This is borne out by the explicit statement of a very goodauthority, Mr. Vetter, that "the circumcision is designated as a processof being swallowed by the spirit, out of whose stomach (represented by along hut) the release must take place by means of a sacrifice ofpigs. "[413] And it is further confirmed by the observation that both thespirit which is supposed to operate on the lads, and the bull-roarer, which apparently represents his voice, are known by the name of _balum_, which means the ghost or spirit of a dead person. Similarly, among theTugeri or Kaya-Kaya, a large Papuan tribe on the south coast of DutchNew Guinea, the name of the bull-roarer, which they call _sosom_, isgiven to a mythical giant, who is supposed to appear every year with thesouth-east monsoon. When he comes, a festival is held in his honour andbull-roarers are swung. Boys are presented to the giant, and he killsthem, but brings them to life again. [414] Thus the initiatory rite ofcircumcision, to which all lads have to submit among the Yabim, seems tobe closely bound up with their conception of death and with their beliefin a life after death; since the whole ceremony apparently consists in asimulation of dying and coming to life again. That is why I have touchedupon these initiatory rites, which at first sight might appear to haveno connexion with our immediate subject, the belief in immortality andthe worship of the dead. 

[Sidenote: General summary as to the Yabim. ]

On the whole we may say that the Yabim have a very firm and practicalbelief in a life after death, and that while their attitude to thespirits of the departed is generally one of fear, they nevertheless lookto these spirits also for information and help on various occasions. Thus their beliefs and practices contain at least in germ the elementsof a worship of the dead. 

[Footnote 394: Stolz, "Die Umgebung von Kap König Wilhelm, " in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch New-Guinea_ (Berlin, 1911), iii. 243-286. ]

[Footnote 395: Stolz, _op. Cit. _ pp. 252-254. ]

[Footnote 396: Stolz, _op. Cit. _ pp. 245-247. ]

[Footnote 397: Stolz, _op. Cit. _ pp. 247 _sq. _]

[Footnote 398: Stolz, _op. Cit. _ pp. 248-250. ]

[Footnote 399: Stolz, _op. Cit. _ p. 258. ]

[Footnote 400: Stolz, _op. Cit. _ p. 259. ]

[Footnote 401: K. Vetter, in _Komm herüber und hilf uns! oder die Arbeitder Neuen-Dettelsauer Mission_, Nos. 1-4 (Barmen, 1898); _id. _, in_Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land_, 1897, pp. 86-102; _id. _, in_Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xi. (Jena, 1892)pp. 102-106; _id. _, in _Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zuJena_, xii. (Jena, 1893) pp. 95-97; H. Zahn, "Die Jabim, " in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_, iii (Berlin, 1911) pp. 287-394. ]

[Footnote 402: K. Vetter, _Komm herüber und hilf uns!_ ii. (Barmen, 1898) pp. 6-12. ]

[Footnote 403: K. Vetter, _op. Cit. _ ii. 8; H. Zahn, "Die Jabim, " in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_, iii. 291, 308, 311. ]

[Footnote 404: H. Zahn, _op. Cit. _ iii. 291. ]

[Footnote 405: K. Vetter, _Komm herüber und hilf uns!_ iii. 21 _sq. _According to Mr. H. Zahn (_op. Cit. _ p. 324) every village has its ownentrance into the spirit-land. ]

[Footnote 406: K. Vetter, _Komm herüber und hilf uns!_ iii. 19-24;_id. _, in _Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xii. (1893) pp. 96 _sq. _]

[Footnote 407: K. Vetter, _Komm herüber und hilf uns!_ ii. 7, iii. 24;_id. _, in _Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und denBismarck-Archipel_, 1897, p. 94. ]

[Footnote 408: K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land_, 1897, p. 94. ]

[Footnote 409: K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land_, 1897, pp. 94 _sq. _; _id. _, _Komm herüber und hilf uns!_ iii. 15-19. Compare H. Zahn, "Die Jabim, " in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_, iii. 320 _sq. _]

[Footnote 410: H. Zahn, "Die Jabim, " in R. Neuhauss's _DeutschNeu-Guinea_, iii. 318-320. ]

[Footnote 411: K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land undden Bismarck-Archipel_, 1897, pp. 92 _sq. _; _id. _, in _Mitteilungen derGeographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xi. (1892) p. 105; _id. _, _Kommherüber und hilf uns!_ ii. (1898) p. 18; _id. _, cited by M. Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_, pp. 167-170; O. Schellong, "Das Barlum (_sic_)-fest derGegend Finsch-hafens (Kaiserwilhelmsland), ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss derBeschneidung der Melanesier, " _Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, ii. (1889) pp. 145-162; H. Zahn, "Die Jabim, " in R. Neuhauss's _DeutschNeu-Guinea_, iii. 296-298. ]

[Footnote 412: W. S. Routledge and K. Routledge, _With a PrehistoricPeople, the Akikuyu of British East Africa_ (London, 1910), pp. 151_sq. _ Compare _Totemism and Exogamy_, iv. 228; C. W. Hobley, "KikuyuCustoms and Beliefs, " _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, xl. (1910) pp. 440 _sq. _]

[Footnote 413: K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelmsland undden Bismarck-Archipel_, 1897, p. 93. ]

[Footnote 414: R. Pöch, "Vierter Bericht über meine Reise nachNeu-Guinea, " _Sitzungsberichte der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichenKlasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften_ (Vienna), cxv. (1906) Abteilung 1, pp. 901, 902. ]

LECTURE XII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN NEW GUINEA(_continued_)

[Sidenote: The Bukaua of German New Guinea. ]

In the last lecture I described the beliefs and practices concerning thedead as they are to be found among the Yabim of German New Guinea. To-day we begin with the Bukaua, a kindred and neighbouring tribe, whichoccupies the coast lands of the northern portion of Huon Gulf fromSchollenbruch Point to Samoa Harbour. The language which the Bukauaspeak belongs, like the language of the Yabim, to the Melanesian, not tothe Papuan family. Their customs and beliefs have been reported by aGerman missionary, Mr. Stefan Lehner, whose account I follow. [415] Inmany respects they closely resemble those of their neighbours the Yabim. 

[Sidenote: Means of subsistence of the Bukaua. Men's clubhouses. ]

The Bukaua are an agricultural people who subsist mainly on the crops oftaro which they raise. But they also cultivate many kinds of bananas andvegetables, together with sugar-cane, sago, and tobacco. From time totime they cut down and burn the forest in order to obtain fresh fieldsfor cultivation. The land is not held in common. Each family has its ownfields and patches of forest, and would resent the intrusion of otherson their hereditary domain. Hunting and fishing supply them with animalfood to eke out the vegetable nourishment which they draw from theirfields and plantations. [416] Every village contains one or more of themen's clubhouses which are a common feature in the social life of thetribes on this coast. In these clubhouses the young men are obliged tosleep, and on the platforms in front of them the older men hold theircouncils. Such a clubhouse is called a _lum_. [417]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Bukaua concerning the souls of the dead. Sickness and disease attributed to ghostly agency. ]

The Bukaua have a firm belief in the existence of the human soul afterdeath. They think that a man's soul can even quit his body temporarilyin his lifetime during sleep or a swoon, and that in its disembodiedstate it can appear to people at a distance; but such apparitions areregarded as omens of approaching death, when the soul will depart forgood and all. The soul of a dead man is called a _balum_. The spirits ofthe departed are believed to be generally mischievous and spiteful tothe living, but they can be appeased by sacrifice, and other measurescan be taken to avert their dangerous influence. [418] They are verytouchy, and if they imagine that they are not honoured enough by theirkinsfolk, and that the offerings made to them are insufficient, theywill avenge the slight by visiting their disrespectful and stingyrelatives with sickness and disease. Among the maladies which thenatives ascribe to the anger of ghosts are epilepsy, fainting fits, andwasting decline. [419] When a man suffers from a sore which he believesto have been inflicted on him by a ghost, he will take a stone from thefence of the grave and heat it in the fire, saying: "Father, see, thouhast gone, I am left, I must till the land in thy stead and care for mybrothers and sisters. Do me good again. " Then he dips the hot stone in apuddle on the grave, and holds his sore in the steam which rises fromit. His pain is eased thereby and he explains the alleviation which hefeels by saying, "The spirit of the dead man has eaten up thewound. "[420]

[Sidenote: Sickness and death often ascribed by the Bukaua to sorcery. ]

But like most savages the Bukaua attribute many illnesses and manydeaths not to the wrath of ghosts but to the malignant arts ofsorcerers; and in such cases they usually endeavour by means ofdivination to ascertain the culprit and to avenge the death of theirfriend by taking the life of his imaginary murderer. [421] If they failto exact vengeance, the ghost is believed to be very angry, and theymust be on their guard against him. He may meet them anywhere, but isespecially apt to dog the footsteps of the sorcerer who killed him. Hence when on the occasion of a great feast the sorcerer comes to thevillage of his victim, the surviving relatives of the dead man are atparticular pains to protect themselves and their property against theinsidious attacks of the prowling ghost. For this purpose they bury acreeper with white blossoms in the path leading to the village; theghost is thought to be filled with fear at the sight of it and to turnback, leaving his kinsfolk, their dogs, and pigs in peace. [422]

[Sidenote: Fear of the ghosts of the slain. ]

Another class of ghosts who are much dreaded are the spirits of slainfoes. They are believed to pursue their slayers to the village and toblind them so that sooner or later they fall an easy prey to theirenemies. Hence when a party of warriors has returned home from asuccessful attack on a village, in which they have butchered all on whomthey could lay their hands, they kindle a great fire, dance wildly aboutit, and hurl burning brands in the direction of the battlefield in orderto keep the ghosts of their slaughtered foes at bay. Phosphorescentlights seen under the houses throw the inmates into great alarm, forthey are thought to be the souls of the slain. Sometimes the vanquishedin battle resort to a curious ruse for the purpose of avengingthemselves on the victors by means of a ghost. They take thesleeping-mat of one of the slain, roll it up in a bundle along with hisloin-cloth, apron, netted bag, or head-rest, and give the bundle to twocripples to carry. Then they steal quietly to the landing-place of theirfoes, peering warily about lest they should be observed. The bundlerepresents the dead man, and the cripples who carry it reel to and fro, and finally sink to the ground with their burden. In this way the ghostof the victim, whose things are carried in the bundle, is supposed tomake their enemies weak and tottery. Strong young men are not given thebundle to carry, lest the ghost should spoil their manly figures;whereas if he should wound or maim a couple of poor cripples, no greatharm is done. [423]

[Sidenote: Ghosts of ancestors appealed to for help, especially in thecultivation of the ground. First-fruits offered to the spirits of thedead. ]

However, the Bukaua also look on the ghosts of their ancestors in a moreamiable light as beings who, if properly appealed to, can and will helpthem in the affairs of life, especially by procuring for them goodcrops. Hence when they are planting their fields, which are formed inclearings of the forest, they take particular care to insert shoots ofall their crops in the ground near the tree stumps which remainstanding, because the souls of their dead grandfathers andgreat-grandfathers are believed to be sitting on the stumps watchingtheir descendants at their work. Accordingly in the act of planting theycall out the names of these forefathers and pray them to guard the fieldin order that their living children may have food and not suffer fromhunger. And at harvest, when the first-fruits of the taro, bananas, sugar-cane, and so forth have been brought back from the fields, aportion of them is offered in a bowl to the spirits of the forefathersin the house of the landowner, and the spirits are addressed in prayeras follows: "O ye who have guarded our field as we prayed you to do, there is something for you; now and henceforth behold us with favour. "While the family are feasting on the rest of the first-fruits, thehouseholder will surreptitiously stir the offerings in the bowl with hisfinger, and will then shew the bowl to the others as a proof that thesouls of the dead have really partaken of the good things provided forthem. [424] A hunter will also pray to his dead father to drive the wildpigs into his net. [425]

[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs of the Bukaua. ]

The Bukaua bury their dead in shallow graves, which are sometimes dugunder the houses but more usually in front of or beside them. Along withthe corpses are deposited bags of taro, nuts, drinking-vessels, andother articles of daily use. Only the stone axes are too valuable to bethus sacrificed. Over the grave is erected a rude hut in which thewidower, if the deceased was a married woman, remains for a time inseclusion. A widow on the death of her husband remains in the house. Widow and widower may not shew themselves in public until they haveprepared their mourning costume. The widower wears a black hat made ofbark, cords round his neck, wicker work on his arms and feet, and a tornold bracelet of his wife in a bag on his breast. A widow is completelyswathed in nets, one over the other, and she carries about with her theloincloth of her deceased husband. The souls of the dead dwell in asubterranean region called _lamboam_, and their life there seems toresemble life here on earth; but the ideas of the people on the subjectare very vague. [426]

[Sidenote: Initiation of young men among the Bukaua. Lads atcircumcision supposed to be swallowed by a monster. ]

The customs and beliefs of the Bukaua in regard to the initiation ofyoung men are practically identical with those of their neighbours theYabim. Indeed the initiatory ceremonies are performed by the tribesjointly, now in the territory of the Bukaua, now in the territory of theYabim, or in the land of the Kai, a tribe of mountaineers, or again inthe neighbouring Tami islands. The intervals between the ceremonies varyfrom ten to eighteen years. [427] The central feature of the initiatoryrites is the circumcision of the novices. It is given out that the ladsare swallowed by a ferocious monster called a _balum_, who, however, isinduced by the sacrifice of many pigs to vomit them up again. In spewingthem out of his maw he bites or scratches them, and the wound soinflicted is circumcision. This explanation of the rite is fobbed off onthe women, who more or less believe it and weep accordingly when theirsons are led away to be committed to the monster's jaws. And when thetime for the ceremony is approaching, the fond mothers busy themselveswith rearing and fattening young pigs, so that they may be able withthem to redeem their loved ones from the belly of the ravenous beast;for he must have a pig for every boy. When a lad bleeds to death fromthe effect of the operation, he is secretly buried, and his sorrowfulmother is told that the monster swallowed him and refused to bring himup again. What really happens is that the youths are shut up for severalmonths in a house specially built for the purpose in the village. Duringtheir seclusion they are under the charge of guardians, usually twoyoung men, and must observe strictly a rule of fasting and chastity. When they are judged to be ready to undergo the rite, they are led forthand circumcised in front of the house amid a prodigious uproar made bythe swinging of bull-roarers. The noise is supposed to be the voice ofthe monster who swallows and vomits up the novice at circumcision. Thebull-roarer as well as the monster bears the name of _balum_, and thebuilding in which the novices are lodged before and after the operationis called the monster's house (_balumslum_). After they have beencircumcised the lads remain in the house for several months till theirwounds are healed; then, painted and bedizened with all the ornamentsthat can be collected, they are brought back and restored to theirjoyful mothers. Women must vacate the village for a long time while theinitiatory ceremonies are being performed. [428]

[Sidenote: Novices at circumcision supposed to be killed and thenrestored to a new and higher life. ]

The meaning of the whole rite, as I pointed out in dealing with thesimilar initiatory rite of the Yabim, appears to be that the novices arekilled and then restored to a new and better life; for after theirinitiation they rank no longer as boys but as full-grown men, entitledto all the privileges of manhood and citizenship, if we can speak ofsuch a thing as citizenship among the savages of New Guinea. Thisinterpretation of the rite is supported by the notable fact that theBukaua, like the Yabim, give the name of _balum_ to the souls of thedead as well as to the mythical monster and to the bull-roarer; thisshews how intimately the three things are associated in their minds. Indeed not only is the bull-roarer in general associated with the soulsof the dead by a community of name, but among the Bukaua each particularbull-roarer bears in addition the name of a particular dead man andvaries in dignity and importance with the dignity and importance of thedeceased person whom it represents. The most venerated of all arecuriously carved and have been handed down for generations; they bearthe names of famous warriors or magicians of old and are supposed toreproduce the personal peculiarities of the celebrated originals intheir shape and tones. And there are smaller bull-roarers which emitshriller notes and are thought to represent the shrill-voiced wives ofthe ancient heroes. [429]

[Sidenote: The Kai tribe of Saddle Mountain in German New Guinea. Theland of the Kai. Their mode of cultivation. Their villages. ]

The Bukaua and the Yabim, the two tribes with which I have been dealingin this and the last lecture, inhabit, as I have said, the coast aboutFinsch Harbour and speak a Melanesian language. We now pass from them tothe consideration of another people, belonging to a different stock andspeaking a different language, who inhabit the rugged and densely woodedmountains inland from Finsch Harbour. Their neighbours on the coast callthese mountaineers by the name of Kai, a word which signifies forest orinland in opposition to the seashore; and this name of the tribe we mayadopt, following the example of a German missionary, Mr. Ch. Keysser, who has laboured among them for more than eleven years and has given usan excellent description of their customs and beliefs. His accountapplies particularly to the natives of what is called Saddle Mountain, the part of the range which advances nearest to the coast and rises tothe height of about three thousand feet. It is a rough, broken country, cleft by many ravines and covered with forest, bush, or bamboo thickets;though here and there at rare intervals some brown patches mark theclearings which the sparse inhabitants have made for the purpose ofcultivation. Water is plentiful. Springs gush forth everywhere in theglens and valleys, and rushing streams of crystal-clear water pour downthe mountain sides, and in the clefts of the hills are lonely tarns, theundisturbed haunts of wild ducks and other water fowl. During the wetseason, which extends from June to August, the rain descends in sheetsand the mountains are sometimes covered for weeks together with so thicka mist that all prospect is cut off at the distance of a hundred yards. The natives are then loth to leave their huts and will spend the daycrouching over a fire. They are a shorter and sturdier race than thetribes on the coast; the expression of their face is less frank andagreeable, and their persons are very much dirtier. They belong to theaboriginal Papuan stock, whereas the Yabim and Bukaua on the coast areprobably immigrants from beyond the sea, who have driven the indigenouspopulation back into the mountains. [430] Their staple foods are taro andyams, which they grow in their fields. A field is cultivated for onlyone year at a time; it is then allowed to lie fallow and is soonovergrown with rank underwood. Six or eight years may elapse before itis again cleared and brought under cultivation. Game and fish abound inthe woods and waters, and the Kai make free use of these naturalresources. They keep pigs and dogs, and eat the flesh of both. Pork isindeed a favourite viand, figuring largely in the banquets which areheld at the circumcision festivals. [431] The people live in smallvillages, each village comprising from two to six houses. The houses areraised on piles and the walls are usually constructed of pandanusleaves, though many natives now make them of boards. After eighteenmonths or two years the houses are so rotten and tumble-down that thevillage is deserted and a new one built on another site. Assembly-housesare erected only for the circumcision ceremonies, and the bull-roarersused on these occasions are kept in them. Husband and wife livetogether, often two couples in one hut; but each family has its own sideof the house and its own fireplace. In times of insecurity the Kai usedto build their huts for safety among the spreading boughs of greattrees. A whole village, consisting of three or four huts, might thus bequartered on a single tree. Of late years, with the peace and protectionfor life introduced by German rule, these tree-houses have gone out offashion. [432]

[Sidenote: Observations of a German missionary on the animistic beliefsof the Kai. ]

After describing the manners and customs of the Kai people at somelength, the German missionary, who knows them intimately, proceeds togive us a very valuable account of their old native religion orsuperstition. He prefaces his account with some observations, the fruitof long experience, which deserve to be laid to heart by all who attemptto penetrate into the inner life, the thoughts, the feelings, themotives of savages. As his remarks are very germane to the subject ofthese lectures, I will translate them. He says: "In the precedingchapters I have sketched the daily life of the Kai people. But I havenot attempted to set forth the reasons for their conduct, which is oftenvery peculiar and unintelligible. The explanation of that conduct liesin the animistic view which the Papuan takes of the world. It must bemost emphatically affirmed that nobody can judge the native aright whohas not gained an insight into what we may call his religious opinions. The native must be described as very religious, although his ideas donot coincide with ours. His feelings, thoughts, and will are mostintimately connected with his belief in souls. With that belief he isborn, he has sucked it in with his mother's milk, and from thestandpoint of that belief he regards the things and occurrences thatmeet him in life; by that belief he regulates his behaviour. Anobjective way of looking at events is unknown to him; everything isbrought by him into relation to his belief, and by it he seeks toexplain everything that to him seems strange and rare. "[433] "Thelabyrinth of animistic customs at first sight presents an appearance ofwild confusion to him who seeks to penetrate into them and reduce themto order; but on closer inspection he will soon recognise certainguiding lines. These guiding lines are the laws of animism, which havepassed into the flesh and blood of the Papuan and influence his thoughtand speech, his acts and his omissions, his love and hate, in short hiswhole life and death. When once we have discovered these laws, the wholeof the superstitious nonsense falls into an orderly system which compelsus to regard it with a certain respect that increases in proportion tothe contempt in which we had previously held the people. We need notwonder, moreover, that the laws of animism partially correspond togeneral laws of nature. "[434]

[Sidenote: The essential rationality of the savage. ]

Thus according to Mr. Keysser, who has no theory to maintain and merelygives us in this passage the result of long personal observation, theKai savages are thinking, reasoning men, whose conduct, however strangeand at first sight unintelligible it may appear to us, is really basedon a definite religious or if you please superstitious view of theworld. It is true that their theory as well as their practice differswidely from ours; but it would be false and unjust to deny that theyhave a theory and that on the whole their practice squares with it. Similar testimony is borne to other savage races by men who have livedlong among them and observed them closely;[435] and on the strength ofsuch testimony I think we may lay it down as a well-established truththat savages in general, so far as they are known to us, have certainmore or less definite theories, whether we call them religious orphilosophical, by which they regulate their conduct, and judged by whichtheir acts, however absurd they may seem to the civilised man, arereally both rational and intelligible. Hence it is, in my opinion, aprofound mistake hastily to conclude that because the behaviour of thesavage does not agree with our notions of what is reasonable, natural, and proper, it must therefore necessarily be illogical, the result ofblind impulse rather than of deliberate thought and calculation. Nodoubt the savage like the civilised man does often act purely onimpulse; his passions overmaster his reason, and sweep it away beforethem. He is probably indeed much more impulsive, much more liable to bewhirled about by gusts of emotion than we are; yet it would be unfair tojudge his life as a whole by these occasional outbursts rather than byits general tenour, which to those who know him from long observationreveals a groundwork of logic and reason resembling our own in itsoperations, though differing from ours in the premises from which itsets out. I think it desirable to emphasise the rational basis of savagelife because it has been the fashion of late years with some writers toquestion or rather deny it. According to them, if I understand themaright, the savage acts first and invents his reasons, generally veryabsurd reasons, for so doing afterwards. Significantly enough, thewriters who argue in favour of the essential irrationality of savageconduct have none of them, I believe, any personal acquaintance withsavages. Their conclusions are based not on observation but on purelytheoretical deductions, a most precarious foundation on which to erect ascience of man or indeed of anything. As such, they cannot be weighed inthe balance against the positive testimony of many witnesses who havelived for years with the savage and affirm emphatically the logicalbasis which underlies and explains his seeming vagaries. At all events Ifor one have no hesitation in accepting the evidence of such men tomatters of fact with which they are acquainted, and I unhesitatinglyreject all theories which directly contradict that evidence. If thereever has been any race of men who invariably acted first and thoughtafterwards, I can only say that in the course of my reading andobservation I have never met with any trace of them, and I am apt tosuppose that, if they ever existed anywhere but in the imagination ofbookish dreamers, their career must have been an exceedingly short one, since in the struggle for existence they would surely succumb toadversaries who tempered and directed the blind fury of combat with atleast a modicum of reason and sense. The myth of the illogical orprelogical savage may safely be relegated to that museum of learnedabsurdities and abortions which speculative anthropology is constantlyenriching with fresh specimens of misapplied ingenuity and wastedindustry. But enough of these fantasies. Let us return to facts. 

[Sidenote: The Kai theory of the soul. ]

The life of the Kai people, according to Mr. Keysser, is dominated bytheir conception of the soul. That conception differs greatly from andis very much more extensive than ours. The Kai regards his reflectionand his shadow as his soul or parts of it; hence you should not tread ona man's shadow for fear of injuring his soul. The soul likewise dwellsin his heart, for he feels it beating. Hence if you give a native afriendly poke in the ribs, he protests, saying, "Don't poke me so; youmight drive my soul out of my body, and then I should die. " The soulmoreover resides in the eye, where you may see it twinkling; when itdeparts, the eye grows dim and vacant. Moreover, the soul is in the footas much as in the head; it lurks even in the spittle and the otherbodily excretions. The soul in fact pervades the body just as warmthdoes; everything that a man touches he infects, so to say, with hissoul; that mysterious entity exists in the very sound of his voice. Thesorcerer catches a man's soul by his magic, shuts it up tight, anddestroys it. Then the man dies. He dies because the sorcerer has killedhis soul. Yet the Kai believes, whether consistently or not, that thesoul of the dead man continues to live. He talks to it, he makesofferings to it, he seeks to win its favour in order that he may haveluck in the chase; he fears its ill-will and anger; he gives it food toeat, liquor to drink, tobacco to smoke, and betel to chew. What could areasonable ghost ask for more?[436]

[Sidenote: Two kinds of human souls. ]

Thus, according to Mr. Keysser, whose exposition I am simplyreproducing, the Kai believes not in one nor yet in many souls belongingto each individual; he implicitly assumes that there are two differentkinds of souls. One of these is the soul which survives the body atdeath; in all respects it resembles the man himself as he lived onearth, except that it has no body. It is not indeed absolutelyincorporeal, but it is greatly shrunken and attenuated by death. That iswhy the souls of the dead are so angry with the living; they repine attheir own degraded condition; they envy the full-blooded life which theliving enjoy and which the dead have lost. The second kind of soul isdistinguished by Mr. Keysser from the former as a spiritual essence orsoul-stuff, which pervades the body as sap pervades the tree, and whichdiffuses itself like corporeal warmth over everything with which thebody is brought into contact. [437] In these lectures we are concernedchiefly with the former kind of soul, which is believed to survive thedeath of the body, and which answers much more nearly than the second tothe popular European conception of the soul. Accordingly in what followswe shall confine our attention mainly to it. 

[Sidenote: Death thought by the Kai to be commonly caused by sorcery. ]

Like many other savages, the Kai do not believe in the possibility of anatural death; they think that everybody dies through the maleficentarts of sorcerers or ghosts. Even in the case of old people, we aretold, they assume the cause of death to be sorcery, and to sorcery allmisfortunes are ascribed. If a man falls on the path and wounds himselfto death, as often happens, on the jagged stump of a bamboo, the nativesconclude that he was bewitched. The way in which the sorcerer broughtabout the catastrophe was this. He obtained some object which wasinfected with the soul-stuff or spiritual essence of his victim; hestuck a pile in the ground, he spread the soul-stuff on the pile; thenhe pretended to wound himself on the pile and to groan with pain. Anybody can see for himself that by a natural and necessaryconcatenation of causes this compelled the poor fellow to stumble overthat jagged bamboo stump and to perish miserably. Again, take the caseof a hunter in the forest who is charged and ripped up by a wild boar. On a superficial view of the circumstances it might perhaps occur to youthat the cause of death was the boar. But you would assuredly bemistaken. The real cause of death was again a sorcerer, who pounded upthe soul-stuff of his victim with a boar's tooth. Again, suppose that aman is bitten by a serpent and dies. A shallow rationalist might saythat the man died of the bite; but the Kai knows better. He is awarethat what really killed him was the sorcerer who took a pinch of hisvictim's soul and bunged it up tight in a tube along with the sting of asnake. Similarly, if a woman dies in childbed, or if a man hangshimself, the cause of death is still a sorcerer operating with theappropriate means and gestures. Thus to make a man hang himself all thatthe sorcerer has to do is to get a scrap of his victim's soul--and thesmallest scrap is quite enough for his purpose, it may be a mere shredor speck of soul adhering to a hair of the man's head, to a drop of hissweat, or to a crumb of his food, --I say that the sorcerer need onlyobtain a tiny little bit of his victim's soul, clap it in a tube, setthe tube dangling at the end of a string, and go through a pantomime ofgurgling, goggling and so forth, like a man in the last stage ofstrangulation, and his victim is thereby physically compelled to put hisneck in the noose and hang himself in good earnest. [438]

[Sidenote: Danger incurred by the sorcerer. ]

Where these views of sorcery prevail, it is no wonder that the sorcereris an unpopular character. He naturally therefore shrinks from publicityand hides his somewhat lurid light under a bushel. Not to put too fine apoint on it, he carries his life in his hand and may be knocked on thehead at any moment without the tedious formality of a trial. Once hisprofessional reputation is established, all the deaths in theneighbourhood may be set down at his door. If he gets wind of a plot toassassinate him, he may stave off his doom for a while by soothing theangry passions of his enemies with presents, but sooner or later hisfate is sealed. [439]

[Sidenote: Many hurts and maladies attributed by the Kai to the actionof ghosts. In other cases the sickness is traced to witchcraft. Capturing a lost soul. ]

However, the Kai savage is far from attributing all deaths withoutdistinction to sorcerers. [440] In many hurts and maladies he detects thecold clammy hand of a ghost. If a man, for example, wounds himself inthe forest, perhaps in the pursuit of a wild beast, he may imagine thathe has been speared or clubbed by a malignant ghost. And when a personfalls ill, the first thing to do is naturally to ascertain the cause ofthe illness in order that it may be treated properly. In all suchenquiries, Mr. Keysser tells us, suspicion first falls on the ghosts;they are looked upon as even worse than the sorcerers. [441] So when adoctor is called in to see a patient, the only question with him iswhether the sickness is caused by a sorcerer or a ghost. To decide thisnice point he takes a boiled taro over which he has pronounced a charm. This he bites, and if he finds a small stone in the fruit, he decidesthat ghosts are the cause of the malady; but if on the other hand hedetects a minute roll of leaves, he knows that the sufferer isbewitched. In the latter case the obvious remedy is to discover thesorcerer and to induce him, for an adequate consideration, to give upthe magic tube in which he has bottled up a portion of the sick man'ssoul. If, however, the magician turns a deaf ear alike to the voice ofpity and the allurement of gain, the resources of the physician are notyet exhausted. He now produces his whip or scourge for souls. Thisvaluable instrument consists, like a common whip, of a handle with alash attached to it, but what gives it the peculiar qualities whichdistinguish it from all other whips is a small packet tied to the end ofthe lash. The packet contains a certain herb, and the sick man and hisfriends must all touch it in order to impregnate it with the volatileessence of their souls. Armed with this potent implement the doctor goesby night into the depth of the forest; for the darkness of night and thesolitude of the woods are necessary for the success of the delicateoperation which this good physician of souls has now to perform. Findinghimself alone he whistles for the lost soul of the sufferer, and if onlythe sorcerer by his infernal craft has not yet brought it to death'sdoor, the soul appears at the sound of the whistle; for it is stronglyattracted by the soul-stuff of its friends in the packet. But the doctorhas still to catch it, a feat which is not so easily accomplished asmight be supposed. It is now that the whip of souls comes into play. Suddenly the doctor heaves up his arm and lashes out at the truant soulwith all his might. If only he hits it, the business is done, the soulis captured, the doctor carries it back to the house in triumph, andrestores it to the body of the poor sick man, who necessarilyrecovers. [442]

[Sidenote: Extracting ghosts from a sick man. ]

But suppose that the result of the diagnosis is different, and that onmature consideration the doctor should decide that a ghost and not asorcerer is at the bottom of the mischief. The question then naturallyarises whether the sick man has not of late been straying on hauntedground and infected himself with the very dangerous soul-stuff orspiritual essence of the dead. If he remembers to have done so, someleaves are fetched from the place in the forest where the mishapoccurred, and with them the whole body of the sufferer or the wound, asthe case may be, is stroked or brushed down. The healing virtue of thisprocedure is obvious. The ghosts who are vexing the patient areattracted by the familiar smell of the leaves which come from their oldhome; and yielding in a moment of weakness to the soft emotions excitedby the perfume they creep out of the body of the sick man and into theleaves. Quick as thought the doctor now whisks the leaves away with theghosts in them; he belabours them with a cudgel, he hangs them up in thesmoke, or he throws them into the fire. Such powerful disinfectants havetheir natural results; if the ghosts are not absolutely destroyed theyare at least disarmed, and the sick is made whole. 

[Sidenote: Scraping ghosts from the patient's body. ]

Another equally effective cure for sickness caused by ghosts is this. You take a stout stick, cleave it down the middle so that the two endsremain entire, and give it to two men to hold. Then the sick man pokeshis head through the cleft; after that you rub him with the stick fromthe crown of his head to the soles of his feet. In this way youobviously scrape off the bloodsucking ghosts who are clinging like fliesor mosquitoes to his person, and having thus transferred them to thecleft stick you throw it away or otherwise destroy it. The cure is nowcomplete, and if the patient does not recover, he cannot reasonablyblame the doctor, who has done all that humanly speaking could be doneto bring back the bloom of health to the poor sick man. [443]

[Sidenote: Extravagant demonstrations of grief at the death of a sickman. ]

If, however, the sick man obstinately persists in dying, there is agreat uproar in the village. For the fear of his ghost has now fallenlike a thunderclap on all the people. His disembodied spirit is believedto be hovering in the air, seeing everything that is done, hearing everyword that is spoken, and woe to the unlucky wight who does not display aproper degree of sorrow for the irreparable loss that has just befallenthe community. Accordingly shrieks of despair begin to resound, andcrocodile tears to flow in cataracts. The whole population assemble andgive themselves up to the most frantic demonstrations of grief. Criesare raised on all sides, "Why must he die?" "Wherefore did they bewitchhim?" "Those wicked, wicked men!" "I'll do for them!" "I'll hew them inpieces!" "I'll destroy their crops!" "I'll fell all their palm-trees!""I'll stick all their pigs!" "O brother, why did you leave me?" "Ofriend, how can I live without you?" To make good these threats one manwill be seen prancing wildly about and stabbing with a spear at theinvisible sorcerers; another catches up a cudgel and at one blow shiversa water-pot of the deceased into atoms, or rushes out like one dementedand lays a palm-tree level with the ground. Some fling themselvesprostrate beside the corpse and sob as if their very hearts would break. They take the dead man by the hand, they stroke him, they straighten outthe poor feet which are already growing cold. They coo to him softly, they lift up the languid head, and then lay it gently down. Then in afrenzy of grief one of them will leap to his feet, shriek, bellow, stampon the floor, grapple with the roof beams, shake the walls, as if hewould pull the house down, and finally hurl himself on the ground androll over and over howling as if his distress was more than he couldendure. Another looks wildly about him. He sees a knife. He grasps it. His teeth are set, his mind is made up. "Why need he die?" he cries, "he, my friend, with whom I had all things in common, with whom I ateout of the same dish?" Then there is a quick movement of the knife, anddown he falls. But he is not dead. He has only slit the flap of one ofhis ears, and the trickling blood bedabbles his body. Meantime with thehoarse cries of the men are mingled the weeping and wailing, the shrillscreams and lamentations of the women; while above all the din anduproar rises the booming sound of the shell trumpets blown to carry thetidings of death to all the villages in the neighbourhood. But graduallythe wild tumult dies away into silence. Grief or the simulation of ithas exhausted itself: the people grow calm; they sit down, they smoke orchew betel, while some engage in the last offices of attention to thedead. [444]

[Sidenote: Hypocritical character of these demonstrations, which areintended to deceive the ghost. ]

A civilised observer who witnessed such a scene of boisterouslamentation, but did not know the natives well, might naturally set downall these frantic outbursts to genuine sorrow, and might enlargeaccordingly on the affectionate nature of savages, who are thus cut tothe heart by the death of any one of their acquaintance. But themissionary who knows them better assures us that most of theseexpressions of mourning and despair are a mere blind to deceive andsoothe the dreaded ghost of the deceased into a comfortable persuasionthat he is fondly loved and sadly missed by his surviving relatives andfriends. This view of the essential hypocrisy of the lamentations isstrongly confirmed by the threats which sick people will sometimes utterto their attendants. "If you don't take better care of me, " a man willsometimes say, "and if you don't do everything you possibly can topreserve my valuable life, my ghost will serve you out. " That is whyfriends and relations are so punctilious in paying visits of respect andcondolence to the sick. Sometimes the last request which a dying manaddresses to his kinsfolk is that they will kill this or that sorcererwho has killed him; and he enforces the injunction by threats of theterrible things he will do to them in his disembodied state if they failto avenge his death on his imaginary murderer. As all the relatives of adead man stand in fear of his ghost, the body may not be buried untilall of them have had an opportunity of paying their respects to it. If, as sometimes happens, a corpse is interred before a relative can arrivefrom a distance, he will on arrival break out into reproaches andupbraidings against the grave-diggers for exposing him to the wrath ofthe departed spirit. [445]

[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs of the Kai. Preservation of thelower jawbone. ]

When all the relations and friends have assembled and testified theirsorrow, the body is buried on the second or third day after death. Thegrave is usually dug under the house and is so shallow that even when ithas been closed the stench is often very perceptible. The ornamentswhich were placed on the body when it was laid out are removed before itis lowered into the grave, and the dead takes his last rest wrapt in asimple leaf-mat. Often a dying man expresses a wish not to be buried. Inthat case his corpse, tightly bandaged, is deposited in a corner of thehouse, and the products of decomposition are allowed to drain through atube into the ground. When they have ceased to run, the bundle is openedand the bones taken out and buried, except the lower jawbone, which ispreserved, sometimes along with one of the lower arm bones. The lowerjawbone reminds the possessor of the duty of blood revenge which he owesto the deceased, and which the dying man may have inculcated on him withhis last breath. The lower arm bone brings luck in the chase, especiallyif the departed relative was a mighty hunter. However, if the huntershave a long run of bad luck, they conclude that the ghost has departedto the under world and accordingly bury the lower arm bone and the lowerjawbone with the rest of the skeleton. The length of the period ofmourning is similarly determined by the good or bad fortune of thehuntsmen. If the ghost provides them with game in abundance for a longtime after his death, the days of mourning are proportionately extended;but when the game grows scarce or fails altogether, the mourning comesto an end and the memory of the deceased soon fades away. [446] Thesavage is a thoroughly practical man and is not such a fool as to wastehis sorrow over a ghost who gives him nothing in return. Nothing fornothing is his principle. His relations to the dead stand on a strictlycommercial basis. 

[Sidenote: Mourning costume. Widows strangled to accompany their deadhusbands. ]

The mourning costume consists of strings round the neck, bracelets ofreed on the arms, and a cylindrical hat of bark on the head. A widow isswathed in nets. The intention of the costume is to signify to the ghostthe sympathy which the mourner feels for him in his disembodied state. If the man in his lifetime was wont to crouch shivering over the fire, alittle fire will be kept up for a time at the foot of the grave in orderto warm his homeless spirit. [447] The widow or widower has to dischargethe disagreeable duty of living day and night for several weeks in ahovel built directly over the grave. Not unfrequently the lot of a widowis much harder. At her own request she is sometimes strangled and buriedwith her husband in the grave, in order that her soul may accompany hison the journey to the other world. The other relations have no interestin encouraging the woman to sacrifice herself, rather the contrary; butif she insists they fear to balk her, lest they should offend the ghostof her husband, who would punish them in many ways for keeping his wifefrom him. But even such voluntary sacrifices, if we may believe Mr. Ch. Keysser, are dictated rather by a selfish calculation than by an impulseof disinterested affection. He mentions the case of a man named Jabu, both of whose wives chose thus to attend their husband in death. Thedeceased was an industrious man, a skilful hunter and farmer, whoprovided his wives with abundance of food. As such men are believed towork hard also in the other world, tilling fields and killing game justas here, the widows thought they could not do better than follow him asfast as possible to the spirit land, since they had no prospect ofgetting such another husband here on earth. "How firmly convinced, " addsthe missionary admiringly, "must these people be of the reality ofanother world when they sacrifice their earthly existence, not for thesake of a better life hereafter, but merely in order to be no worse offthere than they have been on earth. " And he adds that this considerationexplains why no man ever chooses to be strangled at the death of hiswife. The labour market in the better land is apparently not recruitedfrom the ranks of women. [448]

[Sidenote: House or village deserted after a death. ]

The house in which anybody has died is deserted, because the ghost ofthe dead is believed to haunt it and make it unsafe at night. If thedeceased was a chief or a man of importance, the whole village isabandoned and a new one built on another site. [449]

[Footnote 415: Stefan Lehner, "Bukaua, " in R. Neuhauss's _DeutschNeu-Guinea_, iii. (Berlin, 1911) pp. 395-485. ]

[Footnote 416: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 399, 433 _sq. _, 437 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 417: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ p. 399. ]

[Footnote 418: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ p. 414. ]

[Footnote 419: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ p. 466, 468. ]

[Footnote 420: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ p. 469. ]

[Footnote 421: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 462 _sqq. _, 466, 467, 471_sqq. _]

[Footnote 422: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ p. 462. ]

[Footnote 423: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 444 _sq. _]

[Footnote 424: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 434 _sqq. _; compare _id. _, pp. 478 _sq. _]

[Footnote 425: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ p. 462. ]

[Footnote 426: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 430, 470, 472 _sq. _, 474 _sq. _]

[Footnote 427: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ p. 403. ]

[Footnote 428: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 402-410. ]

[Footnote 429: S. Lehner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 410-414. ]

[Footnote 430: Ch. Keysser, "Aus dem Leben der Kaileute, " in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_, iii. 3-6. ]

[Footnote 431: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 12 _sq. _, 17-20. ]

[Footnote 432: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 9-12. ]

[Footnote 433: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 111. ]

[Footnote 434: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 113. ]

[Footnote 435: Compare Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes ofBorneo_ (London, 1912), ii. 221 _sq. _: "It has often been attempted toexhibit the mental life of savage peoples as profoundly different fromour own; to assert that they act from motives, and reach conclusions bymeans of mental processes, so utterly different from our own motives andprocesses that we cannot hope to interpret or understand their behaviourunless we can first, by some impossible or at least by some hithertoundiscovered method, learn the nature of these mysterious motives andprocesses. These attempts have recently been renewed in influentialquarters. If these views were applied to the savage peoples of theinterior of Borneo, we should characterise them as fanciful delusionsnatural to the anthropologist who has spent all the days of his life ina stiff collar and a black coat upon the well-paved ways of civilisedsociety. We have no hesitation in saying that, the more intimately onebecomes acquainted with these pagan tribes, the more fully one realisesthe close similarity of their mental processes to one's own. Theirprimary impulses and emotions seem to be in all respects like our own. It is true that they are very unlike the typical civilised man of someof the older philosophers, whose every action proceeded from a nice andlogical calculation of the algebraic sum of pleasures and pains to bederived from alternative lines of conduct; but we ourselves are equallyunlike that purely mythical personage. The Kayan or the Iban often actsimpulsively in ways which by no means conduce to further his bestinterests or deeper purposes; but so do we also. He often reachesconclusions by processes that cannot be logically justified; but so dowe also. He often holds, and upon successive occasions acts upon, beliefs that are logically inconsistent with one another; but so do wealso. " For further testimonies to the reasoning powers of savages, whichit would be superfluous to affirm if it were not at present a fashionwith some theorists to deny, see _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 420 _sqq. _ And on the tendency of the human mind in general, not of thesavage mind in particular, calmly to acquiesce in inconsistent and evencontradictory conclusions, I may refer to a note in _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, p. 4. But indeed to observe such contradictionsin practice the philosopher need not quit his own study. ]

[Footnote 436: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 111 _sq. _]

[Footnote 437: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 112. ]

[Footnote 438: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 140. As to the magical tubesin which the sorcerer seals up some part of his victim's soul, see_id. _, p. 135. ]

[Footnote 439: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 140 _sq. _]

[Footnote 440: Mr. Keysser indeed affirms that in the mind of the Kaisorcery "is regarded as the cause of all deaths" (_op. Cit. _ p. 102), and again that "all men without exception die in consequence of thebaneful acts of these sorcerers and their accomplices" (p. 134); andagain that "even in the case of old people they assume sorcery to be thecause of death; to sorcery, too, all misfortunes whatever are ascribed"(p. 140). But that these statements are exaggerations seems to followfrom Mr. Keysser's own account of the wounds, sicknesses, and deathswhich these savages attribute to ghosts and not to sorcerers. ]

[Footnote 441: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 141. ]

[Footnote 442: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 133 _sq. _]

[Footnote 443: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 141 _sq. _]

[Footnote 444: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 80 _sq. _, 142. ]

[Footnote 445: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 142. ]

[Footnote 446: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 82, 83. ]

[Footnote 447: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 82, 142 _sq. _]

[Footnote 448: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 83 _sq. _, 143. ]

[Footnote 449: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 83. ]

LECTURE XIII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN NEW GUINEA(_continued_)

[Sidenote: Offerings to appease ghosts. ]

In the last lecture I gave you some account of the fear and awe whichthe Kai of German New Guinea entertain for the spirits of the dead. Believing that the ghost is endowed with all the qualities and facultieswhich distinguished the man in his lifetime, they naturally dread mostthe ghosts of warlike, cruel, violent, and passionate men, and take thegreatest pains to soothe their anger and win their favour. For thatpurpose they give the departed spirit all sorts of things to take withhim to the far country. And in order that he may have the use of them itis necessary to smash or otherwise spoil them. Thus the spear that isgiven him must be broken, the pot must be shivered, the bag must betorn, the palm-tree must be cut down. Fruits are offered to the ghost bydashing them in pieces or hanging a bunch of them over the grave. Objects of value, such as boars' tusks or dogs' teeth, are made over tohim by being laid on the corpse; but the economical savage removes theseprecious things from the body at burial. All such offerings andsacrifices, we are told, are made simply out of fear of the ghost. It isno pleasure to a man to cut down a valuable palm-tree, which might havehelped to nourish himself and his family for years; he does it only lesta worse thing should befall him at the hands of the departedspirit. [450]

[Sidenote: Mode of discovering the sorcerer who caused a death. ]

But the greatest service that the Kai can render to a dead man is totake vengeance on the sorcerer who caused his death by witchcraft. Thefirst thing is to discover the villain, and in the search for him theghost obligingly assists his surviving kinsfolk. Sometimes, however, itis necessary to resort to a stratagem in order to secure his help. Thus, for example, one day while the ghost, blinded by the strong sunlight, iscowering in a dark corner or reposing at full length in the grave, hisrelatives will set up a low scaffold in a field, cover it with leaves, and pile up over it a mass of the field fruits which belonged to thedead man, so that the whole erection may appear to the eye of theunsuspecting ghost a heap of taro, yams, and so forth, and nothing more. But before the sun goes down, two or three men steal out from the house, and ensconce themselves under the scaffold, where they are completelyconcealed by the piled-up fruits. When darkness has fallen, out comesthe ghost and prowling about espies the heap of yams and taro. At sightof the devastation wrought in his field he flies into a passion, andcurses and swears in the feeble wheezy whisper in which ghosts alwaysspeak. In the course of his fluent imprecations he expresses a wish thatthe miscreants who have wasted his substance may suffer so and so at thehands of the sorcerer. That is just what the men in hiding have beenwaiting for. No sooner do they hear the name of the sorcerer than theyjump up with a great shout; the startled ghost takes to his heels; andall the people in the village come pouring out of the houses. Very gladthey are to know that the murderer has been found out, and sooner orlater they will have his blood. [451]

[Sidenote: Another way of detecting the sorcerer. ]

Another mode of eliciting the requisite information from the ghost isthis. In order to allow him to communicate freely with his moulderingbody, his relations insert a tube through the earth of the grave down tothe corpse; then they sprinkle powdered lime on the grave. At night theghost comes along, picks up the powdered lime, and makes off in a beeline for the village where the sorcerer who bewitched him resides. Onthe way he drops some of the powder here and there, so that nextmorning, on the principle of the paper-chase, his relatives can tracehis footsteps to the very door of his murderer. In many districts thepeople tie a packet of lime to the knee of a corpse so that his ghostmay have it to hand when he wants it. [452]

[Sidenote: Cross-questioning the ghost by means of fire. ]

But the favourite way of cross-questioning the ghost on subject of hisdecease is by means of fire. A few men go out before nightfall from thevillage and sit down in a row, one behind the other, on the path. Theman in front has a leaf-mat drawn like a hood over his head and back inorder that the ghost may not touch him from behind unawares. In his handhe holds a glowing coal and some tinder, and as he puts the one to theother he calls to the ghost, "Come, take, take, take; come, take, take, take, " and so on. Meantime his mates behind him are reckoning up thenames of all the men near and far who are suspected of sorcery, and aportion of the village youth have clambered up trees and are on thelook-out for the ghost. If they do not see his body they certainly seehis eye twinkling in the gloom, though the uninstructed European mighteasily mistake it for a glow-worm. No sooner do they catch sight of itthan they bawl out, "Come hither, fetch the fire, and burn him who burntthee. " If the tinder blazes up at the name of a sorcerer, it is flungtowards the village where the man in question dwells. And if at the sametime a glow-worm is seen to move in the same direction, the peopleentertain no doubt that the ghost has appeared and fetched the soul ofthe fire. [453]

[Sidenote: Necessity of destroying the sorcerer who caused a death. ]

In whichever way the author of the death may be detected, the avengersof blood set out for the village of the miscreant and seek to take hislife. Almost all the wars between villages or tribes spring from suchexpeditions. The sorcerer or sorcerers must be extirpated, nay all theirkith and kin must be destroyed root and branch, if the people are tolive in peace and quiet. The ghost of the dead calls, nay clamours forvengeance, and if he does not get it, he will wreak his spite on hisnegligent relations. Not only will he give them no luck in the chase, but he will drive the wild swine into the fields to trample down androot up the crops, and he will do them every mischief in his power. Ifrain does not fall, so that the freshly planted root crops wither; or ifsickness is rife, the people recognise in the calamity the wrath of theghost, who can only be appeased by the slaughter of the wicked magicianor of somebody else. Hence the avengers of blood often do not set outuntil a fresh death, an outbreak of sickness, failure in the chase, orsome other misfortune reminds the living of the duty they owe to thedead. The Kai is not by nature warlike, and he might never go to war ifit were not that he dreads the vengeance of ghosts more than the wrathof men. [454]

[Sidenote: Slayers dread the ghosts of the slain. ]

If the expedition has been successful, if the enemy's village has beensurprised and stormed, the men and old women butchered, and the youngwomen taken prisoners, the warriors beat a hasty retreat with theirbooty in order to be safe at home, or at least in the shelter of afriendly village, before nightfall. Their reason for haste is the fearof being overtaken in the darkness by the ghosts of their slaughteredfoes, who, powerless by day, are very dangerous and terrible by night. Restlessly through the hours of darkness these unquiet spirits followlike sleuth-hounds in the tracks of their retreating enemies, eager tocome up with them and by contact with the bloodstained weapons of theirslayers to recover the spiritual substance which they have lost. Nottill they have done so can they find rest and peace. That is why thevictors are careful not at first to bring back their weapons into thevillage but to hide them somewhere in the bushes at a safe distance. There they leave them for some days until the baffled ghosts may besupposed to have given up the chase and returned, sad and angry, totheir mangled bodies in the charred ruins of their old home. The firstnight after the return of the warriors is always the most anxious time;all the villagers are then on the alert for fear of the ghosts; but ifthe night passes quietly, their terror gradually subsides and givesplace to the dread of their surviving enemies. [455]

[Sidenote: Seclusion of man-slayers from fear of their victims' ghosts. ]

As the victors in a raid are supposed to have more or less of thesoul-stuff or spiritual essence of their slain foes adhering to theirpersons, none of their friends will venture to touch them for some timeafter their return to the village. Everybody avoids them and goescarefully out of their way. If during this time any of the villagerssuffers from a pain in his stomach, he thinks that he must haveinadvertently sat down where one of the warriors had sat before him. Ifsomebody endures the pangs of toothache, he makes sure that he must haveeaten a fruit which had been touched by one of the slayers. All therefuse of the meals of these gallant men must be most carefully put awaylest a pig should devour it; for if it did do so, the animal wouldcertainly die, which would be a serious loss to the owner. Hence whenthe warriors have satisfied their hunger, any food that remains over isburnt or buried. The fighting men themselves are not very seriouslyincommoded, or at all events endangered, by the ghosts of their victims;for they have taken the precaution to disinfect themselves by the sap ofa certain creeper, which, if it does not render them absolutely immuneto ghostly influence, at least fortifies their constitution to a veryconsiderable extent. [456]

[Sidenote: Feigned indignation of a man who has connived at the murderof a relative. ]

Sometimes, instead of sending forth a band of warriors to ravage, burn, and slaughter the whole male population of the village in which thewicked sorcerer resides, the people of one village will come to a secretunderstanding with the people of the sorcerer's village to have themiscreant quietly put out of the way. A hint is given to the scoundrel'snext of kin, it may be his brother, son, or nephew, that if he will onlywink at the slaughter of his obnoxious relative, he will receive ahandsome compensation from the slayers. Should he privately accept theoffer, he is most careful to conceal his connivance at the deed ofblood, lest he should draw down on his head the wrath of his murderedkinsman's ghost. So, when the deed is done and the murder is out, heworks himself up into a state of virtuous sorrow and indignation, covershis head with the leaves of a certain plant, and chanting a dirge intones of heart-rending grief, marches straight to the village of themurderers. There, on the public square, surrounded by an attentiveaudience, he opens the floodgates of his eloquence and pours forth thetorrent of an aching heart. "You have slain my kinsman, " says he, "youare wicked men! How could you kill so good a man, who conferred so manybenefits on me in his lifetime? I knew nothing of the plot. Had I had aninkling of it, I would have foiled it. How can I now avenge his death? Ihave no property with which to hire men of war to go and punish hismurderers. Yet in spite of everything my murdered kinsman will notbelieve in my innocence! He will be angry with me, he will pay me out, he will do me all the harm he can. Therefore do you declare openlywhether I had any share whatever in his death, and come and strew limeon my head in order that he may convince himself of my innocence. " Thisappeal of injured innocence meets with a ready response. The people dustthe leaves on his head with powdered lime; and so, decorated with thewhite badge of spotless virtue, and enriched with a boar's tusk or othervaluable object as the price of his compliance, he returns to hisvillage with a conscience at peace with all the world, reflecting withsatisfaction on the profitable transaction he has just concluded, andlaughing in his sleeve at the poor deluded ghost of his murderedrelative. [457]

[Sidenote: Comedy acted to deceive the ghost of a murdered kinsman. ]

Sometimes the worthy soul who thus for a valuable consideration consentsto waive all his personal feelings, will even carry his self-abnegationso far as to be present and look on at the murder of his kinsman. Buttrue to his principles he will see to it that the thing is done decentlyand humanely. When the struggle is nearly over and the man is down, writhing on the ground with the murderers busy about him, his lovingkinsman will not suffer them to take an unfair advantage of theirsuperior numbers to cut him up alive with their knives, to chop him withtheir axes, or to smash him with their clubs. He will only allow them tostab him with their spears, repeating of course the stabs again andagain till the victim ceases to writhe and quiver, and lies there deadas a stone. Then begins the real time of peril for the virtuous kinsmanwho has been a spectator and director of the scene; for the ghost of themurdered man has now deserted its mangled body, and, still blinded withblood and smarting with pain, might easily and even excusablymisunderstand the situation. It is essential, therefore, in order toprevent a painful misapprehension, that the kinsman should at once andemphatically disclaim any part or parcel in the murder. This heaccordingly does in language which leaves no room for doubt orambiguity. He falls into a passion: he rails at the murderers: heproclaims his horror at their deed. All the way home he refuses to becomforted. He upbraids the assassins, he utters the most frightfulthreats against them; he rushes at them to snatch their weapons fromthem and dash them in pieces. But they easily wrench the weapons fromhis unresisting hands. For the whole thing is only a piece of acting. His sole intention is that the ghost may see and hear it all, and beingconvinced of the innocence of his dear kinsman may not punish him withbad crops, wounds, sickness, and other misfortunes. Even when he hasreached the village, he keeps up the comedy for a time, raging, frettingand fuming at the irreparable loss he has sustained by the death of hislamented relative. [458]

[Sidenote: Pretence of avenging the ghost of a murdered sorcerer. ]

Similarly when a chief has among his subjects a particular sorcerer whomhe fears but with whom he is professedly on terms of friendship, he willsometimes engage a man to murder him. No sooner, however, is the murderperpetrated than the chief who bespoke it hastens in seeming indignationwith a band of followers to the murderer's village. The assassin, ofcourse, has got a hint of what is coming, and he and his friends takecare not to be at home when the chief arrives on his mission ofvengeance. Balked by the absence of their victim the avengers of bloodbreathe out fire and slaughter, but content themselves in fact withsmashing an old pot or two, knocking down a deserted hut, and perhapsfelling a banana-tree or a betel-palm. Having thus given the ghost ofthe murdered man an unequivocal proof of the sincerity of theirfriendship, they return quietly home. [459]

[Sidenote: The Kai afraid of ghosts. ]

The habits of Kai ghosts are to some extent just the contrary of thoseof living men. They sleep by day and go about their business by night, when they frighten people and play them all kinds of tricks. Usuallythey appear in the form of animals. As light has the effect of blindingor at least dazzling them, they avoid everything bright, and hence it iseasy to scare them away by means of fire. That is why no native will goeven a short way in the dark without a bamboo torch. If it is absolutelynecessary to go out by night, which he is very loth to do, he will humand haw loudly before quitting the house so as to give notice to anylurking ghost that he is coming with a light, which allows the ghost toscuttle out of his way in good time. The people of a village live interror above all so long as a corpse remains unburied in it; afternightfall nobody would then venture out of sight of the houses. When atroop of people go by night to a neighbouring village with flaringtorches in their hands, nobody is willing to walk last on the path; theyall huddle together for safety in the middle, till one man braver thanthe rest consents to act as rearguard. The rustling of a bush in theevening twilight startles them with the dread of some ghastlyapparition; the sight of a pig in the gloaming is converted by theirfears into the vision of a horrible spectre. If a man stumbles, it isbecause a ghost has pushed him, and he fancies he perceives thefrightful thing in a tree-stump or any chance object. No wonder a Kaiman fears ghosts, since he believes that the mere touch of one of themmay be fatal. People who fall down in fits or in faints are supposed tohave been touched by ghosts; and on coming to themselves they will telltheir friends with the most solemn assurance how they felt thedeath-cold hand of the ghost on their body, and how a shudder ranthrough their whole frame at contact with the uncanny being. [460]

[Sidenote: Services rendered to the living by ghosts of the dead. ]

But it would be a mistake to imagine that the ghosts of the dead are asource of danger, annoyance, and discomfort, and nothing more. That isnot so. They may and do render the Kai the most material services ineveryday life, particularly by promoting the supply of food bothvegetable and animal. I have said that these practical savages standtowards their departed kinsfolk on a strictly commercial footing; and Iwill now illustrate the benefits which the Kai hope to receive from theghosts in return for all the respect and attention lavished on them. Inthe first place, then, so long as a ghost remains in the neighbourhoodof the village, it is expected of him that he shall make the cropsthrive and neither tread them down himself nor allow wild pigs to do so. The expectation is reasonable, yet the conduct of the ghost does notalways answer to it. Occasionally, whether out of sheer perverseness orsimple absence of mind, he will sit down in a field; and wherever hedoes so, he makes a hollow where the fruits will not grow. Indeed anyfruit that he even touches with his foot in passing, shrivels up. Wherethese things have happened, the people offer boiled taro and a few crabsto the ghosts to induce them to keep clear of the crops and to reposetheir weary limbs elsewhere than in the tilled fields. [461]

[Sidenote: Ghosts help Kai hunters to kill game. ]

But the most important service which the dead render to the living isthe good luck which they vouchsafe to hunters. Hence in order to assurehimself of the favour of the dead the hunter hangs his nets on a gravebefore he uses them. If a man was a good and successful hunter in hislifetime, his ghost will naturally be more than usually able to assisthis brethren in the craft after his death. For that reason when such aman has just died, the people, to adopt a familiar proverb, hasten tomake hay while the sun shines by hunting very frequently, in theconfident expectation of receiving ghostly help from the deceasedhunter. In the evening, when they return from the chase, they lay asmall portion of their bag near his grave, scatter a powder whichpossesses the special virtue of attracting ghosts, and call out, "So-and-so, come and eat; here I set down food for you, it is a part ofall we have. " If after such an offering and invocation the night windrustles the tops of the trees or shakes the thatch of leaves on theroofs, they know that the ghost is in the village. The twinkle of aglow-worm near his grave is the glitter of his eye. In the morning, too, before they sally forth to the woods, one of the next of kin to the deadhuntsman will go betimes to his grave, stamp on it to waken the sleeperbelow, and call out, "So-and-so, come! we are now about to go outhunting. Help us to a good bag!" If they have luck, they praise thedeceased as a good spirit and in the evening supply his wants again withfood, tobacco, and betel. The sacrifice, as usually happens in suchcases, does not call for any great exercise of self-denial; since thespirit consumes only the spiritual essence of the good things, while heleaves their material substance to be enjoyed by the living. [462]

[Sidenote: Ill-treatment of a ghost who fails to help hunters. ]

However, it sometimes happens that the ghost disappoints them, and thatthe hunters return in the evening hungry and empty-handed. This may evenbe repeated day after day, and still the people will not lose hope. Theythink that the ghost is perhaps busy working in his field, or that hehas gone on a visit and will soon come home. To give him time to do hisbusiness or see his friends at leisure, they will remain in the villagefor several days. Then, when they imagine that he must surely havereturned, they go out into the woods and try their luck again. Butshould there still be no ghost and no game, they begin to be seriouslyalarmed. They think that some evil must have befallen him. But if timegoes on and still he gives no sign and the game continues scarce andshy, their feelings towards the ghost undergo a radical alteration. Passion getting the better of prudence, they will even reproach him withingratitude, taunt him with his uselessness, and leave him to starve. Should he after that still remain deaf to their railing and regardlessof the short commons to which they have reduced him, they will dischargea volley of abuse at his grave and trouble themselves about him no more. However, if, not content with refusing his valuable assistance in thechase, the ghost should actually blight the crops or send wild boarsinto the fields to trample them down, the patience of the long-sufferingpeople is quite exhausted: the vials of their wrath overflow; andsnatching up their cudgels in a fury they belabour his grave till hisbones ache, or even drive him with blows and curses altogether from thevillage. [463]

[Sidenote: The journey of ghosts to the spirit land. ]

Such an outcast ghost, if he does not seek his revenge by prowling inthe neighbourhood and preying on society at large, will naturallybethink himself of repairing to his long home in the under world. Forsooner or later the spirits of the dead congregate there. It isespecially when the flesh has quite mouldered away from his bones thatthe ghost packs up his little traps and sets out for the better land. The entrance to the abode of bliss is a cave to the west of SaddleMountain. Here in the gully there is a projecting tree-stump on whichthe ghosts perch waiting for a favourable moment to jump into the mouthof the cavern. When a slight earthquake is felt, a Kai man will oftensay, "A ghost has just leaped from the tree into the cave; that is whythe earth is shaking. " Down below the ghosts are received by Tulmeng, lord of the nether world. Often he appears in a canoe to ferry them overto the further shore. "Blood or wax?" is the laconic question which heputs to the ghost on the bank. He means to say, "Were you killed or wereyou done to death by magic?" For it is with wax that the sorcerer stopsup the fatal little tubes in which he encloses the souls of his enemies. And the reason why the lord of the dead puts the question to thenewcomer is that the ghosts of the slain and the ghosts of the bewitcheddwell in separate places. Right in front of the land of souls rises ahigh steep wall, which cannot be climbed even by ghosts. The spiritshave accordingly to make their way through it and thereupon findthemselves in their new abode. According to some Kai, before the ghostsare admitted to ghost land they must swing to and fro on a rope and thendrop into water, where they are washed clean of bloodstains and allimpurity; after which they ascend, spick and span, the last slope to thevillage of ghosts. 

[Sidenote: Life of ghosts in the other world. ]

Tulmeng has the reputation of being a very stern ruler in his weirdrealm, but the Kai really know very little about him. He beatsrefractory souls, and it is essential that every ghost should have hisears and nose bored. The operation is very painful, and to escape itmost people take the precaution of having their ears and noses bored intheir lifetime. Life in the other world goes on just like life in thisone. Houses are built exactly like houses on earth, and there as herepigs swarm in the streets. Fields are tilled and crops are got in;ghostly men marry ghostly women, who give birth to ghostly children. Thesame old round of love and hate, of quarrelling and fighting, of battle, murder and sudden death goes on in the shadowy realm below ground justas in the more solid world above ground. Sorcerers are there also, andthey breed just as bad blood among the dead as among the living. Allthings indeed are the same except for their shadowy unsubstantialtexture. [464]

[Sidenote: Ghosts die and turn into animals. ]

But the ghosts do not live for ever in the nether world. They die thesecond death and turn into animals, generally into cuscuses. In theshape of animals they haunt the wildest, deepest, darkest glens of therugged mountains. No one but the owner has the right to set foot on suchhaunted ground. He may even kill the ghostly animals. Any one else whodared to disturb them in their haunts would do so at the peril of hislife. But even the owner of the land who has killed one of the ghostlycreatures is bound to appease the spirit of the dead beast. He may notcut up the carcase at once, but must leave it for a time, perhaps for awhole night, after laying on it presents which are intended to mollifyand soothe the injured spirit. In placing the gifts on the body he says, "Take the gifts and leave us that which was a game animal, that we mayeat it. " When the animal's ghost has appropriated the spiritual essenceof the offerings, the hunter and his family may eat the carcase. Shouldone of these ghostly creatures die or be killed, its spirit turns eitherinto an insect or into an ant-hill. Children who would destroy such anant-hill or throw little darts at it, are warned by their elders not toindulge in such sacrilegious sport. When the insect also dies, theseries of spiritual transformations is at an end. [465]

[Sidenote: Ghosts of persons eminent for good or evil in their lives areremembered and appealed to for help long after their deaths. Prayers toghosts for rain, a good crop of yams, and so forth. ]

The ghosts whose help is invoked by hunters and farmers are commonly thespirits of persons who have lately died, since such spirits linger for atime in the neighbourhood, or rather in the memory of the people. Butbesides these spirits of the recent dead there are certain older ghostswho may be regarded as permanent patrons of hunting and otherdepartments of life and nature, because their fame has survived longafter the men or women themselves were gathered to their fathers. Forexample, men who were bold and resolute in battle during their life willbe invoked long after their death, whenever a stout heart is needed forsome feat of daring. And men who were notorious thieves and villains inthe flesh will be invited, long after their bodies have mouldered in thegrave, to lend their help when a deed of villainy is to be done. Thenames of men or women who were eminent for good or evil in their livessurvive indefinitely in the memory of the tribe. Thus before a battlemany a Kai warrior will throw something over the enemy's village and ashe does so he will softly call on two ghosts, "We and Gunang, ye twoheroes, come and guard me and keep the foes from me, that they may notbe able to hurt me! But stand by me that I may be able to riddle themwith spears!" Again, when a magician wishes to cause an earthquake, hewill take a handful of ashes, wrap them in certain leaves, and pronouncethe following spell over the packet: "Thou man Sâiong, throw abouteverything that exists; houses, villages, paths, fields, bushes and tallforest trees, yams, and taro, throw them all hither and thither; breakand smash everything, but leave me in peace!" While he utters thisincantation or prayer, the sorcerer's body itself twitches and quiversmore and more violently, till the hut creaks and cracks and his strengthis exhausted. Then he throws the packet of ashes out of the hut, andafter that the earthquake is sure to follow sooner or later. So whenthey want rain, the Kai call upon two ghostly men named Balong and Batu, or Dinding and Bojang, to drive away a certain woman named Yondimi, sothat the rain which she is holding up may fall upon the earth. Theprayer for rain addressed to the ghosts is combined with a magical spellpronounced over a stone. And when rain has fallen in abundance and theKai wish to make it cease, they strew hot ashes on the stone or lay itin a wood fire. On the principle of homoeopathic magic the heat of theashes or of the fire is supposed to dry up the rain. Thus in theseceremonies for the production or cessation of rain we see that religion, represented by the invocation of the ghosts, goes hand in hand withmagic, represented by the hocus-pocus with the stone. Again, certaincelebrated ghosts are invoked to promote the growth of taro and yams. Thus to ensure a good crop of taro, the suppliant will hold a bud oftaro in his hand and pray, "O Mrs. Zewanong, may my taro leaves unfoldtill they are as broad as the petticoat which covers thy loins!" Whenthey are planting yams, they pray to two women named Tendung and Molewathat they would cause the yams to put forth as long suckers as thestrings which the women twist to make into carrying-nets. Before theydig up the yams, they take a branch and drive with it the evil spiritsor ghosts from the house in which the yams are to be stored. Havingeffected this clearance they stick the branch in the roof of the houseand appoint a certain ghostly man named Ehang to act as warden. Again, fowlers invoke a married pair of ghosts called Mânze and Tâmingoka tofrighten the birds from the trees and drive them on the limed twigs. Orthey pray to a ghostly woman named Lâne, saying, "In all places of theneighbourhood shake the betel-nuts from the palms, that they may falldown to me on this fruit-tree and knock the berries from the boughs!"But by the betel-nuts the fowler in veiled language means the birds, which are to come in flocks to the fruit-tree and be caught fast by thelime on the branches. Again, when a fisherman wishes to catch eels, heprays to two ghosts called Yambi and Ngigwâli, saying: "Come, ye twomen, and go down into the holes of the pool; smite the eels in them, anddraw them out on the bank, that I may kill them!" Once more, when achild suffers from enlarged spleen, which shews as a swelling on itsbody, the parent will pray to a ghost named Aidolo for help in thesewords: "Come and help this child! It is big with a ball of sickness. Cutit up and squeeze and squash it, that the blood and pus may drain awayand my child may be made whole!" To give point to the prayer thepetitioner simultaneously pretends to cut a cross on the swelling with aknife. [466]

[Sidenote: Possible development of departmental gods out of ghosts. ]

From this it appears that men and women who impressed theircontemporaries by their talents, their virtues, or their vices in theirlifetime, are sometimes remembered long after their death and continueto be invoked by their descendants for help in the particular departmentin which they had formerly rendered themselves eminent either for goodor for evil. Such powerful and admired or dreaded ghosts might easilygrow in time into gods and goddesses, who are worshipped as presidingover the various departments of nature and of human life. There is goodreason to think that among many tribes and nations of the world thehistory of a god, if it could be recovered, would be found to be thehistory of a spirit who served his apprenticeship as a ghost before hewas promoted to the rank of deity. 

[Sidenote: Kai lads at circumcision supposed to be swallowed by amonster. Bull-roarers. ]

Before quitting the Kai tribe I will mention that they, like the othertribes on this coast, practise circumcision and appear to associate thecustom more or less vaguely with the spirits of the dead. Like theirneighbours, they impress women with the belief that at circumcision thelads are swallowed by a monster, who can only be induced to disgorgethem by the bribe of much food and especially of pigs, which areaccordingly bred and kept nominally for this purpose, but really tofurnish a banquet for the men alone. The ceremony is performed atirregular intervals of several years. A long hut, entered through a highdoor at one end and tapering away at the other, is built in a lonelypart of the forest. It represents the monster which is to swallow thenovices in its capacious jaws. The process of deglutition is representedas follows. In front of the entrance to the hut a scaffold is erectedand a man mounts it. The novices are then led up one by one and passedunder the scaffold. As each comes up, the man overhead makes a gestureof swallowing, while at the same time he takes a great gulp of waterfrom a coco-nut flask. The trembling novice is now supposed to be in themaw of the monster; but a pig is offered for his redemption, the man onthe scaffold, as representative of the beast, accepts the offering, agurgling sound is heard, and the water which he had just gulped descendsin a jet on the novice, who now goes free. The actual circumcisionfollows immediately on this impressive pantomime. The monster whoswallows the lads is named Ngosa, which means "Grandfather"; and thesame name is given to the bull-roarers which are swung at the festival. The Kai bull-roarer is a lance-shaped piece of palm-wood, more or lesselaborately carved, which being swung at the end of a string emits theusual droning, booming sound. When they are not in use, the instrumentsare kept, carefully wrapt up, in the men's house, which no woman mayenter. Only the old men have the right to undo these precious bundlesand take out the sacred bull-roarers. Women, too, are strictly excludedfrom the neighbourhood of the circumcision ground; any who intrude on itare put to death. The mythical monster who is supposed to haunt theground is said to be very dangerous to the female sex. When the novicesgo forth to be swallowed by him in the forest, the women who remain inthe village weep and wail; and they rejoice greatly when the lads comeback safe and sound. [467]

[Sidenote: The Tami Islanders of Huon Gulf. ]

The last tribe of German New Guinea to which I shall invite yourattention are the Tami. Most of them live not on the mainland but in agroup of islands in Huon Gulf, to the south-east of Yabim. They are of apurer Melanesian stock than most of the tribes on the neighbouring coastof New Guinea. The German missionary Mr. G. Bamler, who lived amongstthem for ten years and knows the people and their language intimately, thinks that they may even contain a strong infusion of Polynesianblood. [468] They are a seafaring folk, who extend their voyages allalong the coast for the purpose of trade, bartering mats, pearls, fish, coco-nuts, and other tree-fruits which grow on their islands for taro, bananas, sugar-cane, and sago, which grow on the mainland. [469]

[Sidenote: The long soul and the short soul. ]

In the opinion of these people every man has two souls, a long one and ashort one. The long soul is identified with the shadow. It is onlyloosely attached to its owner, wandering away from his body in sleep andreturning to it when he wakes with a start. The seat of the long soul isin the stomach. When the man dies, the long soul quits his body andappears to his relations at a distance, who thus obtain the firstintimation of his decease. Having conveyed the sad intelligence to them, the long soul departs by way of Maligep, on the west coast of NewBritain, to a village on the north coast, the inhabitants of whichrecognise the Tami ghosts as they flit past. [470]

[Sidenote: Departure of the short soul to Lamboam, the nether world. ]

The short soul, on the other hand, never leaves the body in life butonly after death. Even then it tarries for a time in the neighbourhoodof the body before it takes its departure for Lamboam, which is theabode of the dead in the nether world. The Tami bury their dead inshallow graves under or near the houses. They collect in a coco-nutshell the maggots which swarm from the decaying corpse; and when theinsects cease to swarm, they know that the short soul has gone away toits long home. It is the short soul which receives and carries away withit the offerings that are made to the deceased. These offerings serve adouble purpose; they form the nucleus of the dead man's property in thefar country, and they ensure him a friendly reception on his arrival. For example, the soul shivers with cold, when it first reaches thesubterranean realm, and the other ghosts, the old stagers, obliginglyheat stones to warm it up. [471]

[Sidenote: Dilemma of the Tami. ]

However, the restless spirit returns from time to time to haunt andterrify the sorcerer, who was the cause of its death. But its threatsare idle; it can really do him very little harm. Yet it keeps itsghostly eye on its surviving relatives to see that they do not stand ona friendly footing with the wicked sorcerer. Strictly speaking the Tamiought to avenge his death, but as a matter of fact they do not. Thetruth of it is that the Tami do a very good business with the people onthe mainland, among whom the sorcerer is usually to be found; and theamicable relations which are essential to the maintenance of commercewould unquestionably suffer if a merchant were to indulge his resentmentso far as to take his customer's head instead of his sago and bananas. These considerations reduce the Tami to a painful dilemma. If theygratify the ghost they lose a customer; if they keep the customer theymust bitterly offend the ghost, who will punish them for theirdisrespect to his memory. In this delicate position the Tami endeavourto make the best of both worlds. On the one hand, by loudly professingtheir wrath and indignation against the guilty sorcerer they endeavourto appease the ghost; and on the other hand, by leaving the villainunmolested they do nothing to alienate their customers. [472]

[Sidenote: Funeral and mourning customs of the Tami. ]

But if they do not gratify the desire for vengeance of the blood-thirstyghost, they are at great pains to testify their respect for him in allother ways. The whole village takes part in the mourning and lamentationfor a death. The women dance death dances, the men lend a hand in thepreparations for the burial. All festivities are stopped: the drums aresilent. As the people believe that when anybody has died, the ghosts ofhis dead kinsfolk gather in the village and are joined by other ghosts, they are careful not to leave the mourners alone, exposed to the toopressing attentions of the spectral visitors; they keep the bereavedfamily company, especially at night; indeed, if the weather be fine, thewhole population of the village will encamp round the temporary hutwhich is built on the grave. This watch at the grave lasts about eightdays. The watchers are supported and comforted in the discharge of theirpious duty by a liberal allowance of food and drink. Nor are the wantsof the ghost himself forgotten. Many families offer him taro broth atthis time. The period of mourning lasts two or three years. During thefirst year the observances prescribed by custom are strictly followed, and the nearest relations must avoid publicity. After a year they areallowed more freedom; for example, the widow may lay aside the heavynet, which is her costume in full mourning, and may replace it by alighter one; moreover, she may quit the house. At the end of the longperiod of mourning, dances are danced in honour of the deceased. Theybegin in the evening and last all night till daybreak. The mourners onthese occasions smear their heads, necks, and breasts with black earth. A great quantity of food, particularly of pigs and taro broth, has beenmade ready; for the whole village, and perhaps a neighbouring villagealso, has been invited to share in the festivity, which may last eightor ten days, if the provisions suffice. The dances begin with a gravityand solemnity appropriate to a memorial of the dead; but towards theclose the performers indulge in a lighter vein and act comic pieces, which so tickle the fancy of the spectators, that many of them roll onthe ground with laughter. Finally, the temporary hut erected on thegrave is taken down and the materials burned. As the other ghosts of thevillage are believed to be present in attendance on the one who is theguest of honour, all the villagers bring offerings and throw them intothe fire. However, persons who are not related to the ghosts may snatchthe offerings from the flames and convert them to their own use. Precious objects, such as boars' tusks and dogs' teeth, are notcommitted to the fire but merely swung over it in a bag, while the nameof the person who offers the valuables in this economical fashion isproclaimed aloud for the satisfaction of the ghost. With these dances, pantomimes, and offerings the living have discharged the last duties ofrespect and affection to the dead. Yet for a while his ghost is thoughtto linger as a domestic or household spirit; but the time comes when heis wholly forgotten. [473]

[Sidenote: Bones of the dead dug up and kept in the house for a time. ]

Many families, however, not content with the observance of theseordinary ceremonies, dig up the bodies of their dead when the flesh hasmouldered away, redden the bones with ochre, and keep them bundled up inthe house for two or three years, when these relics of mortality arefinally committed to the earth. The intention of thus preserving thebones for years in the house is not mentioned, but no doubt it is tomaintain a closer intimacy with the departed spirit than seems possibleif his skeleton is left to rot in the grave. When he is at last laid inthe ground, the tomb is enclosed by a strong wooden fence and plantedwith ornamental shrubs. Yet in the course of years, as the memory of thedeceased fades away, his grave is neglected, the fence decays, theshrubs run wild; another generation, which knew him not, will build ahouse on the spot, and if in digging the foundations they turn up hisbleached and mouldering bones, it is nothing to them: why should theytrouble themselves about the spirit of a man or woman whose very name isforgotten?[474]

[Footnote 450: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 142 _sq. _]

[Footnote 451: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 143. ]

[Footnote 452: Ch. Keysser, _l. C. _]

[Footnote 453: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 143 _sq. _]

[Footnote 454: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 62 _sq. _]

[Footnote 455: Ch. Keysser, pp. 64 _sqq. _, 147 _sq. _]

[Footnote 456: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 132. ]

[Footnote 457: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 148. ]

[Footnote 458: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 148 _sq. _]

[Footnote 459: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 149. ]

[Footnote 460: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 147. ]

[Footnote 461: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 145. ]

[Footnote 462: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ p. 145. ]

[Footnote 463: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 145 _sq. _]

[Footnote 464: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 149 _sq. _]

[Footnote 465: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 112, 150 _sq. _]

[Footnote 466: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 151-154. In this passage theghosts are spoken of simply as spirits (_Geister_); but the contextproves that the spirits in question are those of the dead. ]

[Footnote 467: Ch. Keysser, _op. Cit. _ pp. 34-40. ]

[Footnote 468: G. Bamler, "Tami, " in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_, iii. (Berlin, 1911) p. 489; compare _ib. _ p. Vii. ]

[Footnote 469: H. Zahn, "Die Jabim, " in R. Neuhauss's _DeutschNeu-Guinea_, iii. 315 _sq. _]

[Footnote 470: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ p. 518. ]

[Footnote 471: G. Bamler, _l. C. _]

[Footnote 472: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ pp. 518 _sq. _]

[Footnote 473: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ pp. 519-522. ]

[Footnote 474: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ p. 518. ]

LECTURE XIV

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN AND DUTCH NEWGUINEA

[Sidenote: The Tami doctrine of souls and gods. The Tago spirits, represented by masked men. ]

At the close of the last lecture I dealt with the Tami, a people ofMelanesian stock who inhabit a group of islands off the mainland of NewGuinea. I explained their theory of the human soul. According to them, every man has two distinct souls, a long one and a short one, both ofwhich survive his death, but depart in different directions, one of themrepairing to the lower world, and the other being last sighted off thecoast of New Britain. But the knowledge which these savages possess ofthe spiritual world is not limited to the souls of men; they areacquainted with several deities (_buwun_), who live in the otherwiseuninhabited island of Djan. They are beings of an amorous disposition, and though their real shape is that of a fish's body with a human head, they can take on the form of men in order to seduce women. They alsocause epidemics and earthquakes; yet the people shew them no respect, for they believe them to be dull-witted as well as lecherous. At most, if a fearful epidemic is raging, they will offer the gods a lean littlepig or a mangy cur; and should an earthquake last longer than usual theywill rap on the ground, saying, "Hullo, you down there! easy a little!We men are still here. " They also profess acquaintance with a god namedAnuto, who created the heaven and the earth together with the first manand woman. He is a good being; nobody need be afraid of him. Atfestivals and meat markets the Tami offer him the first portion in alittle basket, which a lad carries away into the wood and leaves there. As usual, the deity consumes only the soul of the offering; the bearereats the material substance. [475] The Tami further believe in certainspirits called Tago which are very old, having been created at the sametime as the village. Every family or clan possesses its own familiarspirits of this class. They are represented by men who disguise theirbodies in dense masses of sago leaves and their faces in grotesque maskswith long hooked noses. In this costume the maskers jig it as well asthe heavy unwieldy disguise allows them to do. But the dance consists inlittle more than running round and round in a circle, with an occasionalhop; the orchestra stands in the middle, singing and thumping drums. Sometimes two or three of the masked men will make a round of thevillage, pelting the men with pebbles or hard fruits, while the womenand children scurry out of their way. When they are not in use the masksare hidden away in a hut in the forest, which women and children may notapproach. Their secret is sternly kept: any betrayal of it is punishedwith death. The season for the exhibition of these masked dances recursonly once in ten or twelve years, but it extends over a year orthereabout. During the whole of the dancing-season, curiously enough, coco-nuts are strictly tabooed; no person may eat them, so that theunused nuts accumulate in thousands. As coco-nuts ordinarily form adaily article of diet with the Tami, their prohibition for a year isfelt by the people as a privation. The meaning of the prohibition andalso of the masquerades remains obscure. [476]

[Sidenote: The superhuman beings with whom the Tami are chieflyconcerned are the souls of the dead. Offerings to the dead. ]

But while the Tami believe in gods and spirits of various sorts, thesuperhuman beings with whom they chiefly concern themselves are thesouls of the dead. On this subject Mr. Bamler writes: "All the spiritswhom we have thus far described are of little importance in the life andthought of the Tami; they are remembered only on special occasions. Thespirits who fill the thoughts and attract the attention of the Tami arethe _kani_, that is, the souls of the departed. The Tami thereforepractise the worship of ancestors. Yet the memory of ancestors does notreach far back; people occupy themselves only with the souls of thoserelatives whom they have personally known. Hence the worship seldomextends beyond the grandfather, even when a knowledge of more remoteprogenitors survives. An offering to the ancestors takes the form of alittle dish of boiled taro, a cigar, betel-nuts, and the like; but thespirits partake only of the image or soul of the things offered, whilethe material substance falls to the share of mankind. There is no fixedrule as to the manner or time of the offering. It is left to the capriceor childlike affection of the individual to decide how he will make it. With most natives it is a simple matter of business, the throwing of asprat to catch a salmon; the man brings his offering only when he needsthe help of the spirits. There is very little ceremony about it. Theofferer will say, for example, 'There, I lay a cigar for you; smoke itand hereafter drive fish towards me'; or, 'Accompany me on the journey, and see to it that I do good business. ' The place where the food ispresented is the shelf for pots and dishes under the roof. Thus theyimagine that the spirits exert a tolerably far-reaching influence overall created things, and it is their notion that the spirits takepossession of the objects. In like manner the spirits can injure a manby thwarting his plans, for example, by frightening away the fish, blighting the fruits of the fields, and so forth. If the native isforced to conclude that the spirits are against him, he has nohesitation about deceiving them in the grossest manner. Should therequisite sacrifices be inconvenient to him, he flatly refuses them, orgives the shabbiest things he can find. In all this the native displaysthe same craft and cunning which he is apt to practise in his dealingswith the whites. He fears the power which the spirit has over him, yethe tries whether he cannot outwit the spirit like an arrantblock-head. "[477]

[Sidenote: Crude motives for sacrifice. ]

This account of the crude but quite intelligible motives which leadthese savages to sacrifice to the spirits of their dead may be commendedto the attention of writers on the history of religion who read intoprimitive sacrifice certain subtle and complex ideas which it neverentered into the mind of primitive man to conceive and which, even ifthey were explained to him, he would in all probability be totallyunable to understand. 

[Sidenote: Lamboam, the land of the dead. ]

According to the Tami, the souls of the dead live in the nether world. The spirit-land is called Lamboam; the entrance to it is by a cleft in arock. The natives of the mainland also call Hades by the name ofLamboam; but whereas according to them every village has its own littleLamboam, the Tami hold that there is only one big Lamboam for everybody, though it is subdivided into many mansions, of which every village hasone to itself. In Lamboam everything is fairer and more perfect than onearth. The fruits are so plentiful that the blessed spirits can, if theychoose, give themselves up to the delights of idleness; the villages arefull of ornamental plants. Yet on the other hand we are informed thatlife beneath the ground is very like life above it: people work andmarry, they squabble and wrangle, they fall sick and even die, just aspeople do on earth. Souls which die the second death in Lamboam arechanged into vermin, such as ants and worms; however, others say thatthey turn into wood-spirits, who do men a mischief in the fields. It isnot so easy as is commonly supposed to effect an entrance into thespirit-land. You must pass a river, and even when you have crossed ityou will be very likely to suffer from the practical jokes which themerry old ghosts play on a raw newcomer. A very favourite trick oftheirs is to send him up a pandanus tree to look for fruit. If he issimple enough to comply, they catch him by the legs as he is swarming upthe trunk and drag him down, so that his whole body is fearfullyscratched, if not quite ripped up, by the rough bark. That is why peopleput valuable things with the dead in the grave, in order that theirghosts on arrival in Lamboam may have the wherewithal to purchase thegood graces of the facetious old stagers. [478]

[Sidenote: Return of the ghosts to earth, sometimes in the form ofserpents. ]

However, even when the ghosts have succeeded in effecting a lodgment inLamboam, they are not strictly confined to it. They can break bounds atany moment and return to the upper air. This they do particularly whenany of their surviving relations is at the point of death. Ghosts ofdeceased kinsfolk and of others gather round the parting soul and attendit to the far country. Yet sometimes, apparently, the soul sets outalone, for the anxious relatives will call out to it, "Miss not theway. " But ghosts visit their surviving friends at other times than atthe moment of death. For example, some families possess the power ofcalling up spirits in the form of serpents from the vasty deep. Thespirits whom they evoke are usually those of persons who have died quitelately; for such ghosts cannot return to earth except in the guise ofserpents. In this novel shape they naturally feel shy and hide under amat. They come out only in the dusk of the evening or the darkness ofnight and sit on the shelf for pots and dishes under the roof. They havelost the faculty of speech and can express themselves only in whistles. These whistles the seer, who is generally a woman, understands perfectlyand interprets to his or her less gifted fellows. In this way aconsiderable body of information, more or less accurate in detail, iscollected as to life in the other world. More than that, it is evenpossible for men, and especially for women, to go down alive into thenether world and prosecute their enquiries at first hand among theghosts. Women who possess this remarkable faculty transmit it to theirdaughters, so that the profession is hereditary. When anybody wishes toascertain how it fares with one of his dead kinsfolk in Lamboam, he hasnothing to do but to engage the services of one of these professionalmediums, giving her something which belonged to his departed friend. Themedium rubs her forehead with ginger, muttering an incantation, liesdown on the dead man's property, and falls asleep. Her soul then goesdown in a dream to deadland and elicits from the ghosts the requiredinformation, which on waking from sleep she imparts to the anxiousenquirer. [479]

[Sidenote: Sickness caused by a spirit. ]

Sickness accompanied by fainting fits is ascribed to the action of aspirit, it may be the ghost of a near relation, who has carried off the"long soul" of the sufferer. The truant soul is recalled by a blastblown on a triton-shell, in which some chewed ginger or _massoi_ barkhas been inserted. The booming sound attracts the attention of thevagrant spirit, while the smell of the bark or of the ginger drives awaythe ghost. [480]

[Sidenote: Tami lads supposed to be swallowed by a monster atcircumcision; the monster and the bull-roarer are both called _kani_. ]

The name which the Tami give to the spirits of the dead is _kani_; butlike other tribes in this part of New Guinea they apply the same term tothe bull-roarer and also to the mythical monster who is supposed toswallow the lads at circumcision. The identity of the name for the threethings seems to prove that in the mind of the Tami the initiatory rites, of which circumcision is the principal feature, are closely associatedwith their conception of the state of the human soul after death, thoughwhat the precise nature of the association may be still remains obscure. Like their neighbours on the mainland of New Guinea, the Tami give outthat the novices at initiation are swallowed by a monster or dragon, whoonly consents to disgorge his prey in consideration of a tribute ofpigs, the rate of the tribute being one novice one pig. In the act ofdisgorging the lad the dragon bites him, and the bite is visible to allin the cut called circumcision. The voice of the monster is heard in thehum of the bull-roarers, which are swung at the ceremony in such numbersand with such force that in still weather the booming sound may be heardacross the sea for many miles. To impress women and children with anidea of the superhuman strength of the dragon deep grooves are cut inthe trunks of trees and afterwards exhibited to the uninitiated as themarks made by the monster in tugging at the ropes which bound him to thetrees. However, the whole thing is an open secret to the married women, though they keep their knowledge to themselves, fearing to incur thepenalty of death which is denounced upon all who betray the mystery. 

[Sidenote: The rite of circumcision. Seclusion and return of the newlycircumcised lads. ]

The initiatory rites are now celebrated only at intervals of many years. When the time is come for the ceremony, women are banished from thevillage and special quarters prepared for them elsewhere; for they arestrictly forbidden to set foot in the village while the monster orspirit who swallows the lads has his abode in it. A special hut is thenbuilt for the accommodation of the novices during the many months whichthey spend in seclusion before and after the operation of circumcision. The hut represents the monster; it consists of a framework of thin polescovered with palm-leaf mats and tapering down at one end. Looked at froma distance it resembles a whale. The backbone is composed of a betel-nutpalm, which has been grubbed up with its roots. The root with its fibresrepresents the monster's head and hair, and under it are painted a pairof eyes and a great mouth in red, white, and black. The passage of thenovices into the monster's belly is represented by causing them todefile past a row of men who hold bull-roarers aloft over the heads ofthe candidates. Before this march past takes place, each of thecandidates is struck by the chief with a bull-roarer on his chin andbrow. The operation of circumcising the lads is afterwards performedbehind a screen set up near the monster-shaped house. It is followed bya great feast on swine's flesh. After their wounds are healed thecircumcised lads have still to remain in seclusion for three or fourmonths. Finally, they are brought back to the village with great pomp. For this solemn ceremony their faces, necks, and breasts are whitenedwith a thick layer of chalk, while red stripes, painted round theirmouths and eyes and prolonged to the ears, add to the grotesqueness oftheir appearance. Their eyes are closed with a plaster of chalk, andthus curiously arrayed and blindfolded they are led back to the villagesquare, where leave is formally given them to open their eyes. At theentrance to the village they are received by the women, who weep for joyand strew boiled field-fruits on the way. Next morning the newlyinitiated lads wash off the crust of chalk, and have their hair, faces, necks, and breasts painted bright red. This ends their time ofseclusion, which has lasted five or six months; they now rank asfull-grown men. [481]

[Sidenote: Simulation of death and resurrection. ]

In these initiatory rites, as in the similar rites of the neighbouringtribes on the mainland of New Guinea, we may perhaps detect a simulationof death and of resurrection to a new and higher life. But whycircumcision should form the central feature of such a drama is aquestion to which as yet no certain or even very probable answer can begiven. The bodily mutilations of various sorts, which in many savagetribes mark the transition from boyhood to manhood, remain one of theobscurest features in the life of uncultured races. That they are inmost cases connected with the great change which takes place in thesexes at puberty seems fairly certain; but we are far from understandingthe ideas which primitive man has formed on this mysterious subject. 

[Sidenote: The natives of Dutch New Guinea. ]

That ends what I have to say as to the notions of death and a lifehereafter which are entertained by the natives of German New Guinea. Wenow turn to the natives of Dutch New Guinea, who occupy roughly speakingthe western half of the great island. Our information as to theircustoms and beliefs on this subject is much scantier, and accordingly myaccount of them will be much briefer. 

[Sidenote: Geelvink Bay and Doreh Bay. The Noofoor or Noomfor people. Their material culture and arts of life. ]

Towards the western end of the Dutch possession there is on the northerncoast a deep and wide indentation known as Geelvink Bay, which in itsnorth-west corner includes a very much smaller indentation known asDoreh Bay. Scattered about in the waters of the great Geelvink Bay aremany islands of various sizes, such as Biak or Wiak, Jappen or Jobi, Runor Ron, Noomfor, and many more. It is in regard to the natives whoinhabit the coasts or islands of Geelvink Bay that our information isperhaps least imperfect, and it is accordingly with them that I shallbegin. In physical appearance, expression of the face, mode of wearingthe hair, and still more in manners and customs these natives of thecoast and islands differ from the natives of the mountains in theinterior. The name given to them by Dutch and German writers is Noofooror Noomfor. Their original home is believed to be the island of Biak orWiak, which lies at the northern entrance of the bay, and from whichthey are supposed to have spread southwards and south-westwards to theother islands and to the mainland of New Guinea. [482] They are ahandsomely built race. Their colour is usually dark brown, but in someindividuals it shades off to light-brown, while in others it deepensinto black-brown. The forehead is high and narrow; the eye is dark brownor black with a lively expression; the nose broad and flat, the lipsthick and projecting. The cheekbones are not very high. The facial angleagrees with that of Europeans. The hair is abundant and frizzly. Thepeople live in settled villages and subsist by agriculture, hunting, andfishing. Their large communal houses are raised above the ground onpiles; on the coast they are built over the water. Each house has a longgallery, one in front and one behind, and a long passage running downthe middle of the dwelling, with the rooms arranged on either side ofit. Each room has its own fireplace and is occupied by a single family. One such communal house may contain from ten to twenty families with ahundred or more men, women, and children, besides dogs, fowls, parrots, and other creatures. When the house is built over the water, it iscommonly connected with the shore by a bridge; but in some places nosuch bridge exists, and at high water the inmates can only communicatewith the shore by means of their canoes. The staple food of the peopleis sago, which they extract from the sago-palm; but they also make useof bread-fruit, together with millet, rice, and maize, whenever they canobtain these cereals. Their flesh diet includes wild pigs, birds, fish, and trepang. While some of them subsist mainly by fishing and commerce, others devote themselves almost exclusively to the cultivation of theirgardens, which they lay out in clearings of the dense tropical forest, employing chiefly axes and chopping-knives as their instruments oftillage. Of ploughs they, like most savages, seem to know nothing. Therice and other plants which they raise in these gardens are produced bythe dry method of cultivation. In hunting birds they employ chiefly bowsand arrows, but sometimes also snares. The arrows with which they shootthe birds of paradise are blunted so as not to injure the splendidplumage of the birds. Turtle-shells, feathers of the birds of paradise, and trepang are among the principal articles which they barter withtraders for cotton-goods, knives, swords, axes, beads and so forth. Theydisplay some skill and taste in wood-carving. The art of working in ironhas been introduced among them from abroad and is now extensivelypractised by the men. They make large dug-out canoes with outriggers, which seem to be very seaworthy, for they accomplish long voyages evenin stormy weather. The making of pottery, basket-work, and weaving, together with pounding rice and cooking food, are the special businessof women. The men wear waistbands or loin-cloths made of bark, which isbeaten till it becomes as supple as leather. The women wear petticoatsor strips of blue cotton round their loins, and as ornaments they haverings of silver, copper, or shell on their arms and legs. [483] Thus thepeople have attained to a fair degree of barbaric culture. 

[Sidenote: Fear of ghosts. Ideas of the spirit-world. ]

Now it is significant that among these comparatively advanced savagesthe fear of ghosts and the reverence entertained for them have developedinto something which might almost be called a systematic worship of thedead. As to their fear of ghosts I will quote the evidence of a Dutchmissionary, Mr. J. L. Van Hasselt, who lived for many years among themand is the author of a grammar and dictionary of their language. Hesays: "That a great fear of ghosts prevails among the Papuans isintelligible. Even by day they are reluctant to pass a grave, butnothing would induce them to do so by night. For the dead are thenroaming about in their search for gambier and tobacco, and they may alsosail out to sea in a canoe. Some of the departed, above all theso-called _Mambrie_ or heroes, inspire them with especial fear. In suchcases for some days after the burial you may hear about sunset asimultaneous and horrible din in all the houses of all the villages, ayelling, screaming, beating and throwing of sticks; happily the uproardoes not last long: its intention is to compel the ghost to take himselfoff: they have given him all that befits him, namely, a grave, a funeralbanquet, and funeral ornaments; and now they beseech him not to thrusthimself on their observation any more, not to breathe any sickness uponthe survivors, and not to kill them or 'fetch' them, as the Papuans putit. Their ideas of the spirit-world are very vague. Their usual answerto such questions is, 'We know not. ' If you press them, they willcommonly say that the spirit realm is under the earth or under thebottom of the sea. Everything there is as it is in the upper world, onlythe vegetation down below is more luxuriant, and all plants grow faster. Their fear of death and their helpless wailing over the dead indicatethat the misty kingdom of the shades offers but little that isconsolatory to the Papuan at his departure from this world. "[484]

[Sidenote: Fear of ghosts in general and of the ghosts of the slain inparticular. ]

Again, speaking of the natives of Doreh, a Dutch official observes that"superstition and magic play a principal part in the life of the Papuan. Occasions for such absurdities he discovers at every step. Thus hecherishes a great fear of the ghosts of slain persons, for which reasontheir bodies remain unburied on the spot where they were murdered. Whena murder has taken place in the village, the inhabitants assemble forseveral evenings in succession and raise a fearful outcry in order tochase away the soul, in case it should be minded to return to thevillage. They set up miniature wooden houses here and there on trees inthe forest for the ghosts of persons who die of disease or throughaccidents, believing that the souls take up their abode in them. "[485]The same writer remarks that these savages have no priests, but thatthey have magicians (_kokinsor_), who practise exorcisms, work magic, and heal the sick, for which they receive a small payment in articles ofbarter or food. [486] Speaking of the Papuans of Dutch New Guinea ingeneral another writer informs us that "they honour the memory of thedead in every way, because they ascribe to the spirits of the departed agreat influence on the life of the survivors. .. . Whereas in life allgood and evil comes from the soul, after death, on the other hand, thespirit works for the most part only evil. It loves especially to hauntby night the neighbourhood of its old dwelling and the grave; so thepeople particularly avoid the neighbourhood of graves at night, and whendarkness has fallen they will not go out except with a burning brand. .. . According to the belief of the Papuans the ghosts cause sickness, badharvests, war, and in general every misfortune. From fear of such evilsand in order to keep them in good humour, the people make provision forthe spirits of the departed after death. Also they sacrifice to thembefore every important undertaking and never fail to ask theiradvice. "[487]

[Sidenote: Papuan ideas as to the state of the dead. ]

A Dutch writer, who has given us a comparatively full account of thenatives of Geelvink Bay, describes as follows their views in regard tothe state of the dead: "According to the Papuans the soul, which theyimagine to have its seat in the blood, continues to exist at the bottomof the sea, and every one who dies goes thither. They imagine the stateof things there to be much the same as that in which they lived onearth. Hence at his burial the dead man is given an equipment suitableto his rank and position in life. He is provided with a bow and arrow, armlets and body-ornaments, pots and pans, everything that may stand himin good stead in the life hereafter. This provision must not beneglected, for it is a prevalent opinion that the dead continue alwaysto maintain relations with the world and with the living, that theypossess superhuman power, exercise great influence over the affairs oflife on earth, and are able to protect in danger, to stand by in war, toguard against shipwreck at sea, and to grant success in fishing andhunting. For such weighty reasons the Papuans do all in their power towin the favour of their dead. On undertaking a journey they are saidnever to forget to hang amulets about themselves in the belief thattheir dead will then surely help them; hence, too, when they are at seain rough weather, they call upon the souls of the departed, asking themfor better weather or a favourable breeze, in case the wind happens tobe contrary. "[488]

[Sidenote: Wooden images of the dead (_korwar_). ]

In order to communicate with these powerful spirits and to obtain theiradvice and help in time of need, the Papuans of Geelvink Bay make woodenimages of their dead, which they keep in their houses and consult fromtime to time. Every family has at least one such ancestral image, whichforms the medium whereby the soul of the deceased communicates with hisor her surviving relatives. These images or Penates, as we may callthem, are carved of wood, about a foot high, and represent the deceasedperson in a standing, sitting, or crouching attitude, but commonly withthe hands folded in front. The head is disproportionately large, thenose long and projecting, the mouth wide and well furnished with teeth;the eyes are formed of large green or blue beads with black dots toindicate the pupils. Sometimes the male figures carry a shield in theleft hand and brandish a sword in the right; while the female figuresare represented grasping with both hands a serpent which stands on itscoiled tail. Rags of many colours adorn these figures, and the hair ofthe deceased, whom they represent, is placed between their legs. Such anancestral image is called a _korwar_ or _karwar_. The natives identifythese effigies with the deceased persons whom they portray, andaccordingly they will speak of one as their father or mother or otherrelation. Tobacco and food are offered to the images, and the nativesgreet them reverentially by bowing to the earth before them with the twohands joined and raised to the forehead. 

[Sidenote: Such images carried on voyages and consulted as oracles. Theimages consulted in sickness. ]

Such images are kept in the houses and carried in canoes on voyages, inorder that they may be at hand to help and advise their kinsfolk andworshippers. They are consulted on many occasions, for example, when thepeople are going on a journey, or about to fish for turtles or trepang, or when a member of the family is sick, and his relations wish to knowwhether he will recover. At these consultations the enquirer may eithertake the image in his hands or crouch before it on the ground, on whichhe places his offerings of tobacco, cotton, beads, and so forth. Thespirit of the dead is thought to be in the image and to pass from itinto the enquirer, who thus becomes inspired by the soul of the deceasedand acquires his superhuman knowledge. As a sign of his inspiration themedium shivers and shakes. According to some accounts, however, thisshivering and shaking of the medium is an evil omen; whereas if heremains tranquil, the omen is good. It is especially in cases ofsickness that the images are consulted. The mode of consultation hasbeen described as follows by a Dutch writer: "When any one is sick andwishes to know the means of cure, or when any one desires to avertmisfortune or to discover something unknown, then in presence of thewhole family one of the members is stupefied by the fumes of incense orby other means of producing a state of trance. The image of the deceasedperson whose advice is sought is then placed on the lap or shoulder ofthe medium in order to cause the soul to pass out of the image into hisbody. At the moment when that happens, he begins to shiver; and, encouraged by the bystanders, the soul speaks through the mouth of themedium and names the means of cure or of averting the calamity. When hecomes to himself, the medium knows nothing of what he has been saying. This they call _kor karwar_, that is, 'invoking the soul;' and they say_karwar iwos_, 'the soul speaks. '" The writer adds: "It is sometimesreported that the souls go to the underworld, but that is not true. ThePapuans think that after death the soul abides by the corpse and isburied with it in the grave; hence before an image is made, if it isnecessary to consult the soul, the enquirer must betake himself to thegrave in order to do so. But when the image is made, the soul entersinto it and is supposed to remain in it so long as satisfactory answersare obtained from it in consultation. But should the answers provedisappointing, the people think that the soul has deserted the image, onwhich they throw the image away as useless. Where the soul has gone, nobody knows, and they do not trouble their heads about it, since it haslost its power. "[489] The person who acts as medium in consulting thespirit may be either the house-father himself or a magician(_konoor_). [490]

[Sidenote: Example of the consultation of an ancestral image. ]

As an example of these consultations we may take the case of a man whowas suffering from a painful sore on his finger and wished to ascertainthe cause of the trouble. So he set one of the ancestral images beforehim and questioned it closely. At first the image made no reply; but atlast the man remembered that he had neglected his duty to his deadbrother by failing to marry his widow, as, according to native custom, he should have done. Now the natives believe that the dead can punishthem for any breach of customary law; so it occurred to our enquirerthat the ghost of his dead brother might have afflicted him with thesore on his finger for not marrying his widow. Accordingly he put thequestion to the image, and in doing so the compunction of a guiltyconscience caused him to tremble. This trembling he took for an answerof the image in the affirmative, wherefore he went off and took thewidow to wife and provided for her maintenance. [491]

[Sidenote: Ancestral images consulted as to the cause of death. Offerings to the images. ]

Again, the ancestral images are often consulted to ascertain the causeof a death; and if the image attributes the death to the evil magic of amember of another tribe, an expedition will be sent to avenge the wrongby slaying the supposed culprit. For the souls of the dead take it veryill and wreak their spite on the survivors, if their death is notavenged on their enemies. Not uncommonly the consultation of the imagesmerely furnishes a pretext for satisfying a grudge against an individualor a tribe. [492] The mere presence of these images appears to besupposed to benefit the sick; a woman who was seriously ill has beenseen to lie with four or five ancestral figures fastened at the head ofher bed. On enquiry she explained that they did not all belong to her, but that some of them had been kindly lent to her by relations andfriends. [493] Again, the images are taken by the natives with them towar, because they hope thereby to secure the help of the spirits whomthe images represent. Also they make offerings from time to time to theeffigies and hold feasts in their honour. [494] They observe, indeed, that the food which they present to these household idols remainsunconsumed, but they explain this by saying that the spirits are contentto snuff up the savour of the viands, and to leave their gross materialsubstance alone. [495]

[Sidenote: Images of persons who have died away from home. ]

In general, images are only made of persons who have died at home. Butin the island of Ron or Run they are also made of persons who have diedaway from home or have fallen in battle. In such cases the difficulty isto compel the soul to quit its mortal remains far away and come toanimate the image. However, the natives of Ron have found means toovercome this difficulty. They first carve the wooden image of the deadperson and then call his soul back to the village by setting a greattree on fire, while the family assemble round it and one of them, holding the image in his hand, acts the part of a medium, shivering andshaking and falling into a trance after the approved fashion of mediumsin many lands. After this ceremony the image is supposed to be animatedby the soul of the deceased, and it is kept in the house with as muchconfidence as any other. [496]

[Sidenote: Sometimes the head of the image is composed of the skull ofthe deceased. ]

Sometimes the head of the image consists of the skull of the deceased, which has been detached from the skeleton and inserted in a hole at thetop of the effigy. In such cases the body of the image is of wood andthe head of bone. It is especially men who have distinguished themselvesby their bravery or have earned a name for themselves in other ways whoare thus represented. Apparently the notion is that as a personal relicof the departed the skull is better fitted to retain his soul than amere head of wood. But in the island of Ron or Run, and perhapselsewhere, skull-topped images of this sort are made for all firstbornchildren, whether male or female, young or old, at least for all who diefrom the age of twelve years and upward. These images have a specialname, _bemar boo_, which means "head of a corpse. " They are kept in theroom of the parents who have lost the child. [497]

[Sidenote: Mode of preparing such skull-headed images. ]

The mode in which such images are prepared is as follows. The body ofthe firstborn child, who dies at the age of years or upwards, is laid ina small canoe, which is deposited in a hut erected behind thedwelling-house. Here the mother is obliged to keep watch night and daybeside the corpse and to maintain a blazing fire till the head drops offthe body, which it generally does about twenty days after the death. Then the trunk is wrapped in leaves and buried, but the head is broughtinto the house and carefully preserved. Above the spot where it isdeposited a small opening is made in the roof, through which a stick isthrust bearing some rags or flags to indicate that the remains of a deadbody are in the house. When, after the lapse of three or four months, the nose and ears of the head have dropped off, and the eyes havemouldered away, the relations and friends assemble in the house ofmourning. In the middle of the assembly the father of the child croucheson his hams with downcast look in an attitude of grief, while one of thepersons present begins to carve a new nose and a new pair of ears forthe skull out of a piece of wood. The kind of wood varies according asthe deceased was a male or a female. All the time that the artist is atwork, the rest of the company chant a melancholy dirge. When the noseand ears are finished and have been attached to the skull, and smallround fruits have been inserted in the hollow sockets of the eyes torepresent the missing orbs, a banquet follows in honour of the deceased, who is now represented by his decorated skull set up on a block of woodon the table. Thus he receives his share of the food and of the cigars, and is raised to the rank of a domestic idol or _korwar_. Henceforth theskull is carefully kept in a corner of the chamber to be consulted as anoracle in time of need. The bodies of fathers and mothers are treated inthe same way as those of firstborn children. On the other hand thebodies of children who die under the age of two years are never buried. The remains are packed in baskets of rushes covered with lids andtightly corded, and the baskets are then hung on the branches of talltrees, where no more notice is taken of them. Four or five such basketscontaining the mouldering bodies of infants may sometimes be seenhanging on a single tree. [498] The reason for thus disposing of theremains of young children is said to be as follows. A thick mist hangsat evening over the top of the dense tropical forest, and in the mistdwell two spirits called Narwur and Imgier, one male and the otherfemale, who kill little children, not out of malice but out of love, because they wish to have the children with them. So when a child dies, the parents fasten its little body to the branches of a tall tree in theforest, hoping that the spirit pair will take it and be satisfied, andwill spare its small brothers and sisters. [499]

[Sidenote: Mummification of the dead. ]

In some parts of Geelvink Bay, however, the bodies of the dead aretreated differently. For example, on the south coast of the island ofJobi or Jappen and elsewhere the corpses are reduced to mummies by beingdried on a bamboo stage over a slow fire; after which the mummies, wraptin cloth, are kept in the house, being either laid along the wall orhung from the ceiling. When the number of these relics begins toincommode the living inmates of the house, the older mummies are removedand deposited in the hollow trunks of ancient trees. In some tribes whothus mummify their dead the juices of corruption which drip from therotting corpse are caught in a vessel and given to the widow to drink, who is forced to gulp them down under the threat of decapitation if shewere to reject the loathsome beverage. [500]

[Sidenote: Restrictions observed by mourners. Tattooing in honour of thedead. Teeth of the dead worn by relatives. ]

The family in which a death has taken place is subject for a time tocertain burdensome restrictions, which are probably dictated by a fearof the ghost. Thus all the time till the effigy of the deceased has beenmade and a feast given in his honour, they are obliged to remain in thehouse without going out for any purpose, not even to bathe or to fetchfood and drink. Moreover they must abstain from the ordinary articles ofdiet and confine themselves to half-baked cakes of sago and otherunpalatable viands. As these restrictions may last for months they arenot only irksome but onerous, especially to people who have no slaves tofetch and carry for them. However, in that case the neighbours come tothe rescue and supply the mourners with wood, water, and the othernecessaries of life, until custom allows them to go out and helpthemselves. After the effigy of the dead has been made, the family go instate to a sacred place to purify themselves by bathing. If the journeyis made by sea, no other canoe may meet or sail past the canoe of themourners under pain of being confiscated to them and redeemed at a heavyprice. On their return from the holy place, the period of mourning isover, and the family is free to resume their ordinary mode of life andtheir ordinary victuals. [501] That the seclusion of the mourners in thehouse for some time after the death springs from a fear of the ghost isnot only probable on general grounds but is directly suggested by acustom which is observed at the burial of the body. When it has beenlaid in the earth along with various articles of daily use, which theghost is supposed to require for his comfort, the mourners gather roundthe grave and each of them picks up a leaf, which he folds in the shapeof a spoon and holds several times over his head as if he would pour outthe contents upon it. As they do so, they all murmur, "_Rur i rama_, "that is, "The spirit comes. " This exclamation or incantation is supposedto prevent the ghost from troubling them. The gravediggers may not entertheir houses till they have bathed and so removed from their persons thecontagion of death, in order that the soul of the deceased may have nopower over them. [502] Mourners sometimes tattoo themselves in honour ofthe dead. For a father, the marks are tattooed on the cheeks and underthe eyes; for a grandfather, on the breast; for a mother, on theshoulders and arms; for a brother, on the back. On the death of a fatheror mother, the eldest son or, if there is none such, the eldest daughterwears the teeth and hair of the deceased. When the teeth of old peopledrop out, they are kept on purpose to be thus strung on a string andworn by their sons or daughters after their death. Similarly, a motherwears as a permanent mark of mourning the teeth of her dead child strungon a cord round her neck, and as a temporary mark of mourning a littlebag on her throat containing a lock of the child's hair. [503] Theintention of these customs is not mentioned. Probably they are notpurely commemorative but designed in some way either to influence forgood the spirit of the departed or to obtain its help and protection forthe living. 

[Sidenote: Rebirth of parents in their children. ]

Thus far we have found no evidence among the natives of New Guinea of abelief that the dead are permanently reincarnated in their humandescendants. However, the inhabitants of Ayambori, an inland villageabout an hour distant to the east of Doreh, are reported to believe thatthe soul of a dead man returns in his eldest son, and that the soul of adead woman returns in her eldest daughter. [504] So stated the belief ishardly clear and intelligible; for if a man has several sons, he mustevidently be alive and not dead when the eldest of them is born, andsimilarly with a woman and her eldest daughter. On the analogy ofsimilar beliefs elsewhere we may conjecture that these Papuans imagineevery firstborn son to be animated by the soul of his father, whetherhis father be alive or dead, and every firstborn daughter to be animatedby the soul of her mother, whether her mother be alive or dead. 

[Sidenote: Customs concerning the dead observed in the islands off thewestern end of New Guinea. ]

Beliefs and customs concerning the dead like those which we have foundamong the natives of Geelvink Bay are reported to prevail in other partsof Dutch New Guinea, but our information about them is much less full. Thus, off the western extremity of New Guinea there is a group of smallislands (Waaigeoo, Salawati, Misol, Waigama, and so on), the inhabitantsof which make _karwar_ or wooden images of their dead ancestors. Thesethey keep in separate rooms of their houses and take with them astalismans to war. In these inner rooms are also kept miniature woodenhouses in which their ancestors are believed to reside, and in whicheven Mohammedans (for some of the natives profess Islam) burn incense onFridays in honour of the souls of the dead. These souls are treated likeliving beings, for in the morning some finely pounded sago is placed inthe shrines; at noon it is taken away, but may not be eaten by theinmates of the house. Curiously enough, women are forbidden to set foodfor the dead in the shrines: if they did so, it is believed that theywould be childless. Further, in the chief's house there are shrines forthe souls of all the persons who have died in the whole village. Such ahouse might almost be described as a temple of the dead. Among theinhabitants of the Negen Negorijen or "Nine Villages" the abodes of theancestral spirits are often merely frameworks of houses decorated withcoloured rags. These frameworks are called _roem seram_. On festaloccasions they are brought forth and the people dance round them tomusic. The mountain tribes of these islands to the west of New Guineaseldom have any such little houses for the souls of the dead. They thinkthat the spirits of the departed dwell among the branches of trees, towhich accordingly the living attach strips of red and white cotton, always to the number of seven or a multiple of seven. Also they placefood on the branches or hang it in baskets on the boughs, [505] no doubtin order to feed the hungry ghosts. But among the tribes on the coast, who make miniature houses for the use of their dead, these littleshrines form a central feature of the religious life of the people. Atfestivals, especially on the occasion of a marriage or a death, theshrines are brought out from the side chamber and are set down in thecentral room of the house, where the people dance round them, singingand making music for days together with no interruption except formeals. [506]

[Sidenote: Wooden images of the dead. ]

According to the Dutch writer, Mr. De Clercq, whose account I amreproducing, this worship of the dead, represented by wooden images(_karwar_) and lodged in miniature houses, is, together with a belief ingood and bad spirits, the only thing deserving the name of religion thatcan be detected among these people. It is certain that the wooden imagesrepresent members of the family who died a natural death at home; theyare never, as in Ansoes and Waropen, images of persons who have beenmurdered or slain in battle. Hence they form a kind of Penates, who aresupposed to lead an invisible life in the family circle. The natives ofthe Negen Negorijen, for example, believe that these wooden images(_karwar_), which are both male and female, contain the souls of theirancestors, who protect the house and household and are honoured atfestivals by having portions of food set beside their images. [507] TheSeget Sélé, who occupy the extreme westerly point of New Guinea, burytheir dead in the island of Lago and set up little houses in the forestfor the use of the spirits of their ancestors. But these little housesmay never be entered or even approached by members of the family. [508] Atraveller, who visited a hut occupied by members of the Seget tribe inPrincess Island, or Kararaboe, found a sick man in it and observed thatbefore the front and back door were set up double rows of roughly hewnimages painted with red and black stripes. He was told that these imageswere intended to keep off the sickness; for the natives thought that itwould not dare to run the gauntlet between the double rows of figuresinto the house. [509] We may conjecture that these rude imagesrepresented ancestral spirits who were doing sentinel duty over the sickman. 

[Sidenote: Customs concerning the dead among the natives of the MacluerGulf. ]

Among the natives of the Macluer Gulf, which penetrates deep into thewestern part of Dutch New Guinea, the souls of dead men who havedistinguished themselves by bravery or in other ways are honoured in theshape of wooden images, which are sometimes wrapt in cloth and decoratedwith shells about the neck. In Sekar, a village on the south side of thegulf, small bowls, called _kararasa_ after the spirits of ancestors whoare believed to lodge in them, are hung up in the houses; on specialoccasions food is placed in them. In some of the islands of the MacluerGulf the dead are laid in hollows of the rocks, which are then adornedwith drawings of birds, hands, and so forth. The hands are alwayspainted white or yellowish on a red ground. The other figures are drawnwith chalk on the weathered surface of the rock. But the natives eithercannot or will not give any explanation of the custom. [510]

[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs in the Mimika district. ]

The Papuans of the Mimika district, on the southern coast of Dutch NewGuinea, sometimes bury their dead in shallow graves near the huts;sometimes they place them in coffins on rough trestles and leave themthere till decomposition is complete, when they remove the skull andpreserve it in the house, either burying it in the sand of the floor orhanging it in a sort of basket from the roof, where it becomes brownwith smoke and polished with frequent handling. The people do not appearto be particularly attached to these relics of their kinsfolk and theysell them readily to Europeans. Mourners plaster themselves all overwith mud, and sometimes they bathe in the river, probably as a mode ofceremonial purification. They believe in ghosts, which they call_niniki_; but beyond that elementary fact we have no information as totheir beliefs concerning the state of the dead. [511]

[Sidenote: Burial customs at Windessi. ]

The natives of Windessi in Dutch New Guinea generally bury their deadthe day after the decease. As a rule the corpse is wrapt in mats and apiece of blue cloth and laid on a scaffold; few are coffined. All thepossessions of the dead, including weapons, fishing-nets, wooden bowls, pots, and so forth, according as the deceased was a man or a woman, areplaced beside him or her. If the death is attributed to the influence ofan evil spirit, they take hold of a lock of hair of the corpse andmention various places. At the mention of each place, they tug the hair;and if it comes out, they conclude that the death was caused by somebodyat the place which was mentioned at the moment. But if the hair does notcome out, they infer that evil spirits had no hand in the affair. Beforethe body is carried away, the family bathes, no doubt to purifythemselves from the contagion of death. Among the people of Windessi itis a common custom to bury the dead in an island. At such a burial thebystanders pick up a fallen leaf, tear it in two, and stroke the corpsewith it, in order that the ghost of the departed may not kill them. Whenthe body has been disposed of either in a grave or on a scaffold, theyembark in the canoe and sit listening for omens. One of the men in aloud voice bids the birds and the flies to be silent; and all the otherssit as still as death in an attitude of devotion. At last, after aninterval of silence, the man who called out tells his fellows what hehas heard. If it was the buzz of the blue flies that he heard, some oneelse will die. If it was the booming sound of a triton shell blown inthe distance, a raid must be made in that direction to rob and murder. Why it must be so, is not said, but we may suppose that the note of thetriton shell is believed to betray the place of the enemy who haswrought the death by magic, and that accordingly an expedition must besent to avenge the supposed crime on the supposed murderer. If the noteof a bird called _kohwi_ is heard, then the fruit-trees will bear fruit. Though all the men sit listening in the canoe, the ominous sounds areheard only by the man who called out. [512]

[Sidenote: Mourning customs at Windessi. ]

When the omens have thus been taken, the paddles again dip in the water, and the canoe returns to the house of mourning. Arrived at it, the mendisembark, climb up the ladder (for the houses seem to be built on pilesover the water) and run the whole length of the long house with theirpaddles on their shoulders. Curiously enough, they never do this at anyother time, because they imagine that it would cause the death ofsomebody. Meantime the women have gone into the forest to get bark, which they beat into bark-cloth and make into mourning caps forthemselves. The men busy themselves with plaiting armlets and leglets ofrattan, in which some red rags are stuck. Large blue and white beads arestrung on a red cord and worn round the neck. Further, the hair is shornin sign of mourning. Mourners are forbidden to eat anything cooked in apot. Sago-porridge, which is a staple food with some of the natives ofNew Guinea, is also forbidden to mourners at Windessi. If they would eatrice, it must be cooked in a bamboo. The doors and windows of the houseare closed with planks or mats, just as with us the blinds are loweredin a house after a death. The surviving relatives make as many longsago-cakes as there are houses in the village and send them to theinmates; they also prepare a few for themselves. All who do not belongto the family now leave the house of mourning. Then the eldest brotheror his representative gets up and all follow him to the back verandah, where a woman stands holding a bow and arrows, an axe, a paddle, and soforth. Every one touches these implements. Since the death, there hasbeen no working in the house, but this time of inactivity is now overand every one is free to resume his usual occupations. This ends thepreliminary ceremonies of mourning, which go by the name of _djawarra_. 

A month afterwards round cakes of sago are baked on the fire, and allthe members of the family, their friends, and the persons who assistedat the burial receive three such cakes each. Only very young childrenare now allowed to eat sago-porridge. This ceremony is called _djawarrababa_. 

[Sidenote: Festival of the dead. Wooden images of the dead. ]

When a year or more has elapsed, the so-called festival of the deadtakes place. Often the festival is held for several dead at the sametime, and in that case the cost is borne in common. From far and nearthe people have collected sago, coco-nuts, and other food. For twonights and a day they dance and sing, but without the accompaniment ofdrums (_tifa_) and gongs. The first night, the signs of mourning arestill worn, hence no sago-porridge may be eaten; only friends who arenot in mourning are allowed to partake of it. The night is spent ineating, drinking, smoking, singing and dancing. Next day many peoplemake _korwars_ of their dead, that is, grotesque wooden images carved inhuman form, which are regarded as the representatives of the departed. Some people fetch the head of the deceased person, and having made awooden image with a large head and a hole in the back of it, they insertthe skull into the wooden head from behind. After that friends feed themourners with sago-porridge, putting it into their mouths with the helpof the chopsticks which are commonly used in eating sago. When that isdone, the period of mourning is at an end, and the signs of mourning arethrown away. A dance on the beach follows, at which the new woodenimages of the dead make their appearance. But still the drums and gongsare silent. Dancing and singing go on till the next morning, when thewhole of the ceremonies come to an end. [513]

[Sidenote: Fear of the ghost. ]

The exact meaning of all these ceremonies is not clear, but we mayconjecture that they are based in large measure on the fear of theghost. That fear comes out plainly in the ceremony of stroking thecorpse with leaves in order to prevent the ghost from killing thesurvivors. The writer to whom we are indebted for an account of thesecustoms tells us in explanation of them that among these people death isascribed to the influence of evil spirits called _manoam_, who aresupposed to be incarnate in some human beings. Hence they often seek toavenge a death by murdering somebody who has the reputation of being anevil spirit incarnate. If they succeed in doing so, they celebrate thepreliminary mourning ceremonies called _djawarra_ and _djawarra baba_, but the festival of the dead is changed into a memorial festival, atwhich the people dance and sing to the accompaniment of drums (_tifa_), gongs, and triton shells; and instead of carving a wooden image of thedeceased, they make marks on the fleshless skull of the murderedman. [514]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the natives of Windessi as to the life afterdeath. Medicine-men inspired by the spirits of the dead. ]

The natives of Windessi are said to have the following belief as to thelife after death, though we are told that the creed is now known to veryfew of them; for their old beliefs and customs are fading away under theinfluence of a mission station which is established among them. According to their ancient creed, every man and every woman has twospirits, and in the nether world, called _sarooka_, is a large housewhere there is room for all the people of Windessi. When a woman dies, both her spirits always go down to the nether world, where they areclothed with flesh and bones, need do no work, and live for ever. Butwhen a man dies, only one of his spirits must go to the under world; theother may pass or transmigrate into a living man or, in rare cases, intoa living woman; the person so inspired by a dead man's spirit becomes an_inderri_, that is, a medicine-man or medicine-woman and has power toheal the sick. When a person wishes to become a medicine-man ormedicine-woman, he or she acts as follows. If a man has died, and hisfriends are sitting about the corpse lamenting, the would-bemedicine-man suddenly begins to shiver and to rub his knee with hisfolded hands, while he utters a monotonous sound. Gradually he fallsinto an ecstasy, and if his whole body shakes convulsively, the spiritof the dead man is supposed to have entered into him, and he becomes amedicine-man. Next day or the day after he is taken into the forest;some hocus-pocus is performed over him, and the spirits of lunatics, whodwell in certain thick trees, are invoked to take possession of him. Heis now himself called a lunatic, and on returning home behaves as if hewere half-crazed. This completes his training as a medicine-man, and heis now fully qualified to kill or cure the sick. His mode of curedepends on the native theory of sickness. These savages think thatsickness is caused by a malicious or angry spirit, apparently the spiritof a dead person; for a patient will say, "The _korwar_" (that is, thewooden image which represents a particular dead person) "is murderingme, or is making me sick. " So the medicine-man is called in, and sets towork on the sufferer, while the _korwar_, or wooden image of the spiritwho is supposed to be doing all the mischief, stands beside him. Theprincipal method of cure employed by the doctor is massage. He chews acertain fruit fine and rubs the patient with it; also he pinches him allover the body as if to drive out the spirit. Often he professes toextract a stone, a bone, or a stick from the body of the sufferer. Atlast he gives out that he has ascertained the cause of the sickness; thesick man has done or has omitted to do something which has excited theanger of the spirit. [515]

[Sidenote: Ghosts of slain enemies dreaded. ]

From all this it would seem that the souls of the dead are more fearedthan loved and reverenced by the Papuans of Windessi. Naturally theghosts of enemies who have perished at their hands are particularlydreaded by them. That dread explains some of the ceremonies which areobserved in the village at the return of a successful party ofhead-hunters. As they draw near the village, they announce theirapproach and success by blowing on triton shells. Their canoes also aredecked with branches. The faces of the men who have taken a head areblackened with charcoal; and if several have joined in killing one man, his skull is divided between them. They always time their arrival so asto reach home in the early morning. They come paddling to the villagewith a great noise, and the women stand ready to dance in the verandahsof the houses. The canoes row past the _roem sram_ or clubhouse wherethe young men live; and as they pass, the grimy-faced slayers fling asmany pointed sticks or bamboos at the house as they have killed enemies. The rest of the day is spent very quietly. But now and then they drum orblow on the conch, and at other times they beat on the walls of thehouses with sticks, shouting loudly at the same time, to drive away theghosts of their victims. [516]

That concludes what I have to say as to the fear and worship of the deadin Dutch New Guinea. 

[Footnote 475: G. Bamler, "Tami, " in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_, iii. (Berlin, 1911) pp. 489-492. ]

[Footnote 476: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ pp. 507-512. ]

[Footnote 477: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ pp. 513 _sq. _]

[Footnote 478: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ pp. 514 _sq. _]

[Footnote 479: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ pp. 515 _sq. _]

[Footnote 480: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ p. 516. ]

[Footnote 481: G. Bamler, _op. Cit. _ pp. 493-507. ]

[Footnote 482: J. L. Van Hasselt, "Die Papuastämme an der Geelvinkbai(Neu-guinea), " _Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, ix. (1890) p. 1; F. S. A. De Clercq, "De West en Noordkust vanNederlandsch Nieuw-Guinea, " _Tijdschrift van het Kon. NederlandschAardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, x. (1893) pp. 587 _sq. _]

[Footnote 483: J. L. Van Hasselt, _op. Cit. _ pp. 2, 3, 5 _sq. _; A. Goudswaard, _De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai_ (Schiedam, 1863), pp. 28_sqq. _, 33 _sqq. _, 42 _sq. _, 47 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 484: J. L. Van Hasselt, "Die Papuastämme an der Geelvinkbai(Neu-guinea), " _Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, ix. (1891) p. 101. ]

[Footnote 485: H. Van Rosenberg, _Der Malayische Archipel_ (Leipsic, 1878), p. 461. ]

[Footnote 486: H. Van Rosenberg, _op. Cit. _ p. 462. ]

[Footnote 487: M. Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_ (Berlin, N. D. , preface dated1899), pp. 401, 402. ]

[Footnote 488: A. Goudswaard, _De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai_(Schiedam, 1863), p. 77. Compare O. Finsch, _Neu-Guinea und seineBewohner_ (Bremen, 1865), p. 105. ]

[Footnote 489: F. S. A. De Clercq, "De West- en Noordkust vanNederlandsch Nieuw-Guinea, " _Tijdschrift van het Kon. NederlandschAardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, x. (1893) p. 631. On these_korwar_ or _karwar_ (images of the dead) see further A. Goudswaard, _DePapoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai_, pp. 72 _sq. _, 77-79; O. Finsch, _Neu-Guinea und seine Bewohner_, pp. 104-106; H. Von Rosenberg, _DerMalayische Archipel_, pp. 460 _sq. _; J. L. Van Hasselt, "Die Papuastämmean der Geelvinkbaai (Neu-Guinea)" _Mitteilungen der GeographischenGesellschaft zu Jena_, ix. (1891) p. 100; M. Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_, pp. 400 _sq. _, 402 _sq. _, 498 _sqq. _ In the text I have drawn on thesevarious accounts. ]

[Footnote 490: J. L. Van Hasselt, _l. C. _]

[Footnote 491: A. Goudswaard, _De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai_, pp. 78 _sq. _; O. Finsch, _Neu-Guinea und seine Bewohner_, pp. 105 _sq. _]

[Footnote 492: A. Goudswaard, _op. Cit. _ p. 79; O. Finsch, _op. Cit. _ p. 106. ]

[Footnote 493: J. L. Van Hasselt, _op. Cit. _ p. 100. ]

[Footnote 494: A. Goudswaard, _op. Cit. _ p. 78. ]

[Footnote 495: F. S. A. De Clercq, _op. Cit. _ p. 632. ]

[Footnote 496: F. S. A. De Clercq, _op. Cit. _ p. 632. ]

[Footnote 497: F. S. A. De Clercq, _op. Cit. _ p. 632. ]

[Footnote 498: A. Goudswaard, _De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai_, pp. 70-73; O. Finsch, _Neu-Guinea und seine Bewohner_ pp. 104 _sq. _; M. Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_, p. 398. ]

[Footnote 499: J. L. Van Hasselt, in _Mitteilungen der GeographischenGesellschaft zu Jena_, iv. (1886) pp. 118 _sq. _ As to the spirit orspirits who dwell in tree tops and draw away the souls of the living tothemselves, see further "Eenige bijzonderheden betreffende de Papoeasvan de Geelvinksbaai van Nieuw-Guinea, " _Bijdragen tot de Taal- LandenVolkenkunde van Neêrlandsch-Indië_, ii. (1854) pp. 375 _sq. _]

[Footnote 500: A. Goudswaard, _De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai_, p. 73; J. L. Van Hasselt, in _Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaftzu Jena_, iv. (1886) p. 118; M. Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_, pp. 398. _sq. _]

[Footnote 501: A. Goudswaard, _De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai_, pp. 75 _sq. _]

[Footnote 502: J. L. Van Hasselt, in _Mitteilungen der GeographischenGesellschaft zu Jena_, iv. (1886) 117 _sq. _; M. Krieger, _op. Cit. _ pp. 397 _sq. _]

[Footnote 503: A. Goudswaard, _op. Cit. _ pp. 74 _sq. _]

[Footnote 504: _Nieuw Guinea ethnographisch en natuurkundig onderzochten beschreven_ (Amsterdam, 1862), p. 162. ]

[Footnote 505: F. S. A. De Clercq, "De West- en Noordkust vanNederlandsch Nieuw-Guinea, " _Tijdschrift van het Kon. NederlandschAardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, x. (1893) pp. 198 _sq. _]

[Footnote 506: F. S. A. De Clercq, _op. Cit. _ p. 201. ]

[Footnote 507: F. S. A. De Clercq, _op. Cit. _ pp. 202, 205. ]

[Footnote 508: F. S. A. De Clercq, _op. Cit. _ p. 211. ]

[Footnote 509: J. W. Van Hille, "Reizen in West-Nieuw-Guinea, "_Tijdschrift van het Kon. Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, xxiii. (1906) p. 463. ]

[Footnote 510: F. S. A. De Clercq, _op. Cit. _ pp. 459 _sq. _, 461 _sq. _ AGerman traveller, Mr. H. Kühn, spent some time at Sekar and purchased acouple of what he calls "old heathen idols, " which are now in theethnological Museum at Leipsic. One of them, about a foot high, represents a human head and bust; the other, about two feet high, represents a squat sitting figure. They are probably ancestral images(_korwar_ or _karwar_). The natives are said to have such confidence inthe protection of these "idols" that they leave their jewellery andother possessions unguarded beside them, in the full belief that nobodywould dare to steal anything from spots protected by such mighty beings. See H. Kühn, "Mein Aufenthalt in Neu-Guinea, " _Festschrift des25jährigen Bestehens des Vereins für Erdkunde zu Dresden_ (Dresden, 1888), pp. 143 _sq. _]

[Footnote 511: A. F. R. Wollaston, _Pygmies and Papuans_ (London, 1912), pp. 132 _sq. _, 136-140. ]

[Footnote 512: J. L. D. Van der Roest, "Uit the leven der bevolking vanWindessi, " _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Landen Volkenkunde_, xl. (1898) pp. 159 _sq. _]

[Footnote 513: J. L. D. Van der Roest, _op. Cit. _ pp. 161 _sq. _]

[Footnote 514: J. L. D. Van der Roest, _op. Cit. _ p. 162. ]

[Footnote 515: J. L. D. Van der Roest, _op. Cit. _ pp. 164-166. ]

[Footnote 516: J. L. D. Van der Roest, _op. Cit. _ pp. 157 _sq. _]

LECTURE XV

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF SOUTHERN MELANESIA (NEWCALEDONIA)

[Sidenote: Melanesia and the Melanesians. ]

In the last lecture I concluded our survey of the beliefs and practicesconcerning death and the dead which are reported to prevail among thenatives of New Guinea. We now pass to the natives of Melanesia, thegreat archipelago or rather chain of archipelagoes, which stretchesround the north-eastern and eastern ends of New Guinea and southward, parallel to the coast of Queensland, till it almost touches the tropicof Capricorn. Thus the islands lie wholly within the tropics and are forthe most part characterised by tropical heat and tropical luxuriance ofvegetation. Only New Caledonia, the most southerly of the largerislands, differs somewhat from the rest in its comparatively coolclimate and scanty flora. [517] The natives of the islands belong to theMelanesian race. They are dark-skinned and woolly-haired and speak alanguage which is akin to the Polynesian language. In material culturethey stand roughly on the same level as the natives of New Guinea, aconsiderable part of whom in the south-eastern part of the island, as Ipointed out before, are either pure Melanesians or at all events exhibita strong infusion of Melanesian blood. They cultivate the ground, livein settled villages, build substantial houses, constructoutrigger-canoes, display some aptitude for art, possess strongcommercial instincts, and even employ various mediums of exchange, ofwhich shell-money is the most notable. [518]

[Sidenote: The New Caledonians. ]

We shall begin our survey of these islands with New Caledonia in thesouth, and from it shall pass northwards through the New Hebrides andSolomon Islands to the Bismarck Archipelago, which consists chiefly ofthe two great islands of New Britain and New Ireland with the group ofthe Admiralty Islands terminating it to the westward. For our knowledgeof the customs and religion of the New Caledonians we depend chiefly onthe evidence of a Catholic missionary, Father Lambert, who has workedamong them since 1856 and has published a valuable book on thesubject. [519] To be exact, his information applies not to the natives ofNew Caledonia itself, but to the inhabitants of a group of smallislands, which lie immediately off the northern extremity of the islandand are known as the Belep group. Father Lambert began to labour amongthe Belep at a time when no white man had as yet resided among them. Ata later time circumstances led him to transfer his ministry to the Isleof Pines, which lies off the opposite or southern end of New Caledonia. A comparative study of the natives at the two extremities of NewCaledonia revealed to him an essential similarity in their beliefs andcustoms; so that it is not perhaps very rash to assume that similarcustoms prevail among the aborigines of New Caledonia itself, which liesintermediate between the two points observed by Father Lambert. [520] Theassumption is confirmed by evidence which was collected by Dr. GeorgeTurner from the mainland of New Caledonia so long ago as 1845. [521]Accordingly in what follows I shall commonly speak of the NewCaledonians in general, though the statements for the most part apply inparticular to the Belep tribe. 

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the New Calendonians as to the land of the dead. ]

The souls of the New Caledonians, like those of most savages, aresupposed to be immortal, at least to survive death for an indefiniteperiod. They all go, good and bad alike, to dwell in a very rich andbeautiful country situated at the bottom of the sea, to the north-eastof the island of Pott. The name of the land of souls is Tsiabiloum. Butbefore they reach this happy land they must run the gauntlet of a grimspirit called Kiemoua, who has his abode on a rock in the island ofPott. He is a fisherman of souls; for he catches them as they pass in anet and after venting his fury on them he releases them, and they pursuetheir journey to Tsiabiloum, the land of the dead. It is a country morefair and fertile than tongue can tell. Yams, taros, sugar-canes, bananasall grow there in profusion and without cultivation. There are forestsof wild orange-trees, also, and the golden fruits serve the blessedspirits as playthings. You can tell roughly how long it is since aspirit quitted the upper world by the colour of the orange which heplays with; for the oranges of those who have just arrived are green;the oranges of those who have been longer dead are ripe; and the orangesof those who died long ago are dry and wizened. There is no night inthat blessed land, and no sleep; for the eyes of the spirits are neverweighed down with slumber. Sorrow and sickness, decrepitude and deathnever enter; even boredom is unknown. But it is only the nights, orrather the hours corresponding to nights on earth, which the spiritspass in these realms of bliss. At daybreak they revisit their old homeon earth and take up their posts in the cemeteries where they arehonoured; then at nightfall they flit away back to the spirit-landbeneath the sea, there to resume their sport with oranges, green, golden, or withered, till dawn of day. On these repeated journeys to andfro they have nothing to fear from the grim fisherman and his net; it isonly on their first passage to the nether world that he catches andtrounces them. [522]

[Sidenote: Burial customs of the New Calendonians. ]

The bodies of the dead are buried in shallow graves, which are dug in asacred grove. The corpse is placed in a crouching attitude with the headat or above the surface of the ground, in order to allow of the skullbeing easily detached from the trunk, at a subsequent time. In token ofsorrow the nearest relations of the deceased tear the lobes of theirears and inflict large burns on their arms and breasts. The houses, nets, and other implements of the dead are burnt; his plantations areravaged, his coco-nut palms felled with the axe. The motive for thisdestruction of the property of the deceased is not mentioned, but thecustom points to a fear of the ghost; the people probably make his oldhome as unattractive as possible in order to offer him no temptation toreturn and haunt them. The same fear of the ghost, or at all events ofthe infection of death, is revealed by the stringent seclusion andceremonial pollution of the grave-diggers. They are two in number; noother persons may handle the corpse. After they have discharged theiroffice they must remain near the corpse for four or five days, observinga rigorous fast and keeping apart from their wives. They may not shaveor cut their hair, and they are obliged to wear a tall pyramidal andvery cumbersome head-dress. They may not touch food with their hands. Ifthey help themselves to it, they must pick it up with their mouths aloneor with a stick, not with their fingers. Oftener they are fed by anattendant, who puts the victuals into their mouths as he might do ifthey were palsied. On the other hand they are treated by the people withgreat respect; common folk will not pass near them withoutstooping. [523]

[Sidenote: Sham fight as a mourning ceremony. ]

A curious ceremony which the New Caledonians observe at a certain periodof mourning for the dead is a sham fight. Father Lambert describes onesuch combat which he witnessed. A number of men were divided into twoparties; one party was posted on the beach, the other and much largerparty was stationed in the adjoining cemetery, where food and propertyhad been collected. From time to time a long piercing yell would beheard; then a number of men would break from the crowd in the cemeteryand rush furiously down to the beach with their slings and stones readyto assail their adversaries. These, answering yell with yell, would thenplunge into the sea, armed with battle-axes and clubs, while they made afeint of parrying the stones hurled at them by the other side. Butneither the shots nor the parries appeared to be very seriously meant. Then when the assailants retired, the fugitives pretended to pursuethem, till both parties had regained their original position. The samescene of alternate attack and retreat was repeated hour after hour, tillat last, the pretence of enmity being laid aside, the two parties joinedin a dance, their heads crowned with leafy garlands. Father Lambert, whodescribes this ceremony as an eye-witness, offers no explanation of it. But as he tells us that all deaths are believed by these savages to bean effect of sorcery, we may conjecture that the sham fight is intendedto delude the ghost into thinking that his death is being avenged on thesorcerer who killed him. [524] In former lectures I shewed that similarpretences are made, apparently for a similar purpose, by some of thenatives of Australia and New Guinea. [525] If the explanation is correct, we can hardly help applauding the ingenuity which among these savageshas discovered a bloodless mode of satisfying the ghost's craving forblood. 

[Sidenote: Preservation of the skulls of the dead. ]

About a year after the death, when the flesh of the corpse is entirelydecayed, the skull is removed and placed solemnly in anotherburying-ground, or rather charnel-house, where all the skulls of thefamily are deposited. Every family has such a charnel-house, which iscommonly situated near the dwelling. It appears to be simply an openspace in the forest, where the skulls are set in a row on theground. [526] Yet in a sense it may be called a temple for the worship ofancestors; for recourse is had to the skulls on various occasions inorder to obtain the help of the spirits of the dead. "The true worshipof the New Caledonians, " says Father Lambert, "is the worship ofancestors. Each family has its own; it religiously preserves their name;it is proud of them and has confidence in them. Hence it has itsburial-place and its pious hearth for the sacrifices to be offered totheir ghosts. It is the most inviolable piece of property; anencroachment on such a spot by a neighbour is a thing unheard of. "[527]

[Sidenote: Examples of ancestor-worship among the New Caledonians. ]

A few examples may serve to illustrate the ancestor-worship of the NewCaledonians. When a person is sick, a member of the family, never astranger, is appointed to heal him by means of certain magicalinsufflations. To enable him to do so with effect the healer firstrepairs to the family charnel-house and lays some sugar-cane leavesbeside the skulls, saying, "I lay these leaves on you that I may go andbreathe upon our sick relative, to the end that he may live. " Then hegoes to a tree belonging to the family and lays other sugar-cane leavesat its foot, saying, "I lay these leaves beside the tree of my fatherand of my grandfather, in order that my breath may have healing virtue. "Next he takes some leaves of the tree or a piece of its bark, chews itinto a mash, and then goes and breathes on the patient, his breath beingmoistened with spittle which is charged with particles of the leaves orthe bark. [528] Thus the healing virtue of his breath would seem to bedrawn from the spirits of the dead as represented partly by their skullsand partly by the leaves and bark of the tree which belonged to them inlife, and to which their souls appear in some manner to be attached indeath. 

[Sidenote: Prayers for fish. ]

Again, when a shoal of fish has made its appearance on the reef, anumber of superstitious ceremonies have to be performed before thepeople may go and spear them in the water. On the eve of the fishing-daythe medicine-man of the tribe causes a quantity of leaves of certainspecified plants to be collected and roasted in the native ovens. Nextday the leaves are taken from the ovens and deposited beside theancestral skulls, which have been arranged and decorated for theceremony. All the fishermen, armed with their fishing-spears, repair tothe holy ground or sacred grove where the skulls are kept, and therethey draw themselves up in two rows, while the medicine-man chants aninvocation or prayer for a good catch. At every verse the crowd raises acry of approval and assent. At its conclusion the medicine-man sets anexample by thrusting with his spear at a fish, and all the menimmediately plunge into the water and engage in fishing. [529]

[Sidenote: Prayers for sugar-cane. ]

Again, in order that a sugar plantation may flourish, the medicine-manwill lay a sugar-cane beside the ancestral skulls, saying, "This is foryou. We beg of you to ward off all curses, all tricks of wicked people, in order that our plantations may prosper. "[530]

[Sidenote: Prayers for yams. ]

Again, when the store of yams is running short and famine is beginningto be felt, the New Caledonians celebrate a festival called _moulim_ inwhich the worship of their ancestors is the principal feature. A staffis wreathed with branches, apparently to represent a yam, and a hedge ofcoco-nut leaves is made near the ancestral skulls. The decorated staffis then set up there, and prayers for the prosperity of the crops areoffered over and over again. After that nobody may enter a yam-field ora cemetery or touch sea-water for three days. On the third day a manstationed on a mound chants an invocation or incantation in a loudvoice. Next all the men go down to the shore, each of them with afirebrand in his hand, and separating into two parties engage in a shamfight. Afterwards they bathe and repairing to the charnel-house depositcoco-nut leaves beside the skulls of their ancestors. They are then freeto partake of the feast which has been prepared by the women. [531]

[Sidenote: Caverns used by the natives as charnel-houses in the Isle ofPines. ]

While the beliefs and customs of the New Caledonians in regard to thedead bear a general resemblance to each other, whether they belong tothe north or to the south of the principal island, a special feature isintroduced into the mortuary customs of the natives of the Isle of Pinesby the natural caves and grottoes with which the outer rim of theisland, to the distance of several miles from the shore, is riddled; forin these caverns the natives in the old heathen days were wont todeposit the bones and skulls of their dead and to use the caves assanctuaries or chapels for the worship of the spirits of the departed. Some of the caves are remarkable both in themselves and in theirsituation. Most of those which the natives turned into charnel-housesare hidden away, sometimes at great distances, in the rank luxuriance ofthe tropical forests. Some of them open straight from the level of theground; to reach others you must clamber up the rocks; to explore othersyou must descend into the bowels of the earth. A glimmering twilightillumines some; thick darkness veils others, and it is only bytorchlight that you can explore their mysterious depths. Penetratinginto the interior by the flickering gleam of flambeaus held aloft by theguides, and picking your steps among loose stones and pools of water, you might fancy yourself now in the great hall of a ruined castle, nowin the vast nave of a gothic cathedral with its chapels opening off itinto the darkness on either hand. The illusion is strengthened by themultitude of stalactites which hang from the roof of the cavern and, glittering in the fitful glow of the torches, might be taken for burningcressets kindled to light up the revels in a baronial hall, or for holylamps twinkling in the gloom of a dim cathedral aisle before holyimages, where solitary worshippers kneel in silent devotion. In theshifting play of the light and shadow cast by the torches the fantasticshapes of the incrustations which line the sides or rise from the floorof the grotto appear to the imagination of the observer now as thegnarled trunks of huge trees, now as statues or torsos of statues, nowas altars, on which perhaps a nearer approach reveals a row of blanchedand grinning skulls. No wonder if such places, chosen for the lastresting-places of the relics of mortality, have fed the imagination ofthe natives with weird notions of a life after death, a life verydifferent from that which the living lead in the glowing sunshine andamid the rich tropical verdure a few paces outside of these gloomycaverns. It is with a shiver and a sense of relief that the visitorescapes from them to the warm outer air and sees again the ferns andcreepers hanging over the mouth of the cave like a green fringe againstthe intense blue of the sky. [532]

[Sidenote: Sea-caves. ]

While this is the general character of the caves which are to be foundhidden away in the forests, many of those near the shore consist simplyof apertures hollowed out in the face of the cliffs by the slow butcontinuous action of the waves in the course of ages. On the beachitself sea-caves are found in which the rising tide precipitates itselfwith a hollow roar as of subterranean thunder; and at a point, some wayback from the strand, where the roof of one of these caves has fallenin, the salt water is projected into the air in the form of intermittentjets of spray, which vary in height with the force of the wind andtide. [533]

[Sidenote: Prayers and sacrifices offered to the dead by the NewCaledonians. ]

With regard to the use which the natives make of these caves ascharnel-houses and mortuary chapels, Father Lambert tells us that anyone of them usually includes three compartments, a place of burial, aplace of skulls, and a place of sacrifice. But often the place of skullsis also the place of sacrifice; and in no case is the one far from theother. The family priest, who is commonly the senior member of thefamily, may address his prayers to the ancestors in the depth of thecavern, in the place of skulls, or in the place of sacrifice, whenevercircumstances call for a ritual of unusual solemnity. Otherwise with thehelp of his amulets he may pray to the souls of the forefathersanywhere; for these amulets consist of personal and portable relics ofthe dead, such as locks of hair, teeth, and so forth; or again they maybe leaves or other parts of plants which are sacred to the family; sothat a wizard who is in possession of them can always and anywherecommunicate with the ancestral spirits. The place of sacrifice wouldseem to be more often in the open air than in a cave, for Father Lamberttells us that in the centre of it a shrub, always of the same species, is planted and carefully cultivated. Beside it may be seen the pots andstones which are used in cooking the food offered to the dead. In thisworship of the dead a certain differentiation of functions or divisionof labour obtains between the various families. All have not the samegifts and graces. The prayers of one family offered to their ancestralghosts are thought to be powerful in procuring rain in time of drought;the prayers of another will cause the sun to break through the cloudswhen the sky is overcast; the supplications of a third will produce afine crop of yams; the earnest entreaties of a fourth will ensurevictory in war; and the passionate pleadings of a fifth will guardmariners against the perils and dangers of the deep. And so on throughthe whole gamut of human needs, so far as these are felt by savages. Ifonly wrestling in prayer could satisfy the wants of man, few peopleshould be better provided with all the necessaries and comforts of lifethan the New Caledonians. And according to the special purpose to whicha family devotes its spiritual energies, so will commonly be theposition of its oratory. For example, if rain-making is their strongpoint, their house of prayer will be established near a cultivatedfield, in order that the crops may immediately experience the benefit tobe derived from their orisons. Again, if they enjoy a high reputationfor procuring a good catch of fish, the family skulls will be placed inthe mouth of a cave looking out over the great ocean, or perhaps on ableak little wind-swept isle, where in the howl of the blast, thethunder of the waves on the strand, and the clangour of the gullsoverhead, the fancy of the superstitious savage may hear the voices ofhis dead forefathers keeping watch and ward over their children who aretossed on the heaving billows. [534] Thus among these fortunate islandersreligion and industry go hand in hand; piety has been reduced to aco-operative system which diffuses showers of blessings on the wholecommunity. 

[Sidenote: Prayer-posts. ]

As it is clearly impossible even for the most devout to pray day andnight without cessation, the weakness of the flesh requiring certainintervals for refreshment and repose, the New Caledonians have devisedan ingenious method of continuing their orisons at the shrine in theirown absence. For this purpose they make rods or poles of variouslengths, carve and paint them rudely, wind bandages of native clothabout them, and having fastened large shells to the top, set them upeither in the sepulchral caves or in the place of skulls. In setting upone of these poles the native will pray for the particular favour whichhe desires to obtain from the ancestors for himself or his family; andhe appears to think that in some way the pole will continue to recitethe prayer in the ears of the ghosts, when he himself has ceased tospeak and has returned to his customary avocations. And when members ofhis family visit the shrine and see the pole, they will be reminded ofthe particular benefit which they are entitled to expect from the soulsof the departed. A certain rude symbolism may be traced in the materialsand other particulars of these prayer-posts. A hard wood signifiesstrength; a tall pole overtopping all the rest imports a wish that hefor whose sake it was erected may out-top all his rivals; and soon. [535]

[Sidenote: Religion combined with magic in the ritual of the NewCaledonians. Sacred stones endowed with special magical virtues. The"stone of famine. "]

We may assume with some probability that in the mind of the natives suchresemblances are not purely figurative or symbolic, but that they arealso magical in intention, being supposed not merely to represent theobject of the supplicant's prayer, but actually, on the principle ofhomoeopathic or imitative magic, to contribute to its accomplishment. Ifthat is so, we must conclude that the religion of these savages, asmanifested in their prayers to the spirits of the dead, is tincturedwith an alloy of magic; they do not trust entirely to the compassion ofthe spirits and their power to help them; they seek to reinforce theirprayers by a certain physical compulsion acting through the naturalproperties of the prayer-posts. This interpretation is confirmed by aparallel use which these people make of certain sacred stones, whichapart from their possible character as representatives of the ancestors, seem to be credited with independent magical virtues by reason of theirvarious shapes and appearances. For example, there is a piece ofpolished jade which is called "the stone of famine, " because it issupposed capable of causing either dearth or abundance, but is oftenerused by the sorcerer to create, or at least to threaten, dearth, inorder thereby to extort presents from his alarmed fellow tribesmen. Thisstone is kept in a burial-ground and derives its potency from the dead. The worshipper or the sorcerer (for he combines the two characters) whodesires to cause a famine repairs to the burial-ground, uncovers thestone, rubs it with certain plants, and smears one half of it with blackpigment. Then he makes a small hole in the ground and inserts theblackened end of the stone in the hole. Next he prays to the ancestorsthat nothing may go well with the country. If this malevolent riteshould be followed by the desired effect, the sorcerer soon seesmessengers arriving laden with presents, who entreat him to stay thefamine. If his cupidity is satisfied, he rubs the stone again, insertsit upside down in the ground, and prays to his ancestors to restoreplenty to the land. [536]

[Sidenote: Stones to drive people mad. ]

Again, certain rough unhewn stones, which are kept in the sacred places, are thought to possess the power of driving people mad. To effect thispurpose the sorcerer has only to strike one of them with the branches ofa certain tree and to pray to the ancestral spirits that they woulddeprive so-and-so of his senses. [537]

[Sidenote: Stones to blight coco-nut palms. Stones to make bread-fruittrees bear fruit. ]

Again, there is a stone which they use in cursing a plantation ofcoco-nut palms. The stone resembles a blighted coco-nut, and no doubt itis this resemblance which is supposed to endow it with the magical powerto blight coco-nut trees. In order to effect his malicious purpose thesorcerer rubs the stone in the cemetery with certain leaves and thendeposits it in a hole at the foot of a coco-nut tree, covers it up, andprays that all the trees of the plantation may be barren. This ceremonycombines the elements of magic and religion. The prayer, which is nodoubt addressed to the spirits of the dead, though this is not expresslyaffirmed, is purely religious; but the employment of a stone resemblinga blighted coco-nut for the purpose of blighting the coco-nut palms is asimple piece of homoeopathic or imitative magic, in which, as usual, thedesired effect is supposed to be produced by an imitation of it. Similarly, in order to make a bread-fruit tree bear fruit they employtwo stones, one of which resembles the unripe and the other the ripefruit. These are kept, as usual, in a cemetery; and when the trees beginto put forth fruit, the small stone resembling the unripe fruit isburied at the foot of one of the trees with the customary prayers andceremonies; and when the fruits are more mature the small stone isreplaced by the larger stone which resembles the ripe fruit. Then, whenthe fruits on the tree are quite ripe, the two stones are removed anddeposited again in the cemetery: they have done their work by bringingto maturity the fruits which they resemble. This again is a piece ofpure homoeopathic or imitative magic working by means of mimicry; butthe magical virtue of the stones is reinforced by the spiritual power ofthe dead, for the stones have been kept in a cemetery and prayers havebeen addressed to the souls of the departed. [538]

[Sidenote: The "stone of the sun. "]

Again, the natives have two disc-shaped stones, each with a hole in thecentre, which together make up what they call "the stone of the sun. " Nodoubt it is regarded as a symbol of the sun, and as such it is employedto cause drought in a ceremony which, like the preceding, combines theelements of magic and religion. The sun-stone is kept in one of thesacred places, and when a sorcerer wishes to make drought with it, hebrings offerings to the ancestral spirits in the sacred place. Theseofferings are purely religious, but the rest of the ceremony is purelymagical. At the moment when the sun rises from the sea, the magician orpriest, whichever we choose to call him (for he combines bothcharacters), passes a burning brand in and out of the hole in thesun-stone, while he says, "I kindle the sun, in order that he may eat upthe clouds and dry up our land, so that it shall no longer bear fruit. "Here the putting of fire to the sun-stone is a piece of purehomoeopathic or imitative magic, designed to increase the burning heatof the sun by mimicry. [539]

[Sidenote: Stones to make rain. ]

On the contrary, when a wizard desires to make rain, he proceeds asfollows. The place of sacrifice is decorated and enclosed with a fence, and a large quantity of provisions is deposited in it to be offered tothe ancestors whose skulls stand there in a row. Opposite the skulls thewizard places a row of pots full of a medicated water, and he brings anumber of sacred stones of a rounded form or shaped like a skull. Eachof these stones, after being rubbed with the leaves of a certain tree, is placed in one of the pots of water. Then the wizard recites a longlitany or series of invocations to the ancestors, which may besummarised thus: "We pray you to help us, in order that our country mayrevive and live anew. " Then holding a branch in his hand he climbs atree and scans the horizon if haply he may descry a cloud, be it nolarger than a man's hand. Should he be fortunate enough to see one, hewaves the branch to and fro to make the cloud mount up in the sky, whilehe also stretches out his arms to right and left to enlarge it so thatit may hide the sun and overcast the whole heaven. [540] Here again theprayers and offerings are purely religious; while the placing of theskull-shaped stones in pots full of water, and the waving of the branchto bring up the clouds, are magical ceremonies designed to produce rainby mimicry and compulsion. 

[Sidenote: Stones to make or mar sea-voyages. ]

Again, the natives have a stone in the shape of a canoe, which theyemploy in ceremonies for the purpose of favouring or hinderingnavigation. If the sorcerer desires to make a voyage prosperous, heplaces the canoe-shaped stone before the ancestral skulls with the rightside up; but if he wishes to cause his enemy to perish at sea, he placesthe canoe-shaped stone bottom upwards before the skulls, which, on theprinciples of homoeopathic or imitative magic, must clearly make hisenemy's canoe to capsize and precipitate its owner into the sea. Whichever of these ceremonies he performs, the wizard accompanies themagical rite, as usual, with prayers and offerings of food to theancestral spirits who are represented by the skulls. [541]

[Sidenote: Stones to help fishermen. ]

The natives of the Isle of Pines subsist mainly by fishing; hence theynaturally have a large number of sacred stones which they use for thepurpose of securing the blessing of the ancestral spirits on thebusiness of the fisherman. Indeed each species of fish has its ownspecial sacred stone. These stones are kept in large shells in acemetery. A wizard who desires to make use of one of them paints thestone with a variety of colours, chews certain leaves, and then breatheson the stone and moistens it with his spittle. After that he sets up thestone before the ancestral skulls, saying, "Help us, that we may besuccessful in fishing. " The sacrifices to the spirits consist ofbananas, sugar-cane, and fish, never of taros or yams. After the fishingand the sacrificial meal, the stone is put back in its place, andcovered up respectfully. [542]

[Sidenote: Stones to make yams grow. ]

Lastly, the natives of the Isle of Pines cultivate many different kindsof yams, and they have a correspondingly large number of sacred stonesdestined to aid them in the cultivation by ensuring the blessing of thedead upon the work. In shape and colour these stones differ from eachother, each of them bearing a resemblance, real or fanciful, to theparticular species of yam which it is supposed to quicken. But themethod of operating with them is much the same for all. The stone isplaced before the skulls, wetted with water, and wiped with certainleaves. Yams and fish, cooked on the spot, are offered in sacrifice tothe dead, the priest or magician saying, "This is your offering in orderthat the crop of yams may be good. " So saying he presents the food tothe dead and himself eats a little of it. After that the stone is takenaway and buried in the yam field which it is designed to fertilise. [543]Here, again, the prayer and sacrifice to the dead are purely religiousrites intended to propitiate the spirits and secure their help; whilethe burying of the yam-shaped stone in the yam-field to make the yamsgrow is a simple piece of homoeopathic or imitative magic. Similarly inorder to cultivate taros and bananas, stones resembling taros andbananas are buried in the taro field or the banana grove, and theirmagical virtue is reinforced by prayers and offerings to the dead. [544]

[Sidenote: The religion of the New Caledonians is mainly a worship ofthe dead tinctured with magic. ]

On the whole we may conclude that among the natives of New Caledoniathere exists a real worship of the dead, and that this worship is indeedthe principal element in their religion. The spirits of the dead, thoughthey are supposed to spend part of their time in a happy land far awayunder the sea, are nevertheless believed to be near at hand, hoveringabout in the burial-grounds or charnel-houses and embodied apparently intheir skulls. To these spirits the native turns for help in all theimportant seasons and emergencies of life; he appeals to them in prayerand seeks to propitiate them by sacrifice. Thus in his attitude towardshis dead ancestors we perceive the elements of a real religion. But, asI have just pointed out, many rites of this worship of ancestors areaccompanied by magical ceremonies. The religion of these islanders is infact deeply tinged with magic; it marks a transition from an age of puremagic in the past to an age of more or less pure religion in the future. 

[Sidenote: Evidence as to the religion of the New Caledonians furnishedby Dr. G. Turner. ]

Thus far I have based my account of the beliefs and customs of the NewCaledonians concerning the dead on the valuable information which we oweto the Catholic missionary Father Lambert. But, as I pointed out, hisevidence refers not so much to the natives of the mainland as to theinhabitants of certain small islands at the two extremities of the greatisland. It may be well, therefore, to supplement his description by somenotes which a distinguished Protestant missionary, the Rev. Dr. GeorgeTurner, obtained in the year 1845 from two native teachers, one a Samoanand the other a Rarotongan, who lived in the south-south-eastern part ofNew Caledonia for three years. [545] Their evidence, it will be observed, goes to confirm Father Lambert's view as to the general similarity ofthe religious beliefs and customs prevailing throughout the island. 

[Sidenote: Material culture of the New Caledonians. ]

The natives of this part of New Caledonia were divided into separatedistricts, each with its own name, and war, perpetual war, was the rulebetween the neighbouring communities. They cultivated taro, yams, coco-nuts, and sugar-cane; but they had no intoxicating _kava_ and keptno pigs. They cooked their food in earthenware pots manufactured by thewomen. In former days their only edge-tools were made of stone, and theyfelled trees by a slow fire smouldering close to the ground. Similarlythey hollowed out the fallen trees by means of a slow fire to make theircanoes. Their villages were not permanent. They migrated within certainbounds, as they planted. A village might comprise as many as fifty orsixty round houses. The chiefs had absolute power of life and death. Priests did not meddle in political affairs. [546]

[Sidenote: Burial customs; preservation of the skulls and teeth. ]

At death they dressed the corpse with a belt and shell armlets, cut offthe nails of the fingers and toes, and kept them as relics. They spreadthe grave with a mat, and buried all the body but the head. After tendays the friends twisted off the head, extracted the teeth to be kept asrelics, and preserved the skull also. In cases of sickness and othercalamities they presented offerings of food to the skulls of the dead. The teeth of the old women were taken to the yam plantations and weresupposed to fertilise them; and their skulls were set up on poles in theplantations for the same purpose. When they buried a chief, they erectedspears at his head, fastened a spear-thrower to his forefinger, and laida club on the top of his grave, [547] no doubt for the convenience of theghost. 

[Sidenote: Prayers to ancestors. ]

"Their gods, " we are told, "were their ancestors, whose relics they keptup and idolised. At one place they had wooden idols before the chiefs'houses. The office of the priest was hereditary. Almost every family hadits priest. To make sure of favours and prosperity they prayed not onlyto their own gods, but also, in a general way, to the gods of otherlands. Fishing, planting, house-building, and everything of importancewas preceded by prayers to their guardian spirits for success. This wasespecially the case before going to battle. They prayed to one for theeye, that they might see the spear as it flew towards them. To anotherfor the ear, that they might hear the approach of the enemy. Thus, too, they prayed for the feet, that they might be swift in pursuing theenemy; for the heart, that they might be courageous; for the body, thatthey might not be speared; for the head, that it might not be clubbed;and for sleep, that it might be undisturbed by an attack of the enemy. Prayers over, arms ready, and equipped with their relic charms, theywent off to battle. "[548]

[Sidenote: "Grand concert of spirits. "]

The spirits of the dead were believed to go away into the forest. Everyfifth month they had a "spirit night" or "grand concert of spirits. "Heaps of food were prepared for the occasion. The people assembled inthe afternoon round a certain cave. At sundown they feasted, and thenone stood up and addressed the spirits in the cave, saying, "You spiritswithin, may it please you to sing a song, that all the women and men outhere may listen to your sweet voices. " Thereupon a strange unearthlyconcert of voices burst on their ears from the cave, the nasal squeak ofold men and women forming the dominant note. But the hearers outsidelistened with delight to the melody, praised the sweet voices of thesingers, and then got up and danced to the music. The singing swelledlouder and louder as the dance grew faster and more furious, till theconcert closed in a nocturnal orgy of unbridled license, which, but forthe absence of intoxicants, might compare with the worst of the ancientbacchanalia. The singers in the cave were the old men and women who hadensconced themselves in it secretly during the day; but the hoax was notsuspected by the children and young people, who firmly believed that thespirits of the dead really assembled that night in the cavern andassisted at the sports and diversions of the living. [549]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of the bones of the dead. ]

The souls of the departed also kindly bore a hand in the making of rain. In order to secure their co-operation for this beneficent purpose thehuman rain-maker proceeded as follows. He blackened himself all over, exhumed a dead body, carried the bones to a cave, jointed them, andsuspended the skeleton over some taro leaves. After that he poured wateron the skeleton so that it ran down and fell on the leaves underneath. They imagined that the soul of the deceased took up the water, convertedit into rain, and then caused it to descend in refreshing showers. Butthe rain-maker had to stay in the cavern fasting till his efforts werecrowned with success, and when the ghost was tardy in executing hiscommission, the rain-maker sometimes died of hunger. As a rule, however, they chose the showery months of March and April for the operation ofrain-making, so that the wizard ran little risk of perishing a martyr tothe cause of science. When there was too much rain, and they wanted fineweather, the magician procured it by a similar process, except thatinstead of drenching the skeleton with water he lit a fire under it andburned it up, [550] which naturally induced or compelled the ghost toburn up the clouds and let the sun shine out. 

[Sidenote: Execution of maleficent sorcerers. Reincarnation of the deadin white people. ]

Another class of magicians were the maleficent sorcerers who causedpeople to fall ill and die by burning their personal rubbish. When oneof these rascals was convicted of repeated offences of that sort, he wasformally tried and condemned. The people assembled and a great festivalwas held. The condemned man was decked with a garland of red flowers;his arms and legs were covered with flowers and shells, and his face andbody painted black. Thus arrayed he came dashing forward, rushed throughthe people, plunged from the rocks into the sea, and was seen no more. The natives also ascribed sickness to the arts of white men, whom theyidentified with the spirits of the dead; and assigned this belief as areason for their wish to kill the strangers. [551]

[Footnote 517: F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, II. _Malaysia and thePacific Archipelagoes_ (London, 1894), p. 458. ]

[Footnote 518: J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_ (London, 1900), pp. 498_sq. _ As to the mediums of exchange, particularly the shell-money, seeR. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), pp. 323 _sqq. _; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jähre in der Südsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 82_sqq. _]

[Footnote 519: Le Père Lambert, _Moeurs et Superstitions desNéo-Calédoniens_ (Nouméa, 1900). This work originally appeared as aseries of articles in the Catholic missionary journal _Les MissionsCatholiques_. ]

[Footnote 520: Lambert, _Moeurs et Superstitions des Néo-Calédoniens_, pp. Ii. , iv. _sq. _; 255. ]

[Footnote 521: George Turner, LL. D. , _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and longbefore_ (London, 1884), pp. 340 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 522: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 13-16. ]

[Footnote 523: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 235-239. ]

[Footnote 524: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 238, 239 _sq. _]

[Footnote 525: Above, pp. 136 _sq. _, 235 _sq. _]

[Footnote 526: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 24, 240. ]

[Footnote 527: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ p. 274. ]

[Footnote 528: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 24, 26. ]

[Footnote 529: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ p. 211. ]

[Footnote 530: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ p. 218. ]

[Footnote 531: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 224 _sq. _]

[Footnote 532: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 275 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 533: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ p. 276. ]

[Footnote 534: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 288 _sq. _]

[Footnote 535: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 290, 292. ]

[Footnote 536: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 292 _sq. _]

[Footnote 537: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 293 _sq. _]

[Footnote 538: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ p. 294. ]

[Footnote 539: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 296 _sq. _]

[Footnote 540: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 297 _sq. _]

[Footnote 541: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ p. 298. ]

[Footnote 542: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ p. 300. ]

[Footnote 543: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 301 _sq. _]

[Footnote 544: Lambert, _op. Cit. _ pp. 217 _sq. _, 300. ]

[Footnote 545: George Turner, LL. D. , _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and longbefore_ (London, 1884), pp. 340 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 546: G. Turner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 340, 341, 343, 344. ]

[Footnote 547: G. Turner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 342 _sq. _]

[Footnote 548: G. Turner, _op. Cit. _ p. 345. ]

[Footnote 549: G. Turner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 346 _sq. _]

[Footnote 550: G. Turner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 345 _sq. _]

[Footnote 551: G. Turner, _op. Cit. _ p. 342. ]

LECTURE XVI

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF CENTRAL MELANESIA

[Sidenote: The islands of Central Melanesia. Distinction between thereligion of the Eastern and Western Islanders. ]

In our survey of savage beliefs and practices concerning the dead we nowpass from New Caledonia, the most southerly island of Melanesia, to thegroups of islands known as the New Hebrides, the Banks' Islands, theTorres Islands, the Santa Cruz Islands, and the Solomon Islands, whichtogether constitute what we may call Central Melanesia. These groups ofislands may themselves be distinguished into two archipelagoes, awestern and an eastern, of which the Western comprises the SolomonIslands and the Eastern includes all the rest. Corresponding to thisgeographical distinction there is a religious distinction; for while thereligion of the Western islanders (the Solomon Islanders) consistschiefly in a fear and worship of the ghosts of the dead, the religion ofthe Eastern islanders is characterised mainly by the fear and worship ofspirits which are not supposed ever to have been incarnate in humanbodies. Both groups of islanders, the Western and the Eastern, recogniseindeed both classes of spirits, namely ghosts that once were men andspirits who never were men; but the religious bias of the one group istowards ghosts rather than towards pure spirits, and the religious biasof the other group is towards pure spirits rather than towards ghosts. It is not a little remarkable that the islanders whose bent is towardsghosts have carried the system of sacrifice and the arts of life to ahigher level than the islanders whose bent is towards pure spirits; thisapplies particularly to the sacrificial system, which is much moredeveloped in the west than in the east. [552] From this it would seem tofollow that if a faith in ghosts is more costly than a faith in purespirits, it is at the same time more favourable to the evolution ofculture. 

[Sidenote: Dr. R. H. Codrington on the Melanesians. ]

For the whole of this region we are fortunate in possessing the evidenceof the Rev. Dr. R. H. Codrington, one of the most sagacious, cautious, and accurate of observers, who laboured as a missionary among thenatives for twenty-four years, from 1864 to 1887, and has given us amost valuable account of their customs and beliefs in his book _TheMelanesians_, which must always remain an anthropological classic. Indescribing the worship of the dead as it is carried on among theseislanders I shall draw chiefly on the copious evidence supplied by Dr. Codrington; and I shall avail myself of his admirable researches toenter into considerable details on the subject, since details recordedby an accurate observer are far more instructive than the vaguegeneralities of superficial observers, which are too often all theinformation we possess as to the religion of savages. 

[Sidenote: Melanesian theory of the soul. ]

In the first place, all the Central Melanesians believe that man iscomposed of a body and a soul, that death is the final parting of thesoul from the body, and that after death the soul continues to exist asa conscious and more or less active being. [553] Thus the creed of thesesavages on this profound subject agrees fundamentally with the creed ofthe average European; if my hearers were asked to state their beliefs asto the nature of life and death, I imagine that most of them wouldformulate them in substantially the same way. However, when the CentralMelanesian savage attempts to define the nature of the vital principleor soul, which animates the body during life and survives it afterdeath, he finds himself in a difficulty; and to continue the parallel Icannot help thinking that if my hearers in like manner were invited toexplain their conception of the soul, they would similarly findthemselves embarrassed for an answer. But an examination of the CentralMelanesian theory of the soul would lead us too far from our immediatesubject; we must be content to say that, "whatever word the Melanesianpeople use for soul, they mean something essentially belonging to eachman's nature which carries life to his body with it, and is the seat ofthought and intelligence, exercising therefore power which is not of thebody and is invisible in its action. "[554] However the soul may bedefined, the Melanesians are universally of opinion that it survives thedeath of the body and goes away to some more or less distant region, where the spirits of all the dead congregate and continue for the mostpart to live for an indefinite time, though some of them, as we shallsee presently, are supposed to die a second death and so to come to anend altogether. In Western Melanesia, that is, in the Solomon Islands, the abode of the dead is supposed to be in certain islands, which differin the creed of different islanders; but in Eastern Melanesia the abodeof the dead is thought to be a subterranean region called Panoi. [555]

[Sidenote: Distinction between ghosts of power and ghosts of noaccount. ]

But though the souls of the departed go away to the spirit land, nevertheless, with a seeming or perhaps real inconsistency, their ghostsare also supposed to haunt their graves and their old homes and toexercise great power for good or evil over the living, who areaccordingly often obliged to woo their favour by prayer and sacrifice. According to the Solomon Islanders, however, among whom ghosts are theprincipal objects of worship, there is a great distinction to be drawnamong ghosts. "The distinction, " says Dr. Codrington, "is between ghostsof power and ghosts of no account, between those whose help is soughtand their wrath deprecated, and those from whom nothing is expected andto whom no observance is due. Among living men there are some who standout distinguished for capacity in affairs, success in life, valour infighting, and influence over others; and these are so, it is believed, because of the supernatural and mysterious powers which they have, andwhich are derived from communication with those ghosts of the dead gonebefore them who are full of those same powers. On the death of adistinguished man his ghost retains the powers that belonged to him inlife, in greater activity and with stronger force; his ghost thereforeis powerful and worshipful, and so long as he is remembered the aid ofhis powers is sought and worship is offered him; he is the _tindalo_ ofFlorida, the _lio'a_ of Saa. In every society, again, the multitude iscomposed of insignificant persons, '_numerus fruges consumeri nati_, ' ofno particular account for valour, skill, or prosperity. The ghosts ofsuch persons continue their insignificance, and are nobodies after deathas before; they are ghosts because all men have souls, and the souls ofdead men are ghosts; they are dreaded because all ghosts are awful, butthey get no worship and are soon only thought of as the crowd of thenameless population of the lower world. "[556]

[Sidenote: Ghosts of the great and of the recently dead are chieflyregarded. Supernatural power (_mana_) acquired through ghosts. ]

From this account of Dr. Codrington we see that it is only the ghosts ofgreat and powerful people who are worshipped; the ghosts of ordinarypeople are indeed feared, but no worship is paid to them. Further, weare told that it is the ghosts of those who have lately died that aredeemed to be most powerful and are therefore most regarded; as the deadare forgotten, their ghosts cease to be worshipped, their power fadesaway, [557] and their place in the religion of the people is taken by theghosts of the more recently departed. In fact here, as elsewhere, theexistence of the dead seems to be dependent on the memory of the living;when they are forgotten they cease to exist. Further, it deserves to benoticed that in the Solomon Islands what we should call a man's naturalpowers and capacities are regarded as supernatural endowments acquiredby communication with a mighty ghost. If a man is a great warrior, it isnot because he is strong of arm, quick of eye, and brave of heart; it isbecause he is supported by the ghost of a dead warrior, whose power hehas drawn to himself through an amulet of stone tied round his neck, ora tuft of leaves in his belt, or a tooth attached to one of his fingers, or a spell by the recitation of which he can enlist the aid of theghost. [558] And similarly with all other pre-eminent capacities andvirtues; in the mind of the Solomon Islanders, they are all supernaturalgifts and graces bestowed on men by ghosts. This all-pervadingsupernatural power the Central Melanesian calls _mana_. [559] Thus forthese savages the whole world teems with ghostly influences; their mindsare filled, we may almost say, obsessed, with a sense of the unseenpowers which encompass and determine even in its minute particulars thelife of man on earth: in their view the visible world is, so to say, merely a puppet-show of which the strings are pulled and the puppetsmade to dance by hands invisible. Truly the attitude of these savages tothe universe is deeply religious. 

We may now consider the theory and practice of the Central Melanesianson this subject somewhat more in detail; and in doing so we shall beginwith their funeral customs, which throw much light on their views ofdeath and the dead. 

[Sidenote: Burial customs in the Solomon Islands. Land burial and seaburial. Land-ghosts and sea-ghosts. ]

Thus, for example, in Florida, one of the Solomon Islands, the corpse isusually buried. Common men are buried in their gardens or plantations, chiefs sometimes in the village, a chief's child sometimes in the house. If the ghost of the deceased is worshipped, his grave becomes asanctuary (_vunuhu_); the skull is often dug up and hung in the house. On the return from the burial the mourners take a different road fromthat by which they carried the corpse to the grave; this they do inorder to throw the ghost off the scent and so prevent him from followingthem home. This practice clearly shews the fear which the natives feelfor the ghosts of the newly dead. A man is buried with money, porpoiseteeth, and some of his personal ornaments; but, avarice getting thebetter of superstition, these things are often secretly dug up again andappropriated by the living. Sometimes a dying man will express a wish tobe cast into the sea; his friends will therefore paddle out with thecorpse, tie stones to the feet, and sink it in the depths. In the islandof Savo, another of the Solomon Islands, common men are generally throwninto the sea and only great men are buried. [560] The same distinction ismade at Wango in San Cristoval, another of the same group of islands;there also the bodies of common folk are cast into the sea, but men ofconsequence are buried, and some relic of them, it may be a skull, atooth, or a finger-bone, is preserved in a shrine at the village. Fromthis difference in burial customs flows a not unimportant religiousdifference. The souls of the great people who are buried on land turninto land-ghosts, and the souls of commoners who are sunk in the seaturn into sea-ghosts. The land-ghosts are seen to hover about thevillages, haunting their graves and their relics; they are also heard tospeak in hollow whispers. Their aid can be obtained by such as knowthem. The sea-ghosts have taken a great hold on the imagination of thenatives of the south-eastern Solomon Islands; and as these people loveto illustrate their life by sculpture and painting, they shew us clearlywhat they suppose these sea-ghosts to be like. At Wango there used to bea canoe-house full of sculptures and paintings illustrative of nativelife; amongst others there was a series of scenes like those which aredepicted on the walls of Egyptian tombs. One of the scenes represented acanoe attacked by sea-ghosts, which were portrayed as demons compoundedpartly of human limbs, partly of the bodies and tails of fishes, andarmed with spears and arrows in the form of long-bodied garfish andflying-fish. If a man falls ill on returning from a voyage or fromfishing on the rocks, it is thought that one of these sea-ghosts hasshot him. Hence when men are in danger at sea, they seek to propitiatethe ghosts by throwing areca-nuts and fragments of food into the waterand by praying to the ghosts not to be angry with them. Sharks are alsosupposed to be animated by the ghosts of the dead. [561] It isinteresting and instructive to find that in this part of the worldsea-demons, who might be thought to be pure spirits of nature, are infact ghosts of the dead. 

[Sidenote: Burnt offerings in honour of the dead. ]

In the island of Florida, two days after the death of a chief or of anyperson who was much esteemed, the relatives and friends assemble andhold a funeral feast, at which they throw a bit of food into the firefor the ghost, saying, "This is for you. "[562] In other of the SolomonIslands morsels of food are similarly thrown on the fire at thedeath-feasts as the dead man's share. [563] Thus, in the ShortlandsIslands, when a famous chief named Gorai died, his body was burnt andhis relatives cast food, beads, and other property into the fire. Thedead chief had been very fond of tea, so one of his daughters threw acup of tea into the flames. Women danced a funeral dance round the pyretill the body was consumed. [564] Why should the dead man's food andproperty be burnt? No explanation of the practice is given by ourauthorities, so we are left to conjecture the reason of it. Is it thatby volatilising the solid substance of the food you make it moreaccessible to the thin unsubstantial nature of the ghost? Is it that youdestroy the property of the ghost lest he should come back in person tofetch it and so haunt and trouble the survivors? Is it that the spiritsof the dead are supposed to reside in the fire on the hearth, so thatofferings cast into the flames are transmitted to them directly? Whetherit is with any such ideas that the Solomon Islanders throw food into thefire for ghosts, I cannot say. The whole question of the meaning ofburnt sacrifice is still to a great extent obscure. 

[Sidenote: Funeral customs in the island of Florida. The ghostly ferry. ]

At the funeral feast of a chief in the island of Florida the axes, spears, shield and other belongings of the deceased are hung up withgreat lamentations in his house; everything remains afterwards untouchedand the house falls into ruins, which as time goes on are thicklymantled with the long tendrils of the sprouting yams. But we are toldthat the weapons are not intended to accompany the ghost to the land ofsouls; they are hung up only as a memorial of a great and valued man. "With the same feeling they cut down a dead man's fruit-trees as a markof respect and affection, not with any notion of these things servinghim in the world of ghosts; he ate of them, they say, when he was alive, he will never eat again, and no one else shall have them. " However, theythink that the ghost benefits by burial; for if a man is killed and hisbody remains unburied, his restless ghost will haunt the place. [565] Theghosts of such Florida people as have been duly buried depart toBetindalo, which seems to be situated in the south-eastern part of thegreat island of Guadalcanar. A ship waits to ferry them across the seato the spirit-land. This is almost the only example of a ferry-boat usedby ghosts in Melanesia. On their way to the ferry the ghosts may beheard twittering; and again on the shore, while they are waiting for theferry-boat, a sound of their dancing breaks the stillness of night; butno man can see the dancers. It is not until they land on the furthershore that they know they are dead. There they are met by a ghost, whothrusts a rod into their noses to see whether the cartilage is piercedas it should be; ghosts whose noses have been duly bored in life followthe onward path with ease, but all others have pain and difficulty inmaking their way to the realm of the shades. Yet though the souls of thedead thus depart to Betindalo, nevertheless their ghosts as usual notonly haunt their burial-places, but come to the sacrifices offered tothem and may be heard disporting themselves at night, playing on pipes, dancing, and shouting. [566]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Solomon Islanders that the souls of the deadlive in islands. The second death. ]

Similarly at Bugotu in the island of Ysabel (one of the Solomon Islands)the ghosts of the dead are supposed to go away to an island, and yet tohaunt their graves and shew themselves to the survivors by night. In theisland of the dead there is a pool with a narrow tree-trunk lying acrossit. Here is stationed Bolafagina, the ghostly lord of the place. Everynewly arrived ghost must appear before him, and he examines their handsto see whether they bear the mark of the sacred frigate-bird cut onthem; if they have the mark, the ghosts pass across the tree-trunk andmingle with the departed spirits in the world of the dead. But ghostswho have not the mark on their hands are cast into the gulf and perishout of their ghostly life: this is the second death. [567] The samenotion of a second death meets us in a somewhat different form among thenatives of Saa in Malanta, another of the Solomon Islands. All theghosts of these people swim across the sea to two little islands calledMarapa, which lie off Marau in Guadalcanar. There the ghosts of childrenlive in one island and the ghosts of grown-up people in another; for theolder people would be plagued by the chatter of children if they alldwelt together in one island. Yet in other respects the life of thedeparted spirits in these islands is very like life on earth. There arehouses, gardens, and canoes there just as here, but all is thin andunsubstantial. Living men who land in the islands see nothing of thesethings; there is a pool where they hear laughter and merry cries, andwhere the banks are wet with invisible bathers. But the life of theghosts in these islands is not eternal. The spirits of common folk soonturn into the nests of white ants, which serve as food for the morerobust ghosts. Hence a living man will say to his idle son, "When I die, I shall have ants' nests to eat, but then what will you have?" Theghosts of persons who were powerful on earth last much longer. So longas they are remembered and worshipped by the living, their naturalstrength remains unabated; but when men forget them, and turn to worshipsome of the more recent dead, then no more food is offered to them insacrifice, so they pine away and change into white ants' nests just likecommon folk. This is the second death. However, while the ghosts survivethey can return from the islands to Saa and revisit their village andfriends. The living can even discern them in the form of dim andfleeting shadows. A man who wishes for any reason to see a ghost canalways do so very simply by taking a pinch of lime from his betel-boxand smearing it on his forehead. Then the ghost appears to him quiteplainly. [568]

[Sidenote: Burial customs in Saa. Preservation of the skull and jawbone. Burial customs in Santa Cruz. Burial customs in Ysabel. ]

In Saa the dead are usually buried in a common cemetery; but when theflesh has decayed the bones are taken up and heaped on one side. But ifthe deceased was a very great man or a beloved father, his body ispreserved for a time in his son's house, being hung up either in a canoeor in the carved effigy of a sword-fish. Very favourite children aretreated in the same way. The corpse may be kept in this way for years. Finally, there is a great funeral feast, at which the remains areremoved to the common burial-ground, but the skull and jawbone aredetached from the skeleton and kept in the house enclosed in the hollowwooden figure of a bonito-fish. By means of these relics the survivorsthink that they can secure the aid of the powerful ghost. Sometimes thecorpse and afterwards the skull and jawbone are preserved, not in thehouse of the deceased, but in the _oha_ or public canoe-house, which sofar becomes a sort of shrine or temple of the dead. [569] At Santa Cruzin the Solomon Islands the corpse is buried in a very deep grave in thehouse. Inland they dig up the bones again to make arrow-heads; also theydetach the skull and keep it in a chest in the house, saying that it isthe man himself. They even set food before the skull, no doubt for theuse of the ghost. Yet they imagine that the ghosts of the dead go to thegreat volcano Tamami, where they are burnt in the crater and thus beingrenewed stay in the fiery region. Nevertheless the souls of the deadalso haunt the forests in Santa Cruz; on wet and dark nights the nativessee them twinkling in the gloom like fire-flies, and at the sight theyare sore afraid. [570] So little consistent with itself is the creed ofthese islanders touching the state of the dead. At Bugotu in the islandof Ysabel (one of the Solomon Islands) a chief is buried with his headnear the surface and a fire is kept burning over the grave, in orderthat the skull may be taken up and preserved in the house of hissuccessor. The spirit of the dead chief has now become a worshipfulghost, and an expedition is sent out to cut off and bring back humanheads in his honour. Any person, not belonging to the place, whom thehead-hunters come across will be killed by them and his or her skulladded to the collection, which is neatly arranged on the shore. Theseghastly trophies are believed to add fresh spiritual power (_mana_) tothe ghost of the dead chief. Till they have been procured, the people ofthe place take care not to move about. The grave of the chief is builtup with stones and sacrifices are offered upon it. [571]

[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs of the Eastern islanders concerning thedead. Panoi, the subterranean abode of the dead. ]

Thus far we have been considering the beliefs and practices concerningthe dead which prevail among the Western Melanesians of the SolomonIslands and Santa Cruz. We now turn to those of the Eastern Melanesians, who inhabit the Torres Islands, the Banks' Islands, and the NewHebrides. A broad distinction exists between the ghosts of these tworegions in as much as the ghosts of the Western Melanesians all live inislands, but the ghosts of all Eastern Melanesians live underground in asubterranean region which commonly bears the name of Panoi. The exactposition of Panoi has not been ascertained; all that is regarded ascertain is that it is underground. However, there are many entrances toit and some of them are well known. One of them, for example, is a rockon the mountain at Mota, others are at volcanic vents which belch flameson the burning hill of Garat over the lake at Gaua, and another is onthe great mountain of Vanua Lava. The ghosts congregate on points ofland before their departure, as well as at the entrances to theunderworld, and there on moonlight nights you may hear the ghostly crewdancing, singing, shouting, and whistling on the claws of land-crabs. Itis not easy to extract from the natives a precise and consistent accountof the place of the dead and the state of the spirits in it; nor indeed, as Dr. Codrington justly observes, would it be reasonable to expect fulland precise details on a subject about which the sources of informationare perhaps not above suspicion. However, as far as can be made out, Panoi or the abode of the dead is on the whole a happy region. In manyrespects it resembles the land of the living; for there are houses thereand villages, and trees with red leaves, and day and night. Yet all ishollow and unreal. The ghosts do nothing but talk and sing and dance;there is no clubhouse there, and though men and women live together, there is no marrying or giving in marriage. All is very peaceful, too, in that land; for there is no war and no tyrant to oppress the people. Yet the ghost of a great man goes down like a great man among theghosts, resplendent in all his trinkets and finery; but like everythingelse in the underworld these ornaments, for all the brave show theymake, are mere unsubstantial shadows. The pigs which were killed at hisfuneral feast and the food that was heaped on his grave cannot go downwith him into that far country; for none of these things, not even pigs, have souls. How then could they find their way to the spirit world? Itis clearly impossible. The ghosts in the nether world do not mixindiscriminately. There are separate compartments for such as diedviolent deaths. There is one compartment for those who were shot, thereis another for those who were clubbed, and there is another for thosewho were done to death by witchcraft. The ghosts of those who were shotkeep rattling the reeds of the arrows which dealt them their fatalwounds. Ghosts in the nether world have no knowledge of things out oftheir sight and hearing; yet the living call upon them in time of needand trouble, as if they could hear and help. Life, too, in the kingdomof shadows is not eternal. The ghosts die the second death. Yet some saythat there are two such kingdoms, each called Panoi, the one over theother; and that when the dead die the second death in the upper realmthey rise again from the dead in the nether realm, where they never diebut only turn into white ants' nests. [572]

[Sidenote: Distinction between the fate of the good and the fate of thebad in the other world. ]

It is interesting and not unimportant to observe that some of theseislanders make a distinction between the fate of good people and thefate of bad people after death. The natives of Motlav, one of the Banks'Islands, think that Panoi is a good place and that only the souls of thegood can enter it. According to them the souls of murderers, sorcerers, thieves, liars, and adulterers are not suffered to enter the happy land. The ghost of a murderer, for example, is met at the entrance by theghost of his victim, who withstands him and turns him back. All the badghosts go away to a bad place, where they live, not indeed in physicalpain, but in misery: they quarrel, they are restless, homeless, pitiable, malignant: they wander back to earth: they eat the foulestfood, their breath is noisome: they harm the living out of spite, theyeat men's souls, they haunt graves and woods. But in the true Panoi thesouls of the good live in peace and harmony. [573] Thus these peoplebelieve that the state of the soul after death depends on the kind oflife a man led on earth; if he was good, he will be happy; if he wasbad, he will be miserable. If this creed is of purely native origin, andDr. Codrington seems to entertain no doubt that it is so, it marks aconsiderable ethical advance among those who accept it. 

[Sidenote: Descent of the living to the world of the dead. ]

The Eastern Melanesians think that living people can go down to the landof the dead and return alive to the upper world. Sometimes they do thisin the body, but at other times only in the spirit, when they are asleepor in a faint; for at such times their souls quit their bodies and canwander away down to Panoi. When the living thus make their way to thespirit land, they are sometimes cautioned by friendly ghosts to eatnothing there, no doubt lest by partaking of ghostly food they should beturned to ghosts and never return to the land of the living. [574]

[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead among the Eastern islanders. Burialcustoms of the Banks' Islanders. ]

We will now consider the various modes in which the Eastern Melanesiansdispose of their dead; for funeral customs commonly furnish someindication of the ideas which a people entertain as to the state of thesoul after death. The Banks' Islanders generally buried their dead inthe forest not far from the village; but if the deceased was a great manor died a remarkable death, they might inter him in the village near themen's clubhouse (_gamal_). A favourite son or child might be buried inthe house itself; but in such cases the grave would be opened afterfifty or a hundred days and the bones taken up and hidden in the forest, though some of them might be hung up in the house. However, in someplaces there was, and indeed still is, a custom of keeping theputrefying corpse unburied in the house as a mark of affection. At Gaua, in Santa Maria, the body was dried over slow fires for ten days or more, till nothing but skin and bones remained; and the women who watched overit during these days drank the juices of putrefaction which dripped fromthe decaying flesh. The same thing used formerly to be done in Mota, another of the Banks' Islands. The corpses of great men in these islandswere adorned in all their finery and laid out on the open space in themiddle of the village. Here bunches of coco-nuts, yams, and other foodwere heaped up beside the body; and an orator of fluent speech addressedthe ghost telling him that when he had gone down to Panoi, the spiritland, and the ghosts asked him after his rank, he was to give them alist of all the things heaped beside his dead body; then the ghostswould know what a great man he was and would treat him with properdeference. The orator dealt very candidly with the moral character ofthe deceased. If he had been a bad man, the speaker would say, "Poorghost, will you be able to enter Panoi? I think not. " The food which ispiled up beside the body while the orator is pronouncing the eulogium orthe censure of the departed is afterwards heaped up on the grave orburied in it. At Gaua they kill pigs and hang up the carcases or partsof them at the grave. The object of all this display is to make afavourable impression on the ghosts in the spirit land, in order thatthey may give the newly deceased man a good reception. When the departedwas an eminent warrior or sorcerer, his friends will sometimes give hima sham burial and hide his real grave, lest people should dig up hisbones and his skull to make magic with them; for the relics of such aman are naturally endowed with great magical virtue. [575]

[Sidenote: Ghosts driven away from the village. Expulsion of the ghostsof persons who suffered from sores and ulcers. ]

In these islands the ghost does not at once leave the neighbourhood ofhis old body; he shews no haste to depart to the nether world. Indeed hecommonly loiters about the house and the grave for five or ten days, manifesting his presence by noises in the house and by lights upon thegrave. By the fifth day his relations generally think that they have hadquite enough of him, and that it is high time he should set out for hislong home. Accordingly they drive him away with shouts and the blowingof conch-shells or the booming sound of bull-roarers. [576] AtUreparapara the mode of expelling the ghost from the village is asfollows. Missiles to be hurled at the lingering spirit are collected inthe shape of small stones and pieces of bamboo, which have been charmedby wizards so as to possess a ghost-expelling virtue. The artilleryhaving been thus provided, the people muster at one end of the village, armed with bags of enchanted stones and pieces of enchanted bamboos. Thesignal to march is given by two men, who sit in the dead man's house, one on either side, holding two white stones in their hands, which theyclink together. At the sound of the clinking the women begin to wail andthe men to march; tramp, tramp they go like one man through the villagefrom end to end, throwing stones into the houses and all about andbeating the bamboos together. Thus they drive the reluctant ghost stepby step from the village into the forest, where they leave him to findhis own way down to the land of the dead. Till that time the widow ofthe deceased was bound to remain on his bed without quitting it for amoment except on necessity; and if she had to leave it for a few minutesshe always left a coco-nut on the bed to represent her till she cameback. The reason for this was that her husband's ghost was believed tobe lingering in the house all these days, and he would naturally expectto see his wife in the nuptial chamber. At Motlav the people are not sohard upon the poor ghosts: they do not drive away all ghosts from theirold homes, but only the ghosts of such as had in their lifetime themisfortune to be afflicted with grievous sores and ulcers. The expulsionof such ghosts may therefore be regarded as a sanitary precautiondesigned to prevent the spirits from spreading the disease. When a manwho suffers severely from sores or ulcers lies dying, the people of hisvillage, taking time by the forelock, send word to the inhabitants ofthe next village westwards, warning them to be in readiness to give theghost a warm reception. For it is well known that at their departurefrom the body ghosts always go westward towards the setting sun. So whenthe poor man is dead, they bury his diseased body in the village anddevote all their energies to the expulsion of his soul. By blowingblasts on shell-trumpets and beating the ground with the stalks ofcoco-nut fronds they chase the ghost clean away from their own villageand on to the next. The inhabitants of that village meantime are readyto receive their unwelcome visitor, and beating their bounds in the mostliteral sense they soon drive him onwards to the land of their nextneighbours. So the chase goes on from village to village, till the ghosthas been finally hunted into the sea at the point of the shore whichfaces the setting sun. There at last the beaters throw away the stalkswhich have served to whack the ghost, and return home in the perfectassurance that he has left the island and gone to his own place downbelow, so that he cannot afflict anybody with the painful disease fromwhich he suffered. But as for his ulcerated corpse rotting in the grave, they do not give a thought to it. Their concern is with the spiritualand the unseen; they do not stoop to regard the material andcarnal. [577]

[Sidenote: Special treatment of the ghosts of women who died inchildbed. ]

A special treatment is accorded to the ghosts of women who died inchildbed. If the mother dies and the child lives, her ghost will not goaway to the nether world without taking the infant with her. Hence inorder to deceive the ghost, they wrap a piece of a banana-trunk looselyin leaves and lay it on the bosom of the dead mother when they lower herinto the grave. The ghost clasps the bundle to her breast, thinking itis her baby, and goes away contentedly to the spirit land. As she walks, the banana-stalk slips about in the leaves and she imagines it is theinfant stirring; for she has not all her wits about her, ghosts beingnaturally in a dazed state at first on quitting their familiar bodies. But when she arrives in deadland and finds she has been deceived, andwhen perhaps some heartless ghosts even jeer at her wooden baby, backshe comes tearing to earth in grief and rage to seek and carry off thereal infant. However, the survivors know what to expect and have takenthe precaution of removing the child to another house where the motherwill never find it; but she keeps looking for it always, and a sad andangry ghost is she. [578]

[Sidenote: Funeral feasts. ]

After the funeral follows a series, sometimes a long series, of funeralfeasts, which form indeed one of the principal institutions of theseislands. The number of the feasts and the length of time during whichthey are repeated vary much in the different islands, and depend also onthe consideration in which the deceased was held. The days on which thefeasts are celebrated are the fifth and the tenth after the death, andafterwards every tenth day up to the hundredth or even it may be, in thecase of a father, a mother, or a wife, up to the thousandth day. Thesefeasts appear now to be chiefly commemorative, but they also benefit thedead; for the ghost is naturally gratified by seeing that his friendsremember him and do their duty by him so handsomely. At these banquetsfood is put aside for the dead with the words "This is for thee. " Thepractice of thus setting aside food for the ghost at a series of funeralfeasts appears at first sight, as Dr. Codrington observes, inconsistentwith the theory that the ghosts live underground. [579] But the objectionthus suggested is rather specious than real; for we must always bear inmind that, to judge from the accounts given of them in all countries, ghosts experience no practical difficulty in obtaining temporary leaveof absence from the other world and coming to this one, so to say, onfurlough for the purpose of paying a surprise visit to their sorrowingfriends and relations. The thing is so well known that it would be atonce superfluous and tedious to illustrate it at length; many exampleshave incidentally met us in the course of these lectures. 

[Sidenote: Funeral customs in Vaté or Efat. Old people buried alive. ]

The natives of Vaté or Efat, one of the New Hebrides, set up a greatwailing at a death and scratched their faces till they streamed withblood. Bodies of the dead were buried. When a corpse was laid in thegrave, a pig was brought to the place and its head was chopped off andthrown into the grave to be buried with the body. This, we are told, "was supposed to prevent disease spreading to other members of thefamily. " Probably, in the opinion of the natives, the pig's head was asop thrown to the ghost to keep him from coming and fetching away otherpeople to deadland. With the same intention, we may take it, they buriedwith the dead the cups, pillows, and other things which he had used inhis lifetime. On the top of the grave they kindled a fire to enable thesoul of the deceased to rise to the sun. If that were not done, the soulwent to the wretched regions of Pakasia down below. The old were buriedalive at their own request. It was even deemed a disgrace to the familyof an aged chief if they did not bury him alive. When an old man feltsick and weak and thought that he was dying, he would tell his friendsto get all ready and bury him. They yielded to his wishes, dug a deepround pit, wound a number of fine mats round his body, and lowered himinto the grave in a sitting posture. Live pigs were then brought to thebrink of the grave, and each of them was tethered by a cord to one ofthe old man's arms. When the pigs had thus, as it were, been made overto him, the cords were cut, and the animals were led away to be killed, baked, and eaten at the funeral feast; but the souls of the pigs the oldman took away with him to the spirit land, and the more of them he tookthe warmer and more gratifying was the reception he met with from theghosts. Having thus ensured his eternal welfare by the pig strings whichdangled at his arms, the old man was ready; more mats were laid overhim, the earth was shovelled in, and his dying groans were drowned amidthe weeping and wailing of his affectionate kinsfolk. [580]

[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs in Aurora, one of the NewHebrides. Behaviour of the soul at death. ]

At Maewo in Aurora, one of the New Hebrides, when a death has takenplace, the body is buried in a grave near the village clubhouse. For ahundred days afterwards the female mourners may not go into the open andtheir faces may not be seen; they stay indoors and in the dark and coverthemselves with a large mat reaching to the ground. But the widow goesevery day, covered with her mat, to weep at the grave; this she doesboth in the morning and in the afternoon. During this time of mourningthe next of kin may not eat certain succulent foods, such as yams, bananas, and caladium; they eat only the gigantic caladium, bread-fruit, coco-nuts, mallows, and so forth; "and all these they seek in the bushwhere they grow wild, not eating those which have been planted. " Theycount five days after the death and then build up great heaps of stonesover the grave. After that, if the deceased was a very great man, whoowned many gardens and pigs, they count fifty days and then kill pigs, and cut off the point of the liver of each pig; and the brother of thedeceased goes toward the forest and calls out the dead man's name, crying, "This is for you to eat. " They think that if they do not killpigs for the benefit of their departed friend, his ghost has no properexistence, but hangs miserably on tangled creepers. After the sacrificethey all cry again, smear their bodies and faces all over with ashes, and wear cords round their necks for a hundred days in token that theyare not eating good food. [581] They imagine that as soon as the soulquits the body at death, it mounts into a tree where there is a bird'snest fern, and sitting there among the fronds it laughs and mocks at thepeople who are crying and making great lamentations over his desertedtabernacle. "There he sits, wondering at them and ridiculing them. 'Whatare they crying for?' he says; 'whom are they sorry for? Here am I. ' Forthey think that the real thing is the soul, and that it has gone awayfrom the body just as a man throws off his clothes and leaves them, andthe clothes lie by themselves with nothing in them. "[582] This estimateof the comparative value of soul and body is translated from the wordsof a New Hebridean native; it singularly resembles that which issometimes held up to our admiration as one of the finest fruits ofphilosophy and religion. So narrow may be the line that divides themeditations of the savage and the sage. 

When a Maewo ghost has done chuckling at the folly of his survivingrelatives, who sorrow as those who have no hope, he turns his back onhis old home and runs along the line of hills till he comes to a placewhere there are two rocks with a deep ravine between them. He leaps thechasm, and if he lands on the further side, he is dead indeed; but if hefalls short, he returns to life. At the land's end, where the mountainsdescend into the sea, all the ghosts of the dead are gathered to meethim. If in his lifetime he had slain any one by club or arrow, or doneany man to death by magic, he must now run the gauntlet of the angryghosts of his victims, who beat and tear him and stab him with daggerssuch as people stick pigs with; and as they do so, they taunt him, saying, "While you were still in the world you thought yourself avaliant man; but now we will take our revenge on you. " At another pointin the path there is a deep gully, where if a ghost falls he isinevitably dashed to pieces; and if he escapes this peril, there is aferocious pig waiting for him further on, which devours the ghosts ofall persons who in their life on earth omitted to plant pandanus trees, from which mats are made. But the wise man, who planted pandanusbetimes, now reaps the fruit of his labours; for when the pig makes arush at his departed spirit, the ghost nimbly swarms up the pandanustree and so escapes his pursuer. That is why everybody in Maewo likes toplant pandanus trees. And if a man's ears were not pierced in his life, his ghost will not be allowed to drink water; if he was not tattooed, his ghost may not eat good food. A thoughtful father will provide forthe comfort of his children in the other world by building a miniaturehouse for each of them in his garden when the child is a year old; ifthe infant is a boy, he puts a bow, an arrow, and a club in the littlehouse; if the child is a girl, he plants pandanus for her beside thetiny dwelling. [583]

[Sidenote: Only ghosts of powerful men are worshipped. ]

So much for the fate of common ghosts in Central Melanesia. We have nowto consider the position of the more powerful spirits, who after deathare believed to exercise great influence over the living, especiallyover their surviving relations, and who have accordingly to bepropitiated with prayer and sacrifice. This worship of the dead, as wesaw, forms the principal feature in the religion of the SolomonIslanders. "But it must not be supposed, " says Dr. Codrington, "thatevery ghost becomes an object of worship. A man in danger may call uponhis father, his grandfather, or his uncle: his nearness of kin issufficient ground for it. The ghost who is to be worshipped is thespirit of a man who in his lifetime had _mana_ [supernatural or magicalpower] in him; the souls of common men are the common herd of ghosts, nobodies alike before and after death. The supernatural power abiding inthe powerful living man abides in his ghost after death, with increasedvigour and more ease of movement. After his death, therefore, it isexpected that he should begin to work, and some one will come forwardand claim particular acquaintance with the ghost; if his power shouldshew itself, his position is assured as one worthy to be invoked, and toreceive offerings, till his cultus gives way before the risingimportance of one newly dead, and the sacred place where his shrine oncestood and his relics were preserved is the only memorial of him thatremains; if no proof of his activity appears, he sinks into oblivion atonce. "[584]

[Sidenote: Worship paid chiefly to the recent and well-remembered dead. ]

From this instructive account we learn that worship is paid chiefly tothe recent and well-remembered dead, to the men whom the worshippersknew personally and feared or respected in their lifetime. On the otherhand, when men have been long dead, and all who knew them have also beengathered to their fathers, their memory fades away and with it theirworship gradually falls into complete desuetude. Thus the spirits whoreceive the homage of these savages were real men of flesh and blood, not mythical beings conjured up by the fancy of their worshippers, whichsome legerdemain of the mind has foisted into the shrine and encircledwith the halo of divinity. Not that the Melanesians do not also worshipbeings who, so far as we can see, are purely mythical, though theirworshippers firmly believe in their reality. But "they themselves make aclear distinction between the existing, conscious, powerful disembodiedspirits of the dead, and other spiritual beings that never have been menat all. It is true that the two orders of beings get confused in nativelanguage and thought, but their confusion begins at one end and theconfusion of their visitors at another; they think so much andconstantly of ghosts that they speak of beings who were never men asghosts; Europeans take the spirits of the lately dead for gods; lesseducated Europeans call them roundly devils. "[585]

[Sidenote: Way in which a dead warrior came to be worshipped as amartial ghost. ]

As an example of the way in which the ghost of a real man who has justdied may come to be worshipped Dr. Codrington tells us the story ofGanindo, which he had from Bishop Selwyn. This Ganindo was a greatfighting man of Honggo in Florida, one of the Solomon Islands. He wentwith other warriors on a head-hunting expedition against Gaeta; butbeing mortally wounded with an arrow near the collar-bone he was broughtback by his comrades to the hill of Bonipari, where he died and wasburied. His friends cut off his head, put it in a basket, built a housefor it, and said that he was a worshipful ghost (_tindalo_). Afterwardsthey said, "Let us go and take heads. " So they embarked on their canoeand paddled away to seek the heads of enemies. When they came to quietwater, they stopped paddling and waited till they felt the canoe rockunder them, and when they felt it they said, "That is a ghost. " To findout what particular ghost it was they called out the names of several, and when they came to the name of Ganindo, the canoe rocked again. Sothey knew that it was he who was making the canoe to rock. In likemanner they learned what village they were to attack. Returningvictorious with the heads of the foe they threw a spear into the roof ofGanindo's house, blew conch-shells, and danced round it, crying, "Ourghost is strong to kill!" Then they sacrificed fish and other food tohim. Also they built him a new house, and made four images of him forthe four corners, one of Ganindo himself, two of his sisters, andanother. When it was all ready, eight men translated the relics to thenew shrine. One of them carried Ganindo's bones, another his betel-nuts, another his lime-box, another his shell-trumpet. They all went into theshrine crouching down, as if burdened by a heavy weight, and singing inchorus, "Hither, hither, let us lift the leg!" At that the eight legswent up together, and then they sang, "Hither, hither!" and at that theeight legs went down together. In this solemn procession the relics werebrought and laid on a bamboo platform, and sacrifices to the new martialghost were inaugurated. Other warlike ghosts revered in Florida areknown not to have been natives of the island but famous warriors of thewestern isles, where supernatural power is believed to be stronger. [586]

[Sidenote: Offerings to the dead. ]

Throughout the islands of Central Melanesia prayers and offerings areeverywhere made to ghosts or spirits or to both. The simplest andcommonest sacrificial act is that of throwing a small portion of food tothe dead; this is probably a universal practice in Melanesia. A morselof food ready to be eaten, for example of yam, a leaf of mallow, or abit of betel-nut, is thrown aside; and where they drink kava, a libationis made of a few drops, as the share of departed friends or as amemorial of them with which they will be pleased. At the same time theofferer may call out the name of some one who either died lately or isparticularly remembered at the time; or without the special mention ofindividuals he may make the offering generally to the ghosts of formermembers of the community. To set food on a burial-place or before somememorial image is a common practice, though in some places, as in SantaCruz, the offering is soon taken away and eaten by the living. [587]

[Sidenote: Sacrificial ritual in the Solomon Islands. ]

In the Solomon Islands the sacrificial ritual is more highly developed. It may be described in the words of a native of San Cristoval. "In mycountry, " he wrote, "they think that ghosts are many, very many indeed, some very powerful, and some not. There is one who is principal in war;this one is truly mighty and strong. When our people wish to fight withany other place, the chief men of the village and the sacrificers andthe old men, and the elder and younger men, assemble in the place sacredto this ghost; and his name is Harumae. When they are thus assembled tosacrifice, the chief sacrificer goes and takes a pig; and if it be not abarrow pig they would not sacrifice it to that ghost, he would reject itand not eat of it. The pig is killed (it is strangled), not by the chiefsacrificer, but by those whom he chooses to assist, near the sacredplace. Then they cut it up; they take great care of the blood lest itshould fall upon the ground; they bring a bowl and set the pig in it, and when they cut it up the blood runs down into it. When the cutting upis finished, the chief sacrificer takes a bit of flesh from the pig, andhe takes a cocoa-nut shell and dips up some of the blood. Then he takesthe blood and the bit of flesh and enters into the house (the shrine), and calls that ghost and says, 'Harumae! Chief in war! we sacrifice toyou with this pig, that you may help us to smite that place; andwhatsoever we shall carry away shall be your property, and we also willbe yours. ' Then he burns the bit of flesh in a fire upon a stone, andpours down the blood upon the fire. Then the fire blazes greatly upwardsto the roof, and the house is full of the smell of pig, a sign that theghost has heard. But when the sacrificer went in he did not go boldly, but with awe; and this is the sign of it; as he goes into the holy househe puts away his bag, and washes his hands thoroughly, to shew that theghost shall not reject him with disgust. " The pig was afterwards eaten. It should be observed that this Harumae who received sacrifices as amartial ghost, mighty in war, had not been dead many years when theforegoing account of the mode of sacrificing to him was written. Theelder men remembered him alive, nor was he a great warrior, but a kindand generous man, believed to be plentifully endowed with supernaturalpower. His shrine was a small house in the village, where relics of himwere preserved. [588] Had the Melanesians been left to themselves, itseems possible that this Harumae might have developed into the war-godof San Cristoval, just as in Central Africa another man of flesh andblood is known to have developed into the war-god of Uganda. [589]

[Footnote 552: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), pp. 122, 123, 124, 180 _sq. _]

[Footnote 553: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), pp. 247, 253. ]

[Footnote 554: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 248. ]

[Footnote 555: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 255 _sqq_. , 264 _sqq_. ]

[Footnote 556: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ 253 _sq_. ]

[Footnote 557: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 254, 258, 261; compare_id. _, pp. 125, 130. ]

[Footnote 558: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 120, 254. ]

[Footnote 559: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 118 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 560: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 254 _sq. _]

[Footnote 561: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 258 _sq. _]

[Footnote 562: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 255. ]

[Footnote 563: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 259. ]

[Footnote 564: G. Brown, D. D. , _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), pp. 214, 217. ]

[Footnote 565: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 255. ]

[Footnote 566: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 255 _sq. _]

[Footnote 567: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 256 _sq. _]

[Footnote 568: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 260 _sq. _]

[Footnote 569: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 261 _sq. _]

[Footnote 570: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 263 _sq. _]

[Footnote 571: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 257. ]

[Footnote 572: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 264, 273 _sq. _, 275-277. ]

[Footnote 573: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 274 _sq. _]

[Footnote 574: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 266, 276, 277, 286. ]

[Footnote 575: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 267-270. ]

[Footnote 576: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 269. ]

[Footnote 577: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 270 _sq. _]

[Footnote 578: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 275. ]

[Footnote 579: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 271 _sq. _]

[Footnote 580: G. Turner, _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and long before_(London, 1884), pp. 335 _sq. _ This account is based on informationfurnished by Sualo, a Samoan teacher, who lived for a long time on theisland. The statement that the fire kindled on the grave was intended"to enable the soul of the departed to rise to the sun" may be doubted;it may be a mere inference of Dr. Turner's Samoan informant. Moreprobably the fire was intended to warm the shivering ghost. I do notremember any other evidence that the souls of the Melanesian dead ascendto the sun; certainly it is much more usual for them to descend into theearth. ]

[Footnote 581: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 281 _sq. _]

[Footnote 582: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 278 _sq. _]

[Sidenote: Journey of the ghost to the other world. ]

[Footnote 583: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 279 _sq. _]

[Footnote 584: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 124 _sq. _]

[Footnote 585: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 121. ]

[Footnote 586: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 125 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 587: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 127, 128. ]

[Footnote 588: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 129 _sq. _]

[Footnote 589: Rev. J. Roscoe, "Kibuka, the War God of the Baganda, "_Man_, vii. (1907) pp. 161-166; _id. _, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 301 _sqq. _ The history of this African war-god is more or less mythical, but his personal relics, which are now deposited in the EthnologicalMuseum at Cambridge, suffice to prove his true humanity. ]

LECTURE XVII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF CENTRAL MELANESIA(_concluded_)

[Sidenote: Public sacrifices to ghosts in the Solomon Islands. ]

At the close of last lecture I described the mode in which sacrificesare offered to a martial ghost in San Cristoval, one of the SolomonIslands. We saw that the flesh of a pig is burned in honour of the ghostand that the victim's blood is poured on the flames. Similarly inFlorida, another of the Solomon Islands, food is conveyed to worshipfulghosts by being burned in the fire. Some ghosts are known by name toeverybody, others may be known only to individuals, who have found outor been taught how to approach them, and who accordingly regard suchghosts as their private property. In every village a public ghost isworshipped, and the chief is the sacrificer. He has learned from hispredecessor how to throw or heave the sacrifice, and he imparts thisknowledge to his son or nephew, whom he intends to leave as hissuccessor. The place of sacrifice is an enclosure with a little house orshrine in which the relics are kept; it is new or old according as theman whose ghost is worshipped died lately or long ago. When a publicsacrifice is performed, the people assemble near but not in the sacredplace; boys but not women may be present. The sacrificer alone entersthe shrine, but he takes with him his son or other person whom he hasinstructed in the ritual. Muttering an incantation he kindles a fire ofsticks, but may not blow on the holy flame. Then from a basket he takessome prepared food, such as a mash of yams, and throws it on the fire, calling out the name of the ghost and bidding him take his food, whileat the same time he prays for whatever is desired. If the fire blazes upand consumes the food, it is a good sign; it proves that the ghost ispresent and that he is blowing up the flame. The remainder of the foodthe sacrificer takes back to the assembled people; some of it he eatshimself and some of it he gives to his assistant to eat. The peoplereceive their portions of the food at his hands and eat it or take itaway. While the sacrificing is going on, there is a solemn silence. If apig is killed, the portion burned in the sacrificial fire is the heartin Florida, but the gullet at Bugotu. One ghost who is commonly knownand worshipped is called Manoga. When the sacrificer invokes this ghost, he heaves the sacrifice round about and calls him, first to the east, where rises the sun, saying, "If thou dwellest in the east, where risesthe sun, Manoga! come hither and eat thy _tutu_ mash!" Then turning helifts it towards where sets the sun, and says, "If thou dwellest in thewest, where sets the sun, Manoga! come hither and eat thy _tutu_!" Thereis not a quarter to which he does not lift it up. And when he hasfinished lifting it he says, "If thou dwellest in heaven above, Manoga!come hither and eat thy _tutu_! If thou dwellest in the Pleiades orOrion's belt; if below in Turivatu; if in the distant sea; if on high inthe sun, or in the moon; if thou dwellest inland or by the shore, Manoga! come hither and eat thy _tutu_!"[590]

[Sidenote: First-fruits of the canarium nuts sacrificed to ghosts. ]

Twice a year there are general sacrifices in which the people of avillage take part. One of these occasions is when the canarium nut, somuch used in native cookery, is ripe. None of the nuts may be eaten tillthe first-fruits have been offered to the ghost. "Devil he eat first;all man he eat behind, " is the lucid explanation which a native gave toan English enquirer. The knowledge of the way in which the first-fruitsmust be offered is handed down from generation to generation, and theman who is learned in this lore has authority to open the season. Heobserves the state of the crop, and early one morning he is heard toshout. He climbs a tree, picks some nuts, cracks them, eats, and putssome on the stones in his sacred place for the ghost. Then the rest ofthe people may gather the nuts for themselves. The chief himselfsacrifices the new nuts, mixed with other food, to the public ghost onthe stones of the village sanctuary; and every man who has a privateghost of his own does the same in his own sacred place. About two monthsafterwards there is another public sacrifice when the root cropsgenerally have been dug; pig or fish is then offered; and a man who digsup his yams, or whatever it may be, offers his private sacrificebesides. [591]

[Sidenote: Sacrifice of first-fruits to ancestral spirits in Tanna. ]

In like manner the natives of Tanna, one of the Southern New Hebrides, offered the first-fruits to the deified spirits of their ancestors. Onthis subject I will quote the evidence of the veteran missionary, theRev. Dr. George Turner, who lived in Tanna for seven months in 1841. Hesays: "The general name for gods seemed to be _aremha_; that means a_dead man_, and hints alike at the origin and nature of their religiousworship. The spirits of their departed ancestors were among their gods. Chiefs who reach an advanced age were after death deified, addressed byname, and prayed to on various occasions. They were supposed especiallyto preside over the growth of the yams and the different fruit trees. The first-fruits were presented to them, and in doing this they laid alittle of the fruit on some stone, or shelving branch of the tree, orsome more temporary altar of a few rough sticks from the bush, lashedtogether with strips of bark, in the form of a table, with its four feetstuck in the ground. All being quiet, the chief acted as high priest, and prayed aloud thus: 'Compassionate father! here is some food for you;eat it; be kind to us on account of it. ' And, instead of an _amen_, allunited in a shout. This took place about mid-day, and afterwards thosewho were assembled continued together feasting and dancing till midnightor three in the morning. "[592]

[Sidenote: Private ghosts. Fighting ghosts kept as auxiliaries. ]

In addition to the public ghosts, each of whom is revered by a wholevillage, many a man keeps, so to say, a private or tame ghost of his ownon leash. The art of taming a ghost consists in knowing the leaves, bark, and vines in which he delights and in treating him accordingly. This knowledge a man may acquire by the exercise of his naturalfaculties or he may learn it from somebody else. However he may obtainthe knowledge, he uses it for his own personal advantage, sacrificing tothe ghost in order to win his favour and get something from him inreturn. The mode of sacrificing to a private ghost is the same as to apublic ghost. The owner has a sacred place or private chapel of his own, where he draws near to the ghost in prayer and burns his bit of food inthe fire. A man often keeps a fighting ghost (_keramo_), who helps himin battle or in slaying his private enemy. Before he goes out to commithomicide, he pulls up his ginger-plant and judges from the ease ordifficulty with which the plant yields to or resists his tug, whether hewill succeed in the enterprise or not. Then he sacrifices to the ghost, and having placed some ginger and leaves on his shield, and stuffed somemore in his belt and right armlet, he sallies forth. He curses his enemyby his fighting ghost, saying, "Siria (if that should be the name of theghost) eats thee, and I shall slay thee"; and if he kills him, he criesto the ghost, "Thine is this man, Siria, and do thou give mesupernatural power!" No prudent Melanesian would attempt to commitmanslaughter without a ghost as an accomplice; to do so would be tocourt disaster, for the slain man's ghost would have power over theslayer; therefore before he imbrues his hands in blood he deems itdesirable to secure the assistance of a valiant ghost who can, if needbe, overcome the ghost of his victim in single combat. If he cannotprocure such a useful auxiliary in any other way, he must purchase him. Further, he fortifies himself with some personal relic, such as a toothor lock of hair of the deceased warrior, whose ghost he has taken intohis service; this relic he wears as an amulet in a little bag round theneck, when he is on active service; at other times it is kept in thehouse. [593]

[Sidenote: Garden ghosts. ]

Different from these truculent spirits are the peaceful ghosts who causethe garden to bear fruit. If the gardener happens to know such a ghost, he can pray and sacrifice to him on his own account; but if he has nosuch friend in the spirit world, he must employ an expert. The man ofskill goes into the midst of the garden with a little mashed food in hisleft hand, and smiting it with his right hand he calls on the ghost tocome and eat. He says: "This produce thou shall eat; give supernaturalpower (_mana_) to this garden, that food may be good and plentiful. " Hedigs holes at the four corners of the garden, and in them he buries suchleaves as the ghost loves, so that the garden may have ghostly power andbe fruitful. And when the yams sprout, he twines them with theparticular creeper and fastens them with the particular wood to whichthe ghost is known to be partial. These agricultural ghosts are verysensitive; if a man enters the garden, who has just eaten pork or cuscusor fish or shell-fish, the ghost of the garden manifests his displeasureby causing the produce of the garden to droop; but if the eater letsthree or four days go by after his meal, he may then enter the gardenwith impunity, for the food has left his stomach. For a similar reason, apparently, when the yam vines are being trained, the men sleep near thegardens and never approach their wives; for should they tread the gardenafter conjugal intercourse, the yams would be blighted. [594]

[Sidenote: Human sacrifices to ghosts. ]

Sometimes the favour of a ghost is obtained by human sacrifices. Onthese occasions the flesh of the victim does not, like the flesh of apig, furnish the materials of a sacrificial banquet; but little bits ofit are eaten by young men to improve their fighting power and by eldersfor a special purpose. Such sacrifices are deemed more effectual thanthe sacrifices of less precious victims; and advantage was sometimestaken of a real or imputed crime to offer the criminal to some ghost. So, for example, within living memory Dikea, chief of Ravu, convicted acertain man of stealing tobacco, and sentenced him to be sacrificed; andthe grown lads ate pieces of him cooked in the sacrificial fire. Again, the same chief offered another human sacrifice in the year 1886. One ofhis wives had proved false, and he sent her away vowing that she shouldnot return till he had offered a human sacrifice to Hauri. Also his sondied, and he vowed to kill a man for him. The vow was noised abroad, andeverybody knew that he would pay well for somebody to kill. Now the Savopeople had bought a captive boy in Guadalcanar, but it turned out a badbargain, for the boy was lame and nearly blind. So they brought him toDikea, and he gave them twenty coils of shell money for the lad. Thenthe chief laid his hand on the victim's breast and cried, "Hauri! hereis a man for you, " and his followers killed him with axes and clubs. Thecripple's skull was added to the chief's collection, and his legs weresent about the country to make known what had been done. In Bugotu ofYsabel, when the people had slain an enemy in fight, they used to bringback his head in triumph, cut slices off it, and burn them in sacrifice. And if they took a prisoner alive, they would bring him to the sacredplace, the grave of the man whose ghost was to be honoured. There theybound him hand and foot and buffeted him till he died, or if he did notdie under the buffets they cut his throat. As they beat the man withtheir fists, they called on the ghost to take him, and when he was dead, they burned a bit of him in the fire for the ghost. [595]

[Sidenote: Sacrifices to ghosts in Saa. ]

At Saa in Malanta, one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifices are offered toghosts on various occasions. Thus on his return from a voyage a man willput food in the case which contains the relics of his dead father; andin the course of his voyage, if he should land in a desert isle, he willthrow food and call on father, grandfather, and other deceased friends. Again, when sickness is ascribed to the anger of a ghost, a man of skillis sent for to discover what particular ghost is doing the mischief. When he has ascertained the culprit, he is furnished by the patient'srelatives with a little pig, which he is to sacrifice to the ghost as asubstitute for the sick man. Provided with this vicarious victim herepairs to the haunt of the ghost, strangles the animal, and burns itwhole in a fire along with grated yam, coco-nut, and fish. As he doesso, he calls out the names of all the ghosts of his family, hisancestors, and all who are deceased, down even to children and women, and he names the man who furnished the pig for the ghostly repast. Aportion of the mixed food he preserves unburnt, wraps it in a dracaenaleaf, and puts it beside the case which contains the relics of the manto whose ghost the sacrifice has been offered. Sometimes, however, instead of burning a pig in the fire, which is an expensive and wastefulform of sacrifice, the relatives of the sick man content themselves withcooking a pig or a dog in the oven, cutting up the carcase, and layingout all the parts in order. Then the sacrificer comes and sits at theanimal's head, and calls out the names of all the dead members of theghost's family in order downwards, saying, "Help, deliver this man, cutshort the line that has bound him. " Then the pig is eaten by all presentexcept the women; nothing is burnt. [596]

[Sidenote: Sacrifices of first-fruits to ghosts in Saa. ]

The last sort of sacrifices to ghosts at Saa which we need notice is thesacrifice of first-fruits. Thus, when the yams are ripe the people fetchsome of them from each garden to offer to the ghosts. All the malemembers of the family assemble at the holy place which belongs to them. Then one of them enters the shrine, lays a yam beside the skull whichlies there, and cries with a loud voice to the ghost, "This is yours toeat. " The others call quietly on the names of all the ancestors and givetheir yams, which are very many in number, because one from each gardenis given to each ghost. If any man has besides a relic of the dead, suchas a skull, bones, or hair, in his house, he takes home a yam and setsit beside the relic. Again, the first flying-fish of the season aresacrificed to ghosts, who may take the form of sharks; for we shall seepresently that Melanesian ghosts are sometimes supposed to inhabit thebodies of these ferocious monsters. Some ghost-sharks have sacred placesashore, where figures of sharks are set up. In that case the firstflying-fish are cooked and set before the shark images. But it may bethat a shark ghost has no sacred place on land, and then there isnothing for it but to take the flying-fish out to sea and shred theminto the water, while the sacrificer calls out the name of theparticular ghost whom he desires to summon to the feast. [597]

[Sidenote: Vicarious sacrifices for the sick. ]

Vicarious sacrifices for the sick are offered in San Cristoval to acertain malignant ghost called Tapia, who is believed to seize a man'ssoul and tie it up to a banyan tree. When that has happened, a man whoknows how to manage Tapia intercedes with him. He takes a pig or fish tothe sacred place and offers it to the grim ghost, saying, "This is foryou to eat in place of that man; eat this, don't kill him. " With that hecan loose the captive soul and take it back to the sick man, whothereupon recovers. [598]

[Sidenote: Sacrifices to ghosts in Santa Cruz. The dead represented by astock. ]

In Santa Cruz the sacrifices offered to ghosts are very economical; forif the offering is of food, the living eat it up after a decentinterval; if it is a valuable, they remove it and resume the use of itthemselves. The principle of this spiritual economy probably lies in thecommon belief that ghosts, being immaterial, absorb the immaterialessence of the objects, leaving the material substance to be enjoyed bymen. When a man of mark dies in Santa Cruz, his relations set up a stockof wood in his house to represent him. This is renewed from time totime, till after a while the man is forgotten or thrown into the shadeby the attractions of some newer ghost, so that the old stock isneglected. But when the stock is first put up, a pig is killed and twostrips of flesh from the back bone are set before the stock as food forthe ghost, but only to be soon taken away and eaten by the living. Similar offerings may be repeated from time to time, as when the stockis renewed. Again, when a garden is planted, they spread feather-moneyand red native cloth round it for the use of the ghost; but hisenjoyment of these riches is brief and precarious. [599]

[Sidenote: Native account of sacrifices to ghosts in Santa Cruz. ]

To supplement the foregoing account of sacrifices to ghosts in SantaCruz, I will add a description of some of them which was given by anative of Santa Cruz in his own language and translated for us by amissionary. It runs thus: "When anyone begins to fall sick he seeks adoctor (_meduka_), and when the doctor comes near the sick man hestiffens his body, and all those in the house think a ghost has enteredinto the doctor, and they are all very quiet. Some doctors tell the sickman's relatives to kill a pig for the ghost who has caused the sickness. When they have killed the pig they take it into the ghost-house andinvite some other men, and they eat with prayers to the ghost; and thedoctor takes a little piece and puts it near the base of the ghost-post, and says to it: 'This is thy food; oh, deliver up again the spirit ofthy servant, that he may be well again. ' The little portion they haveoffered to the ghost is then eaten; but small boys may not eat ofit. "[600] "Every year the people plant yams and tomagos; and when theybegin to work and have made ready the place and begun to plant, first, they offer to the ghost who they think presides over foods. There is anoffering place in the bush, and they go there and take much food, andalso feather money. Men, women, and children do this, and they think theghost notices if there are many children, and gives much food atharvest; and the ghost to whom they offer is named Ilene. When thebread-fruit begins to bear they take great care lest anyone should lighta fire near the bole of the tree, or throw a stone at the tree. Theghost, who they think protects the bread-fruit, is called Duka-Kane orKae Tuabia, who has two names; they think this ghost has foureyes. "[601] "The heathen thinks a ghost makes the sun to shine and therain. If it is continual sunshine and the yams are withering the peopleassemble together and contribute money, and string it to the man withwhom the rain-ghost abides, and food also, and beseech him not to do thething he was doing. That man will not wash his face for a long time, hewill not work lest he perspire and his body be wet, for he thinks thatif his body be wet it will rain. Then this man, with whom the rain-ghostis, takes water and goes into the ghost-house and sprinkles it at thehead of the ghost-post (_duka_), and if there are many ghost-posts inthe house he pours water over them all that it may rain. "[602]

[Sidenote: Combination of magic with religion. ]

In these ceremonies for the making of rain we see a combination of magicwith religion. The appeal to the rain-ghost is religious; but thepouring of the water on the ghost-post is magical, being an imitation ofthe result which the officiating priest or magician, whichever we chooseto call him, desires to produce. The taboos observed by the owner of therain-ghost so long as he wishes to prevent the rain from falling arealso based on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic: heabstains from washing his face or working, lest the water or the sweattrickling down his body should mimick rain and thereby cause it tofall. [603]

[Sidenote: Prayers to the dead. ]

The natives of Aneiteum, one of the Southern New Hebrides, worshippedthe spirits of their ancestors, chiefly on occasions of sickness. [604]Again, the people of Vaté or Efat, another of the New Hebrides, worshipped the souls of their forefathers and prayed to them over the_kava_-bowl for health and prosperity. [605] As an example of prayersoffered to the dead we may take the petition which the natives ofFlorida put up at sea to Daula, a well-known ghost, who is associatedwith the frigate-bird. They say: "Do thou draw the canoe, that it mayreach the land; speed my canoe, grandfather, that I may quickly reachthe shore whither I am bound. Do thou, Daula, lighten the canoe, that itmay quickly gain the land and rise upon the shore. " They also invokeDaula to help them in fishing. "If thou art powerful, O Daula, " theysay, "put a fish or two into this net and let them die there. " After agood catch they praise him, saying, "Powerful is the ghost of the net. "And when the natives of Florida are in danger on the sea, they call upontheir immediate forefathers; one will call on his grandfather, anotheron his father, another on some dead friend, calling with reverence andsaying, "Save us on the deep! Save us from the tempest! Bring us to theshore!" In San Cristoval people apply to ghosts for victory in battle, health in sickness, and good crops; but the word which they use tosignify such an application conveys the notion of charm rather than ofprayer. However, in the Banks' Islands what may be called prayer isstrictly speaking an invocation of the dead; indeed the very word forprayer (_tataro_) seems to be identical with that for a powerful ghost(_'ataro_ in San Cristoval). A man in peril on the sea will call on hisdead friends, especially on one who was in his lifetime a good sailor. And in Mota, when an oven is opened, they throw in a leaf of cookedmallow for a ghost, saying to him, "This is a lucky bit for your eating;they who have charmed your food or clubbed you (as the case may be), take hold of their hands, drag them away to hell, let them be dead. " Sowhen they pour water on the oven, they pray to the ghost, saying, "Pourit on the head of him down there who has laid plots against me, hasclubbed me, has shot me, has stolen things of mine (as the case may be), he shall die. " Again, when they make a libation before drinking, theypray, saying, "Grandfather! this is your lucky drop of kava; let boarscome in to me; the money I have spent, let it come back to me; the foodthat is gone, let it come back hither to the house of you and me. " Andon starting for a voyage they will say, "Uncle! father! plenty of boarsfor you, plenty of money; kava for your drinking, lucky food for youreating in the canoe. I pray you with this, look down upon me, let me goon a safe sea. " Or when the canoe labours with a heavy freight, theywill pray, "Take off your burden from us, that we may speed on a safesea. "[606]

[Sidenote: Sanctuaries of ghosts in Florida. ]

In the island of Florida, the sanctuary of a powerful ghost is called a_vunuhu_. Sometimes it is in the village, sometimes in thegarden-ground, sometimes in the forest. If it is in the village, it isfenced about, lest the foot of any rash intruder should infringe itssanctity. Sometimes the sanctuary is the place where the dead man isburied; sometimes it merely contains his relics, which have beentranslated thither. In some sanctuaries there is a shrine and in some animage. Generally, if not always, stones may be seen lying in such a holyplace. The sight of one of them has probably struck the fancy of the manwho founded the worship; he thought it a likely place for the ghost tohaunt, and other smaller stones and shells have been subsequently added. Once a sanctuary has been established, everything within it becomessacred (_tambu_) and belongs to the ghost. Were a tree growing within itto fall across the path, nobody would step over it. When a sacrifice isto be offered to the ghost on the holy ground, the man who knows theghost, and whose duty it is to perform the sacrifice, enters first andall who attend him follow, treading in his footsteps. In going out noone will look back, lest his soul should stay behind. No one would passsuch a sanctuary when the sun was so low as to cast his shadow into it;for if he did the ghost would seize his shadow and so drag the manhimself into his den. If there were a shrine in the sanctuary, nobodybut the sacrificer might enter it. Such a shrine contained the weaponsand other properties which belonged in his lifetime to the man whoseghost was worshipped on the spot. [607]

[Sidenote: Sanctuaries of ghosts in Malanta. ]

At Saa in Malanta, another of the Solomon Islands, all burial-groundswhere common people are interred are so far sacred that no one will gothere without due cause; but places where the remains of nobles repose, and where sacrifices are offered to their ghosts, are regarded with verygreat respect, they may indeed be called family sanctuaries. Some ofthem are very old, the powerful ghosts who are worshipped in them beingremote ancestors. It sometimes happens that the man who used tosacrifice in such a place dies without having instructed his son in theproper chant of invocation with which the worshipful ghost should beapproached. In such a case the young man who succeeds him may fear to goto the old sanctuary, lest he should commit a mistake and offend theghost; so he will take some ashes from the old sacrificial fire-placeand found a new sanctuary. It is not common in that part of Malanta tobuild shrines for the relics of the dead, but it is sometimes done. Suchshrines, on the other hand, are common in the villages of San Cristovaland in the sacred places of that island where great men lie buried. Totrespass on them would be likely to rouse the anger of the ghosts, someof whom are known to be of a malignant disposition. [608]

[Sidenote: Sanctuaries which are not burial-grounds. ]

But burial-grounds are not the only sanctuaries in the Solomon Islands. There are some where no dead man is known to be interred, though in Dr. Codrington's opinion there are probably none which do not derive theirsanctity from the presence of a ghost. In the island of Florida theappearance of something wonderful will cause any place to become asanctuary, the wonder being accepted as proof of a ghostly presence. Forexample, in the forest near Olevuga a man planted some coco-nut andalmond trees and died not long afterwards. Then there appeared among thetrees a great rarity in the shape of a white cuscus. The people took itfor granted that the animal was the dead man's ghost, and therefore theycalled it by his name. The place became a sanctuary; no one would gatherthe coco-nuts and almonds that grew there, till two Christian convertsset the ghost at defiance and appropriated his garden, with thecoco-nuts and almonds. Through the same part of the forest ran a streamfull of eels, one of which was so big that the people were quite sure itmust be a ghost; so nobody would bathe in that stream or drink from it, except at one pool, which for the sake of convenience was considered notto be sacred. Again, in Bugotu, a district of Ysabel, which is anotherof the Solomon Islands, there is a pool known to be the haunt of a veryold ghost. When a man has an enemy whom he wishes to harm he will obtainsome scraps of his food and throw them into the water. If the food is atonce devoured by the fish, which swarm in the pool, the man will die, but otherwise his life may be saved by the intervention of a man whoknows the habits of the ghost and how to propitiate him. In these sacredplaces there are stones, on which people place food in order to obtaingood crops, while for success in fishing they deposit morsels of cookedfish. Such stones are treated with reverence and seem to be in a fairway to develop into altars. However, when the old ghost is superseded, as he often is, by younger rivals, the development of an altar out ofthe stones is arrested. [609]

[Sidenote: Ghosts in animals, such as sharks, alligators, snakes, bonitos, and frigate-birds. ]

From some of these instances we learn that Melanesian ghosts cansometimes take up their abode in animals, such as cuscuses, eels, andfish. The creatures which are oftenest used as vehicles by the spiritsof the dead are sharks, alligators, snakes, bonitos, and frigate-birds. Snakes which haunt a sacred place are themselves sacred, because theybelong to or actually embody the ghost. Sharks, again, in all theseislands are very often thought to be the abode of ghosts; for men beforetheir death will announce that they will appear as sharks, andafterwards any shark remarkable for size or colour which haunts acertain shore or coast is taken to be somebody's ghost and receives thename of the deceased. At Saa certain food, such as coco-nuts fromparticular trees, is reserved to feed such a ghost-shark; and men ofwhom it is known for certain that they will be sharks after their deathare allowed to anticipate the posthumous honours which await them bydevouring such food in the sacred place, just as if they were realsharks. Sharks are very commonly believed to be the abode of ghosts inFlorida and Ysabel, and in Savo, where they are particularly numerous;hence, though all sharks are not venerated, there is no living creatureso commonly held sacred by the Central Melanesians as a shark; andshark-ghosts seem even to form a class of powerful supernatural beings. Again, when a lizard was seen frequenting a house after a death, itwould be taken for the ghost returning to its old home; and many ghosts, powerful to aid the mariner at sea, take up their quarters infrigate-birds. [610]

[Sidenote: The belief in ghosts underlies the Melanesian conception ofmagic. ]

Again, a belief in powerful ghosts underlies to a great extent theMelanesian conception of magic, as that conception is expounded by Dr. Codrington. "That invisible power, " he tells us, "which is believed bythe natives to cause all such effects as transcend their conception ofthe regular course of nature, and to reside in spiritual beings, whetherin the spiritual part of living men or in the ghosts of the dead, beingimparted by them to their names and to various things that belong tothem, such as stones, snakes, and indeed objects of all sorts, is thatgenerally known as _mana_. Without some understanding of this it isimpossible to understand the religious beliefs and practices of theMelanesians; and this again is the active force in all they do andbelieve to be done in magic, white or black. By means of this men areable to control or direct the forces of nature, to make rain orsunshine, wind or calm, to cause sickness or remove it, to know what isfar off in time and space, to bring good luck and prosperity, or toblast and curse. No man, however, has this power of his own; all that hedoes is done by the aid of personal beings, ghosts or spirits. "[611]

[Sidenote: Illness generally thought to be caused by ghosts. ]

Thus, to begin with the medical profession, which is a branch of magiclong before it becomes a department of science, every serious sicknessis believed to be brought about by ghosts or spirits, but generally itis to the ghosts of the dead that illness is ascribed both by theEastern and by the Western islanders. Hence recourse is had to ghostsfor aid both in causing and in curing sickness. They are thought toinflict disease, not only because some offence, such as trespass, hasbeen committed against them, or because one who knows their ways hasinstigated them thereto by sacrifice and spells, but because there is acertain malignity in the feeling of all ghosts towards the living, whooffend them simply by being alive. All human faculties, apart from themere bodily functions, are supposed to be enhanced by death; hence theghost of a powerful and ill-natured man is only too ready to takeadvantage of his increased powers for mischief. [612] Thus in the islandof Florida illness is regularly laid at the door of a ghost; the onlyquestion that can arise is which particular ghost is doing the mischief. Sometimes the patient imagines that he has offended his dead father, uncle, or brother, who accordingly takes his revenge by stretching himon a bed of sickness. In that case no special intercessor is required;the patient himself or one of his kinsfolk will sacrifice and beg theghost to take the sickness away; it is purely a family affair. Sometimesthe sick man thinks that it is his own private or tame ghost who isafflicting him; so he will leave the house in order to escape histormentor. But if the cause of sickness remains obscure, a professionaldoctor or medicine-man will be consulted. He always knows, or at leastcan ascertain, the ghost who is causing all the trouble, and he takeshis measures accordingly. Thus he will bind on the sick man the kind ofleaves that the ghost loves; he will chew ginger and blow it into thepatient's ears and on that part of the skull which is soft in infants;he will call on the name of the ghost and entreat him to remove thesickness. Should all these remedies prove vain, the doctor is by nomeans at the end of his resources. He may shrewdly suspect thatsomebody, who has an ill-will at the patient, has set his private ghostto maul the sick man and do him a grievous bodily injury. If hissuspicions are confirmed and he discovers the malicious man who isegging on the mischievous ghost, he will bribe him to call off hisghost; and if the man refuses, the doctor will hire another ghost toassault and batter the original assailant. At Wango in San Cristovalregular battles used to be fought by the invisible champions above thesickbed of the sufferer, whose life or death depended on the issue ofthe combat. Their weapons were spears, and sometimes more than one ghostwould be engaged on either side. [613]

[Sidenote: Diagnosis of ghosts who have caused illness. ]

In Ysabel the doctor employs an ingenious apparatus for discovering thecause of sickness and ascertaining its cure. He suspends a stone at oneend of a string while he holds the other end in his hand. Then herecites the names of all the people who died lately, and when the stoneswings at anybody's name, he knows that the ghost of that man has causedthe illness. It remains to find out what the ghost will take to relaxhis clutch on the sick man, it may be a mash of yams, a fish, a pig, orperhaps a human substitute. The question is put and answered as before;and whatever the oracle declares to be requisite is offered on the deadman's grave. Thus the ghost is appeased and the sufferer is madewhole. [614] In these islands a common cause of illness is believed to bean unwarrantable intrusion on premises occupied by a ghost, who punishesthe trespasser by afflicting him with bodily pains and ailments, or itmay be by carrying off his soul. At Maewo in Aurora, one of the NewHebrides, when there is reason to think that a sickness is due toghostly agency, the friends of the sick man send for a professionaldreamer, whose business it is to ascertain what particular ghost hasbeen offended and to make it up with him. So the dreamer falls asleepand in his sleep he dreams a dream. He seems to himself to be in theplace where the patient was working before his illness; and there hespies a queer little old man, who is really no other than the ghost. Thedreamer falls into conversation with him, learns his name, and winninghis confidence extracts from him a true account of the whole affair. Thefact is that in working at his garden the man encroached, whetherwittingly or not is no matter, on land which the ghost regards as hisprivate preserve; and to punish the intrusion the ghost carried off theintruder's soul and impounded it in a magic fence in his garden, whereit still languishes in durance vile. The dreamer at once tenders a frankand manly apology on behalf of his client; he assures the ghost that thetrespass was purely inadvertent, that no personal disrespect whateverwas intended, and he concludes by requesting the ghost to overlook theoffence for this time and to release the imprisoned soul. This appeal tothe better feelings of the ghost has its effect; he pulls up the fenceand lets the soul out of the pound; it flies back to the sick man, whothereupon recovers. Sometimes an orphan child is made sick by its deadmother, whose ghost draws away the soul of the infant to keep hercompany in the spirit land. In such a case, again, a dreamer is employedto bring back the lost soul from the far country; and if he can persuadethe mother's ghost to relinquish the tiny soul of her baby, the childwill be made whole. [615] Once more certain long stones in the Banks'Islands are inhabited by ghosts so active and robust that if a man'sshadow so much as falls on one of them, the ghost in the stone willclutch the shadow and pull the soul clean out of the man, who diesaccordingly. Such stones, dangerous as they unquestionably are to thechance passer-by, nevertheless for that very reason possess a valuableproperty which can be turned to excellent account. A man, for example, will put one of these stones in his house to guard it like a watch-dogin his absence; and if he sends a friend to fetch something out of itwhich he has forgotten, the messenger, on approaching the house, willtake good care to call out the owner's name, lest the ghost in thestone, mistaking him for a thief and a robber, should pounce out on himand do him a mischief before he had time to explain. [616]

[Sidenote: Contrast between Melanesian and European medicine. ]

Thus it appears that for a medical practitioner in Melanesia the firstrequisite is an intimate acquaintance, not with the anatomy of the humanframe and the properties of drugs, but with ghosts, their personalpeculiarities, habits, and haunts. Only by means of the influence whichsuch a knowledge enables him to exert on these powerful and dangerousbeings can the good physician mitigate and assuage the sufferings ofpoor humanity. His professional skill, while it certainly aims at thealleviation of physical evils, attains its object chiefly, if notexclusively, by a direct appeal to those higher, though invisible, powers which encompass the life of man, or at all events of theMelanesian. The firm faith in the spiritual and the unseen which thesesable doctors display in their treatment of the sick presents a strikingcontrast to the procedure of their European colleagues, who trustexclusively to the use of mere physical remedies, such as drugs andlancets, now carving the body of the sufferer with knives, and nowinserting substances, about which they know little, into places aboutwhich they know nothing. Has not science falsely so called still much tolearn from savagery?

[Sidenote: The weather believed to be regulated by ghosts and spirits. Weather-doctors. ]

But it is not the departments of medicine and surgery alone, importantas these are to human welfare, which in Melanesia are directed andcontrolled by spiritual forces. The weather in those regions is alsoregulated by ghosts and spirits. It is they who cause the wind to blowor to be still, the sun to shine forth or to be overcast with clouds, the rain to descend or the earth to be parched with drought; hencefertility and abundance or dearth and famine prevail alternately at thewill of these spiritual directors. From this it follows that men whostand on a footing of intimacy with ghosts and spirits can by judiciousmanagement induce them to adapt the weather to the varying needs ofmankind. But it is to be observed that the supernatural beings, who arethe real sources of atmospheric phenomena, have delegated or deputed aportion of their powers not merely to certain material objects, such asstones or leaves, but to certain set forms of words, which men callincantations or spells; and accordingly all such objects and formulasdo, by virtue of this delegation, possess in themselves a real and wemay almost say natural influence over the weather, which is oftenmanifested in a striking congruity or harmony between the thingsthemselves and the effects which they are calculated to produce. Thisadaptation of means to end in nature may perhaps be regarded as abeautiful proof of the existence of spirits and ghosts working theirpurposes unseen behind the gaily coloured screen or curtain of thephysical universe. At all events men who are acquainted with the ghostlyproperties of material objects and words can turn them to account forthe benefit of their friends and the confusion of their foes, and theydo so very readily if only it is made worth their while. Hence it comesabout that in these islands there are everywhere weather-doctors orweather-mongers, who through their familiarity with ghosts and spiritsand their acquaintance with the ghostly or spiritual properties ofthings, are able to control the weather and to supply their customerswith wind or calm, rain or sunshine, famine or abundance, at areasonable rate and a moderate figure. [617] The advantages of such asystem over our own blundering method of managing the weather, or ratherof leaving it to its own devices, are too obvious to be insisted on. Totake a few examples. In the island of Florida, when a calm is wanted, the weather-doctor takes a bunch of leaves, of the sort which the ghostloves, and hides the bunch in the hollow of a tree where there is water, at the same time invoking the ghost with the proper charm. Thisnaturally produces rain and with the rain a calm. In the seafaring lifeof the Solomon Islanders the maker of calms is a really valuablecitizen. [618] The Santa Cruz people are also great voyagers, and theirwizards control the weather on their expeditions, taking with them thestock or log which represents their private or tame ghost and setting itup on a stage in the cabin. The presence of the familiar ghost beingthus secured, the weather-doctor will undertake to provide wind or calmaccording to circumstances. [619] We have already seen how in theseislands the wizard makes rain by pouring water on the wooden posts whichrepresent the rain-ghosts. [620]

[Sidenote: Black magic working through personal refuse or rubbish of thevictim. ]

Such exercises of ghostly power for the healing of the sick and theimprovement of the weather are, when well directed and efficacious, wholly beneficial. But ghostly power is a two-edged weapon which canwork evil as well as good to mankind. In fact it can serve the purposeof witchcraft. The commonest application of this pernicious art is onewhich is very familiar to witches and sorcerers in many parts of theworld. The first thing the wizard does is to obtain a fragment of food, a bit of hair, a nail-clipping, or indeed anything that has been closelyconnected with the person of his intended victim. This is the mediumthrough which the power of the ghost or spirit is brought to bear; itis, so to say, the point of support on which the magician rests thewhole weight of his infernal engine. In order to give effect to thecharm it is very desirable, if not absolutely necessary, to possess somepersonal relic, such as a bone, of the dead man whose ghost is to setthe machinery in motion. At all events the essential thing is to bringtogether the man who is to be injured and the ghost or spirit who is toinjure him; and this can be done most readily by placing the personalrelics or refuse of the two men, the living and the dead, in contactwith each other; for thus the magic circuit, if we may say so, iscomplete, and the fatal current flows from the dead to the living. Thatis why it is most dangerous to leave any personal refuse or rubbishlying about; you never can tell but that some sorcerer may get hold ofit and work your ruin by means of it. Hence the people are naturallymost careful to hide or destroy all such refuse in order to prevent itfrom falling into the hands of witches and wizards; and this sageprecaution has led to habits of cleanliness which the superficialEuropean is apt to mistake for what he calls enlightened sanitation, butwhich a deeper knowledge of native thought would reveal to him in theirtrue character as far-seeing measures designed to defeat the nefariousart of the sorcerer. [621]

[Sidenote: Black magic working without any personal relic of the victim. The ghost-shooter. ]

Unfortunately, however, an adept in the black art can work his fellpurpose even without any personal relic of his victim. In the Banks'Islands, for example, he need only procure a bit of human bone or afragment of some lethal weapon, it may be a splinter of a club or a chipof an arrow, which has killed somebody. This he wraps up in the properleaves, recites over it the appropriate charm, and plants it secretly inthe path along which his intended victim is expected to pass. The ghostof the man who owned the bone in his life or perished by the club or thearrow, is now lurking like a lion in the path; and if the poor fellowstrolls along it thinking no evil, the ghost will spring at him andstrike him with disease. The charm is perfectly efficient if the mandoes come along the path, but clearly it misses fire if he does not. Toremedy this defect in the apparatus a sorcerer sometimes has recourse toa portable instrument, a sort of pocket pistol, which in the Banks'Islands is known as a ghost-shooter. It is a bamboo tube, loaded notwith powder and shot, but with a dead man's bone and other magicalingredients, over which the necessary spell has been crooned. Armed withthis deadly weapon the sorcerer has only to step up to his unsuspectingenemy, whip out the pocket pistol, uncork the muzzle by removing histhumb from the orifice, and present it at the victim; the fataldischarge follows in an instant and the man drops to the ground. Theghost in the pistol has done his work. Sometimes, however, an accidenthappens. The marksman misses his victim and hits somebody else. Thisoccurred, for example, not very many years ago in the island of Mota. Aman named Isvitag was waiting with his ghost-shooter to pop at hisenemy, but in his nervous excitement he let fly too soon, just as awoman with a child on her hip stepped across the path. The shot, orrather the ghost, hit the child point-blank, and it was his sister'schild, his own next of kin! You may imagine the distress of theaffectionate uncle at this deplorable miscarriage. To preventinflammation of the wound he, with great presence of mind, plunged hispocket pistol in water, and this timely remedy proved so efficaciousthat the child took no hurt. [622]

[Sidenote: Prophecy inspired by ghosts. ]

Another department of Melanesian life in which ghosts figure veryprominently is prophecy. The knowledge of future events is believed tobe conveyed to the people by a ghost or spirit speaking with the voiceof a man, who is himself unconscious while he speaks. The predictionswhich emanate from the prophet under these circumstances are in thestrictest sense inspired. His human personality is for the time being inabeyance, and he is merely the mouthpiece of the powerful spirit whichhas temporarily taken possession of his body and speaks with his voice. The possession is indeed painfully manifest. His eyes glare, foam burstsfrom his mouth, his limbs writhe, his whole body is convulsed. These arethe workings of the mighty spirit shaking and threatening to rend thefrail tabernacle of flesh. This form of inspiration is not clearlydistinguishable from what we call madness; indeed the natives do notattempt to distinguish between the two things; they regard the madmanand the prophet as both alike inspired by a ghost or spirit, and a manwill sometimes pretend to be mad in order that he may get the reputationof being a prophet. At Saa a man will speak with the voice of a powerfulman deceased, while he twists and writhes under the influence of theghost; he calls himself by the name of the deceased who speaks throughhim, and he is so addressed by others; he will eat fire, lift enormousweights, and foretells things to come. When the inspiration, orinsanity, is particularly violent, and the Banks' Islanders think theyhave had quite enough of it, the friends of the prophet or of the madmanwill sometimes catch him and hold him struggling and roaring in thesmoke of strong-smelling leaves, while they call out the names of thedead men whose ghosts are most likely to be abroad at the time, for assoon as the right name is mentioned the ghost departs from the man, whothen returns to his sober senses. But this method of smoking out a ghostis not always successful. [623]

[Sidenote: Divination by means of ghosts. ]

There are many methods by which ghosts and spirits are believed to makeknown to men who employ them the secret things which the unassistedhuman intelligence could not discover; and some of them hardly perhapsneed the intervention of a professional wizard. These methods ofdivination differ very little in the various islands. In the SolomonIslands, for instance, when an expedition has started in a fleet ofcanoes, there is sometimes a hesitation whether they shall proceed, or adoubt as to what direction they should take. Thereupon a diviner maydeclare that he has felt a ghost step on board; for did not the canoetip over to the one side? Accordingly he asks the invisible passenger, "Shall we go on? Shall we go to such and such a place?" If the canoerocks, the answer is yes; if it lies on an even keel, the answer is no. Again, when a man is sick and his friends wish to know what ghost isvexing or, as they say, eating him, a diviner or wizard is sent for. Hecomes bringing an assistant, and the two sit down, the wizard in frontand the assistant at his back, and they hold a stick or bamboo by thetwo ends. The wizard then begins to slap the end of the bamboo he holds, calling out one after another the names of men not very long deceased, and when he names the one who is afflicting the sick man the stick ofitself becomes violently agitated. [624] We are not informed, but we mayprobably assume, that it is the ghost and not the man who reallyagitates the stick. A somewhat different mode of divination wasoccasionally employed at Motlav in the Banks' Islands in order todiscover a thief or other criminal. After a burial they would take abag, put some Tahitian chestnut and scraped banana into it, and tie itto the end of a hollow bamboo tube about ten feet long in such a waythat the end of the tube was inserted in the mouth of the bag. Then thebag was laid on the dead man's grave, and the diviners grasped the otherend of the bamboo. The names of the recently dead were then called over, and while this was being done the men felt the bamboo grow heavy intheir hands, for a ghost was scrambling up from the bag into the hollowof the bamboo. Having thus secured him they carried the imprisoned ghostin the bamboo into the village, where the roll of the recent dead wasagain called over in order to learn whose ghost had been caught in thetrap. When wrong names were mentioned, the free end of the bamboo movedfrom side to side, but at the mention of the right name it revolvedbriskly. Having thus ascertained whom they had to deal with, theyquestioned the entrapped ghost, "Who stole so and so? Who was guilty insuch a case?" Thereupon the bamboo, moved no doubt by the ghost inside, pointed at the culprit, if he was present, or made signs as before whenthe names of the suspected evildoers were mentioned. [625]

[Sidenote: Taboo based on a fear of ghosts. ]

Of the many departments of Central Melanesian life which are permeatedby a belief in ghostly power the last which I shall mention is theinstitution of taboo. In Melanesia, indeed, the institution is not soconspicuous as it used to be in Polynesia; yet even there it has been apowerful instrument in the consolidation of the rights of privateproperty, and as such it deserves the attention of historians who seekto trace the evolution of law and morality. As understood in the Banks'Islands and the New Hebrides the word taboo (_tambu_ or _tapu_)signifies a sacred and unapproachable character which is imposed oncertain things by the arbitrary will of a chief or other powerful man. Somebody whose authority with the people gives him confidence to makethe announcement will declare that such and such an object may not betouched, that such and such a place may not be approached, and that suchand such an action may not be performed under a certain penalty, whichin the last resort will be inflicted by ghostly or spiritual agency. Theobject, place, or action in question becomes accordingly taboo orsacred. Hence in these islands taboo may be defined as a prohibitionwith a curse expressed or implied. The sanction or power at the back ofthe taboo is not that of the man who imposes it; rather it is that ofthe ghost or spirit in whose name or in reliance upon whom the taboo isimposed. Thus in Florida a chief will forbid something to be done ortouched under a penalty; he may proclaim, for example, that any one whoviolates his prohibition must pay him a hundred strings of shell money. To a European such a proclamation seems a proof of the chief's power;but to the native the chiefs power, in this and in everything, rests onthe persuasion that the chief has his mighty ghost at his back. Thesense of this in the particular case is indeed remote, the fear of thechiefs anger is present and effective, but the ultimate sanction is thepower of the ghost. If a common man were to take upon himself to tabooanything he might do so; people would imagine that he would not dare tomake such an announcement unless he knew he could enforce it; so theywould watch, and if anybody violated the taboo and fell sick afterwards, they would conclude that the taboo was supported by a powerful ghost whopunished infractions of it. Hence the reputation and authority of theman who imposed the taboo would rise accordingly; for it would be seenthat he had a powerful ghost at his back. Every ghost has a particularkind of leaf for his badge; and in imposing his taboo a man will set theleaf of his private ghost as a mark to warn trespassers of the spiritualpower with which they have to reckon; when people see a leaf stuck, itmay be, on a tree, a house, or a canoe, they do not always know whose itis; but they do know that if they disregard the mark they have to dealwith a ghost and not with a man, [626] and the knowledge is a moreeffectual check on thieving and other crimes than the dread of merehuman justice. Many a rascal fears a ghost who does not fear the face ofman. 

[Sidenote: The life of the Central Melanesians deeply influenced bytheir belief in the survival of the human soul after death. ]

What I have said may suffice to impress you with a sense of the deeppractical influence which a belief in the survival of the human soulafter death exercises on the life and conduct of the Central Melanesiansavage. To him the belief is no mere abstract theological dogma orspeculative tenet, the occasional theme of edifying homilies and piousmeditation; it is an inbred, unquestioning, omnipresent conviction whichaffects his thoughts and actions daily and at every turn; it guides hisfortunes as an individual and controls his behaviour as a member of acommunity, by inculcating a respect for the rights of others andenforcing a submission to the public authorities. With him the fear ofghosts and spirits is a bulwark of morality and a bond of society; forhe firmly believes in their unseen presence everywhere and in thepunishments which they can inflict on wrongdoers. His whole theory ofcausation differs fundamentally from ours and necessarily begets afundamental difference of practice. Where we see natural forces andmaterial substances, the Melanesian sees ghosts and spirits. A greatgulf divides his conception of the world from ours; and it may bedoubted whether education will ever enable him to pass the gulf and tothink and act like us. The products of an evolution which has extendedover many ages cannot be forced like mushrooms in a summer day; it isvain to pluck the fruit of the tree of knowledge before it is ripe. 

[Footnote 590: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 130-132. ]

[Footnote 591: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 132 _sq. _; C. M. Woodford, _A Naturalist among the Head-hunters_ (London, 1890), pp. 26-28. ]

[Footnote 592: G. Turner, LL. D. , _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and longbefore_ (London, 1884), pp. 318 _sq. _ Yams are the principal fruitscultivated by the Tannese, who bestow a great deal of labour on theplantation and keep them in fine order. See G. Turner, _op. Cit. _ pp. 317 _sq. _]

[Footnote 593: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 133 _sq. _]

[Footnote 594: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 134. ]

[Footnote 595: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 135 _sq. _]

[Footnote 596: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 137 _sq. _]

[Footnote 597: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 138. ]

[Footnote 598: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 138 _sq. _]

[Footnote 599: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 139. ]

[Footnote 600: "Native Stories of Santa Cruz and Reef Islands, "translated by the Rev. W. O'Ferrall, _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, xxxiv. (1904) p. 223. ]

[Footnote 601: "Native Stories from Santa Cruz and Reef Islands, " _op. Cit. _ p. 224. ]

[Footnote 602: "Native Stories from Santa Cruz and Reef Islands, " _op. Cit. _ p. 225. ]

[Footnote 603: Compare _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 269 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 604: G. Turner, _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and long before_(London, 1884), p. 326. ]

[Footnote 605: G. Turner, _op. Cit. _ p. 334. ]

[Footnote 606: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 145-148. ]

[Footnote 607: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 175 _sq. _]

[Footnote 608: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 176 _sq. _]

[Footnote 609: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ pp. 177 _sq. _]

[Footnote 610: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 178-180. ]

[Footnote 611: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 191. ]

[Footnote 612: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 194. ]

[Footnote 613: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 194-196. ]

[Footnote 614: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 196. ]

[Footnote 615: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 208 _sq. _ As tosickness supposed to be caused by trespass on the premises of a ghostsee further _id. _, pp. 194, 195, 218. ]

[Footnote 616: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 184. ]

[Footnote 617: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 200. ]

[Footnote 618: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 200, 201. Thespirit whom the Florida wizard appeals to for good or bad weather iscalled a _vigona_; and the natives believe it to be always the ghost ofa dead man. But it seems very doubtful whether this opinion is strictlycorrect. See R. H. Codrington, _op cit. _ pp. 124, 134. ]

[Footnote 619: R. H. Codrington, _op. Cit. _ p. 201. The Santa Cruz namefor such a ghost is _duka_ (_ibid. _ p. 139). ]

[Footnote 620: Above, p. 375. ]

[Footnote 621: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 202-204. ]

[Footnote 622: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 205 _sq. _]

[Footnote 623: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 209 _sq. _, 218-220. ]

[Footnote 624: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 210. ]

[Footnote 625: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 211 _sq. _]

[Footnote 626: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 215 _sq. _]

LECTURE XVIII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF NORTHERN AND EASTERNMELANESIA

[Sidenote: Northern Melanesia. Material culture of the NorthMelanesians. ]

In the last lecture I concluded my account of the belief in immortalityand the worship of the dead among the natives of Central Melanesia. To-day we pass to what may be called Northern Melanesia, by which is tobe understood the great archipelago lying to the north-east of NewGuinea. It comprises the two large islands of New Britain and NewIreland, now called New Pomerania and New Mecklenburg, with the muchsmaller Duke of York Island lying between them, and the chain of NewHanover and the Admiralty Islands stretching away westward from thenorth-western extremity of New Ireland. The whole of the archipelago, together with the adjoining island of Bougainville in the SolomonIslands, is now under German rule. The people belong to the same stockand speak the same language as the natives of Central and SouthernMelanesia, and their level of culture is approximately the same. Theylive in settled villages and subsist chiefly by the cultivation of theground, raising crops of taro, yams, bananas, sugar-cane, and so forth. Most of the agricultural labour is performed by the women, who plant, weed the ground, and carry the produce to the villages. The ground is, or rather used to be, dug by sharp-pointed sticks. The men huntcassowaries, wallabies, and wild pigs, and they catch fish by both netsand traps. Women and children take part in the fishing and many of thembecome very expert in spearing fish. Among the few domestic animalswhich they keep are pigs, dogs, and fowls. The villages are generallysituated in the midst of a dense forest; but on the coast the nativesbuild their houses not far from the beach as a precaution against theattacks of the forest tribes, of whom they stand greatly in fear. A NewBritain village generally consists of a number of small communities orfamilies, each of which dwells in a separate enclosure. The houses arevery small and badly built, oblong in shape and very low. Between theseparate hamlets which together compose a village lie stretches ofvirgin forest, through which run irregular and often muddy foot-tracks, scooped out here and there into mud-holes where the pigs love to wallowduring the heat of the tropical day. As the people of any one districtused generally to be at war with their neighbours, it was necessary thatthey should live together for the sake of mutual protection. [627]

[Sidenote: Commercial habits of the North Melanesians. Theirbackwardness in other respects. ]

Nevertheless, in spite of their limited intercourse with surroundingvillages, the natives of the New Britain or the Bismarck Archipelagowere essentially a trading people. They made extensive use of shellmoney and fully recognised the value of any imported articles as mediumsof exchange or currency. Markets were held on certain days at fixedplaces, where the forest people brought their yams, taro, bananas and soforth and exchanged them for fish, tobacco, and other articles with thenatives of the coast. They also went on long trading expeditions toprocure canoes, cuscus teeth, pigs, slaves, and so forth, which on theirreturn they generally sold at a considerable profit. The shell whichthey used as money is the _Nassa immersa_ or _Nassa calosa_, found onthe north coast of New Britain. The shells were perforated and threadedon strips of cane, which were then joined together in coils of fifty totwo hundred fathoms. [628] The rights of private property were fullyrecognised. All lands belonged to certain families, and husband and wifehad each the exclusive right to his or her goods and chattels. But whilein certain directions the people had made some progress, in others theyremained very backward. Pottery and the metals were unknown; no metal orspecimen of metal-work has been found in the archipelago; on the otherhand the natives made much use of stone implements, especially adzes andclubs. In war they never used bows and arrows. [629] They had no systemof government, unless that name may be given to the power wielded by thesecret societies and by chiefs, who exercised a certain degree ofinfluence principally by reason of the reputation which they enjoyed assorcerers and magicians. They were not elected nor did they necessarilyinherit their office; they simply claimed to possess magical powers, andif they succeeded in convincing the people of the justice of theirclaim, their authority was recognised. Wealth also contributed toestablish their position in the esteem of the public. [630]

[Sidenote: The Rev. George Brown on the Melanesians. ]

With regard to the religious ideas and customs of the natives we are notfully informed, but so far as these have been described they appear toagree closely with those of their kinsfolk in Central Melanesia. Thefirst European to settle in the archipelago was the veteran missionary, the Rev. George Brown, D. D. , who resided in the islands from 1875 to1880 and has revisited them on several occasions since; he reduced thelanguage to writing for the first time, [631] and is one of our bestauthorities on the people. In what follows I shall make use of hisvaluable testimony along with that of more recent observers. 

[Sidenote: North Melanesian theory of the soul. Fear of ghosts, especially the ghosts of persons who have been killed and eaten. ]

The natives of the archipelago believe that every person is animated bya soul, which survives his death and may afterwards influence thesurvivors for good or evil. Their word for soul is _nio_ or _niono_, meaning a shadow. The root is _nio_, which by the addition of personalsuffixes becomes _niong_ "my soul or shadow, " _niom_ "your soul orshadow, " _niono_ "his soul or shadow. " They think that the soul is likethe man himself, and that it always stays inside of his body, exceptwhen it goes out on a ramble during sleep or a faint. A man who is verysleepy may say, "My soul wants to go away. " They believe, however, thatit departs for ever at death; hence when a man is sick, his friends willoffer prayers to prevent its departure. There is only one kind of soul, but it can appear in many shapes and enter into animals, such as rats, lizards, birds, and so on. It can hear, see, and speak, and presentitself in the form of a wraith or apparition to people at the moment ofor soon after death. On being asked why he thought that the soul doesnot perish with the body, a native said, "Because it is different; it isnot of the same nature at all. " They believe that the souls of the deadoccasionally visit the living and are seen by them, and that they haunthouses and burial-places. They are very much afraid of the ghosts and doall they can to drive or frighten them away. Above all, being cannibals, they stand in great fear of the ghosts of the people whom they havekilled and eaten. The man who is cutting up a human body takes care totie a bandage over his mouth and nose during the operation of carving inorder to prevent the enraged soul of the victim from entering into hisbody by these apertures; and for a similar reason the doors of thehouses are shut while the cannibal feast is going on inside. And to keepthe victim's ghost quiet while his body is being devoured, a cut from ajoint is very considerately placed on a tree outside of the house, sothat he may eat of his own flesh and be satisfied. At the conclusion ofthe banquet, the people shout, brandish spears, beat the bushes, blowhorns, beat drums, and make all kinds of noises for the purpose ofchasing the ghost or ghosts of the murdered and eaten men away from thevillage. But while they send away the souls, they keep the skulls andjawbones of the victims; as many as thirty-five jawbones have been seenhanging in a single house in New Ireland. As for the skulls, they are, or rather were placed on the branch of a dead tree and so preserved onthe beach or near the house of the man who had taken them. [632]

[Sidenote: Offerings to the souls of the dead. ]

With regard to the death of their friends they deem it very important toobtain the bodies and bury them. They offer food to the souls of theirdeparted kinsfolk for a long time after death, until all the funeralfeasts are over; but they do not hold annual festivals in honour of deadancestors. The food offered to the dead is laid every day on a smallplatform in a tree; but the natives draw a distinction between offeringsto the soul of a man who died a natural death and offerings to the soulof a man who was killed in a fight; for whereas they place the former ona living tree, they deposit the latter on a dead tree. Moreover, theylay money, weapons, and property, often indeed the whole wealth of thefamily, near the corpse of their friend, in order that the soul of thedeceased may carry off the souls of these valuables to the spirit land. But when the body is carried away to be buried, most of the property isremoved by its owners for their own use. However, the relations willsometimes detach a few shells from the coils of shell money and a fewbeads from a necklace and drop them in a fire for the behoof of theghost. But when the deceased was a chief or other person of importance, some of his property would be buried with him. And before burial hisbody would be propped up on a special chair in front of his house, adorned with necklaces, wreaths of flowers and feathers, and gaudy withwar-paint. In one hand would be placed a large cooked yam, and in theother a spear, while a club would be put on his shoulder. The yam was tostay the pangs of hunger on his long journey, and the weapons were toenable him to fight the foes who might resist his entrance into thespirit land. In the Duke of York Island the corpse was usually disposedof by being sunk in a deep part of the lagoon; but sometimes it wasburied in the house and a fire kept burning on the spot. [633]

[Sidenote: Burial customs in New Ireland and New Britain. Preservationof the skull. ]

In New Ireland the dead were rolled up in winding-sheets made ofpandanus leaves, then weighted with stones and buried at sea. However, at some places they were deposited in deep underground watercourses orcaverns. Towards the northern end of New Ireland corpses were burned onlarge piles of firewood in an open space of the village. A number ofimages curiously carved out of wood or chalk were set round the blazingpyre, but the meaning of these strange figures is uncertain. Men andwomen uttered the most piteous wailings, threw themselves on the top ofthe corpse, and pulled at the arms and legs. This they did not merely toexpress their grief, but because they thought that if they saw andhandled the dead body while it was burning, the ghost could not or wouldnot haunt them afterwards. [634] Amongst the natives of the GazellePeninsula in New Britain the dead are generally buried in shallow gravesin or near their houses. Some of the shell money which belonged to a manin life is buried with him. Women with blackened bodies sleep on thegrave for weeks. [635] When the deceased was a great chief, his corpse, almost covered with shell money, is placed in a canoe, which isdeposited in a small house. Thereupon the nearest female relations areled into the house, and the door being walled up they are obliged toremain there with the rotting body until all the flesh has moulderedaway. Food is passed in to them through a hole in the wall, and under nopretext are they allowed to leave the hut before the decomposition ofthe corpse is complete. When nothing of the late chief remains but askeleton, the hut is opened and the solemn funeral takes place. Thebones of the dead are buried, but his skull is hung up in the taboohouse in order, we are told, that his ghost may remain in theneighbourhood of the village and see how his memory is honoured. Afterthe burial of the headless skeleton feasting and dancing go on, oftenfor more than a month, and the expenses are defrayed out of the richesleft by the deceased. [636] Even in the case of eminent persons who havebeen buried whole and entire in the usual way, a special mark of respectis sometimes paid to their memory by digging up their skulls after ayear or more, painting them red and white, decorating them withfeathers, and setting them up on a scaffold constructed for thepurpose. [637]

[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead among the Sulka of New Britain. ]

Somewhat similar is the disposal of the dead among the Sulka, a tribe ofNew Britain who inhabit a mountainous and well-watered country to thesouth of the Gazelle Peninsula. When a Sulka dies, his plantation islaid waste, and the young fruit-trees cut down, but the ripe fruits arefirst distributed among the living. His pigs are slaughtered and theirflesh in like manner distributed, and his weapons are broken. If thedeceased was a rich man, his wife or wives will sometimes be killed. Thecorpse is usually buried next morning. A hole is dug in the house andthe body deposited in it in a sitting posture. The upper part of thecorpse projects from the grave and is covered with a tower-likestructure of basket-work, which is stuffed with banana-leaves. Greatcare is taken to preserve the body from touching the earth. Stones arelaid round about the structure and a fire kindled. Relations come andsleep for a time beside the corpse, men and women separately. Some whileafterwards the soul of the deceased is driven away. The time forcarrying out the expulsion is settled by the people in whispers, lestthe ghost should overhear them and prepare for a stout resistance. Theevening before the ceremony takes place many coco-nut leaves arecollected. Next morning, as soon as a certain bird (_Philemoncoquerelli_) is heard to sing, the people rise from their beds and setup a great cry. Then they beat the walls, shake the posts, set fire todry coco-nut leaves, and finally rush out into the paths. At thatmoment, so the people think, the soul of the dead quits the hut. Whenthe flesh of the corpse is quite decayed, the bones are taken from thegrave, sewed in leaves, and hung up. Soon afterwards a funeral feast isheld, at which men and women dance. For some time after a burial taro isplanted beside the house of death and enclosed with a fence. The Sulkathink that the ghost comes and gathers the souls of the taro. The ripefruit is allowed to rot. Falling stars are supposed to be the souls ofthe dead which have been hurled up aloft and are now descending to bathein the sea. The trail of light behind them is thought to be a tail ofcoco-nut leaves which other souls have fastened to them and set on fire. In like manner the phosphorescent glow on the sea comes from soulsdisporting themselves in the water. Persons who at their death left fewrelations, or did evil in their life, or were murdered outside of thevillage, are not buried in the house. Their corpses are deposited onrocks or on scaffolds in the forest, or are interred on the spot wherethey met their death. The reason for this treatment of their corpses isnot mentioned; but we may conjecture that their ghosts are regarded withcontempt, dislike, or fear, and that the survivors seek to give them awide berth by keeping their bodies at a distance from the village. Thecorpses of those who died suddenly are not buried but wrapt up in leavesand laid on a scaffold in the house, which is then shut up and deserted. This manner of disposing of them seems also to indicate a dread ordistrust of their ghosts. [638]

[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead among the Moanus of the AdmiraltyIslands. Prayers offered to the skull of a dead chief. ]

Among the Moanus of the Admiralty Islands the dead are kept in thehouses unburied until the flesh is completely decayed and nothingremains but the bones. Old women then wash the skeleton carefully insea-water, after which it is disjointed and divided. The backbone, together with the bones of the legs and upper arms, is deposited in onebasket and put away somewhere; the skull, together with the ribs and thebones of the lower arms, is deposited in another basket, which is sunkfor a time in the sea. When the bones are completely cleaned andbleached in the water, they are laid with sweet-smelling herbs in awooden vessel and placed in the house which the dead man inhabitedduring his life. But the teeth have been previously extracted from theskull and converted into a necklace for herself by the sister of thedeceased. After a time the ribs are distributed by the son among therelatives. The principal widow gets two, other near kinsfolk get oneapiece, and they wear these relics under their arm-bands. Thedistribution of the ribs is the occasion of a great festival, and it isfollowed some time afterwards by a still greater feast, for whichextensive preparations are made long beforehand. All who intend to bepresent at the ceremony send vessels of coco-nut oil in advance; and ifthe deceased was a great chief the number of the oil vessels and of theguests may amount to two thousand. Meantime the giver of the feastcauses a scaffold to be erected for the reception of the skull, and thewhole art of the wood-carver is exhausted in decorating the scaffoldwith figures of turtles, birds, and so forth, while a wooden dog acts assentinel at either end. When the multitude has assembled, and theorchestra of drums, collected from the whole neighbourhood, has sentforth a far-sounding crash of music, the giver of the feast stepsforward and pronounces a florid eulogium on the deceased, a warmpanegyric on the guests who have honoured him by their presence, and afluent invective against his absent foes. Nor does he forget to throw insome delicate allusions to his own noble generosity in providing theassembled visitors with this magnificent entertainment. For this greateffort of eloquence the orator has been primed in the morning by thesorcerer. The process of priming consists in kneeling on the orator'sshoulders and tugging at the hair of his head with might and main, whichis clearly calculated to promote the flow of his rhetoric. If none ofthe hair comes out in the sorcerer's hands, a masterpiece of oratory isconfidently looked forward to in the afternoon. When the speech, forwhich such painful preparations have been made, is at last over, thedrums again strike up. No sooner have their booming notes died away overland and sea, than the sorcerer steps up to the scaffold, takes from itthe bleached skull, and holds it in both his hands. Then the giver ofthe feast goes up to him, dips a bunch of dracaena leaves in a vessel ofoil, and smites the skull with it, saying, "Thou art my father!" At thatthe drums again beat loudly. Then he strikes the skull a second timewith the leaves, saying, "Take the food that has been made ready inthine honour!" And again there is a crash of drums. After that he smitesthe skull yet again and prays saying, "Guard me! Guard my people! Guardmy children!" And every prayer of the litany is followed by the solemnroll of the drums. When these impressive invocations to the spirit ofthe dead chief are over, the feasting begins. The skull is thenceforthcarefully preserved. [639]

[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead in the Kaniet Islands. Preservation ofthe skull. ]

In the Kaniet Islands, a small group to the north-west of the AdmiraltyIslands, the dead are either sunk in the sea or buried in shallowgraves, face downward, near the house. All the movable property of thedeceased is piled on the grave, left there for three weeks, and thenburnt. Afterwards the skull is dug up, placed in a basket, and havingbeen decorated with leaves and feathers is hung up in the house. Thusadorned it not only serves to keep the dead in memory, but is alsoemployed in many conjurations to defeat the nefarious designs of otherghosts, who are believed to work most of the ills that afflicthumanity. [640] Apparently these islanders employ a ghost to protect themagainst ghosts on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief. 

[Sidenote: Death attributed to witchcraft. ]

Amongst the natives of the Bismarck Archipelago few persons, if any, arebelieved to die from natural causes alone; if they are not killed in warthey are commonly supposed to perish by witchcraft or sorcery, even whenthe cause of death might seem to the uninstructed European to besufficiently obvious in such things as exposure to heavy rain, thecarrying of too heavy a burden, or remaining too long a time underwater. So when a man has died, his friends are anxious to discover whohas bewitched him to death. In this enquiry the ghost is expected tolend his assistance. Thus on the night after the decease the friendswill assemble outside the house, and a sorcerer will address the ghostand request him to name the author of his death. If the ghost, assometimes happens, makes no reply, the sorcerer will jog his memory bycalling out the name of some suspected person; and should the ghoststill be silent, the wizard will name another and another, till at themention of one name a tapping sound is heard like the drumming offingers on a board or on a mat The sound may proceed from the house orfrom a pearl shell which the sorcerer holds in his hand; but come fromwhere it may, it is taken as a certain proof that the man who has justbeen named did the deed, and he is dealt with accordingly. Many a poorwretch in New Britain has been killed and eaten on no other evidencethan that of the fatal tapping. [641]

[Sidenote: Burial customs in the Duke of York Island. Preservation ofthe skull. ]

When a man of mark is buried in the Duke of York Island, the masters ofsorcery take leaves, spit on them, and throw them, with a number ofpoisonous things, into the grave, uttering at the same time loudimprecations on the wicked enchanter who has killed their friend. Thenthey go and bathe, and returning they fall to cursing again; and if themiscreant survived the first imprecations, it is regarded as perfectlycertain that he will fall a victim to the second. Sometimes, when thedeceased was a chief distinguished for bravery and wisdom, his corpsewould be exposed on a high platform in front of his house and left thereto rot, while his relatives sat around and inhaled the stench, conceiving that with it they absorbed the courage and skill of thedeparted worthy. Some of them would even anoint their bodies with thedrippings from the putrefying corpse for the same purpose. The womenalso made fires that the ghost might warm himself at them. When the headbecame detached from the trunk, it was carefully preserved by the nextof kin, while the other remains were buried in a shallow grave in thehouse. All the female relatives blackened their dusky faces for a longtime, after which the skull was put on a platform, a great feast washeld, and dances were performed for many nights in its honour. Then atlast the spirit of the dead man, which till that time was supposed to belingering about his old abode, took his departure, and his friendstroubled themselves about him no more. [642]

[Sidenote: Prayers to the spirits of the dead. ]

The souls of the dead are always regarded by these people as beingswhose help can be invoked on special occasions, such as fighting orfishing or any other matter of importance; and since the spirits whomthey invoke are always those of their own kindred they are presumed tobe friendly to the petitioners. The objects for which formal prayers areaddressed to the souls of ancestors appear to be always temporalbenefits, such as victory over enemies and plenty of food; prayers forthe promotion of moral virtue are seemingly unknown. For example, if awoman laboured hard in childbirth, she was thought to be bewitched, andprayers would be offered to the spirits of dead ancestors to counteractthe spell. Again, young men are instructed by their elders in the usefulart of cursing the enemies of the tribe; and among a rich variety ofimprecations an old man will invoke the spirit of his brother, father, or uncle, or all of them, to put their fingers into the ears of theenemy that he may not hear, to cover his eyes that he may not see, andto stop his mouth that he may not cry for help, but may fall an easyprey to the curser and his friends. [643] More amiable and not lesseffectual are the prayers offered to the spirits of the dead over a sickman. At the mention of each name in the prayer the supplicants make achirping or hissing sound, and rub lime over the patient. Beforeadministering medicine they pray over it to the spirits of the dead;then the patient gulps it down, thus absorbing the virtue of themedicine and of the prayer in one. In New Britain they reinforce theprayers to the dead in time of need by wearing the jawbone of thedeceased; and in the Duke of York Island people often wear a tooth orsome hair of a departed relative, not merely as a mark of respect, butas a magical means of obtaining supernatural help. [644]

[Sidenote: North Melanesian views as to the land of the dead. ]

Sooner or later the souls of all the North Melanesian dead take theirdeparture for the spirit land. But the information which has reached theliving as to that far country is at once vague and inconsistent. Theycall it _Matana nion_, but whereabout it lies they cannot for the mostpart precisely tell. All they know for certain is that it is far away, and that there is always some particular spot in the neighbourhood fromwhich the souls take their departure; for example, the Duke of Yorkghosts invariably start from the little island of Nuruan, near Mioko. Wherever it may be, the land of souls is divided into compartments;people who have died of sickness or witchcraft go to one place, andpeople who have been killed in battle go to another. They do not gounattended; for when a man dies two friends sleep beside his corpse thefirst night, one on each side, and their spirits are believed toaccompany the soul of the dead man to the spirit land. They say that ontheir arrival in the far country, betel-nut is presented to them all, but the two living men refuse to partake of it, because they know thatwere they to eat it they would return no more to the land of the living. When they do return, they have often, as might be expected, strangetales to tell of what they saw among the ghosts. The principal personagein the other world is called the "keeper of souls. " It is said that onceon a time the masterful ghost of a dead chief attempted to usurp thepost of warden of the dead; in pursuance of this ambitious project heattacked the warden with a tomahawk and cut off one of his legs, but theamputated limb immediately reunited itself with the body; and a secondamputation was followed by the same disappointing result. Life in theother world is reported to be very like life in this world. Some peoplefind it very dismal, and others very beautiful. Those who were rich herewill be rich there, and those who were poor on earth will be poor inHades. As to any moral retribution which may overtake evil-doers in thelife to come, their ideas are very vague; only they are sure that theghosts of the niggardly will be punished by being dumped very hardagainst the buttress-roots of chestnut-trees. They say, too, that allbreaches of etiquette or of the ordinary customs of the country willmeet with certain appropriate punishments in the spirit land. When thesoul has thus done penance, it takes possession of the body of someanimal, for instance, the flying-fox. Hence a native is much alarmed ifhe should be sitting under a tree from which a flying-fox has beenfrightened away. Should anything drop from the bat or from the tree onwhich it was hanging, he would look on it as an omen of good or illaccording to the nature of the thing which fell on or near him. If itwere useless or dirty, he would certainly apprehend some seriousmisfortune. Sometimes when a man dies and his soul arrives in the spiritland, his friends do not want him there and drive him back to earth, sohe comes to life again. That is the explanation which the natives giveof what we call the recovery of consciousness after a faint orswoon. [645]

[Sidenote: The land of the dead. State of the dead in the other worldsupposed to depend on the amount of money they left in this one. ]

Some of the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain imagine thatthe home of departed spirits is in Nakanei, the part of the coast towhich they sail to get their shell money. Others suppose that it is inthe islands off Cape Takes. So when they are sailing past these islandsthey dip the paddles softly in the water, and observe a death-likestillness, cowering down in the canoes, lest the ghosts should spy themand do them a mischief. At the entrance to these happy isles is posted astern watchman to see that no improper person sneaks into them. To everyghost that arrives he puts three questions, "Who are you? Where do youcome from? How much shell money did you leave behind you?" On hisanswers to these three questions hangs the fate of the ghost. If he leftmuch money, he is free to enter the realm of bliss, where he will passthe time with other happy souls smoking and eating and enjoying othersensual delights. But if he left little or no money, he is banished theearthly paradise and sent home to roam like a wild beast in the forest, battening on leaves and filth. With bitter sighs and groans he prowlsabout the villages at night and seeks to avenge himself by scaring orplaguing the survivors. To stay his hunger and appease his wrathrelatives or friends will sometimes set forth food for him to devour. Yet even for such an impecunious soul there is hope; for if somebodyonly takes pity on him and gives a feast in his honour and distributesshell money to the guests, the ghost may return to the islands of theblest, and the door will be thrown open to him. [646]

[Sidenote: Fiji and the Fijians. ]

So much for the belief in immortality as it is reported to exist amongthe Northern Melanesians of New Britain and the Bismarck Archipelago. Wenow pass to the consideration of a similar belief among another peopleof the same stock, who have been longer known to Europe, the Fijians. The archipelago which they occupy lies to the east of the New Hebridesand forms in fact the most easterly outpost of the black Melanesian racein the Pacific. Beyond it to the eastward are situated the smallerarchipelagoes of Samoa and Tonga, inhabited by branches of the brownPolynesian race, whose members are scattered over the islands of thePacific Ocean from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south. Ofall the branches of the Melanesian stock the Fijians at the date oftheir discovery by Europeans appear to have made the greatest advance inculture, material, social, and political. "The Fijian, " says one whoknew him long and intimately, "takes no mean place among savages in thesocial scale. Long before the white man visited his shores he had madevery considerable progress towards civilisation. His intersexual codehad advanced to the 'patriarchal stage': he was a skilful and diligenthusbandman, who carried out extensive and laborious agriculturaloperations: he built good houses, whose interior he ornamented with nolittle taste, carved his weapons in graceful and intricate forms, manufactured excellent pottery, beat out from the inner bark of a tree aserviceable papyrus-cloth, upon which he printed, from blocks eithercarved or ingeniously pieced together, elegant and elaborate patterns infast colours; and, with tools no better than a stone hatchet, a pointedshell, and a firestick, he constructed large canoes capable of carryingmore than a hundred warriors across the open sea. "[647]

[Sidenote: Political superiority of the Fijians over the otherMelanesians. ]

Politically the Fijians shewed their superiority to all the otherMelanesians in the advance they had made towards a regular and organisedgovernment. While among the other branches of the same race governmentcan hardly be said to exist, the power of chiefs being both slender andprecarious, in Fiji the highest chiefs exercised despotic sway andreceived from Europeans the title of kings. The people had no voice inthe state; the will of the king was generally law, and his person wassacred. Whatever he touched or wore became thereby holy and had to bemade over to him; nobody else could afterwards touch it without dangerof being struck dead on the spot as if by an electric shock. One kingtook advantage of this superstition by dressing up an English sailor inhis royal robes and sending him about to throw his sweeping train overany article of food, whether dead or alive, which he might chance tocome near. The things so touched were at once conveyed to the kingwithout a word of explanation being required or a single remonstranceuttered. Some of the kings laid claim to a divine origin and on thestrength of the claim exacted and received from their subjects therespect due to deities. In these exorbitant pretensions they weregreatly strengthened by the institution of taboo, which lent thesanction of religion to every exertion of arbitrary power. [648]Corresponding with the growth of monarchy was the well-marked gradationof social ranks which prevailed in the various tribes from the kingdownwards through chiefs, warriors, and landholders, to slaves. Theresulting political constitution has been compared to the old feudalsystem of Europe. [649]

[Sidenote: Means of subsistence of the Fijians. Ferocity and depravityof the Fijians. ]

Like the other peoples of the Melanesian stock the Fijians subsistchiefly by agriculture, raising many sorts of esculent fruits and roots, particularly yams, taro, plantains, bread-fruit, sweet potatoes, bananas, coco-nuts, ivi nuts, and sugar-cane; but the chief proportionof their food is derived from yams (_Dioscorea_), of which theycultivate five or six varieties. [650] It has been observed that "theincrease of cultivated plants is regular on receding from the Hawaiiangroup up to Fiji, where roots and fruits are found that are unknown onthe more eastern islands. "[651] Yet the Fijians in their native state, like all other Melanesian and Polynesian peoples, were entirely ignorantof the cereals; and in the opinion of a competent observer theconsequent defect in their diet has contributed to the serious defectsin their national character. The cereals, he tells us, are the staplefood of all races that have left their mark in history; and on the otherhand "the apathy and indolence of the Fijians arise from their climate, their diet and their communal institutions. The climate is too kind tostimulate them to exertion, their food imparts no staying power. Thesoil gives the means of existence for every man without effort, and thecommunal institutions destroy the instinct of accumulation. "[652] Norare apathy and indolence the only or the worst features in the characterof these comparatively advanced savages. Their ferocity, cruelty, andmoral depravity are depicted in dark colours by those who had the bestopportunity of knowing them in the old days before their savagery wasmitigated by contact with a milder religious faith and a highercivilisation. "In contemplating the character of this extraordinaryportion of mankind, " says one observer, "the mind is struck with wonderand awe at the mixture of a complicated and carefully conductedpolitical system, highly finished manners, and ceremonious politeness, with a ferocity and practice of savage vices which is probablyunparalleled in any other part of the world. "[653] One of the firstcivilised men to gain an intimate acquaintance with the Fijians draws amelancholy contrast between the baseness and vileness of the people andthe loveliness of the land in which they live. [654]

[Sidenote: Scenery of the Fijian islands. ]

For the Fijian islands are exceedingly beautiful. They are of volcanicorigin, mostly high and mountainous, but intersected by picturesquevalleys, clothed with woods, and festooned with the most luxurianttropical vegetation. "Among their attractions, " we are told, "are highmountains, abrupt precipices, conical hills, fantastic turrets and cragsof rock frowning down like olden battlements, vast domes, peaksshattered into strange forms; native towns on eyrie cliffs, apparentlyinaccessible; and deep ravines, down which some mountain stream, afterlong murmuring in its stony bed, falls headlong, glittering as a silverline on a block of jet, or spreading like a sheet of glass over barerocks which refuse it a channel. Here also are found the softer featuresof rich vales, cocoa-nut groves, clumps of dark chestnuts, stately palmsand bread-fruit, patches of graceful bananas or well-tilled taro-beds, mingling in unchecked luxuriance, and forming, with the wildreef-scenery of the girdling shore, its beating surf, and far-stretchingocean beyond, pictures of surpassing beauty. "[655] Each island isencircled by a reef of white coral, on which the sea breaks, with athunderous roar, in curling sheets of foam; while inside the reefstretches the lagoon, a calm lake of blue crystalline water revealing inits translucent depths beautiful gardens of seaweed and coral which fillthe beholder with delighted wonder. Great and sudden is the contrastexperienced by the mariner when he passes in a moment from the tossing, heaving, roaring billows without into the unbroken calm of the quiethaven within the barrier reef. [656]

[Sidenote: Fijian doctrine of souls. ]

Like most savages, the Fijians believed that man is animated by a soulwhich quits his body temporarily in sleep and permanently at death, tosurvive for a longer or a shorter time in a disembodied statethereafter. Indeed, they attributed souls to animals, vegetables, stones, tools, houses, canoes, and many other things, allowing that allof them may become immortal. [657] On this point I will quote theevidence of one of the earliest and best authorities on the customs andbeliefs of the South Sea Islanders. "There seems, " says William Mariner, "to be a wide difference between the opinions of the natives in thedifferent clusters of the South Sea islands respecting the futureexistence of the soul. Whilst the Tonga doctrine limits immortality tochiefs, _matabooles_, and at most, to _mooas_, the Fiji doctrine, withabundant liberality, extends it to all mankind, to all brute animals, toall vegetables, and even to stones and mineral substances. If an animalor a plant die, its soul immediately goes to Bolotoo; if a stone or anyother substance is broken, immortality is equally its reward; nay, artificial bodies have equal good luck with men, and hogs, and yams. Ifan axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, away flies its soul for theservice of the gods. If a house is taken down, or any way destroyed, itsimmortal part will find a situation on the plains of Bolotoo; and, toconfirm this doctrine, the Fiji people can show you a sort of naturalwell, or deep hole in the ground, at one of their islands, across thebottom of which runs a stream of water, in which you may clearlyperceive the souls of men and women, beasts and plants, of stocks andstones, canoes and houses, and of all the broken utensils of this frailworld, swimming or rather tumbling along one over the other pell-mellinto the regions of immortality. Such is the Fiji philosophy, but theTonga people deny it, unwilling to think that the residence of the godsshould be encumbered with so much useless rubbish. The natives ofOtaheite entertain similar notions respecting these things, viz. Thatbrutes, plants, and stones exist hereafter, but it is not mentioned thatthey extend the idea to objects of human invention. "[658]

[Sidenote: Reported Fijian doctrine of two human souls, a light one anda dark one. ]

According to one account, the Fijians imagined that every man has twosouls, a dark soul, consisting of his shadow, and a light soul, consisting of his reflection in water or a looking-glass: the dark souldeparts at death to Hades, while the light soul stays near the placewhere he died or was killed. "Probably, " says Thomas Williams, "thisdoctrine of shadows has to do with the notion of inanimate objectshaving spirits. I once placed a good-looking native suddenly before amirror. He stood delighted. 'Now, ' said he, softly, 'I can see into theworld of spirits. '"[659] However, according to another good authoritythis distinction of two human souls rests merely on a misapprehension ofthe Fijian word for shadow, _yaloyalo_, which is a reduplication of_yalo_, the word for soul. [660] Apparently the Fijians pictured tothemselves the human soul as a miniature of the man himself. This may beinferred from the customs observed at the death of a chief among theNakelo tribe. When a chief dies, certain men who are the hereditaryundertakers call him, as he lies, oiled and ornamented, on fine mats, saying, "Rise, sir, the chief, and let us be going. The day has comeover the land. " Then they conduct him to the river side, where theghostly ferryman comes to ferry Nakelo ghosts across the stream. As theyattend the chief on his last journey, they hold their great fans closeto the ground to shelter him, because, as one of them explained to amissionary, "His soul is only a little child. "[661]

[Sidenote: Absence of the soul in sleep. Catching the soul of a rascalin a scarf. ]

The souls of some men were supposed to quit their bodies in sleep andenter into the bodies of other sleepers, troubling and disturbing them. A soul that had contracted this bad habit was called a _yalombula_. Whenany one fainted or died, his vagrant spirit might, so the Fijiansthought, be induced to come back by calling after it. Sometimes, onawaking from a nap, a stout man might be seen lying at full length andbawling out lustily for the return of his own soul. [662] In the windwardislands of Fiji there used to be an ordeal called _yalovaki_ which wasmuch dreaded by evil-doers. When the evidence was strong againstsuspected criminals, and they stubbornly refused to confess, the chief, who was also the judge, would call for a scarf, with which "to catchaway the soul of the rogue. " A threat of the rack could not have beenmore effectual. The culprit generally confessed at the sight and eventhe mention of the light instrument; but if he did not, the scarf wouldbe waved over his head until his soul was caught in it like a moth or afly, after which it would be carefully folded up and nailed to the smallend of a chief's canoe, and for want of his soul the suspected personwould pine and die. [663]

[Sidenote: Fijian dread of sorcery and witchcraft. ]

Further, the Fijians, like many other savages, stood in great terror ofwitchcraft, believing that the sorcerer had it in his power to kill themby the practice of his nefarious art. "Of all their superstitions, " saysThomas Williams, "this exerts the strongest influence on the minds ofthe people. Men who laugh at the pretensions of the priest tremble atthe power of the wizard; and those who become christians lose this fearlast of all the relics of their heathenism. "[664] Indeed "native agentsof the mission who, in the discharge of their duty, have boldly faceddeath by open violence, have been driven from their posts by their dreadof the sorcerer; and my own observation confirms the statement of morethan one observer that savages not unfrequently die of fear when theythink themselves bewitched. "[665] Professed practitioners of witchcraftwere dreaded by all classes, and by destroying mutual confidence theyannulled the comfort and shook the security of society. Almost allsudden deaths were set down to their machinations. A common mode ofeffecting their object was to obtain a shred of the clothing of the manthey intended to bewitch, some refuse of his food, a lock of his hair, or some other personal relic; having got it they wrapped it up incertain leaves, and then cooked or buried it or hung it up in theforest; whereupon the victim was supposed to die of a wasting disease. Another way was to bury a coco-nut, with the eye upward, beneath thehearth of the temple, on which a fire was kept constantly burning; andas the life of the nut was destroyed, so the health of the person whomthe nut represented would fail till death put an end to his sufferings. "The native imagination, " we are told, "is so absolutely under thecontrol of fear of these charms, that persons, hearing that they werethe object of such spells, have lain down on their mats, and diedthrough fear. "[666] To guard against the fell craft of the magician thepeople resorted to many precautions. A man who suspected another ofplotting against him would be careful not to eat in his presence or atall events to leave no morsel of food behind, lest the other shouldsecrete it and bewitch him by it; and for the same reason peopledisposed of their garments so that no part could be removed; and whenthey had their hair cut they generally hid the clippings in the thatchof their own houses. Some even built themselves a small hut andsurrounded it with a moat, believing that a little water had power toneutralise the charms directed against them. [667]

[Sidenote: The fear of sorcery has had the beneficial effect ofenforcing habits of personal cleanliness. ]

"In the face of such instances as these, " says one who knows the Fijianswell, "it demands some courage to assert that upon the whole the beliefin witchcraft was formerly a positive advantage to the community. Itfilled, in fact, the place of a system of sanitation. The wizard's toolsconsisting in those waste matters that are inimical to health, every manwas his own scavenger. From birth to old age a man was governed by thisone fear; he went into the sea, the graveyard or the depths of theforest to satisfy his natural wants; he burned his cast-off _malo_; hegave every fragment left over from his food to the pigs; he concealedeven the clippings of his hair in the thatch of his house. Thisever-present fear even drove women in the western districts out into theforest for the birth of their children, where fire destroyed every traceof their lying-in. Until Christianity broke it down, the villages werekept clean; there were no festering rubbish-heaps nor filthy_raras_. "[668]

[Sidenote: Fijian dread of ghosts. Uproar made to drive away ghosts. ]

Of apparitions the Fijians used to be very much afraid. They believedthat the ghosts of the dead appeared often and afflicted mankind, especially in sleep. The spirits of slain men, unchaste women, and womenwho died in childbed were most dreaded. After a death people have beenknown to hide themselves for a few days, until they supposed the soul ofthe departed was at rest. Also they shunned the places where people hadbeen murdered, particularly when it rained, because then the moans ofthe ghost could be heard as he sat up, trying to relieve his pain byresting his poor aching head on the palms of his hands. Some howeversaid that the moans were caused by the soul of the murderer knockingdown the soul of his victim, whenever the wretched spirit attempted toget up. [669] When Fijians passed a spot in the forest where a man hadbeen clubbed to death, they would sometimes throw leaves on it as a markof homage to his spirit, believing that they would soon be killedthemselves if they failed in thus paying their respects to theghost. [670] And after they had buried a man alive, as they very oftendid, these savages used at nightfall to make a great din with largebamboos, trumpet-shells, and so forth, in order to drive away his spiritand deter him from loitering about his old home. "The uproar is alwaysheld in the late habitation of the deceased, the reason being that as noone knows for a certainty what reception he will receive in theinvisible world, if it is not according to his expectations he will mostlikely repent of his bargain and wish to come back. For that reason theymake a great noise to frighten him away, and dismantle his formerhabitation of everything that is attractive, and clothe it witheverything that to their ideas seems repulsive. "[671]

[Sidenote: Killing a ghost. ]

However, stronger measures were sometimes resorted to. It was believedto be possible to kill a troublesome ghost. Once it happened that manychiefs feasted in the house of Tanoa, King of Ambau. In the course ofthe evening one of them related how he had slain a neighbouring chief. That very night, having occasion to leave the house, he saw, as hebelieved, the ghost of his victim, hurled his club at him, and killedhim stone dead. On his return to the house he roused the king and therest of the inmates from their slumbers, and recounted his exploit. Thematter was deemed of high importance, and they all sat on it in solemnconclave. Next morning a search was made for the club on the scene ofthe murder; it was found and carried with great pomp and parade to thenearest temple, where it was laid up for a perpetual memorial. Everybodywas firmly persuaded that by this swashing blow the ghost had been notonly killed but annihilated. [672]

[Sidenote: Dazing the ghost of a grandfather. ]

A more humane method of dealing with an importunate ghost used to beadopted in Vanua-levu, the largest but one of the Fijian islands. Inthat island, as a consequence, it is said, of reckoning kinship throughthe mother, a child was considered to be more closely related to hisgrandfather than to his father. Hence when a grandfather died, his ghostnaturally desired to carry off the soul of his grandchild with him tothe spirit land. The wish was creditable to the warmth of his domesticaffection, but if the survivors preferred to keep the child with them alittle longer in this vale of tears, they took steps to bafflegrandfather's ghost. For this purpose when the old man's body wasstretched on the bier and raised on the shoulders of half-a-dozen stoutyoung fellows, the mother's brother would take the grandchild in hisarms and begin running round and round the corpse. Round and round heran, and grandfather's ghost looked after him, craning his neck fromside to side and twisting it round and round in the vain attempt tofollow the rapid movements of the runner. When the ghost was supposed tobe quite giddy with this unwonted exercise, the mother's brother made asudden dart away with the child in his arms, the bearers fairly boltedwith the corpse to the grave, and before he could collect his scatteredwits grandfather was safely landed in his long home. [673]

[Sidenote: Special relation of grandfather to grandchild. Soul of agrandfather reborn in his grandchildren. ]

Mr. Fison, who reports this quaint mode of bilking a ghost, explains thespecial attachment of the grandfather to his grandchild by the rule offemale descent which survives in Vanua-levu; and it is true that whereexogamy prevails along with female descent, a child regularly belongs tothe exogamous class of its grandfather and not of its father and hencemay be regarded as more closely akin to the grandfather than to thefather. But on the other hand it is to be observed that exogamy atpresent is unknown in Fiji, and at most its former prevalence in theislands can only be indirectly inferred from relics of totemism and fromthe existence of the classificatory system of relationship. [674] Perhapsthe real reason why in Vanua-levu a dead grandfather is so anxious tocarry off the soul of his living grandchild lies nearer to hand in theapparently widespread belief that the soul of the grandfather isactually reborn in his grandchild. For example, in Nukahiva, one of theMarquesas Islands, every one "is persuaded that the soul of agrandfather is transmitted by nature into the body of his grandchildren;and that, if an unfruitful wife were to place herself under the corpseof her deceased grandfather, she would be sure to become pregnant. "[675]Again, the Kayans of Borneo "believe in the reincarnation of the soul, although this belief is not clearly harmonised with the belief in thelife in another world. It is generally believed that the soul of agrandfather may pass into one of his grandchildren, and an old man willtry to secure the passage of his soul to a favourite grandchild byholding it above his head from time to time. The grandfather usuallygives up his name to his eldest grandson, and reassumes the originalname of his childhood with the prefix or title _Laki_, and the customseems to be connected with this belief or hope. "[676]

[Sidenote: A dead grandfather may reasonably reclaim his own soul fromhis grandchild. ]

Now where such a belief is held, it seems reasonable enough that a deadgrandfather should reclaim his own soul for his personal use before hesets out for the spirit land; else how could he expect to be admitted tothat blissful abode if on arriving at the portal he were obliged toexplain to the porter that he had no soul about him, having left thatindispensable article behind in the person of his grandchild? "Then youhad better go back and fetch it. There is no admission at this gate forpeople without souls. " Such might very well be the porter's retort; andforeseeing it any man of ordinary prudence would take the precaution ofrecovering his lost spiritual property before presenting himself to theWarden of the Dead. This theory would sufficiently account for theotherwise singular behaviour of grandfather's ghost in Vanua-levu. Atthe same time it must be admitted that the theory of the reincarnationof a grandfather in a grandson would be suggested more readily in asociety where the custom of exogamy was combined with female descentthan in one where the same custom coexisted with male descent; since, given exogamy and female descent, grandfather and grandson regularlybelong to the same exogamous class, whereas father and son never doso. [677] Thus Mr. Fison may after all be right in referring thepartiality of a Fijian grandfather for his grandson in the last resortto a system of exogamy and female kinship. 

[Footnote 627: G. Brown, D. D. , _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), pp. 23 _sq. _, 125, 320 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 628: G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 294 _sqq. _; P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Küstenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Münster, N. D. ), pp. 90 _sqq. _ The shell money is called _tambu_ in New Britain, _diwara_in the Duke of York Island, and _aringit_ in New Ireland. ]

[Footnote 629: Rev. G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 307, 313, 435, 436. ]

[Footnote 630: Rev. G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 270 _sq. _, compare pp. 127, 200. ]

[Footnote 631: Rev. G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. V. , 18. ]

[Footnote 632: G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 141 _sq. _, 144, 145, 190-193. ]

[Footnote 633: G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 142, 192, 385, 386 _sq. _]

[Footnote 634: G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ p. 390. The custom of cremating thedead in New Ireland is described more fully by Mr. R. Parkinson, whosays that the life-sized figures which are burned with the corpserepresent the deceased (_Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_, pp. 273 _sqq. _). In the central part of New Ireland the dead are buried in the earth;afterwards the bones are dug up and thrown into the sea. See AlbertHahl, "Das mittlere Neumecklenburg, " _Globus_, xci. (1907) p. 314. ]

[Footnote 635: R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907) p. 78; P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Küstenbewohner derGazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Münster, N. D. ), p. 222. ]

[Footnote 636: Mgr. Couppé, "En Nouvelle-Poméranie, " _Les MissionsCatholiques_, xxiii. (1891) pp. 364 _sq. _; J. Graf Pfeil, _Studien undBeobachtungen aus der Südsee_ (Brunswick, 1899), p. 79. ]

[Footnote 637: R. Parkinson, _op. Cit. _ p. 81. ]

[Footnote 638: _P. _ Rascher, _M. S. C. _, "Die Sulka, ein Beitrag zurEthnographic Neu-Pommern, " _Archiv für Anthropologie_, xxix. (1904) pp. 214 _sq. _, 216; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_, pp. 185-187. ]

[Footnote 639: R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee_, pp. 404-406. ]

[Footnote 640: R. Parkinson, _op. Cit. _ pp. 441 _sq. _]

[Footnote 641: G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 176, 183, 385 _sq. _ As to thewide-spread belief in New Britain that what we call natural deaths arebrought about by sorcery, see further _P. _ Rascher, _M. S. C. _, "DieSulka, ein Beitrag zur Ethnographic Neu-Pommern, " _Archiv fürEthnographie_, xxix. (1904) pp. 221 _sq. _; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahrein der Südsee_, pp. 117 _sq. _ 199-201; P. A. Kleintitschen, _DieKüsten-bewohner der Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Münster, N. D. ), p. 215. ]

[Footnote 642: G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 387-390. ]

[Footnote 643: G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 35, 89, 196, 201. ]

[Footnote 644: G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 177, 183, 184. ]

[Footnote 645: G. Brown, _op. Cit. _ pp. 192-195. ]

[Footnote 646: P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Küstenbewohner derGazellehalbinsel_, pp. 225 _sq. _ Compare R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahrein der Südsee_, p. 79. ]

[Footnote 647: Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_ (London, 1904), p. Xiv. ]

[Footnote 648: Thomas Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition(London, 1860), i. 22-26. ]

[Footnote 649: Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States ExploringExpedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 77; Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 18. ]

[Footnote 650: Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States ExploringExpedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 332 _sqq. _; ThomasWilliams _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition (London, 1860), i. 60_sqq. _; Berthold Seeman, _Viti_ (Cambridge, 1862), pp. 279 _sqq. _; BasilThomson, _The Fijians_ (London, 1908), pp. 335 _sq. _]

[Footnote 651: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 60 _sq. _]

[Footnote 652: Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp. 338, 389 _sq. _ TheFijians are in the main vegetarians, but the vegetables which theycultivate "contain a large proportion of starch and water, and aredeficient in proteids. Moreover, the supply of the principal staples isirregular, being greatly affected by variable seasons, and the attacksof insects and vermin. Very few of them will bear keeping, and almostall of them must be eaten when ripe. As the food is of low nutritivevalue, a native always eats to repletion. In times of plenty afull-grown man will eat as much as ten pounds' weight of vegetables inthe day; he will seldom be satisfied with less than five. A greatquantity, therefore, is required to feed a very few people, and aseverything is transported by hand, a disproportionate amount of time isspent in transporting food from the plantation to the consumer. The timespent in growing native food is also out of all proportion to its value"(Basil Thomson, _op. Cit. _ pp. 334 _sq. _). The same writer tells us (p. 335) that it has never occurred to the Fijians to dry any of the fruitsthey grow and to grind them into flour, as is done in Africa. ]

[Footnote 653: Capt. J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among theIslands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), pp. 272 _sq. _]

[Footnote 654: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 46, 363. As to the crueltyand depravity of the Fijians in the old days see further Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_ (London, 1904), pp. Xv. _sqq. _]

[Footnote 655: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 6 _sq. _ As tothe scenery of the Fijian archipelago see further _id. _, i. 4 _sqq. _;Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 46, 322; _Stanford's Compendium of Geographyand Travel, Australasia_, vol. Ii. _Malaysia and the PacificArchipelago_, edited by F. H. H. Guillemard (London, 1894), pp. 467_sqq. _; Miss Beatrice Grimshaw, _From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands_(London, 1907), pp. 43 _sq. _, 54 _sq. _, 76-78, 106, 109 _sq. _]

[Footnote 656: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 5 _sq. _, 11; Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 46 _sq. _ However, there is a remarkabledifference not only in climate but in appearance between the windwardand the leeward sides of these islands. The windward side, watered byabundant showers, is covered with luxuriant tropical vegetation; theleeward side, receiving little rain, presents a comparatively barren andburnt appearance, the vegetation dying down to the grey hues of theboulders among which it struggles for life. Hence the dry leeward sideis better adapted for European settlement. See Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _iii. 320 _sq. _; Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 10; B. Seeman, _Viti, anAccount of a Government Mission to the Vitian or Fijian Islands in theyears 1860-1861_ (Cambridge, 1862), pp. 277 _sq. _]

[Footnote 657: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 241; J. E. Erskine, _op. Cit. _ p. 249; B. Seeman, _Viti_ (Cambridge, 1862), p. 398. ]

[Footnote 658: William Mariner, _An Account of the Natives of the TongaIslands_, Second Edition (London, 1818), ii. 129 _sq. _ The _matabooles_were a sort of honourable attendants on chiefs and ranked next to themin the social hierarchy; the _mooas_ were the next class of people belowthe _matabooles_. See W. Mariner, _op. Cit. _ ii. 84, 86. Bolotoo or Buluwas the mythical land of the dead. ]

[Footnote 659: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 241. ]

[Footnote 660: This is the opinion of my late friend, the Rev. LorimerFison, which he communicated to me in a letter dated 26th August, 1898. ]

[Footnote 661: Communication of the late Rev. Lorimer Fison in a letterto me dated 3rd November, 1898. I have already published it in _Tabooand the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 29 _sq. _]

[Footnote 662: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 242; Lorimer Fison, _Talesfrom Old Fiji_, pp. 163 _sq. _; _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 39 _sq. _]

[Footnote 663: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 250. ]

[Footnote 664: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 248. ]

[Footnote 665: Lorimer Fison, _op. Cit. _ p. Xxxii. ]

[Footnote 666: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 248 _sq. _; Lorimer Fison, _op. Cit. _ pp. Xxxi. _sq. _]

[Footnote 667: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 249. ]

[Footnote 668: Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_ (London, 1908), p. 166. A_rara_ is a public square (Rev. Lorimer Fison, in _Journal of theAnthropological Institute_, xiv. (1885) p. 17). ]

[Footnote 669: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 241. ]

[Footnote 670: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 50. ]

[Footnote 671: Narrative of John Jackson, in Capt. J. E. Erskine's_Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), p. 477. ]

[Footnote 672: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 85. ]

[Footnote 673: Lorimer Fison, _op. Cit. _ pp. 168 _sq_. ]

[Footnote 674: W. H. R. Rivers, "Totemism in Fiji, " _Man_, viii. (1908)pp. 133 _sqq. _; _Totemism and Exogamy_, ii. 134 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 675: U. Lisiansky, _A Voyage Round the World_ (London, 1814), p. 89. ]

[Footnote 676: Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_(London, 1912), ii. 47. ]

[Footnote 677: Compare _Totemism and Exogamy_, iii. 297-299. ]

LECTURE XIX

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF EASTERN MELANESIA (FIJI)(_continued_)

[Sidenote: Fijian indifference to death. ]

At the close of last lecture I illustrated the unquestioning beliefwhich the Fijians entertain with regard to the survival of the humansoul after death. "The native superstitions with regard to a futurestate, " we are told, "go far to explain the apparent indifference of thepeople about death; for, while believing in an eternal existence, theyshut out from it the idea of any moral retribution in the shape eitherof reward or punishment. The first notion concerning death is that ofsimple rest, and is thus contained in one of their rhymes:--

 "Death is easy: Of what use is life? To die is rest. "[678]

Again, another writer, speaking of the Fijians, says that "in general, the passage from life to death is considered as one from pain tohappiness, and I was informed that nine out of ten look forward to itwith anxiety, in order to escape from the infirmities of old age, or thesufferings of disease. "[679]

[Sidenote: John Jackson's account of the burying alive of a young Fijianman. Son buried alive by his father. ]

The cool indifference with which the Fijians commonly regarded their owndeath and that of other people might be illustrated by many examples. Iwill give one in the words of an English eye-witness, who lived amongthese savages for some time like one of themselves. At a place on thecoast of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian Islands, he says, "Iwalked into a number of temples, which were very plentiful, and at lastinto a _bure theravou_ (young man's _bure_), where I saw a tall youngman about twenty years old. He appeared to be somewhat ailing, but notat all emaciated. He was rolling up the mat he had been sleeping upon, evidently preparing to go away somewhere. I addressed him, and asked himwhere he was going, when he immediately answered that he was going to beburied. I observed that he was not dead yet, but he said he soon shouldbe dead when he was put under ground. I asked him why he was going to beburied? He said it was three days since he had eaten anything, andconsequently he was getting very thin; and that if he lived any longerhe would be much thinner, and then the women would call him a _lila_(skeleton), and laugh at him. I said he was a fool to throw himself awayfor fear of being laughed at; and asked him what or who his private godwas, knowing it to be no use talking to him about Providence, a thing hehad never heard of. He said his god was a shark, and that if he werecast away in a canoe and was obliged to swim, the sharks would not bitehim. I asked him if he believed the shark, his god, had any power to actover him? He said yes. 'Well then, ' said I, 'why do you not live alittle longer, and trust to your god to give you an appetite?' Findingthat he could not give me satisfactory answers, and being determined toget buried to avoid the jeers of the ladies, which to a Feejeean areintolerable, he told me I knew nothing about it, and that I must notcompare him to a white man, who was generally insensible to all shame, and did not care how much he was laughed at. I called him a fool, andsaid the best thing he could do was to get buried out of the way, because I knew that most of them work by the rules of contrary; but itwas all to no purpose. By this time all his relations had collectedround the door. His father had a kind of wooden spade to dig the gravewith, his mother a new suit of _tapa_ [bark-cloth], his sister somevermilion and a whale's tooth, as an introduction to the great god ofRage-Rage. He arose, took up his bed and walked, not for life, but fordeath, his father, mother, and sister following after, with severalother distant relations, whom I accompanied. I noticed that they seemedto follow him something in the same way that they follow a corpse inEurope to the grave (that is, as far as relationship and acquaintanceare concerned), but, instead of lamenting, they were, if not rejoicing, acting and chatting in a very unconcerned way. At last we reached aplace where several graves could be seen, and a spot was soon selectedby the man who was to be buried. The old man, his father, began digginghis grave, while his mother assisted her son in putting on a new _tapa_[bark-cloth], and the girl (his sister) was besmearing him withvermilion and lamp-black, so as to send him decent into the invisibleworld, he (the victim) delivering messages that were to be taken by hissister to people then absent. His father then announced to him and therest that the grave was completed, and asked him, in rather a surlytone, if he was not ready by this time. The mother then _nosed_ him, andlikewise the sister. He said, 'Before I die, I should like a drink ofwater. ' His father made a surly remark, and said, as he ran to fetch itin a leaf doubled up, 'You have been a considerable trouble during yourlife, and it appears that you are going to trouble us equally at yourdeath. ' The father returned with the water, which the son drank off, andthen looked up into a tree covered with tough vines, saying he shouldprefer being strangled with a vine to being smothered in the grave. Hisfather became excessively angry, and, spreading the mat at the bottom ofthe grave, told the son to die _faka tamata_ (like a man), when hestepped into the grave, which was not more than four feet deep, and laydown on his back with the whale's tooth in his hands, which were claspedacross his belly. The spare sides of the mats were lapped over him so asto prevent the earth from getting to his body, and then about a foot ofearth was shovelled in upon him as quickly as possible. His fatherstamped it immediately down solid, and called out in a loud voice, '_Satiko, sa tiko_ (You are stopping there, you are stopping there), 'meaning 'Good-bye, good-bye. ' The son answered with a very audiblegrunt, and then about two feet more earth was shovelled in and stampedas before by the loving father, and '_Sa tiko_' called out again, whichwas answered by another grunt, but much fainter. The grave was thencompletely filled up, when, for curiosity's sake, I said myself, '_Satiko_' but no answer was given, although I fancied, or really did see, the earth crack a little on the top of the grave. The father and motherthen turned back to back on the middle of the grave, and, having droppedsome kind of leaves from their hands, walked away in opposite directionstowards a running stream of water hard by, where they and all the restwashed themselves, and made me wash myself, and then we returned to thetown, where there was a feast prepared. As soon as the feast was over(it being then dark), began the dance and uproar which are alwayscarried on either at natural or violent deaths. "[680]

[Sidenote: The readiness of the Fijians to die seems to have been partlya consequence of their belief in immortality. ]

The readiness with which the Fijians submitted to or even sought deathappears to have been to some extent a direct consequence of their beliefin immortality and of their notions as to the state of the soulhereafter. Thus we are informed by an early observer of this people that"self-immolation is by no means rare, and they believe that as theyleave this life, so will they remain ever after. This forms a powerfulmotive to escape from decrepitude, or from a crippled condition, by avoluntary death. "[681] Or, as another equally early observer puts itmore fully, "the custom of voluntary suicide on the part of the old men, which is among their most extraordinary usages, is also connected withtheir superstitions respecting a future life. They believe that personsenter upon the delights of their elysium with the same faculties, mentaland physical, that they possess at the hour of death, in short, that thespiritual life commences where the corporeal existence terminates. Withthese views, it is natural that they should desire to pass through thischange before their mental and bodily powers are so enfeebled by age asto deprive them of their capacity for enjoyment. To this motive must beadded the contempt which attaches to physical weakness among a nation ofwarriors, and the wrongs and insults which await those who are no longerable to protect themselves. When therefore a man finds his strengthdeclining with the advance of age, and feels that he will soon beunequal to discharge the duties of this life, and to partake in thepleasures of that which is to come, he calls together his relations, andtells them that he is now worn out and useless, that he sees they areall ashamed of him, and that he has determined to be buried. " So on aday appointed they met and buried him alive. [682]

[Sidenote: The sick and aged put to death by their relatives. ]

The proposal to put the sick and aged to death did not always emanatefrom the parties principally concerned; when a son, for example, thoughtthat his parents were growing too old and becoming a burden to him, hewould give them notice that it was time for them to die, a notice whichthey usually accepted with equanimity, if not alacrity. As a rule, itwas left to the choice of the aged and infirm to say whether they wouldprefer to be buried alive or to be strangled first and buriedafterwards; and having expressed a predilection one way or the otherthey were dealt with accordingly. To strangle parents or other frail andsickly relatives with a rope was considered a more delicate andaffectionate way of dispatching them than to knock them on the head witha club. In the old days the missionary Mr. Hunt witnessed several ofthese tender partings. "On one occasion, he was called upon by a youngman, who desired that he would pray to his spirit for his mother, whowas dead. Mr. Hunt was at first in hopes that this would afford him anopportunity of forwarding their great cause. On inquiry, the young mantold him that his brothers and himself were just going to bury her. Mr. Hunt accompanied the young man, telling him he would follow in theprocession, and do as he desired him, supposing, of course, the corpsewould be brought along; but he now met the procession, when the youngman said that this was the funeral, and pointed out his mother, who waswalking along with them, as gay and lively as any of those present, andapparently as much pleased. Mr. Hunt expressed his surprise to the youngman, and asked him how he could deceive him so much by saying his motherwas dead, when she was alive and well. He said, in reply, that they hadmade her death-feast, and were now going to bury her; that she was old;that his brother and himself had thought she had lived long enough, andit was time to bury her, to which she had willingly assented, and theywere about it now. He had come to Mr. Hunt to ask his prayers, as theydid those of the priest. He added, that it was from love for his motherthat he had done so; that, in consequence of the same love, they werenow going to bury her, and that none but themselves could or ought to doso sacred an office! Mr. Hunt did all in his power to prevent sodiabolical an act; but the only reply he received was, that she wastheir mother, and they were her children, and they ought to put her todeath. On reaching the grave, the mother sat down, when they all, including children, grandchildren, relations, and friends, took anaffectionate leave of her; a rope, made of twisted _tapa_ [bark-cloth], was then passed twice around her neck by her sons, who took hold of it, and strangled her; after which she was put into her grave, with theusual ceremonies. They returned to feast and mourn, after which she wasentirely forgotten as though she had not existed. "[683]

[Sidenote: Wives strangled or buried alive at their husbands' funerals. ]

Again, wives were often strangled, or buried alive, at the funeral oftheir husbands, and generally at their own instance. Such scenes werefrequently witnessed by white residents in the old days. On one occasiona Mr. David Whippy drove away the murderers, rescued the woman, andcarried her to his own house, where she was resuscitated. But far fromfeeling grateful for her preservation, she loaded him with reproachesand ever afterwards manifested the most deadly hatred towards him. "Thatwomen should desire to accompany their husbands in death, is by no meansstrange when it is considered that it is one of the articles of theirbelief, that in this way alone can they reach the realms of bliss, andshe who meets her death with the greatest devotedness, will become thefavourite wife in the abode of spirits. The sacrifice is not, however, always voluntary; but, when a woman refuses to be strangled, herrelations often compel her to submit. This they do from interestedmotives; for, by her death, her connexions become entitled to theproperty of her husband. Even a delay is made a matter of reproach. Thus, at the funeral of the late king Ulivou, which was witnessed by Mr. Cargill, his five wives and a daughter were strangled. The principalwife delayed the ceremony, by taking leave of those around her;whereupon Tanoa, the present king, chid her. The victim was his ownaunt, and he assisted in putting the rope around her neck, andstrangling her, a service he is said to have rendered on a formeroccasion to his own mother. "[684] In the case of men who were drowned atsea or killed and eaten by enemies in war, their wives were sacrificedin the usual way. Thus when Ra Mbithi, the pride of Somosomo, was lostat sea, seventeen of his wives were destroyed; and after the news of amassacre of the Namena people at Viwa in 1839 eighty women werestrangled to accompany the spirits of their murdered husbands. [685]

[Sidenote: Human "grass" for the grave. ]

The bodies of women who were put to death for this purpose wereregularly laid at the bottom of the grave to serve as a cushion for thedead husband to lie upon; in this capacity they were called grass(_thotho_), being compared to the dried grass which in Fijian housesused to be thickly strewn on the floors and covered with mats. [686] Onthis point, however, a nice distinction was observed. While wives werecommonly sacrificed at the death of their husbands, in order to bespread like grass in their graves, it does not transpire that husbandswere ever sacrificed at the death of their wives for the sake of servingas grass to their dead spouses in the grave. The great truth that allflesh is grass appears to have been understood by the Fijians asapplicable chiefly to the flesh of women. Sometimes a man's mother wasstrangled as well as his wives. Thus Ngavindi, a young chief of Lasakau, was laid in the grave with a wife at his side, his mother at his feet, and a servant not far off. However, men as well as women were killed tofollow their masters to the far country. The confidential companion of achief was expected as a matter of common decency to die with his lord;and if he shirked the duty, he fell in the public esteem. When Mbithi, achief of high rank and greatly esteemed in Mathuata, died in the year1840, not only his wife but five men with their wives were strangled toform the floor of his grave. They were laid on a layer of mats, and thebody of the chief was stretched upon them. [687] There used to be afamily in Vanua Levu which enjoyed the high privilege of supplying ahale man to be buried with the king of Fiji on every occasion of a royaldecease. It was quite necessary that the man should be hale and hearty, for it was his business to grapple with the Fijian Cerberus in the otherworld, while his majesty slipped past into the abode of bliss. [688]

[Sidenote: Sacrifices of foreskins and fingers in honour of the dead. Circumcision performed on a lad as a propitiatory sacrifice to save thelife of his father or father's brother. The rite of circumcisionfollowed by a licentious orgy. ]

A curious sacrifice offered in honour of a dead chief consisted in theforeskins of all the boys who had arrived at a suitable age; the ladswere circumcised on purpose to furnish them. Many boys had their littlefingers chopped off on the same occasion, and the severed foreskins andfingers were placed in the chief's grave. When this bloody rite had beenperformed, the chief's relatives presented young bread-fruit trees tothe mutilated boys, whose friends were bound to cultivate them till theboys could do it for themselves. [689] Women as well as boys had theirfingers cut off in mourning. We read of a case when after the death of aking of Fiji sixty fingers were amputated and being each inserted in aslit reed were stuck along the eaves of the king's house. [690] Whyforeskins and fingers were buried with a dead chief or stuck up on theroof of his house, we are not informed, and it is not easy to divine. Apparently we must suppose that, when they were buried with the body, they were thought to be of some assistance to the departed spirit in theland of souls. At all events it deserves to be noted that according to avery good authority a similar sacrifice of foreskins used to be made notonly for the dead but for the living. When a man of note was dangerouslyill, a family council would be held, at which it might be agreed that acircumcision should take place as a propitiatory measure. Notice havingbeen given to the priests, an uncircumcised lad, the sick man's own sonor the son of one of his brothers, was then taken by his kinsman to the_Vale tambu_ or God's House, and there presented as a _soro_, oroffering of atonement, in order that his father or father's brothermight be made whole. His escort at the same time made a present ofvaluable property at the shrine and promised much more in future, shouldtheir prayers be answered. The present and the promises were graciouslyreceived by the priest, who appointed a day on which the operation wasto be performed. In the meantime no food might be taken from theplantations except what was absolutely required for daily use; no pigsor fowls might be killed, and no coco-nuts plucked from the trees. Everything, in short, was put under a strict taboo; all was set apartfor the great feast which was to follow the performance of the rite. Onthe day appointed the son or nephew of the sick chief was circumcised, and with him a number of other lads whose friends had agreed to takeadvantage of the occasion. Their foreskins, stuck in the cleft of asplit reed, were taken to the sacred enclosure (_Nanga_) and presentedto the chief priest, who, holding the reeds in his hand, offered them tothe ancestral gods and prayed for the sick man's recovery. Then followeda great feast, which ushered in a period of indescribable revelry andlicence. All distinctions of property were for the time being suspended. Men and women arrayed themselves in all manner of fantastic garbs, addressed one another in the foulest language, and practisedunmentionable abominations openly in the public square of the town. Thenearest relationships, even that of own brother and sister, seemed to beno bar to the general licence, the extent of which was indicated by theexpressive phrase of an old Nandi chief, who said, "While it lasts, weare just like the pigs. " This feasting and orgy might be kept up forseveral days, after which the ordinary restraints of society and thecommon decencies of life were observed once more. The rights of privateproperty were again respected; the abandoned revellers and debaucheessettled down into staid married couples; and brothers and sisters, inaccordance with the regular Fijian etiquette, might not so much as speakto one another. It should be added that these extravagances in connexionwith the rite of circumcision appear to have been practised only incertain districts of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian Islands, wherethey were always associated with the sacred stone enclosures which wentby the name of _Nanga_. [691]

[Sidenote: These orgies were apparently associated with the worship ofthe dead, to whom offerings were made in the _Nanga_ or sacred enclosureof stones. ]

The meaning of such orgies is very obscure, but from what we know of thesavage and his ways we may fairly assume that they were no mereoutbursts of unbridled passion, but that in the minds of those whopractised them they had a definite significance and served a definitepurpose. The one thing that seems fairly clear about them is that insome way they were associated with the worship or propitiation of thedead. At all events we are told on good authority that the _Nanga_, orsacred enclosure of stones, in which the severed foreskins were offered, was "the Sacred Place where the ancestral spirits are to be found bytheir worshippers, and thither offerings are taken on all occasions whentheir aid is to be invoked. Every member of the _Nanga_ has theprivilege of approaching the ancestors at any time. When sickness visitshimself or his kinsfolk, when he wishes to invoke the aid of the spiritsto avert calamity or to secure prosperity, or when he deems it advisableto present a thank-offering, he may enter the _Nanga_ with properreverence and deposit on the dividing wall his whale's tooth, or bundleof cloth, or dish of toothsome eels so highly prized by the elders, andtherefore by the ancestors whose living representatives they are: or hemay drag into the Sacred _Nanga_ his fattened pig, or pile up there hisoffering of the choicest yams. And, having thus recommended himself tothe dead, he may invoke their powerful aid, or express his thankfulnessfor the benefits they have conferred, and beg for a continuance of theirgoodwill. "[692] The first-fruits of the yam harvest were presented withgreat ceremony to the ancestors in the _Nanga_ before the bulk of thecrop was dug for the people's use, and no man might taste of the newyams until the presentation had been made. The yams so offered werepiled up in the sacred enclosure and left to rot there. If any one wereimpious enough to appropriate them to his own use, it was believed thathe would be smitten with madness. Great feasts were held at thepresentation of the first-fruits; and the sacred enclosure itself wasoften spoken of as the _Mbaki_ or Harvest. [693]

[Sidenote: Periodical initiation of young men in the _Nanga_. ]

But the most characteristic and perhaps the most important of the ritesperformed in the _Nanga_ or sacred stone enclosure was the periodicalinitiation of young men, who by participation in the ceremony wereadmitted to the full privileges of manhood. According to one account theceremony of initiation was performed as a rule only once in two years;according to another account it was observed annually in October orNovember, when the _ndrala_ tree (_Erythrina_) was in flower. Theflowering of the tree marked the beginning of the Fijian year; hence thenovices who were initiated at this season bore the title of _Vilavou_, that is, "New Year's Men. " As a preparation for the feasts whichattended the ceremony enormous quantities of yams were garnered andplaced under a strict taboo; pigs were fattened in large numbers, andbales of native cloth stored on the tie-beams of the house-roofs. Spearsof many patterns and curiously carved clubs were also provided againstthe festival. On the day appointed the initiated men went first into thesacred enclosure and made their offerings, the chief priest havingopened the proceedings by libation and prayer. The heads of the noviceswere clean shaven, and their beards, if they had any, were also removed. Then each youth was swathed in long rolls of native cloth, and taking aspear in one hand and a club in the other he marched with his comrades, similarly swathed and armed, in procession into the sacred enclosure, though not into its inner compartment, the Holy of Holies. Theprocession was headed by a priest bearing his carved staff of office, and it was received on the holy ground by the initiates, who satchanting a song in a deep murmuring tone, which occasionally swelled toa considerable volume of sound and was thought to represent the muffledroar of the surf breaking on a far-away coral reef. On entering theenclosure the youths threw down their weapons before them, and with thehelp of the initiated men divested themselves of the huge folds ofnative cloth in which they were enveloped, each man revolving slowly onhis axis, while his attendant pulled at the bandage and gathered in theslack. The weapons and the cloth were the offerings presented by thenovices to the ancestral spirits for the purpose of rendering themselvesacceptable to these powerful beings. The offerings were repeated in likemanner on four successive days; and as each youth was merely, as itwere, the central roller of a great bale of cloth, the amount of clothoffered was considerable. It was all put away, with the spears andclubs, in the sacred storehouse by the initiated men. A feast concludedeach day and was prolonged far into the night. 

[Sidenote: Ceremony of death and resurrection. ]

On the fifth day, the last and greatest of the festival, the heads ofthe young men were shaven again and their bodies swathed in the largestand best rolls of cloth. Then, taking their choicest weapons in theirhands, they followed their leader as before into the sacred enclosure. But the outer compartment of the holy place, where on the previous daysthey had been received by the grand chorus of initiated men, was nowsilent and deserted. The procession stopped. A dead silence prevailed. Suddenly from the forest a harsh scream of many parrots broke forth, andthen followed a mysterious booming sound which filled the souls of thenovices with awe. But now the priest moves slowly forward and leads thetrain of trembling novices for the first time into the inner shrine, theHoly of Holies, the _Nanga tambu-tambu_. Here a dreadful spectacle meetstheir startled gaze. In the background sits the high priest, regardingthem with a stony stare; and between him and them lie a row of dead men, covered with blood, their bodies seemingly cut open and their entrailsprotruding. The leader steps over them one by one, and the awestruckyouths follow him until they stand in a row before the high priest, their very souls harrowed by his awful glare. Suddenly he utters a greatyell, and at the cry the dead men start to their feet, and run down tothe river to cleanse themselves from the blood and filth with which theyare besmeared. They are initiated men, who represent the departedancestors for the occasion; and the blood and entrails are those of manypigs that have been slaughtered for that night's revelry. The screams ofthe parrots and the mysterious booming sound were produced by aconcealed orchestra, who screeched appropriately and blew blasts onbamboo trumpets, the mouths of which were partially immersed in water. 

[Sidenote: Sacrament of food and water. ]

The dead men having come to life again, the novices offered theirweapons and the bales of native cloth in which they were swathed. Thesewere accordingly removed to the storehouse and the young men were madeto sit down in front of it. Then the high priest, cheered perhaps by thesight of the offerings, unbent the starched dignity of his demeanour. Skipping from side to side he cried in stridulous tones, "Where are thepeople of my enclosure? Are they gone to Tongalevu? Are they gone to thedeep sea?" He had not called long when an answer rang out from the riverin a deep-mouthed song, and soon the singers came in view movingrhythmically to the music of their solemn chant. Singing they filed inand took their places in front of the young men; then silence ensued. After that there entered four old men of the highest order of initiates;the first bore a cooked yam carefully wrapt in leaves so that no part ofit should touch the hands of the bearer; the second carried a piece ofbaked pork similarly enveloped; the third held a drinking-cup ofcoco-nut shell or earthenware filled with water and wrapt round withnative cloth; and the fourth bore a napkin of the same material. Thereupon the first elder passed along the row of novices putting theend of the yam into each of their mouths, and as he did so each of themnibbled a morsel of the sacred food; the second elder did the same withthe sacred pork; the third elder followed with the holy water, withwhich each novice merely wetted his lips; and the rear was brought up bythe fourth elder, who wiped all their mouths with his napkin. Then thehigh priest or one of the elders addressed the young men, warning themsolemnly against the sacrilege of divulging to the profane any of thehigh mysteries they had seen and heard, and threatening all suchtraitors with the vengeance of the gods. 

[Sidenote: Presentation of the pig. ]

That ceremony being over, all the junior initiated men (_Lewe ni Nanga_)came forward, and each man presented to the novices a yam and a piece ofnearly raw pork; whereupon the young men took the food and went away tocook it for eating. When the evening twilight had fallen, a huge pig, which had been specially set aside at a former festival, was draggedinto the sacred enclosure and there presented to the novices, togetherwith other swine, if they should be needed to furnish a plenteousrepast. 

[Sidenote: Acceptance of the novices by the ancestral spirits. ]

The novices were now "accepted members of the _Nanga_, qualified to taketheir place among the men of the community, though still only onprobation. As children--their childhood being indicated by their shavenheads--they were presented to the ancestors, and their acceptance wasnotified by what (looking at the matter from the natives' standpoint) wemight, without irreverence, almost call the _sacrament_ of food andwater, too sacred even for the elders' hands to touch. This acceptancewas acknowledged and confirmed on the part of all the _Lewe ni Nanga_[junior initiated men] by their gift of food, and it was finallyratified by the presentation of the Sacred Pig. In like manner, on thebirth of an infant, its father acknowledges it as legitimate, andotherwise acceptable, by a gift of food; and his kinsfolk formallysignify approval and confirmation of his decision on the part of theclan by similar presentations. "

[Sidenote: The initiation followed by a period of sexual license. Sacredpigs. ]

Next morning the women, their hair dyed red and wearing waistbands ofhibiscus or other fibre, came to the sacred enclosure and crawledthrough it on hands and knees into the Holy of Holies, where the elderswere singing their solemn chant. The high priest then dipped his handsinto the water of the sacred bowl and prayed to the ancestral spiritsfor the mothers and for their children. After that the women crawledback on hands and feet the way they had come, singing as they went andcreeping over certain mounds of earth which had been thrown up for thepurpose in the sacred enclosure. When they emerged from the holy ground, the men and women addressed each other in the vilest language, such ason ordinary occasions would be violently resented; and thenceforth tothe close of the ceremonies some days later very great, indeed almostunlimited, licence prevailed between the sexes. During these days anumber of pigs were consecrated to serve for the next ceremony. Theanimals were deemed sacred, and had the run of the fleshpots in thevillages in which they were kept. Indeed they were held in the greatestreverence. To kill one, except for sacrifice at the rites in the_Nanga_, would have been a sacrilege which the Fijian mind refused tocontemplate; and on the other hand to feed the holy swine was an act ofpiety. Men might be seen throwing down basketfuls of food before thesnouts of the worshipful pigs, and at the same time calling theattention of the ancestral spirits to the meritorious deed. "Takeknowledge of me, " they would cry, "ye who lie buried, our heads! I amfeeding this pig of yours. " Finally, all the men who had taken part inthe ceremonies bathed together in the river, carefully cleansingthemselves from every particle of the black paint with which they hadbeen bedaubed. When the novices, now novices no more, emerged from thewater, the high priest, standing on the river bank, preached to them aneloquent sermon on the duties and responsibilities which devolved onthem in their new position. [694]

[Sidenote: The intention of the initiatory rites seems to be tointroduce the young men to the ancestral spirits. The drama of death andresurrection. The Fijian rites of initiation seem to have been importedby Melanesian immigrants from the west. ]

The general intention of these initiatory rites appears to be, as Mr. Fison has said in the words which I have quoted, to introduce the youngmen to the ancestral spirits at their sanctuary, to incorporate them, soto say, in the great community which embraces all adult members of thetribe, whether living or dead. At all events this interpretation fits invery well with the prayers which are offered to the souls of departedkinsfolk on these occasions, and it is supported by the analogy of theNew Guinea initiatory rites which I described in former lectures; for inthese rites, as I pointed out, the initiation of the youths is closelyassociated with the conceptions of death and the dead, the main featurein the ritual consisting indeed of a simulation of death and subsequentresurrection. It is, therefore, significant that the very samesimulation figures prominently in the Fijian ceremony, nay it would seemto be the very pivot on which the whole ritual revolves. Yet there is anobvious and important difference between the drama of death andresurrection as it is enacted in New Guinea and in Fiji; for whereas inNew Guinea it is the novices who pretend to die and come to life again, in Fiji the pretence is carried out by initiated men who represent theancestors, while the novices merely look on with horror and amazement atthe awe-inspiring spectacle. Of the two forms of ritual the New Guineaone is probably truer to the original purpose of the rite, which seemsto have been to enable the novices to put off the old, or rather theyoung, man and to put on a higher form of existence by participating inthe marvellous powers and privileges of the mighty dead. And if such wasreally the intention of the ceremony, it is obvious that it was bettereffected by compelling the young communicants, as we may call them, todie and rise from the dead in their own persons than by obliging them toassist as mere passive spectators at a dramatic performance of death andresurrection. Yet in spite of this difference between the two rituals, the general resemblance between them is near enough to justify us inconjecturing that there may be a genetic connexion between the one andthe other. The conjecture is confirmed, first, by the very limited anddefinite area of Fiji in which these initiatory rites were practised, and, second, by the equally definite tradition of their origin. Withregard to the first of these points, the _Nanga_ or sacred stoneenclosure with its characteristic rites was known only to certaintribes, who occupied a comparatively small area, a bare third of theisland of Viti Levu. These tribes are the Nuyaloa, Vatusila, Mbatiwai, and Mdavutukia. They all seem to have spread eastward and southward froma place of origin in the western mountain district. Their physical typeis pure Melanesian, with fewer traces of Polynesian admixture than canbe detected in the tribes on the coast. [695] Hence it is natural toenquire whether the ritual of the _Nanga_ may not have been importedinto Fiji by Melanesian immigrants from the west. The question appearsto be answered in the affirmative by native tradition. "This is the wordof our fathers concerning the _Nanga_, " said an old Wainimala grey-beardto Mr. Fison. "Long, long ago their fathers were ignorant of it; but oneday two strangers were found sitting in the _rara_ (public square), andthey said they had come up from the sea to give them the _Nanga_. Theywere little men, and very dark-skinned, and one of them had his face andbust painted red, while the other was painted black. Whether these twowere gods or men our fathers did not tell us, but it was they who taughtour people the _Nanga_. This was in the old old times when our fatherswere living in another land--not in this place, for we are strangershere. Our fathers fled hither from Navosa in a great war which aroseamong them, and when they came there was no _Nanga_ in the land. So theybuilt one of their own after the fashion of that which they left behindthem. " "Here, " says Mr. Basil Thomson, "we have the earliesttradition of missionary enterprise in the Pacific. I do not doubt thatthe two sooty-skinned little men were castaways driven eastward by oneof those strong westerly gales that have been known to last for threeweeks at a time. By Fijian custom the lives of all castaways wereforfeit, but the pretence to supernatural powers would have saved menfull of the religious rites of their Melanesian home, and would haveassured them a hearing. The Wainimala tribes can name six generationssince they settled in their present home, and therefore the introductionof the _Nanga_ cannot have been less than two centuries ago. During thattime it has overspread one third of the large island. "

[Sidenote: The general licence associated with the ritual of the _Nanga_may be a temporary revival of primitive communism. ]

A very remarkable feature in the _Nanga_ ritual consists in thetemporary licence accorded to the sexes and the suspension ofproprietary rites in general. What is the meaning of this curious and tothe civilised mind revolting custom? Here again the most probable, though merely conjectural, answer is furnished by Mr. Fison. "We cannotfor a moment believe, " he says, "that it is a mere licentious outbreak, without an underlying meaning and purpose. It is part of a religiousrite, and is supposed to be acceptable to the ancestors. But why shouldit be acceptable to them unless it were in accordance with their ownpractice in the far-away past? There may be another solution of thisdifficult problem, but I confess myself unable to find any other whichwill cover all the corroborating facts. "[696] In other words, Mr. Fisonsupposes that in the sexual licence and suspension of the rights ofprivate property which characterise these festivals we have areminiscence of a time when women and property were held in common bythe community, and the motive for temporarily resuscitating theseobsolete customs was a wish to propitiate the ancestral spirits, whowere thought to be gratified by witnessing a revival of that primitivecommunism which they themselves had practised in the flesh so long ago. Truly a religious revival of a remarkable kind!

[Sidenote: Description of the _Nanga_ or sacred enclosure of stones. ]

To conclude this part of my subject I will briefly describe theconstruction of a _Nanga_ or sacred stone enclosure, as it used to existin Fiji. At the present day only ruins of these structures are to beseen, but by an observation of the ruins and a comparison of thetraditions which still survive among the natives on the subject it ispossible to reconstruct one of them with a fair degree of exactness. A_Nanga_ has been described as an open-air temple, and the description isjust. It consisted of a rough parallelogram enclosed by flat stones setupright and embedded endwise in the earth. The length of the enclosurethus formed was about one hundred feet and its breadth about fifty feet. The upright stones which form the outer walls are from eighteen inchesto three feet high, but as they do not always touch they may bedescribed as alignments rather than walls. The long walls or alignmentsrun east and west, the short ones north and south; but the orientationis not very exact. At the eastern end are two pyramidal heaps of stones, about five feet high, with square sloping sides and flat tops. Thenarrow passage between them is the main entrance into the sacredenclosure. Internally the structure was divided into three separateenclosures or compartments by two cross-walls of stone running north andsouth. These compartments, taking them from east to west, were calledrespectively the Little Nanga, the Great Nanga, and the Sacred Nanga orHoly of Holies (_Nanga tambu-tambu_). The partition walls between themwere built solid of stones, with battering sides, to a height of fivefeet, and in the middle of each there was an opening to allow theworshippers to pass from one compartment to another. Trees, such as thecandlenut and the red-leaved dracaena, and odoriferous shrubs wereplanted round the enclosure; and outside of it, to the west of the Holyof Holies, was a bell-roofed hut called _Vale tambu_, the Sacred Houseor Temple. The sacred _kava_ bowl stood in the Holy of Holies. [697] Itis said that when the two traditionary founders of the _Nanga_ in Fijiwere about to erect the first structure of that name in their new home, the chief priest poured a libation of _kava_ to the ancestral gods, "and, calling upon those who died long, long ago by name, he prayed thatthe people of the tribe, both old and young, might live beforethem. "[698]

[Sidenote: Comparison of the _Nanga_ with the cromlechs and othermegalithic monuments of Europe. ]

The sacred enclosures of stones which I have described have beencompared to the alignments of stones at Carnac in Brittany and Merivaleon Dartmoor, and it has been suggested that in the olden time theseancient European monuments may have witnessed religious rites like thosewhich were till lately performed in the rude open-air temples ofFiji. [699] If there is any truth in the suggestion, which I mention forwhat it is worth, it would furnish another argument in favour of theview that our European cromlechs and other megalithic monuments wereerected specially for the worship of the dead. The mortuary character ofStonehenge, for example, is at least suggested by the burial moundswhich cluster thick around and within sight of it; about three hundredsuch tombs have been counted within a radius of three miles, while therest of the country in the neighbourhood is comparatively free fromthem. [700]

[Footnote 678: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition(London, 1860), i. 242 _sq. _]

[Footnote 679: Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States ExploringExpedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 86. ]

[Footnote 680: John Jackson's Narrative, in Capt. J. E. Erskine's_Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), pp. 475-477. The narrator, John Jackson, was an English seamanwho resided alone among the Fijians for nearly two years and learnedtheir language. ]

[Footnote 681: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 96. ]

[Footnote 682: _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnology andPhilology_, by H. Hale (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 65. Compare Capt. J. E. Erskine, _op. Cit. _ p. 248: "It would also seem that a belief in theresurrection of the body, in the exact condition in which it leaves theworld, is one of the causes that induce, in many instances, a desire fordeath in the vigour of manhood, rather than in the decrepitude of oldage"; Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 183: "The heathen notion is, that, asthey die, such will their condition be in another world; hence theirdesire to escape extreme infirmity. "]

[Footnote 683: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 94 _sq. _ Compare Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 183-186; Lorimer Fison, _Tales fromOld Fiji_ (London, 1904), pp. Xxv. _sq. _]

[Footnote 684: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 96. Compare Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 188 _sq. _, 193 _sqq. _, 200-202; Lorimer Fison, _op. Cit. _pp. Xxv. _sq. _]

[Footnote 685: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 200. ]

[Footnote 686: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 189; Lorimer Fison, _op. Cit. _ p. Xvi. ]

[Footnote 687: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 189. ]

[Footnote 688: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 197. ]

[Footnote 689: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 100. Williams also says (_op. Cit. _ i. 167) that the proper time for performing the rite ofcircumcision was after the death of a chief, and he tells us that "manyrude games attend it. Blindfolded youths strike at thin vessels of waterhung from the branch of a tree. At Lakemba, the men arm themselves withbranches of the cocoa-nut, and carry on a sham fight. At Ono, theywrestle. At Mbau, they fillip small stones from the end of a bamboo withsufficient force to make the person hit wince again. On Vanua Levu, there is a mock siege. "]

[Footnote 690: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 198. ]

[Footnote 691: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred StoneEnclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji, " _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, xiv. (1885) pp. 27 _sq. _ On the other hand Mr. BasilThomson's enquiries, made at a later date, did not confirm Mr. Fison'sstatement that the rite of circumcision was practised as a propitiationto recover a chief from sickness. "I was assured, " he says, "on thecontrary, that while offerings were certainly made in the _Nanga_ forthe recovery of the sick, every youth was circumcised as a matter ofroutine, and that the rite was in no way connected with sacrifice forthe sick" (Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp. 156 _sq. _). However, Mr. Fison was a very careful and accurate enquirer, and his testimony is notto be lightly set aside. ]

[Footnote 692: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred StoneEnclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji, " _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, xiv. (1885) p. 26. Compare Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, p. 147: "The _Nanga_ was the 'bed' of the Ancestors, that is, the spotwhere their descendants might hold communion with them; the _Mbaki_ werethe rites celebrated in the _Nanga_, whether of initiating the youths, or of presenting the first-fruits, or of recovering the sick, or ofwinning charms against wounds in battle. "]

[Footnote 693: Rev. Lorimer Fison, _op. Cit. _ p. 27. ]

[Footnote 694: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred StoneEnclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji, " _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, xiv. (1885) pp. 14-26. The _Nanga_ and its rites have alsobeen described by Mr. A. B. Joske ("The Nanga of Viti-levu, "_Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie_, ii. (1889) pp. 254-266), andMr. Basil Thomson (_The Fijians_, pp. 146-156). As to the intervalbetween the initiatory ceremonies Mr. Fison tells us that it wasnormally two years, but he adds: "This period, however, is notnecessarily restricted to two years. There are always a number of youthswho are growing to the proper age, and the length of the intervaldepends upon the decision of the elders. Whenever they judge that thereis a sufficient number of youths ready for admission, a _Nanga_ isappointed to be held; and thus the interval may be longer or shorter, according to the supply of novices" (_op. Cit. _ p. 19). According to Mr. Basil Thomson the rites were celebrated annually. Mr. Fison's evidenceas to the gross license which prevailed between the sexes after theadmission of the women to the sacred enclosure is confirmed by Mr. BasilThomson, who says, amongst other things, that "a native of Mbau, wholived for some years near the _Nanga_, assured me that the visit of thewomen to the _Nanga_ resulted in temporary promiscuity; all tabus weredefied, and relations who could not speak to one another by customarylaw committed incest" (_op. Cit. _ p. 154). ]

[Footnote 695: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred StoneEnclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji, " _Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute_, xiv. (1885) pp. 14 _sqq. _; Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp. 147, 149. ]

[Footnote 696: Rev. Lorimer Fison, _op. Cit. _ p. 30. ]

[Footnote 697: Rev. Lorimer Fison, _op. Cit. _ pp. 15, 17, with Plate I. ;Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp. 147 _sq. _ Mr. Fison had not seen a_Nanga_; his description is based on information received from natives. Mr. Basil Thomson visited several of these structures and found them soalike that one description would serve for all. He speaks of only twoinner compartments, which he calls the Holy of Holies (_Nangatambu-tambu_) and the Middle Nanga (_Loma ni Nanga_), but the lattername appears to imply a third compartment, which is explicitly mentionedand named by Mr. Fison. The bell-shaped hut or temple to the west of thesacred enclosure is not noticed by Mr. Thomson. ]

[Footnote 698: Rev. Lorimer Fison, _op. Cit. _ p. 17. ]

[Footnote 699: Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, p. 147. ]

[Footnote 700: As to these monuments see Sir John Lubbock (LordAvebury), _Prehistoric Times_, Fifth Edition (London, 1890), p. 127. ]

LECTURE XX

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF EASTERN MELANESIA (FIJI)(_concluded_)

[Sidenote: Worship of ancestors in Fiji. ]

In the last lecture I described the rites of ancestor worship which incertain parts of Fiji used to be celebrated at the sacred enclosures ofstones known as _Nangas_. But the worship of ancestral spirits was by nomeans confined to the comparatively small area in Fiji where such sacredenclosures were erected, nor were these open-air temples the onlystructures where the homage of the living was paid to the dead. On thecontrary we are told by one who knew the Fijians in the old heathen daysthat among them "as soon as beloved parents expire, they take theirplace amongst the family gods. _Bures_, or temples, are erected to theirmemory, and offerings deposited either on their graves or on rudelyconstructed altars--mere stages, in the form of tables, the legs ofwhich are driven into the ground, and the top of which is covered withpieces of native cloth. The construction of these altars is identicalwith that observed by Turner in Tanna, and only differs in its inferiorfinish from the altars formerly erected in Tahiti and the adjacentislands. The offerings, consisting of the choicest articles of food, areleft exposed to wind and weather, and firmly believed by the mass ofFijians to be consumed by the spirits of departed friends and relations;but, if not eaten by animals, they are often stolen by the moreenlightened class of their countrymen, and even some of the foreignersdo not disdain occasionally to help themselves freely to them. However, it is not only on tombs or on altars that offerings are made; often, when the natives eat or drink anything, they throw portions of it away, stating them to be for their departed ancestors. I remember ordering ayoung chief to empty a bowl containing _kava_, which he did, mutteringto himself, 'There, father, is some _kava_ for you. Protect me fromillness or breaking any of my limbs whilst in the mountains. '"[701]

[Sidenote: Fijian notion of divinity. Two classes of gods, namely, godsstrictly so called, and deified men. ]

"The native word expressive of divinity is _kalou_, which, while used todenote the people's highest notion of a god, is also constantly heard asa qualificative of any thing great or marvellous, or, according toHazlewood's Dictionary, 'anything superlative, whether good or bad. '. .. Often the word sinks into a mere exclamation, or becomes an expressionof flattery. 'You are a _kalou_!' or, 'Your countrymen are gods!' isoften uttered by the natives, when hearing of the triumphs of art amongcivilized nations. "[702] The Fijians distinguished two classes of gods:first, _kalou vu_, literally "Root-gods, " that is, gods strictly socalled, and second, _kalou yalo_, literally, "Soul-gods, " that is, deified mortals. Gods of the first class were supposed to be absolutelyeternal; gods of the second class, though raised far above merehumanity, were thought nevertheless to be subject to human passions andwants, to accidents, and even to death. These latter were the spirits ofdeparted chiefs, heroes, and friends; admission into their number waseasy, and any one might secure his own apotheosis who could ensure theservices of some one to act as his representative and priest after hisdeath. [703] However, though the Fijians admitted the distinction betweenthe two classes of gods in theory, they would seem to have confused themin practice. Thus we are informed by an early authority that "they havesuperior and inferior gods and goddesses, more general and localdeities, and, were it not an obvious contradiction, we should say theyhave gods _human_, and gods _divine_; for they have some gods who weregods originally, and some who were originally men. It is impossible toascertain with any degree of probability how many gods the Fijians have, as any man who can distinguish himself in murdering his fellow-men maycertainly secure to himself deification after death. Their friends arealso sometimes deified and invoked. I have heard them invoke theirfriends who have been drowned at sea. I need not advert to the absurdityof praying to those who could not save themselves from a watery grave. Tuikilakila, the chief of Somosomo, offered Mr. Hunt a preferment ofthis sort. 'If you die first, ' said he, 'I shall make you my god. ' Infact, there appears to be no certain line of demarcation betweendeparted spirits and gods, nor between gods and living men, for many ofthe priests and old chiefs are considered as sacred persons, and not afew of them will also claim to themselves the right of divinity. 'I am agod, ' Tuikilakila would sometimes say; and he believed it too. They werenot merely the words of his lips; he believed he was something above amere man. "[704]

Writers on Fiji have given us lists of some of the principal gods of thefirst class, [705] who were supposed never to have been men; but in theiraccount of the religious ritual they do not distinguish between theworship which was paid to such deities and that which was paid todeified men. Accordingly we may infer that the ritual was practicallythe same, and in the sequel I shall assume that what is told us of theworship of gods in general holds good of the worship of deified men inparticular. 

[Sidenote: The Fijian temple (_bure_). ]

Every Fijian town had at least one _bure_ or temple, many of them hadseveral. Significantly enough the spot where a chief had been killed wassometimes chosen for the site of a temple. The structure of theseedifices was somewhat peculiar. Each of them was built on the top of amound, which was raised to the height of from three to twenty feet abovethe ground and faced on its sloping sides with dry rubble-work of stone. The ascent to the temple was by a thick plank, the upper surface ofwhich was cut into notched steps. The proportions of the sacred edificeitself were inelegant, if not uncouth, its height being nearly twice asgreat as its breadth at the base. The roof was high-pitched; theridge-pole was covered with white shells (_Ovula cypraea_) and projectedthree or four feet at each end. For the most part each temple had twodoors and a fire-place in the centre. From some temples it was notlawful to throw out the ashes, however much they might accumulate, untilthe end of the year, which fell in November. The furniture consisted ofa few boxes, mats, several large clay jars, and many drinking vessels. Atemple might also contain images, which, though highly esteemed asornaments and held sacred, were not worshipped as idols. From the roofdepended a long piece of white bark-cloth; it was carried down the angleso as to hang before the corner-post and lie on the floor. This clothformed the path down which the god was believed to pass in order toenter and inspire his priest. It marked the holy place which few but hedared to approach. However, the temples were by no means dedicatedexclusively to the use of religion. Each of them served also as acouncil-chamber and town-hall; there the chiefs lounged for hourstogether; there strangers were entertained; and there the head personsof the village might even sleep. [706] In some parts of Viti Levu thedead were sometimes buried in the temples, "that the wind might notdisturb, nor the rain fall upon them, " and in order that the livingmight have the satisfaction of lying near their departed friends. Achild of high rank having died under the charge of the queen ofSomosomo, the little body was placed in a box and hung from the tie-beamof the principal temple. For some months afterwards the daintiest foodwas brought daily to the dead child, the bearers approaching with theutmost respect and clapping their hands when the ghost was thought tohave finished his meal just as a chiefs retainers used to do when he haddone eating. [707]

[Sidenote: Worship at the temples. ]

Temples were often unoccupied for months and allowed to fall into ruins, until the chief had some request to make to the god, when the necessaryrepairs were first carried out. No regular worship was maintained, nohabitual reverence was displayed at the shrines. The principle of fear, we are told, seemed to be the only motive of religious observances, andit was artfully fomented by the priests, through whom alone the peoplehad access to the gods when they desired to supplicate the favour of thedivine beings. The prayers were naturally accompanied by offerings, which in matters of importance comprised large quantities of food, together with whales' teeth; in lesser affairs a tooth, club, mat, orspear sufficed. Of the food brought by the worshippers part wasdedicated to the god, but as usual he only ate the soul of it, thesubstance being consumed by the priest and old men; the remainderfurnished a feast of which all might partake. [708]

[Sidenote: The priests. ]

The office of priest (_mbete_, _bete_) was usually hereditary, but whena priest died without male heirs a cunning fellow, ambitious of enjoyingthe sacred character and of living in idleness, would sometimes simulatethe convulsive frenzy, which passed for a symptom of inspiration, and ifhe succeeded in the imposture would be inducted into the vacantbenefice. Every chief had his priest, with whom he usually lived on avery good footing, the two playing into each other's hands and workingthe oracle for their mutual benefit. The people were grosslysuperstitious, and there were few of their affairs in which the priesthad not a hand. His influence over them was great. In his own districthe passed for the representative of the deity; indeed, according to anearly missionary, the natives seldom distinguished the idea of the godfrom that of his minister, who was viewed by them with a reverence thatalmost amounted to deification. [709]

[Sidenote: Oracles given by the priest under the inspiration of the god. Paroxysm of inspiration. ]

The principal duty of the priest was to reveal to men the will of thegod, and this he always did through the direct inspiration of the deity. The revelation was usually made in response to an enquiry or a prayer;the supplicant asked, it might be, for a good crop of yams or taro, forshowers of rain, for protection in battle, for a safe voyage, or for astorm to drive canoes ashore, so that the supplicant might rob, murder, and eat the castaways. To lend force to one or other of these piousprayers the worshipper brought a whale's tooth to the temple andpresented it to the priest. The man of god might have had word of hiscoming and time to throw himself into an appropriate attitude. He might, for example, be seen lying on the floor near the sacred corner, plungedin a profound meditation. On the entrance of the enquirer the priestwould rouse himself so far as to get up and then seat himself with hisback to the white cloth, down which the deity was expected to slide intothe medium's body. Having received the whale's tooth he would abstracthis mind from all worldly matters and contemplate the tooth for sometime with rapt attention. Presently he began to tremble, his limbstwitched, his features were distorted. These symptoms, the visiblemanifestation of the entrance of the spirit into him, graduallyincreased in violence till his whole frame was convulsed and shook aswith a strong fit of ague: his veins swelled: the circulation of theblood was quickened. The man was now possessed and inspired by the god:his own human personality was for a time in abeyance: all that he saidand did in the paroxysm passed for the words and acts of the indwellingdeity. Shrill cries of "_Koi au! Koi au!_" "It is I! It is I!" filledthe air, proclaiming the actual presence of the powerful spirit in thevessel of flesh and blood. In giving the oracular response the priest'seyes protruded from their sockets and rolled as in a frenzy: his voicerose into a squeak: his face was pallid, his lips livid, his breathingdepressed, his whole appearance that of a furious madman. At last sweatburst from every pore, tears gushed from his eyes: the strain on theorganism was visibly relieved; and the symptoms gradually abated. Thenhe would look round with a vacant stare: the god within him would cry, "I depart!" and the man would announce the departure of the spirit bythrowing himself on his mat or striking the ground with his club, whileblasts on a shell-trumpet conveyed to those at a distance the tidingsthat the deity had withdrawn from mortal sight into the worldinvisible. [710] "I have seen, " says Mr. Lorimer Fison, "this possession, and a horrible sight it is. In one case, after the fit was over, forsome time the man's muscles and nerves twitched and quivered in anextraordinary way. He was naked except for his breech-clout, and on hisnaked breast little snakes seemed to be wriggling for a moment or twobeneath his skin, disappearing and then suddenly reappearing in anotherpart of his chest. When the _mbete_ (which we may translate 'priest' forwant of a better word) is seized by the possession, the god within himcalls out his own name in a stridulous tone, 'It is I! Katouviere!' orsome other name. At the next possession some other ancestor may declarehimself. "[711]

[Sidenote: Specimens of the oracular utterances of Fijian gods. ]

From this last description of an eye-witness we learn that the spiritwhich possessed a priest and spoke through him was often believed to bethat of a dead ancestor. Some of the inspired utterances of theseprophets have been recorded. Here are specimens of Fijian inspiration. Speaking in the name of the great god Ndengei, who was worshipped in theform of a serpent, the priest said: "Great Fiji is my small club. Muaimbila is the head; Kamba is the handle. If I step on Muaimbila, Ishall sink it into the sea, whilst Kamba shall rise to the sky. If Istep on Kamba, it will be lost in the sea, whilst Muaimbila would riseinto the skies. Yes, Viti Levu is my small war-club. I can turn it as Iplease. I can turn it upside down. " Again, speaking by the mouth of apriest, the god Tanggirianima once made the following observations: "Iand Kumbunavannua only are gods. I preside over wars, and do as I pleasewith sickness. But it is difficult for me to come here, as the foreigngod fills the place. If I attempt to descend by that pillar, I find itpre-occupied by the foreign god. If I try another pillar, I find it thesame. However, we two are fighting the foreign god; and if we arevictorious, we will save the woman. I _will_ save the woman. She willeat food to-day. Had I been sent for yesterday, she would have eatenthen, " and so on. The woman, about whose case the deity was consultedand whom he announced his fixed intention of saving, died a few hoursafterwards. [712]

[Sidenote: Human sacrifices in Fiji. ]

Ferocious and inveterate cannibals themselves, the Fijians naturallyassumed that their gods were so too; hence human flesh was a commonoffering, indeed the most valued of all. [713] Formal human sacrificeswere frequent. The victims were usually taken from a distant tribe, andwhen war and violence failed to supply the demand, recourse wassometimes had to negotiation. However obtained, the victims destined forsacrifice were often kept for a time and fattened to make them bettereating. Then, tightly bound in a sitting posture, they were placed onhot stones in one of the usual ovens, and being covered over with leavesand earth were roasted alive, while the spectators roared with laughterat the writhings and contortions of the victims in their agony. Whentheir struggles ceased and the bodies were judged to be done to anicety, they were raked out of the oven, their faces painted black, andso carried to the temple, where they were presented to the gods, only, however, to be afterwards removed, cut up, and devoured by thepeople. [714]

[Sidenote: Human sacrifices offered when a king's house was built or agreat new canoe launched. ]

However, roasting alive in ovens was not the only way in which men andwomen were made away with in the service of religion. When a king'shouse was built, men were buried alive in the holes dug to receive theposts: they were compelled to clasp the posts in their arms, and thenthe earth was shovelled over them and rammed down. And when a large newcanoe was launched, it was hauled down to the sea over the bodies ofliving men, who were pinioned and laid out at intervals on the beach toserve as rollers on which the great vessel glided smoothly into thewater, leaving a row of mangled corpses behind. The theory of both thesemodes of sacrifice was explained by the Fijians to an Englishman whowitnessed them. I will quote their explanation in his words. "They saidin answer to the questions I put respecting the people being buriedalive with the posts, that a house or palace of a king was just like aking's canoe: if the canoe was not hauled over men, as rollers, shewould not be expected to float long, and in like manner the palace couldnot stand long if people were not to sit down and continually hold theposts up. But I said, 'How could they hold the posts up after they weredead?' They said, if they sacrificed their lives endeavouring to holdthe posts in their right position to their superior's _turanga kai nakalou_ (chiefs and god), that the virtue of the sacrifice wouldinstigate the gods to uphold the house after they were dead, and thatthey were honoured by being considered adequate to such a nobletask. "[715] Apparently the Fijians imagined that the souls of the deadmen would somehow strengthen the souls of the houses and canoes and soprolong the lives of these useful objects; for it is to be rememberedthat according to Fijian theology houses and canoes as well as men andwomen were provided with immortal souls. 

[Sidenote: High estimation in which murder was held by the Fijians. ]

Perhaps the same theory of immortality partially accounts for the highhonour in which the Fijian held the act of murder and for the admirationwhich he bestowed on all murderers. "Shedding of blood, " we are told, "to him is no crime, but a glory. Whoever may be the victim, --whethernoble or vulgar, old or young, man, woman, or child, --whether slain inwar, or butchered by treachery, --to be somehow an acknowledged murdereris the object of the Fijian's restless ambition. "[716] It was customarythroughout Fiji to give honorary names to such as had clubbed to death ahuman being, of any age or either sex, during a war. The new epithet wasgiven with the complimentary prefix _Koroi_. Mr. Williams once asked aman why he was called _Koroi_. "Because, " he replied, "I, with severalother men, found some women and children in a cave, drew them out andclubbed them, and then was consecrated. "[717] Mr. Fison learned fromanother stout young warrior that he had earned the honourabledistinction of _Koroi_ by lying in wait among the mangrove bushes at thewaterside and killing a miserable old woman of a hostile tribe, as shecrept along the mudflat seeking for shellfish. The man would have beenequally honoured, adds Mr. Fison, if his victim had been a child. Thehero of such an exploit, for two or three days after killing his man orwoman, was allowed to besmear his face and bust with a mixture oflampblack and oil which differed from the common black war-paint;decorated with this badge of honour he strutted proudly through thetown, the cynosure of all eyes, an object of envy to his fellows and oftender interest to the girls. The old men shouted approval after him, the women would _lulilu_ admiringly as he passed by, and the boys lookedup to him as a superior being whose noble deeds they thirsted toemulate. Higher titles of honour still were bestowed on such as hadslain their ten, or twenty, or thirty; and Mr. Fison tells us of a chiefwhose admiring countrymen had to compound all these titles into one inorder to set forth his superlative claims to glory. A man who had neverkilled anybody was of very little account in this life, and he receivedthe penalty due to his sin in the life hereafter. For in the spirit landthe ghost of such a poor-spirited wretch was sentenced to what theFijians regarded as the most degrading of all punishments, to beat aheap of muck with his bloodless club. [718]

[Sidenote: Ceremony of consecrating a manslayer. The temporaryrestrictions laid on a manslayer were probably dictated by a fear of hisvictim's ghost. ]

The ceremony of consecrating a manslayer was elaborate. He was anointedwith red oil from the hair of his head to the soles of his feet; andwhen he had been thus incarnadined he exchanged clubs with thespectators, who believed that their weapons acquired a mysterious virtueby passing through his holy hands. Afterwards the anointed one, attendedby the king and elders, solemnly stalked down to the sea and wetted thesoles of his feet in the water. Then the whole company returned to thetown, while the shell-trumpets sounded and the men raised a peculiarhoot. Custom required that a hut should be built in which the anointedman and his companions must pass the next three nights, during which thehero might not lie down, but had to sleep as he sat; all that time hemight not change his bark-cloth garment, nor wash the red paint awayfrom his body, nor enter a house in which there was a woman. [719] Thereason for observing these curious restrictions is not mentioned, but inthe light of similar practices, some of which have been noticed in theselectures, [720] we may conjecture that they were dictated by a fear ofthe victim's ghost, who among savages generally haunts his slayer andwill do him a mischief, if he gets a chance. As it is especially indreams that the naturally incensed spirit finds his opportunity, we canperhaps understand why the slayer might not lie down for the first threenights after the slaughter; the wrath of the ghost would then be at itshottest, and if he spied his murderer stretched in slumber on theground, the temptation to take an unfair advantage of him might havebeen too strong to be resisted. But when his anger had had time to cooldown or he had departed for his long home, as ghosts generally do aftera reasonable time, the precautions taken to baffle his vengeance mightbe safely relaxed. Perhaps, as I have already hinted, the reverencewhich the Fijians felt for any man who had taken a human life, or at allevents the life of an enemy, may have partly sprung from a belief thatthe slayer increased his own strength and valour either by subjugatingthe ghost of his victim and employing it as his henchman, or perhapsrather by simply absorbing in some occult fashion the vital energy ofthe slain. This view is confirmed by the permission given to the killerto assume the name of the killed, whenever his victim was a man ofdistinguished rank;[721] for by taking the name he, according to anopinion common among savages, assumed the personality of his namesake. 

[Sidenote: Other funeral customs based on a fear of the ghost. ]

The same fear of the ghost of the recently departed which manifesteditself, if my interpretation of the customs is right, in the treatmentof manslayers, seems to have imprinted itself, though in a moreattenuated form, on some of the practices observed by Fijian mournersafter a natural, not a violent, death. 

[Sidenote: Persons who have handled a corpse forbidden to touch food. Seclusion of grave-diggers. ]

Thus all the persons who had handled a corpse were forbidden to touchanything for some time afterwards; in particular they were strictlydebarred from touching their food with their hands; their victuals werebrought to them by others, and they were fed like infants by attendantsor obliged to pick up their food with their mouths from the ground. Thetime during which this burdensome restriction lasted was differentaccording to the rank of the deceased: in the case of great chiefs itlasted from two to ten months; in the case of a petty chief it did notexceed one month; and in the case of a common person a taboo of not morethan four days sufficed. When a chief's principal wife did not followhim to the other world by being strangled or buried alive, she might nottouch her own food with her hands for three months. When the mournersgrew tired of being fed like infants or feeding themselves like dogs, they sent word to the head chief and he let them know that he wouldremove the taboo whenever they pleased. Accordingly they sent himpresents of pigs and other provisions, which he shared among the people. Then the tabooed persons went into a stream and washed themselves; afterthat they caught some animal, such as a pig or a turtle, and wiped theirhands on it, and the animal thereupon became sacred to the chief. Thusthe taboo was removed, and the men were free once more to work, to feedthemselves, and to live with their wives. Lazy and idle fellowswillingly undertook the duty of waiting on the dead, as it relieved themfor some time from the painful necessity of earning their ownbread. [722] The reason why such persons might not touch food with theirhands was probably a fear of the ghost or at all events of the infectionof death; the ghost or the infection might be clinging to their handsand might so be transferred from them to their food with fatal effects. In Great Fiji not every one might dig a chief's grave. The office washereditary in a certain clan. After the funeral the grave-digger wasshut up in a house and painted black from head to foot. When he had tomake a short excursion, he covered himself with a large mantle ofpainted native cloth and was supposed to be invisible. His food wasbrought to the house after dark by silent bearers, who placed it justwithin the doorway. His seclusion might last for a long time;[723] itwas probably intended to screen him from the ghost. 

[Sidenote: Hair cropped and finger-joints cut off in mourning. ]

The usual outward sign of mourning was to crop the hair or beard, orvery rarely both. Some people merely made bald the crown of the head. Indeed the Fijians were too vain of their hair to part with it lightly, and to conceal the loss which custom demanded of them on these occasionsthey used to wear wigs, some of which were very skilfully made. Thepractice of cutting off finger-joints in mourning has already beenmentioned; one early authority affirms and another denies that joints ofthe little toes were similarly amputated by the living as a mark ofsorrow for the dead. So common was the practice of lopping off thelittle fingers in mourning that till recently few of the older nativescould be found who had their hands intact; most of them indeed had lostthe little fingers of both hands. There was a Fijian saying that thefourth finger "cried itself hoarse in vain for its absent mate"(_droga-droga-wale_). The mutilation was usually confined to therelations of the deceased, unless he happened to be one of the highestchiefs. However, the severed joints were often sent by poor people towealthy families in mourning, who never failed to reward the senders forso delicate a mark of sympathy. Female mourners burned their skin intoblisters by applying lighted rolls of bark-cloth to various parts oftheir bodies; the brands so produced might be seen on their arms, shoulders, necks, and breasts. [724] During the mourning for a kingpeople fasted till evening for ten or twenty days; the coast for mileswas tabooed and no one might fish there; the nuts also were made sacred. Some people in token of grief for a bereavement would abstain from fish, fruit, or other pleasant food for months together; others would dress inleaves instead of in cloth. [725]

[Sidenote: Men whipped by women in time of mourning for a chief. ]

Though the motive for these observances is not mentioned, we may supposethat they were intended to soothe and please the ghost by testifying tothe sorrow felt by the survivors at his decease. It is more doubtfulwhether the same explanation would apply to another custom which theFijians used to observe in mourning. During ten days after a death, while the soul of a deceased chief was thought to be still lingering inor near his body, all the women of the town provided themselves withlong whips, knotted with shells, and applied them with great vigour tothe bodies of the men, raising weals and inflicting bloody wounds, whilethe men retorted by flirting pellets of clay from splinters ofbamboo. [726] According to Mr. Williams, this ceremony was performed onthe tenth day or earlier, and he adds: "I have seen grave personages, not accustomed to move quickly, flying with all possible speed before acompany of such women. Sometimes the men retaliate by bespattering theirassailants with mud; but they use no violence, as it seems to be a dayon which they are bound to succumb. "[727] As the soul of the dead wasbelieved to quit his body and depart to his destined abode on the tenthday after death, [728] the scourging of the men by the women was probablysupposed in some way to speed the parting guest on his long journey. 

[Sidenote: The dead taken out of the house by a special opening made ina wall. Examples of the custom among Aryan peoples. ]

When a certain king of Fiji died, the side of the house was broken downto allow the body to be carried out, though there were doorways wideenough for the purpose close at hand. The missionary who records thefact could not learn the reason of it. [729] The custom of taking thedead out of the house by a special opening, which is afterwards closedup, has not been confined to Fiji; on the contrary it has been practisedby a multitude of peoples, savage, barbarous, and civilised, in manyparts of the world. For example, it was an old Norse rule that a corpsemight not be carried out of the house by the door which was used by theliving; hence a hole was made in the wall at the back of the dead man'shead and he was taken out through it backwards, or a hole was dug in theground under the south wall and the body was drawn out through it. [730]The custom may have been at one time common to all the Aryan orIndo-european peoples, for it is mentioned in other of their ancientrecords and has been observed by widely separated branches of that greatfamily down to modern times. Thus, the Zend-Avesta prescribes that, whena death has occurred, a breach shall be made in the wall and the corpsecarried out through it by two men, who have first stripped off theirclothes. [731] In Russia "the corpse was often carried out of the housethrough a window, or through a hole made for the purpose, and the customis still kept up in many parts. "[732] Speaking of the Hindoos a Frenchtraveller of the eighteenth century says that "instead of carrying thecorpse out by the door they make an opening in the wall by which theypass it out in a seated posture, and the hole is closed up after theceremony. "[733] Among various Hindoo castes it is still customary, whena death has occurred on an inauspicious day, to remove the corpse fromthe house not through the door, but through a temporary hole made in thewall. [734] Old German law required that the corpses of criminals andsuicides should be carried out through a hole under the threshold. [735]In the Highlands of Scotland the bodies of suicides were not taken outof the house for burial by the doors, but through an opening madebetween the wall and the thatch. [736]

[Sidenote: Examples of the custom among non-Aryan peoples. ]

But widespread as such customs have been among Indo-european peoples, they have been by no means confined to that branch of the human race. Itwas an ancient Chinese practice to knock down part of the wall of ahouse for the purpose of carrying out a corpse. [737] Some of theCanadian Indians would never take a corpse out of the hut by theordinary door, but always lifted a piece of the bark wall near which thedead man lay and then drew him through the opening. [738] Among theEsquimaux of Bering Strait a corpse is usually raised through thesmoke-hole in the roof, but is never taken out by the doorway. Shouldthe smoke-hole be too small, an opening is made in the rear of the houseand then closed again. [739] When a Greenlander dies, "they do not carryout the corpse through the entry of the house, but lift it through thewindow, or if he dies in a tent, they unfasten one of the skins behind, and convey it out that way. A woman behind waves a lighted chip backwardand forward, and says: 'There is nothing more to be had here. '"[740]Similarly the Hottentots, Bechuanas, Basutos, Marotse, Barongo, and manyother tribes of South and West Africa never carry a corpse out by thedoor of the hut but always by a special opening made in the wall. [741] Asimilar custom is observed by the maritime Gajos of Sumatra[742] and bysome of the Indian tribes of North-west America, such as the Tlingit andthe Haida. [743] Among the Lepchis of Sikhim, whose houses are raised onpiles, the dead are taken out by a hole made in the floor. [744] Dwellersin tents who practise this custom remove a corpse from the tent, not bythe door, but through an opening made by lifting up an edge of thetent-cover: this is done by European gypsies[745] and by the Koryak ofnorth-eastern Asia. [746]

[Sidenote: The motive of the custom is a desire to prevent the ghostfrom returning to the house. ]

In all such customs the original motive probably was a fear of the ghostand a wish to exclude him from the house, lest he should return andcarry off the survivors with him to the spirit land. Ghosts are commonlycredited with a low degree of intelligence, and it appears to besupposed that they can only find their way back to a house by theaperture through which their bodies were carried out. Hence people madea practice of taking a corpse out not by the door, but through anopening specially made for the purpose, which was afterwards blocked up, so that when the ghost returned from the grave and attempted to enterthe house, he found the orifice closed and was obliged to turn awaydisappointed. That this was the train of reasoning actually followed bysome peoples may be gathered from the explanations which they themselvesgive of the custom. Thus among the Tuski of Alaska "those who die anatural death are carried out through a hole cut in the back of the hutor _yaráng_. This is immediately closed up, that the spirit of the deadman may not find his way back. "[747] Among the Esquimaux of Hudson Bay"the nearest relatives on approach of death remove the invalid to theoutside of the house, for if he should die within he must not be carriedout of the door but through a hole cut in the side wall, and it mustthen be carefully closed to prevent the spirit of the person fromreturning. "[748] Again, "when a Siamese is dead, his relations depositthe body in a coffin well covered. They do not pass it through the doorbut let it down into the street by an opening which they make in thewall. They also carry it thrice round the house, running at the top oftheir speed. They believe that if they did not take this precaution, thedead man would remember the way by which he had passed, and that hewould return by night to do some ill turn to his family. "[749] InTravancore the body of a dead rajah "is taken out of the palace througha breach in the wall, made for the purpose, to avoid pollution of thegate, and afterwards built up again so that the departed spirit may notreturn through the gate to trouble the survivors. "[750] Among the Kayansof Borneo, whose dwellings are raised on piles above the ground, thecoffin is conveyed out of the house by lowering it with rattans eitherthrough the floor, planks being taken up for the purpose, or under theeaves at the side of the gallery. "In this way they avoid carrying itdown the house-ladder; and it seems to be felt that this precautionrenders it more difficult for the ghost to find its way back to thehouse. "[751] Among the Cheremiss of Russia, "old custom required thatthe corpse should not be carried out by the door but through a breach inthe north wall, where there is usually a sash-window. But the custom haslong been obsolete, even among the heathen, and only very old peoplespeak of it. They explain it as follows: to carry it out by the doorwould be to shew the _Asyrèn_ (the dead man) the right way into thehouse, whereas a breach in the wooden wall is immediately closed byreplacing the beams in position, and thus the _Asyrèn_ would in vainseek for an entrance. "[752] The Samoyeds never carry a corpse out of thehut by the door, but lift up a piece of the reindeer-skin covering anddraw the body out, head foremost, through the opening. They think thatif they were to carry a corpse out by the door, the ghost would soonreturn and fetch away other members of the family. [753] On the sameprinciple, as soon as the Indians of Tumupasa, in north-west Bolivia, have carried a corpse out of the house, "they shift the door to theopposite side, in order that the deceased may not be able to findit. "[754] Once more, in Mecklenburg "it is a law regulating the returnof the dead that they are compelled to return by the same way by whichthe corpse was removed from the house. In the villages of Picher, Bresegard, and others the people used to have movable thresholds at thehouse-doors, which, being fitted into the door-posts, could be shovedup. The corpse was then carried out of the house under the threshold, and therefore could not return over it. "[755]

[Sidenote: Some people only remove in this manner the bodies of personswhose ghosts are especially feared. ]

Even without such express testimonies to the meaning of the custom wemay infer from a variety of evidence that the real motive for practisingit is a fear of the ghost and a wish to prevent his return. For it is tobe observed that some peoples do not carry out all their dead by aspecial opening, but that they accord this peculiar mode of removal onlyto persons who die under unlucky or disgraceful circumstances, and whoseghosts accordingly are more than usually dreaded. Thus we have seen thatsome modern Hindoo castes observe the custom only in the case of peoplewho have died on inauspicious days; and that in Germany and theHighlands of Scotland this mode of removal was specially reserved forthe bodies of suicides, whose ghosts are exceedingly feared by manypeople, as appears from the stringent precautions taken againstthem. [756] Again, among the Kavirondo of Central Africa, "when a womandies without having borne a child, she is carried out of the back of thehouse. A hole is made in the wall and the corpse is ignominiously pushedthrough the hole and carried some distance to be buried, as it isconsidered a curse to die without a child. If the woman has given birthto a child, then her corpse is carried out through the front door andburied in the verandah of the house. "[757] In Brittany a stillborn childis removed from the house, not by the door, but by the window; "for ifby ill-luck it should chance otherwise, the mothers who should passthrough that fatal door would bear nothing but stillborn infants. "[758]In Perche, another province of France, the same rule is observed withregard to stillborn children, though the reason for it is notalleged. [759] But of all ghosts none perhaps inspire such deep anduniversal terror as the ghosts of women who have died in childbed, andextraordinary measures are accordingly taken to disable these dangerousspirits from returning and doing a mischief to the living. [760] Amongstthe precautions adopted to keep them at bay is the custom of carryingtheir corpses out of the house by a special opening, which is afterwardsblocked up. Thus in Laos, a province of Siam, "the bodies of women dyingin childbirth, or within a month afterwards, are not even taken out ofthe house in the ordinary way by the door, but are let down through thefloor. "[761] The Kachins of Burma stand in such fear of the ghosts ofwomen dying in childbed that no sooner has such a death occurred thanthe husband, the children, and almost all the people in the house taketo flight lest the woman's ghost should bite them. "The body of thedeceased must be burned as soon as possible in order to punish her fordying such a death, and also in order to frighten her ghost (_minla_). They bandage her eyes with her own hair and with leaves to prevent herfrom seeing anything; they wrap her in a mat, and they carry her out ofthe house, not by the ordinary door, but by an opening made for thepurpose in the wall or the floor of the room where she breathed herlast. Then they convey her to a deep ravine, where no one dares to pass;they lay her in the midst of a great pyre with all the clothes, jewellery, and other objects which belonged to her and of which she madeuse; and they burn the whole to cinders, to which they refuse the ritesof sepulture. Thus they destroy all the property of the unfortunatewoman, in order that her soul may not think of coming to fetch itafterwards and to bite people in the attempt. "[762] Similarly among theKayans or Bahaus of Central Borneo "the corpses of women dying inchildbed excite a special horror; no man and no young woman may touchthem; they are not carried out of the house through the front gallery, but are thrown out of the back wall of the dwelling, some boards havingbeen removed for the purpose. "[763] Indeed so great is the alarm felt bythe Kayans at a miscarriage of this sort that when a woman labours hardin childbed, the news quickly spreads through the large communal housein which the people dwell; and if the attendants begin to fear a fatalissue, the whole household is thrown into consternation. All the men, from the chief down to the boys, will flee from the house, or, if it isnight, they will clamber up among the beams of the roof and there hidein terror; and, if the worst happens, they remain there until thewoman's corpse has been removed from the house for burial. [764]

[Sidenote: Sometimes the custom is observed when the original motive forit is forgotten. ]

Sometimes, while the custom continues to be practised, the idea whichgave rise to it has either become obscured or has been incorrectlyreported. Thus we are told that when a death has taken place among theIndians of North-west America "the body is at once taken out of thehouse through an opening in the wall from which the boards have beenremoved. It is believed that his ghost would kill every one if the bodywere to stay in the house. "[765] Such a belief, while it would furnishan excellent reason for hurrying the corpse out of the house as soon aspossible, does not explain why it should be carried out through aspecial opening instead of through the door. Again, when a Queen of Balidied, "the body was drawn out of a large aperture made in the wall tothe right-hand side of the door, in the absurd opinion of _cheating thedevil_, whom these islanders believe to lie in wait in the ordinarypassage. "[766] Again, in Mukden, the capital of Manchuria, the corpsesof children "must not be carried out of a door or window, but through anew or disused opening, in order that the evil spirit which causes thedisease may not enter. The belief is that the Heavenly Dog which eatsthe sun at an eclipse demands the bodies of children, and that if theyare denied to him he will bring certain calamity on the household. "[767]These explanations of the custom are probably misinterpretations adoptedat a later time when its original meaning was forgotten. For a customoften outlives the memory of the motives which gave it birth. And asroyalty is very conservative of ancient usages, it would be no matterfor surprise if the corpses of kings should continue to be carried outthrough special openings long after the bodies of commoners were allowedto be conveyed in commonplace fashion through the ordinary door. Inpoint of fact we find the old custom observed by kings in countrieswhere it has apparently ceased to be observed by their subjects. Thusamong the Sakalava and Antimerina of Madagascar, "when a sovereign or aprince of the royal family dies within the enclosure of the king'spalace, the corpse must be carried out of the palace, not by the door, but by a breach made for the purpose in the wall; the new sovereigncould not pass through the door that had been polluted by the passage ofa dead body. "[768] Similarly among the Macassars and Buginese ofSouthern Celebes there is in the king's palace a window reaching to thefloor through which on his decease the king's body is carried out. [769]That such a custom is only a limitation to kings of a rule which onceapplied to everybody becomes all the more probable, when we learn thatin the island of Saleijer, which lies to the south of Celebes, eachhouse has, besides its ordinary windows, a large window in the form of adoor, through which, and not through the ordinary entrance, every corpseis regularly removed at death. [770]

[Sidenote: Another Fijian funeral custom. ]

To return from this digression to Fiji, we may conclude with a fairdegree of probability that when the side of a Fijian king's house wasbroken down to allow his corpse to be carried out, though there weredoors at hand wide enough for the purpose, the original intention was toprevent the return of his ghost, who might have proved a very unwelcomeintruder to his successor on the throne. But I cannot offer anyexplanation of another Fijian funeral custom. You may remember that inFiji it was customary after the death of a chief to circumcise such ladsas had reached a suitable age. [771] Well, on the fifth day after achief's death a hole used to be dug under the floor of a temple and oneof the newly circumcised lads was secreted in it. Then his companionsfastened the doors of the temple securely and ran away. When the ladhidden in the hole blew on a shell-trumpet, the friends of the deceasedchief surrounded the temple and thrust their spears at him through thefence. [772] What the exact significance of this curious rite may havebeen, I cannot even conjecture; but we may assume that it had somethingto do with the state of the late chief's soul, which was probablysupposed to be lingering in the neighbourhood. 

[Sidenote: Fijian notions concerning the other world and the waythither. The River of the Souls. ]

It remains to say a little as to the notions which the Fijiansentertained of the other world and the way thither. After death thesouls of the departed were believed to set out for Bulu or Bulotu, thereto dwell with the great serpent-shaped god Ndengei. His abode seems tohave been generally placed in the Nakauvandra mountains, towards thewestern end of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian Islands. But on thissubject the ideas of the people were, as might be expected, both vagueand inconsistent. Each tribe filled in the details of the mythical landand the mythical journey to suit its own geographical position. Thesouls had generally to cross water, either the sea or a river, and theywere put across it by a ghostly ferryman, who treated the passengerswith scant courtesy. [773] According to some people, the River of theSouls (_Waini-yalo_) is what mortals now call the Ndravo River. When theghosts arrived on the bank, they hailed the ferryman and he paddled hiscanoe over to receive them. But before he would take them on board theyhad to state whether they proposed to ship as steerage or as cabinpassengers, and he gave them their berths accordingly; for there was nomixing up of the classes in the ferry-boat; the ghosts of chiefs keptstrictly to themselves at one end of the canoe, and the ghosts ofcommoners huddled together at the other end. [774] The natives ofKandavu, in Southern Fiji, say that on clear days they often see Bulotu, the spirit land, lying away across the sea with the sun shining sweetlyon it; but they have long ago given up all hope of making their way tothat happy land. [775] They seem to say with the Demon Lover, "O yonder are the hills of heaven Where you will never win. "

[Sidenote: The place of embarcation for the ghosts. ]

Though every island and almost every town had its own portal throughwhich the spirits passed on their long journey to the far country, yetthere was one called Nai Thombothombo, which appears to have been morepopular and frequented than any of the others as a place of embarcationfor ghosts. It is at the northern point of Mbua Bay, and the ghosts shewtheir good taste in choosing it as their port to sail from, for reallyit is a beautiful spot. The foreland juts out between two bays. Ashelving beach slopes up to precipitous cliffs, their rocky face mantledwith a thick green veil of creepers. Further inland the shade of tallforest trees and the softened gloom cast by crags and rocks lend to thescene an air of solemnity and hallowed repose well fitted to impress thesusceptible native mind with an awful sense of the invisible beings thathaunt these sacred groves. Natives have been known to come on pilgrimageto the spot expecting to meet ghosts and gods face to face. [776]

[Sidenote: The ghost and the pandanus tree. ]

Many are the perils and dangers that beset the Path of the Souls (_SalaNi Yalo_). Of these one of the most celebrated is a certain pandanustree, at which every ghost must throw the ghost of the real whale'stooth which was placed for the purpose in his hand at burial. If he hitsthe tree, it is well for him; for it shews that his friends at home arestrangling his wives, and accordingly he sits down contentedly to waitfor the ghosts of his helpmeets, who will soon come hurrying to him. Butif he makes a bad shot and misses the tree, the poor ghost is verydisconsolate, for he knows that his wives are not being strangled, andwho then will cook for him in the spirit land? It is a bitter thought, and he reflects with sorrow and anger on the ingratitude of men andespecially of women. His reflections, as reported by the best authority, run thus: "How is this? For a long time I planted food for my wife, andit was also of great use to her friends: why then is she not allowed tofollow me? Do my friends love me no better than this, after so manyyears of toil? Will no one, in love to me, strangle my wife?"[777]

[Sidenote: Hard fate of unmarried ghosts. ]

But if the lot of a married ghost, whose wives have not been murdered, is hard, it is nevertheless felicity itself compared to the fate ofbachelor ghosts. In the first place there is a terrible being called theGreat Woman, who lurks in a shady defile, ready to pounce out on him;and if he escapes her clutches it is only to fall in with a much worsemonster, of the name of Nangganangga, from whom there is, humanlyspeaking, no escape. This ferocious goblin lays himself out to catch thesouls of bachelors, and so vigilant and alert is he that not a singleunmarried Fijian ghost is known to have ever reached the mansions of theblest. He sits beside a big black stone at high-water mark waiting forhis prey. The bachelor ghosts are aware that it would be useless toattempt to march past him when the tide is in; so they wait till it islow water and then try to sneak past him on the wet sand left by theretiring billows. Vain hope! Nangganangga, sitting by the stone, onlysmiles grimly and asks, with withering sarcasm, whether they imaginethat the tide will never flow again? It does so only too soon for thepoor ghosts, driving them with every breaking wave nearer and nearer totheir implacable enemy, till the water laps on the fatal stone, and thenhe grips the shivering souls and dashes them to pieces on the big blackblock. [778]

[Sidenote: The Killer of Souls. ]

Again, there is a very terrible giant armed with a great axe, who liesin wait for all and sundry. He makes no nice distinction between themarried and the unmarried, but strikes out at all ghostsindiscriminately. Those whom he wounds dare not present themselves intheir damaged state to the great God Ndengei; so they never reach thehappy fields, but are doomed to roam the rugged mountains disconsolate. However, many ghosts contrive to slip past him unscathed. It is saidthat after the introduction of fire-arms into the islands the ghost of acertain chief made very good use of a musket which had beenprovidentially buried with his body. When the giant drew near and wasabout to lunge out with the axe in his usual style, the ghost dischargedthe blunderbuss in his face, and while the giant was fully engaged indodging the hail of bullets, the chief rushed past him and now enjoyscelestial happiness. [779] Some lay the scene of this encounter a littlebeyond the town of Nambanaggatai; for it is to be remembered that manyof the places in the Path of the Souls were identified with real placesin the Fijian Islands. And the name of the giant is Samu-yalo, that is, the Killer of Souls. He artfully conceals himself in some mangrovebushes just beyond the town, from which he rushes out in the nick oftime to fell the passing ghosts. Whenever he kills a ghost, he cooks andeats him and that is the end of the poor ghost. It is the second death. The highway to the Elysian fields runs, or used to run, right throughthe town of Nambanaggatai; so all the doorways of the houses were placedopposite each other to allow free and uninterrupted passage to theinvisible travellers. And the inhabitants spoke to each other in lowtones and communicated at a little distance by signs. The screech of aparoquet in the woods was the signal of the approach of a ghost orghosts; the number of screeches was proportioned to the number of theghosts, --one screech, one ghost, and so on. [780]

[Sidenote: A trap for unwary ghosts. ]

Souls who escape the Killer of Souls pass on till they come toNaindelinde, one of the highest peaks of the Kauvandra mountains. Herethe path ends abruptly on the brink of a precipice, the foot of which iswashed by a deep lake. Over the edge of the precipice projects a largesteer-oar, and the handle is held either by the great god Ndengeihimself or, according to the better opinion, by his deputy. When a ghostcomes up and peers ruefully over the precipice, the deputy accosts him. "Under what circumstances, " he asks, "do you come to us? How did youconduct yourself in the other world?" Should the ghost be a man of rank, he may say, "I am a great chief. I lived as a chief, and my conduct wasthat of a chief. I had great wealth, many wives, and ruled over apowerful people. I have destroyed many towns, and slain many in war. ""Good, good, " says the deputy, "just sit down on the blade of that oar, and refresh yourself in the cool breeze. " If the ghost is unwary enoughto accept the invitation, he has no sooner seated himself on the bladeof the oar with his legs dangling over the abyss, than the deputy-deitytilts up the other end of the oar and precipitates him into the deepwater, far far below. A loud smack is heard as the ghost collides withthe water, there is a splash, a gurgle, a ripple, and all is over. Theghost has gone to his account in Murimuria, a very second-rate sort ofheaven, if it is nothing worse. But a ghost who is in favour with thegreat god Ndengei is warned by him not to sit down on the blade of theoar but on the handle. The ghost takes the hint and seats himself firmlyon the safe end of the oar; and when the deputy-deity tries to heave itup, he cannot, for he has no purchase. So the ghost remains master ofthe situation, and after an interval for refreshment is sent back toearth to be deified. [781]

[Sidenote: Murimuria, an inferior sort of heaven. The Fijian Elysium. ]

In Murimuria, which, as I said, is an inferior sort of heaven, thedeparted souls by no means lead a life of pure and unmixed enjoyment. Some of them are punished for the sins they committed in the flesh. Butthe Fijian notion of sin differs widely from ours. Thus we saw that theghosts of men who did no murder in their lives were punished for theirnegligence by having to pound muck with clubs. Again, people who had nottheir ears bored on earth are forced in Hades to go about for everbearing on their shoulders one of the logs of wood on which bark-clothis beaten out with mallets, and all who see the sinner bending under theload jeer at him. Again, women who were not tattooed in their life arechased by the female ghosts, who scratch and cut and tear them withsharp shells, giving them no respite; or they scrape the flesh fromtheir bones and bake it into bread for the gods. And ghosts who havedone anything to displease the gods are laid flat on their faces in rowsand converted into taro beds. But the few who do find their way into theFijian Elysium are blest indeed. There the sky is always cloudless; thegroves are perfumed with delicious scents; the open glades in the forestare pleasant; there is abundance of all that heart can desire. Languagefails to describe the ineffable bliss of the happy land. There the soulsof the truly good, who have murdered many of their fellows on earth andfed on their roasted bodies, are lapped in joy for ever. [782]

[Sidenote: Fijian doctrine of transmigration. ]

Nevertheless the souls of the dead were not universally believed todepart by the Spirit Path to the other world or to stay there for ever. To a certain extent the doctrines of transmigration found favour withthe Fijians. Some of them held that the spirits of the dead wanderedabout the villages in various shapes and could make themselves visibleor invisible at pleasure. The places which these vagrant souls loved tohaunt were known to the people, who in passing by them were wont to makepropitiatory offerings of food or cloth. For that reason, too, they werevery loth to go abroad on a dark night lest they should come bolt upon aghost. Further, it was generally believed that the soul of a celebratedchief might after death enter into some young man of the tribe andanimate him to deeds of valour. Persons so distinguished were pointedout and regarded as highly favoured; great respect was paid to them, they enjoyed many personal privileges, and their opinions were treatedwith much consideration. [783]

[Sidenote: Few souls saved under the old Fijian dispensation. ]

On the whole, when we survey the many perils which beset the way to theFijian heaven, and the many risks which the souls of the dead ran ofdying the second death in the other world or of being knocked on thehead by the living in this, we shall probably agree with the missionaryMr. Williams in concluding that under the old Fijian dispensation therewere few indeed that were saved. "Few, comparatively, " he says, "areleft to inhabit the regions of Mbulu, and the immortality even of theseis sometimes disputed. The belief in a future state is universal inFiji; but their superstitious notions often border upon transmigration, and sometimes teach an eventual annihilation. "[784]

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Concluding observations. ]

Here I must break off my survey of the natural belief in immortalityamong mankind. At the outset I had expected to carry the survey further, but I have already exceeded the usual limits of these lectures and Imust not trespass further on your patience. Yet the enquiry which I haveopened seems worthy to be pursued, and if circumstances should admit ofit, I shall hope at some future time to resume the broken thread ofthese researches and to follow it a little further through the labyrinthof human history. Be that as it may, I will now conclude with a fewgeneral observations suggested by the facts which I have laid beforeyou. 

[Sidenote: Strength and universality of the natural belief inimmortality among savages. Wars between savage tribes spring in largemeasure from their belief in immortality. Economic loss involved insacrifices to the dead. ]

In the first place, then, it is impossible not to be struck by thestrength, and perhaps we may say the universality, of the natural beliefin immortality among the savage races of mankind. With them a life afterdeath is not a matter of speculation and conjecture, of hope and fear;it is a practical certainty which the individual as little dreams ofdoubting as he doubts the reality of his conscious existence. He assumesit without enquiry and acts upon it without hesitation, as if it wereone of the best-ascertained truths within the limits of humanexperience. The belief influences his attitude towards the higherpowers, the conduct of his daily life, and his behaviour towards hisfellows; more than that, it regulates to a great extent the relations ofindependent communities to each other. For the state of war, whichnormally exists between many, if not most, neighbouring savage tribes, springs in large measure directly from their belief in immortality;since one of the commonest motives for hostility is a desire to appeasethe angry ghosts of friends, who are supposed to have perished by thebaleful arts of sorcerers in another tribe, and who, if vengeance is notinflicted on their real or imaginary murderers, will wreak their fury ontheir undutiful fellow-tribesmen. Thus the belief in immortality has notmerely coloured the outlook of the individual upon the world; it hasdeeply affected the social and political relations of humanity in allages; for the religious wars and persecutions, which distracted anddevastated Europe for ages, were only the civilised equivalents of thebattles and murders which the fear of ghosts has instigated amongstalmost all races of savages of whom we possess a record. Regarded fromthis point of view, the faith in a life hereafter has been sown likedragons' teeth on the earth and has brought forth crop after crop ofarmed men, who have turned their swords against each other. And when weconsider further the gratuitous and wasteful destruction of property aswell as of life which is involved in sacrifices to the dead, we mustadmit that with all its advantages the belief in immortality hasentailed heavy economical losses upon the races--and they arepractically all the races of the world--who have indulged in thisexpensive luxury. It is not for me to estimate the extent and gravity ofthe consequences, moral, social, political, and economic, which flowdirectly from the belief in immortality. I can only point to some ofthem and commend them to the serious attention of historians andeconomists, as well as of moralists and theologians. 

[Sidenote: How does the savage belief in immortality bear on thequestion of the truth or falsehood of that belief in general? The answerdepends to some extent on the view we take of human nature. The view ofthe grandeur and dignity of man. ]

My second observation concerns, not the practical consequences of thebelief in immortality, but the question of its truth or falsehood. That, I need hardly say, is an even more difficult problem than the other, andas I intimated at the outset of the lectures I find myself whollyincompetent to solve it. Accordingly I have confined myself to thecomparatively easy task of describing some of the forms of the beliefand some of the customs to which it has given rise, without presuming topass judgment upon them. I must leave it to others to place mycollections of facts in the scales and to say whether they incline thebalance for or against the truth of this momentous belief, which hasbeen so potent for good or ill in history. In every enquiry much dependsupon the point of view from which the enquirer approaches his subject;he will see it in different proportions and in different lightsaccording to the angle and the distance from which he regards it. Thesubject under discussion in the present case is human nature itself; andas we all know, men have formed very different estimates of themselvesand their species. On the one hand, there are those who love to dwell onthe grandeur and dignity of man, and who swell with pride at thecontemplation of the triumphs which his genius has achieved in thevisionary world of imagination as well as in the realm of nature. Surely, they say, such a glorious creature was not born for mortality, to be snuffed out like a candle, to fade like a flower, to pass awaylike a breath. Is all that penetrating intellect, that creative fancy, that vaulting ambition, those noble passions, those far-reaching hopes, to come to nothing, to shrivel up into a pinch of dust? It is not so, itcannot be. Man is the flower of this wide world, the lord of creation, the crown and consummation of all things, and it is to wrong him and hiscreator to imagine that the grave is the end of all. To those who takethis lofty view of human nature it is easy and obvious to find in thesimilar beliefs of savages a welcome confirmation of their own cherishedfaith, and to insist that a conviction so widely spread and so firmlyheld must be based on some principle, call it instinct or intuition orwhat you will, which is deeper than logic and cannot be confuted byreasoning. 

[Sidenote: The view of the pettiness and insignificance of man. ]

On the other hand, there are those who take a different view of humannature, and who find in its contemplation a source of humility ratherthan of pride. They remind us how weak, how ignorant, how short-lived isthe individual, how infirm of purpose, how purblind of vision, howsubject to pain and suffering, to diseases that torture the body andwreck the mind. They say that if the few short years of his life are notwasted in idleness and vice, they are spent for the most part in aperpetually recurring round of trivialities, in the satisfaction ofmerely animal wants, in eating, drinking, and slumber. When they surveythe history of mankind as a whole, they find the record chequered andstained by folly and crime, by broken faith, insensate ambition, wantonaggression, injustice, cruelty, and lust, and seldom illumined by themild radiance of wisdom and virtue. And when they turn their eyes fromman himself to the place he occupies in the universe, how are theyoverwhelmed by a sense of his littleness and insignificance! They seethe earth which he inhabits dwindle to a speck in the unimaginableinfinities of space, and the brief span of his existence shrink into amoment in the inconceivable infinities of time. And they ask, Shall acreature so puny and frail claim to live for ever, to outlast not onlythe present starry system but every other that, when earth and sun andstars have crumbled into dust, shall be built upon their ruins in thelong long hereafter? It is not so, it cannot be. The claim is nothingbut the outcome of exaggerated self-esteem, of inflated vanity; it isthe claim of a moth, shrivelled in the flame of a candle, to outlive thesun, the claim of a worm to survive the destruction of this terrestrialglobe in which it burrows. Those who take this view of the pettiness andtransitoriness of man compared with the vastness and permanence of theuniverse find little in the beliefs of savages to alter their opinion. They see in savage conceptions of the soul and its destiny nothing but aproduct of childish ignorance, the hallucinations of hysteria, theravings of insanity, or the concoctions of deliberate fraud andimposture. They dismiss the whole of them as a pack of superstitions andlies, unworthy the serious attention of a rational mind; and they saythat if such drivellings do not refute the belief in immortality, asindeed from the nature of things they cannot do, they are at leastfitted to invest its high-flown pretensions with an air of ludicrousabsurdity. 

[Sidenote: The conclusion left open. ]

Such are the two opposite views which I conceive may be taken of thesavage testimony to the survival of our conscious personality afterdeath. I do not presume to adopt the one or the other. It is enough forme to have laid a few of the facts before you. I leave you to draw yourown conclusion. 

[Footnote 701: Berthold Seeman, _Viti, an Account of a GovernmentMission to the Vitian or Fijian Islands_ (Cambridge, 1862), pp. 391_sq. _]

[Footnote 702: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 216. ]

[Footnote 703: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 216, 218 _sq. _; BasilThomson, _The Fijians_, p. 112. ]

[Footnote 704: Hazlewood, quoted by Capt. J. E. Erskine, _Journal of aCruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), pp. 246_sq. _]

[Footnote 705: Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States ExploringExpedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 83 _sq. _; Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 217 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 706: Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States ExploringExpedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 49, 86, 351, 352; Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 221-223; B. Seeman, _Viti_, pp. 392-394. ]

[Footnote 707: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 191 _sq. _]

[Footnote 708: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 223, 231. ]

[Footnote 709: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 87; Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _i. 226, 227; Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp. 157 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 710: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 87 _sq. _; Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 224 _sq. _; Capt. J. E. Erskine, _op. Cit. _ p. 250; LorimerFison, _Tales from Old Fiji_ (London, 1904), pp. 166 _sq. _ As for thetreatment of castaways, see J. E. Erskine, _op. Cit. _ p. 249; Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 210. The latter writer mentions a recent case inwhich fourteen or sixteen shipwrecked persons were cooked and eaten. ]

[Footnote 711: The Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to me dated August26th, 1898. I have already quoted the passage in _The Magic Art and theEvolution of Kings_, i. 378. ]

[Footnote 712: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 225 _sq. _]

[Footnote 713: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 231. ]

[Footnote 714: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 97; Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _i. 53. ]

[Footnote 715: John Jackson's Narrative, in Capt. J. E. Erskine's_Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), pp. 464 _sq. _, 472 _sq. _ The genital members of the men over whomthe canoe was dragged were cut off and hung on a sacred tree(_akau-tambu_), "which was already artificially prolific in fruit, bothof the masculine and feminine gender. " The tree which bore suchremarkable fruit was commonly an ironweed tree standing in a conspicuoussituation. As to these sacrifices compare Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 97; Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_, pp. Xvi. _sq. _]

[Footnote 716: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i, 112. ]

[Footnote 717: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 55. ]

[Footnote 718: Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_, pp. Xx. , xxi. _sq. _; Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 247; B. Seeman, _Viti_ (Cambridge, 1862), p. 401. ]

[Footnote 719: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 55 _sq. _ The writer witnessedwhat he calls the ceremony of consecration in the case of a young man ofthe highest rank in Somosomo and he has described what he saw. In thiscase a special hut was not built for the manslayer, and he was allowedto pass the nights in the temple of the war god. ]

[Footnote 720: See above, pp. 205 _sq. _, 229 _sq. _, 258, 279 _sq. _, 323, 396, 415. ]

[Footnote 721: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 55. ]

[Footnote 722: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 98, 99 _sq. _ Compare LorimerFison, _Tales from Old Fiji_, p. 163: "A person who has defiled himselfby touching a corpse is called _yambo_, and is not allowed to touch foodwith his hands for several days. " The custom as to a surviving widow ismentioned by Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 198. ]

[Footnote 723: Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_, p. 167. ]

[Footnote 724: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 101; Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _i. 197 _sq. _; Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_, p. 168; BasilThomson, _The Fijian_, p. 375. ]

[Footnote 725: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 197, 198. ]

[Footnote 726: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 99. ]

[Footnote 727: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 198 _sq. _]

[Footnote 728: Ch. Wilkes, _l. C. _]

[Footnote 729: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 197. ]

[Footnote 730: K. Weinhold, _Altnordisches Leben_ (Berlin, 1856), p. 476. ]

[Footnote 731: _The Zend-Avesta_, Part i. _The Vendidâd, _ translated byJames Darmesteter (Oxford, 1880), p. 95 (Fargard, viii. 2. 10) (_SacredBooks of the East_, vol. Iv. ). ]

[Footnote 732: W. R. S. Ralston, _The Songs of the Russian People_, Second Edition (London, 1872), p. 318. ]

[Footnote 733: Sonnerat, _Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine_(Paris, 1782), i. 86. ]

[Footnote 734: J. A. Dubois, _Moeurs, Institutions et Cérémonies desPeuples de l'Inde_ (Paris, 1825), ii. 225; E. Thurston, _EthnographicNotes in Southern India_ (Madras, 1906), pp. 226 _sq. _]

[Footnote 735: J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_ 3rd ed. (Göttingen, 1881), pp. 726 _sqq. _]

[Footnote 736: Rev. J. G. Campbell, _Superstitions of the Highlands andIslands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), p. 242. ]

[Footnote 737: _The Sacred Books of China_, translated by James Legge, Part iii. _The Lî-Kî_, i. -x. (Oxford, 1885) pp. 144 _sq. _ (Bk. Ii. Sect. I. Pt. II. 33) (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. Xxvii. ); J. F. Lafitau, _Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains_ (Paris, 1724), ii. 401 _sq. _, citingLe Comte, _Nouv. Mémoires de la Chine_, vol. Ii. P. 187. ]

[Footnote 738: _Relations des Jésuites_, 1633, p. 11; _id. _, 1634, p. 23(Canadian reprint, Quebec, 1858); J. G. Kohl, _Kitschi-Gami_ (Bremen, 1859), p. 149 note. ]

[Footnote 739: E. W. Nelson, "The Eskimo about Bering Strait, "_Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, Part i. (Washington, 1899), p. 311. ]

[Footnote 740: David Crantz, _History of Greenland_ (London, 1767), i. 237. Compare Hans Egede, _Description of Greenland_, Second Edition(London, 1818), pp. 152 _sq. _; Captain G. F. Lyon, _Private Journal_(London, 1824), p. 370; C. F. Hall, _Narrative of the Second ArcticExpedition_ (Washington, 1879), p. 265 (Esquimaux). ]

[Footnote 741: P. Kolben, _The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope_(London, 1731-1738), i. 316; C. P. Thunberg, "An Account of the Cape ofGood Hope, " in Pinkerton's _Voyages and Travels_, xvi. (London, 1814) p. 142; _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ (Paris), ii, Série, ii. (1834) p. 196 (Bechuanas); _id. _, vii. Série, vii. (1886) p. 587(Fernando Po); T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, _Relation d'un Voyaged'Exploration au Nord-est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Espérance_(Paris, 1842), pp. 502 _sq. _; C. J. Andersson, _Lake Ngami_, SecondEdition (London, 1856), p. 466; G. Fritsch, _Die EingeborenenSüd-Afrika's_ (Breslau, 1872), pp. 210, 335; R. Moffat, _MissionaryLabours and Scenes in Southern Africa_ (London, 1842), p. 307; E. Casalis, _The Basutos_ (London, 1861), p. 202; Ladislaus Magyar, _Reisenin Süd-Afrika_ (Buda-Pesth and Leipsic, 1859), p. 350; Rev. J. Macdonald, _Light in Africa_, Second Edition (London, 1890), p. 166; E. Béguin, _Les Ma-Rotse_ (Lausanne and Fontaines, 1903), p. 115; Henri A. Junod, _Les Ba-Ronga_ (Neuchâtel, 1898), p. 48; _id. _, _The Life of aSouth African Tribe_, i. (Neuchâtel, 1912) p. 138; Dudley Kidd, _TheEssential Kafir_ (London, 1904), p. 247; A. F. Mockler-Ferryman, _British Nigeria_ (London, 1902), p. 234; Ramseyer and Kühne, _FourYears in Ashantee_ (London, 1875), p. 50; A. B. Ellis, _The Land ofFetish_ (London, 1883), p. 13; _id. _, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples of theGold Coast_ (London, 1887), p. 239; E. Perregaud, _Chez les Achanti_(Neuchâtel, 1906), p. 127; J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Stämme_ (Berlin, 1906), p. 756; H. R. Palmer, "Notes on the Korôrofawa and Jukoñ, " _Journal ofthe African Society_, No. 44 (July, 1912), p. 414. The custom is alsoobserved by some tribes of Central Africa. See Miss A. Werner, _TheNatives of British Central Africa_ (London, 1906), p. 161; B. Gutmann, "Trauer und Begräbnisssitten der Wadschagga, " _Globus_, lxxxix. (1906)p. 200; Rev. N. Stam, "Religious Conceptions of the Kavirondo, "_Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 361. ]

[Footnote 742: C. Snouck Hurgronje, _Het Gajoland en zijne Bewoners_(Batavia, 1903), p. 313. ]

[Footnote 743: Aurel Krause, _Die Tlinkit-Indianer_ (Jena, 1885), p. 225; Franz Boas, in _Sixth Report of the Committee on the North-westernTribes of Canada_, p. 23 (separate reprint from the _Report of theBritish Association for the Advancement of Science_, Leeds Meeting, 1890); J. R. Swanton, _Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida_(Leyden and New York, 1905), pp. 52, 54 (_The Jesup North PacificExpedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History_). ]

[Footnote 744: J. A. H. Louis, _The Gates of Thibet_ (Calcutta, 1894), p. 114. ]

[Footnote 745: H. Von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch derZigeuner_ (Münster i. W. , 1891), p. 99. ]

[Footnote 746: W. Jochelson, _The Koryak_ (New York and Leyden, 1908), pp. 110 _sq. _ (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of theAmerican Museum of Natural History_). ]

[Footnote 747: W. H. Dall, _Alaska and its Resources_ (London, 1870), p. 382. ]

[Footnote 748: Lucien M. Turner, "Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory, " _Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau ofEthnology_ (Washington, 1894), p. 191. ]

[Footnote 749: Mgr. Bruguière, in _Annales de l'Association de laPropagation de la Foi_, v. (Lyons and Paris, 1831) p. 180. Compare Mgr. Pallegoix, _Description du royaume Thai ou Siam_ (Paris, 1854), i. 245;Adolf Bastian, _Die Volker des östlichen Asien_, iii. (Jena, 1867) p. 258; E. Young, _The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe_ (Westminster, 1898), p. 246. ]

[Footnote 750: S. Mateer, _Native Life in Travancore_ (London, 1883), p. 137. Compare A. Butterworth, "Royal Funerals in Travancore, " _IndianAntiquary_, xxxi. (1902) p. 251. ]

[Footnote 751: Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_(London, 1912), ii. 35. ]

[Footnote 752: S. K. Kusnezow, "Über den Glauben vom Jenseits und denTodtencultus der Tscheremissen, " _Internationales Archiv fürEthnographie_, ix. (1896) p. 157. ]

[Footnote 753: P. S. Pallas, _Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen desRussischen Reichs_ (St. Petersburg, 1771-1776), iii. 75; Middendorff, _Reise in den äussersten Norden und Osten Sibiriens_, iv. 1464. ]

[Footnote 754: _Exploraciones y Noticias hidrograficas de los Rios delNorte de Bolivia_, publicados por Manuel V. Ballivian, Segunda Parte, _Diario del Viage al Madre de Dios hecho por el P. Fr. Nicolas Armentia, en los años de 1884 y 1885_ (La Paz, 1890), p. 20: _"Cuando muerealguno, apénas sacan el cadáver de la casa, cambian la puerta al ladoopuesto, para que no dé con ella el difunto. "_]

[Footnote 755: Karl Bartsch, _Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche ausMeklenburg_ (Vienna, 1879-1880), ii. 100, § 358. ]

[Footnote 756: For some evidence on this subject, see R. Lasch, "DieBehandlung der Leiche des Selbstmörders, " _Globus_, lxxxvi. (1899) pp. 63-66; Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 20 _sq. _; A. Karasek, "Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Waschamba, " _Baessler-Archiv_, i. (1911) pp. 190 _sq. _]

[Footnote 757: Rev. N. Stam, "The Religious Conceptions of theKavirondo, " _Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 361. ]

[Footnote 758: Alfred de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes, et Traditions desProvinces de France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 198. ]

[Footnote 759: Félix Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_(Paris, 1902), ii. 164. ]

[Footnote 760: For some evidence on this subject see _Psyche's Task_, pp. 64 _sq. _]

[Footnote 761: Carl Bock, _Temples and Elephants_ (London, 1884), p. 262. ]

[Footnote 762: Ch. Gilhodes, "Naissance et Enfance chez les Katchins(Birmanie), " _Anthropos_, vi. (1911) pp. 872 _sq. _]

[Footnote 763: A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_ (Leyden, 1901-1907), i. 91. ]

[Footnote 764: Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_(London, 1912), ii. 155. ]

[Footnote 765: Franz Boas, in _Sixth Report of the Committee on theNorth-western Tribes of Canada_, p. 23 (separate reprint from the_Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science_, Leeds Meeting, 1890). ]

[Footnote 766: Prevost, quoted by John Crawford, _History of the IndianArchipelago_ (Edinburgh, 1820), ii. 245. Compare Adolf Bastian, _DieVölker des östlichen Asien_, v. (Jena, 1869) p. 83. ]

[Footnote 767: Mrs. Bishop (Isabella L. Bird), _Korea and herNeighbours_ (London, 1898), i. 239 _sq. _]

[Footnote 768: Arnold van Gennep, _Tabou et Totémisme à Madagascar_(Paris, 1904), p. 65, quoting Dr. Catat. ]

[Footnote 769: B. F. Matthes, _Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie vanZuid-Celebes_ (The Hague, 1875), p. 139; _id. _, "Over de âdá's ofgewoonten der Makassaren en Boegineezen, " _Verslagen en Mededeelingender Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen_, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Derde Reeks, ii. (Amsterdam, 1885) p. 142. ]

[Footnote 770: W. M. Donselaar "Aanteekeningen over het eilandSaleijer, " _Mededeelingen van wege het NederlandscheZendelinggenootschap_, i. (1857) p. 291. ]

[Footnote 771: See above, p. 426. ]

[Footnote 772: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition(London, 1860), i. 167. ]

[Footnote 773: Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States ExploringExpedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 83; Basil Thomson, _TheFijians_, p. 117. ]

[Footnote 774: Basil Thomson, _op. Cit. _ p. 121. ]

[Footnote 775: Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_, p. 163. ]

[Footnote 776: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 239. ]

[Footnote 777: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 243 _sq. _ Compare BertholdSeeman, _Viti, an Account of a Government Mission to the Vitian ofFijian Islands in the years 1860-1861_ (Cambridge, 1862), p. 399;Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_, p. 163; Basil Thomson, _TheFijians_, pp. 120 _sq. _, 121 _sq. _]

[Footnote 778: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i, 244 _sq. _]

[Footnote 779: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 83. ]

[Footnote 780: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 245 _sq. _]

[Footnote 781: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 246 _sq. _]

[Footnote 782: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 247. ]

[Footnote 783: Ch. Wilkes, _op. Cit. _ iii. 85 _sq. _]

[Footnote 784: Th. Williams, _op. Cit. _ i. 248. ]

NOTE

MYTH OF THE CONTINUANCE OF DEATH[785]

The following story is told by the Balolo of the Upper Congo to explainthe continuance, if not the origin, of death in the world. One day, while a man was working in the forest, a little man with two bundles, one large and one small, went up to him and said, "Which of thesebundles will you have? The large one contains knives, looking-glasses, cloth and so forth; and the small one contains immortal life. " "I cannotchoose by myself, " answered the man; "I must go and ask the other peoplein the town. " While he was gone to ask the others, some women arrivedand the choice was left to them. They tried the edges of the knives, decked themselves in the cloth, admired themselves in thelooking-glasses, and, without more ado, chose the big bundle. The littleman, picking up the small bundle, vanished. So when the man came backfrom the town, the little man and his bundles were gone. The womenexhibited and shared the things, but death continued on the earth. Hencethe people often say, "Oh, if those women had only chosen the smallbundle, we should not be dying like this!"[786]

[Footnote 785: See above, p. 77. ]

[Footnote 786: Rev. John H. Weeks, "Stories and other Notes from theUpper Congo, " _Folk-lore_, xii. (1901) p. 461; _id. _, _Among CongoCannibals_ (London, 1913), p. 218. The country of the Balolo lies fivemiles south of the Equator, on Longitude 18° East. ]

INDEX

Abinal, Father, 49

Abipones, their belief in sorcery as a cause of death, 35

Abnormal mental states explained by inspiration, 15

Aborigines, magical powers attributed by immigrants to, 193

Abstinence from certain food in mourning, 198, 208, 209, 230, 314, 360, 452

Abundance of food and water favourable to social progress, 90 _sq. _

Action as a clue to belief, 143

Actors personating ghosts and spirits, 176, 179 _sq. _, 180 _sqq. _, 185_sqq. _

Adiri, the land of the dead, 211, 212, 213, 214

Admiralty Islands, 393, 400, 401

---- Islanders, their myths of the origin of death, 71, 76 _sq. _

Advance of culture among the aborigines of South-Eastern Australia, 141_sq. _, 148 _sq. _

Africa, aborigines of, their ideas as to the cause of death, 49 _sqq. _; use of poison ordeal in, 50 _sqq. _

----, British Central, 162

----, British East, 61, 66, 254

Agriculture, rise of, favourable to astronomy, 140 _sq. _; Fijian, 408

Akamba, their story of the origin of death, 61 _sq. _

Akikuyu, resurrection and circumcision among the, 254

_Alcheringa_ or dream times, 96, 103, 114

---- ancestors, their marvellous powers, 103

---- home of the dead, 167

Alfoors of Celebes, 166

Alligators, ghosts in, 380

_Alols_, bachelors' houses, 221, 222

Altars, stones used as, 379

Amputation of fingers in mourning, 199, 426 _sq. _, 451

Amulets consisting of relics of the dead, 332, 370

Ancestor, totemic, developing into a god, 113

Ancestor-worship possibly evolved from totemism, 114 _sq. _

Ancestors, reincarnation of, 92 _sqq. _; marvellous powers ascribed to remote, 103, 114 _sq. _; totemic, traditions concerning, 115 _sqq. _; dramatic ceremonies to commemorate the doings of, 118 _sqq. _; possible evolution of worship of, in Central Australia, 125 _sq. _; worshipped, 221, 297 _sq. _, 328 _sqq. _, 338, 340; ghosts of, appealed to for help, 258 _sq. _; offerings to, 298; prayers to, 329 _sq. _, 332 _sqq. _ _See also_ Dead

Ancestral gods, foreskins of circumcised lads offered to, 427; libations to, 430, 438

---- images, 307 _sqq. _, 315, 316 _sq. _, 321, 322

---- spirits help hunters and fishers, 226; shrines for, 316, 317; worshipped as gods, 369; worshipped in the _Nanga_, 428 _sq. _; first-fruits offered to, 429; cloth and weapons offered to, 430 _sq. _; novices presented to, at initiation, 432 _sq. _, 434. 

Angola, the poison ordeal in, 51 _sq. _

Angoni, their burial customs, 162

Animals, souls of sorcerers in, 39; spirits of, go to the spirit land, 210; sacrifices to the souls of, 239; transmigration of dead into, 242, 245; ghosts in the form of, 282; ghosts turn into, 287; ghosts incarnate in, 379 _sq. _

Animistic views of the Papuans, 264

Anjea, a mythical being, 128

Annam, 67, 69

Anointing manslayers, 448

Ant-hills, ghosts turn into, 287

Ant totem, dramatic ceremony concerned with, 120 _sq. _

Ants' nests, ghosts turn into, 351

Anthropology, comparative and descriptive, 230 _sq. _

Antimerina of Madagascar, burial custom of the, 461

Anuto, a creator, 296

Apparitions, 396; fear of, 414

Appearance of the dead in dreams, 229

Araucanians of Chili, their disbelief in natural death, 35, 53 _sq. _

Arawaks of Guiana, 36; their myth of the origin of death, 70

Arm-bone, final burial ceremony performed with the, 167 _sq. _; lower, of dead preserved, 274

---- -bones, special treatment of the, 199; of dead preserved, 225, 249

Aroma district of British New Guinea, 201, 202

Arrow-heads made of bones of the dead, 352

Art, primitive religious, 114; Papuan, 220

_Arugo_, soul of dead, 207

_Arumburinga_, spiritual double, 164

Arunta, the, of Central Australia, 94; ceremonies connected with totems, 119 _sqq. _; their magical ceremonies for the multiplication of the totems, 122 _sq. _; their customs as to the hair of the dead, 138; their cuttings for the dead, 155 _sq. _, 159; burial customs of the, 164 _sq. _, 166

Aryan burial custom, 453

_Asa_, Secret Society, 233

Ashantee story of the origin of death, 63 _sq. _

Ashes smeared on mourners, 184, 361

Astrolabe Bay in German New Guinea, 218, 230, 235, 237

Astronomy, rise of, favoured by agriculture, 140 _sq. _

Asylums, 243

_Asyrèn_, dead man, 457

_Ataro_, a powerful ghost, 377

Atonement for sick chief, 427

Aukem, a mythical being, 181

Aurora, one of the New Hebrides, 360, 382

Australia, causes which retarded progress in, 89 _sq. _; germs of a worship of the dead in, 168 _sq. _ _See also_ Central Australia, Western Australia

----, the aborigines of, their ideas as to death from natural causes, 40 _sqq. _; their primitive character, 88, 91; the belief in immortality among, 127 _sqq. _; thought to be reborn in white people, 130, 131 _sqq. _; their burial customs, 144 _sqq. _; their primitive condition, 217

----, South, beliefs as to the dead in, 134 _sqq. _

Australia, South-Eastern, beliefs as to the dead in, 133 _sq. _, 139; burial customs among the aborigines of, 145 _sqq. _

----, Western, burial customs in, 147, 150, 151

Authority of chiefs based on their claim to magical powers, 395

Avenging a death, pretence of, 282, 328

Bachelor ghosts, hard fate of, 464

Bachelors' houses, 221

Bad and good, different fate of the, after death, 354

Baganda, the, their ideas as to the causes of death, 56 _n. _ 2; their myth of the origin of death, 78 _sqq. _ _See also_ Uganda

Bahaus, the, of Borneo, 459

Bahnars of Cochinchina, 74

Bakaïri, the, of Brazil, 35

Bakerewe, the, of the Victoria Nyanza, 50

Bali, burial custom in, 460

Balking ghosts, 455 _sqq. _

Balolo, of the Upper Congo, their myth of the continuance of death, 472

_Balum_, ghost or spirit of dead, 244; name for bull-roarer, 250; name for a ghost or monster who swallows lads at initiation, 251, 255, 260, 261; soul of a dead man, 257, 261

Bamler, G. , 291, 297 _sq. _

Bananas in myths of the origin of death, 60, 70, 72 _sq. _

Bandages to prevent entrance of ghosts, 396

Bandaging eyes of corpse, 459

Banks' Islands, 343, 353, 386; myths of the origin of death in, 71, 83 _sq. _

---- Islanders, funeral customs of the, 355 _sqq. _

Bantu family, 60

Baronga, the, 61; burial custom of the, 454

Bartle Bay, 206, 208

Basutos, the, 61; burial custom of the, 454

Bat in myth of origin of death, 75

Bathing in sea after funeral, 207 _sq. _; as purification after a death, 314, 319

Battel, Andrew, 51 _sq. _

Bechuanas, the, 61; burial custom of the, 454

Beetles in myth of the origin of death, 70

Belep tribe of New Caledonia, 325

Belief, acts as a clue to, 143

Belief in immortality, origin of belief in, 25 _sqq. _; almost universal among races of mankind, 33; among the aborigines of Central Australia, 87 _sqq. _; among the islanders of Torres Straits, 170 _sqq. _; among the natives of British New Guinea, 190 _sqq. _; among the natives of German New Guinea, 216 _sqq. _; among the natives of Dutch New Guinea, 303 _sqq. _; among the natives of Southern Melanesia, 324 _sqq. _; among the natives of Central Melanesia, 343 _sqq. _; its practical effect on the life of the Central Melanesians, 391 _sq. _; among the natives of Northern Melanesia, 393 _sqq. _; among the Fijians, 406 _sqq. _; strongly held by savages, 468; destruction of life and property entailed by the, 468 _sq. _; the question of its truth, 469 _sqq. _

Belief in sorcery a cause of keeping down the population, 38, 40

Berkeley, his theory of knowledge, 11 _sq. _

Berlin Harbour in German New Guinea, 218

Bernau, Rev. J. H. , 38

Beryl-stone in _Rose Mary_, 130

Betindalo, the land of the dead, 350

Bhotias, the, of the Himalayas, 163

Biak or Wiak, island, 303

Bilking a ghost, 416

Bird in divination as to cause of death, 45

Birds, souls of sorcerers in, 39

Birth, new, at initiation, pretence of, 254

Birthplaces, the dead buried in their, 160

Birth-stones and birth-sticks (_churinga_) of the Central Australians, 96 _sqq. _

Bismarck Archipelago, 70, 394, 402

Black, mourners painted, 178, 241, 293; gravediggers painted, 451

---- -snake people, 94

Blackened, faces of mourners, 403

Blood of mourners dropped on corpse or into grave, 158 _sq. _, 183, 185; and hair of mourners offered to the dead, 183; of pigs smeared on skulls and bones of the dead, 200; soul thought to reside in the, 307; of sacrificial victim not allowed to fall on the ground, 365

---- revenge, duty of, 274, 276 _sq. _; discharged by sham fight, 136 _sq. _

Bogadyim, in German New Guinea, 230, 231

Boigu, the island of the dead, 175, 184, 213

Bolafagina, the lord of the dead, 350

Bolotoo, the land of souls, 411

Bones of the dead, second burial of the, 166 _sq. _; kept in house, 203; worn by survivors, 225; disinterred and kept in house, 225, 294; making rain by means of the, 341

---- and skulls of dead smeared with blood of pigs, 200

Bonitos, ghosts in, 380

_Boollia_, magic, 41 _sq. _

"Born of an oak or a rock, " 128

Bougainville, island of, 393

Boulia district of Queensland, 147, 155

Bow, divination by, 241

Bread-fruit trees, stones to make them bear fruit, 335 _sq. _

Breaking things offered to the dead, 276

Breath, vital principle associated with the, 129 _sq. _

Brett, Rev. W. H. , 35 _sqq. _

Brewin, an evil spirit, 45

Brittany, burial custom in, 458

Brothers-in-law in funeral rites, 177

Brown, Rev. Dr. George, 48, 395

Buandik, the, 138

Buckley, the convict, 131

Buginese, burial custom of the, 461

Bugotu, 350, 352; in Ysabel, 372, 379

Building king's house, men sacrificed at, 446

Bukaua, the, of German New Guinea, 242, 256 _sqq. _

Bull-roarers, 243; used in divination, 249; described, 250; used at initiation of young men among the Yabim, 250 _sqq. _; among the Kaya-Kaya, 255; at initiation among the Bukaua, 260 _sq. _; associated with the spirits of the dead, 261; at initiation among the Kai, 263, 291; at initiation of young men among the Tami, 301, 302

Bulotu or Bulu, the land of the dead, 462, 463

Bundle, the fatal, 472; story of, 77 _sq. _

_Bures_, Fijian temples, 439

Burial different for old and young, married and unmarried, etc. , 161 _sqq. _; and burning of the dead, 162 _sq. _; special modes of, intended to prevent or facilitate the return of the spirit, 163 _sqq. _; second, custom of, 166 _sq. _; in trees, 203; in island, 319; in the sea, 347 _sq. _

---- customs of the Australian aborigines, 144 _sqq. _; in Tumleo, 223; of the Kai, 274; of the New Caledonians, 326 _sq. _, 339 _sq. _; in New Ireland, 397 _sq. _; in the Duke of York Island, 403. _See also_ Corpse, Grave

---- -grounds, sacred, 378

Buried alive, old people, 359 _sq. _

Burma, 75

Burning and burial of the dead, 162 _sq. _

---- bodies of women who died in childbed, 459

Burns inflicted on themselves by mourners, 154, 155, 157, 327, 451

Burnt offerings to the dead, 294

---- sacrifices, reasons for, 348 _sq. _; to ghosts, 366, 367 _sq. _, 373

Burying alive the sick and old, Fijian custom of, 420 _sqq. _

---- people in their birthplaces, 160

Bushmen, 65

_Buwun_, deities, 296

Caffres of South Africa, their beliefs as to the causes of death, 55_sq. _

Calabar, poison ordeal in, 52

California, Indians of, 68

Calling back a lost soul, 312

Calm and wind produced by weather-doctors, 385 _sq. _

Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, 171, 191

Canaanites, the heathen, 154

Canadian Indians, burial custom of the, 454

Canarium nuts, first-fruits of, offered to ghosts, 368 _sq. _

Cannibal feasts in Fiji, 446

Cannibals fear the ghosts of their victims, 396

Canoe, men sacrificed at launching a new, 446 _sq. _

Canoes, Papuan, 220

Cape Bedford in Queensland, 129, 130, 131

---- King William in German New Guinea, 218, 238

Carnac in Brittany, 438

Catching soul in a scarf, 412 _sq. _

Cause, Hume's analysis of, 18 _sq. _

Causes, the propensity to search for, 17 _sq. _; two classes of, 22

Caves used as burial-places or charnel-houses, 330 _sqq. _

Celebes, Central, 72

Central Australia, aborigines of, their ideas as to natural death, 46_sq. _; their ideas as to resurrection, 68; their belief in immortality, 87 _sqq. _; their belief in reincarnation of the dead, 92 _sqq. _; their attitude towards the dead, 124 _sqq. _

Cereals unknown to Melanesians and Polynesians, 408

Ceremonial impurity of manslayer, 229 _sq. _

Ceremonies performed in honour of the Wollunqua, a mythical water-snake, 108 _sqq. _; dramatic, to commemorate the doings of ancestors, 118 _sqq. _; funeral, of the Torres Straits Islanders, 176 _sqq. _ _See also_ Dramatic Ceremonies, Dramatic Representations, Funeral Ceremonies, Totems

Chameleon in myths of the origin of death, 60 _sqq. _

Chams of Annam, 67

Charms imparted by dead in dreams, 139

Charnel-houses, 221 _sq. _, 225, 328

Cheating the devil, 460

Chepara, the, 139

Cheremiss of Russia, burial custom of the, 457

Cherokee Indians, 77

Chief, spirit of dead, a worshipful ghost, 352

Chief's power in Central Melanesia based on a fear of ghosts, 391

Chiefs deified after death, 369

Chiefs' authority based on their claim to magical powers, 395

Chieftainship, rise of, 141

Childbed, treatment of ghosts of women dying in, 358; special fear of ghosts of women dying in, 458 _sqq. _

Childless women, burial of, 458

Children, Central Australian theory of the birth of, 93 _sq. _; belief of Queensland natives as to the birth of, 128

Children buried in trees, 161, 312 _sq. _; stillborn, burial of, 458

Child-stones, 93 _sq. _

Chingpaws of Burma, 75

_Choi_, disembodied human spirits, 128

Chukchansi Indians, 163

_Churinga_, sacred sticks or stones, 96 _sqq. _

Circumcision as initiatory rite of young men, 233; among the Yabim, 250 _sqq. _; among the Akikuyu, 254; among the Bukaua, 260 _sq. _; among the Kai, 290 _sq. _; among the Tami, 301 _sq. _; as a propitiatory sacrifice, 426 _sqq. _

Clans, totemic, 104

Clay, widow's body smeared with, 223

Cleanliness due to fear of sorcery, 386 _sq. _, 414

Cleft stick used in cure, 271

Clercq, F. S. A. De, 316

Cloth and weapons offered to ancestral spirits, 430 _sq. _

Clubhouses for men, 221, 225, 226, 243, 256 _sq. _, 355

Cochinchina, 74

Coco-nut trees of dead cut down, 208, 209, 327; stones to blight, 335

---- -nuts tabooed, 297

Codrington, Dr. R. H. , 54 _sq. _, 344, 345 _sq. _, 353, 355, 359, 362_sq. _, 368, 380 _sq. _

Collins, David, 133

Commemorative and magical ceremonies combined, 122, 126

Commercial habits of the North Melanesians, 394

Communal houses, 304

Communism, temporary revival of primitive, 436 _sq. _

Comparative and descriptive anthropology, their relation, 230 _sq. _

Comparative method applied to the study of religion, 5 _sq. _; in anthropology, 30

Compartments in land of the dead, 244, 354, 404

Competition as a cause of progress, 89 _sq. _

Conception in women, Central Australian theory of, 93 _sq. _; belief of Queensland natives concerning, 128

Conception of death, the savage, 31 _sqq. _

Concert of spirits, 340 _sq. _

Confession of sins, 201

Congo, natives of the, their ideas as to natural death, 50; worship of the moon on the, 68

Consecration of manslayers in Fiji, 448 _sq. _

Consultation of ancestral images, 308 _sqq. _

Continence, required in training yam vines, 371

Continuance of death, myth of the, 472

Contradictions and inconsistencies in reasoning not peculiar to savages, 111 _sq. _

Convulsions as evidence of inspiration, 443, 444

Co-operative system of piety, 333

Coorgs, the, 163

Cord worn round neck by mourners, 241, 242, 249, 259, 361

Corpse inspected to discover sorcerer, 37, 38, 53 _sq. _; dried on fire, 135, 184, 249, 313, 355; tied to prevent ghost from walking, 144; mauled and mutilated in order to disable the ghost, 153; putrefying juices of, received by mourners on their bodies, 167, 205; carried out feet foremost, 174; decked with ornaments and flowers, 232; painted white and red, 233; crowned with red roses, 233, 234; stript of ornaments before burial, 234, 241; kept in house, 355; property displayed beside the, 397; persons who have handled a corpse forbidden to touch food with their hands, 450 _sq. _; carried out of house by special opening, 452 _sqq. _

Corpses mummified, 313; of women dying in childbed burnt, 459

Costume of mourners, 184, 198, 241 _sq. _; of widow and widower, 204

Costumes of actors in dramatic ceremonies concerned with totems, 119_sqq. _

Crabs in myth of the origin of death, 70

Cracking joints of fingers at incantation, 223

Creator, the, and the origin of death, 73

Crocodiles, transmigration of dead into, 245

Cromlechs, 438

Crops, ghosts expected to make the crops thrive, 259, 284, 288 _sq. _

Cross-questioning a ghost by means of fire, 278

Cultivation of the ground, spirits of ancestors supposed to help in the, 259

Culture, advance of, among the aborigines of South-Eastern Australia, 141 _sq. _, 148 _sq. _; advanced, of the Fijians, 407

Cursing enemies, 370, 403, 404

Cutting down trees of the dead, 208, 209

Cuttings of the flesh in honour of the dead, 154 _sqq. _, 183, 184 _sq. _, 196, 272, 327, 359

Dance of death, 185 _sqq. _

Dances as funeral rites, 179 _sqq. _, 200; masked, of the Monumbo, 228; masked, of a Secret Society, 233; at deaths, 293 _sq. _; of masked men in imitation of spirits, 297; at festivals, 316; at festivals of the dead, 321; at funeral feasts, 399

---- and games at festivals, 226

Dark, ghosts dreaded in the, 197, 283, 306, 467; female mourners remain in the, 360

Daula, a ghost associated with the frigate-bird, 376

Dawson, James, 42, 142, 143

Dazing a ghost, 416

Dead, worship of the, 23 _sqq. _, 31, 328 _sqq. _, 338; seen in dreams, 27; belief in the reincarnation of the, 92 _sqq. _, 107; spirits of, associated with conspicuous features of the landscape, 115 _sqq. _; reincarnation of the, 124 _sq. _, 127 _sqq. _; souls of the, supposed to go to the sky, 133 _sq. _, 135, 138 _sq. _, 141, 142; souls of the, supposed to be in stars, 134, 140; names of the, not mentioned, 135; magical virtue attributed to the hair of the, 137 _sq. _; appear to the living in dreams, 139, 195, 213, 229; attentions paid to the, in regard to food, fire, property, etc. , 144 _sqq. _; property of, deposited in grave, 145 _sqq. _; motive for destroying the property of the, 147 _sq. _; economic loss entailed by sacrifices to the, 149; incipient worship of the, in Australia, 149, 150; feared, 152 _sq. _, 173 _sqq. _, 196 _sq. _, 201, 203, 244, 248; cuttings of the flesh in honour of the, 154 _sqq. _, 183, 184 _sq. _, 196, 327, 359; thought to be strengthened by blood, 159; disposed of in different ways according to their age, manner of death, etc. , 161 _sqq. _; fear of the, 168; germs of a worship of the, in Australia, 168 _sq. _; destruction of the property of the, 174; land of the, 175 _sq. _, 192, 193, 194 _sq. _, 202, 203, 207, 209 _sq. _, 211 _sqq. _, 224, 228 _sq. _, 244, 260, 286 _sq. _, 292, 299, 305 _sq. _, 307, 322, 326, 345, 350 _sq. _, 353 _sq. _, 404 _sqq. _, 462 _sqq. _; personated by masked men, 176, 179 _sq. _, 182 _sq. _, 185 _sqq. _; food offered to the, 183, 211, 214, 232, 241, 332, 338, 348 _sq. _, 364 _sq. _, 367 _sq. _, 372 _sq. _, 396 _sq. _, 429, 442, 467; elements of a worship of the, in Torres Straits, 189; laid on platforms, 199, 203, 205; worshipped in British New Guinea, 201 _sq. _; prayers to the, 201 _sq. _, 214, 259, 288, 307, 329 _sq. _, 332 _sqq. _, 340, 376 _sq. _, 401, 403 _sq. _, 427, 441; names of, not mentioned, 210, 246; monuments of the, 225; offerings of hunters and fishers to the, 226; oracles of the, 235; buried in the house, 236, 347, 352, 397, 398, 399; offerings to the, 239, 276, 292, 298; transmigrate into animals, 242, 245; spirits of the, give good crops, 247 _sq. _; elements of a worship of the dead among the Yabim, 255; spirits of the, believed to be mischievous, 257; ancestors supposed to help in the cultivation of the ground, 259; first-fruits offered to the, 259; buried under houses, 259; envious of the living, 267, 381; burnt offerings to the, 294; predominance of the worship of the, 297 _sq. _; power of the, over the living, 298, 306 _sq. _, 307; sacrifices to the, 307, 338; wooden images (_korwar_) of the, 307 _sqq. _, 315, 316 _sq. _, 321, 322; buried in island, 319; festival of the, 320 _sq. _; medicine-men, inspired by spirits of the, 322; spirits of the, embodied in their skulls, 338; spirits of the, identified with white men, 342; buried in the sea, 347 _sq. _, 397; relics of the, preserved, 348; bodies of the, preserved for a time in the house, 351; represented by wooden stocks, 374, 386; burned in New Ireland, 397; carried out of house by special opening, 452 _sqq. _ _See also_ Ghost

Dead kings of Uganda consulted as oracles, 151

Death, the problem of, 31 _sqq. _; the savage conception of, 31 _sqq. _; thought to be an effect of sorcery, 33 _sqq. _; by natural causes, recognised by some savages, 55 _sq. _; myths of the origin of, 59 _sqq. _; personified in tales, 79 _sqq. _; not regarded as a natural necessity, 84 _sqq. _; the second, of the dead, 195, 286, 299, 345, 350, 351, 354; attributed to sorcery, 249; violent, ascribed to sorcery, 268 _sq. _; myth of the continuance of, 472

Death and resurrection at initiation, ceremony of, 431, 434 _sq. _; pretence of, at initiation, 254 _sq. _, 261, 302

Death-dances, 293 _sq. _; of the Torres Straits Islanders, 179 _sqq. _

Deaths from natural causes, disbelief of savages in, 33 _sqq. _; attributed to sorcery, 136, 203; set down to sorcery or ghosts, 203, 268, 270

Deceiving the ghost, 237, 273, 280 _sqq. _, 328

Deceiving the spirits, 298

Deification of the dead, 24, 25; of parents, 439

Deity consumes soul of offering, 297

Demon carries off soul of sick, 194

Demons as causes of disease and death, 36 _sq. _

Demonstrations, extravagant, of grief at a death, dictated by fear ofthe ghost, 271 _sqq. _

Déné or Tinneh Indians, their ideas as to death, 39 _sq. _

Departure of ghost thought to coincide with disappearance of flesh frombones, 165 _sq. _

Descent of the living into the nether world, 300, 355

Descriptive and comparative anthropology, their relation, 230 _sq. _

Descriptive method in anthropology, 30

Desertion of house after a death, 195, 196 _n. _ 1, 210, 248, 275, 349, 400; of village after a death, 275

Deserts as impediments to progress, 89, 90

Design emblematic of totem, 168

Destruction of house after a death, 210

---- of life and property entailed by the belief in immortality, 468 _sq. _

---- of property of the dead, 174, 459; motive for, 147 _sq. _, 327

Development arrested or retarded in savagery, 88 _sqq. _

Dieri, the, 138; their burial customs, 144

Differentiation of function in prayer, 332 _sq. _

Disbelief of savages in death from natural causes, 34 _sqq. _

Disease supposed to be caused by sorcery, 35 _sqq. _; demons regarded as causes of, 36 _sq. _; recognised by some savages as due to natural causes, 55 _sq. _; special modes of disposing of bodies of persons who die of, 162, 163. _See also_ Sickness

Diseases ascribed to ghosts, 257

Disinterment of the bones of the dead, 225, 294

Dissection of corpse to discover cause of death, 53 _sq. _

Divination to discover cause of death, 35, 36, 37 _sq. _, 38, 39 _sq. _, 44, 45 _sq. _, 50 _sqq. _, 53 _sq. _, 136; by liver, 54; by dreams, 136, 383; by the skulls of the dead, 179; to discover sorcerer who caused death, 240 _sq. _, 249 _sq. _, 257, 402; by bow, 241; by hair to discover cause of death, 319; by means of ghosts, 389 _sq. _; to discover ghost who has caused sickness, 382

Divinity of kings, 16; of Fijian kings, 407 _sq. _; Fijian notion of, 440 _sq. _

Dog, in myth of the origin of death, 66; the Heavenly, 460

Dogs sacrificed to the dead, 232, 234; sacrificed in epidemics, 296

Doreh Bay in Dutch New Guinea, 303, 306

Dragon supposed to swallow lads at initiation, 301. _See also_ Monster

Drama of death and resurrection at initiation, 431, 434 _sq. _

----, evolution of, 189

Dramatic ceremonies in Central Australia, magical intention of, 122_sq. _, 126

---- concerned with totems, 119 _sqq. _

---- to commemorate the doings of ancestors, 118 _sqq. _

Dramatic representation of ghosts and spirits by masked men, 176, 179_sq. _, 180 _sqq. _, 185 _sqq. _

Drawings on ground in religious or magical ceremony, 112 _sq. _

---- on rocks, 318

Dread of witchcraft, 413 _sq. _

Dreamer, professional, 383

Dreams as a source of the belief in immortality and of the worship of the dead, 27 _sq. _, 214; divination by, 136; appearance of the dead to the living in, 139, 195, 213, 229; savage faith in the truth of, 139 _sq. _; consultation of the dead in, 179; danger of, 194; the dead communicate with the living in, 248

Driving away the ghost, 178, 197, 248, 305, 306, 323, 356 _sqq. _, 396, 399, 415

Drowning of ghosts, 224

Duke of York Island, 393, 397, 403, 404

Dying, threats of the, 273

Ears of corpse stopped with hot coals, 152; of mourners cut, 183, 272, 327

Earth-burial and tree-burial, 161, 166 _sq. _

Earthquakes ascribed to ghosts, 286, 288; caused by deities, 296

Eating totemic animals or plants, 120 _sq. _

Economic loss entailed by sacrifices to the dead, 149; entailed by the belief in immortality, 468 _sq. _

Eel, ghost in, 379

Eels offered to the dead, 429

Egypt, custom at embalming a corpse in ancient, 178

Elysium, the Fijian, 466 _sq. _

Embryology of religion, 88

Emu totem, dramatic ceremonies concerned with, 122, 123

Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia, 42

Epilepsy ascribed to anger of ghosts, 257, 283

---- and inspiration, 15

Erdweg, Father Josef, 218, 219, 227

Erskine, Capt. J. E. , 409

_Ertnatulunga_, sacred store-house, 99

_Erythrophloeum guiniense_, in poison ordeal, 50

Esquimaux, burial custom of the, 454, 456

Essence, immaterial, of sacrifice absorbed by ghosts and spirits, 285, 287, 374

Euhemerism, 24 _sq. _

Euhemerus, 24

European teaching, influence of, on native beliefs, 142 _sq. _

Evil spirits regarded as causes of death, 36 _sq. _

Excitement as mark of inspiration, 14

Exogamy with female descent, 416, 418

Exorcism as cure for sickness, 222 _sq. _

Experience defined, 12; two sorts of, 13 _sq. _

---- and intuition, 11

External world, question of the reality of, 13 _sq. _; an illusion, 21

Eye, soul resides in the, 267

Eyes of corpse bandaged, 459

Faints ascribed to action of ghosts, 257, 283

Faith, weakening of religious, 4

Falling stars the souls of the dead, 229, 399

Family prayers of the New Caledonians, 332 _sq. _, 340

---- priests, 332, 340

Famine, the stone of, 334 _sq. _

Fasting in mourning for a king, 451 _sq. _

Father-in-law, mourning for a, 155

Favourable natural conditions, their influence in stimulating socialprogress, 141 _sq. _, 148 _sq. _

Fear of ghosts, 134, 135, 147, 151 _sqq. _, 158, 173 _sqq. _, 195, 196 _sq. _, 201, 203, 229 _sq. _, 232, 237, 276, 282 _sq. _, 305, 321, 327, 347, 396, 414 _sq. _, 449, 455, 467; a moral restraint, 175; the source of extravagant demonstrations of grief at death, 271 _sqq. _; taboo based on, 390 _sq. _; a bulwark of morality, 392; funeral customs based on, 450 _sqq. _; of women dying in childbed, 458 _sqq. _

Fear of the dead, 152 _sq. _, 168, 173 _sqq. _, 195, 196 _sq. _, 201, 203, 244, 248

---- of witchcraft, 244

---- the only principle of religious observances in Fiji, 443

Feasts provided for ghosts, 247 _sq. _ _See also_ Funeral Feasts

Feather-money offered to ghosts, 374, 375

Feet foremost, corpse carried out, 174

Ferry for ghosts, 224, 244 _sq. _, 350, 412, 462

Festival of the dead, 320 _sq. _

Fig-trees, sacred, 199

Fighting or warrior ghosts, 370

Fiji and the Fijians, 406 _sqq. _

----, human sacrifices in, 446 _sq. _

Fijian islands, scenery of, 409 _sq. _

---- myths of origin of death, 66 _sq. _, 75 _sq. _

Fijians, belief in immortality among the, 406 _sqq. _; their advanced culture, 407

Fingers amputated in mourning, 199, 451

---- of living sacrificed in honour of the dead, 426 _sq. _

Finsch Harbour in German New Guinea, 218, 242, 262

Fire as a means of keeping off ghosts, 131

---- -flies, ghosts as, 352

---- kindled on grave, to warm ghost, 144 _sq. _, 196 _sq. _, 209, 211, 223, 275, 359

---- supplied to ghost, 246 _sq. _; used to keep off ghosts, 258, 283; used in cross-questioning a ghost, 278

Firstborn children, skull-topped images made of dead, 312

First-fruits offered to the dead, 259; of canarium nuts offered to ghosts, 368 _sq. _; offered to deified spirits of dead chiefs, 369; offered to ghosts, 373 _sq. _; of yams offered to the ancestral spirits, 429

Fish offered by fishermen to the dead, 226; prayers for, 329; ghost in, 379

---- totem, dramatic ceremony concerned with, 119 _sq. _, 121

Fishermen pray to ghosts, 289

----, stones to help, 337

Fison, Lorimer, 407, 412, 416, 418, 428 _n. _ 1, 434, 435 _sqq. _, 438_n. _ 1, 445, 448

Fits ascribed to contact with ghosts, 283. _See also_ Epilepsy

Florida, one of the Solomon Islands, 346, 347, 348, 349, 367, 368, 376, 377, 379, 380

Flutes, sacred, 221, 226, 233, 252

Flying-foxes, souls of the dead in, 405

Food placed on grave, 144; offered to the dead, 183, 201, 208, 211, 214, 232, 241, 332, 338, 364 _sq. _, 367 _sq. _, 372 _sq. _, 396 _sq. _, 429, 442, 467; abstinence from certain, in mourning, 198, 208, 209, 230, 314, 360, 452; supply promoted by ghosts, 283; offered to ancestral spirits, 316; offered to the skulls of the dead, 339 _sq. _, 352; offered to ghosts, 348 _sq. _; of ghosts, the living not to partake of the, 355

---- not to be touched with the hands by gravediggers, 327; not to be touched with hands by persons who have handled a corpse, 450 _sq. _

---- and water, abundance of, favourable to social progress, 90 _sq. _; offered to the dead, 174

Fool and Death, 83

Footprints, magic of, 45

Foundation-sacrifice of men, 446

Fowlers pray to ghosts, 289

Frenzy a symptom of inspiration, 443, 444 _sq. _

Frigate-bird, mark of the, 350; ghost associated with the, 376

Frigate-birds, ghosts in, 380

Frog in stories of the origin of death, 61, 62 _sq. _

Fruit-trees cut down for ghost, 246

---- of the dead cut down, 399

Funeral ceremonies intended to dismiss the ghost from the land of theliving, 174 _sq. _

---- ceremonies of the Torres Straits Islanders, 176 _sqq. _

---- customs of the Tami, 293 _sq. _; of the Central Melanesians, 347 _sqq. _, 355 _sqq. _; based on fear of ghosts, 450 _sqq. _

---- feasts, 348, 351, 358 _sq. _, 360, 396; orations, 355 _sq. _

Forces, impersonal, the world conceived as a complex of, 21

Foreskins sacrificed in honour of the dead, 426 _sq. _; of circumcised lads presented to ancestral gods, 427

Gaboon, the, 54

Gajos of Sumatra, burial custom of the, 455

Gall used in divination, 54

Game offered by hunters to the dead, 226

Ganindo, a warrior ghost, 363 _sq. _

Gardens, ghosts of, 371

Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain, 48, 69, 398, 405

Geelvink Bay, in Dutch New Guinea, 303, 307

Genital members of human victims hung on tree, 447 _n. _ 1

German burial custom, 453, 458

Ghost appeased by sham fight, 137; hunted into the grave, 164 _sq. _; thought to linger near body till flesh is decayed, 165 _sq. _; elaborate funeral ceremonies designed to get rid of, 174 _sq. _; driven away, 178, 197, 248; extracted from body of patient, 271; calls for vengeance, 278; cursed and ill-treated, 285; who causes sunshine and rain, 375

---- -posts, 375

---- -seer, 204 _sq. _, 214, 229

---- -shooter, 387 _sq. _

Ghostly ferry, 350, 412. _See also_ Ferry

Ghosts, mischievous nature of, 28; as causes of sickness, 54 _sqq. _, 195, 197, 222, 300, 305, 322, 389; feared, 134, 135, 147, 151 _sqq. _, 158, 173 _sqq. _, 195, 196 _sq. _, 201, 203, 229 _sq. _, 232, 237, 271 _sqq. _, 276, 282 _sq. _, 305, 321, 327, 347, 396, 414 _sq. _, 449, 457, 467; attentions paid to, in regard to food, fire, property, etc. , 144 _sqq. _; feared only of recently departed, 151 _sq. _; of nearest relations most feared, 153; represented dramatically by masked men, 176, 179 _sq. _, 182 _sq. _, 185 _sqq. _; should have their noses bored, 192, 194 _sq. _; return of the, 195, 198, 246, 300; carry off the souls of the living, 197; cause bad luck in hunting and fishing, 197; identified with phosphorescent lights, 198, 258; appear to seer, 204 _sq. _; of slain enemies especially dreaded, 205; of the hanged specially feared, 212; certain classes of ghosts specially feared, 212; malignity of, 212, 381; drowned, 224; village of, 231 _sq. _, 234; give information, 240; provided with fire, 246 _sq. _; feasts provided for, 247 _sq. _; thought to give good crops, 247 _sq. _; communicate with the living in dreams, 248; diseases ascribed to action of, 257; of the slain, special fear of, 258, 279, 306, 323; of ancestors appealed to for help, 258 _sq. _; precautions taken against, 258; expected to make the crops thrive, 259, 284, 288 _sq. _; natural death ascribed to action of, 268; sickness ascribed to action of, 269 _sq. _, 271, 279, 372, 375, 381 _sqq. _; deceived, 273, 280 _sqq. _, 328; thought to help hunters, 274, 284 _sq. _; in the form of animals, 282; help the living by promoting supply of food, 283; cause earthquakes, 286, 288; as patrons of hunting and other departments, 287; die the second death, 287; turn into animals, 287; turn into ant-hills, 287; of warriors invoked by warriors, 288; invoked by warriors, farmers, fowlers, fishermen, etc. , 288 _sqq. _; of men may grow into gods, 289 _sq. _; of the dead in the form of serpents, 300; driven away, 305, 306, 323, 356 _sqq. _, 396, 399, 415; cause all sorts of misfortunes, 306 _sq. _; call for vengeance, 310, 468; sacrifices to, 328; of power and ghosts of no account, distinction between, 345 _sq. _; of the recent dead most powerful, 346; prayers to, 348; of land and sea, 348; food offered to, 348 _sq. _; live in islands, 350, 353; live underground, 353 _sq. _; worshipful, 362 _sq. _; public and private, 367, 369 _sq. _; first-fruits offered to, 368 _sq. _, 373 _sq. _; warlike, 370; of gardens, 371; human sacrifices to, 371 _sq. _; incarnate in sharks, 373; sacrifices to, at planting, 375; sanctuaries of, 377 _sq. _; incarnate in animals, 379 _sq. _; envious of the living, 381; carry off souls, 383; in stones, 383 _sq. _; inspiration by means of, 389 _sq. _; killed, 415 _sq. _; dazed, 416; prevented from returning to the house, 455 _sq. _; unmarried, hard fate of, 464

Ghosts and spirits, distinction between, in Central Melanesia, 343, 363; regulate the weather, 384 _sq. _

---- of women dying in childbed, special fear of, 458 _sqq. _; special treatment of, 358. _See also_ Dead _and_ Spirits

Giant, mythical, thought to appear annually with the south-east monsoon, 255

Gifford, Lord, 2, 3

Girdle made from hair of dead, 138

Gnanji, the, of Central Australia, 92

Goat in story of the origin of death, 64

God, the question of his existence, 2; defined, 9 _sq. _; knowledge of, how acquired, 11 _sqq. _; inferred as a cause, 22 _sq. _; and the origin of death, 61 _sqq. _; in form of serpent, 445, 462

Gods created by man in his own likeness, 19 _sq. _; of nature, 20; human, 20, 23 _sqq. _; unknown among aborigines of Australia, 91; often developed out of ghosts, 289 _sq. _; ancestors worshipped as, 340, 369; ancestral, sacrifice of foreskins to, 427; ancestral, libations to, 438; two classes of, in Fiji, 440

---- and spirits, no certain demarcation between, 441

Goldie, Rev. Hugh, 52

Good crops given by ghosts, 247 _sq. _

---- spirit, 143

---- and bad, different fate of the, after death, 354

Gran Chaco, in Argentina, 165

Grandfather, soul of, reborn in grandchild, 417; his ghost dazed, 416

Grandfather and grandchild, their relation under exogamy and femalekinship, 416, 418

Grandidier, A. , 49

Grass for graves, euphemism for human victims buried with the dead, 425_sq. _

---- -seed, magical ceremony for increasing, 102

Grave, food placed on, 144, 145; property of dead deposited in, 145 _sqq. _; hut erected on, 203; of worshipful dead a sanctuary, 347; stones heaped on, 360; sacrifices to ghost on, 382

Gravediggers, purification of, 314; secluded, 327; secluded and painted black, 451

Graves, huts built on, for use of ghosts, 150 _sq. _; under the houses, 274. _See also_ Huts

Great Woman, the, 464

Greek tragedy, W. Ridgeway on the origin of, 189

Greeks, purificatory rites of ancient, 206

Greenlanders, burial custom of the, 454

Grey, Sir George, 41; taken for an Australian aboriginal, 131 _sqq. _

Grief, extravagant demonstrations of grief in mourning, their motives, 135 _sq. _

---- at a death, extravagant demonstrations of, dictated by fear of theghost, 271 _sqq. _

_Grihya-Sutras_, 163

Ground drawings in magical or religious ceremony, 112 _sq. _

Groves, sacred, the dead buried in, 326

Guadalcanar, one of the Solomon Islands, 350, 372

Guardian spirits, 227

Guiana, Indians of, their ideas as to the cause of death, 35 _sqq. _; their offerings to the dead, 165

Gullet of pig sacrificed, 368

Gulu, king of heaven, 78

Gypsies, European, burial custom of, 455

Haddon, Dr. A. C. , 171, 172 _sq. _, 175, 176, 180

Hagen, Dr. B. , 230, 231

Haida, burial custom of the, 455

Hair burnt as charm, 43; cut in mourning, 135, 320, 451; of widow unshorn, 184; of dead child worn by mother, 315; of gravediggers not cut, 327; used as amulet, 332

---- of the dead, magical virtue attributed to, 137 _sq. _; worn by relatives, 249; divination by means of, 319

---- of mourners offered to the dead, 183; cut off, 183, 204

Hakea flower totem, dramatic ceremony concerned with, 119, 121

Hands, gravediggers and persons who have handled a corpse not to touchfood with their, 327, 450 _sq. _

Hanged, ghosts of the, specially feared, 212

Hare in myth of the origin of death, 65

Harumae, a warrior ghost, 365 _sq. _

Hasselt, J. L. Van, 305

Hauri, a worshipful ghost, 372

Head-dress of gravediggers, 327

Head-hunters, 352

Head of corpse cut off in order to disable the ghost, 153; removed and preserved, 178. _See also_ Skulls

Heads of mourners shaved, 208

----, human, cut off in honour of the dead, 352

Heaps of stones on grave, 360

Heart supposed to be the seat of human spirit, 129

---- of pig sacrificed, 368

Heavenly Dog, 460

Hebrew prophets, 14

Hen in myth of the origin of death, 79

Highlands of Scotland, burial custom in the, 453, 458

Hindoos, burial custom of the, 453, 458

Historical method of treating natural theology, 2 _sq. _

History of religion, its importance, 3

Hiyoyoa, the land of the dead, 207

Hole in the wall, dead carried out through a, 452 _sqq. _

Holy of Holies, 430, 431, 433, 437, 438

Homer on blood-drinking ghosts, 159

Homicides, precautions taken by, against the ghosts of their victims, 205 _sq. _; purification of, 206; honours bestowed on, in Fiji, 447 _sq. _ _See also_ Manslayers

Homoeopathic magic, 288, 376

---- or imitative magic, 335, 336, 338

Honorary titles of homicides in Fiji, 447 _sq. _

Hood Peninsula of British New Guinea, 47, 202, 203

Hos of Togoland, their myth of the origin of death, 81 _sqq. _

Hose, Ch. , and McDougall, W. , quoted, 265 _n. _, 417

Hottentots, their myth of the origin of death, 65; burial custom of the, 454

House deserted after a death, 195, 196 _n. _ 1, 248, 275, 349, 400; deserted or destroyed after a death, 210; dead buried in the, 236, 347, 352, 397, 398, 399; dead carried out of, by special opening, 452 _sqq. _

Houses, native, at Kalo, 202; communal, 304

Howitt, Dr. A. W. , 44 _sq. _, 139, 141

Human gods, 20, 23 _sqq. _

---- nature, two different views of, 469 _sqq. _

---- sacrifices to ghosts, 371 _sq. _; in Fiji, 446 _sq. _

Hume's analysis of cause, 18 _sq. _

Hunt, Mr. , his experience in Fiji, 423 _sq. _

Hunters supposed to be helped by ghosts, 274, 284 _sq. _

Huon Gulf, in German New Guinea, 242, 256

Hut built to represent mythical monster at initiation, 251, 290, 301_sq. _

Huts erected on graves for use of ghosts, 150 _sq. _; erected on graves, 203, 223, 248, 259, 275, 293, 294

Hypocritical lamentations at a death, 273

---- indignation of accomplice at a murder, 280 _sqq. _

Idu, mountain of the dead, 193, 194 _sq. _

Iguana in myth of origin of death, 70

Ilene, a worshipful ghost, 373

Ill-treatment of ghost who gives no help, 285

Illusion of the external world, 21

Images of the dead, wooden (_korwar_ or _karwar_), 307 _sqq. _, 311, 315, 316 _sq. _, 321, 322; of sharks, 373; in temples, 442

Imitation of totems by disguised actors, 119 _sqq. _; of totemic animals, 177

Imitative magic, 335, 336, 338, 376

Immortality, belief in, among the aborigines of Central Australia, 87 _sqq. _; among the islanders of Torres Straits, 170 _sqq. _; among the natives of British New Guinea, 190 _sqq. _; among the natives of German New Guinea, 216 _sqq. _; among the natives of Dutch New Guinea, 303 _sqq. _; among the natives of Southern Melanesia, 324 _sqq. _; among the natives of Central Melanesia, 343 _sqq. _; among the natives of Northern Melanesia, 393 _sqq. _; among the Fijians, 406 _sqq. _; strongly held by savages, 468

Immortality, limited sense of, 25; origin of belief in, 25 _sqq. _; belief in human, almost universal among races of mankind, 33; rivalry between men and animals for gift of, 74 _sq. _; question of the truth of the belief in, 469 _sqq. _; destruction of life and property entailed by the belief in, 468 _sq. _

---- in a bundle, 77 _sq. _

Impecunious ghosts, hard fate of, 406

Impurity, ceremonial, of manslayer, 229 _sq. _

Im Thurn, Sir Everard F. , 38 _sq. _

Incantations or spells, 385

Inconsistencies and contradictions in reasoning not peculiar to savages, 111 _sq. _

Inconsistency of savage thought, 143

Indians of Guiana, their ideas about death, 35 _sqq. _; their beliefs as to the dead, 165

---- of North-West America, burial custom of the, 455, 460

Indifference to death, 419; a consequence of belief in immortality, 422 _sq. _

Indo-European burial custom, 453

Infanticide as cause of diminished population, 40

Influence of European teaching on native beliefs, 142 _sq. _

Initiation at puberty regarded as a process of death and resurrection, 254, 261

---- of young men, 233; in Central Australia, 100; among the Yabim, 250 _sqq. _; among the Bukaua, 260 _sq. _; among the Kai, 290 _sq. _; in Fiji, 429 _sqq. _

Insanity, influence of, in history, 15 _sq. _

---- and inspiration not clearly distinguished, 388

Insect in divination as to cause of death, 44, 46

Inspiration, theory of, 14 _sq. _; of medium by ancestral spirits, 308 _sqq. _; by spirits of the dead, 322; by ghosts in Central Melanesia, 388 _sq. _; attested by frenzy, 443, 444 _sq. _

---- and insanity not clearly distinguished, 388

Insufflations, magical, to heal the sick, 329

_Intichiuma_, magical ceremonies for the multiplication of totems, 122_sq. _

Intuition and experience, 11

Invocation of ghosts, 288 _sq. _; of the dead, 329 _sq. _, 332 _sqq. _, 377, 378, 401, 441

Island, dead buried in, 319

---- of the dead, fabulous, 175

Islands, ghosts live in, 350, 353

Isle of Pines, 325, 330, 337

Israelites forbidden to cut themselves for the dead, 154

Ivory Coast, 52

Jackson, John, quoted, 419 _sqq. _, 447

Jappen or Jobi, island, 303

Jawbone of husband worn by widow, 204; lower, of corpse preserved, 234 _sq. _, 236, 274; of dead king of Uganda preserved and consulted oracularly, 235

Jawbones of the dead preserved, 351 _sq. _; of dead worn by relatives, 404

Journey of ghosts to the land of the dead, 286 _sq. _, 361 _sq. _, 462_sqq. _

Juices of putrefaction received by mourners on their bodies, 167, 205, 403

---- of putrefying corpse drunk by widow, 313; drunk by women, 355

Kachins of Burma, burial custom of the, 459

Kafirs, their beliefs as to the causes of death, 56

Kagoro, the, of Northern Nigeria, 28 _n. _ 1, 49

Kai, the, of German New Guinea, 71, 262 _sqq. _; theory of the soul, 267

Kaikuzi, brother of Death, 80

Kaitish, the, 68, 158, 166

Kalo, in British New Guinea, 202 _sq. _

_Kalou_, Fijian word for "god, " 440

_Kalou vu_, "root gods, " 440

_Kalou yalo_, "soul gods, " 440

_Kami_, the souls of the dead, 297 _sq. _

Kamilaroi tribe of New South Wales, 46, 155

_Kanaima_ (_kenaima_), 36, 38

_Kani_, name applied to ghosts, to bull-roarers, and to the monster whois thought to swallow lads at circumcision, 301

Kaniet islands, 401

_Kava_ offered to ancestral spirits, 440

Kavirondo, burial custom of the, 458

Kaya-Kaya or Tugeri, the, of Dutch New Guinea, 255

Kayans, the, of Borneo, 417; burial custom of, 456 _sq. _, 459

Kemp Welch River, 202

_Keramo_, a fighting ghost, 370

Keysser, Ch. , 262, 263 _sq. _, 267, 269 _n. _ 3

Kibu, the land of the dead, 175

Kibuka, war-god of Uganda, 366

Kidd, Dudley, 55

Kidney-fat, extraction of, 43

Killer of Souls, the, 465 _sq. _

Killing a ghost, 415 _sq. _

King, mourning for a, 451 _sq. _

King's corpse not carried out through the door, 452, 461

Kings, divinity of, 16; sanctity of Fijian, 407 _sq. _

Kintu and the origin of death, 78 _sqq. _

Kiwai, beliefs and customs concerning the dead in island of, 211 _sqq. _

Koita or Koitapu, of British New Guinea, 193

Kolosh Indians, 163

Komars, the, 163

_Koroi_, honorary title of homicides in Fiji, 447 _sq. _

_Korwar_, or _karwar_, wooden images of the dead, 307 _sqq. _, 315, 316_sq. _, 321, 322

Koryak, burial custom of the, 455

Kosi and the origin of death, 76 _sq. _

Knowledge, natural, how acquired, 11

---- of God, how acquired, 11 _sqq. _; of ghosts essential to medical practitioners in Melanesia, 384

Kulin, the, 138

Kurnai tribe of Victoria, 44, 138

Kweariburra tribe, 153

_Kwod_, sacred or ceremonial ground, 179

Lambert, Father, 325, 327, 328, 332, 339

Lamboam, the land of the dead, 260, 292, 299

Lamentations, hypocritical, at a death, 271 _sqq. _, 280 _sqq. _

Land burial and sea burial, 347 _sq. _

---- cleared for cultivation, 238, 242 _sq. _, 256, 262 _sq. _, 304

---- ghosts and sea ghosts, 348

---- of the dead, 175 _sq. _, 192, 193, 194 _sq. _, 202, 203, 207, 209 _sq. _, 211 _sqq. _, 224, 228 _sq. _, 244, 260, 286 _sq. _, 292, 299, 305 _sq. _, 307, 322, 326, 345, 350 _sq. _, 353 _sq. _, 404 _sqq. _, 462 _sqq. _; journeys of the living to the, 207, 355; way to the, 212 _sq. _, 462 _sqq. _

Landtman, Dr. G. , 214

Lang, Andrew, 216 _sq. _

Laos, burial custom in, 459

Leaf as badge of a ghost, 391

Leaves thrown on scene of murder, 415

Leg bones of the dead preserved, 221, 249

Legs of corpse broken in order to disable the ghost, 153

Lehner, Stefan, 256

Lepchis of Sikhim, burial custom of the, 455

Le Souëf, A. A. C. , 40 _sq. _

Libations to ancestral gods, 430, 438

Licence, period of, following circumcision, 427 _sq. _; following initiation, 433, 434 _n. _ 1, 436 _sq. _

Licentious orgy following circumcision, 427 _sq. _

Life in the other world like life in this, 286 _sq. _

Lightning, savage theory of, 19

Lights, phosphorescent, thought to be ghosts, 198, 258

Lime, powdered, used to dust the trail of a ghost, 277 _sq. _

_Lio'a_, a powerful ghost, 346

Liver extracted by magic, 50; divination by, 54

Livers of pigs offered to the dead, 360 _sq. _

Lizard in divination as to cause of death, 44; in myths of the origin of death, 60 _sq. _, 70, 74 _sq. _

Lizards, ghosts in, 380

Local totem centres, 97, 99, 124

Long soul and short soul, 291 _sq. _

Lost souls, recovery of, 270 _sq. _, 300 _sq. _

Luck, bad, in fishing and hunting, caused by ghosts, 197

Luck of a village dependent on ghosts, 198

_Lum_, men's clubhouse, 243, 250, 257

Mabuiag, island of, 174

Macassars, burial custom of the, 461

Macluer Gulf in Dutch New Guinea, 317, 318

Mad, stones to drive people, 335

Madagascar, ideas as to natural death in, 48 _sq. _

Mafulu (Mambule), the, of British New Guinea, 198 _sqq. _

Maggots, appearance of, sign of departure of soul, 292

Magic as a cause of death, 34 _sqq. _; Age of, 58; attributed to aboriginal inhabitants of a country, 193; homoeopathic or imitative, 288, 335, 336, 338, 376; combined with religion, 111 _sq. _, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 376; Melanesian conception of, 380 _sq. _; working by means of personal refuse, 413 _sq. _ _See also_ Sorcery _and_ Witchcraft

---- and religion compared in reference to their destruction of humanlife, 56 _sq. _

Magical ceremonies for increasing the food supply, 102; ceremonies for the multiplication of totems, 124 _sq. _; intention of dramatic ceremonies in Central Australia, 122 _sq. _, 126; virtues attributed to sacred stones in New Caledonia, 334 _sqq. _

Magician or priest, 336, 338. _See also_ Sorcerer

Magicians, their importance in history, 16; but no priests at Doreh, 306

Malagasy, their ideas as to natural death, 48 _sq. _

Malanta, one of the Solomon Islands, 350

Malayalis, the, of Malabar, 162

Malignity of ghosts, 212, 381

Malo, island of, 48

Man creates gods in his own likeness, 19 _sq. _

----, grandeur and dignity of, 469 _sq. _; pettiness and insignificance of, 470 _sq. _

_Mana_, supernatural or spiritual power, 346 _sq. _, 352, 371, 380

_Manoam_, evil spirits, 321

Manoga, a worshipful ghost, 368

Manslayers, precautions taken by, against the ghosts of their victims, 205 _sq. _, 258, 279, 323; secluded, 279 _sq. _, consecration of, 448 _sq. _; restrictions imposed on, 449. _See also_ Homicides

_Mari_ or _mar_, ghost, 173

_Mariget_, "ghost-hand, " 177

Mariner, William, 411

Mariners, stones to help, 337

Markets, native, 394

Marotse, burial custom of the, 454

Marquesas Islands, 417

Married and unmarried, different modes of disposing of their corpses, 162

Masai, their myth of the origin of death, 65 _sq. _

Masked men, dramatic representation of ghosts and spirits by, 176, 179_sq. _, 180 _sqq. _, 185 _sqq. _

---- dances, 297; of the Monumbo, 228

Masks worn by actors in sacred ceremonies, 179; used in dances, 233, 297

Masquerades, 297

Massim, the, of British New Guinea, 206

Master of Life, 163

Matacos Indians, 165

Mate, a worshipful spirit, 239

Material culture of the natives of New Guinea, 191; of the natives of Tumleo, 219 _sq. _; of Papuans, 231; of the Yabim, 242 _sq. _; of the Noofoor, 304 _sq. _; of the New Caledonians, 339; of the North Melanesians, 393 _sqq. _

Mawatta or Mowat, 47

_Mbete_, priest, 443, 445

Mea, a spiritual medium, 196

Mecklenburg, burial custom in, 457

Medicine-men, their importance in history, 16; inspired by spirits of the dead, 322

Medium inspired by soul of dead, 308 _sq. _

Mediums, spiritual, 196

Mediums who send their souls to deadland, 300

Megalithic monuments, 438

Melanesia, Central, belief in immortality among the natives of, 343 _sqq. _

----, Northern, belief in immortality among the natives of, 393 _sqq. _

----, Southern, belief in immortality among the natives of, 324 _sqq. _

Melanesian myths of the origin of death, 69, 71 _sq. _, 83 _sq. _; theory of the soul, 344 _sq. _

Melanesians, their ideas as to natural deaths, 48, 54 _sq. _; Central, funeral customs of the, 347 _sqq. _, 355 _sqq. _; and Papuans in New Guinea, 190 _sq. _

Memorial trees, 225

Men sacrificed to support posts of new house, 446 _sq. _; whipped by women in mourning, 452

Men's clubhouses, 221, 225, 226, 243, 256 _sq. _, 355

Mentras or Mantras of the Malay Peninsula, 73

Merivale on Dartmoor, 438

Messengers, the Two, myth of origin of death, 60 _sqq. _

Messou, Indian magician, 78

Metals unknown in Northern Melanesia, 395

Metempsychosis, widespread belief in, 29

Methods of treating natural theology, 1 _sqq. _

---- of natural knowledge, 11

Mexicans, the ancient, 163

Meyer, H. E. A. , 42

Migration of villages, 339

Migratory cultivation, 243

Miklucho-Maclay, Baron N. , 235

Milky Way, Central Australian belief as to the, 140; souls of dead go to, 153

Milne Bay, 207

Mimika district in Dutch New Guinea, 318

Minnetaree Indians, 163

Misfortunes of all kinds caused by ghosts, 306 _sq. _

Moanus, the, of the Admiralty Islands, 400

Monarchical government, rise of, 141 _sq. _

Monsoon, south-east, festival at, 255

Monsoons, seasons determined by, 216

Monster supposed to swallow lads at initiation, 251 _sq. _, 255, 260, 261, 290 _sq. _, 301 _sq. _

Monumbo, the, of German New Guinea, 227 _sq. _

Monuments of the dead, 225

Moon, the waxing and waning, in myths of the origin of death, 60, 65_sqq. _

---- in relation to doctrine of resurrection, 67 _sq. _; worship of the, 68

Moral restraint afforded by a fear of ghosts, 175

---- depravity of the Fijians, 409

Morality, superstition a crutch to, 175

Mortuary dramas, 189

_Mos_, a disembodied soul, 224

Mota, island of, 387

Motlav, in the Banks' Islands, 357

Motu, the, of British New Guinea, 192

Mound erected in a totemic ceremony, 110 _sq. _

Mounds on graves, 150, 164

Mourners, professional, 136

---- smeared with white clay, 158, 177; painted black, 178, 293, 403; garb of, 184, 198; cut their hair, 183, 204, 320, 451; abstain from certain foods, 198, 208, 209, 230, 314, 360, 452; restrictions observed by, 313 _sq. _; tattooed, 314; purified by bathing, 314, 319; plastered with mud, 318; cut or tear their ears, 183, 272, 327; secluded, 360; smeared with ashes, 361; anoint themselves with juices of putrefying corpse, 403; amputate their fingers, 199, 451; burn their skin, 154, 155, 157, 327, 451. _See also_ Cuttings _and_ Seclusion

Mourning, hair cut in, 135; extravagant demonstrations of grief in, 135 _sq. _; for a father-in-law, 155; amputation of fingers in, 199; varying period of, 274, 293; for a king, 451 _sq. _

---- costume, 249, 274, 320; a protection against ghosts, 241 _sq. _; of widower and widow, 259 _sq. _

Mowat or Mawatta, 47

Mud, mourners plastered with, 318

Mukden, burial custom in, 460

Mukjarawaint tribe, 155

Mummies of dead preserved in houses, 188

Mummification of the dead, 184, 185, 313

_Mungai_, places associated with totems, 117, 124

Murder, leaves thrown on scene of, 415

---- highly esteemed in Fiji, 447 _sq. _

Murdered man, ghost of, haunts murderer, 248

Murimuria, a second-rate heaven, 466

Murray Island, 174

Mutilations, bodily, at puberty, 303

Myth of the prelogical savage, 266

---- of the continuance of death, 472

Myths of the origin of death, 59 _sqq. _

_Nai_, souls of the dead, 240

Nai Thombothombo, in Fiji, 463

Nails of dead detached, 145; preserved, 339

Naindelinde in Fiji, 465

Naiteru-kop, a Masai god, 65

Namaquas, their myth of the origin of death, 65

Nambanaggatai, in Fiji, 465

Nambi and the origin of death, 78 _sqq. _

Name of mythical water-snake not uttered, 105

Names of the dead not mentioned, 135, 210, 246

Nandi, their myth of the origin of death, 66

_Nanga_, sacred stone enclosure, 428 _sqq. _; description of, 437 _sq. _

Nangganangga, the foe of unmarried ghosts, 464

_Nanja_ tree or stone, 98

---- spot, 164, 165

Narrinyeri tribe of South Australia, 43; their beliefs as to the dead, 134 _sqq. _

Nassau, Rev. R. H. , 51

Native beliefs influenced by European teaching, 142 _sq. _

Natural theology defined, 1, 8

---- death, disbelief of savages in, 33 _sqq. _

---- causes of death recognised by some savages, 55 _sq. _

---- features of landscape associated with traditions about the dead, 115 _sqq. _

Nature, gods of, 20; souls of the dead identified with spirits of, 130; two different views of human, 469 _sqq. _

Nayars, the, of Cochin, 162 _sq. _

Ndengei, Fijian god in form of serpent, 445, 462, 464, 465, 466

Necklaces worn in mourning, 198

Negen Negorijen in Dutch New Guinea, 316, 317

Negrito admixture in New Guinea, 198

Nemunemu, a creator, 240

Nether world, the lord of the, 286; abode of the dead in the, 292, 299, 322, 326, 353 _sq. _; descent of the living into the, 300; _See also_ Land of the Dead

Nets worn by widows in mourning, 249, 260, 274, 293; worn by women in mourning, 241

New birth at initiation, pretence of, 254

New Britain (New Pomerania), 48, 69, 393, 394, 402, 404

---- Caledonia, natives of, 324; their beliefs and customs concerning the dead, 325 _sqq. _; their system of family prayers, 332 _sq. _, 340; material culture of the, 339

---- Georgia, 48

---- Guinea, aborigines of, their ideas as to natural death, 47; the races of, 190 _sq. _; belief in immortality among the natives of British, 190 _sqq. _; belief in immortality among the natives of Dutch, 303 _sqq. _; belief in immortality among the natives of German, 216 _sqq. _

New Hebrides, myth of the origin of death in, 71, 343, 353

---- Ireland (New Mecklenburg), 393, 397

---- South Wales, aborigines of, their ideas as to the causes of death, 45 _sq. _; as to the home of the dead, 133 _sq. _

Newton, Alfred, 90 _n. _ 1

Neyaux, the, of the Ivory Coast, 52

_Ngai_, human spirit, 129

Ngoc, the, of Annam, 69

Ngoni, the, 61

Nias, island of, 70

Nigeria, Northern, 28 _n. _ 1, 49

Niggardly people punished in the other world, 405

Noblemen alone immortal, 33

Noofoor, the, of Dutch New Guinea, 303

Noomfor, island, 303

Norse burial custom, 453

Noses bored, ghosts should have their, 192, 194 _sq. _

Novices presented to ancestral spirits at initiation, 432 _sq. _, 434

Nukahiva, one of the Marquesas Islands, 417

Objects offered to the dead broken, 276

Offering, soul of, consumed by deity or spirit, 297, 298

Offerings of food and water to the dead, 174; of food to the dead, 183, 201, 208, 211, 214, 232, 241, 332, 338, 364 _sq. _, 367 _sq. _, 372 _sq. _, 396 _sq. _, 429, 442, 467; of blood and hair to the dead, 183; of game and fish to the dead, 226; to the dead, 239, 276, 292; of first-fruits to the dead, 259; to ancestors, 298; of food to ghosts, 348 _sq. _; to ghosts, 364 _sq. _; of first-fruits to ancestral spirits, 429; of cloth and weapons to ancestral spirits, 430 _sq. _ _See also_ Sacrifices

----, burnt, to the dead, 294

_Oknanikilla_, local totem centre, 97, 99, 124

Old and young, difference between the modes of burying, 161, 162 _sq. _

Old people buried alive, 359

Olympia, Pelops at, 159

Omens after a death, 319

Opening, special, for carrying dead out of house, 452 _sqq. _

Oracles of dead kings, 151

---- of the dead, 151, 176, 179, 235

Oracular responses of Fijian priests, 443 _sqq. _

Oranges, spirits of the dead play with, 326

Ordeal to detect sorcerer, 50 _sqq. _

Orgy, licentious, following circumcision, 427 _sq. _

Origin of belief in immortality, 26 _sqq. _

---- of death, myths of the, 59 _sqq. _

Orion's belt, 368

Ornaments of corpse removed before burial, 223, 234, 241

Pahouins, the, 54

Palsy, a Samoan god, 72

Pandanus, reason for planting, 362

---- and ghosts, 463

Panoi, Melanesian land of the dead, 83, 345, 353 _sq. _, 355, 356

Papuan art, 220

Papuans, animistic views of the, 264

---- and Melanesians in New Guinea, 190 _sq. _

_Paraks_, temples, 220

Parents deified, 439

Parkinson, R. , 219, 221

Pelops, human blood offered on grave of, 159

Penates in New Guinea, 308, 317

Pennefather River, natives of the, their belief in reincarnation of thedead, 128

Perche, burial custom in, 458

Personal refuse, magic working through, 386, 413 _sq. _

Personification of natural phenomena, 20; of death, 81

Phosphorescent lights supposed to be ghosts, 198, 258

_Physostigma venenosum_ in poison ordeal, 52

Piety, two types of, 23; co-operative system of, 333

Pigs, blood of, smeared on skulls and bones of the dead, 200; sacrificed to the dead, 201; sacrificed to monster who swallows lads at initiation, 251, 253, 260, 290, 301; sacrificed at grave, 356; sacrificed at burial, 359; sacrificed to ghosts, 365 _sq. _; sacrificed vicariously for the sick, 373, 374, 375; sacred, 433

----, livers of, offered to the dead, 360 _sq. _

Pines, Isle of, 325, 330, 337

Pirnmeheel, good spirit, 143

Place of sacrifice to ghosts, 370

Planting, sacrifices to ghosts at, 375

Platforms, dead laid on, 199, 203, 205

Plato, on death, 33

Pleiades, the, 368

Plum-tree people, 94

---- totem, dramatic ceremony connected with, 120, 121

Poison ordeal to detect sorcerers, 50 _sqq. _

Political constitution of the Fijians, 407

Pollution, ceremonial, of gravediggers, 327

Polynesian blood, infusion of, in New Guinea, 291

---- race, 406

Polytheism and monotheism, 11

Polytheism discarded, 20 _sq. _

Population, belief in sorcery a cause of keeping down the, 38, 40, 46_sq. _, 51 _sqq. _

Port Lincoln tribe of S. Australia, 42

---- Moresby, 193, 195

Poso in Celebes, 72

Posts of new house, men sacrificed to support, 446 _sq. _

Potsdam Harbour, in German New Guinea, 218, 227

Pottery, native, 220; in New Guinea, 305

----, Fijian, 407

---- unknown in Northern Melanesia, 395

Practical character of the savage, 274

Prayer-posts, 333 _sq. _

Prayers to the dead, 201 _sq. _, 214, 222 _sq. _, 259, 288, 307, 329 _sq. _, 332 _sqq. _, 340, 376 _sq. _, 401, 403 _sq. _, 427, 441; to ghosts, 348

Precautions taken against ghosts, 152 _sq. _, 258; against a wife's ghost, 197; against ghosts of the slain, 205 _sq. _

Predominance of the worship of the dead, 297 _sq. _

Prelogical savage, myth of the, 266

Pretence of attacking persons engaged in attending to a corpse, 177, 178

---- of avenging the dead, 136 _sq. _, 282, 328 _See also_ Sham fight

Priest, family, 332, 340

----, chief or high, 430, 431, 432, 433, 434

---- or magician, 336, 338

Priests, Fijian, 433 _sqq. _

Private or tame ghosts, 369 _sq. _, 381, 382, 386

---- property, rights of, consolidated by taboo, 390

Problem of death, 31 _sqq. _

Progress partly determined by competition, 89 _sq. _

----, social, stimulated by favourable natural conditions, 148 _sq. _

Promiscuity, temporary, 427 _sq. _, 433, 434 _n. _ 1, 436 _sq. _

Property displayed beside the corpse, 397

----, rights of private, consolidated by taboo, 390; temporarily suspended, 427 _sq. _

Property of dead deposited in grave, 145 _sqq. _, 359, 397; motive for destroying, 147 _sq. _; hung up on trees, 148; destroyed, 327, 459; burnt, 401 _sq. _

Prophecy inspired by ghosts, 388

Prophets inspired by ghosts, 388 _sq. _

----, Hebrew, 14

Propitiation of the dead, 201, 307, 338; of ghosts and spirits, 226, 239, 348

Puberty, initiation at, 254 _sq. _; bodily mutilations at, 303

Public ghosts, 367, 369

Purification of homicides, 206, 229

---- by bathing and shaving, 208

---- of mourners by bathing, 314, 319

Queensland, belief in reincarnation of the dead among the aborigines of, 127 _sqq. _; burial customs in, 147

Rain sent by a mythical water-snake, 112, 114; prayers for, 288; stones to make, 336 _sq. _

---- and sunshine caused by a ghost, 375

---- -ghost, 375

---- -making, 288; by the bones of the dead, 341

Rat in myth of the origin of death, 67

Rationality of the savage, 264 _sqq. _

Rebirth of the dead, 93 _sq. _, 107, 127 _sq. _ _See also_ Reincarnation

---- of parents in their children, 315

Recovery of lost souls, 194, 270 _sq. _, 300 _sq. _

Red, skulls painted, 178

Red bark in poison ordeals, 50, 52

---- paint, manslayers smeared with, 448, 449

---- roses, corpse crowned with, 233, 234

Reflection or shadow, soul associated with, 207, 267

Refuse, personal, magic working by means of, 413 _sq. _

Reincarnation, widespread belief in, 29. _See also_ Rebirth

---- doctrine of, unknown in Torres Straits, 172

---- of the dead, belief of Central Australians in, 92 _sqq. _, 107

---- of the dead, 124 _sq. _, 127 _sq. _; of Australian aborigines in white people, 130, 131 _sqq. _; of parents in their children, 315; of grandfather in grandchild, 417, 418

Relics of the dead as amulets, 332, 370; preserved, 348

Religion, importance of the history of, 3; embryology of, 88

Religion and magic compared in reference to their destruction of human life, 57 _sq. _; combined in ritual, 111 _sq. _, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 376

---- and theology, how related, 9

Resemblance of children to the dead, a source of belief in thetransmigration of souls, 28 _sq. _

Restrictions observed by mourners, 313 _sq. _; ceremonial, laid on gravediggers, 327; imposed on manslayers, 449

Resurrection, ceremony of, among the Akikuya, 254

---- from the dead after three days, 67 _sq. _; of the dead, steps taken to prevent the, 144; as an initiatory rite at puberty, 254 _sq. _, 261, 302, 431, 434 _sq. _

Return of the ghosts, 195, 198, 246, 300

Revelation, the question of a supernatural, 8 _sq. _

Revival, temporary, of primitive communism, 436 _sq. _

Rheumatism attributed to sorcery, 45

Rhodesia, 77

Ribs of dead distributed among relatives, 400

Ridgeway, W. , on the origin of Greek tragedy, 189

Rights of property temporarily suspended, 427 _sq. _

Ritual combining elements of religion and magic, 111 _sq. _

Rivalry between man and animals for gift of immortality, 74 _sq. _

River crossed by souls of the dead, 299, 462

Rocking stone, 213

Roro-speaking tribes of British New Guinea, 47, 196, 198

Roth, W. E. , 128

Run or Ron, island, 303, 311

Russia, burial custom in, 453

Saa, in Malanta, 350, 351, 372, 378

Sacrament of pork and water at initiation, 432 _sq. _

Sacred stones in New Caledonia, magical virtues attributed to, 334_sqq. _

---- enclosure of stones (_Nanga_) in Fiji, 428 _sqq. _, 437 _sq. _

---- pigs, 433

Sacrifice, crude motives for, 298 _sq. _; place of, 332

---- of dogs in epidemics, 296; of foreskins and fingers in honour of the dead, 426 _sq. _

Sacrifices to the dead, economic loss entailed by, 149

---- to the dead, 239, 307, 338. _See also_ Offerings

Sacrifices, burnt, reasons for, 348 _sq. _; burnt, to ghosts, 366, 367 _sq. _, 373

---- to ghosts, 328; at planting, 375

----, human, to ghosts, 371 _sq. _; human, in Fiji, 446 _sq. _

Sacrificial ritual in the Solomon Islands, 365 _sq. _

Saddle Mountain in German New Guinea, 262

St. Joseph River in New Guinea, 196, 198

Sakalava, the, of Madagascar, 49; burial custom of, 461

Saleijer, island of, burial custom in, 461

Samoa, 406

---- Harbour, in German New Guinea, 256

Samoan myth of the origin of death, 72

Samoyeds, burial custom of the, 457

Samu-yalo, the killer of souls, 465

San Cristoval, one of the Solomon Islands, 347, 376

Sanctuaries, primitive, 99

---- of ghosts, 377 _sq. _

Sanctuary, grave of worshipful dead becomes a, 347

Sanitation based on fear of sorcery, 386 _sq. _, 414

Santa Cruz Islands, 343

Santa Cruz, in the Solomon Islands, burial customs at, 352; sacrifices to ghosts in, 374 _sq. _

Savage, myth of the prelogical, 266

----, practical character of the, 274

----, rationality of the, 264 _sqq. _

---- notions of causality, 19 _sq. _; conception of death, 31 _sqq. _; disbelief in death from natural causes, 33 _sqq. _; thought vague and inconsistent, 143

---- religion, the study of, 7

Savagery, importance of the study of, 6 _sq. _; a case of arrested or retarded development, 88 _sq. _; rise of monarchy essential to emergence from, 142

Savages pay little attention to the stars, 140; strength and universality of belief in immortality among, 468

Savo, one of the Solomon Islands, 347

Scarf, soul caught in a, 412 _sq. _

Scenery of Fiji, 409 _sq. _

Schomburgk, Richard, 38

Schürmann, C. W. , 42 _sq. _

Scientific conception of the world as a system of impersonal forces, 20_sq. _

Scotland, burial custom in, 453, 458

Sea, land of the dead at the bottom of the, 307, 326

---- -burial, 397

---- -burial and land-burial, 347 _sq. _

---- -ghosts and land-ghosts, 348

Seclusion of widow and widower, 204, 248 _sq. _, 259, 275; of relatives at grave, 209; of mourners, 223 _sq. _, 313 _sq. _, 360; of novices at circumcision, 251 _sq. _, 260 _sq. _, 302; of manslayers, 279 _sq. _; of gravediggers, 327, 451; of female mourners, 398

Seclusion and purification of manslayer, 229 _sq. _

Second death of the dead, 195, 287, 299, 345, 350, 351, 354

Secret societies, 395

---- Society (_Asa_), 233

Seemann, Berthold, 439 _sq. _

Seer describes ghosts, 204 _sq. _

Seget Sélé, the, of Dutch New Guinea, 317

Seligmann, Dr. C. G. , 47, 191, 197, 206

Selwyn, Bishop, 363

Serpent and his cast skin in myths of the origin of death, 60, 69_sqq. _, 74 _sq. _, 83

----, god in form of, 445, 462

Serpents, souls of the dead in the form of, 300

Setting sun, ghosts attracted to the, 175 _sq. _

Sexual licence following initiation, 433, 434 _n. _ 1, 436 _sq. _

Shadow or reflection, human soul associated with, 129, 130, 173, 207, 267, 395, 412

Shadows of people seized by ghosts, 378, 383

Shaking of medium a symptom of inspiration, 308, 309, 311

Sham attack on men engaged in attending to a corpse, 177, 178

---- burial, 356

---- fight to appease ghost, 136 _sq. _; as a funeral ceremony, 235 _sq. _, 327 _sq. _; as a ceremony to promote the growth of yams, 330. _See also_ Pretence

Sharks animated by ghosts, 348

----, ghosts incarnate in, 373, 380; images of, 373

Shaving heads of mourners, 208

Sheep in story of the origin of death, 64

Shell-money, 394; laid on corpse and buried with it, 398

Shortlands Islands, 71

Shrine of warrior ghost, 365

Shrines for ancestral spirits, 316, 317

Siamese, burial custom of the, 456

Siasi Islands, 244

Sick and old buried alive in Fiji, 420 _sqq. _

Sickness caused by demons, 194; caused by ghosts, 56 _sq. _, 195, 197, 222, 269 _sq. _, 271, 279, 300, 305, 322, 372, 381 _sqq. _, 389

---- supposed to be an effect of witchcraft, 35 _sqq. _

Sickness and death set down to sorcery, 240, 257

---- and disease recognised by some savages as due to natural causes, 55 _sq. _ _See also_ Disease

Sido, his journey to the land of the dead, 211 _sq. _

Sins, confession of, 201

Skin cast as a means of renewing youth, 69 _sqq. _, 74 _sq. _, 83

Skull-shaped stones in rain-making, 336 _sq. _

Skulls, spirits of the dead embodied in their, 338

---- and arm-bones, special treatment of the, 199 _sq. _; carried by dancers at funeral dance, 200

---- of the dead preserved, 199 _sqq. _, 209, 249, 318, 328, 339, 347, 351 _sq. _, 398, 400 _sq. _, 403; preserved and consulted as oracles, 176, 178 _sq. _, 179; used in divination, 213; kept in men's clubhouses, 221, 225; inserted in wooden images, 311 _sq. _, 321; religious ceremonies performed with the, 329 _sq. _; food offered to the, 339 _sq. _, 352; used to fertilise plantations, 340; used in conjurations, 402

Sky, souls of the dead thought to be in the, 133 _sq. _, 135, 138 _sq. _, 141, 142

Slain, ghosts of the, especially dreaded, 205, 258, 279, 306, 323

Sleep, soul thought to quit body in, 257, 291, 395, 412

Smith, E. R. , 53

Smyth, R. Brough, 43 _sq. _

Snakes, ghosts in, 380

Sneezing, omens from, 194

Social progress stimulated by favourable natural conditions, 141 _sq. _, 148 _sq. _

---- ranks, gradation of, in Fiji, 408

Solomon Islands, 343, 346 _sqq. _; sacrificial ritual in the, 365 _sq. _

Somosomo, one of the Fijian islands, 425, 441, 442

Sorcerers, their importance in history, 16

---- catch and detain souls, 267, 268 _sq. _, 270

---- put to death, 35, 35 _sq. _, 37 _sq. _, 40 _sq. _, 44, 50, 136, 250, 269, 277, 278 _sq. _, 341 _sq. _ _See also_ Magician

Sorcery as the supposed cause of natural deaths, 33 _sqq. _, 136, 268, 270, 402; sickness and death ascribed to, 257

---- a cause of keeping down the population, belief in, 38, 40, 46 _sq. _, 51 _sqq. _

---- Fijian dread of, 413 _sq. _; _See also_ Magic _and_ Witchcraft

Sores ascribed to action of ghosts, 257

_Soro_, atonement, 427

Soul, world-wide belief in survival of soul after death, 24, 25, 33

Soul of sleeper detained by enemy, 49; human, associated with shadow or reflection, 173, 267, 395, 412; pretence of carrying away the, 181 _sq. _; detained by demon, 194; recovery of a lost, 194, 270 _sq. _; thought to quit body in sleep, 257, 291, 395, 412; resides in the eye, 267; thought to pervade the body, 267; two kinds of human, 267 _sq. _; caught and detained by sorcerer, 267, 268 _sq. _, 270; long soul and short soul, 291 _sq. _; of offering consumed by deity or spirit, 297, 298; thought to reside in the blood, 307; Melanesian theory of the, 344 _sq. _; of sick tied up by ghost, 374; North Melanesian theory of the, 395 _sq. _; in form of animals, 396; Fijian theory of the, 410 _sqq. _; caught in a scarf, 412 _sq. _; of grandfather reborn in grandchild, 417; of offerings consumed by gods, 443

---- -stuff or spiritual essence, 267 _sq. _, 270, 271, 279. _See also_ Spirit

Souls, recovery of lost, 300 _sq. _; River of the, 462; the killer of, 464 _sq. _

---- of animals, sacrifices to the, 239; of animals offered to ghosts, 246

---- attributed by the Fijians to animals, vegetables, and inanimatethings, 410 _sq. _

---- of the dead identified with spirits of nature, 130; turned into animals, 229; as falling stars, 229; live in trees, 316

---- carried off by ghosts, 197, 383; of sorcerers in animals, 39

---- of noblemen only saved, 33; of those who died from home called back, 311

Spells or incantations, 385

Spencer and Gillen, 46 _sq. _, 91 _sq. _, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 116_sqq. _, 123 _sq. _, 140, 148, 156, 157, 158

Spider and Death, 82 _sq. _

Spirit, human, associated with the heart, 129; associated with the shadow, 129, 130. _See also_ Soul

Spirits, ancestral, help hunters and fishers, 226; worshipped in the _Nanga_, 428 _sq. _; cloth and weapons offered to, 430 _sq. _; novices presented to, at initiation, 432 _sq. _, 434

---- of animals go to the spirit land, 210

---- consume spiritual essence of sacrifices, 285, 287, 297, 298

---- of the dead thought to be strengthened by blood, 159; reborn in women, 93 _sq. _; give information to the living, 240; give good crops, 247 _sq. _; thought to be mischievous, 257

Spirits and ghosts, distinction between, in Central Melanesia, 343, 363

---- and gods, no certain demarcation between, 441

----, grand concert of, 340 _sq. _; represented by masked dancers, 297; in tree-tops, 313

----, guardian, 227

---- of nature identified with souls of the dead, 130. _See also_ Dead _and_ Ghost

Spiritual essence or soul-stuff, 267 _sq. _, 279. _See also_ Soul-stuff

Squatting posture of corpse in burial, 207

Stanbridge, W. E. , 44

Stars associated with the souls of the dead, 134, 140; little regarded by savages, 140; falling, the souls of the dead, 229

Steinen, K. Von den, 35

Sternberg, L. , 15 _n. _ 1

Stick, cleft, used in cure, 271

Stillborn children, burial of, 458

Stocks, wooden, as representatives of the dead, 374, 386

Stolz, Mr. , 238, 239

Stomach, soul seated in, 291 _sq. _

Stone, a rocking, 213

---- used in rain-making, 288

---- of Famine, 334

---- of the Sun, 336

Stonehenge, 438

Stones, sacred, in New Caledonia, magical virtues attributed to, 334 _sqq. _; sacred, in sanctuaries, 377 _sq. _

---- used as altars, 379

Stones inhabited by ghosts, 383 _sq. _

Store-houses, sacred, in Central Australia, 99, 101

Strangling the sick and aged in Fiji, 423 _sq. _

_Sua_, human spirit or ghost, 193

Suicide to escape decrepitude of old age, 422 _sq. _

Suicides, burial of, 164, 453, 458

Sulka, the, of New Britain, 398 _sq. _

Sumatra, the Gajos of, 455

Sun and the origin of death, 77

----, ghosts attracted to the setting, 175 _sq. _

----, Stone of the, 336

Sunshine, the making of, 336

---- and rain caused by a ghost, 375

Supernatural or spiritual power (_mana_) acquired from ghosts, 346_sq. _, 352, 371, 380

Superstition a crutch to morality, 175

Supreme Being unknown among aborigines of Central Australia, 91 _sq. _; among the Monumbo, 228

Survival of human soul after death, world-wide belief in, 24, 25, 33

Swallowed by monster, pretence that candidates at initiation are, 251_sqq. _, 260 _sq. _, 290 _sq. _, 301 _sq. _

Swine sent to ravage fields by ghosts, 278

Symbolism of prayer-posts, 333 _sq. _

Taboo, meaning of, 390; in Central Melanesia based on a fear of ghosts, 390 _sq. _; a prop of monarchical power, 408

_Tabu_, demon, 194

Tago, spirits, 297

Tahiti, 439

Tamanachiers, an Indian tribe, 70 _sq. _

Tami Islanders of German New Guinea, 291 _sqq. _

Taming a ghost, 370

Tamos, the, of German New Guinea, 230

Tanna, one of the New Hebrides, 369, 439

Tanoa, king of Fiji, 425

Taplin, Rev. George, 43, 134 _sqq. _

_Tapum_, guardian spirits, 227

Taro, prayer for good crop of, 289

Tasmanians, the, 89

Tattooing as sign of mourning, 314

Teeth of dead worn by relatives, 314 _sq. _, 400, 404; used as amulets, 332; preserved as relics, 339; used to fertilise plantations, 340

Temples (_paraks_) in Tumleo, 220 _sq. _

----, Fijian, 439, 441 _sq. _

Terer, a mythical being, 181

Thapauerlu, a pool, 105, 108

Theology, natural, defined, 1, 8

---- and religion, how related, 9

Thomson, Basil, 408, 414, 428 _n. _ 1, 429 _n. _ 1, 434 _n. _ 1, 436

Threats of the dying, 273

Three days, resurrection after, 67 _sq. _

Threshold, the dead carried out under the, 453, 457; movable, 457

Thrush in story of the origin of death, 61 _sq. _

Thunder the voice of a mythical being, 112, 114, 143

_Tindalo_, a powerful ghost, 346

Tinneh or Déné Indians, their ideas as to death, 39 _sq. _

Tlaloc, Mexican rain-god, 163

Tlingit Indians, 163; burial custom of the, 455

To Kambinana, 69

To Korvuvu, 69

Togoland, West Africa, 81

Toll exacted from ghosts, 224

Tollkeeper, ghostly, 224

Tonga, 406, 411

Tongans, their limited doctrine of immortality, 33

Torres Islands, 343, 353

---- Straits Islanders, their ideas as to sickness and death, 47; their belief in immortality, 170 _sqq. _; their ethnological affinity and social culture, 170 _sqq. _; funeral ceremonies of the, 176 _sqq. _

Totem, a dominant, 113; design emblematic of, 168

Totemic ancestor developing into a god, 113; ancestors, traditions concerning, 115 _sqq. _

---- animals, imitation of, 177

---- clans, 104; animals and plants eaten, 120 _sq. _; animals and plants dramatically represented by actors, 121 _sq. _

Totemism, 95; possibly developing into ancestor worship, 114 _sq. _; in Torres Straits, 172

Totems, dramatic ceremonies connected with, 119 _sqq. _; eaten, 120 _sqq. _; magical ceremonies for the multiplication of, 124 _sq. _

Tracking a ghost, 277 _sq. _

Traditions of the dead associated with conspicuous features of thelandscape, 115 _sqq. _

Transmigration, widespread belief in, 29; of dead into animals, 242, 245; of souls, 322; Fijian doctrine of, 467

Travancore, burial custom in, 456

Tree of immortality, 74

Tree-burial, 161, 166, 167, 199, 203; of young children, 312 _sq. _

---- -tops, spirits in, 313

Trees, property of dead hung up on, 148; as monuments of the dead, 225; huts built in, 263; souls of the dead live in, 316

Tremearne, Major A. J. N. , 28 _n. _ 1

Truth of the belief in immortality, question of the, 469 _sqq. _

Tsiabiloum, the land of the dead, 326

Tube inserted in grave, 277

Tubes, magical, 269, 270

Tubetube, island of, 206, 209, 210

Tugeri or Kaya-Kaya, the, of Dutch New Guinea, 255

Tully River in Queensland, 130

Tulmeng, lord of the nether world, 286

Tumleo, island of, 218 _sqq. _

Tumudurere, a mythical being, 207

Tumupasa, burial custom of the Indians of, 457

Turner, Dr. George, 325, 339, 369

Turrbal tribe, 146

Tuski of Alaska, burial custom of the, 456

Two Messengers, the, myth of the origin of death, 60 _sqq. _

Uganda, first man in, 78; dead kings of, worshipped, 151; jawbones of dead kings of, preserved, 235; war-god of, 366. _See also_ Baganda

Unburied dead, ghosts of the, 349

Unfruitful wife, mode of impregnating, 417

Unkulunkulu, 60

Unmarried ghosts, hard fate of, 464

Umatjera tribe, 68, 166

Urabunna, the, of Central Australia, 95

Vagueness and inconsistency of savage thought, 143

_Vale tambu_, the Sacred House, 438

Vanigela River, 202, 203

Vanua Lava, mountain, 355

---- -levu, one of the Fijian Islands, 416, 417, 418, 426

Vaté or Efat, one of the New Hebrides, 359, 376

Vengeance taken on enemies by means of a ghost, 258; ghost calls for, 278, 310, 468

Vetter, Konrad, 242, 244, 245, 248, 255

Vicarious sacrifices of pigs for the sick, 372, 374, 375

Victoria, aborigines of, their ideas as to natural death, 40 _sq. _, 42; their beliefs as to the dead, 142; their burial customs, 145, 145 _sq. _; cuttings for the dead among the, 154 _sq. _

Views of human nature, two different, 469 _sqq. _

Village of ghosts, 231 _sq. _, 234

---- deserted after a death, 275

Viti Levu, one of the Fijian Islands, 419, 428, 435, 445

Vormann, Franz, 228 _sq. _

Vuatom, island, 70

Wagawaga, in British New Guinea, 206 _sqq. _

Wainimala in Fiji, 436

Wakelbura, the, 152

Wallace, Alfred Russel, on death, 85 _sq. _

War, ancestral images taken to, 310, 315; perpetual state of, 339

---- -god of Uganda, 366

Warramunga, the, of Central Australia, 94; their totem the Wollunqua, 103 _sqq. _, 108 _sqq. _; dramatic ceremonies connected with totems among the, 123 _sq. _; cuttings for the dead among the, 156 _sqq. _; burial customs of the, 167 _sq. _

Warrior ghost, 363 _sq. _

Warriors pray to ghosts, 288

Wars among savages undertaken to appease angry ghosts, 468

Wa-Sania, tribe of E. Africa, 66

Washing body a rain-charm, 375

Watch-an-die, tribe of W. Australia, 41

Watch at the grave, 293

---- of widow or widower on grave, 241

Water as a barrier against ghosts, 152; poured as a rain-charm, 375 _sq. _

---- great, to be crossed by ghosts, 224

---- -snake, great mythical (Wollunqua), 104 _sqq. _, 108 _sqq. _

Way to the land of the dead, 212 _sq. _

Weakening of religious faith, 4

Weapons deposited with the dead, 145 _sqq. _; deposited at grave, 211; of dead broken, 399

Weather regulated by ghosts and spirits, 384 _sq. _

---- -doctors, 385 _sq. _

Weaving in New Guinea, 305

Weismann, August, on death, 84 _sq. _

Wemba, the, of Northern Rhodesia, 77

Western Australia, beliefs as to death among the natives of, 41 _sq. _

Whale's teeth as offerings, 420, 421, 429, 443, 444

Whip of souls, 270

Whipping men in mourning, 452

White ants' nests, ghosts turn into, 351

---- clay smeared on mourners, 158, 177

---- men identified with the spirits of the dead, 342

---- people, souls of dead Australian aborigines thought to be rebornin, 130, 131 _sqq. _

Whitened with chalk, bodies of lads after circumcision, 302

Widow, mourning costume of, 184, 204; seclusion of, 204; killed to accompany the ghost of her husband, 249, 275; drinks juices of putrefying corpse, 313

Widower exposed to attacks of his wife's ghost, 197; costume of, 204; seclusion of, 204, 248 _sq. _, 259

Widows cut and burn their bodies in mourning, 176

Wigs worn by Fijians, 451

Wiimbaio tribe, 145

Wilkes, Charles, 424 _sq. _

Williams, Thomas, 408, 412, 413, 452, 467

Williamson, R. W. , 201

Wind, ghosts float down the, 176

Windessi, in Dutch New Guinea, burial customs at, 318 _sq. _

_Wingara_, early mythical times, 116

Witchcraft, fear of, 244; death ascribed to, 277, 402; Fijian terror of, 413 _sq. _; benefits derived from, 414

Witchcraft or black magic in Central Melanesia, 386 _sq. _

---- as a cause of death, 34 _sqq. _ _See also_ Sorcery

Witchetty grub totem, dramatic ceremonies concerned with, 121 _sq. _, 123

Wives of the dead killed, 399; strangled or buried alive at their husbands' funerals in Fiji, 424 _sq. _

Woibu, the land of the dead, 211

Wolgal tribe, 146

Wollunqua, mythical water-snake, totem of the Warramunga, 103 _sqq. _, 108 _sqq. _, 125; ceremonies in honour of the, 108 _sqq. _

Woman, old, in myths of the origin of death, 64, 71 _sq. _

----, the Great, 464

Women thought not to have immortal spirits, 92; cut and burn their bodies in mourning, 154 _sqq. _, 196, 203; excluded from circumcision ground, 291, 301; dance at deaths, 293; drink juices of putrefying corpse, 355; not allowed to be present at sacrifices, 367; whip men in mourning, 452; burial of childless, 458; the cause of death, 472

---- dying in childbed, special treatment of their ghosts, 358; their ghosts specially feared, 212, 458 _sqq. _

Wordsworth on immortality, 26 _n. _ 1

Worship of ancestors, 221, 328 _sqq. _, 338; predominance of the, 297 _sq. _; possibly evolved from totemism, 114 _sq. _ _See also_ Worship of the dead. 

---- of ancestors in Central Australia, possible evolution of, 125 _sq. _; of ancestral spirits in the _Nanga_, 428 _sq. _

---- of the dead, 23 _sqq. _, 328 _sqq. _, 338; in part based on a theory of dreams, 27 _sq. _; elements of it widespread, 31; in British New Guinea, 201 _sq. _; predominance of the, 297 _sq. _

---- of the dead, incipient, in Australia, 149, 150, 168 _sq. _

---- of the dead in Torres Straits, elements of a, 189; among the Yabim, elements of a, 255

Worshipful ghosts, 362 _sq. _

Wotjobaluk, the, 67, 139

Wraiths, 396

Wurunjerri, the, 146

Yabim, the, of German New Guinea, 242 _sqq. _; their ideas as to death, 47

Yams, prayers for, 330; stones to make yams grow, 337 _sq. _

Young children buried on trees, 312 _sq. _

Young and old, difference between the modes of burying, 161, 162 _sq. _

Youth supposed to be renewed by casting skin, 69 _sqq. _, 74 _sq. _, 83

Ysabel, one of the Solomon Islands, 350, 372, 379, 380

Yule Island, 196 _n. _ 2, 197

Zahn, Heinrich, 242, 244

Zend-Avesta, 453

Zulus, their story of the origin of death, 60 _sq. _

END OF VOL. I

 * * * * *

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