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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of
+the Dead, Volume I (of 3), by Sir James George Frazer
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3)
+       The Belief Among the Aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea and Melanesia
+
+
+Author: Sir James George Frazer
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2006  [eBook #20116]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AND THE
+WORSHIP OF THE DEAD, VOLUME I (OF 3)***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, David King, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) from
+page images generously made available by the Humanities Text Initiative
+(http://www.hti.umich.edu/), a unit of the University of Michigan's
+Digital Library Production Service
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      the Humanities Text Initiative, a unit of the University
+      of Michigan's Digital Library Production Service. See
+      http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=genpub;idno=AFL0522.0001.001
+
+
+
+
+
+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, Cambridge
+Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool.
+
+VOL. I
+
+The Belief Among the Aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits
+Islands, New Guinea and Melanesia
+
+The Gifford Lectures, St. Andrews 1911-1912
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MacMillan and Co., Limited
+St. Martin's Street, London
+1913
+
+
+    _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.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+MY 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 Foundation
+before the University of St. Andrews in the early winters of 1911 and
+1912. They are printed nearly as they were spoken, except that a few
+passages, omitted for the sake of brevity in the oral delivery, have
+been here restored and a few more added. Further, I have compressed the
+two introductory lectures into one, striking out some passages which on
+reflection I judged to be irrelevant or superfluous. The volume
+incorporates twelve lectures on "The Fear and Worship of the Dead" which
+I 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 hereafter
+by describing the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead, as
+these have been found among the other principal races of the world both
+in ancient and modern times. Of all the many forms which natural
+religion has assumed none probably has exerted so deep and far-reaching
+an influence on human life as the belief in immortality and the worship
+of the dead; hence an historical survey of this most momentous creed and
+of the practical consequences which have been deduced from it can hardly
+fail to be at once instructive and impressive, whether we regard the
+record with complacency as a noble testimony to the aspiring genius of
+man, who claims to outlive the sun and the stars, or whether we view it
+with pity as a melancholy monument of fruitless labour and barren
+ingenuity expended in prying into that great mystery of which fools
+profess 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, the
+philosophical, and the historical, pp. 1 _sq._; the historical method
+followed in these lectures, 2 _sq._; questions of the truth and moral
+value of religious beliefs irrelevant in an historical enquiry, 3 _sq._;
+need of studying the religion of primitive man and possibility of doing
+so by means of the comparative method, 5 _sq._; urgent need of
+investigating 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 it
+exists, only possible through experience, 11 _sq._; the nature of
+experience, 12 _sq._; two kinds of experience, an inward and an outward,
+13 _sq._; the conception of God reached historically through both kinds
+of experience, 14; inward experience or inspiration, 14 _sq._;
+deification of living men, 16 _sq._; outward experience as a source of
+the idea of God, 17; the tendency to seek for causes, 17 _sq._; the
+meaning of cause, 18 _sq._; the savage explains natural processes by the
+hypothesis of spirits or gods, 19 _sq._; natural processes afterwards
+explained by hypothetical forces and atoms instead of by hypothetical
+spirits and gods, 20 _sq._; nature in general still commonly explained
+by the hypothesis of a deity, 21 _sq._; God an inferential or
+hypothetical cause, 22 _sq._; the deification of dead men, 23-25; such a
+deification presupposes the immortality of the human soul or rather its
+survival for a longer or shorter time after death, 25 _sq._; the
+conception of human immortality suggested both by inward experience,
+such as dreams, and by outward experience, such as the resemblances of
+the living to the dead, 26-29; the lectures intended to collect evidence
+as 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 of
+the dead among certain of the lower races, p. 31; question of the nature
+and origin of death, 31 _sq._; universal interest of the question, 32
+_sq._; the belief in immortality general among mankind, 33; belief of
+many savages that death is not natural and that they would never die if
+their 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, practical
+consequence of this distinction, 37; belief in sorcery as the cause of
+death among the Indians of Guiana, 38 _sq._, among the Tinneh Indians of
+North America, 39 _sq._, among the aborigines of Australia, 40-47, among
+the natives of the Torres Straits Islands and New Guinea, 47, among the
+Melanesians, 48, among the Malagasy, 48 _sq._, and among African tribes,
+49-51; effect of such beliefs in thinning the population by causing
+multitudes to die for the imaginary crime of sorcery, 51-53; some
+savages attribute certain deaths to other causes than sorcery, 53;
+corpse dissected to ascertain cause of death, 53 _sq._; the possibility
+of natural death admitted by the Melanesians and the Caffres of South
+Africa, 54-56; the admission marks an intellectual advance, 56 _sq._;
+the recognition of ghosts or spirits, apart from sorcery, as a cause of
+disease 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 of
+the origin of death, 59 _sq._; four types of such stories:--
+
+(1) _The Story of the Two Messengers_.--Zulu story of the chameleon and
+the 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 of
+the goat and the sheep, 63 _sq._
+
+(2) _The Story of the Waxing and Waning Moon_.--Hottentot story of the
+moon, 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 of
+the moon, the rat, and death, 67; Caroline, Wotjobaluk, and Cham stories
+of the moon, death, and resurrection, 67; death and resurrection after
+three days suggested by the reappearance of the new moon after three
+days, 67 _sq._
+
+(3) _The Story of the Serpent and his Cast Skin_.--New Britain and
+Annamite story of immortality, the serpent, and death, 69 _sq._; Vuatom
+story of immortality, the lizard, the serpent, and death, 70; Nias story
+of immortality, the crab, and death, 70; Arawak and Tamanchier stories
+of 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, the
+banana, 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 the
+boon of immortality between men and animals that cast their skins, such
+as serpents and lizards, 74 _sq._; stories of the origin of death told
+by 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 a
+woman, 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; similar
+view held by some modern biologists, as A. Weismann and A. R. Wallace,
+84-86.
+
+Lecture IV.--The Belief in Immortality among the Aborigines of Central
+Australia
+
+In tracing the evolution of religious beliefs we must begin with those
+of the lowest savages, p. 87; the aborigines of Australia the lowest
+savages about whom we possess accurate information, 88; savagery a case
+of retarded development, 88 _sq._; causes which have retarded progress
+in Australia, 89 _sq._; the natives of Central Australia on the whole
+more primitive than those of the coasts, 90 _sq._; little that can be
+called religion among them, 91 _sq._; their theory that the souls of the
+dead survive and are reborn in their descendants, 92 _sq._; places where
+the souls of the dead await rebirth, and the mode in which they enter
+into women, 93 _sq._; local totem centres, 94 _sq._; totemism defined,
+95; traditionary origin of the local totem centres (_oknanikilla_) where
+the souls of the dead assemble, 96; sacred birth-stones or birth-sticks
+(_churinga_) which the souls of ancestors are thought to have dropped at
+these 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; religious
+character of the belief in the Wollunqua, 106.
+
+Lecture V.--The Belief in Immortality among the Aborigines of Central
+Australia (_continued_)
+
+Beliefs of the Central Australian aborigines concerning the
+reincarnation of the dead, p. 107; possibility of the development of
+ancestor worship, 107 _sq._; ceremonies performed by the Warramunga in
+honour of the Wollunqua, the mythical ancestor of one of their totem
+clans, 108 _sqq._; union of magic and religion in these ceremonies, 111
+_sq._; ground drawings of the Wollunqua, 112 _sq._; importance of the
+Wollunqua in the evolution of religion and art, 113 _sq._; how totemism
+might develop into polytheism through an intermediate stage of ancestor
+worship, 114 _sq._; all the conspicuous features of the country
+associated by the Central Australians with the spirits of their
+ancestors, 115-118; dramatic ceremonies performed by them to commemorate
+the deeds of their ancestors, 118 _sq._; examples of these ceremonies,
+119-122; these ceremonies were probably in origin not merely
+commemorative or historical but magical, being intended to procure a
+supply of food and other necessaries, 122 _sq._; magical virtue actually
+attributed to these dramatic ceremonies by the Warramunga, who think
+that by performing them they increase the food supply of the tribe, 123
+_sq._; hence the great importance ascribed by these savages to the due
+performance of the ancestral dramas, 124; general attitude of the
+Central Australian aborigines to their dead, and the lines on which, if
+left to themselves, they might have developed a regular worship of the
+dead, 124-126.
+
+Lecture VI.--The Belief in Immortality among the other Aborigines of
+Australia
+
+Evidence for the belief in reincarnation among the natives of other
+parts of Australia than the centre, p. 127; beliefs of the Queensland
+aborigines concerning the nature of the soul and the state of the dead,
+127-131; belief of the Australian aborigines that their dead are
+sometimes reborn in white people, 131-133; belief of the natives of
+South-Eastern Australia that their dead are not born again but go away
+to the sky or some distant country, 133 _sq._; beliefs and customs of
+the Narrinyeri concerning the dead, 134 _sqq._; motives for the
+excessive grief which they display at the death of their relatives, 135
+_sq._; their pretence of avenging the death of their friends on the
+guilty sorcerer, 136 _sq._; magical virtue ascribed to the hair of the
+dead, 137 _sq._; belief that the dead go to the sky, 138 _sq._;
+appearance of the dead to the living in dreams, 139; savage faith in
+dreams, 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; this
+difference probably due in the main to a general advance of culture
+brought about by more favourable natural conditions in South-Eastern
+Australia, 141 _sq._; possible influence of European teaching on native
+beliefs, 142 _sq._; vagueness and inconsistency of native beliefs as to
+the state of the dead, 143; custom a good test of belief, 143 _sq._;
+burial customs of the Australian aborigines as evidence of their beliefs
+concerning the state of the dead, 144; their practice of supplying the
+dead with food, water, fire, weapons, and implements, 144-147; motives
+for the destruction of the property of the dead, 147 _sq._; great
+economic loss entailed by developed systems of sacrificing to the dead,
+149.
+
+Lecture VII.--The Belief in Immortality among the Aborigines of
+Australia (_concluded_)
+
+Huts erected on graves for the use of the ghosts, pp. 150-152; the
+attentions paid by the Australian aborigines to their dead probably
+spring from fear rather than affection, 152; precautions taken by the
+living against the dangerous ghosts of the dead, 152 _sq._; cuttings and
+brandings of the flesh of the living in honour of the dead, 154-158; the
+custom of allowing the blood of mourners to drip on the corpse or into
+the 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 of
+burial are intended to prevent the return of the spirit, others are
+designed to facilitate it, 163-165; final departure of the ghost
+supposed to coincide with the disappearance of the flesh from his bones,
+165 _sq._; hence a custom has arisen in many tribes of giving the bones
+a second burial or otherwise disposing of them when the flesh is quite
+decayed, 166; tree-burial followed by earth-burial in some Australian
+tribes, 166-168; general conclusion as to the belief in immortality and
+the worship of the dead among the Australian aborigines, 168 _sq._
+
+Lecture VIII.--The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of the Torres
+Straits Islands
+
+Racial affinities of the Torres Straits Islanders, pp. 170 _sq._; their
+material and social culture, 171 _sq._; no developed worship of the dead
+among them, 172 _sq._; their fear of ghosts, 173-175; home of the dead a
+mythical island in the west, 175 _sq._; elaborate funeral ceremonies of
+the Torres Straits Islanders characterised by dramatic representations
+of the dead and by the preservation of their skulls, which were
+consulted as oracles, 176.
+
+Funeral ceremonies of the Western Islanders, 177-180; part played by the
+brothers-in-law of the deceased at these ceremonies, 177 _sq._; removal
+of the head and preparation of the skull for use in divination, 178
+_sq._; great death-dance performed by masked men who personated the
+deceased, 179 _sq._
+
+Funeral ceremonies of the Eastern Islanders, 180-188; soul of the dead
+carried away by a masked actor, 181 _sq._; dramatic performance by
+disguised men representing ghosts, 182 _sq._; blood and hair of
+relatives 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 the
+mummy and afterwards of the head or a wax model of it to be used in
+divination, 188.
+
+Images of the gods perhaps developed out of mummies of the dead, and a
+sacred or even secular drama developed out of funeral dances, 189.
+
+Lecture IX.--The Belief in Immortality Among the Natives Of British New
+Guinea
+
+The two races of New Guinea, the Papuan and the Melanesian, pp. 190
+_sq._; beliefs and customs of the Motu concerning the dead, 192; the
+Koita 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._; beliefs
+of 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 concerning
+the dead among the natives of the Hood Peninsula, 203-206; seclusion of
+widows and widowers, 203 _sq._; the ghost-seer, 204 _sq._; application
+of the juices of the dead to the persons of the living, 205; precautions
+taken by manslayers against the ghosts of their victims, 205 _sq._;
+purification for homicide originally a mode of averting the angry ghost
+of the slain, 206; beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the
+Massim of south-eastern New Guinea, 206-210; Hiyoyoa, the land of the
+dead, 207; purification of mourners by bathing and shaving, 207 _sq._;
+foods forbidden to mourners, 208 _sq._; fires on the grave, 209; the
+land 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 to
+the living in dreams, 213 _sq._; offerings to the dead, 214; dreams as a
+source of the belief in immortality, 214.
+
+Lecture X.--The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of German New
+Guinea
+
+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 soul
+after death, 224; monuments to the dead, 225; disinterment of the bones,
+225; propitiation of ghosts and spirits, 226; guardian-spirits in the
+temples, 226 _sq._
+
+The Monumbo of Potsdam Harbour, 227 _sq._; their beliefs concerning the
+spirits of the dead, 228 _sq._; their fear of ghosts, 229; their
+treatment of manslayers, 229 _sq._
+
+The Tamos of Astrolabe Bay, 230; their ideas as to the souls of the
+dead, 231 _sq._; their fear of ghosts, 232 _sqq._; their Secret Society
+and rites of initiation, 233; their preservation of the jawbones of the
+dead, 234 _sq._; their sham fights after a death, 235 _sq._; these
+fights perhaps intended to throw dust in the eyes of the ghost, 236
+_sq._
+
+Lecture XI.--The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of German New
+Guinea (_continued_)
+
+The Papuans of Cape King William, pp. 238 _sq._; their ideas as to
+spirits and the souls of the dead, 239 _sq._; their belief in sorcery as
+a 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 of
+the dead, 244 _sq._; the ghostly ferry, 244 _sq._; transmigration of
+human souls into animals, 245; the return of the ghosts, 246; offerings
+to ghosts, 246; ghosts provided with fire, 246 _sq._; ghosts help in the
+cultivation 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 of
+circumcision, the novices supposed to be swallowed by a monster, 251
+_sq._; the return of the novices, 253; the essence of the initiatory
+rites 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 New
+Guinea (_continued_)
+
+The Bukaua of Huon Gulf, their means of subsistence and men's
+clubhouses, pp. 256 _sq._; their ideas as to the souls of the dead, 257;
+sickness and death caused by ghosts and sorcerers, 257 _sq._; fear of
+the ghosts of the slain, 258; prayers to ancestral spirits on behalf of
+the crops, 259; first-fruits offered to the spirits of the dead, 259;
+burial and mourning customs, 259 _sq._; initiation of young men, novices
+at circumcision supposed to be swallowed and afterwards disgorged by a
+monster, 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._; the
+essential rationality of the savage, 264-266; the Kai theory of the two
+sorts of human souls, 267 _sq._; death commonly thought to be caused by
+sorcery, 268 _sq._; danger incurred by the sorcerer, 269; many hurts and
+maladies attributed to the action of ghosts, 269 _sq._; capturing lost
+souls, 270 _sq._; ghosts extracted from the body of a sick man or
+scraped from his person, 271; extravagant demonstrations of grief at the
+death of a sick man, 271-273; hypocritical character of these
+demonstrations, which are intended to deceive the ghost, 273; burial and
+mourning customs, preservation of the lower jawbone and one of the lower
+arm 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 New
+Guinea (_continued_)
+
+The Kai (continued), their offerings to the dead, p. 276; divination by
+means 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 to
+deceive the ghosts of the murdered, 280-282; pretence of avenging the
+ghost 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 of
+the dead in the other world, 286 _sq._; ghosts die the second death and
+turn into animals, 287; ghosts of famous people invoked long after their
+death, 287-289; possible development of ghosts into gods, 289 _sq._;
+lads at circumcision supposed to be swallowed and disgorged by a
+monster, 290 _sq._
+
+The Tami Islanders of Huon Gulf, 291; their theory of a double human
+soul, a long one and a short one, 291 _sq._; departure of the short soul
+for 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 and
+Dutch New Guinea
+
+The Tami Islanders of Huon Gulf (continued), their doctrine of souls and
+gods, pp. 296 _sq._; dances of masked men representing spirits, 297;
+worship of ancestral spirits and offerings to them, 297 _sq._; life of
+the souls in Lamboam, the nether world, 299 _sq._; evocation of ghosts
+by the ghost-seer, 300; sickness caused by ghosts, 300 _sq._; novices at
+circumcision supposed to be swallowed and disgorged by a monster, 301
+_sq._; meaning of the bodily mutilations inflicted on young men at
+puberty obscure, 302 _sq._ The natives of Dutch New Guinea, 303-323; the
+Noofoors 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 be
+used as oracles, 307 _sq._; the images consulted in sickness and taken
+with the people to war, 308-310; offerings to the images, 310 _sq._;
+souls of those who have died away from home recalled to animate the
+images, 311; skulls of the dead, especially of firstborn children and of
+parents, inserted in the images, 312 _sq._; bodies of young children
+hung 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 by
+relatives, 314 _sq._; rebirth of parents in their children, 315.
+
+The natives of islands off the west coast of New Guinea, their wooden
+images of dead ancestors and shrines for the residence of the ancestral
+spirits, 315 _sq._; their festivals in honour of the dead, 316; souls of
+ancestors supposed to reside in the images and to protect the house and
+household, 317.
+
+The natives of the Macluer Gulf, their images and bowls in honour of the
+dead, 317 _sq._
+
+The natives of the Mimika district, their burial and mourning customs,
+their preservation of the skulls of the dead, and their belief in
+ghosts, 318.
+
+The natives of Windessi, their burial customs, 318 _sq._; divination
+after a death, 319; mourning customs, 319 _sq._; festival of the dead,
+320 _sq._; wooden images of the dead, 321; doctrine of souls and of
+their fate after death, 321 _sq._; medicine-men inspired by the souls of
+the dead, 322 _sq._; ghosts of slain enemies driven away, 323.
+
+Lecture XV.--The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Southern
+Melanesia (New Caledonia)
+
+The Melanesians in general, their material culture, p. 324; Southern
+Melanesia, 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 and
+restrictions 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 as
+charnel-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 used
+to 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 of
+the New Caledonians mainly a worship of the dead tinctured with magic,
+338.
+
+Evidence as to the natives of New Caledonia collected by Dr. George
+Turner, 339-342; material culture of the New Caledonians, 339; their
+burial customs, the skulls and nails of the dead preserved and used to
+fertilise the yam plantations, 339 _sq._; worship of ancestors and
+prayers to the dead, 340; festivals in honour of the dead, 340 _sq._;
+making rain by means of the skeletons of the dead, 341; execution of
+sorcerers, 341 _sq._; white men identified with the spirits of the dead,
+342.
+
+Lecture XVI.--The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Central
+Melanesia
+
+Central Melanesia divided into two archipelagoes, the religion of the
+Western Islands (Solomon Islands) characterised by a worship of the
+dead, the religion of the Eastern Islands (New Hebrides, Banks' Islands,
+Torres Islands, Santa Cruz Islands) characterised by a worship of
+non-human spirits, pp. 343 _sq._; Central Melanesian theory of the soul,
+344 _sq._; the land of the dead either in certain islands or in a
+subterranean region called Panoi, 345; ghosts of power and ghosts of no
+account, 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 of
+the dead and the ghostly ferry, 350 _sq._; ghosts die the second death
+and turn into the nests of white ants, 350 _sq._; preservation of the
+skull 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 (New
+Hebrides, Banks' Islands, Torres Islands), 352 _sqq._; Panoi, the
+subterranean 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 of
+the Banks' Islanders, 355 _sqq._; dead sometimes temporarily buried in
+the house, 355; display of property beside the corpse and funeral
+oration, 355 _sq._; sham burial of eminent men, 356; ghosts driven away
+from the village, 356-358; deceiving the ghosts of women who have died
+in child-bed, 358; funeral feasts, 358 _sq._; funeral customs in the
+New Hebrides, 359 _sqq._; the aged buried alive, 359 _sq._; seclusion of
+mourners 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 the
+worship of a martial ghost, 363 _sq._; offerings of food and drink to
+the dead, 364 _sq._; sacrifice of pigs to ghosts in the Solomon Islands,
+365 _sq._
+
+Lecture XVII.--The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Central
+Melanesia (_concluded_)
+
+Public sacrifices to ghosts in the Solomon Islands, pp. 367 _sq._;
+offering of first-fruits to ghosts, 368 _sq._; private ghosts as
+distinguished from public ghosts, 369 _sq._; fighting ghosts kept as
+spiritual auxiliaries, 370; ghosts employed to make the gardens grow,
+370 _sq._; human sacrifices to ghosts, 371 _sq._; vicarious and other
+sacrifices to ghosts at Saa in Malanta, 372 _sq._; offerings of
+first-fruits to ghosts at Saa, 373 _sq._; vicarious sacrifices offered
+for the sick to ghosts in Santa Cruz, 374; the dead represented by
+stocks in the houses, 374; native account of sacrifices in Santa Cruz,
+374 _sq._; prayers to the dead, 376 _sq._; sanctuaries of ghosts in the
+Solomon 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 who
+have the ear of ghosts and spirits, 384-386; witchcraft or black magic
+wrought by means of ghosts, 386-388; prophets inspired by ghosts, 388
+_sq._; divination operating through ghosts, 389 _sq._; taboos enforced
+by ghosts, 390 _sq._; general influence which a belief in the survival
+of the soul after death has exercised on Melanesian life, 391 _sq._
+
+Lecture XVIII.--The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Northern
+and Eastern Melanesia
+
+The natives of Northern Melanesia or the Bismarck Archipelago (New
+Britain, 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 and
+beliefs concerning the dead among the Sulka of New Britain, 398-400,
+among the Moanus of the Admiralty Islands, 400 _sq._ and among the
+natives of the Kaniet Islands, 401 _sq._; natural deaths commonly
+attributed to sorcery, 402; divination to discover the sorcerer who
+caused the death, 402; death customs in the Duke of York Island, cursing
+the sorcerer, skulls preserved, feasts and dances, 403; prayers to the
+dead, 403 _sq._; the land of the dead and the fate of the departed
+souls, hard lot of impecunious ghosts, 404-406.
+
+The natives of Eastern Melanesia (Fiji), their material culture and
+political constitution, 406-408; means of subsistence, 408; moral
+character, 408 _sq._; scenery of the Fijian islands, 409 _sq._; the
+Fijian 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 personal
+cleanliness, 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 soul
+reborn in his grandchild, 417 _sq._
+
+Lecture XIX.--The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Eastern
+Melanesia (Fiji) (_continued_)
+
+Indifference of the Fijians to death, p. 419; their custom of killing
+the sick and aged with the consent of the victims, 419-424; their
+readiness to die partly an effect of their belief in immortality, 422
+_sq._; wives strangled or buried alive to accompany their husbands to
+the spirit land, 424-426; servants and dependants killed to attend their
+dead lords, 426; sacrifices of foreskins and fingers in honour of dead
+chiefs, 426 _sq._; boys circumcised in order to save the lives of their
+fathers or fathers' brothers, 427; saturnalia attending such rites of
+circumcision, 427 _sq._; the _Nanga_, or sacred enclosure of stones,
+dedicated to the worship of ancestors, 428 _sq._; first-fruits of the
+yams offered to the ancestors in the _Nanga_, 429; initiation of young
+men in the _Nanga_, drama of death and resurrection, sacrament of food
+and water, 429-432; the initiation followed by a period of sexual
+licence, 433; the initiatory rites apparently intended to introduce the
+novices to the ancestral spirits and endow them with the powers of the
+dead, 434 _sq._; the rites seem to have been imported into Fiji by
+immigrants from the west, 435 _sq._; the licence attending these rites
+perhaps a reversion to primitive communism for the purpose of
+propitiating the ancestral spirits, 436 _sq._; description of the
+_Nanga_ or sacred enclosure of stones, 437 _sq._; comparison with the
+cromlechs and other megalithic monuments of Europe, 438.
+
+Lecture XX.--The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Eastern
+Melanesia (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_), their
+oracular inspiration by the gods, 443-446; human sacrifices on various
+occasions, 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._; certain
+funeral customs based apparently on the fear of ghosts, 450 _sqq._;
+persons who have handled a corpse forbidden to touch food with their
+hands, 450 _sq._; seclusion of gravediggers, 451; mutilations,
+brandings, and fasts in honour of the dead, 451 _sq._; the dead carried
+out of the house by a special opening to prevent the return of the
+ghost, 452-461; the other world and the way thither, 462 _sqq._; the
+ghostly 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 sort
+of heaven, 466; the Fijian Elysium, 466 _sq._; transmigration and
+annihilation, the few that are saved, 467.
+
+Concluding observations, 467-471; strength and universality of the
+belief in immortality among savages, 468; the state of war among savage
+and civilised peoples often a direct consequence of the belief in
+immortality, 468 _sq._; economic loss involved in sacrifices to the
+dead, 469; how does the savage belief in immortality bear on the truth
+or falsehood of that belief in general? 469; the answer depends to some
+extent on the view we take of human nature, 469-471; the conclusion left
+open, 471.
+
+Note.--Myth of the Continuance of Death
+
+Index
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE I
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+[Sidenote: Natural theology, and the three modes of handling it, the
+dogmatic, the philosophical, and the historical.]
+
+The subject of these lectures is a branch of natural theology. By
+natural theology I understand that reasoned knowledge of a God or gods
+which man may be supposed, whether rightly or wrongly, capable of
+attaining to by the exercise of his natural faculties alone. Thus
+defined, the subject may be treated in at least three different ways,
+namely, dogmatically, philosophically, and historically. We may simply
+state the dogmas of natural theology which appear to us to be true: that
+is the dogmatic method. Or, secondly, we may examine the validity of the
+grounds on which these dogmas have been or may be maintained: that is
+the philosophic method. Or, thirdly, we may content ourselves with
+describing the various views which have been held on the subject and
+tracing their origin and evolution in history: that is the historical
+method. The first of these three methods assumes the truth of natural
+theology, the second discusses it, and the third neither assumes nor
+discusses but simply ignores it: the historian as such is not concerned
+with the truth or falsehood of the beliefs he describes, his business is
+merely to record them and to track them as far as possible to their
+sources. Now that the subject of natural theology is ripe for a purely
+dogmatic treatment will hardly, I think, be maintained by any one, to
+whatever school of thought he may belong; accordingly that method of
+treatment need not occupy us further. Far otherwise is it with the
+philosophic method which undertakes to enquire into the truth or
+falsehood of the belief in a God: no method could be more appropriate at
+a time like the present, when the opinions of educated and thoughtful
+men on that profound topic are so unsettled, diverse, and conflicting. A
+philosophical treatment of the subject might comprise a discussion of
+such questions as whether a natural knowledge of God is possible to man,
+and, if possible, by what means and through what faculties it is
+attainable; what are the grounds for believing in the existence of a
+God; and, if this belief is justified, what may be supposed to be his
+essential nature and attributes, and what his relations to the world in
+general and to man in particular. Now I desire to confess at once that
+an adequate discussion of these and kindred questions would far exceed
+both my capacity and my knowledge; for he who would do justice to so
+arduous an enquiry should not only be endowed with a comprehensive and
+penetrating genius, but should possess a wide and accurate acquaintance
+with the best accredited results of philosophic speculation and
+scientific research. To such qualifications I can lay no claim, and
+accordingly I must regard myself as unfitted for a purely philosophic
+treatment of natural theology. To speak plainly, the question of the
+existence of a God is too deep for me. I dare neither affirm nor deny
+it. I can only humbly confess my ignorance. Accordingly, if Lord Gifford
+had required of his lecturers either a dogmatic or a philosophical
+treatment of natural theology, I could not have undertaken to deliver
+the lectures.
+
+[Sidenote: The method followed in these lectures is the historical.]
+
+But in his deed of foundation, as I understand it, Lord Gifford left his
+lecturers free to follow the historical rather than the dogmatic or the
+philosophical method of treatment. He says: "The lecturers shall be
+under no restraint whatever in their treatment of their theme: for
+example, they may freely discuss (and it may be well to do so) all
+questions about man's conceptions of God or the Infinite, their origin,
+nature, and truth." In making this provision the founder appears to have
+allowed and indeed encouraged the lecturers not only to discuss, if they
+chose to do so, the philosophical basis of a belief in God, but also to
+set forth the various conceptions of the divine nature which have been
+held by men in all ages and to trace them to their origin: in short, he
+permitted and encouraged the lecturers to compose a history of natural
+theology or of some part of it. Even when it is thus limited to its
+historical aspect the theme is too vast to be mastered completely by any
+one man: the most that a single enquirer can do is to take a general but
+necessarily superficial survey of the whole and to devote himself
+especially to the investigation of some particular branch or aspect of
+the subject. This I have done more or less for many years, and
+accordingly I think that without being presumptuous I may attempt, in
+compliance with Lord Gifford's wishes and directions, to lay before my
+hearers a portion of the history of religion to which I have paid
+particular attention. That the historical study of religious beliefs,
+quite apart from the question of their truth or falsehood, is both
+interesting and instructive will hardly be disputed by any intelligent
+and thoughtful enquirer. Whether they have been well or ill founded,
+these beliefs have deeply influenced the conduct of human affairs; they
+have furnished some of the most powerful, persistent, and far-reaching
+motives of action; they have transformed nations and altered the face of
+the globe. No one who would understand the general history of mankind
+can afford to ignore the annals of religion. If he does so, he will
+inevitably fall into the most serious misconceptions even in studying
+branches of human activity which might seem, on a superficial view, to
+be quite unaffected by religious considerations.
+
+[Sidenote: An historical enquiry into the evolution of religion
+prejudices neither the question of the ethical value of religious
+practice nor the question of the truth or falsehood of religious
+belief.]
+
+Therefore to trace theological and in general religious ideas to their
+sources and to follow them through all the manifold influences which
+they have exerted on the destinies of our race must always be an object
+of prime importance to the historian, whatever view he may take of their
+speculative truth or ethical value. Clearly we cannot estimate their
+ethical value until we have learned the modes in which they have
+actually determined human conduct for good or evil: in other words, we
+cannot judge of the morality of religious beliefs until we have
+ascertained their history: the facts must be known before judgment can
+be passed on them: the work of the historian must precede the work of
+the moralist. Even the question of the validity or truth of religious
+creeds cannot, perhaps, be wholly dissociated from the question of their
+origin. If, for example, we discover that doctrines which we had
+accepted with implicit faith from tradition have their close analogies
+in the barbarous superstitions of ignorant savages, we can hardly help
+suspecting that our own cherished doctrines may have originated in the
+similar superstitions of our rude forefathers; and the suspicion
+inevitably shakes the confidence with which we had hitherto regarded
+these articles of our faith. The doubt thus cast on our old creed is
+perhaps illogical, since even if we should discover that the creed did
+originate in mere superstition, in other words, that the grounds on
+which it was first adopted were false and absurd, this discovery would
+not really disprove the beliefs themselves, for it is perfectly possible
+that a belief may be true, though the reasons alleged in favour of it
+are false and absurd: indeed we may affirm with great probability that a
+multitude of human beliefs, true in themselves, have been accepted and
+defended by millions of people on grounds which cannot bear exact
+investigation for a moment. For example, if the facts of savage life
+which it will be my duty to submit to you should have the effect of
+making the belief in immortality look exceedingly foolish, those of my
+hearers who cherish the belief may console themselves by reflecting
+that, as I have just pointed out, a creed is not necessarily false
+because some of the reasons adduced in its favour are invalid, because
+it has sometimes been supported by the despicable tricks of vulgar
+imposture, and because the practices to which it has given rise have
+often been in the highest degree not only absurd but pernicious.
+
+[Sidenote: Yet such an enquiry may shake the confidence with which
+traditional 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 which
+they are held. This weakening of religious faith as a consequence of a
+closer scrutiny of religious origins is unquestionably a matter of great
+importance to the community; for society has been built and cemented to
+a great extent on a foundation of religion, and it is impossible to
+loosen the cement and shake the foundation without endangering the
+superstructure. The candid historian of religion will not dissemble the
+danger incidental to his enquiries, but nevertheless it is his duty to
+prosecute them unflinchingly. Come what may, he must ascertain the facts
+so far as it is possible to do so; having done that, he may leave to
+others the onerous and delicate task of adjusting the new knowledge to
+the practical needs of mankind. The narrow way of truth may often look
+dark and threatening, and the wayfarer may often be weary; yet even at
+the darkest and the weariest he will go forward in the trust, if not in
+the knowledge, that the way will lead at last to light and to rest; in
+plain words, that there is no ultimate incompatibility between the good
+and the true.
+
+[Sidenote: To discover the origin of the idea of God we must study the
+beliefs 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 and
+enlightened portion of mankind entertain on the subject at the present
+day; for in great measure these ideas are traditional, they have been
+handed down with little or no independent reflection or enquiry from
+generation to generation; hence in order to detect them in their
+inception it becomes necessary to push our analysis far back into the
+past. Large materials for such an historical enquiry are provided for us
+in the literature of ancient nations which, though often sadly mutilated
+and imperfect, has survived to modern times and throws much precious
+light on the religious beliefs and practices of the peoples who created
+it. But the ancients themselves inherited a great part of their religion
+from their prehistoric ancestors, and accordingly it becomes desirable
+to investigate the religious notions of these remote forefathers of
+mankind, since in them we may hope at last to arrive at the ultimate
+source, the historical origin, of the whole long development.
+
+[Sidenote: The beliefs of primitive man can only be understood through a
+comparative study of the various races in the lower stages of culture.]
+
+But how can this be done? how can we investigate the ideas of peoples
+who, ignorant of writing, had no means of permanently recording their
+beliefs? At first sight the thing seems impossible; the thread of
+enquiry is broken off short; it has landed us on the brink of a gulf
+which 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 of
+studying them indirectly; it may hold up to us a mirror in which, if we
+do not see the originals, we may perhaps contemplate their reflections.
+For a comparative study of the various races of mankind demonstrates, or
+at least renders it highly probable, that humanity has everywhere
+started at an exceedingly low level of culture, a level far beneath that
+of the lowest existing savages, and that from this humble beginning all
+the various races of men have gradually progressed upward at different
+rates, some faster and some slower, till they have attained the
+particular stage which each of them occupies at the present time.
+
+[Sidenote: Hence the need of studying the beliefs and customs of
+savages, if we are to understand the evolution of culture in general.]
+
+If this conclusion is correct, the various stages of savagery and
+barbarism on which many tribes and peoples now stand represent, broadly
+speaking, so many degrees of retarded social and intellectual
+development, they correspond to similar stages which the ancestors of
+the civilised races may be supposed to have passed through at more or
+less remote periods of their history. Thus when we arrange all the known
+peoples of the world according to the degree of their savagery or
+civilisation in a graduated scale of culture, we obtain not merely a
+comparative view of their relative positions in the scale, but also in
+some measure an historical record of the genetic development of culture
+from a very early time down to the present day. Hence a study of the
+savage and barbarous races of mankind is of the greatest importance for
+a full understanding of the beliefs and practices, whether religious,
+social, moral, or political, of the most civilised races, including our
+own, since it is practically certain that a large part of these beliefs
+and practices originated with our savage ancestors, and has been
+inherited by us from them, with more or less of modification, through a
+long line of intermediate generations.
+
+[Sidenote: The need is all the more urgent because savages are rapidly
+disappearing or being transformed.]
+
+That is why the study of existing savages at the present day engrosses
+so much of the attention of civilised peoples. We see that if we are to
+comprehend not only our past history but our present condition, with all
+its many intricate and perplexing problems, we must begin at the
+beginning by attempting to discover the mental state of our savage
+forefathers, who bequeathed to us so much of the faiths, the laws, and
+the institutions which we still cherish; and more and more men are
+coming to perceive that the only way open to us of doing this
+effectually is to study the mental state of savages who to this day
+occupy a state of culture analogous to that of our rude progenitors.
+Through contact with civilisation these savages are now rapidly
+disappearing, or at least losing the old habits and ideas which render
+them a document of priceless historical value for us. Hence we have
+every motive for prosecuting the study of savagery with ardour and
+diligence before it is too late, before the record is gone for ever. We
+are like an heir whose title-deeds must be scrutinised before he can
+take possession of the inheritance, but who finds the handwriting of the
+deeds so fading and evanescent that it threatens to disappear entirely
+before he can read the document to the end. With what keen attention,
+what eager haste, would he not scan the fast-vanishing characters? With
+the like attention and the like haste civilised men are now applying
+themselves 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 its
+origin, it is desirable, or rather essential, that we should begin by
+studying the most primitive ideas on the subject which are accessible to
+us, and the most primitive ideas are unquestionably those of the lowest
+savages. Accordingly in these lectures I propose to deal with a
+particular side or aspect of savage religion. I shall not trench on the
+sphere of the higher religions, not only because my knowledge of them is
+for the most part very slight, but also because I believe that a
+searching study of the higher and more complex religions should be
+postponed till we have acquired an accurate knowledge of the lower and
+simpler. For a similar reason the study of inorganic chemistry naturally
+precedes the study of organic chemistry, because inorganic compounds are
+much simpler and therefore more easily analysed and investigated than
+organic compounds. So with the chemistry of the mind; we should analyse
+the comparatively simple phenomena of savage thought into its
+constituent elements before we attempt to perform a similar operation on
+the 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 savage
+religion, I shall not attempt to present you with a complete survey even
+of that restricted area, and that for more reasons than one. In the
+first place the theme, even with this great limitation, is far too large
+to be adequately set forth in the time at my disposal; the sketch--for
+it could be no more than a sketch--would be necessarily superficial and
+probably misleading. In the second place, even a sketch of primitive
+religion in general ought to presuppose in the sketcher a fairly
+complete knowledge of the whole subject, so that all the parts may
+appear, not indeed in detail, but in their proper relative proportions.
+Now though I have given altogether a good deal of time to the study of
+primitive 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 it
+even in outline; were I to attempt such a thing I should almost
+certainly fall, through sheer ignorance or inadvertence, into the
+mistake of exaggerating some features, unduly diminishing others, and
+omitting certain essential features altogether. Hence it seems to me
+better not to commit myself to so ambitious an enterprise but to confine
+myself in my lectures, as I have always done in my writings, to a
+comparatively minute investigation of certain special aspects or forms
+of primitive religion rather than attempt to embrace in a general view
+the whole of that large subject. Such a relatively detailed study of a
+single compartment may be less attractive and more tedious than a
+bird's-eye view of a wider area; but in the end it may perhaps prove a
+more solid contribution to knowledge.
+
+[Sidenote: Introductory observations. The question of a supernatural
+revelation excluded.]
+
+But before I come to details I wish to make a few general introductory
+remarks, and in particular to define some of the terms which I shall
+have occasion to use in the lectures. I have defined natural theology as
+that reasoned knowledge of a God or gods which man may be supposed,
+whether rightly or wrongly, capable of attaining to by the exercise of
+his natural faculties alone. Whether there ever has been or can be a
+special miraculous revelation of God to man through channels different
+from those through which all other human knowledge is derived, is a
+question which does not concern us in these lectures; indeed it is
+expressly excluded from their scope by the will of the founder, who
+directed the lecturers to treat the subject "as a strictly natural
+science," "without reference to or reliance upon any supposed special
+exceptional or so-called miraculous revelation." Accordingly, in
+compliance with these directions, I dismiss at the outset the question
+of a revelation, and shall limit myself strictly to natural theology in
+the 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 to
+distinguish it from that simple and comparatively, though I believe
+never absolutely, unreasoning faith in God which suffices for the
+practice of religion. For theology is at once more and less than
+religion: if on the one hand it includes a more complete acquaintance
+with the grounds of religious belief than is essential to religion, on
+the other hand it excludes the observance of those practical duties
+which are indispensable to any religion worthy of the name. In short,
+whereas theology is purely theoretical, religion is both theoretical and
+practical, though the theoretical part of it need not be so highly
+developed as in theology. But while the subject of the lectures is,
+strictly speaking, natural theology rather than natural religion, I
+think it would be not only difficult but undesirable to confine our
+attention to the purely theological or theoretical part of natural
+religion: in all religions, and not least in the undeveloped savage
+religions with which we shall deal, theory and practice fuse with and
+interact on each other too closely to be forcibly disjoined and handled
+apart. Hence throughout the lectures I shall not scruple to refer
+constantly to religious practice as well as to religious theory, without
+feeling 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 reasoned
+knowledge or theory of a God or gods, it becomes desirable, before we
+proceed further, to define the sense in which I understand and shall
+employ the word God. That sense is neither novel nor abstruse; it is
+simply the sense which I believe the generality of mankind attach to the
+term. By a God I understand a superhuman and supernatural being, of a
+spiritual and personal nature, who controls the world or some part of it
+on the whole for good, and who is endowed with intellectual faculties,
+moral feelings, and active powers, which we can only conceive on the
+analogy of human faculties, feelings, and activities, though we are
+bound 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 beneficent
+supernatural spirit, the ruler of the world or of some part of it, who
+resembles man in nature though he excels him in knowledge, goodness, and
+power. This is, I think, the sense in which the ordinary man speaks of a
+God, and I believe that he is right in so doing. I am aware that it has
+been not unusual, especially perhaps of late years, to apply the name of
+God to very different conceptions, to empty it of all implication of
+personality, and to reduce it to signifying something very large and
+very vague, such as the Infinite or the Absolute (whatever these hard
+words may signify), the great First Cause, the Universal Substance, "the
+stream of tendency by which all things seek to fulfil the law of their
+being,"[1] and so forth. Now without expressing any opinion as to the
+truth or falsehood of the views implied by such applications of the name
+of God, I cannot but regard them all as illegitimate extensions of the
+term, in short as an abuse of language, and I venture to protest against
+it 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 very
+important change of thought: in particular it may lead many to imagine
+that the persons who use the name of God in one or other of these
+extended senses retain certain theological opinions which they may in
+fact have long abandoned. Thus the misuse of the name of God may
+resemble the stratagem in war of putting up dummies to make an enemy
+imagine that a fort is still held after it has been evacuated by the
+garrison. I am far from alleging or insinuating that the illegitimate
+extension of the divine name is deliberately employed by theologians or
+others for the purpose of masking a change of front; but that it may
+have that effect seems at least possible. And as we cannot use words in
+wrong senses without running a serious risk of deceiving ourselves as
+well as others, it appears better on all accounts to adhere strictly to
+the common meaning of the name of God as signifying a powerful
+supernatural 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 should
+refrain from applying the old word to the new faith, and should find
+some other and more appropriate term to express our meaning. At all
+events, speaking for myself, I intend to use the name of God
+consistently in the familiar sense, and I would beg my hearers to bear
+this steadily in mind.
+
+[Sidenote: Monotheism and polytheism.]
+
+You will have observed that I have spoken of natural theology as a
+reasoned knowledge of a God or gods. There is indeed nothing in the
+definition of God which I have adopted to imply that he is unique, in
+other words, that there is only one God rather than several or many
+gods. It is true that modern European thinkers, bred in a monotheistic
+religion, commonly overlook polytheism as a crude theory unworthy the
+serious attention of philosophers; in short, the champions and the
+assailants of religion in Europe alike for the most part tacitly assume
+that there is either one God or none. Yet some highly civilised nations
+of antiquity and of modern times, such as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks,
+and Romans, and the modern Chinese and Hindoos, have accepted the
+polytheistic explanation of the world, and as no reasonable man will
+deny the philosophical subtlety of the Greeks and the Hindoos, to say
+nothing of the rest, a theory of the universe which has commended itself
+to them deserves perhaps more consideration than it has commonly
+received from Western philosophers; certainly it cannot be ignored in an
+historical enquiry into the origin of religion.
+
+[Sidenote: A natural knowledge of God can only be acquired by
+experience.]
+
+If there is such a thing as natural theology, that is, a knowledge of a
+God or gods acquired by our natural faculties alone without the aid of a
+special revelation, it follows that it must be obtained by one or other
+of the methods by which all our natural knowledge is conveyed to us.
+Roughly speaking, these methods are two in number, namely, intuition and
+experience. Now if we ask ourselves, Do we know God intuitively in the
+same sense in which we know intuitively our own sensations and the
+simplest truths of mathematics, I think most men will acknowledge that
+they do not. It is true that according to Berkeley the world exists only
+as it is perceived, and that our perceptions of it are produced by the
+immediate action of God on our minds, so that everything we perceive
+might be described, if not as an idea in the mind of the deity, at least
+as a direct emanation from him. On this theory we might in a sense be
+said to have an immediate knowledge of God. But Berkeley's theory has
+found little acceptance, so far as I know, even among philosophers; and
+even if we regarded it as true, we should still have to admit that the
+knowledge of God implied by it is inferential rather than intuitive in
+the strict sense of the word: we infer God to be the cause of our
+perceptions rather than identify him with the perceptions themselves. On
+the whole, then, I conclude that man, or at all events the ordinary man,
+has, properly speaking, no immediate or intuitive knowledge of God, and
+that, if he obtains, without the aid of revelation, any knowledge of him
+at 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 not
+directly through simple contemplation of the particular sensations,
+emotions, or ideas of which we are at the moment conscious, but
+indirectly by calling up before the imagination and comparing with each
+other our memories of a variety of sensations, emotions, or ideas of
+which we have been conscious in the past, and by selecting or
+abstracting from the mental images so compared the points in which they
+resemble each other. The points of resemblance thus selected or
+abstracted from a number of particulars compose what we call an abstract
+or general idea, and from a comparison of such abstract or general ideas
+with each other we arrive at general conclusions, which define the
+relations of the ideas to each other. Experience in general consists in
+the whole body of conclusions thus deduced from a comparison of all the
+particular sensations, emotions, and ideas which make up the conscious
+life of the individual. Hence in order to constitute experience the mind
+has to perform a more or less complex series of operations, which are
+commonly referred to certain mental faculties, such as memory,
+imagination, and judgment. This analysis of experience does not pretend
+to be philosophically complete or exact; but perhaps it is sufficiently
+accurate for the purpose of these lectures, the scope of which is not
+philosophical but historical.
+
+[Sidenote: Two kinds of experience, the experience of our own mind and
+the experience of an external world.]
+
+Now experience in the widest sense of the word may be conveniently
+distinguished into two sorts, the experience of our own mind and the
+experience of an external world. The distinction is indeed, like the
+others with which I am dealing at present, rather practically useful
+than theoretically sound; certainly it would not be granted by all
+philosophers, for many of them have held that we neither have nor with
+our present faculties can possibly attain to any immediate knowledge or
+perception of an external world, we merely infer its existence from our
+own sensations, which are as strictly a part of our mind as the ideas
+and emotions of our waking life or the visions of sleep. According to
+them, the existence of matter or of an external world is, so far as we
+are concerned, merely an hypothesis devised to explain the order of our
+sensations; it never has been perceived by any man, woman, or child who
+ever lived on earth; we have and can have no immediate knowledge or
+perception of anything but the states and operations of our own mind. On
+this theory what we call the world, with all its supposed infinitudes of
+space and time, its systems of suns and planets, its seemingly endless
+forms of inorganic matter and organic life, shrivels up, on a close
+inspection, into a fleeting, a momentary figment of thought. It is like
+one of those glass baubles, iridescent with a thousand varied and
+delicate hues, which a single touch suffices to shatter into dust. The
+philosopher, 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 than
+philosophically strict.]
+
+It would be beyond my province, even if it were within my power, to
+discuss these airy speculations, and thereby to descend into the arena
+where for ages subtle dialecticians have battled with each other over
+the reality or unreality of an external world. For my purpose it
+suffices to adopt the popular and convenient distinction of mind and
+matter and hence to divide experience into two sorts, an inward
+experience of the acts and states of our own minds, and an outward
+experience of the acts and states of that physical universe by which we
+seem to be surrounded.
+
+[Sidenote: The knowledge or conception of God has been attained both by
+inward and by outward experience.]
+
+Now if a natural knowledge of God is only possible by means of
+experience, in other words, by a process of reasoning based on
+observation, it will follow that such a knowledge may conceivably be
+acquired either by the way of inward or of outward experience; in other
+words, it may be attained either by reflecting on the processes of our
+own minds or by observing the processes of external nature. In point of
+fact, if we survey the history of thought, mankind appears to have
+arrived at a knowledge, or at all events at a conception, of deity by
+both 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, that
+is, by the observation of certain remarkable thoughts and feelings which
+are attributed to the inspiration of a deity. Practical dangers of the
+theory of inspiration.]
+
+In the first place, then, men in many lands and many ages have
+experienced certain extraordinary emotions and entertained certain
+extraordinary ideas, which, unable to account for them by reference to
+the ordinary forms of experience, they have set down to the direct
+action of a powerful spirit or deity working on their minds and even
+entering into and taking possession of their bodies; and in this excited
+state--for violent excitement is characteristic of these
+manifestations--the patient believes himself to be possessed of
+supernatural knowledge and supernatural power. This real or supposed
+mode of apprehending a divine spirit and entering into communion with
+it, is commonly and appropriately called inspiration. The phenomenon is
+familiar to us from the example of the Hebrew nation, who believed that
+their prophets were thus inspired by the deity, and that their sacred
+books were regularly composed under the divine afflatus. The belief is
+by no means singular, indeed it appears to be world-wide; for it would
+be hard to point to any race of men among whom instances of such
+inspiration have not been reported; and the more ignorant and savage the
+race the more numerous, to judge by the reports, are the cases of
+inspiration. Volumes might be filled with examples, but through the
+spread of information as to the lower races in recent years the topic
+has become so familiar that I need not stop to illustrate it by
+instances. I will merely say that among savages the theory of
+inspiration or possession is commonly invoked to explain all abnormal
+mental states, particularly insanity or conditions of mind bordering on
+it, so that persons more or less crazed in their wits, and particularly
+hysterical or epileptic patients, are for that very reason thought to be
+peculiarly favoured by the spirits and are therefore consulted as
+oracles, their wild and whirling words passing for the revelations of a
+higher power, whether a god or a ghost, who considerately screens his
+too dazzling light under a thick veil of dark sayings and mysterious
+ejaculations.[2] I need hardly point out the very serious dangers which
+menace any society where such theories are commonly held and acted upon.
+If the decisions of a whole community in matters of the gravest
+importance are left to turn on the wayward fancies, the whims and
+vagaries of the insane or the semi-insane, what are likely to be the
+consequences to the commonwealth? What, for example, can be expected to
+result from a war entered upon at such dictation and waged under such
+auspices? Are cattle-breeding, agriculture, commerce, all the arts of
+life on which a people depend for their subsistence, likely to thrive
+when they are directed by the ravings of epilepsy or the drivellings of
+hysteria? Defeat in battle, conquest by enemies, death by famine and
+widespread disease, these and a thousand other lesser evils threaten the
+blind people who commit themselves to such blind guides. The history of
+savage and barbarous tribes, could we follow it throughout, might
+furnish us with a thousand warning instances of the fatal effects of
+carrying out this crude theory of inspiration to its logical
+conclusions; and if we hear less than might be expected of such
+instances, it is probably because the tribes who consistently acted up
+to their beliefs have thereby wiped themselves out of existence: they
+have perished the victims of their folly and left no record behind. I
+believe that historians have not yet reckoned sufficiently with the
+disastrous influence which this worship of insanity,--for it is often
+nothing less--has exercised on the fortunes of peoples and on the
+development or decay of their institutions.
+
+[Sidenote: The belief in inspiration leads to the worship of living men
+as gods. Outward experience as a source of the idea of God.]
+
+To a certain extent, however, the evil has provided its own remedy. For
+men of strong heads and ambitious temper, perceiving the exorbitant
+power which a belief in inspiration places in the hands of the
+feeble-minded, have often feigned to be similarly afflicted, and trading
+on their reputation for imbecility, or rather inspiration, have acquired
+an authority over their fellows which, though they have often abused it
+for vulgar ends, they have sometimes exerted for good, as for example by
+giving sound advice in matters of public concern, applying salutary
+remedies to the sick, and detecting and punishing crime, whereby they
+have helped to preserve the commonwealth, to alleviate suffering, and to
+cement that respect for law and order which is essential to the
+stability of society, and without which any community must fall to
+pieces like a house of cards. These great services have been rendered to
+the cause of civilisation and progress by the class of men who in
+primitive society are variously known as medicine-men, magicians,
+sorcerers, diviners, soothsayers, and so forth. Sometimes the respect
+which they have gained by the exercise of their profession has won for
+them political as well as spiritual or ghostly authority; in short, from
+being simple medicine-men or sorcerers they have grown into chiefs and
+kings. When such men, seated on the throne of state, retain their old
+reputation for being the vehicles of a divine spirit, they may be
+worshipped in the character of gods as well as revered in the capacity
+of kings; and thus exerting a two-fold sway over the minds of men they
+possess a most potent instrument for elevating or depressing the
+fortunes of their worshippers and subjects. In this way the old savage
+notion of inspiration or possession gradually develops into the doctrine
+of the divinity of kings, which after a long period of florescence
+dwindles away into the modest theory that kings reign by divine right, a
+theory familiar to our ancestors not long ago, and perhaps not wholly
+obsolete among us even now. However, inspired men need not always
+blossom out into divine kings; they may, and often do, remain in the
+chrysalis state of simple deities revered by their simple worshippers,
+their brows encircled indeed with a halo of divinity but not weighted
+with the more solid substance of a kingly crown. Thus certain
+extraordinary mental states, which those who experience and those who
+witness them cannot account for in any other way, are often explained by
+the supposed interposition of a spirit or deity. This, therefore, is one
+of the two forms of experience by which men attain, or imagine that they
+attain, to a knowledge of God and a communion with him. It is what I
+have called the road of inward experience. Let us now glance at the
+other form of experience which leads, or seems to lead, to the same
+goal. It is what I have called the road of outward experience.
+
+[Sidenote: Tendency of the mind to search for causes, and the necessity
+for their discovery.]
+
+When we contemplate the seemingly infinite variety, the endless
+succession, of events that pass under our observation in what we call
+the external world, we are led by an irresistible tendency to trace what
+we call a causal connexion between them. The tendency to discover the
+causes of things appears indeed to be innate in the constitution of our
+minds and indispensable to our continued existence. It is the link that
+arrests and colligates into convenient bundles the mass of particulars
+drifting pell-mell past on the stream of sensation; it is the cement
+that binds into an edifice seemingly of adamant the loose sand of
+isolated perceptions. Deprived of the knowledge which this tendency
+procures for us we should be powerless to foresee the succession of
+phenomena and so to adapt ourselves to it. We should be bewildered by
+the apparent disorder and confusion of everything, we should toss on a
+sea without a rudder, we should wander in an endless maze without a
+clue, and finding no way out of it, or, in plain words, unable to avoid
+a single one of the dangers which menace us at every turn, we should
+inevitably perish. Accordingly the propensity to search for causes is
+characteristic of man in all ages and at all levels of culture, though
+without doubt it is far more highly developed in civilised than in
+savage communities. Among savages it is more or less unconscious and
+instinctive; among civilised men it is deliberately cultivated and
+rewarded at least by the applause of their fellows, by the dignity, if
+not by the more solid recompenses, of learning. Indeed as civilisation
+progresses the enquiry into causes tends to absorb more and more of the
+highest intellectual energies of a people; and an ever greater number of
+men, renouncing the bustle, the pleasures, and the ambitions of an
+active life, devote themselves exclusively to the pursuit of abstract
+truth; they set themselves to discover the causes of things, to trace
+the regularity and order that may be supposed to underlie the seemingly
+irregular, confused, and arbitrary sequence of phenomena. Unquestionably
+the progress of civilisation owes much to the sustained efforts of such
+men, and if of late years and within our own memory the pace of progress
+has sensibly quickened, we shall perhaps not err in supposing that some
+part at least of the acceleration may be accounted for by an increase in
+the number of lifelong students.
+
+[Sidenote: The idea of cause is simply that of invariable sequence
+suggested by the observation of many particular cases of sequence.]
+
+Now when we analyse the conception of a cause to the bottom, we find as
+the last residuum in our crucible nothing but what Hume found there long
+ago, and that is simply the idea of invariable sequence. Whenever we say
+that something is the cause of something else, all that we really mean
+is that the latter is invariably preceded by the former, so that
+whenever we find the second, which we call the effect, we may infer that
+the first, which we call the cause, has gone before it. All such
+inferences from effects to causes are based on experience; having
+observed a certain sequence of events a certain number of times, we
+conclude that the events are so conjoined that the latter cannot occur
+without the previous occurrence of the former. A single case of two
+events following each other could not of itself suggest that the one
+event is the cause of the other, since there is no necessary link
+between them in the mind; the sequence has to be repeated more or less
+frequently before we infer a causal connexion between the two; and this
+inference rests simply on that association of ideas which is established
+in our mind by the reiterated observation of the things. Once the ideas
+are by dint of repetition firmly welded together, the one by sheer force
+of habit calls up the other, and we say that the two things which are
+represented by those ideas stand to each other in the relation of cause
+and effect. The notion of causality is in short only one particular case
+of the association of ideas. Thus all reasoning as to causes implies
+previous observation: we reason from the observed to the unobserved,
+from the known to the unknown; and the wider the range of our
+observation and knowledge, the greater the probability that our
+reasoning will be correct.
+
+[Sidenote: The savage draws his ideas of natural causation from
+observation of himself. Hence he explains the phenomena of nature by
+supposing that they are produced by beings like himself. These beings
+may be called spirits or gods of nature to distinguish them from living
+human gods.]
+
+All this is as true of the savage as of the civilised man. He too
+argues, and indeed can only argue on the basis of experience from the
+known to the unknown, from the observed to the hypothetical. But the
+range of his experience is comparatively narrow, and accordingly his
+inferences from it often appear to civilised men, with their wider
+knowledge, to be palpably false and absurd. This holds good most
+obviously in regard to his observation of external nature. While he
+often knows a good deal about the natural objects, whether animals,
+plants, or inanimate things, on which he is immediately dependent for
+his subsistence, the extent of country with which he is acquainted is
+commonly but small, and he has little or no opportunity of correcting
+the conclusions which he bases on his observation of it by a comparison
+with other parts of the world. But if he knows little of the outer
+world, he is necessarily somewhat better acquainted with his own inner
+life, with his sensations and ideas, his emotions, appetites, and
+desires. Accordingly it is natural enough that when he seeks to discover
+the causes of events in the external world, he should, arguing from
+experience, imagine that they are produced by the actions of invisible
+beings like himself, who behind the veil of nature pull the strings that
+set the vast machinery in motion. For example, he knows by experience
+that he can make sparks fly by knocking two flints against each other;
+what more natural, therefore, than that he should imagine the great
+sparks which we call lightning to be made in the same way by somebody up
+aloft, and that when he finds chipped flints on the ground he should
+take them for thunder-stones dropped by the maker of thunder and
+lightning from the clouds?[3] Thus arguing from his limited experience
+primitive man creates a multitude of spirits or gods in his own likeness
+to explain the succession of phenomena in nature of whose true causes he
+is ignorant; in short he personifies the phenomena as powerful
+anthropomorphic spirits, and believing himself to be more or less
+dependent on their good will he woos their favour by prayer and
+sacrifice. This personification of the various aspects of external
+nature is one of the most fruitful sources of polytheism. The spirits
+and gods created by this train of thought may be called spirits and gods
+of nature to distinguish them from the human gods, by which I mean the
+living men and women who are believed by their worshippers to be
+inspired or possessed by a divine spirit.
+
+[Sidenote: In time men reject polytheism as an explanation of natural
+processes and substitute certain abstract ideas of ethers, atoms,
+molecules, and so on.]
+
+But as time goes on and men learn more about nature, they commonly
+become dissatisfied with polytheism as an explanation of the world and
+gradually discard it. From one department of nature after another the
+gods are reluctantly or contemptuously dismissed and their provinces
+committed to the care of certain abstract ideas of ethers, atoms,
+molecules, and so forth, which, though just as imperceptible to human
+senses as their divine predecessors, are judged by prevailing opinion to
+discharge their duties with greater regularity and despatch, and are
+accordingly firmly installed on the vacant thrones amid the general
+applause of the more enlightened portion of mankind. Thus instead of
+being peopled with a noisy bustling crowd of full-blooded and
+picturesque deities, clothed in the graceful form and animated with the
+warm passions of humanity, the universe outside the narrow circle of our
+consciousness is now conceived as absolutely silent, colourless, and
+deserted. The cheerful sounds which we hear, the bright hues which we
+see, have no existence, we are told, in the external world: the voices
+of friends, the harmonies of music, the chime of falling waters, the
+solemn roll of ocean, the silver splendour of the moon, the golden
+glories of sunset, the verdure of summer woods, and the hectic tints of
+autumn--all these subsist only in our own minds, and if we imagine them
+to have any reality elsewhere, we deceive ourselves. In fact the whole
+external world as perceived by us is one great illusion: if we gave the
+reins to fancy we might call it a mirage, a piece of witchery, conjured
+up by the spells of some unknown magician to bewilder poor ignorant
+humanity. Outside of ourselves there stretches away on every side an
+infinitude of space without sound, without light, without colour, a
+solitude traversed only in every direction by an inconceivably complex
+web of silent and impersonal forces. That, if I understand it aright, is
+the general conception of the world which modern science has substituted
+for polytheism.
+
+[Sidenote: But while they commonly discard the hypothesis of a deity as
+an explanation of all the particular processes of nature, they retain it
+as an explanation of nature in general.]
+
+When philosophy and science by their combined efforts have ejected gods
+and goddesses from all the subordinate posts of nature, it might perhaps
+be expected that they would have no further occasion for the services of
+a deity, and that having relieved him of all his particular functions
+they would have arranged for the creation and general maintenance of the
+universe without him by handing over these important offices to an
+efficient staff of those ethers, atoms, corpuscles, and so forth, which
+had already proved themselves so punctual in the discharge of the minor
+duties entrusted to them. Nor, indeed, is this expectation altogether
+disappointed. A number of atheistical philosophers have courageously
+come forward and assured us that the hypothesis of a deity as the
+creator and preserver of the universe is quite superfluous, and that all
+things came into being or have existed from eternity without the help of
+any divine spirit, and that they will continue to exist without it to
+the end, if end indeed there is to be. But on the whole these daring
+speculators appear to be in a minority. The general opinion of educated
+people at the present day, could we ascertain it, would probably be
+found to incline to the conclusion that, though every department of
+nature is now worked by impersonal material forces alone, the universe
+as a whole was created and is still maintained by a great supernatural
+spirit whom we call God. Thus in Europe and in the countries which have
+borrowed their civilisation, their philosophy, and their religion from
+it, the central problem of natural theology has narrowed itself down to
+the question, Is there one God or none? It is a profound question, and I
+for one profess myself unable to answer it.
+
+[Sidenote: Whether attained by inward or outward experience, the idea of
+God is regularly that of a cause inferred, not perceived.]
+
+If this brief sketch of the history of natural theology is correct, man
+has by the exercise of his natural faculties alone, without the help of
+revelation, attained to a knowledge or at least to a conception of God
+in one of two ways, either by meditating on the operations of his own
+mind, or by observing the processes of external nature: inward
+experience and outward experience have conducted him by different roads
+to 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 man
+himself or the changes in the physical world outside of him. In short, a
+God is always brought in to play the part of a cause; it is the
+imperious need of tracing the causes of events which has driven man to
+discover or invent a deity. Now causes may be arranged in two classes
+according as they are perceived or unperceived by the senses. For
+example, when we see the impact of a billiard cue on a billiard ball
+followed immediately by the motion of the ball, we say that the impact
+is the cause of the motion. In this case we perceive the cause as well
+as 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 exercised
+by the superior mass of the earth on the inferior mass of the apple. In
+this case, though we perceive the effect, we do not perceive the cause,
+we only infer it by a process of reasoning from experience. Causes of
+the latter sort may be called inferential or hypothetical causes to
+distinguish them from those which are perceived. Of the two classes of
+causes a deity belongs in general, if not universally, to the second,
+that is, to the inferential or hypothetical causes; for as a rule at all
+events his existence is not perceived by our senses but inferred by our
+reason. To say that he has never appeared in visible and tangible form
+to men would be to beg the question; it would be to make an assertion
+which is incapable of proof and which is contradicted by a multitude of
+contrary affirmations recorded in the traditions or the sacred books of
+many races; but without being rash we may perhaps say that such
+appearances, if they ever took place, belong to a past order of events
+and need hardly be reckoned with at the present time. For all practical
+purposes, therefore, God is now a purely inferential or hypothetical
+cause; he may be invoked to explain either our own thoughts and
+feelings, our impulses and emotions, or the manifold states and
+processes of external nature; he may be viewed either as the inspirer of
+the one or the creator and preserver of the other; and according as he
+is mainly regarded from the one point of view or the other, the
+conception of the divine nature tends to beget one of two very different
+types of piety. To the man who traces the finger of God in the workings
+of his own mind, the deity appears to be far closer than he seems to the
+man who only infers the divine existence from the marvellous order,
+harmony, and beauty of the external world; and we need not wonder that
+the faith of the former is of a more fervent temper and supplies him
+with more powerful incentives to a life of active devotion than the calm
+and rational faith of the latter. We may conjecture that the piety of
+most great religious reformers has belonged to the former rather than to
+the latter type; in other words, that they have believed in God because
+they felt, or imagined that they felt, him stirring in their own hearts
+rather than because they discerned the handiwork of a divine artificer
+in the wonderful mechanism of nature.
+
+[Sidenote: Besides the two sorts of gods already distinguished, namely
+natural gods and living human gods, there is a third sort which has
+played an important part in history, namely, the spirits of deified dead
+men. Euhemerism.]
+
+Thus far I have distinguished two sorts of gods whom man discovers or
+creates for himself by the exercise of his unaided faculties, to wit
+natural gods, whom he infers from his observation of external nature,
+and human gods or inspired men, whom he recognises by virtue of certain
+extraordinary mental manifestations in himself or in others. But there
+is another class of human gods which I have not yet mentioned and which
+has played a very important part in the evolution of theology. I mean
+the deified spirits of dead men. To judge by the accounts we possess not
+only of savage and barbarous tribes but of some highly civilised
+peoples, the worship of the human dead has been one of the commonest and
+most influential forms of natural religion, perhaps indeed the commonest
+and most influential of all. Obviously it rests on the supposition that
+the 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 a
+longer or shorter time to exercise great power for good or evil over the
+destinies of the living, who are therefore compelled to propitiate the
+shades 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 is
+world-wide; it is found among men in all stages of culture from the
+lowest to the highest; we need not wonder therefore that the custom of
+propitiating the ghosts or souls of the departed should be world-wide
+also. No doubt the degree of attention paid to ghosts is not the same in
+all cases; it varies with the particular degree of power attributed to
+each of them; the spirits of men who for any reason were much feared in
+their lifetime, such as mighty warriors, chiefs, and kings, are more
+revered and receive far more marks of homage than the spirits of common
+men; and it is only when this reverence and homage are carried to a very
+high pitch that they can properly be described as a deification of the
+dead. But that dead men have thus been raised to the rank of deities in
+many lands, there is abundant evidence to prove. And quite apart from
+the worship paid to those spirits which are admitted by their
+worshippers to have once animated the bodies of living men, there is
+good reason to suspect that many gods, who rank as purely mythical
+beings, were once men of flesh and blood, though their true history has
+passed out of memory or rather been transformed by legend into a myth,
+which veils more or less completely the real character of the imaginary
+deity. The theory that most or all gods originated after this fashion,
+in other words, that the worship of the gods is little or nothing but
+the worship of dead men, is known as Euhemerism from Euhemerus, the
+ancient Greek writer who propounded it. Regarded as a universal
+explanation of the belief in gods it is certainly false; regarded as a
+partial explanation of the belief it is unquestionably true; and perhaps
+we may even go further and say, that the more we penetrate into the
+inner history of natural religion, the larger is seen to be the element
+of truth contained in Euhemerism. For the more closely we look at many
+deities of natural religion, the more distinctly do we seem to perceive,
+under the quaint or splendid pall which the mythical fancy has wrapt
+round their stately figures, the familiar features of real men, who once
+shared the common joys and the common sorrows of humanity, who trod
+life's common road to the common end.
+
+[Sidenote: The deification of dead men presupposes the immortality of
+the human soul, or rather its survival for a longer or shorter time
+after death.]
+
+When we ask how it comes about that dead men have so often been raised
+to the rank of divinities, the first thing to be observed is that all
+such deifications must, if our theory is correct, be inferences drawn
+from experience of some sort; they must be hypotheses devised to explain
+the unperceived causes of certain phenomena, whether of the human mind
+or of external nature. All of them imply, as I have said, a belief that
+the conscious human personality, call it the soul, the spirit, or what
+you please, can survive the body and continue to exist in a disembodied
+state with unabated or even greatly increased powers for good or evil.
+This faith in the survival of personality after death may for the sake
+of brevity be called a faith in immortality, though the term immortality
+is not strictly correct, since it seems to imply eternal duration,
+whereas the idea of eternity is hardly intelligible to many primitive
+peoples, who nevertheless firmly believe in the continued existence, for
+a longer or shorter time, of the human spirit after the dissolution of
+the body. Now the faith in the immortality of the soul or, to speak more
+correctly, in the continued existence of conscious human personality
+after death, is, as I remarked before, exceedingly common among men at
+all levels of intellectual evolution from the lowest upwards; certainly
+it is not peculiar to adherents of the higher religions, but is held as
+an unquestionable truth by at least the great majority of savage and
+barbarous peoples as to whose ideas we possess accurate information;
+indeed it might be hard to point to any single tribe of men, however
+savage, of whom we could say with certainty that the faith is totally
+wanting among them.
+
+[Sidenote: The question of immortality is a fundamental problem of
+natural theology in the wider sense.]
+
+Hence if we are to explain the deification of dead men, we must first
+explain the widespread belief in immortality; we must answer the
+question, how does it happen that men in all countries and at all stages
+of ignorance or knowledge so commonly suppose that when they die their
+consciousness will still persist for an indefinite time after the decay
+of the body? To answer that question is one of the fundamental problems
+of 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; for
+the example of Buddhism proves that a belief in the existence of the
+human 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 an
+extended sense to cover theories which, though they do not in themselves
+affirm the existence of a God, nevertheless appear to be one of the
+deepest and most fruitful sources of the belief in his reality, then we
+may legitimately say that the doctrine of human immortality does fall
+within the scope of natural theology. What then is its origin? How is it
+that men so commonly believe themselves to be immortal?
+
+[Sidenote: If there is any natural knowledge of immortality, it must be
+acquired either by intuition or experience; it is apparently not given
+by intuition; hence it must be acquired, if at all, by experience.]
+
+If there is any natural knowledge of human immortality, it must be
+acquired 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 be
+immortal, I cannot say; but I can say with some confidence that for
+myself I have no such intuition whatever of my own immortality, and that
+if I am left to the resources of my natural faculties alone, I can as
+little affirm the certain or probable existence of my personality after
+death as I can affirm the certain or probable existence of a personal
+God. And I am bold enough to suspect that if men could analyse their own
+ideas, they would generally find themselves to be in a similar
+predicament as to both these profound topics. Hence I incline to lay it
+down as a probable proposition that men as a rule have no intuitive
+knowledge of their own immortality, and that if there is any natural
+knowledge of such a thing it can only be acquired by a process of
+reasoning from experience.[4]
+
+[Sidenote: The idea of immortality seems to have been suggested to man
+both by his inward and his outward experience, notably by dreams, which
+are a case of inward experience.]
+
+What then is the kind of experience from which the theory of human
+immortality is deduced? Is it our experience of the operations of our
+own minds? or is it our experience of external nature? As a matter of
+historical fact--and you will remember that I am treating the question
+purely from the historical standpoint--men seem to have inferred the
+persistence of their personality after death both from the one kind of
+experience and from the other, that is, both from the phenomena of their
+inner life and from the phenomena of what we call the external world.
+Thus the savage, with whose beliefs we are chiefly concerned in these
+lectures, finds a very strong argument for immortality in the phenomena
+of dreams, which are strictly a part of his inner life, though in his
+ignorance he commonly fails to discriminate them from what we popularly
+call waking realities. Hence when the images of persons whom he knows to
+be dead appear to him in a dream, he naturally infers that these persons
+still exist somewhere and somehow apart from their bodies, of the decay
+or destruction of which he may have had ocular demonstration. How could
+he see dead people, he asks, if they did not exist? To argue that they
+have perished like their bodies is to contradict the plain evidence of
+his senses; for to the savage still more than to the civilised man
+seeing is believing; that he sees the dead only in dreams does not shake
+his belief, since he thinks the appearances of dreams just as real as
+the appearances of his waking hours. And once he has in this way gained
+a conviction that the dead survive and can help or harm him, as they
+seem to do in dreams, it is natural or necessary for him to extend the
+theory to the occurrences of daily life, which, as I have said, he does
+not sharply distinguish from the visions of slumber. He now explains
+many of these occurrences and many of the processes of nature by the
+direct interposition of the spirits of the departed; he traces their
+invisible hand in many of the misfortunes and in some of the blessings
+which befall him; for it is a common feature of the faith in ghosts, at
+least among savages, that they are usually spiteful and mischievous, or
+at least testy and petulant, more apt to injure than to benefit the
+survivors. In that they resemble the personified spirits of nature,
+which in the opinion of most savages appear to be generally tricky and
+malignant beings, whose anger is dangerous and whose favour is courted
+with fear and trembling. Thus even without the additional assurance
+afforded by tales of apparitions and spectres, primitive man may come in
+time 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 very
+prominent, often apparently the leading place. These spirits, powerful
+to help or harm, he seeks either simply to avert, when he deems them
+purely mischievous, or to appease and conciliate, when he supposes them
+sufficiently good-natured to respond to his advances. In some such way
+as this, arguing from the real but, as we think, misinterpreted
+phenomena of dreams, the savage may arrive at a doctrine of human
+immortality and from that at a worship of the dead.
+
+[Sidenote: It has also been suggested by the resemblance of the living
+to the dead, which is a case of outward experience.]
+
+This explanation of the savage faith in immortality is neither novel nor
+original: on the contrary it is perhaps the commonest and most familiar
+that 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 doubt
+that many other inferences drawn from experiences of different kinds
+have confirmed, even if they did not originally suggest, man's confident
+belief in his own immortality. To take a single example of outward
+experience, the resemblances which children often bear to deceased
+kinsfolk appear to have prompted in the minds of many savages the notion
+that the souls of these dead kinsfolk have been born again in their
+descendants.[5] From a few cases of resemblances so explained it would
+be easy to arrive at a general theory that all living persons are
+animated by the souls of the dead; in other words, that the human spirit
+survives death for an indefinite period, if not for eternity, during
+which it undergoes a series of rebirths or reincarnations. However it
+has been arrived at, this doctrine of the transmigration or
+reincarnation of the soul is found among many tribes of savages; and
+from what we know on the subject we seem to be justified in conjecturing
+that at certain stages of mental and social evolution the belief in
+metempsychosis has been far commoner and has exercised a far deeper
+influence on the life and institutions of primitive man than the actual
+evidence before us at present allows us positively to affirm.
+
+[Sidenote: The aim of these lectures is to collect a number of facts
+illustrative of the belief in immortality and of the customs based on it
+among some of the lower races.]
+
+Be that as it may--and I have no wish to dogmatise on so obscure a
+topic--it is certain that a belief in the survival of the human
+personality after death and the practice of a propitiation or worship of
+the dead have prevailed very widely among mankind and have played a very
+important part in the development of natural religion. While many
+writers have duly recognised the high importance both of the belief and
+of the worship, no one, so far as I know, has attempted systematically
+to collect and arrange the facts which illustrate the prevalence of this
+particular type of religion among the various races of mankind. A large
+body of evidence lies to hand in the voluminous and rapidly increasing
+literature of ethnology; but it is dispersed over an enormous number of
+printed books and papers, to say nothing of the materials which still
+remain buried either in manuscript or in the minds of men who possess
+the requisite knowledge but have not yet committed it to writing. To
+draw all those stores of information together and digest them into a
+single treatise would be a herculean labour, from which even the most
+industrious researcher into the dusty annals of the human past might
+shrink dismayed. Certainly I shall make no attempt to perform such a
+feat within the narrow compass of these lectures. But it seems to me
+that I may make a useful, if a humble, contribution to the history of
+religion by selecting a portion of the evidence and submitting it to my
+hearers. For that purpose, instead of accumulating a mass of facts from
+all the various races of mankind and then comparing them together, I
+prefer to limit myself to a few races and to deal with each of them
+separately, beginning with the lowest savages, about whom we possess
+accurate information, and gradually ascending to peoples who stand
+higher in the scale of culture. In short the method of treatment which I
+shall adopt will be the descriptive rather than the comparative. I shall
+not absolutely refrain from instituting comparisons between the customs
+and beliefs of different races, but for the most part I shall content
+myself with describing the customs and beliefs of each race separately
+without reference to those of others. Each of the two methods, the
+comparative and the descriptive, has its peculiar advantages and
+disadvantages, and in my published writings I have followed now the one
+method and now the other. The comparative method is unquestionably the
+more attractive and stimulating, but it cannot be adopted without a good
+deal of more or less conscious theorising, since every comparison
+implicitly involves a theory. If we desire to exclude theories and
+merely accumulate facts for the use of science, the descriptive method
+is undoubtedly the better adapted for the arrangement of our materials:
+it may not stimulate enquiry so powerfully, but it lays a more solid
+foundation on which future enquirers may build. It is as a collection of
+facts illustrative of the belief in immortality and of all the momentous
+consequences which have flowed from that belief, that I desire the
+following lectures to be regarded. They are intended to serve simply as
+a document of religious history; they make no pretence to discuss
+philosophically the truth of the beliefs and the morality of the
+practices which will be passed under review. If any inferences can
+indeed be drawn from the facts to the truth or falsehood of the beliefs
+and to the moral worth or worthlessness of the practices, I prefer to
+leave it to others more competent than myself to draw them. My sight is
+not keen enough, my hand is not steady enough to load the scales and
+hold 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 der
+Giljaken," _Archiv fuer Religionswissenschaft_, viii. (1905) pp. 462
+_sqq._, where the writer tells us that the Gilyaks have boundless faith
+in the supernatural power of their shamans, and that the shamans are
+nearly always persons who suffer from hysteria in one form or another.]
+
+[Footnote 3: As to the widespread belief that flint weapons are
+thunderbolts see Sir E. B. Tylor, _Researches into the Early History of
+Mankind_, 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 of
+Kings_, 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 twin
+birth 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 admission
+of the inferential nature of the belief in immortality carries all the
+more weight because it is made by so warm an advocate of human
+immortality.]
+
+[Footnote 5: For instance, the Kagoro of Northern Nigeria believe that
+"a spirit may transmigrate into the body of a descendant born
+afterwards, male or female; in fact, this is common, as is proved by the
+likeness 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 the
+relatives 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 the
+Perils 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 immortality
+and the worship of the dead.]
+
+Last day I explained the subject of which I propose to treat and the
+method which I intend to follow in these lectures. I shall describe the
+belief in immortality, or rather in the continued existence of the human
+soul after death, as that belief is found among certain of the lower
+races, and I shall give some account of the religion which has been
+based upon it. That religion is in brief a propitiation or worship of
+the human dead, who according to the degree of power ascribed to them by
+the living are supposed to vary in dignity from the humble rank of a
+mere common ghost up to the proud position of deity. The elements of
+such a worship appear to exist among all races of men, though in some
+they have been much more highly developed than in others.
+
+[Sidenote: Preliminary account of savage beliefs concerning the nature
+and origin of death.]
+
+But before I address myself to the description of particular races, I
+wish in this and the following lecture to give you some general account
+of the beliefs of savages concerning the nature and origin of death. The
+problem of death has very naturally exercised the minds of men in all
+ages. Unlike so many problems which interest only a few solitary
+thinkers this one concerns us all alike, since simpletons as well as
+sages must die, and even the most heedless and feather-brained can
+hardly help sometimes asking themselves what comes after death. The
+question is therefore thrust in a practical, indeed importunate form on
+our attention; and we need not wonder that in the long history of human
+speculation some of the highest intellects should have occupied
+themselves with it and sought to find an answer to the riddle. Some of
+their solutions of the problem, though dressed out in all the beauty of
+exquisite language and poetic imagery, singularly resemble the rude
+guesses of savages. So little, it would seem, do the natural powers even
+of the greatest minds avail to pierce the thick veil that hides the end
+of 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 to
+imply that all men are constantly or even often engaged in meditating on
+the nature and origin of death. Far from it. Few people trouble
+themselves about that or any other purely abstract question: the common
+man would probably not give a straw for an answer to it. What he wants
+to know, what we all want to know, is whether death is the end of all
+things for the individual, whether our conscious personality perishes
+with the body or survives it for a time or for eternity. That is the
+enigma 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. Stated
+in 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 mystery
+and arrived at some conclusions to which it more or less confidently
+adheres. Not that all races have paid an equal attention to it. On some
+it has weighed much more heavily than on others. While some races, like
+some individuals, take death almost lightly, and are too busy with the
+certainties of the present world to pay much heed to the uncertainties
+of a world to come, the minds of others have dwelt on the prospect of a
+life beyond the grave till the thought of it has risen with them to a
+passion, almost to an obsession, and has begotten a contempt for the
+fleeting joys of this ephemeral existence by comparison with the
+hoped-for bliss of an eternal existence hereafter. To the sceptic,
+examining the evidence for immortality by the cold light of reason, such
+peoples and such individuals may seem to sacrifice the substance for the
+shadow: to adopt a homely comparison, they are like the dog in the fable
+who dropped the real leg of mutton, from his mouth in order to snap at
+its reflection in the water. Be that as it may, where such beliefs and
+hopes are entertained in full force, the whole activity of the mind and
+the whole energy of the body are apt to be devoted to a preparation for
+a blissful or at all events an untroubled eternity, and life becomes, in
+the language of Plato, a meditation or practising of death. This
+excessive preoccupation with a problematic future has been a fruitful
+source of the most fatal aberrations both for nations and individuals.
+In pursuit of these visionary aims the few short years of life have been
+frittered away: wealth has been squandered: blood has been poured out in
+torrents: the natural affections have been stifled; and the cheerful
+serenity of reason has been exchanged for the melancholy gloom of
+madness.
+
+  "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 has
+been answered by almost all races of men in the affirmative. On this
+point sceptical or agnostic peoples are nearly, if not wholly, unknown.
+Accordingly if abstract truth could be determined, like the gravest
+issues 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; for
+were the question put to the vote of the whole of mankind, there can be
+no doubt that the ayes would have it by an overwhelming majority. The
+few dissenters would be overborne; their voices would be drowned in the
+general roar. For dissenters there have been even among savages. The
+Tongans, for example, thought that only the souls of noblemen are saved,
+the rest perish with their bodies.[6] However, this aristocratic view
+has never been popular, and is not likely to find favour in our
+democratic age.
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of many savages that they would never die if their
+lives were not cut short by sorcery. Belief of the Abipones.]
+
+But many savage races not only believe in a life after death; they are
+even of opinion that they would never die at all if it were not for the
+maleficent arts of sorcerers who cut the vital thread prematurely short.
+In other words, they disbelieve in what we call a natural death; they
+think that all men are naturally immortal in this life, and that every
+death which takes place is in fact a violent death inflicted by the hand
+of a human enemy, though in many cases the foe is invisible and works
+his fell purpose not by a sword or a spear but by magic. Thus the
+Abipones, a now extinct tribe of horse Indians in Paraguay, used to
+allege that they would be immortal and that none of them would ever die
+if only the Spaniards and the sorcerers could be banished from America;
+for they were in the habit of attributing every death, whatever its
+cause, either to the baleful arts of sorcerers or to the firearms of the
+Spaniards. Even if a man died riddled with wounds, with his bones
+smashed, or through the exhaustion of old age, these Indians would all
+deny that the wounds or old age was the cause of his death; they firmly
+believed that the death was brought about by magic, and they would make
+careful enquiries to discover the sorcerer who had cast the fatal spell
+on their comrade. The relations of the deceased would move every stone
+to detect and punish the culprit; and they imagined that they could do
+this by cutting out the heart and tongue of the dead man and throwing
+them to a dog to be devoured. They thought that this in some way killed
+the wicked magician who had killed their friend. For example, it
+happened that in a squabble between two men about a horse a third man
+who tried to make peace between the disputants was mortally wounded by
+their spears and died in a few days. To us it might seem obvious that
+the peacemaker was killed by the spear-wounds which he had received, but
+none of the Abipones would admit such a thing for a moment. They stoutly
+affirmed that their comrade had been done to death by the magical arts
+of some person unknown, and their suspicions fell on a certain old
+woman, known to be a witch, to whom the deceased had lately refused to
+give 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 in
+natural 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 or
+medicine-man is consulted in order to discover the culprit. Some of
+these wizards enjoy a great reputation and the Indians will send a
+hundred miles or more to get the opinion of an eminent member of the
+profession. In such cases they submit to him some of the remains of the
+dead man, for example, his eyebrows, his nails, his tongue, or the soles
+of his feet, and from an examination of these relics the man of skill
+pronounces on the author of the death. The person whom he accuses is
+hunted down and killed, sometimes by fire, amid the yells of an enraged
+crowd.[8]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the Bakairi.]
+
+When the eminent German anthropologist was questioning a Bakairi Indian
+of Brazil as to the language of his tribe, he gave the sentence, "Every
+man must die" to be translated into the Bakairi language. To his
+astonishment, the Indian remained long silent. The same long pause
+always occurred when an abstract proposition, with which he was
+unfamiliar, was put before the Indian for translation into his native
+tongue. On the present occasion the enquirer learned that the Indian has
+no idea of necessity in the abstract, and in particular he has no
+conception at all of the necessity of death. The cause of death, in his
+opinion, is invariably an ill turn done by somebody to the deceased. If
+there were only good men in the world, he thinks that there would be
+neither sickness nor death. He knows nothing about a natural end of the
+vital process; he believes that all sickness and disease are the effects
+of witchcraft.[9]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the Indians of Guiana in sorcery as the cause of
+sickness and death.]
+
+Speaking of the Indians of Guiana, an English missionary, who knew them
+well, says that the worst feature in their character is their proneness
+to blood revenge, "by which a succession of retaliatory murders may be
+kept up for a long time. It is closely connected with their system of
+sorcery, which we shall presently consider. A person dies,--and it is
+supposed that an enemy has secured the agency of an evil spirit to
+compass his death. Some sorcerer, employed by the friends of the
+deceased for that purpose, pretends by his incantations to discover the
+guilty individual or family, or at any rate to indicate the quarter
+where they dwell. A near relative of the deceased is then charged with
+the work of vengeance. He becomes a _kanaima_, or is supposed to be
+possessed by the destroying spirit so called, and has to live apart,
+according to strict rule, and submit to many privations, until the deed
+of blood be accomplished. If the supposed offender cannot be slain, some
+innocent member of his family--man, woman, or little child--must suffer
+instead."[10] The same writer tells us that these Indians of Guiana
+attribute sickness and death directly to the agency of certain evil
+spirits called _yauhahu_, who delight in inflicting miseries upon
+mankind. Pain, in the language of the Arawaks (one of the best-known
+tribes of Guiana), is called _yauhahu simaira_ or "the evil spirit's
+arrow."[11] It is these evil spirits whom wicked sorcerers employ to
+accomplish their fell purpose. Thus while the demon is the direct cause
+of sickness and death, the sorcerer who uses him as his tool is the
+indirect cause. The demon is thought to do his work by inserting some
+alien substance into the body of the sufferer, and a medicine-man is
+employed to extract it by chanting an invocation to the maleficent
+spirit, shaking his rattle, and sucking the part of the patient's frame
+in which the cause of the malady is imagined to reside. "After many
+ceremonies he will produce from his mouth some strange substance, such
+as 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 have
+inserted in the affected part. As soon as the patient fancies himself
+rid of this cause of his illness his recovery is generally rapid, and
+the fame of the sorcerer greatly increased. Should death, however,
+ensue, the blame is laid upon the evil spirit whose power and malignity
+have prevailed over the counteracting charms. Some rival sorcerer will
+at times come in for a share of the blame, whom the sufferer has
+unhappily made his enemy, and who is supposed to have employed the
+_yauhahu_ in destroying him. The sorcerers being supposed to have the
+power of causing, as well as of curing diseases, are much dreaded by the
+common people, who never wilfully offend them. So deeply rooted in the
+Indian's bosom is this belief concerning the origin of diseases, that
+they have little idea of sickness arising from other causes. Death may
+arise from a wound or a contusion, or be brought on by want of food, but
+in 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 from
+sickness and disease are attributed to the direct action of evil
+spirits, only some of them are attributed to the indirect action of
+sorcerers. The practical consequences of this theoretical distinction
+are very important. For whereas death by sorcery must, in the opinion of
+savages, be avenged by killing the supposed sorcerer, death by the
+action of a demon cannot be so avenged; for how are you to get at the
+demon? Hence, while every death by sorcery involves, theoretically at
+least, another death by violence, death by a demon involves no such
+practical consequence. So far, therefore, the faith in sorcery is far
+more murderous than the faith in demons. This practical distinction is
+clearly recognised by these Indians of Guiana; for another writer, who
+laboured among them as a missionary, tells us that when a person dies a
+natural death, the medicine-man is called upon to decide whether he
+perished through the agency of a demon or the agency of a sorcerer. If
+he 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 if
+the wizard declares that the cause of death was sorcery, the corpse is
+closely inspected, and if a blue mark is discovered, it is pointed out
+as the spot where the invisible poisoned arrow, discharged by the
+sorcerer, entered the man. The next thing is to detect the culprit. For
+this purpose a pot containing a decoction of leaves is set to boil on a
+fire. When it begins to boil over, the side on which the scum first
+falls is the quarter in which the supposed murderer is to be sought. A
+consultation is then held: the guilt is laid on some individual, and one
+of the nearest relations of the deceased is charged with the duty of
+finding and killing him. If the imaginary culprit cannot be found, any
+other member of his family may be slain in his stead. "It is not
+difficult to conceive," adds the writer, "how, under such circumstances,
+no man's life is secure; whilst these by no means unfrequent murders
+must greatly tend to diminish the number of the natives."[13]
+
+[Sidenote: Among the Indians of Guiana death is oftener attributed to
+sorcery than to demons.]
+
+However, it would seem that among the Indians of Guiana sickness and
+death are oftener ascribed to the agency of sorcerers than to the agency
+of demons acting alone. For another high authority on these Indians, Sir
+Everard F. im Thurn, tells us that "every death, every illness, is
+regarded not as the result of natural law, but as the work of a
+_kenaima_" or sorcerer. "Often indeed," he adds, "the survivors or the
+relatives of the invalid do not know to whom to attribute the deed,
+which therefore perforce remains unpunished; but often, again, there is
+real or fancied reason to fix on some one as the _kenaima_, and then the
+nearest relative of the injured individual devotes himself to retaliate.
+Strange ceremonies are sometimes observed in order to discover the
+secret _kenaima_. Richard Schomburgk describes a striking instance of
+this. A Macusi boy had died a natural death, and his relatives
+endeavoured to discover the quarter to which the _kenaima_ who was
+supposed to have slain him belonged. Raising a terrible and monotonous
+dirge, they carried the body to an open piece of ground, and there
+formed a circle round it, while the father, cutting from the corpse both
+the thumbs and little fingers, both the great and the little toes, and a
+piece of each heel, threw these pieces into a new pot, which had been
+filled 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 the
+pieces 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 see
+who did the deed, the Indian thinks it by no means necessary to fix on
+anyone who has been with or near the injured man. The _kenaima_ is
+supposed to have done the deed, not necessarily in person, but probably
+in spirit."[14] For these Indians believe that each individual man has a
+body and a spirit within it, and that sorcerers can despatch their
+spirits out of their bodies to harm people at a distance. It is not
+always in an invisible form that these spirits of sorcerers are supposed
+to roam on their errands of mischief. The wizard can put his spirit into
+the shape of an animal, such as a jaguar, a serpent, a sting-ray, a
+bird, an insect, or anything else he pleases. Hence when an Indian is
+attacked by a wild beast, he thinks that his real foe is not the animal,
+but the sorcerer who has transformed himself into it. Curiously enough
+they look upon some small harmless birds in the same light. One little
+bird, in particular, which flits across the savannahs with a peculiar
+shrill whistle at morning and evening, is regarded by the Indians with
+especial fear as a transformed sorcerer. They think that for every one
+of these birds that they shoot they have an enemy the less, and they
+burn its little body, taking great care that not even a single feather
+escapes to be blown about by the wind. On a windy day a dozen men and
+women have been seen chasing the floating feathers of these birds about
+the savannah in order utterly to extinguish the imaginary wizard. Even
+the foreign substance, the stick, bone, or whatever it is, which the
+good medicine-man pretends to suck from the body of the sufferer "is
+often, if not always, regarded not simply as a natural body, but as the
+materialised form of a hostile spirit."[15]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the Tinneh Indians in sorcery as the cause of
+death.]
+
+Beliefs and practices of the same general character are reported to have
+formerly prevailed among the Tinneh or Dene Indians of North-west
+America. When any beloved or influential person died, nobody, we are
+told, would think of attributing the death to natural causes; it was
+assumed that the demise was an effect of sorcery, and the only
+difficulty was to ascertain the culprit. For that purpose the services
+of a shaman were employed. Rigged out in all his finery he would dance
+and sing, then suddenly fall down and feign death or sleep. On awaking
+from the apparent trance he would denounce the sorcerer who had killed
+the deceased by his magic art, and the denunciation generally proved the
+death-warrant of the accused.[16]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the Australian aborigines in sorcery as the cause
+of death.]
+
+Again, similar beliefs and customs in regard to what we should call
+natural death appear to have prevailed universally amongst the
+aborigines of Australia, and to have contributed very materially to thin
+the population. On this subject I will quote the words of an observer.
+His remarks apply to the Australian aborigines in general but to the
+tribes of Victoria in particular. He says: "The natives are much more
+numerous in some parts of Australia than they are in others, but nowhere
+is the country thickly peopled; some dire disease occasionally breaks
+out among the natives, and carries off large numbers.... But there are
+two other causes which, in my opinion, principally account for their
+paucity of numbers. The first is that infanticide is universally
+practised; the second, that a belief exists that no one can die a
+natural death. Thus, if an individual of a certain tribe dies, his
+relatives consider that his death has been caused by sorcery on the part
+of another tribe. The deceased's sons, or nearest relatives, therefore
+start off on a _bucceening_ or murdering expedition. If the deceased is
+buried, a fly or a beetle is put into the grave, and the direction in
+which the insect wings its way when released is the one the avengers
+take. If the body is burnt, the whereabouts of the offending parties is
+indicated by the direction of the smoke. The first unfortunates fallen
+in with are generally watched until they encamp for the night; when they
+are buried in sleep, the murderers steal quietly up until they are
+within a yard or two of their victims, rush suddenly upon and butcher
+them. On these occasions they always abstract the kidney-fat, and also
+take off a piece of the skin of the thigh. These are carried home as
+trophies, as the American Indians take the scalp. The murderers anoint
+their bodies with the fat of their victims, thinking that by that
+process the strength of the deceased enters into them. Sometimes it
+happens that the _bucceening_ party come suddenly upon a man of a
+strange tribe in a tree hunting opossums; he is immediately speared, and
+left weltering in his blood at the foot of the tree. The relatives of
+the murdered man at once proceed to retaliate; and thus a constant and
+never-ending series of murders is always going on.... I do not mean to
+assert 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 care
+about avenging his death. At other times a _bucceening_ party will
+return without having met with any one; then, again, they are sometimes
+repelled by those they attack."[17]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the natives of Western Australia in sorcery as a
+cause of death. Beliefs of the tribes of Victoria and South Australia.]
+
+Again, speaking of the tribes of Western Australia, Sir George Grey
+tells us that "the natives do not allow that there is such a thing as a
+death from natural causes; they believe, that were it not for murderers
+or the malignity of sorcerers, they might live for ever; hence, when a
+native dies from the effect of an accident, or from some natural cause,
+they use a variety of superstitious ceremonies, to ascertain in what
+direction the sorcerer lives, whose evil practices have brought about
+the death of their relative; this point being satisfactorily settled by
+friendly sorcerers, they then attach the crime to some individual, and
+the funeral obsequies are scarcely concluded, ere they start to revenge
+their supposed wrongs."[18] Again, speaking of the Watch-an-die tribe of
+Western Australia, another writer tells us that they "possess the
+comfortable assurance that nearly all diseases, and consequently deaths,
+are caused by the enchantments of hostile tribes, and that were it not
+for the malevolence of their enemies they would (with a few exceptions)
+live for ever. Consequently, on the first approach of sickness their
+first endeavour is to ascertain whether the _boollia_ [magic] of their
+own tribe is not sufficiently potent to counteract that of their foes.
+Should the patient recover, they are, of course, proud of the
+superiority of their enchantment over that of their enemies: but should
+the _boollia_ [magical influence] within the sick man prove stronger
+than their own, as there is no help for it, he must die, the utmost they
+can do in this case is to revenge his death."[19] But the same writer
+qualifies 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 visibly
+away before death, they do not entertain the notion. It is chiefly in
+cases of sudden death, or when the body of the deceased is fat and in
+good condition, that this belief prevails, and it is only in such
+contingencies that it becomes an imperative duty to have revenge."[20]
+Similarly, speaking of the tribes of Victoria in the early days of
+European settlement among them, the experienced observer Mr. James
+Dawson says that "natural deaths are generally--but not
+always--attributed to the malevolence and the spells of an enemy
+belonging to another tribe."[21] Again, with regard to the Encounter Bay
+tribe of South Australia we read that "there are but few diseases which
+they regard as the consequences of natural causes; in general they
+consider them the effects of enchantment, and produced by
+sorcerers."[22] Similarly of the Port Lincoln tribes in South Australia
+it is recorded that "in all cases of death that do not arise from old
+age, wounds, or other equally palpable causes, the natives suspect that
+unfair means have been practised; and even where the cause of death is
+sufficiently plain, they sometimes will not content themselves with it,
+but have recourse to an imaginary one, as the following case will
+prove:--A woman had been bitten by a black snake, across the thumb, in
+clearing out a well; she began to swell directly, and was a corpse in
+twenty-four hours; yet, another woman who had been present when the
+accident occurred, stated that the deceased had named a certain native
+as having caused her death. Upon this statement, which was in their
+opinion corroborated by the circumstance that the snake had drawn no
+blood from the deceased, her husband and other friends had a fight with
+the accused party and his friends; a reconciliation, however, took place
+afterwards, and it was admitted on the part of the aggressors that they
+had been in error with regard to the guilty individual; but nowise more
+satisfied as to the bite of the snake being the true cause of the
+woman's death, another party was now suddenly discovered to be the real
+offender, and accordingly war was made upon him and his partisans, till
+at last the matter was dropped and forgotten. From this case, as well as
+from frequent occurrences of a similar nature, it appears evident that
+thirst for revenge has quite as great a share in these foul accusations
+as superstition."[23]
+
+[Sidenote: Other testimonies as to the belief of the natives of South
+Australia and Victoria.]
+
+However, other experienced observers of the Australian aborigines admit
+no such limitations and exceptions to the native theory that death is an
+effect of sorcery. Thus in regard to the Narrinyeri tribe of South
+Australia the Rev. George Taplin, who knew them intimately for years,
+says that "no native regards death as natural, but always as the result
+of sorcery."[24] Again, to quote Mr. R. Brough Smyth, who has collected
+much information on the tribes of Victoria: "Mr. Daniel Bunce, an
+intelligent observer, and a gentleman well acquainted with the habits of
+the blacks, says that no tribe that he has ever met with believes in the
+possibility of a man dying a natural death. If a man is taken ill, it is
+at once assumed that some member of a hostile tribe has stolen some of
+his hair. This is quite enough to cause serious illness. If the man
+continues sick and gets worse, it is assumed that the hair has been
+burnt by his enemy. Such an act, they say, is sufficient to imperil his
+life. If the man dies, it is assumed that the thief has choked his
+victim and taken away his kidney-fat. When the grave is being dug, one
+or more of the older men--generally doctors or conjurors
+(_Buk-na-look_)--stand by and attentively watch the laborers; and if an
+insect is thrown out of the ground, these old men observe the direction
+which it takes, and having determined the line, two of the young men,
+relations of the deceased, are despatched in the path indicated, with
+instructions to kill the first native they meet, who they are assured
+and believe is the person directly chargeable with the crime of causing
+the death of their relative. Mr. John Green says that the men of the
+Yarra tribe firmly believe that no one ever dies a natural death. A man
+or a woman dies because of the wicked arts practised by some member of a
+hostile tribe; and they discover the direction in which to search for
+the slayer by the movements of a lizard which is seen immediately after
+the corpse is interred."[25] Again, speaking of the aborigines of
+Victoria, another writer observes: "All deaths from natural causes are
+attributed to the machinations of enemies, who are supposed to have
+sought for and burned the excrement of the intended victim, which,
+according to the general belief, causes a gradual wasting away. The
+relatives, therefore, watch the struggling feet of the dying person, as
+they point in the direction whence the injury is thought to come, and
+serve as a guide to the spot where it should be avenged. This is the
+duty of the nearest male relative; should he fail in its execution, it
+will ever be to him a reproach, although other relatives may have
+avenged the death. If the deceased were a chief, then the duty devolves
+upon the tribe. Chosen men are sent in the direction indicated, who kill
+the first persons they meet, whether men, women, or children; and the
+more lives that are sacrificed, the greater is the honour to the
+dead."[26] Again, in his account of the Kurnai tribe of Victoria the
+late Dr. A. W. Howitt remarks: "It is not difficult to see how, among
+savages, who have no knowledge of the real causes of diseases which are
+the common lot of humanity, the very suspicion even of such a thing as
+death from disease should be unknown. Death by accident they can
+imagine; death by violence they can imagine; but I question if they can,
+in their savage condition, imagine death by mere disease. Rheumatism is
+believed to be produced by the machinations of some enemy. Seeing a
+Tatungolung very lame, I asked him what was the matter? He said, 'Some
+fellow has put _bottle_ in my foot.' I asked him to let me see it. I
+found he was probably suffering from acute rheumatism. He explained that
+some enemy must have found his foot track, and have buried in it a piece
+of broken bottle. The magic influence, he believed, caused it to enter
+his foot.... Phthisis, pneumonia, bowel complaints, and insanity are
+supposed to be produced by an evil spirit--Brewin--'who is like the
+wind,' and who, entering his victims, can only be expelled by suitable
+incantations.... Thus the belief arises that death occurs only from
+accident, open violence, or secret magic; and, naturally, that the
+latter can only be met by counter-charms."[27]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the aborigines of New South Wales in sorcery as the
+cause of sickness and death.]
+
+The beliefs and practices of the aborigines of New South Wales in
+respect of death were similar. Thus we are told by a well-informed
+writer that "the natives do not believe in death from natural causes;
+therefore all sickness is attributed to the agency of sorcery, and
+counter charms are used to destroy its effect.... As a man's death is
+never supposed to have occurred naturally, except as the result of
+accident, or from a wound in battle, the first thing to be done when a
+death occurs is to endeavour to find out the person whose spells have
+brought about the calamity. In the Wathi-Wathi tribe the corpse is asked
+by each relative in succession to signify by some sign the person who
+has caused his death. Not receiving an answer, they watch in which
+direction a bird flies, after having passed over the deceased. This is
+considered an indication that the sorcerer is to be found in that
+direction. Sometimes the nearest relative sleeps with his head on the
+corpse, which causes him, they think, to dream of the murderer. There
+is, however, a good deal of uncertainty about the proceedings, which
+seldom result in more than a great display of wrath, and of vowing of
+vengeance against some member of a neighbouring tribe. Unfortunately
+this is not always the case, the man who is supposed to have exercised
+the death-spell being sometimes waylaid and murdered in a most cruel
+manner."[28] With regard to the great Kamilaroi tribe of New South Wales
+we 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 an
+enemy's malice. It is a common saying, when illness or death comes, that
+some one has thrown his belt (_boor_) at the victim. There are various
+modes of fixing upon the murderer. One is to let an insect fly from the
+body of the deceased and see towards whom it goes. The person thus
+singled out is doomed."[29]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the aborigines of Central Australia in sorcery as
+the cause of death.]
+
+Speaking of the tribes of Central Australia, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
+observe that "in the matter of morality their code differs radically
+from 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. In
+very many cases there takes place what the white man, not seeing beneath
+the surface, not unnaturally describes as secret murder, but, in
+reality, revolting though such slaughter may be to our minds at the
+present day, it is simply exactly on a par with the treatment accorded
+to witches not so very long ago in European countries. Every case of
+such secret murder, when one or more men stealthily stalk their prey
+with the object of killing him, is in reality the exacting of a life for
+a life, the accused person being indicated by the so-called medicine-man
+as one who has brought about the death of another man by magic, and
+whose life must therefore be forfeited. It need hardly be pointed out
+what a potent element this custom has been in keeping down the numbers
+of 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, or
+perhaps even by a woman, and sooner or later that man or woman will be
+attacked. In the normal condition of the tribe every death meant the
+killing of another individual."[30]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the natives of the Torres Straits Islands and New
+Guinea in sorcery as the cause of death.]
+
+Passing from Australia to other savage lands we learn that according to
+the belief of the Torres Straits Islanders all sickness and death were
+due to sorcery.[31] The natives of Mowat or Mawatta in British New
+Guinea "do not believe in a natural death, but attribute even the
+decease 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 Guinea
+no one dies a natural death. Every such death is caused by the evil
+magic either of a living sorcerer or of a dead relation.[33] Of the
+Roro-speaking tribes of British New Guinea Dr. Seligmann writes that
+"except in the case of old folk, death is not admitted to occur without
+some obvious cause such as a spear-thrust. Therefore when vigorous and
+active members of the community die, it becomes necessary to explain
+their fate, and such deaths are firmly believed to be produced by
+sorcery. Indeed, as far as I have been able to ascertain, the Papuasian
+of this district regards the existence of sorcery, not, as has been
+alleged, as a particularly terrifying and horrible affair, but as a
+necessary and inevitable condition of existence in the world as he knows
+it."[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 or
+the bite of a shark, is laid at the door of the sorcerers. They are
+blamed even for the death of a child. If it is said that a little child
+never hurt anybody and therefore cannot have an enemy, the reply is that
+the intention was to injure the mother, and that the malady had been
+transferred to the infant through its mother's milk."[35]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the Melanesians in sorcery as the cause of sickness
+and death.]
+
+Again, in the island of Malo, one of the New Hebrides, a Catholic
+missionary reports that according to a belief deeply implanted in the
+native mind every disease is the effect of witchcraft, and that nobody
+dies a natural death but only as a consequence of violence, poison, or
+sorcery.[36] Similarly in New Georgia, one of the Solomon Islands, when
+a person is sick, the natives think that he must be bewitched by a man
+or woman, for in their opinion nobody can be sick or die unless he is
+bewitched; what we call natural sickness and death are impossible. In
+case of illness suspicion falls on some one who is supposed to have
+buried a charmed object with intent to injure the sufferer.[37] Of the
+Melanesians who inhabit the coast of the Gazelle Peninsula in New
+Britain it is said that all deaths by sickness or disease are attributed
+by them to the witchcraft of a sorcerer, and a diviner is called in to
+ascertain the culprit who by his evil magic has destroyed their
+friends.[38] "Amongst the Melanesians few, if any, are believed to die
+from natural causes only; if they are not killed in war, they are
+supposed to die from the effects of witchcraft or magic. Whenever any
+one was sick, his friends made anxious inquiries as to the person who
+had bewitched (_agara'd_) him. Some one would generally be found to
+admit that he had buried some portion of food or something belonging to
+the sick man, which had caused his illness. The friends would pay him to
+dig it up, and after that the patient would generally get well. If,
+however, he did not recover, it was assumed that some other person had
+also _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 in
+Madagascar nobody dies a natural death. With the possible exception of
+centenarians everybody is supposed to die the victim of the sorcerer's
+diabolic art. If a relation of yours dies, the people comfort you by
+saying, "Cursed be the sorcerer who caused his death!" If your horse
+falls down a precipice and breaks its back, the accident has been caused
+by the malicious look of a sorcerer. If your dog dies of hydrophobia or
+your horse of a carbuncle, the cause is still the same. If you catch a
+fever in a district where malaria abounds, the malady is still ascribed
+to the art of the sorcerer, who has insinuated some deadly substances
+into your body.[40] Again, speaking of the Sakalava, a tribe in
+Madagascar, an eminent French authority on the island observes: "They
+have such a faith in the power of talismans that they even ascribe to
+them the power of killing their enemies. When they speak of poisoning,
+they do not allude, as many Europeans wrongly suppose, to death by
+vegetable or mineral poisons; the reference is to charms or spells. They
+often throw under the bed of an enemy an _ahouli_ [talisman], praying it
+to kill him, and they are persuaded that sooner or later their wish will
+be accomplished. I have often been present at bloody vendettas which had
+no other origin but this. The Sakalava think that a great part of the
+population dies of poison in this way. In their opinion, only old people
+who have attained the extreme limits of human longevity die a natural
+death."[41]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of African tribes in sorcery as the cause of sickness
+and death.]
+
+In Africa similar beliefs are widely spread and lead, as elsewhere, to
+fatal consequences. Thus the Kagoro of Northern Nigeria refuse to
+believe in death from natural causes; all illnesses and deaths, in their
+opinion, are brought about by black magic, however old and decrepit the
+deceased may have been. They explain sickness by saying that a man's
+soul 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 the
+patient'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. A
+witch-doctor is called in to detect the culprit, and whomever he
+denounces is shut up in a room, where a fire is kindled and pepper
+thrown into it; and there he is kept in the fumes of the burning pepper
+till he confesses his guilt and returns the stolen liver, upon which of
+course the sick man recovers. But should the patient die, the miscreant
+who did him to death by kidnapping his soul or his liver will be sold as
+a slave or choked.[42] In like manner the Bakerewe, who inhabit the
+largest island in the Victoria Nyanza lake, believe that all deaths and
+all ailments, however trivial, are the effect of witchcraft; and the
+person, generally an old woman, whom the witch-doctor accuses of having
+cast the spell on the patient is tied up, severely beaten, or stabbed to
+death on the spot.[43] Again, we are told that "the peoples of the Congo
+do not believe in a natural death, not even when it happens through
+drowning or any other accident. Whoever dies is the victim of witchcraft
+or of a spell. His soul has been eaten. He must be avenged by the
+punishment of the person who has committed the crime." Accordingly when
+a death has taken place, the medicine-man is sent for to discover the
+criminal. He pretends to be possessed by a spirit and in this state he
+names the wretch who has caused the death by sorcery. The accused has to
+submit to the poison ordeal by drinking a decoction of the red bark of
+the _Erythrophloeum guiniense_. If he vomits up the poison, he is
+innocent; but if he fails to do so, the infuriated crowd rushes on him
+and despatches him with knives and clubs. The family of the supposed
+culprit has moreover to pay an indemnity to the family of the supposed
+victim.[44] "Death, in the opinion of the natives, is never due to a
+natural 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 an
+innocent person whom the fetish-man accuses from selfish motives."[45]
+
+[Sidenote: Effect of such beliefs in thinning the population by causing
+multitudes to die for the imaginary crime of sorcery.]
+
+Evidence of the same sort could be multiplied for West Africa, where the
+fear 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 death
+from natural causes takes place, the author of the death being of course
+unknown, suspicion often falls on a number of people, all of whom are
+obliged to submit to the poison ordeal in order to prove their
+innocence, with the result that some or possibly all of them perish. A
+very experienced American missionary in West Africa, the Rev. R. H.
+Nassau, the friend of the late Miss Mary H. Kingsley, tells us that for
+every person who dies a natural death at least one, and often ten or
+more have been executed on an accusation of witchcraft.[47] Andrew
+Battel, a native of Essex, who lived in Angola for many years at the end
+of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, informs us
+that "in this country none on any account dieth, but they kill another
+for him: for they believe they die not their own natural death, but that
+some other has bewitched them to death. And all those are brought in by
+the friends of the dead whom they suspect; so that there many times come
+five 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, and
+there the master of the _imbando_ sits with his water, and gives every
+one a cup of water by one measure; and they are commanded to walk in a
+certain place till they make water, and then they are free. But he that
+cannot 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 I
+think the witch that gives the water is partial, and gives to him whose
+death is desired the strongest water, but no man of the bye-standers can
+perceive it. This is done in the town of Longo, almost every week
+throughout the year."[48] A French official tells us that among the
+Neyaux of the Ivory Coast similar beliefs and practices were visibly
+depopulating the country, every single natural death causing the death
+of four or five persons by the poison ordeal, which consisted in
+drinking the decoction of a red bark called by the natives _boduru_. At
+the death of a chief fifteen men and women perished in this way. The
+French Government had great difficulty in suppressing the ordeal; for
+the deluded natives firmly believed in the justice of the test and
+therefore submitted to it willingly in the full consciousness of their
+innocence.[49] In the neighbourhood of Calabar the poison ordeal, which
+here consists in drinking a decoction of a certain bean, the
+_Physostigma venenosum_ of botanists, has had similar disastrous
+results, as we learn from the testimony of a missionary, the Rev. Hugh
+Goldie. He tells us that the people have firm faith in the ordeal and
+therefore not only accept it readily but appeal to it, convinced that it
+will demonstrate their innocence. A small tribe named Uwet in the
+hill-country of Calabar almost swept itself off the face of the earth by
+its constant use of the ordeal. On one occasion the whole population
+drank the poison to prove themselves pure, as they said; about half
+perished, "and the remnant," says Mr. Goldie, "still continuing their
+superstitious practice, must soon become extinct"[50] These words were
+written a good many years ago, and it is probable that by this time
+these poor fanatics have actually succeeded in exterminating themselves.
+So fatal may be the practical consequences of a purely speculative
+error; for it is to be remembered that these disasters flow directly
+from a mistaken theory of death.
+
+[Sidenote: General conclusion as to the belief in sorcery as the great
+cause of death.]
+
+Much more evidence of the same kind could be adduced, but without
+pursuing the theme further I think we may lay it down as a general rule
+that at a certain stage of social and intellectual evolution men have
+believed themselves to be naturally immortal in this life and have
+regarded death by disease or even by accident or violence as an
+unnatural event which has been brought about by sorcery and which must
+be avenged by the death of the sorcerer. If that has been so, we seem
+bound to conclude that a belief in magic or sorcery has had a most
+potent influence in keeping down the numbers of savage tribes; since as
+a rule every natural death has entailed at least one, often several,
+sometimes many deaths by violence. This may help us to understand what
+an immense power for evil the world-wide faith in magic or sorcery has
+been among men.
+
+[Sidenote: But some savages have attributed death to other causes than
+sorcery.]
+
+But even savages come in time to perceive that deaths are sometimes
+brought about by other causes than sorcery. We have seen that some of
+them admit extreme old age, accidents, and violence as causes of death
+which are independent of sorcery. The admission of these exceptions to
+the general rule certainly marks a stage of intellectual progress. I
+will give a few more instances of such admissions before concluding this
+part of my subject.
+
+[Sidenote: Some savages dissect the corpse to ascertain whether death
+was due to natural causes or to sorcery.]
+
+In the first place, certain savage tribes are reported to dissect the
+bodies of their dead in order to ascertain from an examination of the
+corpse 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 be
+due to sorcery. Mr. Smith tells us that after death the services of the
+_machi_ or medicine-man "are again required, especially if the deceased
+be a person of distinction. The body is dissected and examined. If the
+liver be found in a healthy state, the death is attributed to natural
+causes; but if the liver prove to be inflamed, it is supposed to
+indicate the machinations of some evil-intentioned persons, and it rests
+with the medicine-man to discover the conspirator. This is accomplished
+by much the same means that were used to find out the nature of the
+disease. The gall is extracted, put in the magic drum, and after various
+incantations taken out and placed over the fire, in a pot carefully
+covered; 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 the
+means 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 he
+discovers and announces the person guilty of the death, and describes
+the manner in which it was produced."[52]
+
+Again, speaking of the Pahouins, a tribe of the Gaboon region in French
+Congo, a Catholic missionary writes thus: "It is so rare among the
+Pahouins that a death is considered natural! Scarcely has the deceased
+given up the ghost when the sorcerer appears on the scene. With three
+cuts of the knife, one transverse and two lateral, he dissects the
+breast of the corpse and turns down the skin on the face. Then he
+grabbles in the breast, examines the bowels attentively, marks the last
+muscular contractions, and thereupon pronounces whether the death was
+natural or not." If he decides that the death was due to sorcery, the
+suspected culprit has to submit to the poison ordeal in the usual manner
+to determine his guilt or innocence.[53]
+
+[Sidenote: The possibility of natural death admitted by the
+Melanesians.]
+
+Another savage people who have come to admit the possibility of merely
+natural death are the Melanesians of the New Hebrides and other parts of
+Central Melanesia. Amongst them "any sickness that is serious is
+believed to be brought about by ghosts or spirits; common complaints
+such as fever and ague are taken as coming in the course of nature. To
+say that savages are never ill without supposing a supernatural cause is
+not true of Melanesians; they make up their minds as the sickness comes
+whether it is natural or not, and the more important the individual who
+is sick, the more likely his sickness is to be ascribed to the anger of
+a ghost whom he has offended, or to witchcraft. No great man would like
+to be told that he was ill by natural weakness or decay. The sickness is
+almost 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 in
+the eastern islands as well as in the western; recourse is had to them
+for aid in causing and removing sickness; and ghosts are believed to
+inflict sickness not only because some offence, such as a trespass, has
+been committed against them, or because one familiar with them has
+sought their aid with sacrifice and spells, but because there is a
+certain malignity in the feeling of all ghosts towards the living, who
+offend them by being alive."[54] From this account we learn, first, that
+the Melanesians admit some deaths by common diseases, such as fever and
+ague, to be natural; and, second, that they recognise ghosts and spirits
+as well as sorcerers and witches, among the causes of death; indeed they
+hold that ghosts are the commonest of all causes of sickness and death.
+
+[Sidenote: The possibility of natural death admitted by the Caffres of
+South Africa.]
+
+The same causes of death are recognised also by the Caffres of South
+Africa, as we learn from Mr. Dudley Kidd, who tells us that according to
+the beliefs of the natives, "to start with, there is sickness which is
+supposed to be caused by the action of ancestral spirits or by fabulous
+monsters. Secondly, there is sickness which is caused by the magical
+practices of some evil person who is using witchcraft in secret.
+Thirdly, there is sickness which comes from neither of these causes, and
+remains unexplained. It is said to be 'only sickness, and nothing more.'
+This third form of sickness is, I think, the commonest. Yet most writers
+wholly ignore it, or deny its existence. It may happen that an attack of
+indigestion 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, and
+so may dismiss the problem by saying that it is merely sickness. It is
+quite common to hear natives say that they are at a loss to account for
+some special case of illness. At first they thought it was caused by an
+angry ancestral spirit; but a great doctor has assured them that it is
+not the result of such a spirit. They then suppose it to be due to the
+magical practices of some enemy; but the doctor negatives that theory.
+The people are, therefore, driven to the conclusion that the trouble has
+no ascertainable cause. In some cases they do not even trouble to
+consult a diviner; they speedily recognise the sickness as due to
+natural causes. In such a case it needs no explanation. If they think
+that some friend of theirs knows of a remedy, they will try it on their
+own initiative, or may even go off to a white man to ask for some of his
+medicine. They would never dream of doing this if they thought they were
+being influenced by magic or by ancestral spirits. The Kafirs quite
+recognise that there are types of disease which are inherited, and have
+not been caused by magic or by ancestral spirits. They admit that some
+accidents are due to nothing but the patient's carelessness or
+stupidity. If a native gets his leg run over by a waggon, the people
+will often say that it is all his own fault through being clumsy. In
+other cases, with delightful inconsistency, they may say that some one
+has been working magic to cause the accident. In short, it is impossible
+to make out a theory of sickness which will satisfy our European
+conception of consistency."[55]
+
+[Sidenote: The admission that death may be due to natural causes, marks
+an intellectual advance. The recognition of ghosts or spirits as a cause
+of 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 at
+least three distinct causes of what we should call natural death. These
+three causes are, first, sorcery or witchcraft; second, ghosts or
+spirits; and third, disease.[56] That the recognition of disease in
+itself as a cause of death, quite apart from sorcery, marks an
+intellectual advance, will not be disputed. It is not so clear, though I
+believe it is equally true, that the recognition of ghosts or spirits as
+a cause of disease, quite apart from witchcraft, marks a real step in
+intellectual, moral, and social progress. In the first place, it marks a
+step in intellectual and moral progress; for it recognises that effects
+which before had been ascribed to human agency spring from superhuman
+causes; and this recognition of powers in the universe superior to man
+is not only an intellectual gain but a moral discipline: it teaches the
+important lesson of humility. In the second place it marks a step in
+social progress because when the blame of a death is laid upon a ghost
+or a spirit instead of on a sorcerer, the death has not to be avenged by
+killing a human being, the supposed author of the calamity. Thus the
+recognition of ghosts or spirits as the sources of sickness and death
+has as its immediate effect the sparing of an immense number of lives of
+men and women, who on the theory of death by sorcery would have perished
+by violence to expiate their imaginary crime. That this is a great gain
+to society is obvious: it adds immensely to the security of human life
+by removing one of the most fruitful causes of its destruction.
+
+It must be admitted, however, that the gain is not always as great as
+might be expected; the social advantages of a belief in ghosts and
+spirits are attended by many serious drawbacks. For while ghosts or
+spirits are commonly, though not always, supposed to be beyond the reach
+of human vengeance, they are generally thought to be well within the
+reach of human persuasion, flattery, and bribery; in other words, men
+think that they can appease and propitiate them by prayer and sacrifice;
+and while prayer is always cheap, sacrifice may be very dear, since it
+can, and often does, involve the destruction of an immense deal of
+valuable property and of a vast number of human lives. Yet if we could
+reckon up the myriads who have been slain in sacrifice to ghosts and
+gods, it seems probable that they would fall far short of the untold
+multitudes who have perished as sorcerers and witches. For while human
+sacrifices in honour of deities or of the dead have been for the most
+part exceptional rather than regular, only the great gods and the
+illustrious dead being deemed worthy of such costly offerings, the
+slaughter of witches and wizards, theoretically at least, followed
+inevitably on every natural death among people who attributed all such
+deaths to sorcery. Hence if natural religion be defined roughly as a
+belief 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 for
+inferring that in the history of society an Age of Magic preceded an Age
+of Religion. If that was so, we may conclude that the advent of religion
+marked a great social as well as intellectual advance upon the preceding
+Age of Magic: it inaugurated an era of what might be described as mercy
+by comparison with the relentless severity of its predecessor.
+
+[Footnote 6: W. Martin, _An Account of the Natives of the Tonga
+Islands_, 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 a
+Catholic missionary in the tribe for eighteen years.]
+
+[Footnote 8: C. Gay, "Fragment d'un Voyage dans le Chili et au Cusco,"
+_Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie_ (Paris), Deuxieme Serie, xix.
+(1843) p. 25; H. Delaporte, "Une visite chez les Araucaniens," _Bulletin
+de la Societe de Geographie_ (Paris), Quatrieme Serie, x. (1855) p. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 9: K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvoelkern
+Zentral-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 boy
+died of dropsy. Perhaps the mode of divination adopted, by boiling some
+portions of him in water, had special reference to the nature of the
+disease.]
+
+[Footnote 15: (Sir) E. F. im Thurn, _op. cit._ pp. 332 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 16: Father A. G. Morice, "The Canadian Denes," _Annual
+Archaeological Report, 1905_ (Toronto, 1906), p. 207.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Albert A. C. Le Souef, "Notes on the Natives of
+Australia," in R. Brough Smyth's _Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourne and
+London, 1878), ii. 289 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 18: (Sir) George Grey, _Journals of two Expeditions of
+Discovery in Northwest and Western Australia_ (London, 1841), ii. 238.]
+
+[Footnote 19: A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Australia," _Transactions
+of 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 and
+Adelaide, 1881), p. 63.]
+
+[Footnote 22: H. E. A. Meyer, "Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of
+the Encounter Bay Tribe," _Native Tribes of South Australia_ (Adelaide,
+1879), p. 195.]
+
+[Footnote 23: C. W. Schuermann, "The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln in
+South Australia," _Native Tribes of South Australia_, pp. 237 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 24: Rev. G. Taplin, "The Narrinyeri," _Native Tribes of South
+Australia_ (Adelaide, 1879), p. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 25: R. Brough Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourne
+and London, 1878) i. 110.]
+
+[Footnote 26: W. E. Stanbridge, "Some Particulars of the General
+Characteristics, Astronomy, and Mythology of the Tribes in the Central
+Part of Victoria, Southern Australia," _Transactions of the Ethnological
+Society 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 South
+Wales," _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 of
+Central Australia_ (London, 1899), pp. 46-48.]
+
+[Footnote 31: _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to
+Torres 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 the
+Wanigela 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 herueber und hilf uns! oder die Arbeit der
+Neuen-Dettelsauer Mission_, iii. (Barmen, 1898) pp. 10 _sq._; _id._, in
+_Nachrichten ueber 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 fuer Anthropologie,
+Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte, 1900_, p. (415).]
+
+[Footnote 36: Father A. Deniau, "Croyances religieuses et moeurs des
+indigenes de l'Ile Malo," _Missions Catholiques_, xxxiii. (1901) pp. 315
+_sq._]
+
+[Footnote 37: C. Ribbe, _Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen der
+Salomo-Inseln_ (Dresden-Blasewitz, 1903), p. 268.]
+
+[Footnote 38: P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Kuestenbewohner der
+Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Muenster, N.D.), p. 344. As to beliefs of
+this sort among the Sulka of New Britain, see _P._ Rascher, "Die Sulka,"
+_Archiv fuer Anthropologie_, xxix. (1904) pp. 221 _sq._; R. Parkinson,
+_Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_ (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 the
+natives of New Britain and more particularly of the neighbouring Duke of
+York islands.]
+
+[Footnote 40: Father Abinal, "Astrologie Malgache," _Missions
+Catholiques_, xi. (1879) p. 506.]
+
+[Footnote 41: A. Grandidier, "Madagascar," _Bulletin de la Societe de
+Geographie_ (Paris), Sixieme Serie, iii. (1872) pp. 399 _sq._ The
+talismans (_ahouli_) in question consist of the horns of oxen stuffed
+with a variety of odds and ends, such as sand, sticks, nails, and so
+forth.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Major A. J. N. Tremearne, _The Tailed Head-hunters of
+Nigeria_ (London, 1912), pp. 171 _sq._; _id._, "Notes on the Kagoro and
+other 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'Etat Independant du
+Congo a 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 de
+la Societe de Geographie_ (Paris), Septieme Serie, xvii. (1896) p. 341;
+Ch. Wunenberger, "La mission et le royaume de Humbe, sur les bords du
+Cunene," _Missions Catholiques_, xx. (1888) p. 262; Lieut. Herold,
+"Bericht betreffend religioese Anschauungen und Gebraeuche der deutschen
+Ewe-Neger," _Mittheilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten_, v. (1892)
+p. 153; Dr. R. Plehn, "Beitraege zur Voelkerkunde des Togo-Gebietes,"
+_Mittheilungen des Seminars fuer Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin_, ii.
+Dritte Abtheilung (1899), p. 97; R. Fisch, "Die Dagbamba,"
+_Baessler-Archiv_, iii. (1912) p. 148. For evidence of similar beliefs
+and practices in other parts of Africa, see Brard, "Der
+Victoria-Nyanza," _Petermann's Mittheilungen_, xliii. (1897) pp. 79
+_sq._; Father Picarda, "Autour du Mandera," _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 General de l'Afrique Occidentale Francaise,
+Notices publiees par le Gouvernement Central a l'occasion de
+l'Exposition Coloniale de Marseille, La Cote 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; a travers
+le pays Fang, de la cote 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 natural
+deaths either to sorcery or to the action of a ghost; but when they
+could not account for a person's death in either of these ways they said
+that Walumbe, the God of Death, had taken him. This last explanation
+approaches to an admission of natural death, though it is still mythical
+in form. The Baganda usually attributed any illness of the king to
+ghosts, because no man would dare to practise magic on him. A
+much-dreaded ghost was that of a man's sister; she was thought to vent
+her spite on his sons and daughters by visiting them with sickness. When
+she proved implacable, a medicine-man was employed to catch her ghost in
+a 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 we
+call a natural death; they imagine that all men are naturally immortal
+and would never die, if their lives were not cut prematurely short by
+sorcery. Further, I pointed out that this mistaken view of the nature of
+death has exercised a disastrous influence on the tribes who entertain
+it, since, attributing all natural deaths to sorcery, they consider
+themselves bound to discover and kill the wicked sorcerers whom they
+regard as responsible for the death of their friends. Thus in primitive
+society as a rule every natural death entails at least one and often
+several deaths by violence; since the supposed culprit being unknown
+suspicion may fall upon many persons, all of whom may be killed either
+out of hand or as a consequence of failing to demonstrate their
+innocence 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 are
+obliged sorrowfully to admit that, as things are at the present day, men
+do frequently die, whatever explanation we may give of so unexpected and
+unnatural an occurrence. Accordingly they are hard put to it to
+reconcile their theory of immortality with the practice of mortality.
+They have meditated on the subject and have given us the fruit of their
+meditation in a series of myths which profess to explain the origin of
+death. For the most part these myths are very crude and childish; yet
+they have a value of their own as examples of man's early attempts to
+fathom one of the great mysteries which encompass his frail and
+transient existence on earth; and accordingly I have here collected, in
+all 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 we
+may 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 the
+Serpent and his Cast Skin; and fourth, the type of the Banana-tree. I
+will illustrate each type by examples, and will afterwards cite some
+miscellaneous instances which do not fall under any of these heads.
+
+[Sidenote: I. The tale of the Two Messengers. Zulu story of the
+chameleon and the lizard. The same story among other Bantu tribes.]
+
+First, then, we begin with the type of the Two Messengers. Stories of
+this pattern are widespread in Africa, especially among tribes belonging
+to the great Bantu family, which occupies roughly the southern half of
+the continent. The best-known example of the tale is the one told by the
+Zulus. They say that in the beginning Unkulunkulu, that is, the Old Old
+One, sent the chameleon to men with a message saying, "Go, chameleon, go
+and say, Let not men die." The chameleon set out, but it crawled very
+slowly, 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 bask
+in the sun, filled its belly with flies, and fell fast asleep. Meantime
+the Old Old One had thought better of it and sent a lizard posting after
+the chameleon with a very different message to men, for he said to the
+animal, "Lizard, when you have arrived, say, Let men die." So the lizard
+went on his way, passed the dawdling chameleon, and arriving first among
+men delivered his message of death, saying, "Let men die." Then he
+turned 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 his
+glad tidings of immortality, and he shouted, saying, "It is said, Let
+not men die!" But men answered, "O! we have heard the word of the
+lizard; it has told us the word, 'It is said, Let men die.' We cannot
+hear your word. Through the word of the lizard, men will die." And died
+they have ever since from that day to this. That is why some of the
+Zulus hate the lizard, saying, "Why did he run first and say, 'Let
+people die?'" So they beat and kill the lizard and say, "Why did it
+speak?" But others hate the chameleon and hustle it, saying, "That is
+the little thing which delayed to tell the people that they should not
+die. 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 been
+no diseases here on the earth. It all comes from the delay of the
+chameleon."[57] The same story is told in nearly the same form by other
+Bantu tribes, such as the Bechuanas,[58] the Basutos,[59] the
+Baronga,[60] and the Ngoni.[61] To this day the Baronga and the Ngoni
+owe the chameleon a grudge for having brought death into the world, so
+when 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 the
+creature writhing and changing colour from orange to green, from green
+to black in the agony of death; for thus they avenge the wrong which the
+chameleon 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 the
+Akamba, a Bantu tribe of British East Africa; but in their version the
+lizard has disappeared from the legend and has been replaced by the
+_itoroko_, a small bird of the thrush tribe, with a black head, a
+bluish-black back, and a buff-coloured breast. The tale runs thus:--Once
+upon a time God sent out the chameleon, the frog, and the thrush to find
+people who died one day and came to life again the next. So off they
+set, the chameleon leading the way, for in those days he was a very
+important personage. Presently they came to some people lying like dead,
+so the chameleon went up to them and said, _Niwe, niwe, niwe_. The
+thrush asked him testily what he was making that noise for, to which the
+chameleon replied mildly, "I am only calling the people who go forward
+and then came back again," and he explained that the dead people would
+come to life again. But the thrush, who was of a sceptical turn of mind,
+derided the idea. Nevertheless, the chameleon persisted in calling to
+the dead people, and sure enough they opened their eyes and listened to
+him. But here the thrush broke in and told them roughly that dead they
+were and dead they must remain. With that away he flew, and though the
+chameleon preached to the corpses, telling them that he had come from
+God on purpose to bring them to life again, and that they were not to
+believe the lies of that shallow sceptic the thrush, they obstinately
+refused to pay any heed to him; not one of those dead corpses would
+budge. So the chameleon returned crestfallen to God and reported to him
+how, when he preached the gospel of resurrection to the corpses, the
+thrush had roared him down, so that the corpses could not hear a word he
+said. God thereupon cross-questioned the thrush, who stated that the
+chameleon had so bungled his message that he, the thrush, felt it his
+imperative duty to interrupt him. The simple deity believed the thrush,
+and being very angry with the chameleon he degraded him from his high
+position and made him walk very slow, lurching this way and that, as he
+does down to this very day. But the thrush he promoted to the office of
+wakening men from their slumber every morning, which he still does
+punctually at 2 A.M. before the note of any other bird is heard in the
+tropical 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 two
+messengers he plays no part in the story; he is a mere dummy. But in
+another version of the story, which is told by the negroes of Togoland
+in German West Africa, the frog takes the place of the lizard and the
+thrush as the messenger of death. They say that once upon a time men
+sent a dog to God to say that when they died they would like to come to
+life again. So off the dog trotted to deliver the message. But on the
+way he felt hungry and turned into a house, where a man was boiling
+magic herbs. So the dog sat down and thought to himself, "He is cooking
+food." Meantime the frog had set off to tell God that when men died they
+would like not to come to life again. Nobody had asked him to give that
+message; it was a piece of pure officiousness and impertinence on his
+part. However, away he tore. The dog, who still sat watching the
+hell-broth brewing, saw him hurrying past the door, but he thought to
+himself, "When I have had something to eat, I will soon catch froggy
+up." 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 the
+dog, 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 not
+understand these two messages. As I heard the frog's request first, I
+will comply with it. I will not do what you said." That is the real
+reason why men die and do not come to life again. If the frog had only
+minded his own business instead of meddling with other people's, the
+dead would all have come to life again to this day.[64] In this version
+of 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 the
+Bantu version, but the messengers are sent from men to God instead of
+from God to men.
+
+[Sidenote: Ashantee story of the goat and the sheep.]
+
+In another version told by the Ashantees of West Africa the persons of
+the messengers are again different, but as in the Bantu version they are
+sent 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 with
+the 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 happy
+days did not last for ever. One unlucky day it happened that some women
+were pounding a mash with pestles in a mortar, while God stood by
+looking on. For some reason they were annoyed by the presence of the
+deity and told him to be off; and as he did not take himself off fast
+enough to please them, they beat him with their pestles. In a great huff
+God retired altogether from the world and left it to the direction of
+the fetishes; and still to this day people say, "Ah, if it had not been
+for that old woman, how happy we should be!" However, after he had
+withdrawn to heaven, the long-suffering deity sent a kind message by a
+goat to men upon earth to say, "There is something which they call
+Death. He will kill some of you. But even if you die, you will not
+perish completely. You will come to me in heaven." So off the goat set
+with this cheering intelligence. But before he came to the town he saw a
+tempting bush by the wayside and stopped to browse on it. When God in
+heaven saw the goat thus loitering by the way, he sent off a sheep with
+the same message to carry the glad tidings to men without delay. But the
+sheep did not give the message aright. Far from it: he said, "God sends
+you word that you will die and that will be an end of you." Afterwards
+the goat arrived on the scene and said, "God sends you word that you
+will die, certainly, but that will not be the end of you, for you will
+go to him." But men said to the goat, "No, goat, that is not what God
+said. We believe that the message which the sheep brought us is the one
+which 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 the
+sheep and the goat are reversed. It is the sheep who brings the tidings
+of immortality from God to men, but the goat overruns him and offers
+them death instead. Not knowing what death was, men accepted the seeming
+boon with enthusiasm and have died ever since.[66]
+
+[Sidenote: II. The story of the Waxing and Waning Moon. Hottentot story
+of the Moon, the hare, and death.]
+
+So much for the tale of the Two Messengers. In the last versions of it
+which I have quoted, a feature to be noticed is the perversion of the
+message by one of the messengers, who brings tidings of death instead of
+life eternal to men. The same perversion of the message reappears in
+some examples of the next type of story which I shall illustrate, namely
+the type of the Waxing and Waning Moon. Thus the Namaquas or Hottentots
+say that once the Moon charged the hare to go to men and say, "As I die
+and rise to life again, so shall you die and rise to life again." So the
+hare went to men, but either out of forgetfulness or malice he reversed
+the message and said, "As I die and do not rise to life again, so you
+shall also die and not rise to life again." Then he went back to the
+Moon, and she asked him what he had said. He told her, and when she
+heard how he had given the wrong message, she was so angry that she
+threw a stick at him and split his lip, which is the reason why the
+hare's lip is still split. So the hare ran away and is still running to
+this day. Some people, however, say that before he fled he clawed the
+Moon's face, which still bears the marks of the scratching, as anybody
+may see for himself on a clear moonlight night. So the Hottentots are
+still angry with the hare for bringing death into the world, and they
+will not let initiated men partake of its flesh.[67] There are traces of
+a similar story among the Bushmen.[68] In another Hottentot version two
+messengers appear, an insect and a hare; the insect is charged by the
+Moon with a message of immortality or rather of resurrection to men, but
+the hare persuades the insect to let him bear the tidings, which he
+perverts into a message of annihilation.[69] Thus in this particular
+version 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 the
+Masai of East Africa. They say that in the early days a certain god
+named Naiteru-kop told a man named Le-eyo that if a child were to die he
+was 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 it
+was not one of the man's own children, so when he threw the body away he
+said, "Man, die, and remain away; moon, die, and return." Next one of
+his 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." That
+is why down to this day when a man dies he returns no more, but when the
+moon 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 told
+by the Nandi of British East Africa. They say that when the first people
+lived upon the earth a dog came to them one day and said: "All people
+will die like the moon, but unlike the moon you will not return to life
+again unless you give me some milk to drink out of your gourd, and beer
+to drink through your straw. If you do this, I will arrange for you to
+go to the river when you die and to come to life again on the third
+day." But the people laughed at the dog, and gave him some milk and beer
+to drink off a stool. The dog was angry at not being served in the same
+vessels as a human being, and though he put his pride in his pocket and
+drank the milk and the beer from the stool, he went away in high
+dudgeon, saying, "All people will die, and the moon alone will return to
+life." That is the reason why, when people die, they stay away, whereas
+when the moon goes away she comes back again after three days'
+absence.[71] The Wa-Sania of British East Africa believe that in days
+gone by people never died, till one unlucky day a lizard came and said
+to them, "All of you know that the moon dies and rises again, but human
+beings will die and rise no more." They say that from that day people
+began to die and have persisted in dying ever since.[72]
+
+[Sidenote: Fijian story of the moon, the rat, and death. Caroline
+Islands story of the moon, death, and resurrection. Wotjobaluk story of
+the moon, death, and resurrection. Cham story of the moon, death, and
+resurrection.]
+
+With these African stories of the origin of death we may compare one
+told by the Fijians on the other side of the world. They say that once
+upon a time the Moon contended that men should be like himself (for the
+Fijian moon seems to be a male); that is, he meant that just as he grows
+old, disappears, and comes in sight again, so men grown old should
+vanish for a while and then return to life. But the rat, who is a Fijian
+god, would not hear of it. "No," said he, "let men die like rats." And
+he had the best of it in the dispute, for men die like rats to this
+day.[73] In the Caroline Islands they say that long, long ago death was
+unknown, or rather it was a short sleep, not a long, long one, as it is
+now. Men died on the last day of the waning moon and came to life again
+on the first appearance of the new moon, just as if they had awakened
+from a refreshing slumber. But an evil spirit somehow contrived that
+when men slept the sleep of death they should wake no more.[74] The
+Wotjobaluk of south-eastern Australia relate that, when all animals were
+men and women, some of them died and the moon used to say, "You
+up-again," whereupon they came to life again. But once on a time an old
+man said, "Let them remain dead"; and since then nobody has ever come to
+life again except the moon, which still continues to do so down to this
+very day.[75] The Chams of Annam and Cambodia say that the goddess of
+good luck used to resuscitate people as fast as they died, till the
+sky-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 bring
+the dead to life again.[76]
+
+[Sidenote: Cycle of death and resurrection after three days, like the
+monthly disappearance and reappearance of the moon.]
+
+These stories which associate human immortality with the moon are
+products of a primitive philosophy which, meditating on the visible
+changes, of the lunar orb, drew from the observation of its waning and
+waxing a dim notion that under a happier fate man might have been
+immortal like the moon, or rather that like it he might have undergone
+an endless cycle of death and resurrection, dying then rising again from
+the dead after three days. The same curious notion of death and
+resurrection after three days is entertained by the Unmatjera and
+Kaitish, two savage tribes of Central Australia. They say that long ago
+their dead used to be buried either in trees or underground, and that
+after three days they regularly rose from the dead. The Kaitish tell how
+this happy state of things came to an end. It was all through a man of
+the Curlew totem, who finding some men of the Little Wallaby totem
+burying a Little Wallaby man, fell into a passion and kicked the body
+into the sea. Of course after that the dead man could not come to life
+again, and that is why nowadays nobody rises from the dead after three
+days, as everybody used to do long ago.[77] Although no mention is made
+of the moon in this Australian story, we may conjecture that these
+savages, like the Nandi of East Africa, fixed upon three days as the
+normal interval between death and resurrection simply because three days
+is the interval between the disappearance of the old and the
+reappearance of the new moon. If that is so, the aborigines of Central
+Australia may be added to the many races of mankind who have seen in the
+waning and waxing moon an emblem of human immortality. Nor does this
+association of ideas end with a mere tradition that in some former age
+men used to die with the old moon and come to life again with the new
+moon. Many savages, on seeing the new moon for the first time in the
+month, observe ceremonies which seem to be intended to renew and
+increase their life and strength with the renewal and the increase of
+the lunar light. For example, on the day when the new moon first
+appeared, the Indians of San Juan Capistrano in California used to call
+together all the young men and make them run about, while the old men
+danced 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 writer
+tells us that at the appearance of every new moon the negroes of the
+Congo clapped their hands and cried out, sometimes falling on their
+knees, "So may I renew my life as thou art renewed."[79]
+
+[Sidenote: III. Story of the Serpent and his Cast Skin. New Britain
+story of immortality, the serpent, and death. Annamite story of
+immortality, the serpent, and death. Vuatom story of immortality, the
+lizard, the serpent, and death.]
+
+Another type of stories told to explain the origin of death is the one
+which I have called the type of the Serpent and his Cast Skin. Some
+savages seem to think that serpents and all other animals, such as
+lizards, which periodically shed their skins, thereby renew their life
+and so never die. Hence they imagine that if man also could only cast
+his old skin and put on a new one, he too would be immortal like a
+serpent. Thus the Melanesians, who inhabit the coast of the Gazelle
+Peninsula in New Britain, tell the following story of the origin of
+death. They say that To Kambinana, the Good Spirit, loved men and wished
+to make them immortal; but he hated the serpents and wished to kill
+them. So he called his brother To Korvuvu and said to him, "Go to men
+and take them the secret of immortality. Tell them to cast their skin
+every year. So will they be protected from death, for their life will be
+constantly renewed. But tell the serpents that they must thenceforth
+die." But To Korvuvu acquitted himself badly of his task; for he
+commanded men to die and betrayed to the serpents the secret of
+immortality. Since then all men have been mortal, but the serpents cast
+their skins every year and are immortal.[80] In this story we meet again
+with the incident of the reversed message; through a blunder or through
+the malice of the messenger the glad tidings of immortality are
+perverted into a melancholy message of death. A similar tale, with a
+similar incident, is told in Annam. They say that Ngoc hoang sent a
+messenger from heaven to men to say that when they had reached old age
+they should change their skins and live for ever, but that when serpents
+grew old they must die. The messenger came down to earth and said,
+rightly enough, "When man is old, he shall cast his skin; but when
+serpents are old, they shall die and be laid in coffins." So far, so
+good. But unfortunately there happened to be a brood of serpents within
+hearing, and when they heard the doom pronounced on their kind they fell
+into a fury and said to the messenger, "You must say it over again and
+just the contrary, or we will bite you." That frightened the messenger
+and 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 and
+be laid in the coffin." That is why all creatures are now subject to
+death, except the serpent, who, when he is old, casts his skin and lives
+for ever.[81] The natives of Vuatom, an island in the Bismarck
+Archipelago, say that a certain To Konokonomiange bade two lads fetch
+fire, promising that if they did so they should never die, but that if
+they refused their bodies would perish, though their shades or souls
+would survive. They would not hearken to him, so he cursed them, saying,
+"What! You would all have lived! Now you shall die, though your soul
+shall live. But the iguana (_Goniocephalus_) and the lizard (_Varanus
+indicus_) and the snake (_Enygrus_), they shall live, they shall cast
+their 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 the
+fire for To Konokonomiange.[82]
+
+[Sidenote: Nias story of immortality, the crab, and death. Arawak and
+Tamanachier stories of immortality, the serpent, the lizard, the beetle,
+and death.]
+
+Other peoples tell somewhat different stories to explain how men missed
+the boon of immortality and serpents acquired it. Thus the natives of
+Nias, an island off the coast of Sumatra, say that, when the earth was
+created, a certain being was sent down by God from heaven to put the
+last 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. The
+choice of food was most unlucky, for had he only eaten river-crabs
+instead of bananas men would have cast their skins like crabs and would
+never have died.[83] The Arawaks of British Guiana relate that once upon
+a time the Creator came down to earth to see how his creature man was
+getting on. But men were so wicked that they tried to kill him so he
+deprived them of eternal life and bestowed it on the animals which renew
+their skin, such as serpents, lizards, and beetles.[84] A somewhat
+different version of the story is told by the Tamanachiers, an Indian
+tribe of the Orinoco. They say that after residing among them for some
+time the Creator took boat to cross to the other side of the great salt
+water 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 serpents
+and the beetles." But unfortunately an old woman, hearing these words,
+cried out "Oh!" in a tone of scepticism, if not of sarcasm, which so
+annoyed 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 by
+casting her skin.]
+
+The natives of the Banks' Islands and the New Hebrides believe that
+there was a time in the beginning of things when men never died but cast
+their skins like snakes and crabs and so renewed their youth. But the
+unhappy change to mortality came about at last, as it so often does in
+these stories, through an old woman. Having grown old, this dame went to
+a stream to change her skin, and change it she did, for she stripped off
+her wizened old hide, cast it upon the waters, and watched it floating
+down stream till it caught on a stick. Then she went home a buxom young
+woman. But the child whom she had left at home did not know her and set
+up such a prodigious squalling that to quiet it the woman went straight
+back to the river, fished out her cast-off old skin, and put it on
+again. From that day to this people have ceased to cast their skins and
+to live for ever.[86] The same legend of the origin of death has been
+recorded in the Shortlands Islands[87] and among the Kai of German New
+Guinea.[88] It is also told with some variations by the natives of the
+Admiralty Islands. They say that once on a time there was an old woman
+and she was frail. She had two sons, and they went a-fishing, and she
+herself went to bathe. She stripped off her wrinkled old skin and came
+forth as young as she had been long ago. Her sons came home from the
+fishing, 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 she
+shall be my wife." Their mother heard them and said, "What were you two
+saying?" 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, we
+should have grown to be old men and women, and then we should have cast
+our 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 that
+she 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 had
+not been for those two young men there would have been no end of our
+days, 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 be
+done with men. One of them said, "Bring men and let them cast their
+skin; and when they die, let them be turned to shellfish or to a
+coco-nut leaf torch, which when shaken in the wind blazes out again."
+But another god called Palsy (_Supa_) rose up and said, "Bring men and
+let them be like the candle-nut torch, which when it is once out cannot
+be blown up again. Let the shellfish change their skin, but let men
+die." While they were debating, a heavy rain came on and broke up the
+meeting. As the gods ran for shelter to their houses, they cried, "Let
+it be according to the counsel of Palsy! Let it be according to the
+counsel 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, and
+death.]
+
+The last type of tales of the origin of death which I shall notice is
+the one which I have called the Banana type. We have already seen that
+according to the natives of Nias human mortality is all due to eating
+bananas instead of crabs.[91] A similar opinion is entertained by other
+people in that region of the world. Thus the natives of Poso, a district
+of Central Celebes, say that in the beginning the sky was very near the
+earth, and that the Creator, who lived in it, used to let down his good
+gifts to men at the end of a rope. One day he thus lowered a stone; but
+our first father and mother would have none of it and they called out to
+their Maker, "What have we to do with this stone? Give us something
+else." The Creator complied and hauled away at the rope; the stone
+mounted up and up till it vanished from sight. Presently the rope was
+seen coming down from heaven again, and this time there was a banana at
+the end of it instead of a stone. Our first parents ran at the banana
+and took it. Then there came a voice from heaven, saying: "Because ye
+have chosen the banana, your life shall be like its life. When the
+banana-tree has offspring, the parent stem dies; so shall ye die and
+your children shall step into your place. Had ye chosen the stone, your
+life would have been like the life of the stone changeless and
+immortal." The man and his wife mourned over their fatal choice, but it
+was too late; that is how through the eating of a banana death came into
+the world.[92] The Mentras or Mantras, a shy tribe of savages in the
+jungles of the Malay Peninsula, allege that in the early days of the
+world men did not die, but only grew thin at the waning of the moon and
+then waxed fat again as she waxed to the full. Thus there was no check
+whatever 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's
+notice and asked him what was to be done. The first man said, "Leave
+things as they are"; but his younger brother, who took a more Malthusian
+view of the situation, said, "No, let men die like the banana, leaving
+their offspring behind." The question was submitted to the Lord of the
+Underworld, and he decided in favour of death. Ever since then men have
+ceased to renew their youth like the moon and have died like the
+banana.[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 the
+Moon type, the Serpent type, and the Banana type appear to be products
+of a primitive philosophy which sees a cheerful emblem of immortality in
+the waxing and waning moon and in the cast skins of serpents, but a sad
+emblem of mortality in the banana-tree, which perishes as soon as it has
+produced its fruit. But, as I have already said, these types of stories
+do not exhaust the theories or fancies of primitive man on the question
+how death came into the world. I will conclude this part of my subject
+with some myths which do not fall under any of the preceding heads.
+
+[Sidenote: Bahnar story of immortality, the tree, and death. Rivalry for
+the 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 people
+died they used to be buried at the foot of a tree called Long Blo, and
+that after a time they always rose from the dead, not as infants but as
+full-grown men and women. So the earth was peopled very fast, and all
+the inhabitants formed but one great town under the presidency of our
+first parents. In time men multiplied to such an extent that a certain
+lizard could not take his walks abroad without somebody treading on his
+tail. This vexed him, and the wily creature gave an insidious hint to
+the gravediggers. "Why bury the dead at the foot of the Long Blo tree?"
+said he; "bury them at the foot of Long Khung, and they will not come to
+life again. Let them die outright and be done with it." The hint was
+taken, and from that day the dead have not come to life again.[94] In
+this story there are several points to be noticed. In the first place
+the tree Long Blo would seem to have been a tree of life, since all the
+dead who were buried at its foot came to life again. In the second place
+the lizard is here, as in so many African tales, the instrument of
+bringing death among men. Why was that so? We may conjecture that the
+reason is that the lizard like the serpent casts its skin periodically,
+from which primitive man might infer, as he infers with regard to
+serpents, that the creature renews its youth and lives for ever. Thus
+all the myths which relate how a lizard or a serpent became the
+maleficent agent of human mortality may perhaps be referred to an old
+idea of a certain jealousy and rivalry between men and all creatures
+which cast their skin, notably serpents and lizards; we may suppose that
+in all such cases a story was told of a contest between man and his
+animal rivals for the possession of immortality, a contest in which,
+whether by mistake or by guile, the victory always remained with the
+animals, who thus became immortal, while mankind was doomed to
+mortality.
+
+[Sidenote: Chingpaw story of the origin of death. Australian story of
+the tree, the bat, and death. Fijian story of the origin of death.]
+
+The Chingpaws of Upper Burma say that death originated in a practical
+joke played by an old man who pretended to be dead in the ancient days
+when nobody really died. But the Lord of the Sun, who held the threads
+of all human lives in his hand, detected the fraud and in anger cut
+short the thread of life of the practical joker. Since then everybody
+else has died; the door for death to enter into the world was opened by
+the folly of that silly, though humorous, old man.[95] The natives about
+the Murray River in Australia used to relate how the first man and woman
+were forbidden to go near a tree in which a bat lived, lest they should
+disturb the creature. One day, however, the woman was gathering firewood
+and she went near the tree. The bat flew away, and after that death came
+into the world.[96] Some of the Fijians accounted for human mortality as
+follows. When the first man, the father of the human race, was being
+buried, a god passed by the grave and asked what it meant, for he had
+never seen a grave before. On learning from the bystanders that they had
+just buried their father, "Do not bury him," said he, "dig the body up
+again." "No," said they, "we cannot do that. He has been dead four days
+and stinks." "Not so," pleaded the god; "dig him up, and I promise you
+that he will live again." Heedless of the divine promise, these
+primitive sextons persisted in leaving their dead father in the grave.
+Then said the god to these wicked men, "By disobeying me you have sealed
+your own fate. Had you dug up your ancestor, you would have found him
+alive, and you yourselves, when you passed from this world, should have
+been buried, as bananas are, for the space of four days, after which you
+should have been dug up, not rotten, but ripe. But now, as a punishment
+for your disobedience, you shall die and rot." And still, when they hear
+this sad tale told, the Fijians say, "O that those children had dug up
+that body!"[97]
+
+[Sidenote: Admiralty Islanders' stories of the origin of death.]
+
+The Admiralty Islanders tell various stories to explain why man is
+mortal. One of them has already been related. Here is another. A Souh
+man went once to catch fish. A devil tried to devour him, but he fled
+into the forest and took refuge in a tree. The tree kindly closed on him
+so that the devil could not see him. When the devil was gone, the tree
+opened up and the man clambered down to the ground. Then said the tree
+to him, "Go to Souh and bring me two white pigs." He went and found two
+pigs, one was white and one was black. He took chalk and chalked the
+black pig so that it was white. Then he brought them to the tree, but on
+the way the chalk fell off the black pig. And when the tree saw the
+white pig and the black pig, he chid the man and said, "You are
+thankless. 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 us
+as it was with the man of Souh. An evil overtakes us or a spirit falls
+upon us, and we die. If it had been as the tree said, we should not have
+died.[98] Another story told by the Admiralty Islanders to account for
+the melancholy truth of man's mortality runs thus. Kosi, the chief of
+Moakareng, was in his house. He was hungry. He said to his two sons, "Go
+and climb the breadfruit trees and bring the fruit, that we may eat them
+together and not die." But they would not. So he went himself and
+climbed the breadfruit tree. But the north-west wind blew a storm, it
+blew and threw him down. He fell and his body died, but his ghost went
+home. He went and sat in his house. He tied up his hair and he painted
+his face with red ochre. Now his wife and his two sons had gone after
+him into the wood. They went to fetch home the breadfruits. They came
+and saw Kosi, and he was dead. The three returned home, and there they
+saw the ghost of Kosi sitting in his house. They said, "You there! Who's
+that dead at the foot of the breadfruit tree? Kosi, he is dead at the
+foot 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. If
+his wife had behaved well, we should not die. Our body would die, but
+our ghost would go about always in the old home.[99]
+
+[Sidenote: Stories of the origin of death: the fatal bundle or the fatal
+box.]
+
+The Wemba of Northern Rhodesia relate how God in the beginning created a
+man and a woman and gave them two bundles; in one of them was life and
+in the other death. Most unfortunately the man chose "the little bundle
+of death."[100] The Cherokee Indians of North America say that a number
+of 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 the
+Sun passed over them in the sky, he told the people that there was not
+room enough for them all and that they had better die. At last the Sun's
+own daughter, who was with the people on earth, was bitten by a snake
+and 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 the
+box and bring it to her body, that she might live. But he charged them
+straitly 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 the
+North American Indians informed the early Jesuit missionaries that a
+certain man had received the gift of immortality in a small packet from
+a famous magician named Messou, who repaired the world after it had been
+seriously damaged by a great flood. In bestowing on the man this
+valuable gift the magician strictly enjoined him on no account to open
+the packet. The man obeyed, and so long as the packet was unopened he
+remained immortal. But his wife was both curious and incredulous; she
+opened the packet to see what was in it, the precious contents flew
+away, and mankind has been subject to death ever since.[102]
+
+[Sidenote: Baganda story how death came into the world through the
+forgetfulness and imprudence of a woman.]
+
+As these American Indians tell how death came through the curiosity and
+incredulity of one woman, the Baganda of Central Africa relate how it
+came through the forgetfulness and imprudence of another. According to
+the 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 other
+food. But in time a woman named Nambi, a daughter of Gulu, the king of
+heaven, came down to earth with her brother or sister, and seeing Kintu
+she fell in love with him and wished to have him for her husband. But
+her proud father doubted whether Kintu was worthy of his daughter's
+hand, and accordingly he insisted on testing his future son-in-law
+before he would consent to the marriage. So he carried off Kintu's cow
+and put it among his own herds in heaven. When Kintu found that the cow
+was stolen, he was in a great rage, but hunger getting the better of
+anger, he made shift to live by peeling the bark of trees and gathering
+herbs and leaves, which he cooked and ate. In time his future wife Nambi
+happened to spy the stolen cow among her father's herds and she told
+Kintu, who came to heaven to seek and recover the lost animal. His
+future father-in-law Gulu, Lord of Heaven, obliged him to submit to many
+tests designed to prove his fitness for marriage with the daughter of so
+exalted a being as the Lord of Heaven. All these tests Kintu
+successfully passed through. At last Gulu was satisfied, gave him his
+daughter 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 before
+the Lord of Heaven sent her away with her husband he called them both to
+him and said, "You must hurry away before Death comes, or he will wish
+to go with you. You must not let him do so, for he would only cause you
+trouble and unhappiness." To this his daughter agreed, and she went to
+pack up her things. She and her husband then took leave of the Lord of
+Heaven, 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, if
+you do, Death will wish to go with you, and you must go without him." So
+off they set, the man and his wife, taking with them his cow and its
+calves, also a sheep, a goat, a fowl, and a banana tree. But on the way
+the 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 the
+fowl, 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." So
+back 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 it
+from the doorway where I put it." Her father said sadly, "Did I not tell
+you that you were not to return if you had forgotten anything, because
+your brother Death would wish to go with you? Now he will accompany
+you." 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 bananas
+sprang up quickly and formed a grove. They lived happily for a time till
+one day Death came and asked for one of their daughters, that she might
+go away with him and be his cook. But the father said, "If the Lord of
+Heaven comes and asks me for one of my children, what am I to say? Shall
+I tell him that I have given her to you to be your cook?" Death was
+silent and went away. But he came back another day and asked again for a
+child to be his cook. When the father again refused, Death said, "I will
+kill your children." The father did not know what that meant, so he
+asked Death, "What is that you will do?" However, in a short time one of
+the children fell ill and died, and then another and another. So the man
+went to the Lord of Heaven and complained that Death was taking away his
+children one by one. The Lord of Heaven said, "Did I not tell you, when
+you were going away, to go at once with your wife and not to return if
+you had forgotten anything, but you let your wife return to fetch the
+grain? Now you have Death living with you. If you had obeyed me, you
+would 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 consented
+to send Death's brother Kaikuzi to help the woman and to prevent Death
+from killing her children. So down came Kaikuzi to earth, and when he
+met his brother Death they greeted each other lovingly. Then Kaikuzi
+told 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 must
+stay with her husband." The dispute waxed warm, Death insisting on
+carrying 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 so
+saying he made as though he would seize him. But Death slipped from
+between his hands and fled into the earth. For a long time after that
+there was enmity between the two brothers. Kaikuzi tried in every way to
+catch Death, but Death always escaped. At last Kaikuzi told the people
+that he would have one final hunt for Death, and while the hunt was
+going on they must all stay in their houses; not a man, a woman, a
+child, nor even an animal was to be allowed to pass the threshold; and
+if they saw Death passing the window, they were not to utter a cry of
+terror but to keep still. Well, for some days his orders were obeyed.
+Not a living soul, not an animal, stirred abroad. All without was
+solitude, all within was silence. Encouraged by the universal stillness
+Death emerged from his lair, and his brother was just about to catch
+him, when some children, who had ventured out to herd their goats, saw
+Death and cried out. Death's good brother rushed to the spot and asked
+them why they had cried out. They said, "Because we saw Death." So his
+brother was angry because Death had again made good his escape into the
+earth, and he went to the first man and told him that he was weary of
+hunting Death and wished to return home to heaven. The first man thanked
+him kindly for all he had done, and said, "I fear there is nothing more
+to 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 killed
+everybody who is born into the world; and always, after the deed of
+murder is done, he escapes into the earth at Tanda in Singo.[103]
+
+[Sidenote: In the preceding story Death is distinctly personified. Death
+personified in a West African story of the origin of death. Death and
+the spider and the spider's daughter.]
+
+If this curious tale of the origin of death reveals no very deep
+philosophy, it is at least interesting for the distinctness with which
+Death 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 Death
+the story differs from all the others which we have examined and marks
+an intellectual advance upon them; since the power of picturing abstract
+ideas to the mind with all the sharpness of outline and vividness of
+colour which are implied by personification is a faculty above the reach
+of very low intelligences. It is not surprising that the Baganda should
+have attained to this power, for they are probably the most highly
+cultured and intellectual of all the many Bantu tribes of Africa. The
+same conception of Death as a person occurs in a story of the origin of
+death which is told by the Hos, a negro tribe in Togoland, a district of
+West Africa. These Hos belong to the Ewe-speaking family of the true
+negroes, who have reached a comparatively high level of barbarism in the
+notorious kingdom of Dahomey. The story which the Hos tell as to the
+origin of death is as follows. Once upon a time there was a great famine
+in which even the hunters could find no flesh to eat. Then Death went
+and made a road as broad as from here to Sokode, and there he set many
+snares. Every animal that tried to pass that way fell into a snare. So
+Death had much flesh to eat. One day the Spider came to Death and said
+to him, "You have so much meat!" and she asked if she might have some to
+take home with her. Death gave her leave. So the Spider made a basket as
+long as from Ho to Akoviewe (a distance of about five miles), crammed it
+full of meat, and dragged it home. In return for this bounty the Spider
+gave Death her daughter Yiyisa to wife. So when Death had her for his
+wife, he gave her a hint. He said, "Don't walk on the broad road which I
+have made. Walk on the footpath which I have not made. When you go to
+the 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 on
+the narrow path through the forest, the tall damp grass wet her through
+and through, so she thought to herself, "In future I will only go on the
+broad road." But scarce had she set foot on the beautiful broad road
+when she fell into a snare and died on the spot. When Death came to the
+snare and saw his wife in it dead, he cut her up into bits and toasted
+them on the fire. One day the Spider paid a visit to her son-in-law
+Death, and he set a good meal before her. When she had eaten and drunk
+her 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, she
+found her dead daughter. Then she went home in great wrath and whetted
+her knife till it was so sharp that a fly lighting on the edge was cut
+in two. With that knife she came back to attack Death. But Death shot an
+arrow at her. She dodged it, and the arrow whizzed past her and set all
+the forest on fire. Then the Spider flung her sharp knife at Death, but
+it missed him and only sliced off the tops of the palms and all the
+other trees of the wood. Seeing that her stroke had failed, the Spider
+fled away home and shut herself up in her house. But Death waited for
+her 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 the
+watering-place, and as they went they talked with one another. But Death
+shot an arrow among them and killed several. The rest ran away home
+and said, "So and so is dead." Then Death came and looked at the bodies
+and 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 what
+she did, nobody would ever have died.[104]
+
+[Sidenote: Death personified in a Melanesian story of the origin of
+death.]
+
+Again, the Melanesians of the Banks Islands tell a story of the origin
+of Death, in which that grim power is personified. They say that Death
+(_Mate_) used to live underground in a shadowy realm called Panoi, while
+men on earth changed their skins like serpents and so renewing their
+youth lived for ever. But a practical inconvenience of immortality was
+that property never changed hands; newcomers had no chance, everything
+was monopolised by the old, old stagers. To remedy this state of things
+and secure a more equitable distribution of property Death was induced
+to emerge from the lower world and to appear on earth among men; he came
+relying on an assurance that no harm would be done him. Well, when they
+had him, they laid him out on a board, covered him with a pall as if he
+were a corpse, and then proceeded with great gusto to divide his
+property and eat the funeral feast. On the fifth day they blew the conch
+shell to drive away the ghost, as usual, and lifted the pall to see what
+had become of Death. But there was no Death there; he had absconded
+leaving only his skeleton behind. They naturally feared that he had made
+off with an intention to return to his home underground, which would
+have been a great calamity; for if there were no Death on earth, how
+could men die and how could other people inherit their property? The
+idea was intolerable; so to cut off the retreat of the fugitive, the
+Fool was set to do sentinel duty at the parting of the ways, where one
+road leads down to the underworld, Death's home, and the other leads up
+to the upper world, the abode of the living. Here accordingly the Fool
+was stationed with strict orders to keep his eye on Death if he should
+attempt to sneak past him and return to the nether world. However, the
+Fool, 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 then
+all men have followed Death down that fatal path.[105]
+
+[Sidenote: Thus according to savages death is not a necessary part of
+the order of nature. A similar view is held by some eminent modern
+biologists.]
+
+So much for savage stories of the origin of death. They all imply a
+belief that death is not a necessary part of the order of nature, but
+that it originated in a pure mistake or misdeed of some sort on
+somebody's part, and that we should all have lived happy and immortal if
+it had not been for that disastrous blunder or crime. Thus the tales
+reflect 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 be
+naturally immortal and death to be nothing but an effect of sorcery. In
+short, whether we regard the savage's attitude to death at the present
+day or his ideas as to its origin in the remote past, we must conclude
+that primitive man cannot reconcile himself to the notion of death as a
+natural and necessary event; he persists in regarding it as an
+accidental and unnecessary disturbance of the proper order of nature. To
+a certain extent, perhaps, in these crude speculations he has
+anticipated certain views of modern biology. Thus it has been maintained
+by Professor August Weissmann that death is not a natural necessity,
+that many of the lowest species of living animals do in fact live for
+ever; and that in the higher animals the custom of dying has been
+introduced in the course of evolution for the purpose of thinning the
+population and preventing the degeneration of the species, which would
+otherwise follow through the gradual and necessary deterioration of the
+immortal individuals, who, though they could not die, might yet sustain
+much bodily damage through hard knocks in the hurly-burly of eternal
+existence on earth.
+
+[Sidenote: Weissmann's view that death is not a natural necessity but an
+adaptation acquired in the course of evolution for the advantage of the
+race.]
+
+On this subject I will quote some sentences from Professor Weissmann's
+essay on the duration of life. He says, "The necessity of death has been
+hitherto explained as due to causes which are inherent in organic
+nature, and not to the fact that it may be advantageous. I do not
+however believe in the validity of this explanation; I consider that
+death is not a primary necessity, but that it has been secondarily
+acquired as an adaptation. I believe that life is endowed with a fixed
+duration, not because it is contrary to its nature to be unlimited, but
+because the unlimited existence of individuals would be a luxury without
+any corresponding advantage. The above-mentioned hypothesis upon the
+origin and necessity of death leads me to believe that the organism did
+not finally cease to renew the worn-out cell material because the nature
+of the cells did not permit them to multiply indefinitely, but because
+the power of multiplying indefinitely was lost when it ceased to be of
+use.... John Hunter, supported by his experiments on _anabiosis_, hoped
+to prolong the life of man indefinitely by alternate freezing and
+thawing; and the Veronese Colonel Aless. Guaguino made his
+contemporaries believe that a race of men existed in Russia, of which
+the individuals died regularly every year on the 27th of November, and
+returned to life on the 24th of the following April. There cannot
+however be the least doubt, that the higher organisms, as they are now
+constructed, contain within themselves the germs of death. The question
+however arises as to how this has come to pass; and I reply that death
+is to be looked upon as an occurrence which is advantageous to the
+species as a concession to the outer conditions of life, and not as an
+absolute necessity, essentially inherent in life itself. Death, that is
+the end of life, is by no means, as is usually assumed, an attribute of
+all organisms. An immense number of low organisms do not die, although
+they are easily destroyed, being killed by heat, poisons, etc. As long,
+however, as those conditions which are necessary for their life are
+fulfilled, they continue to live, and they thus carry the potentiality
+of unending life in themselves. I am speaking not only of the Amoebae
+and the low unicellular Algae, but also of far more highly organized
+unicellular 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 an
+innovation introduced for the good of the breed, has been made by our
+eminent English biologist, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace. He says: "If
+individuals did not die they would soon multiply inordinately and would
+interfere with each other's healthy existence. Food would become scarce,
+and hence the larger individuals would probably decompose or diminish in
+size. The deficiency of nourishment would lead to parts of the organism
+not being renewed; they would become fixed, and liable to more or less
+slow decomposition as dead parts within a living body. The smaller
+organisms would have a better chance of finding food, the larger ones
+less chance. That one which gave off several small portions to form each
+a new organism would have a better chance of leaving descendants like
+itself than one which divided equally or gave off a large part of
+itself. Hence it would happen that those which gave off very small
+portions would probably soon after cease to maintain their own existence
+while they would leave a numerous offspring. This state of things would
+be in any case for the advantage of the race, and would therefore, by
+natural selection, soon become established as the regular course of
+things, and thus we have the origin of _old age, decay, and death_; for
+it is evident that when one or more individuals have provided a
+sufficient number of successors they themselves, as consumers of
+nourishment in a constantly increasing degree, are an injury to their
+successors. Natural selection therefore weeds them out, and in many
+cases favours such races as die almost immediately after they have left
+successors. Many moths and other insects are in this condition, living
+only to propagate their kind and then immediately dying, some not even
+taking any food in the perfect and reproductive state."[107]
+
+[Sidenote: Savages and some men of science agree that death is not a
+natural necessity.]
+
+Thus it appears that two of the most eminent biologists of our time
+agree with savages in thinking that death is by no means a natural
+necessity for all living beings. They only differ from savages in this,
+that whereas savages look upon death as the result of a deplorable
+accident, our men of science regard it as a beneficent reform instituted
+by nature as a means of adjusting the numbers of living beings to the
+quantity of the food supply, and so tending to the improvement and
+therefore on the whole to the happiness of the species.
+
+[Footnote 57: H. Callaway, _The Religious System of the Amazulu_, Part
+i. pp. 1, 3 _sq._, Part ii. p. 138; Rev. L. Grout, _Zululand, or Life
+among 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 voyage
+d'Exploration au Nord-Est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Esperance_
+(Paris, 1842), p. 472; Rev. J. Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal and the
+Zulu Country_ (London, 1857), p. 159; W. H. I. Bleek, _Reynard the Fox in
+South Africa_ (London, 1864), p. 74; D. Leslie, _Among the Zulus and
+Amatongas_, Second Edition (Edinburgh, 1875), p. 209; F. Speckmann, _Die
+Hermannsburger 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_ Neuchatel (1898), pp. 401
+_sq._]
+
+[Footnote 61: W. A. Elmslie, _Among the Wild Ngoni_ (Edinburgh and
+London, 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 African
+Tribes_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 107-109.]
+
+[Footnote 64: Fr. Mueller, "Die Religionen Togos in Einzeldarstellungen,"
+_Anthropos_, ii. (1907) p. 203. In a version of the story reported from
+Calabar a sheep appears as the messenger of mortality, while a dog is
+the messenger of immortality or rather of resurrection. See "Calabar
+Stories," _Journal of the African Society_, No. 18 (January 1906), p.
+194.]
+
+[Footnote 65: E. Perregaux, _Chez les Achanti_ (Neuchatel, 1906), pp.
+198 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 66: E. Perregaux, _op. cit._ p. 199.]
+
+[Footnote 67: Sir J. E. Alexander, _Expedition of Discovery into the
+Interior of Africa_ (London, 1838), i. 169; C. J. Andersson, _Lake
+Ngami_, 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 and
+Beliefs of the Wa-Giriama, etc., British East Africa," _Journal of the
+R. Anthropological Institute_, xli. (1911) p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 73: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition
+(London, 1860), i. 205.]
+
+[Footnote 74: _Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses_, Nouvelle Edition, 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 of
+Central Australia_ (London, 1904), pp. 513 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 78: Father G. Boscana, "Chinigchinich," in _Life in
+California, by an American_ [A. Robinson] (New York, 1846), pp. 298
+_sq._]
+
+[Footnote 79: Merolla, "Voyage to Congo," in J. Pinkerton's _Voyages and
+Travels_, xvi. (London, 1814) p. 273.]
+
+[Footnote 80: P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Kuestenbewohner der
+Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Muenster, N.D.), p. 334.]
+
+[Footnote 81: A. Landes, "Contes et Legendes Annamites," _Cochinchine
+francaise, Excursions et Reconnaissances_, No. 25 (Saigon, 1886), pp.
+108 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 82: Otto Meyer, "Mythen und Erzaehlungen von der Insel Vuatom
+(Bismarck-Archipel, Suedsee)," _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, _Un
+Viaggio a Nias_ (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 fuer
+Ethnographie_, vii. (1894) p. 232.]
+
+[Footnote 87: C. Ribbe, _Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen der
+Salomo-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 Admiralitaetsinsulaner,"
+_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 de
+erste menschen," _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
+Zendelinggenootschap_, xxxviii. (1894) p. 340.]
+
+[Footnote 93: D. F. A. Hervey, "The Mentra Traditions," _Journal of the
+Straits 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 Upper
+Burma and the Shan States_, Part i. vol. i. (Rangoon, 1900) pp. 408
+_sq._]
+
+[Footnote 96: R. Brough Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourne
+and London, 1878), i. 428. On this narrative the author remarks: "This
+story appears to bear too close a resemblance to the Biblical account of
+the Fall. Is it genuine or not? Mr. Bulmer admits that it may have been
+invented by the aborigines after they had heard something of Scripture
+history."]
+
+[Footnote 97: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition
+(London, 1860), i. 204 _sq._ For another Fijian story of the origin of
+death, see above, p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 98: Josef Meier, "Mythen und Sagen der Admiralitaetsinsulaner,"
+_Anthropos_, iii. (1908) p. 194.]
+
+[Footnote 99: Josef Meier, _op. cit._ pp. 194 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 100: C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau of
+Northern Rhodesia_ (London, 1911), pp. 80 _sq._ A like tale is told by
+the Balolo of the Upper Congo. See _Folk-lore_, xii. (1901) p. 461; and
+below, p. 472.]
+
+[Footnote 101: J. Mooney, "Myths of the Cherokee," _Nineteenth Annual
+Report 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 Jesuites_, 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 is
+briefly told by Mr. L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London,
+1898), pp. 439 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 104: J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Staemme_ (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 Kindred
+Biological Problems_, vol. i. (Oxford, 1891) pp. 25 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 107: A. R. Wallace, quoted in A. Weissmann's _Essays upon
+Heredity_, 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 worship
+of 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 in
+general entertain of death and its origin. To-day we begin our survey of
+the beliefs and practices of particular races in regard to the dead. I
+propose to deal separately with some of the principal races of men and
+to shew in detail how the belief in human immortality and the worship of
+the dead, to which that belief naturally gives rise, have formed a more
+or less important element of their religion. And in order to trace as
+far as possible the evolution of that worship in history I shall begin
+with the lowest savages about whom we possess accurate information, and
+shall pass from them to higher races until, if time permitted, we might
+come to the civilised nations of antiquity and of modern times. In this
+way, by comparing the ideas and practices of peoples on different planes
+of culture we may be able approximately to reconstruct or represent to
+ourselves with a fair degree of probability the various stages through
+which this particular phase of religion may be supposed to have passed
+in the great civilised races before the dawn of history. Of course all
+such reconstructions must be more or less conjectural. In the absence of
+historical documents that is inevitable; but our reconstruction will be
+more or less probable according to the degree in which the corresponding
+stages of evolution are found to resemble or differ from each other in
+the various races of men. If we find that tribes at approximately the
+same level of culture in different parts of the world have approximately
+the same religion, we may fairly infer that religion is in a sense a
+function of culture, and therefore that all races which have traversed
+the same stages of culture in the past have traversed also the same
+stages 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 development
+has on the whole been uniform among mankind. This enquiry may be called
+the embryology of religion, in as much as it seeks to do for the
+development of religion what embryology in the strict sense of the word
+attempts to do for the development of life. And just as biology or the
+science of life naturally begins with the study of the lowest sorts of
+living beings, the humble protozoa, so we shall begin our enquiry with a
+study of the lowest savages of whom we possess a comparatively full and
+accurate record, namely, the aborigines of Australia.
+
+[Sidenote: Savagery a case not of degeneracy but of arrested or rather
+retarded development.]
+
+At the outset I would ask you to bear in mind that, so far as evidence
+allows us to judge, savagery in all its phases appears to be nothing but
+a case of arrested or rather retarded development. The old view that
+savages have degenerated from a higher level of culture, on which their
+forefathers once stood, is destitute alike of evidence and of
+probability. On the contrary, the information which we possess as to the
+lower races, meagre and fragmentary as it unfortunately is, all seems to
+point to the conclusion that on the whole even the most savage tribes
+have reached their low level of culture from one still lower, and that
+the upward movement, though so slow as to be almost imperceptible, has
+yet been real and steady up to the point where savagery has come into
+contact with civilisation. The moment of such contact is a critical one
+for the savages. If the intellectual, moral, and social interval which
+divides them from the civilised intruders exceeds a certain degree, then
+it appears that sooner or later the savages must inevitably perish; the
+shock 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 hand
+the breach between the two conflicting races is not so wide as to be
+impassable, there is a hope that the weaker may assimilate enough of the
+higher culture of the other to survive. It was so, for example, with our
+barbarous forefathers in contact with the ancient civilisations of
+Greece and Rome; and it may be so in future with some, for example, of
+the black races of the present day in contact with European
+civilisation. Time will shew. But among the savages who cannot
+permanently survive the shock of collision with Europe may certainly be
+numbered the aborigines of Australia. They are rapidly dwindling and
+wasting away, and before very many years have passed it is probable that
+they will be extinct like the Tasmanians, who, so far as we can judge
+from the miserably imperfect records of them which we possess, appear to
+have been savages of an even lower type than the Australians, and
+therefore to have been still less able to survive in the struggle for
+existence with their vigorous European rivals.
+
+[Sidenote: Physical causes which have retarded progress in Australia.]
+
+The causes which have retarded progress in Australia and kept the
+aboriginal population at the lowest level of savagery appear to be
+mainly two; namely, first, the geographical isolation and comparatively
+small area of the continent, and, second, the barren and indeed desert
+nature of a great part of its surface; for the combined effect of these
+causes has been, by excluding foreign competitors and seriously
+restricting the number of competitors at home, to abate the rigour of
+competition and thereby to restrain the action of one of the most
+powerful influences which make for progress. In other words, elements of
+weakness have been allowed to linger on, which under the sterner
+conditions of life entailed by fierce competition would long ago have
+been eliminated and have made way for elements better adapted to the
+environment. What is true of the human inhabitants of Australia in this
+respect is true also of its fauna and flora. It has long been recognised
+that the animals and plants of Australia represent on the whole more
+archaic types of life than the animals and plants of the larger
+continents; and the reason why these antiquated creatures have survived
+there rather than elsewhere is mainly that, the area of competition
+being so much restricted through the causes I have mentioned, these
+comparatively weak forms of animal and vegetable life have not been
+killed off by stronger competitors. That this is the real cause appears
+to be proved by the rapidity with which many animals and plants
+introduced into Australia from Europe tend to overrun the country and to
+oust the old native fauna and flora.[108]
+
+[Sidenote: In the centre of Australia the natural conditions of life are
+most unfavourable; hence the central aborigines have remained in a more
+primitive state than those of the coasts, where food and water are more
+plentiful.]
+
+I have said that among the causes which have kept the aborigines of
+Australia at a very low level of savagery must be reckoned the desert
+nature of a great part of the country. Now it is the interior of the
+continent which is the most arid, waste, and barren. The coasts are
+comparatively fertile, for they are watered by showers condensed from an
+atmosphere which is charged with moisture by the neighbouring sea; and
+this condensation is greatly facilitated in the south-eastern and
+eastern parts of the continent by a high range of mountains which here
+skirts the coast for a long distance, attracting the moisture from the
+ocean and precipitating it in the form of snow and rain. Thus the
+vegetation and hence the supply of food both animal and vegetable in
+these well-watered portions of the continent are varied and plentiful.
+In striking contrast with the fertility and abundance of these favoured
+regions are the stony plains and bare rocky ranges of the interior,
+where water is scarce, vegetation scanty, and animal life at certain
+seasons of the year can only with difficulty be maintained. It would be
+no wonder if the natives of these arid sun-scorched wildernesses should
+have lagged behind even their savage brethren of the coasts in respect
+of material and social progress; and in fact there are many indications
+that they have done so, in other words, that the aborigines of the more
+fertile districts near the sea have made a greater advance towards
+civilisation than the tribes of the desert interior. This is the view of
+men 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-hand
+acquaintance, I entirely agree with their opinion. I have given my
+reasons elsewhere and shall not repeat them here. All that I wish to
+impress on you now is that in aboriginal Australia a movement of social
+and intellectual progress, slow but perceptible, appears to have been
+setting from the coast inwards, and that, so far as such things can be
+referred to physical causes, this particular movement in Australia would
+seem to have been initiated by the sea acting through an abundant
+rainfall and a consequent abundant supply of food.[109]
+
+[Sidenote: Backward state of the Central Australian aborigines. They
+have no idea of a moral supreme being.]
+
+Accordingly, in attempting to give you some account of the belief in
+immortality and the worship of the dead among the various races of
+mankind, I propose to begin with the natives of Central Australia,
+first, because the Australian aborigines are the most primitive savages
+about whom we have full and accurate information, and, second, because
+among these primitive savages the inhabitants of the central deserts are
+on the whole the most primitive. Like their brethren in the rest of the
+continent they were in their native condition absolutely ignorant of
+metals and of agriculture; they had no domestic animals except the dog,
+and they subsisted wholly by the products of the chase and the natural
+fruits, roots, and seeds, which the ground yielded without cultivation
+of any sort. In regard to their intellectual outlook upon the world,
+they were deeply imbued, as I shewed in a former lecture, with a belief
+in magic, but it can hardly be said that they possessed any religion in
+the strict sense of the word, by which I mean a propitiation of real or
+imaginary powers regarded as personal beings superior to man: certainly
+the Australian aborigines appear to have believed in no beings who
+deserve to be called gods. On this subject Messrs. Spencer and Gillen,
+our best authorities on these tribes, observe as follows: "The Central
+Australian natives--and this is true of the tribes extending from Lake
+Eyre in the south to the far north and eastwards across to the Gulf of
+Carpentaria--have no idea whatever of the existence of any supreme being
+who is pleased if they follow a certain line of what we call moral
+conduct and displeased if they do not do so. They have not the vaguest
+idea of a personal individual other than an actual living member of the
+tribe who approves or disapproves of their conduct, so far as anything
+like what we call morality is concerned. Any such idea as that of a
+future life of happiness or the reverse, as a reward for meritorious or
+as a punishment for blameworthy conduct, is quite foreign to them.... We
+know of no tribe in which there is a belief of any kind in a supreme
+being who rewards or punishes the individual according to his moral
+behaviour, using the word moral in the native sense."[110]
+
+[Sidenote: Central Australian theory that the souls of the dead survive
+and are afterwards reborn as infants.]
+
+But if the aborigines of Central Australia have no religion properly so
+called, they entertain beliefs and they observe practices out of which
+under favourable circumstances a religion might have been developed, if
+its evolution had not been arrested by the advent of Europeans. Among
+these elements of natural religion one of the most important is the
+theory which these savages hold as to the existence and nature of the
+dead. That theory is a very remarkable one. With a single exception,
+which I shall mention presently, they unanimously believe that death is
+not the end of all things for the individual, but that the human
+personality survives, apparently with little change, in the form of a
+spirit, which may afterwards be reborn as a child into the world. In
+fact they think that every living person without exception is the
+reincarnation of a dead person who lived on earth a longer or shorter
+time ago. This belief is held universally by the tribes which occupy an
+immense area of Australia from the centre northwards to the Gulf of
+Carpentaria.[111] The single exception to which I have referred is
+furnished by the Gnanji, a fierce and wild-looking tribe who eat their
+dead enemies and perhaps also their dead friends.[112] These savages
+deny 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 a
+dead man, in their opinion, survives and goes to and fro on the earth
+visiting the places where his forefathers camped in days of old and
+destined to be born again of a woman at some future time, when the rains
+have fallen and bleached his bones.[113] But why these primitive
+philosophers should deny the privilege of immortality to women and
+reserve it exclusively for men, is not manifest. All other Central
+Australian tribes appear to admit the rights of women equally with the
+rights 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 by
+the souls of the dead waiting to be born again.]
+
+With regard to the state of the souls of the dead in the intervals
+between their successive reincarnations, the opinions of the Central
+Australian savages are clear and definite. Most civilised races who
+believe in the immortality of the soul have found themselves compelled
+to confess that, however immortal the spirits of the departed may be,
+they do not present themselves commonly to our eyes or ears, nor meddle
+much with the affairs of the living; hence the survivors have for the
+most 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 in
+the depth of earth, or in Islands of the Blest beyond the sea where the
+sun goes down. Not so with the simple aborigines of Australia. They
+imagine that the spirits of the dead continue to haunt their native land
+and especially certain striking natural features of the landscape, it
+may be a pool of water in a deep gorge of the barren hills, or a
+solitary tree in the sun-baked plains, or a great rock that affords a
+welcome shade in the sultry noon. Such spots are thought to be tenanted
+by 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 not
+whether the woman be married or unmarried, a matron or a maid, a
+blooming girl or a withered hag: any woman may conceive directly by the
+entrance into her of one of these disembodied spirits; but the natives
+have shrewdly observed that the spirits shew a decided preference for
+plump young women. Hence when such a damsel is passing near a plot of
+haunted ground, if she does not wish to become a mother, she will
+disguise herself as an aged crone and hobble past, saying in a thin
+cracked voice, "Don't come to me. I am an old woman." Such spots are
+often stones, which the natives call child-stones because the souls of
+the dead are there lying in wait for women in order to be born as
+children. One such stone, for example, may be seen in the land of the
+Arunta tribe near Alice Springs. It projects to a height of three feet
+from the ground among the mulga scrub, and there is a round hole in it
+through which the souls of dead plum-tree people are constantly peeping,
+ready to pounce out on a likely damsel. Again, in the territory of the
+Warramunga tribe the ghosts of black-snake people are supposed to gather
+in the rocks round certain pools or in the gum-trees which border the
+generally dry bed of a water-course. No Warramunga woman would dare to
+strike one of these trees with an axe, because she is firmly convinced
+that in doing so she would set free one of the lurking black-snake
+spirits, who would immediately dart into her body. They think that the
+spirits are no larger than grains of sand and that they make their way
+into women through the navel. Nor is it merely by direct contact with
+one of these repositories of souls, nor yet by passing near it, that
+women may be gotten with child against their wish. The Arunta believe
+that any malicious man may by magic cause a woman or even a child to
+become a mother: he has only to go to one of the child-stones and rub it
+with his hands, muttering the words, "Plenty of young women. You look
+and go quickly."[114]
+
+[Sidenote: As a rule, only the souls of persons of one particular
+totemic clan are thought to congregate in one place.]
+
+A remarkable feature in these gathering-places of the dead remains to be
+noticed. The society at each of them is very select. The ghosts are very
+clannish; as a rule none but people of one particular totemic clan are
+supposed to for-gather at any one place. For example, we have just seen
+that in the Arunta tribe the souls of dead people of the plum-tree totem
+congregate at a certain stone in the mulga scrub, and that in the
+Warramunga tribe the spirits of deceased persons who had black snakes
+for their totem haunt certain gum-trees. The same thing applies to most
+of the other haunts of the dead in Central Australia. Whether the totem
+was a kangaroo or an emu, a rat or a bat, a hawk or a cockatoo, a bee or
+a 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 the
+ghosts of people of one totemic clan meet for the most part in one
+place; thus one rock will be tenanted by the spirits of kangaroo folk
+only, and another by spirits of emu folk only; one water-pool will be
+the home of dead rat people alone, and another the haunt of none but
+dead 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 of
+them consent to share their abode with people of other totems. For
+example, a certain pool of water is haunted by the spirits of folk who
+in their lifetime had for their totems respectively the emu, rain, and a
+certain grub. On the other hand a group of granite boulders is inhabited
+only 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 the
+meaning of totems and totemism. The subject is a large one and is still
+under discussion. For our present purpose it is not necessary that I
+should enter into details; I will therefore only say that a totem is
+commonly a class of natural objects, usually a species of animals or
+plants, with which a savage identifies himself in a curious way,
+imagining that he himself and his kinsfolk are for all practical
+purposes kangaroos or emus, rats or bats, hawks or cockatoos, yams or
+grass-seed, and so on, according to the particular class of natural
+objects which he claims as his totem. The origin of this remarkable
+identification of men with animals, plants, or other things is still
+much debated; my own view is that the key to the mystery is furnished by
+the Australian beliefs as to birth and rebirth which I have just
+described to you; but on that subject I will not now dwell.[116] All
+that I ask you to remember is that in Central Australia there is no
+general gathering-place for the spirits of the departed; the souls are
+sorted out more or less strictly according to their totems and dwell
+apart each in their own little preserve or preserves, on which ghosts of
+other totems are supposed seldom or never to trespass. Thus the whole
+country-side is dotted at intervals with these spiritual parks or
+reservations, which are respected by the natives as the abodes of their
+departed kinsfolk. In size they vary from a few square yards to many
+square 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 ancestors
+carried about with them.]
+
+The way in which these spiritual preserves originated is supposed to be
+as follows. In the earliest days of which the aborigines retain a
+tradition, and to which they give the name of the _alcheringa_ or dream
+times, their remote ancestors roamed about the country in bands, each
+band composed of people of the same totem. Thus one band would consist
+of frog people only, another of witchetty grub people only, another of
+Hakea flower people only, and so on. Now in regard to the nature of
+these remote totemic ancestors of the _alcheringa_ or dream times, the
+ideas of the natives are very hazy; they do not in fact clearly
+distinguish their human from their totemic nature; in speaking, for
+example, of a man of the kangaroo totem they seem unable to discriminate
+sharply between the man and the animal: perhaps we may say that what is
+before their mind is a blurred image, a sort of composite photograph, of
+a man and a kangaroo in one: the man is semi-bestial, the kangaroo is
+semi-human. And similarly with their ancestors of all other totems: if
+the particular ancestors, for example, had the bean-tree for their
+totem, then their descendants in thinking of them might, like the blind
+man in the Gospel, see in their mind's eye men walking like trees and
+trees perambulating like men. Now each of these semi-human ancestors is
+thought to have carried about with him on his peregrinations one or more
+sacred sticks or stones of a peculiar pattern, to which the Arunta give
+the name of _churinga_: they are for the most part oval or elongated and
+flattened stones or slabs of wood, varying in length from a few inches
+to over five feet, and inscribed with a variety of patterns which
+represent or have reference to the totems. But the patterns are purely
+conventional, consisting of circles, curved lines, spirals, and dots
+with no attempt to represent natural objects pictorially. Each of these
+sacred stones or sticks was intimately associated with the spirit part
+of 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 the
+ground, leaving their sacred stones or sticks behind them on the spot,
+and in every case some natural feature arose to mark the place, it might
+be a tree, a rock, a pool of water, or what not. The memory of all such
+spots has been carefully preserved and handed down from generation to
+generation by the old men, and it is to these spots that down to the
+present day the souls of all the dead regularly repair in order to await
+reincarnation. The Arunta call the places _oknanikilla_, and we may call
+them local totem centres, because they are the centres where the spirits
+of 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 Australian
+savages who are said to have been possessed of these sacred sticks or
+stones: 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 is
+intelligible when we remember that every living person is believed to be
+simply the reincarnation of an ancestor; for that being so he naturally
+comes to life with all the attributes which belonged to him in his
+previous state of existence on earth. The notion of the natives is that
+when a spirit child enters into a woman to be born, he immediately drops
+his sacred stick or stone on the spot, which is necessarily one of what
+we have called the local totem centres, since in the opinion of the
+natives 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 place
+where she fancies that the infant entered into her, and he goes with
+some old men to find the precious object, the stick or stone dropped by
+the spirit of the infant when it entered into the mother. If it cannot
+be found, the men cut a wooden one from the nearest hard-wood tree, and
+this becomes the sacred stick or _churinga_ of the newborn child. The
+exact spot, whether a tree or a stone or what not, in which the child's
+spirit is supposed to have tarried in the interval between its
+incarnations, is called its _nanja_ tree or stone or what not. A
+definite relation is supposed to exist between each individual and his
+_nanja_ tree or stone. The tree or stone and any animal or bird that
+lights upon it is sacred to him and may not be molested. A native has
+been known earnestly to intercede with a white man to spare a tree
+because it was his _nanja_ or birth-tree, and he feared that evil would
+befall him if it were cut down.[119]
+
+[Sidenote: Sanctity of the _churinga_.]
+
+Thus in these Central Australian tribes every man, woman, and child has
+his or her sacred birth-stone or stick. But though every woman, like
+every man, has her sacred birth-stone or stick, she is never allowed to
+see it under pain of death or of being blinded with a fire-stick. Indeed
+none but old women are aware even of the existence of such things.
+Uninitiated men are likewise forbidden under the same severe penalties
+ever to look upon these most sacred objects.[120] The sanctity ascribed
+to the sticks and stones is intelligible when we remember that the
+spirits of all the people both living and dead are believed to be
+intimately associated with them. Each of them, we are told, is supposed
+to be so closely bound up with a person's spirit that it may be regarded
+as his or her representative, and those of dead people are believed to
+be endowed with the attributes of their former owners and actually to
+impart them to any one who happens to carry them about with him. Hence
+these apparently insignificant sticks and stones are, in the opinion of
+the natives, most potent instruments for conveying to the living the
+virtues and powers of the dead. For example, in a fight the possession
+of one of these holy sticks or stones is thought to endow the possessor
+with courage and accuracy of aim and also to deprive his adversary of
+these qualities. So firmly is this belief held, that if two men were
+fighting and one of them knew that the other carried a sacred
+birth-stone or stick while he himself did not, he would certainly lose
+heart and be beaten. Again, when a man is sick, he will sometimes have
+one of these sacred stones brought to him and will scrape a little dust
+off it, mix the dust with water, and drink it. This is supposed to
+strengthen him. Clearly he imagines that with the scrapings of the stone
+he absorbs the strength and other qualities of the person to whom the
+stone belonged.[121]
+
+[Sidenote: Sacred store-houses (_ertnatulunga_) of the _churinga_.]
+
+All the birth-stones or sticks (_churinga_) belonging to any particular
+totemic group are kept together, hidden away from the eyes of women and
+uninitiated men, in a sacred store-house or _ertnatulunga_, as the
+Arunta and Unmatjera call it. This store-house is always situated in one
+of 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 sacred
+treasure-house is usually a small cave or crevice in some lonely spot
+among the rugged hills. The entrance is carefully blocked up with stones
+arranged so artfully as to simulate nature and to awake no suspicion in
+the mind of passing strangers that behind these tumbled blocks lie
+concealed the most prized possessions of the tribe. The immediate
+neighbourhood of any one of these sacred store-houses is a kind of haven
+of refuge for wild animals, for once they have run thither, they are
+safe; no hunter would spear a kangaroo or opossum which cowered on the
+ground at one of these hallowed spots. The very plants which grow there
+are sacred and may not be plucked or broken or interfered with in any
+way. Similarly, an enemy who succeeds in taking refuge there, is safe
+from his pursuer, so long as he keeps within the sacred boundaries: even
+the avenger of blood, pursuing the murderer hot-foot, would not dare to
+lift up his hand against him on the holy ground. Thus, these places are
+sanctuaries in the strict sense of the word; they are probably the most
+primitive examples of their class and contain the germ out of which
+cities of refuge for manslayers and others might be developed. It is
+instructive, therefore, to observe that these rudimentary sanctuaries in
+the 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 the
+store-house in the secret recesses of the hills and have been brought
+into the camp for the performance of certain solemn ceremonies, no
+fighting may take place, no weapons may be brandished in their
+neighbourhood: if men will quarrel and fight, they must take their
+weapons and go elsewhere to do it.[122] And when the men go to one of
+the sacred store-houses to inspect the treasures which it contains, they
+must each of them put his open hand solemnly over the mouth of the rocky
+crevice and then retire, in order to give the spirits due notice of the
+approach of strangers; for if they were disturbed suddenly, they would
+be angry.[123]
+
+[Sidenote: Exhibition of the _churinga_ to young men.]
+
+It is only after a young man has passed through the severe ceremonies of
+initiation, which include most painful bodily mutilations, that he is
+deemed worthy to be introduced to the tribal arcana, the sacred sticks
+and stones, which repose in their hallowed cave among the mountain
+solitudes. Even when he has passed through all the ordeals, many years
+may elapse before he is admitted to a knowledge of these mysteries, if
+he shews himself to be of a light and frivolous disposition. When at
+last by the gravity of his demeanour he is judged to have proved himself
+indeed a man, a day is fixed for revealing to him the great secret. Then
+the headman of his local group, together with other grave and reverend
+seniors, conducts him to the mouth of the cave: the stones are rolled
+away from the entrance: the spirits within are duly warned of the
+approach of visitors; and then the sacred sticks and stones, tied up in
+bundles, are brought forth. The bundles are undone, the sticks and
+stones are taken out, one by one, reverently scrutinised, and exhibited
+to the novice, while the old men explain to him the meaning of the
+patterns 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 low
+voice the traditions of their remote ancestors in the far-off dream
+times. At the close the novice is told the secret and sacred name which
+he is thenceforth to bear, and is warned never to allow it to pass his
+lips in the hearing of anybody except members of his own totemic
+group.[124] Sometimes this secret name is that of an ancestor of whom
+the man or woman is supposed to be a reincarnation: for women as well as
+men 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-house
+naturally varies from group to group; but whatever their number, whether
+more or less, in any one store-house they all normally belong to the
+same totem, though a few belonging to other totems may be borrowed and
+deposited for a time with them. For example, a sacred store-house of the
+honey-ant totem was found to contain sixty-eight birth-sticks of that
+totem 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 a
+rule perhaps the sticks predominate in number.[127] Time after time
+these tribal repositories are visited by the men and their contents
+taken out and examined. On each examination the sacred sticks and stones
+are carefully rubbed over with dry and powdered red ochre or charcoal,
+the sticks being rubbed with red ochre only, but the stones either with
+red ochre or charcoal.[128] Further, it is customary on these occasions
+to press the sacred objects against the stomachs and thighs of all the
+men present; this is supposed to untie their bowels, which are thought
+to be tightened and knotted by the emotion which the men feel at the
+sight of these venerated sticks and stones. Indeed, the emotion is
+sometimes very real: men have been seen to weep on beholding these
+mystic 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 sticks
+and stones, and recite the traditions associated with the dead men to
+whom they belonged;[130] so that these rude objects of wood and stone,
+with the lines and dots scratched on them, serve the savages as
+memorials of the past; they are in fact rudimentary archives as well as,
+we may almost say, rudimentary idols; for a stone or stick which
+represents a revered ancestor and is supposed to be endowed with some
+portion of his spirit, is not far from being an idol. No wonder,
+therefore, that they are guarded and treasured by a tribe as its most
+precious possession. When a group of natives have been robbed of them by
+thoughtless white men and have found the sacred store-house empty, they
+have tried to kill the traitor who betrayed the hallowed spot to the
+strangers, and have remained in camp for a fortnight weeping and wailing
+for the loss and plastering themselves with pipeclay, which is their
+token of mourning for the dead.[131] Yet, as a great mark of friendship,
+they will sometimes lend these sacred sticks and stones to a
+neighbouring group; for believing that the sticks and stones are
+associated with the spiritual parts of their former and present owners,
+they naturally wish to have as many of them as possible and regard their
+possession as a treasure of great price, a sort of reservoir of
+spiritual force,[132] which can be turned to account not only in battle
+by worsting the enemy, but in various other ways, such as by magically
+increasing the food supply. For instance, when a man of the grass-seed
+totem wishes to increase the supply of grass-seed in order that it may
+be 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 and
+stones, smears them with red ochre and decorates them with birds' down,
+chanting a spell all the time. Then he rubs them together so that the
+down flies off in all directions; this is supposed to carry with it the
+magical virtue of the sticks or stones and so to fertilise the
+grass-seed.[133]
+
+[Sidenote: Elements of a worship of the dead. Marvellous powers
+attributed 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 Central
+Australian aborigines, we may perhaps conclude that, if they do not
+amount to a worship of the dead, they at least contain the elements out
+of which such a worship might easily be developed. At first sight, no
+doubt, their faith in the transmigration of souls seems and perhaps
+really is a serious impediment to a worship of the dead in the strict
+sense of the word. For if they themselves are the dead come to life
+again, it is difficult to see how they can worship the spirits of the
+dead without also worshipping each other, since they are all by
+hypothesis simply these worshipful spirits reincarnated. But though in
+theory every living man and woman is merely an ancestor or ancestress
+born again and therefore should be his or her equal, in practice they
+appear to admit that their forefathers of the remote _alcheringa_ or
+dream time were endowed with many marvellous powers which their modern
+reincarnations cannot lay claim to, and that accordingly these ancestral
+spirits were more to be reverenced, were in fact more worshipful, than
+their living representatives. On this subject Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
+observe: "The Central Australian native is firmly convinced, as will be
+seen from the accounts relating to their _alcheringa_ ancestors, that
+the latter were endowed with powers such as no living man now possesses.
+They could travel underground or mount into the sky, and could make
+creeks and water-courses, mountain-ranges, sand-hills, and plains. In
+very many cases the actual names of these natives are preserved in their
+traditions, but, so far as we have been able to discover, there is no
+instance of any one of them being regarded in the light of a 'deity.'
+Amongst the Central Australian natives there is never any idea of
+appealing for assistance to any one of these Alcheringa ancestors in any
+way, nor is there any attempt made in the direction of propitiation,
+with one single exception in the case of the mythic creature called
+Wollunqua, amongst the Warramunga tribe, who, it may be remarked, is
+most distinctly regarded as a snake and not as a human being."[134] Thus
+far Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. From their testimony it appears that
+with a single possible exception, to which I will return immediately,
+the Central Australian aborigines are not known to worship any of their
+dead ancestors; they indeed believe their remote forefathers of the
+_alcheringa_ age to have been endowed with marvellous powers which they
+themselves do not possess; but they do not regard these ancestral
+spirits as deities, nor do they pray and sacrifice to them for help and
+protection. The single possible exception to this general rule known to
+Messrs. Spencer and Gillen is the case of the mythical water-snake
+called Wollunqua, who is in a sense revered and propitiated by the
+Warramunga tribe. The case is interesting and instructive as indicative
+of an advance from magic towards religion in the strict sense of the
+word. Accordingly I propose to consider it somewhat fully.
+
+[Sidenote: The Wollunqua, a mythical water-snake, one of the Warramunga
+totems.]
+
+The Wollunqua is one of the many totems of the Warramunga tribe. It is
+to be borne in mind that, though every Australian tribe has many totems
+which are most commonly animals or plants and more rarely other natural
+objects, all the totems are not respected by all the members of the
+tribe; each totem is respected only by a particular group of men and
+women in the tribe, who believe themselves to be descended from the same
+totemic ancestor. Thus the whole tribe is broken up into many groups or
+bodies of men and women, each group knit together by a belief in a
+common descent from the totem, by a common respect for the totemic
+species, whether it be a species of animals or plants, or what not, and
+finally by the possession of a common name derived from the totem. Thus,
+for example, we have a group of men and women who believe themselves
+descended from an ancestor who had the bandicoot for his totem; they all
+respect bandicoots; and they are all called bandicoot people. Similarly
+with all the other totemic groups within the tribe. It is convenient to
+have a name for these totemic groups or tribal subdivisions, and
+accordingly we may call them clans, provided we remember that a totemic
+clan in this sense is not an independent political community such as the
+Scottish Highland clans used to be; it is merely a subdivision of the
+tribe, and the members of it do not usually keep to themselves but live
+more or less interfused with members of all the other totemic clans
+which together compose the tribe. Now amongst the Warramunga the
+Wollunqua or mythical water-snake is the totem of such a clan or tribal
+subdivision, the members of which believe themselves to be descended
+from the creature and call themselves by its name. So far, therefore,
+the Wollunqua is merely a totem of the ordinary sort, an object of
+respect for a particular section of the tribe. Like other totemic
+ancestors the Wollunqua is supposed to have wandered about the country
+leaving supplies of spirit individuals at various points, individuals
+who are constantly undergoing reincarnation. But on the other hand the
+Wollunqua differs from almost all other Australian totems in this, that
+whereas they are real objects, such as animals, plants, water, wind, the
+sun and moon, and so on, the Wollunqua is a purely mythical creature,
+which exists only in the imagination of the natives; for they believe it
+to be a water-snake so huge that if it were to stand up on its tail, its
+head would reach far up into the sky. It now lives in a large pool
+called Thapauerlu, hidden away in a lonely valley of the Murchison
+Range; but the Warramunga fear that it may at any moment sally out and
+do some damage. They say that it actually killed a number of them on one
+of its excursions, though happily they at last succeeded in beating it
+off. So afraid are they of the creature, that in speaking of it amongst
+themselves they will not use its proper name of Wollunqua but call it
+instead _urkulu nappaurinnia_, because, as they told Messrs. Spencer and
+Gillen, if they were to name it too often by its real name they would
+lose control over the beast and it would rush forth and devour
+them.[135] Thus the natives do not distinguish the Wollunqua from the
+rest of their actually existing totems, as we do: they have never beheld
+him with their bodily eyes, yet to them he is just as real as the
+kangaroos which they see hopping along the sands, as the flies which
+buzz about their heads in the sunshine, or as the cockatoos which flap
+screaming past in the thickets. How real this belief in the mythical
+snake is with these savages, was brought vividly home to Messrs. Spencer
+and Gillen when they visited, in company with some natives, the deep and
+lonely pool among the rocky hills in which the awful being is supposed
+to reside. Before they approached the spot, the natives had been talking
+and laughing freely, but when they drew near the water their voices were
+hushed and their demeanour became solemn. When all stood silent on the
+brink of the deep still pool, enclosed by a sandy margin on one side and
+by a line of red rocks on the other, two old men, the leaders of the
+totemic group of the Wollunqua, went down to the edge of the water and,
+with bowed heads, addressed the Wollunqua in whispers, asking him to
+remain quiet and do them no harm, for they were mates of his, and had
+brought two great white men to see where he lived and to tell them all
+about him. "We could plainly see," add Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "that
+it was all very real to them, and that they implicitly believed that the
+Wollunqua was indeed alive beneath the water, watching them, though they
+could 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 in
+the proper sense of the word. Here we have a firm belief in a purely
+imaginary being who is necessarily visible to the eye of faith alone,
+since I think we may safely assume that a water-snake, supposed to be
+many miles long and capable of reaching up to the sky, has no real
+existence either on the earth or in the waters under the earth. Yet to
+these savages this invisible being is just as real as the actually
+existing 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 shallow
+sceptics to question the reality of his existence or the literal truth
+of the myths they tell about him. Certainly these savages are far on the
+road to religion, if they have not already passed the Rubicon which
+divides it from the common workaday world. If an unhesitating faith in
+the unseen is part of religion, the Warramunga people of the Wollunqua
+totem are unquestionably religious.
+
+[Footnote 108: On the zoological peculiarities of Australia regarded as
+effects of its geographical isolation, see Alfred Newton, _Dictionary of
+Birds_ (London, 1893-96), pp. 317-319. He observes (p. 318) that "the
+isolation of Australia is probably the next oldest in the world to that
+of New Zealand, having possibly existed since the time when no mammals
+higher 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 of
+Central Australia_ (London, 1904), p. 491.]
+
+[Footnote 111: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, 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 of
+Central 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 Central
+Australia_, 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 Central
+Australia_, 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 Central
+Australia_, p. 267.]
+
+[Footnote 124: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_,
+pp. 139 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 125: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, 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 Central
+Australia_, pp. 490 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 135: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, pp. 226 _sq._ Another mythical being in which the Warramunga
+believe is _the pau-wa_, a fabulous animal, half human and somewhat
+resembling 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 not
+included in the list of totems given by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (_op.
+cit._ pp. 768-773).]
+
+[Footnote 136: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, pp. 252 _sq._]
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE V
+
+THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE ABORIGINES
+OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA (_continued_)
+
+
+[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Central Australian aborigines concerning the
+reincarnation of the dead. The mythical water-snake Wollunqua.]
+
+In the last lecture we began our survey of the belief in immortality and
+the practices to which it has given rise among the aboriginal tribes of
+Central Australia. I shewed that these primitive savages hold a very
+remarkable theory of birth and death. They believe that the souls of the
+dead do not perish but are reborn in human form after a longer or
+shorter interval. During that interval the spirits of the departed are
+supposed to congregate in certain parts of the country, generally
+distinguished by some conspicuous natural feature, which accordingly the
+natives account sacred, believing them to be haunted by the souls of the
+dead. From time to time one of these disembodied spirits enters into a
+passing woman and is born as an infant into the world. Thus according to
+the Central Australian theory every living person without exception is
+the reincarnation of a dead man, woman, or child. At first sight the
+theory seems to exclude the possibility of any worship of the dead,
+since it appears to put the living on a footing of perfect equality with
+the dead by identifying the one with the other. But I pointed out that
+as a matter of fact these savages do admit, whether logically or not,
+the superiority of their remote ancestors to themselves: they
+acknowledge that these old forefathers of theirs did possess many
+marvellous powers to which they themselves can lay no claim. In this
+acknowledgment, accordingly, we may detect an opening or possibility for
+the development of a real worship of ancestors. Indeed, as I said at the
+close of last lecture, something closely approaching to ancestor worship
+has actually grown up in regard to the mythical ancestor of the
+Wollunqua clan in the Warramunga tribe. The Wollunqua is a purely
+fabulous water-snake, of gigantic dimensions, which is supposed to haunt
+the waters of a certain lonely pool called Thapauerlu, in the Murchison
+Range of mountains. Unlike the ancestors of the other totemic clans,
+this mythical serpent is never reborn in human form; he always lives in
+his solitary pool among the barren hills; but the natives think that he
+has it in his power to come forth and do them an injury, and accordingly
+they pray to him to remain quiet and not to harm them. Indeed so afraid
+of him are they that speaking of the creature among themselves they
+avoid using his proper name of Wollunqua and call him by a different
+name, lest hearing himself called by his true name he should rush forth
+and devour them. More than that they even endeavour to propitiate him by
+the performance of certain rites, which, however childish and absurd
+they may seem to us, are very solemn affairs for these simple folk. The
+rites were witnessed by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, whose description I
+will summarise. It offers an interesting and instructive example of a
+ritual observed by primitive savages, who are clearly standing on, if
+they have not already crossed, the threshold of religion.
+
+[Sidenote: Wanderings of the Wollunqua. Dramatic ceremonies in honour of
+the Wollunqua.]
+
+Like all other totemic ancestors the Wollunqua is said to have arisen at
+a particular spot, to have wandered about the country, and finally to
+have gone down into the ground. Starting from the deep rocky pool in the
+Murchison Range he travelled at first underground, coming up, however,
+at various points where he performed ceremonies and left many spirit
+children, who issued from his body and remained behind, forming local
+totemic centres when he had passed on. It is these spirit children who
+have formed the Wollunqua clan ever since, undergoing an endless series
+of reincarnations. Now the ceremonies which the clan perform in honour
+of their mythical ancestor the Wollunqua all refer to his wanderings
+about the country. Thus there is a particular water-hole called
+Pitingari where the great old water-snake is said to have emerged from
+the ground and looked about him. Here, accordingly, two men performed a
+ceremony. Each of them was decorated with a broad band of red down,
+which curved round both the front and the back of the performer and
+stood sharply out from the mass of white down with which all the rest of
+the upper part of his body was covered. These broad red bands
+represented the Wollunqua. Each man also wore a tall, conical helmet
+adorned with a curved band of red down, which, no doubt, likewise
+symbolised the mythical serpent. When the two actors in the little drama
+had been attired in this quaint costume of red and white down, they
+retired behind a bush, which served for the side scenes of a theatre.
+Then, when the orchestra, composed of adult men, struck up the music on
+the ceremonial ground by chanting and beating boomerangs and sticks
+together, the performers ran in, stopping every now and then to shake
+themselves in imitation of the snake. Finally, they sat down close
+together with their heads bowed down on a few green branches of
+gum-trees. A man then stepped up to them, knocked off their
+head-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 place
+called Antipataringa, where the mythical snake is said to have halted in
+his wanderings. The same two men acted as before, but this time one of
+them carried on his head a curious curved bundle shaped like an enormous
+boomerang. It was made of grass-stalks bound together with human
+hair-string and decorated with white down. This sacred object
+represented the Wollunqua himself.[138] From this spot the snake was
+believed to have travelled on to another place called Tjunguniari, where
+he popped up his head among the sand-hills, the greater part of his body
+remaining underground. Indeed, of such an enormous length was the
+serpent, that though his head had now travelled very many miles his tail
+still remained at the starting-point and had not yet begun to take part
+in the procession. Here accordingly the third ceremony, perhaps we may
+say the third act in the drama, was performed on the third day. In it
+one of the actors personated the snake himself, while the other stood
+for a sand-hill.[139]
+
+[Sidenote: Further ceremony in honour of the Wollunqua: the white mound
+with the red wavy band to represent the mythical snake.]
+
+After an interval of three days a fourth ceremony was performed of an
+entirely different kind. A keel-shaped mound was made of wet sand, about
+fifteen feet long by two feet high. The smooth surface of the mound was
+covered with a mass of little dots of white down, except for a long wavy
+band of red down which ran all along both sides of the mound. This wavy
+red band represented the Wollunqua, his head being indicated by a small
+round swelling at one end and his tail by a short prolongation at the
+other. The mound itself represented a sand-hill beside which the snake
+is said to have stood up and looked about. The preparation of this
+elaborate emblem of the Wollunqua occupied the greater part of the day,
+and it was late in the afternoon before it was completed. When darkness
+fell, fires were lighted on the ceremonial ground, and as the night grew
+late more fires were kindled, and all of the men sat round the mound
+singing songs which referred to the mythical water-snake. This went on
+for hours. At last, about three o'clock in the morning, a ring of fires
+was lit all round the ceremonial ground, in the light of which the white
+trunks of the gum-trees and the surrounding scrub stood out weird and
+ghastly against the blackness of darkness beyond. Amid the wildest
+excitement the men of the Wollunqua totem now ranged themselves in
+single file on their knees beside the mound which bore the red image of
+their great mythical forefather, and with their hands on their thighs
+surged round and round it, every man bending in unison first to one side
+and then to the other, each successive movement being accompanied by a
+loud and simultaneous shout, or rather yell, while the other men, who
+were not of the Wollunqua totem, stood by, clanging their boomerangs
+excitedly, and one old man, who acted as a sort of choregus, walked
+backwards at the end of the kneeling procession of Wollunqua men,
+swaying his body about and lifting high his knees at every step. In this
+way, with shouts and clangour, the men of the totem surged twice round
+the mound on their knees. After that, as the fires died down, the men
+rose from their knees, and for another hour every one sat round the
+mound singing incessantly. The last act in the drama was played at four
+o'clock in the morning at the moment when the first faint streaks of
+dawn glimmered in the east. At sight of them every man jumped to his
+feet, the smouldering fires were rekindled, and in their blaze the long
+white mound stood out in strong relief. The men of the totem, armed with
+spears, boomerangs, and clubs, ranged themselves round it, and
+encouraged by the men of the other totems attacked it fiercely with
+their weapons, until in a few minutes they had hacked it to pieces, and
+nothing was left of it but a rough heap of sandy earth. The fires again
+died down and for a short time silence reigned. Then, just as the sun
+rose above the eastern horizon, the painful ceremony of subincision was
+performed on three youths, who had recently passed through the earlier
+stages of initiation.[140]
+
+[Sidenote: The rite aims both at pleasing and at coercing the mythical
+snake.]
+
+This remarkable rite is supposed, we are informed, "in some way to be
+associated with the idea of persuading, or almost forcing, the Wollunqua
+to remain quietly in his home under the water-hole at Thapauerlu, and to
+do no harm to any of the natives. They say that when he sees the mound
+with his representation drawn upon it he is gratified, and wriggles
+about underneath with pleasure. The savage attack upon the mound is
+associated with the idea of driving him down, and, taken altogether, the
+ceremony indicates their belief that, at one and the same time, they can
+both please and coerce the mythic beast. It is necessary to do things to
+please 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 what
+they want."[141] In fact the ritual of the mound with its red image of
+the snake combines the principles of religion and magic. So far as the
+rite is intended to please and propitiate the mythical beast, it is
+religious; so far as it is intended to constrain him, it is magical. The
+two principles are contradictory and the attempt to combine them is
+illogical; but the savage is heedless, or rather totally unaware, of the
+contradiction and illogicality: all that concerns him is to accomplish
+his ends: he has neither the wish nor the ability to analyse his
+motives. In this respect he is in substantial agreement with the vast
+majority of mankind. How many of us scrutinise the reasons of our
+conduct with the view of detecting and eliminating any latent
+inconsistencies in them? And how many, or rather how few of us, on such
+a scrutiny would be so fortunate as to discover that there were no such
+inconsistencies to detect? The logical pedant who imagines that men
+cannot possibly act on inconsistent and even contradictory motives only
+betrays his ignorance of life. It is not therefore for us to cast stones
+at the Warramunga men of the Wollunqua totem for attempting to
+propitiate and constrain their mythical serpent at the same time. Such
+contradictions meet us again and again in the history of religion: it is
+interesting but by no means surprising to find them in one of its
+rudimentary stages.
+
+[Sidenote: Thunder the voice of the Wollunqua.]
+
+On the evening of the day which succeeded the construction of the
+emblematic mound the old men who had made the emblem said they had heard
+the Wollunqua talking, and that he was pleased with what had been done
+and was sending them rain. What they took for the voice of the Wollunqua
+was thunder rumbling in the distance. No rain fell, but a few days later
+thunder was again heard rolling afar off and a heavy bank of clouds lay
+low on the western horizon. The old men now said that the Wollunqua was
+growling because the remains of the mound had been left uncovered; so
+they hastily cut down branches and covered up the ruins. After that the
+Wollunqua 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 from
+all the preceding were performed in honour of the Wollunqua. A space of
+sandy ground was smoothed down, sprinkled with water, and rubbed so as
+to form a compact surface. The smooth surface was then overlaid with a
+coat of red or yellow ochre, and on this coloured background a number of
+designs 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 traditionary
+adventures. The snake himself was portrayed by a broad wavy band, but
+all the other designs were purely conventional; for example, trees,
+ant-hills, and wells were alike indicated by circles. Altogether there
+were eight such drawings on the earth, some of them very elaborate and
+entailing, each of them, not less than six or seven hours' labour: one
+of them was ten feet long. Each drawing was rubbed out before the next
+one was drawn. Moreover, the drawings were accompanied by little dramas
+acted by decorated men. In one of these dramas no fewer than eight
+actors took part, some of whom wore head-dresses adorned with a long
+wavy band to represent the Wollunqua. The last drawing of all was
+supposed to portray the mythical snake as he plunged into the earth and
+returned to his home in the rocky pool called Thapauerlu among the
+Murchison 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 in
+Australia of a totemic ancestor in the act of developing into something
+like a god. In the Warramunga tribe there are other snake totems besides
+the Wollunqua; for example, there is the black snake totem and the deaf
+adder totem. But this purely mythical water-snake, the Wollunqua, is the
+most important of them all and is regarded as the great father of all
+the snakes. "It is not easy," say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "to
+express in words what is in reality rather a vague feeling amongst the
+natives, but after carefully watching the different series of ceremonies
+we were impressed with the feeling that the Wollunqua represented to the
+native mind the idea of a dominant totem."[144] Thus he is at once a
+fabulous animal and the mythical ancestor of a human clan, but his
+animal nature apparently predominates over his semi-human nature, as
+shewn by the drawings and effigies of him, all of which are in serpent
+form. The prayers offered to him at the pool which he is supposed to
+haunt, and the attempt to please him by drawing his likeness can only be
+regarded as propitiatory rites and therefore as rudimentary forms of
+worship. And the idea that thunder is his voice, and that the rain is a
+gift 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 might
+easily have been elevated to the sky and have ranked as a celestial
+deity, who dwells aloft and sends down or withholds the refreshing
+showers at his good pleasure. Thus the Wollunqua, a rude creation of the
+savage Australian imagination, possesses a high interest for the
+historian of religion, since he combines elements of ancestor worship
+and totem worship with a germ of heaven worship; while on the purely
+material side his representation, both in plastic form by a curved
+bundle of grass-stalks and in graphic form by broad wavy bands of red
+down, may be said in a sense to stand at the starting-point of that long
+development of religious art, which in so many countries and so many
+ages has attempted to represent to the bodily eye the mysteries of the
+unseen and invisible, and which, whatever we may think of the success or
+failure of that attempt, has given to the world some of the noblest
+works of sculpture and painting.
+
+[Sidenote: Possible religious evolution of totemism.]
+
+I have already pointed out the difficulty of seeing how a belief in the
+reincarnation of the dead, such as prevails universally among the
+aborigines of Central Australia, could ever be reconciled with or
+develop into a worship of the dead; for by identifying the living with
+the dead, the theory of reincarnation seems to abolish that distinction
+between the worshipper and the worshipped which is essential to the
+existence of worship. But, as I also indicated, what seems a loophole or
+mode of escape from the dilemma may be furnished by the belief of these
+savages, that though they themselves are nothing but their ancestors
+come to life again, nevertheless in their earliest incarnations of the
+_alcheringa_ or dream times their ancestors possessed miraculous powers
+which they have admittedly lost in their later reincarnations; for this
+suggests an incipient discrimination or line of cleavage between the
+living and the dead; it hints that perhaps after all the first
+ancestors, with their marvellous endowments, may have been entirely
+different persons from their feebler descendants, and if this vague hint
+could only grow into a firm conviction of the essential difference
+between the two, then the course would be clear for the development of
+ancestor worship: the dead forefathers, viewed as beings perfectly
+distinct from and far superior to the living, might easily come to
+receive from the latter the homage of prayer and sacrifice, might be
+besought by their descendants to protect them in danger and to succour
+them in all the manifold ills of life, or at least to abstain from
+injuring them. Now, this important step in religious evolution appears
+to have been actually taken by the Wollunqua, the mythical water-snake,
+who is the totem of one of the Warramunga clans. Unlike all the other
+totems he is supposed to exist only in his invisible and animal form and
+never to be reincarnated in a man.[145] Hence, withdrawn as he is from
+the real world of sense, the imagination is free to play about him and
+to invest him more and more with those supernatural attributes which men
+ascribe to their deities. And what has actually happened to this
+particular totemic ancestor might under favourable circumstances happen
+to many others. Each of them might be gradually detached from the line
+of his descendants, might cease to be reincarnated in them, and might
+gradually attain to the lonely pre-eminence of godhead. Thus a system of
+pure totemism, such as prevails among the aborigines of Central
+Australia, might develop through a phase of ancestor worship into a
+pantheon of the ordinary type.
+
+[Sidenote: Conspicuous features of the landscape associated with
+ancestral spirits.]
+
+Although none of the other totemic ancestors of the Central Australian
+aborigines appears to have advanced so far on the road to religion as
+the Wollunqua, yet they all contain in germ the elements out of which a
+religion might have been developed. It is difficult for us civilised men
+to conceive the extent to which the thoughts and lives of these savages
+are dominated by the memories and traditions of the dead. Every
+conspicuous feature in the landscape is not only associated with the
+legendary doings of some ancestors but is commonly said to have arisen
+as a direct result of their actions. The mountains, the plains, the
+rivers, the seas, the islands of ancient Greece itself were not more
+thickly haunted by the phantoms of a fairy mythology than are the barren
+sun-scorched steppes and stony hills of the Australian wilderness; but
+great indeed is the gulf which divides the beautiful creations of Greek
+fancy from the crude imaginings of the Australian savage, whose
+legendary tales are for the most part a mere tissue of trivial
+absurdities 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 I
+will quote a passage in which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen describe a
+journey they took in company with some Warramunga natives over part of
+their country:--"For the first two days our way lay across miserable
+plain country covered with poor scrub, with here and there low ranges
+rising. Every prominent feature of any kind was associated with some
+tradition of their past. A range some five miles away from Tennant Creek
+arose to mark the path traversed by the great ancestor of the Pittongu
+(bat) totem. Several miles further on a solitary upstanding column of
+rock represented an opossum man who rested here, looked about the
+country, and left spirit children behind him; a low range of remarkably
+white quartzite hills indicated a large number of white ant eggs thrown
+here in the _wingara_[146] by the Munga-munga women as they passed
+across the country. A solitary flat-topped hill arose to mark the spot
+where the Wongana (crow) ancestor paused for some time to pierce his
+nose; and on the second night we camped by the side of a waterhole where
+the same crow lived for some time in the _wingara_, and where now there
+are plenty of crow spirit children. All the time, as we travelled along,
+the old men were talking amongst themselves about the natural features
+associated in tradition with these and other totemic ancestors of the
+tribe, and pointing them out to us. On the third day we travelled, at
+first for some hours, by the side of a river-bed,--perfectly dry of
+course,--and passed the spot where two hawks first made fire by rubbing
+sticks together, two fine gum-trees on the banks now representing the
+place where they stood up. A few miles further on we came to a
+water-hole by the side of which the moon-man met a bandicoot woman, and
+while the two were talking together the fire made by the hawks crept
+upon them and burnt the woman, who was, however, restored to life again
+by the moon-man, with whom she then went up into the sky. Late in the
+afternoon we skirted the eastern base of the Murchison Range, the rugged
+quartzite hills in this part being associated partly with the crow
+ancestor and partly with the bat. Following up a valley leading into the
+hills we camped, just after sunset, by the side of a rather picturesque
+water-pool amongst the ranges. A short distance before reaching this the
+natives pointed out a curious red cliff, standing out amongst the low
+hills which were elsewhere covered with thin scrub. This, which is
+called Tjiti, represents the spot where an old woman spent a long time
+digging for yams, the latter being indicated by great heaps of stones
+lying all around. On the opposite side of the valley a column of stone
+marks the spot where the woman went into the earth. The water-hole by
+which we were camped was called Wiarminni. It was in reality a deep pool
+in the bed of a creek coming down from the hills. Behind it the rocks
+rose abruptly, and amongst them there was, or rather would have been if
+a stream had been flowing, a succession of cascades and rocky
+water-holes. Two of the latter, just above Wiarminni, are connected with
+a fish totem, and represent the spot where two fish men arose in the
+_alcheringa_, fought one another, left spirit children behind, and
+finally went down into the ground. We were now, so to speak, in the very
+midst of _mungai_ [i.e. of places associated with the totems], for the
+old totemic ancestors of the tribe, who showed a most commendable
+fondness for arising and walking about in the few picturesque spots
+which their country contained, had apparently selected these rocky
+gorges as their central home. All around us the water-holes, gorges, and
+rocky crags were peopled with spirit individuals left behind by one or
+other of the following totemic ancestors:--Wollunqua, Pittongu (bat),
+Wongana (crow), wild dog, emu, bandicoot, and fish, whose lines of
+travel in the _alcheringa_ formed a regular network over the whole
+countryside."[147]
+
+[Sidenote: Dramatic ceremonies to commemorate the doings of ancestors.]
+
+Similar evidence could be multiplied, but this may suffice to teach us
+how to the minds of these Central Australian savages the whole country
+is haunted, in the literal sense, not merely by the memories of their
+dead, but by the spirits which they left behind them and which are
+constantly undergoing reincarnation. And not only are the minds of the
+aborigines preoccupied by the thought of their ancestors, who are
+recalled to them by all the familiar features of the landscape, but they
+spend a considerable part of their time in dramatically representing the
+legendary doings of their rude forefathers of the remote past. It is
+astonishing, we are told, how large a part of a native's life is
+occupied with the performance of these dramatic ceremonies. The older he
+grows, the greater is the share he takes in them, until at last they
+actually absorb the greater part of his thoughts. The rites which seem
+so trivial to us are most serious matters to him. They are all connected
+with the great ancestors of the tribe, and he is firmly convinced that
+when he dies his spirit will rejoin theirs and live in communion with
+them until the time comes for him to be born again into the world. With
+such solemnity does he look on the celebration of these commemorative
+services, as we may call them, that none but initiated men are allowed
+to witness them; women and children are strictly excluded from the
+spectacle. These sacred dramas are often, though by no means always,
+associated with the rites of initiation which young men have to pass
+through before they are admitted to full membership of the tribe and to
+participation in its deepest mysteries. The rites of initiation are not
+all undergone by a youth at the same time; they succeed each other at
+longer or shorter intervals of time, and at each of them he is
+privileged to witness some of the solemn ceremonies in which the
+traditions of the tribal ancestors are dramatically set forth before
+him, until, when he has passed through the last of the rites and
+ordeals, he is free to behold and to take part in the whole series of
+mystery plays or professedly historical dramas. Sometimes the
+performance of these dramas extends over two or three months, during
+which one or more of them are acted daily.[148] For the most part, they
+are very short and simple, each of them generally lasting only a few
+minutes, though the costumes of the actors are often elaborate and may
+have 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 Arunta
+tribe, as to which it may be premised that a decoction of the Hakea
+flower is a favourite drink of the natives. The little drama was acted
+by two men, each of whom was decorated on his bare body by broad bands
+of pearly grey edged with white down, which passed round his waist and
+over his shoulders, contrasting well with the chocolate colour of his
+skin. On his head each of them wore a kind of helmet made of twigs, and
+from their ears hung tips of the tails of rabbit-bandicoots. The two sat
+on the ground facing each other with a shield between them. One of them
+held in his hand some twigs representing the Hakea flower in bloom;
+these he pretended to steep in water so as to brew the favourite
+beverage of the natives, and the man sitting opposite him made believe
+to suck it up with a little mop. Meantime the other men ran round and
+round them shouting _wha! wha!_ This was the substance of the play,
+which ended as usual by several men placing their hands on the shoulders
+of 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_), which
+abounds in the water-holes of the country. The play was performed by a
+single actor, an old man, whose face was covered with a mass of white
+down contrasting strongly with a large bunch of black eagle-hawk
+feathers which he wore on his head. His body was decorated with bands of
+charcoal edged with white down. Squatting on the ground he moved his
+body and extended his arms from his sides, opening and closing them as
+he leaned forwards, so as to imitate a fish swelling itself out and
+opening and closing its gills. Then, holding twigs in his hands, he
+moved along mimicking the action of a man who drives fish before him
+with a branch in a pool, just as the natives do to catch the fish.
+Meantime an orchestra of four men squatted beside him singing and
+beating 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 by
+four actors, who simply pretended to knock down and eat imaginary plums
+from an imaginary plum-tree.[151] An interesting point in this very
+simple drama is that in it the men of the plum-tree totem are
+represented eating freely of their totem, which is quite contrary to the
+practice of the present day, but taken along with many similar
+ceremonies it goes far to prove that in the ancient days, to which all
+these dramatic ceremonies refer, it was the regular practice for men and
+women of a totem to eat their totemic animals or plants. As another
+example of a drama in which the performers are represented eating their
+totem 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 ant
+totem, ancestresses of the ant clan, who are said to have devoted all
+their time to catching and eating ants, except when they were engaged in
+the performance of ceremonies. The two men who personated these women in
+the 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 on
+their 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 stones
+and trees on the spots where the two women encamped. In the drama the
+two actors thus arrayed walked about the ground as if they were
+searching for ants to eat. Each of them carried a wooden trough and
+stooping down from time to time he turned over the ground and picked up
+small stones which he placed in the trough till it was full. The stones
+represented the masses of ants which the women gathered for food. After
+carrying on this pantomime for a time the two actors pretended to
+discover each other with surprise and to embrace with joy, much to the
+amusement 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 is
+strictly appropriate to the totem. In the drama of the Hakea flower
+totem the actors pretend to make and drink the beverage brewed from
+Hakea flowers; in the ceremony of the fish totem the actor feigns to be
+a fish and also to catch fish; in the ceremony of the plum-tree totem
+the actors pretend to knock down and eat plums; and in the ceremony of
+the ant totem the actors make believe to gather ants for food.
+Similarly, to take a few more examples, in a ceremony of the witchetty
+grub totem of the Arunta tribe the body of the actor was decorated with
+lines of white and red down, and he had a shield adorned with a number
+of concentric circles of down. The smaller circles represented the bush
+on which the grub lives first of all, and the larger circles represented
+the 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 he
+extended his arms and made them quiver in imitation of the insect's
+wings; and every now and then he would bend over the shield and sway to
+and fro, and up and down, in imitation of the insect hovering over the
+bushes on which it lays its eggs.[153] In another ceremony of the
+witchetty grub totem, which followed immediately the one I have just
+described, the actor had two shields beside him. The smaller of the
+shields was ornamented with zigzag lines of white pipe-clay which were
+supposed to indicate the tracks of the grub; the larger shield was
+covered with larger and smaller series of concentric circles, the larger
+representing the seeds of a bush on which the insect feeds, while the
+smaller stood for the eggs of the adult insect. As before, the actor
+wriggled and flapped his arms in imitation of the fluttering of the
+insect when it first leaves its chrysalis case in the ground and
+attempts to fly. In acting thus he was supposed to represent a
+celebrated 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 emu
+totem in the Arunta tribe. The body of the actor was decorated with
+perpendicular lines of white down reaching from his shoulders to his
+knees; and on his head he supported a towering head-piece tipped with a
+bunch of emu feathers in imitation of the neck and head of an emu. Thus
+arrayed he stalked backwards and forwards in the aimless fashion of the
+bird.[155]
+
+[Sidenote: These dramatic ceremonies were probably at first magical
+rites intended to supply the people with food and other necessaries.]
+
+What are we to think of the intention of these little dramas which the
+Central Australian aborigines regard as sacred and to the performance of
+which they devote so much time and labour? At first sight they are
+simply commemorative services, designed to represent the ancestors as
+they lived and moved in the far-past times, to recall their adventures,
+of which legend has preserved the memory, and to set them dramatically
+before the eyes of their living descendants. So far, therefore, the
+dramas might be described as purely historical in intention, if not in
+reality. But there are reasons for thinking that in all cases a deeper
+meaning underlies, or formerly underlay, the performance of all these
+apparently simple historical plays; in fact, we may suspect that
+originally they were all magical ceremonies observed for the practical
+purpose of supplying the people with food, water, sunshine, and
+everything else of which they stand in need. This conclusion is
+suggested first of all by the practice of the Arunta and other Central
+Australian tribes, who observe very similar ceremonies with the avowed
+intention of thereby multiplying the totemic animals and plants in order
+that they may be eaten by the tribe, though not by the particular clan
+which has these animals or plants for its totem. It is true that the
+Arunta distinguish these magical ceremonies for the multiplication of
+the totems from what we may call the more purely commemorative or
+historical 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 ceremonies
+so closely that it is difficult to suppose they can always have been
+wholly distinct. For example, in the magical ceremonies for the
+multiplication of witchetty grubs the performers pretend to be the
+insects emerging from their chrysalis cases,[156] just as the actors do
+in the similar commemorative ceremony which I have described; and again
+in a magical ceremony for the multiplication of emus the performers wear
+head-dresses to represent the long neck and small head of the bird, and
+they mimic its gait,[157] exactly as the actors do in the commemorative
+ceremony. It seems reasonable, therefore, to conjecture that the
+ceremonies which now are, or seem to be, purely commemorative or
+historical were originally magical in intention, being observed for the
+practical purpose of multiplying edible animals and plants or supplying
+other wants of the tribe.
+
+[Sidenote: Among the Warramunga these dramatic ceremonies are avowedly
+performed as magical rites.]
+
+Now this conjecture is strongly confirmed by the actual usage of the
+Warramunga tribe, amongst whom the commemorative or historical dramas
+are avowedly performed as magical rites: in other words, the Warramunga
+attribute a magical virtue to the simple performance of such dramas:
+they think that by merely acting the parts of their totemic ancestors
+they thereby magically multiply the edible animals or plants which these
+ancestors had for their totems. Hence in this tribe the magical
+ceremonies and the dramatic performances practically coincide: with
+them, as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, the _intichiuma_ or magical
+ceremonies (called by the Warramunga _thalamminta_) "for the most part
+simply consist in the performance of a complete series representing the
+_alcheringa_ history of the totemic ancestor. In this tribe each totemic
+group has usually one great ancestor, who arose in some special spot and
+walked across the country, making various natural features as he did
+so,--creeks, plains, ranges, and water-holes,--and leaving behind him
+spirit individuals who have since been reincarnated. The _intichiuma_
+[or magical] ceremony of the totem really consists in tracking these
+ancestors' paths, and repeating, one after the other, ceremonies
+commemorative of what are called the _mungai_ spots, the equivalent of
+the _oknanikilla_ amongst the Arunta--that is, the places where he left
+the spirit children behind."[158] Apparently the Warramunga imagine that
+by imitating a totemic ancestor at the very place where he left spirit
+children of the same totem behind him, they thereby enable these spirit
+children to be born again and so increase the food supply, whenever
+their totem is an edible animal or plant; for we must always remember
+that in the mind of these savages the idea of a man or woman is
+inextricably confused with the idea of his or her totem; they seem
+unable to distinguish between the two, and therefore they believe that
+in multiplying human beings at their local totemic centres (_mungai_ or
+_oknanikilla_) they simultaneously multiply their totems; and as the
+totems are commonly edible animals and plants, it follows that in the
+opinion of the Warramunga the general effect of performing these
+ancestral plays is to increase the supply of food of the tribe. No
+wonder, therefore, that the dramas are sacred, and that the natives
+attribute the most serious significance to their performance: the
+neglect to perform them might, in their judgment, bring famine and ruin
+on the whole tribe. As Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, speaking of these
+ceremonies, justly observe: "Their proper performance is a matter of
+very great importance in the eyes of the natives, because, not only do
+they serve to keep alive and hand down from generation to generation the
+traditions of the tribe, but they are, at least amongst the Warramunga,
+intimately associated with the most important object of maintaining the
+food supply, as every totemic group is held responsible for the
+maintenance of the material object the name of which it bears."[159]
+
+[Sidenote: General view of the attitude of the Central Australian
+natives towards their dead.]
+
+To sum up the attitude of the Central Australian natives towards their
+dead. They believe that their dead are constantly undergoing
+reincarnation by being born again of women into the world, in fact that
+every living man, woman, and child is nothing but a dead person come to
+life again, that so it has been from the beginning and that so it will
+be to the end. Of a special world of the departed, remote and different
+from the material world in which they live and from the familiar scenes
+to which they have been accustomed from infancy, they have no
+conception; still less, if that is possible, have they any idea of a
+division of the world of the dead into a realm of bliss and a realm of
+woe, where the spirits of the good live ineffably happy and the spirits
+of the bad live unspeakably miserable. To their simple minds the spirits
+of the dead dwell all about them in the rocky gorges, the barren plains,
+the wooded dells, the rustling trees, the still waters of their native
+land, haunting in death the very spots where they last entered into
+their mothers' wombs to be born, and where in future they will again
+enter into the wombs of other women to be born again as other children
+into 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, irreconcilable
+with a worship of the dead in the proper sense of the word; and so
+perhaps it would be, if these savages were strictly consistent and
+logical in their theories. But they are not. They admit that their
+remote ancestors, in other words, that they themselves in former
+incarnations, possessed certain marvellous powers to which in the
+present degenerate days they can lay no claim; and in this significant
+admission we may detect a rift, a real distinction of kind, between the
+living and the dead, which in time might widen out into an impassable
+gulf. In other words, we may suppose that the Central Australians, if
+left to themselves, might come to hold that the dead return no more to
+the land of the living, and that, acknowledging as they do the vast
+superiority of their remote ancestors to themselves, they might end by
+worshipping them, at first simply as powerful ancestral spirits, and
+afterwards as supernatural deities, whose original connexion with
+humanity had been totally forgotten. In point of fact we saw that among
+the Warramunga the mythical water-snake Wollunqua, who is regarded as an
+ancestor of a totemic clan, has made some progress towards deification;
+for while he is still regarded as the forefather of the clan which bears
+his name, it is no longer supposed that he is born again of women into
+the world, but that he lives eternal and invisible under the water of a
+haunted pool, and that he has it in his power both to help and to harm
+his people, who pray to him and perform ceremonies in his honour. This
+awful being, whose voice is heard in the peal of thunder and whose
+dreadful name may not be pronounced in common life, is not far from
+godhead; at least he is apparently the nearest approach to it which the
+imagination of these rude savages has been able to conceive. Lastly, as
+I have pointed out, the reverence which the Central Australians
+entertain for their dead ancestors is closely bound up with their
+totemism; they fail to distinguish clearly or at all between men and
+their totems, and accordingly the ceremonies which they perform to
+commemorate the dead are at the same time magical rites designed to
+ensure an abundant supply of food and of all the other necessaries and
+conveniences which savage life requires or admits of; indeed, we may
+with some probability conjecture that the magical intention of these
+ceremonies is the primary and original one, and that the commemorative
+intention is secondary and derivative. If that could be proved to be so
+(which is hardly to be expected), we should be obliged to conclude that
+in this as in so many enquiries into the remote human past we detect
+evidence of an Age of Magic preceding anything that deserves to be
+dignified with the name of religion.
+
+That ends what I have to say at present as to the belief in immortality
+and the worship of the dead among the Central Australian aborigines. In
+my next lecture I propose to pursue the enquiry among the other tribes
+of Australia.
+
+[Footnote 137: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, pp. 228 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 138: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, pp. 229 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 139: Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ pp. 230 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 140: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, 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 Central
+Australia_, pp. 239-247.]
+
+[Footnote 144: Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ p. 248.]
+
+[Footnote 145: "On the other hand there is a great difference between
+the Wollunqua and any other totem, inasmuch as the particular animal is
+purely mythical, and except for the one great progenitor of the totemic
+group, 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 which
+the natives profess to have knowledge.]
+
+[Footnote 147: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, pp. 249 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 148: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, 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 Central
+Australia_, pp. 199-204.]
+
+[Footnote 153: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, pp. 179 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 154: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, 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 Central
+Australia_, p. 297.]
+
+[Footnote 159: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, p. 197.]
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE VI
+
+THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE OTHER ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA
+
+
+[Sidenote: Customs and beliefs concerning the dead in the other tribes
+of Australia.]
+
+In the last lecture I concluded my account of the beliefs and practices
+of the Central Australian aborigines in regard to the dead. To-day I
+propose to consider the customs and beliefs concerning the dead which
+prevail among the native tribes in other parts of Australia. But at the
+outset I must warn you that our information as to these other tribes is
+far less full and precise than that which we possess as to the tribes of
+the centre, which have had the great advantage of being observed and
+described by two highly qualified scientific observers, Messrs. Spencer
+and Gillen. Our knowledge of all other Australian tribes is
+comparatively fragmentary, and accordingly it is impossible to give even
+an approximately complete view of their notions concerning the state of
+the human spirit after death, and of the rites which they observe for
+the purpose of disarming or propitiating the souls of the departed. We
+must therefore content ourselves with more or less partial glimpses of
+this side of native religion.
+
+[Sidenote: Belief in the reincarnation of the dead among the natives of
+Queensland. The _ngai_ spirits.]
+
+The first question we naturally ask is whether the belief in the
+reincarnation of the dead, which prevails universally among the Central
+tribes, reappears among tribes in other parts of the continent. It
+certainly does so, and although the evidence on this subject is very
+imperfect it suffices to raise presumption that a similar belief in the
+rebirth or reincarnation of the dead was formerly universal among the
+Australian aborigines. Unquestionably the belief is entertained by some
+of the natives of Queensland, who have been described for us by Mr. W.
+E. Roth. Thus, for example, the aborigines on the Pennefather River
+think that every person's spirit undergoes a series of reincarnations,
+and that in the interval between two reincarnations the spirit resides
+in one or other of the haunts of Anjea, a mythical being who causes
+conception in women by putting mud babies into their bodies. Such spots,
+haunted by the fabulous being Anjea and by the souls of the dead
+awaiting rebirth, may be a tree, a rock, or a pool of water; they
+clearly correspond to the local totem centres (_oknanikilla_ among the
+Arunta, _mungai_ among the Warramunga) of the Central Australian tribes
+which I described in former lectures. The natives of the Pennefather
+River observe a ceremony at the birth of a child in order to ascertain
+the exact spot where its spirit tarried in the interval since its last
+incarnation; and when they have discovered it they speak of the child as
+obtained from a tree, a rock, or a pool of water, according to the place
+from which its spirit is supposed to have passed into its mother.[160]
+Readers of the classics can hardly fail to be reminded of the Homeric
+phrase to be "born of an oak or a rock,"[161] which seems to point to a
+similar belief in the possibility of human souls awaiting reincarnation
+in the boughs of an oak-tree or in the cleft of a rock. In the opinion
+of the Pennefather natives all disembodied human spirits or _choi_, as
+they call them, are mischief-makers and evildoers, for they make people
+sick or crazy; but the medicine-men can sometimes control them for good
+or evil. They wander about in the bush, but there are certain hollow
+trees or clumps of trees with wide-spreading branches, which they most
+love to haunt, and they can be heard in the rustling of the leaves or
+the crackling of the boughs at night. Anjea himself, who puts babies
+into women, is never seen, but you may hear him laughing in the depths
+of the forest, among the rocks, in the lagoons, and along the mangrove
+swamps; and when you hear his laugh you may be sure that he has got a
+baby.[162] If a native happens to hurt himself near a tree, he imagines
+that the spirit of some dead person is lurking among the branches, and
+he will never cut that tree down lest a worse thing should befall him at
+the hands of the vengeful ghost.[163] A curious feature in the beliefs
+of 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 within
+their 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 await
+reincarnation like his _choi_ spirit; on the contrary, it passes at once
+into his children, boys and girls alike; for before their father's death
+children are supposed not to possess a _ngai_ spirit; if a child dies
+before 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 at
+death; for example, when a person faints, the natives think that he does
+so because his _ngai_ spirit has departed from him, and they will stamp
+on the ground to make it return. On the other hand the _choi_ spirit is
+supposed never to quit a man during life; it is thought to be in some
+undefined way related to the shadow, whereas the _ngai_ spirit, as we
+saw, manifests itself in the beating of the heart. When a woman dies,
+her _ngai_ spirit goes not into her children but into her sisters, one
+after 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, of
+conscious and unconscious life, by a theory of a double human spirit,
+one associated with the heart and the other with the shadow. The
+psychology is rudimentary, still it is interesting as an attempt to
+solve 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 the
+heart but with the breath. For example, at Cape Bedford the natives call
+it _wau-wu_ and think that it never leaves the body sleeping or waking
+till death, when it haunts its place of burial for a time and may
+communicate with the living. Thus, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, it
+will often appear to a near kinsman or intimate friend, tell him the
+pitiful tale how he was done to death by an enemy, and urge him to
+revenge. Again, the soul of a man's dead father or friend may bear him
+company on a journey and, like the beryl-stone in Rossetti's poem _Rose
+Mary_, warn him of an ambuscade lurking for him in a spot where the man
+himself sees nothing. But the spirits of the dead do not always come
+with such friendly intent; they may drive the living distracted; a
+peculiar form of mental excitement and bewilderment is attributed to
+their action. Further, these aborigines at Cape Bedford, in Queensland,
+believe that all spirits of nature are in fact souls of the dead. Such
+spirits usually leave their haunts in the forests and caves at night.
+Stout-hearted old men can see and converse with them and receive from
+them warnings of danger; but women and children fear these spirits and
+never see them. But some spirits of the dead, when they have ceased to
+haunt their places of burial, go away eastward and are reincarnated in
+white people; hence these savages often look for a resemblance to some
+deceased tribesman among Europeans, and frequently wonder why it is that
+the white man, on whom their fancy has pitched, remembers nothing about
+his 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 of
+life both with the breath and with the shadow. It departs from the body
+temporarily in sleep and fainting-fits and permanently in death, after
+which it may be heard at night tapping on the top of huts or creaking in
+the branches of trees. It is everlasting, so far as these savages have
+any idea of eternity, and further it is intangible; hence in its
+disembodied state it needs no food, and none is set out for it. The
+disposition of these disembodied spirits of the dead is good or bad,
+according to their disposition in life. Yet when a man is alone by
+himself, the spirit even of one of his own dead kinsfolk will sometimes
+come and do him a mischief. On the other hand it can do nothing to
+several people together; there is safety in numbers. They may all see
+and hear the ghost, but he will not attack them. Hence these savages
+have been taught from childhood to beware of going alone: solitary
+people are liable at any moment to be assailed by the spirits of the
+dead. The only means they know of warding off these ghostly assailants
+is by lighting good fires.[166]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the Australian aborigines that their dead are
+reborn in white people.]
+
+I have mentioned the belief of the Cape Bedford natives that the spirits
+of their dead are sometimes reincarnated in white people. A similar
+notion is reported from other and widely separated parts of Australia,
+and wherever it exists may be taken as evidence of a general belief as
+to the rebirth or reincarnation of the dead, even where such a belief is
+not expressly recorded. This superstition has sometimes proved of
+service to white people who have been cast among the blacks, for it has
+ensured them a hospitable and even affectionate welcome, where otherwise
+they might have encountered suspicion and hostility, if not open
+violence. Thus, for example, the convict Buckley, who escaped from the
+penal settlement on Port Phillip Bay in 1803, was found by some of the
+Wudthaurung tribe carrying a piece of a broken spear, which he had
+abstracted from the grave of one of their people. So they took him to be
+the 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-two
+years without ever conversing with a white man; when at last he met one,
+he had forgotten the English language.[167] Again, a Mr. Naseby, who
+lived in the Kamilaroi country for fifty years, happened to have the
+marks of cupping on his back, and the natives could not be persuaded
+that he was not one of themselves come to life again with the family
+scars on his body,[168] for the Australian aborigines commonly raise
+scars on the bodies of young men at initiation. The late Sir George Grey
+was identified by an old Australian woman as her dead son come to life
+again. It may be worth while to quote his account of this unlooked-for
+meeting with his long-lost mother; for it will impress on you, better
+than any words of mine could do, the firmness of the faith which these
+savages repose in the resurrection of the body, or at all events in the
+reincarnation of the soul. Grey writes as follows:--
+
+[Sidenote: Experience of Sir George Grey.]
+
+"After we had tethered the horses, and made ourselves tolerably
+comfortable, we heard loud voices from the hills above us: the effect
+was fine,--for they really almost appeared to float in the air; and as
+the wild cries of the women, who knew not our exact position, came by
+upon the wind, I thought it was well worth a little trouble to hear
+these savage sounds under such circumstances. Our guides shouted in
+return, and gradually the approaching cries came nearer and nearer. I
+was, however, wholly unprepared for the scene that was about to take
+place. A sort of procession came up, headed by two women, down whose
+cheeks tears were streaming. The eldest of these came up to me, and
+looking for a moment at me, said,--'_Gwa, gwa, bundo, bal_,'--'Yes, yes,
+in truth it is him'; and then throwing her arms round me, cried
+bitterly, her head resting on my breast; and although I was totally
+ignorant of what their meaning was, from mere motives of compassion, I
+offered no resistance to her caresses, however disagreeable they might
+be, for she was old, ugly, and filthily dirty; the other younger one
+knelt at my feet, also crying. At last the old lady, emboldened by my
+submission, deliberately kissed me on each cheek, just in the manner a
+Frenchwoman would have done; she then cried a little more, and at length
+relieving me, assured me that I was the ghost of her son, who had some
+time before been killed by a spear-wound in his breast. The younger
+female was my sister; but she, whether from motives of delicacy, or from
+any imagined backwardness on my part, did not think proper to kiss me.
+My new mother expressed almost as much delight at my return to my
+family, as my real mother would have done, had I been unexpectedly
+restored to her. As soon as she left me, my brothers, and father (the
+old man who had previously been so frightened), came up and embraced me
+after their manner,--that is, they threw their arms round my waist,
+placed their right knee against my right knee, and their breast against
+my breast, holding me in this way for several minutes. During the time
+that the ceremony lasted, I, according to the native custom, preserved a
+grave and mournful expression of countenance. This belief, that white
+people are the souls of departed blacks, is by no means an uncommon
+superstition amongst them; they themselves never having an idea of
+quitting their own land, cannot imagine others doing it;--and thus, when
+they see white people suddenly appear in their country, and settling
+themselves down in particular spots, they imagine that they must have
+formed an attachment for this land in some other state of existence; and
+hence conclude the settlers were at one period black men and their own
+relations. Likenesses, whether real or imagined, complete the delusion;
+and from the manner of the old woman I have just alluded to, from her
+many tears, and from her warm caresses, I feel firmly convinced that she
+really believed I was her son, whose first thought, upon his return to
+earth, had been to re-visit his old mother, and bring her a
+present."[169]
+
+[Sidenote: In South-eastern Australia the natives believed that the
+souls 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 of
+the dead has not been confined to the tribes of Central Australia, but
+has been held by the tribes in many, perhaps at one time in all, other
+parts of the continent. Yet, if we may judge from the imperfect records
+which we possess, this faith in the return of the dead to life in human
+form would seem to have given way and been replaced to some extent by a
+different creed among many tribes of South-eastern Australia. In this
+part of the continent it appears to have been often held by the natives
+that after death the soul is not born again among men, but goes away for
+ever to some distant country either in the sky or beyond the sea, where
+all the spirits of the dead congregate. Thus Lieutenant-Colonel Collins,
+who was Governor of New South Wales in the early days of the colony, at
+the end of the eighteenth century, reports that when the natives were
+often questioned "as to what became of them after their decease, some
+answered that they went either on or beyond the great water; but by far
+the greater number signified, that they went to the clouds."[170] Again,
+the Narrinyeri tribe of South Australia believed that all the dead went
+up to the sky and that some of them at least became stars. We possess an
+excellent description of the beliefs and customs of this tribe from the
+pen of a missionary, the Rev. George Taplin, who lived among them for
+many years. His account of their theory of the state of the dead is
+instructive. It runs thus:--
+
+[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Narrinyeri concerning the dead.]
+
+"The Narrinyeri point out several stars, and say that they are deceased
+warriors who have gone to heaven (_Wyirrewarre_). There are Wyungare,
+and Nepalle, and the Manchingga, and several others. Every native
+expects to go to _Wyirrewarre_ after death. They also believe that the
+dead descend from thence, and walk the earth; and that they are able to
+injure those whom they dislike. Consequently, men who have been
+notorious in life for a domineering and revengeful disposition are very
+much dreaded after death. For instance, there is Karungpe, who comes in
+the dead of night, when the camp fire has burned low, and like a rushing
+wind scatters the dying embers, and then takes advantage of the darkness
+to rob some sleeper of life; and it is considered dangerous to whistle
+in the dark, for Karungpe is especially attracted by a whistle. There is
+another restless spirit--the deceased father of a boy whom I well
+know--who is said to rove about armed with a rope, with which he catches
+people. All the Narrinyeri, old and young, are dreadfully afraid of
+seeing ghosts, and none of them will venture into the scrub after dark,
+lest he should encounter the spirits which are supposed to roam there. I
+have heard some admirable specimens of ghost stories from them. In one
+case I remember the ghost was represented to have set fire to a _wurley_
+[hut], and ascended to heaven in the flame. The Narrinyeri regard the
+disapprobation of the spirits of the dead as a thing to be dreaded; and
+if a serious quarrel takes place between near relatives, some of the
+friends are sure to interpose with entreaties to the contentious parties
+to be reconciled, lest the spirits of the dead should be offended at
+unseemly disputes between those who ought to be at peace. The name of
+the dead must not be mentioned until his body has decayed, lest a want
+of sorrow should seem to be indicated by the common and flippant use of
+his name. A native would have the deceased believe that he cannot hear
+or 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 in
+the reincarnation of the dead; they suppose that the souls of the
+departed live up aloft in the sky, from which they descend at night in
+the form of ghosts to haunt and trouble the living. On the whole the
+attitude of the Narrinyeri towards their dead kinsfolk seems to be
+dominated by fear; of affection there is apparently little or no trace.
+It is true that like most Australian tribes they indulge in extravagant
+demonstrations of grief at the death of their kinsfolk. A great
+lamentation and wailing is made by all the relations and friends of the
+deceased. They cut off their hair close to the head and besmudge
+themselves with oil and pounded charcoal. The women besmear themselves
+with the most disgusting filth. All beat and cut themselves and make a
+violent show of sorrow; and all the time that the corpse, rubbed over
+with 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 the
+lamentation never ceases for days. Yet Mr. Taplin was persuaded "that
+fear has more to do with most of these exhibitions than grief"; and he
+tells us that "for one minute a woman will appear in the deepest agony
+of grief and tears; a few minutes after, the conventional amount of
+weeping having been accomplished, they will laugh and talk with the
+merriest."[172] The principal motive, in fact, for all this excessive
+display of sorrow would seem to be a fear lest the jealous ghost should
+think himself slighted and should avenge the slight on the cold-hearted
+relatives who do not mourn sufficiently for the irreparable loss they
+have sustained by his death. We may conjecture that the same train of
+thought explains the ancient and widespread custom of hiring
+professional mourners to wail over the dead; the tears and lamentations
+of his kinsfolk are not enough to soothe the wounded feelings of the
+departed, 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 violent
+demonstrations of grief, into the secret of which we are let by Mr.
+Taplin. He says that "all the relatives are careful to be present and
+not to be wanting in the proper signs of sorrow, lest they should be
+suspected of complicity in causing the death."[173] In fact the
+Narrinyeri, like many other savages, attribute all, or most, natural
+deaths to sorcery. When a person dies, they think that he or she has
+been killed by the evil magic of some ill-wisher, and one of the first
+things to be done is to discover the culprit in order that his life may
+be taken in revenge. For this purpose the Narrinyeri resort to a form of
+divination. On the first night after the death the nearest relation of
+the deceased sleeps with his head on the corpse, hoping thus to dream of
+the sorcerer who has done the mischief. Next day the corpse is placed on
+a sort of bier supported on men's shoulders. The friends of the deceased
+gather round and call out the names of suspected persons to see whether
+the corpse will give any sign. At last the next of kin calls out the
+name of the person of whom he has dreamed, and if at the sound the
+corpse makes a movement towards him, which the bearers say they cannot
+resist, it is regarded as a clear token that the man so named is the
+malefactor. It only remains for the kinsfolk of the dead to hunt down
+the culprit and kill him.[174] Thus not only the relations but everybody
+in the neighbourhood has the strongest motive for assuming at least an
+appearance of sorrow at a death, lest the suspicion of having caused it
+by sorcery should fall upon him.
+
+[Sidenote: Pretence made by the Narrinyeri of avenging the death of
+their friends on the guilty sorcerer.]
+
+It deserves to be noted, that while the Narrinyeri nominally
+acknowledged the duty of killing the sorcerer who in their opinion had
+caused the death of their friend, they by no means always discharged the
+duty, but sometimes contented themselves with little more than a
+pretence of revenge. Mr. Taplin's account of the proceedings observed on
+such an occasion is instructive. It runs thus: "The spirit of the dead
+is not considered to have been appeased until his relatives have avenged
+his death. They will kill the sorcerer who has caused it if they can
+catch him; but generally they cannot catch him, and often do not wish
+it. Most probably he belongs to some other tribe of the Narrinyeri.
+Messengers pass between the tribes relative to the affair, and the
+friends of the accused person at last formally curse the dead man and
+all his dead relatives. This constitutes a _casus belli_. Arrangements
+are forthwith made for a pitched battle, and the two tribes meet in
+company with their respective allies. The tribe to which the dead man
+belongs weep and make a great lamentation for him, and the opposing
+tribe sets some fellows to dance about and play antics in derision of
+their enemies. Then the whole tribe will set up a great laugh by way of
+further provocation. If there is any other cause of animosity between
+the tribes besides the matter of avenging the dead there will now be a
+pretty severe fight with spears. If, however, the tribes have nothing
+but 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 get
+slightly wounded, and then some of the old men will declare that enough
+has been done. The dead man is considered to have been appeased by the
+efforts of his friends to avenge his death by fighting, and the two
+tribes are friendly again. In such a case the fight is a mere
+ceremony."[175] Thus among the Narrinyeri the duty of blood revenge was
+often supposed to be sufficiently discharged by a sham fight performed
+apparently for the satisfaction of the ghost, who was supposed to be
+looking on and to be gratified by the sight of his friends hurling
+spears at the author of his death. Merciful pretences of the same sort
+have been practised by other savages in order to satisfy the vengeful
+ghost without the effusion of blood. Examples of them will come before
+us later on.[176]
+
+[Sidenote: Magical virtue ascribed to the hair of the dead.]
+
+However, the attitude of the Narrinyeri towards their dead was not
+purely one of fear and aversion. They imagined that they could derive
+certain benefits from their departed kinsfolk, and the channel through
+which these benefits flowed was furnished by their hair. They cut off
+the hair of the dead and spun it into a cord, and this cord was commonly
+worn by the men as a head-band. They said that thereby they "smelled the
+dead," and that the smell made their eyes large and their sight keen, so
+that in a fight they could see the spears coming and could parry or
+avoid them.[177] Similar magical virtues are ascribed to the hair of the
+dead by the Arunta. Among them the hair of a dead man is cut off and
+made into a magic girdle, which is a valued possession and is only worn
+when a man is going out to engage in a tribal fight or to stalk a foe
+for the purpose of destroying him by witchcraft. The girdle is supposed
+to be endowed with magic power and to impart to its possessor all the
+warlike qualities of the dead man from whose hair it was made; in
+particular, it is thought to ensure accuracy of aim in the wearer, while
+at the same time it destroys that of his adversary.[178] Hence the
+girdle is worn by the man who takes the lead in avenging the death of
+the deceased on his supposed murderer; the mere sight of it, they think,
+so terrifies the victim that his legs tremble under him, he becomes
+incapable 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 not
+alone in holding the curious belief that the souls of the dead go up
+into the sky to live there for ever, but that their ghosts come down
+again from time to time, roam about their old haunts on earth, and
+communicate with the living. This, for example, was the belief of the
+Dieri, the Buandik, the Kurnai, and the Kulin tribes.[180] The Buandik
+thought that everything in skyland was better than on earth; a fat
+kangaroo, for example, was compared to a kangaroo of heaven, where, of
+course, the animals might be expected to abound.[181] The Kulin imagined
+that the spirits of the dead ascended to heaven by the bright rays of
+the setting sun.[182] The Wailwun natives in New South Wales used to
+bury their dead in hollow trees, and when they dropped the body into its
+place, the bearers and the bystanders joined in a loud whirring sound,
+like the rush of the wind. They said that this represented the upward
+flight 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-eastern
+Australia believe that they can be seen by the living, can partake of
+food, and can warm themselves at a fire. It is especially the graves,
+where their mouldering bodies are deposited, that these restless spirits
+are supposed to haunt; it is there that they shew themselves either to
+people generally or to such as have the second sight.[184] But it is
+most commonly in dreams that they appear to the living and hold
+communication with them. Often these communications are believed to be
+helpful. Thus the tribes of the Wotjobaluk nation thought that the
+ghosts of their dead relations could visit them in sleep to protect
+them. A Mukjarawaint man told Dr. Howitt that his father came to him in
+a dream and warned him to beware or he would be killed. This, the man
+believed, was the saving of his life; for he afterwards came to the
+place which he had seen in his dream; whereupon, instead of going on, he
+turned back, so that his enemies, who might have been waiting for him
+there, did not catch him.[185] Another man informed Dr. Howitt that his
+dead uncle appeared to him in sleep and taught him charms against
+sickness and other evils; and the Chepara tribe similarly believed that
+male ancestors visited sleepers and imparted to them charms to avert
+evil magic.[186]
+
+[Sidenote: Savage faith in the truth of dreams. Association of the stars
+with the souls of the dead.]
+
+Such notions follow naturally from the savage theory of dreams. Almost
+all savages appear to believe firmly in the truth of dreams; they fail
+to draw the distinction, which to us seems obvious, between the
+imaginary creations of the mind in sleep and the waking realities of the
+physical world. Whatever they dream of must, they think, be actually
+existing; for have they not seen it with their own eyes? To argue that
+the visions of sleep have no real existence is, therefore, in their
+opinion, to argue against the plain evidence of their senses; and they
+naturally treat such exaggerated scepticism with incredulity and
+contempt. Hence when they dream of their dead friends and relations they
+necessarily conclude that these persons are still alive somewhere and
+somehow, though they do not commonly appear by daylight to people in
+their waking hours. Unquestionably this savage faith in the reality of
+dreams has been one of the principal sources of the widespread, almost
+universal, belief in the survival of the human soul after death. It
+explains 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 it
+may also partly account for the association of the stars with the souls
+of the dead. For if the dead appear to the living mainly in the hours of
+darkness, it seems not unnatural to imagine that the bright points of
+light which then bespangle the canopy of heaven are either the souls of
+the departed or fires kindled by them in their home aloft. For example,
+the Central Australian aborigines commonly suppose the stars to be the
+camp-fires of natives who live on the banks of the great river which we
+civilised men, by a survival of primitive mythology, call the Milky Way.
+However, these rude savages, we are told, as a general rule "appear to
+pay very little attention to the stars in detail, probably because they
+enter very little into anything which is connected with their daily
+life, and more especially with their food supply."[187] The same
+observation which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen here make as to the natives
+of Central Australia might be applied to most savages who have remained
+in the purely hunting stage of social development. Such men are not much
+addicted to star-gazing, since the stars have little or nothing to tell
+them that they wish to know. It is not till people have betaken
+themselves to sowing and reaping crops that they begin to scan the
+heavens more carefully in order to determine the season of sowing by
+observation of the great celestial time-keepers, the rising and setting
+of 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 the
+dead, we may say of the natives of the south-eastern part of the
+continent, in the words of Dr. Howitt, that "there is a universal belief
+in the existence of the human spirit after death, as a ghost, which is
+able to communicate with the living when they sleep. It finds its way to
+the sky-country, where it lives in a land like the earth, only more
+fertile, better watered, and plentifully supplied with game."[189] This
+belief is very different from that of the Central Australian natives,
+who think that the souls of the dead tarry on earth in their old
+familiar haunts until the time comes for them to be born again into the
+world. Of the two different creeds that of the south-eastern tribes may
+be regarded as the more advanced, since it admits that the dead do not
+return to life, and that their disembodied spirits do not haunt
+perpetually a multitude of spiritual parks or reservations dotted over
+the face of the country.
+
+[Sidenote: The creed seems to form part of a general advance of culture
+in this part of the continent.]
+
+But how are we to account for this marked difference of belief between
+the natives of the Centre and the natives of the South-east? Perhaps the
+most probable explanation is that the creed of the south-eastern tribes
+in this respect is part of a general advance of culture brought about by
+the more favourable natural conditions under which they live as compared
+with the forlorn state of the rude inhabitants of the Central deserts.
+That advance of culture manifests itself in a variety of ways. On the
+material side it is seen in more substantial and permanent dwellings and
+in warmer and better clothing. On the social side it is seen in an
+incipient tendency to the rise of a regular chieftainship, a thing which
+is quite unknown among the democratic or rather oligarchic savages of
+the Centre, who are mainly governed by the old men in council.[190] But
+the rise of chieftainship is a great step in political progress; since a
+monarchical government of some sort appears to be essential to the
+emergence of mankind from savagery. On the whole, then, the beliefs of
+the South-eastern Australian aborigines seem to mark a step on the
+upward 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 been
+influenced by the lessons which they have learned from white settlers
+with 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 the
+old bottles of Australia did not escape the experienced Mr. James
+Dawson, an early settler in Victoria, who has given us a valuable
+account of the natives of that region in the old days when they were
+still comparatively little contaminated by intercourse with the whites.
+He describes as follows the views which prevailed as to the dead among
+the tribes of Western Victoria:--"After the disposal of the body of a
+good person, its shade walks about for three days; and although it
+appears to people, it holds no communication with them. Should it be
+seen and named by anyone during these three days, it instantly
+disappears. At the expiry of three days it goes off to a beautiful
+country above the clouds, abounding with kangaroo and other game, where
+life will be enjoyed for ever. Friends will meet and recognize each
+other there; but there will be no marrying, as the bodies have been left
+on earth. Children under four or five years have no souls and no future
+life. The shades of the wicked wander miserably about the earth for one
+year 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 possibly
+have originated with the white man, and been transmitted from Sydney by
+one tribe to another."[191] The probability of white influence on this
+particular doctrine of religion is increased by the frank confession
+which these same natives made of the religious deterioration (as they
+regarded it) which they had suffered in another direction through the
+teaching 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 kindly
+disposition, and harms no one, he is seldom mentioned, but always with
+respect. His voice, the thunder, is listened to with pleasure, as it
+does good to man and beast, by bringing rain, and making grass and roots
+grow for their benefit. But the aborigines say that the missionaries and
+government protectors have given them a dread of Pirnmeheeal; and they
+are sorry that the young people, and many of the old, are now afraid of
+a being who never did any harm to their forefathers."[192]
+
+[Sidenote: Vagueness and inconsistency of native beliefs as to the state
+of the dead. Custom or ritual as the interpreter of belief.]
+
+However, it is very difficult to ascertain the exact beliefs of savages
+as to the dead. The thought of the savage is apt to be vague and
+inconsistent; he neither represents his ideas clearly to his own mind
+nor 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 and
+unstable, liable to shift and change under alien influence. For these
+and other reasons, such as the distrust of strangers and the difficulty
+of language, which often interposes a formidable barrier between savage
+man and the civilised enquirer, the domain of primitive beliefs is beset
+by so many snares and pitfalls that we might almost despair of arriving
+at the truth, were it not that we possess a clue to guide us on the dark
+and slippery way. That clue is action. While it is generally very
+difficult to ascertain what any man thinks, it is comparatively easy to
+ascertain what he does; and what a man does, not what he says, is the
+surest touchstone to his real belief. Hence when we attempt to study the
+religion of backward races, the ritual which they practise is generally
+a safer indication of their actual creed than the loudest profession of
+faith. In regard to the state of the human soul after death the beliefs
+of the Australian aborigines are clearly reflected in many of the
+customs which they observe at the death and burial of their friends and
+enemies, and it is accordingly with an account of some of these customs
+that I propose to conclude this part of my subject.
+
+[Sidenote: Burial customs of the Australian aborigines as evidence of
+their beliefs concerning the state of the soul after death. Food placed
+on 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 reveal
+in the clearest manner their belief that the human soul survives the
+death of the body, that in its disembodied state it retains
+consciousness and feeling, and can do a mischief to the living; in
+short, they shew that in the opinion of these people the departed live
+in the form of dangerous ghosts. Thus, for example, when the deceased is
+a 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 warm
+himself at it. If the food remains untouched on the grave, they think
+that the dead is not hungry.[193] The Blanch-water section of that tribe
+fear the spirits of the dead and accordingly take steps to prevent their
+resurrection. For that purpose they tie the toes of the corpse together
+and the thumbs behind the back, which must obviously make it difficult
+for the dead man to arise in his might and pursue them. Moreover, for a
+month after the death they sweep a clear space round the grave at dusk
+every evening, and inspect it every morning. If they find any tracks on
+it, they assume that they have been made by the restless ghost in his
+nocturnal peregrinations, and accordingly they dig up his mouldering
+remains and bury them in some other place, where they hope he will sleep
+sounder.[194] The Kukata tribe think that the ghost may be thirsty, so
+they obligingly leave a drinking vessel on the grave, that he may slake
+his thirst. Also they deposit spears and other weapons on the spot,
+together with a digging-stick, which is specially intended to ward off
+evil spirits who may be on the prowl.[195] The ghosts of the natives on
+the Maranoa river were also thirsty souls, so vessels full of water were
+sometimes suspended for their use over the grave.[196] A custom of
+lighting a fire on the grave to warm the poor shivering ghost seems to
+have been not uncommon among the aboriginal Australians. The Western
+Victorians, for example, kept up large fires all night for this
+purpose.[197] In the Wiimbaio tribe two fires were kept burning for a
+whole month on the grave, one to the right and the other to the left, in
+order that the ghost might come out and warm himself at them in the
+chill night air. If they found tracks near the grave, they inferred,
+like the Dieri, that the perturbed spirit had quitted his narrow bed to
+pace to and fro in the long hours of darkness; but if no footprints were
+visible they thought that he slept in peace.[198] In some parts of
+Western Australia the natives maintained fires on the grave for more
+than a month for the convenience of the ghost; and they clearly expected
+him to come to life again, for they detached the nails from the thumb
+and forefinger of the corpse and deposited them in a small hole beside
+the grave, in order that they might know their friend at his
+resurrection.[199] The length of time during which fires were maintained
+or kindled daily on the grave is said to have varied, according to the
+estimation in which the man was held, from a few days to three or four
+years.[200] We have seen that the Dieri laid food on the grave for the
+hungry ghost to partake of, and the same custom was observed by the
+Gournditch-mara tribe.[201] However, some intelligent old aborigines of
+Western 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 to
+deposit the scanty property of the deceased, usually consisting of a few
+rude weapons or implements, on the grave or to bury it with him. Thus
+the natives of Western Victoria buried all a dead man's ornaments,
+weapons, and property with him in the grave, only reserving his stone
+axes, which were too valuable to be thus sacrificed: these were
+inherited by the next of kin.[203] The Wurunjerri also interred the
+personal property of the dead with him; if the deceased was a man, his
+spear-thrower was stuck in the ground at the head of the grave; if the
+deceased was a woman, the same thing was done with her digging-stick.
+That these implements were intended for the use of the ghost and not
+merely as headstones to mark the situation of the tomb and the sex of
+the departed, is clear from a significant exception to the custom. When
+the departed brother was a man of violent temper, who had been
+quarrelsome 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 and
+assault people with them.[204] Similarly the Turrbal tribe, who
+deposited their dead in the forks of trees, used to leave a spear and
+club near the corpse "that the spirit of the dead might have weapons
+wherewith to kill game for his sustenance in the future state. A
+yam-stick was placed in the ground at a woman's grave, so that she might
+go away at night and seek for roots."[205] The Wolgal tribe were very
+particular about burying everything that belonged to a dead man with
+him; spears and nets, though valuable articles of property, were thus
+sacrificed; even a canoe has been known to be cut up in order that the
+pieces of it might be deposited in the grave. In fact "everything
+belonging to a dead man was put out of sight."[206] Similarly in the
+Geawe-gal tribe all the implements and inanimate property of a warrior
+were interred with him.[207] In the Gringai country not only was all a
+man's property buried with him, but every native present at the burial
+contributed something, and these contributions were piled together at
+the head of the corpse before the grave was filled in.[208] Among the
+tribes of Southern Victoria, when the grave has been dug and lined with
+fresh leaves and twigs so as to make a soft bed, the dead man's property
+is brought in two bags, and the sorcerer shakes out the contents. They
+consist of such small articles as pieces of hard stone suitable for
+cutting or paring skins, bones for boring holes, twine made of opossum
+wool, and so forth. These are placed in the grave, and the bags and rugs
+of the deceased are torn up and thrown in likewise. Then the sorcerer
+asks whether the dead man had any other property, and if he had, it is
+brought forward and laid beside the torn fragments of the bags and rugs.
+Everything that a man owned in life must be laid beside him in
+death.[209] Again, among the tribes of the Lower Murray, Lachlan, and
+Darling rivers in New South Wales, all a dead man's property, including
+his weapons and nets, was buried with his body in the grave.[210]
+Further, we are told that among the natives of Western Australia the
+weapons and personal property of the deceased are placed on the grave,
+"so that when he rises from the dead they may be ready to his
+hand."[211] In the Boulia district of Queensland the things which
+belonged to a dead man, such as his boomerangs and spears, are either
+buried with him, destroyed by fire, or sometimes, though rarely,
+distributed among his tribal brothers, but never among his
+children.[212]
+
+[Sidenote: Intention of destroying the property of the dead. The
+property of the dead not destroyed in Central Australia.]
+
+Thus among certain tribes of Australia, especially in the south-eastern
+part of the continent, it appears that the custom of burying or
+destroying a dead man's property has been very common. That the
+intention of the custom in some cases is to supply the supposed needs of
+the ghost, seems to be fairly certain; but we may doubt whether this
+explanation would apply to the practice of burning or otherwise
+destroying the things which had belonged to the deceased. More probably
+such destruction springs from an overpowering dread of the ghost and a
+wish to sever all connexion with him, so that he may have no excuse for
+returning and haunting the survivors, as he might do if his property
+were either kept by them or deposited in the grave. Whatever the motive
+for the burial or destruction of a dead man's property may be, the
+custom appears not to prevail among the tribes of Central Australia. In
+the eastern Arunta tribe, indeed, it is said that sometimes a little
+wooden vessel used in camp for holding small objects may be buried with
+the man, but this is the only instance which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
+could hear of in which any article of ordinary use is buried in the
+grave. Far from wasting property in that way, these economical savages
+preserve even a man's personal ornaments, such as his necklaces,
+armlets, and the fur string which he wore round his head; indeed, as we
+have seen, they go so far as to cut off the hair from the head of the
+deceased and to keep it for magical uses.[213] In the Warramunga tribe
+all the belongings of a dead man go to the tribal brothers of his
+mother.[214]
+
+[Sidenote: Property of the dead hung up on trees, then washed and
+distributed. Economic loss entailed by sacrifices to the dead.]
+
+The difference in this respect between the practice of the Central
+tribes and that of the tribes nearer the sea, especially in Victoria and
+New South Wales, is very notable. A custom intermediate between the two
+is observed by some tribes of the Darling River, who hang up the
+weapons, nets, and other property of the deceased on trees for about two
+months, then wash them, and distribute them among the relations.[215]
+The reason for hanging the things up and washing them is no doubt to rid
+them of the infection of death in order that they may be used with
+safety by the survivors. Such a custom points clearly to a growing fear
+of the dead; and that fear or reverence comes out still more clearly in
+the practice of either burying the property of the dead with them or
+destroying it altogether, which is observed by the aborigines of
+Victoria and other parts of Australia who live under more favourable
+conditions of life than the inhabitants of the Central deserts. This
+confirms the conclusion which we have reached on other grounds, that
+among the aboriginal population of Australia favourable natural
+conditions in respect of climate, food, and water have exercised a most
+important influence in stimulating social progress in many directions,
+and not least in the direction of religion. At the same time, while we
+recognise that the incipient tendency to a worship of the dead which may
+be detected in these regions marks a step forward in religious
+development, we must acknowledge that the practice of burying or
+destroying the property of the dead, which is one of the ways in which
+the tendency manifests itself, is, regarded from the side of economic
+progress, a decided step backward. It marks, in fact, the beginning of a
+melancholy aberration of the human mind, which has led mankind to
+sacrifice the real interests of the living to the imaginary interests of
+the dead. With the general advance of society and the accompanying
+accumulation of property these sacrifices have at certain stages of
+evolution become heavier and heavier, as the demands of the ghosts
+became more and more exacting. The economic waste which the belief in
+the immortality of the soul has entailed on the world is incalculable.
+When we contemplate that waste in its small beginnings among the rude
+savages of Australia it appears insignificant enough; the world is not
+much the poorer for the loss of a parcel of boomerangs, spears, fur
+string, and skin rugs. But when we pass from the custom in this its
+feeble source and follow it as it swells in volume through the nations
+of the world till it attains the dimensions of a mighty river of wasted
+labour, squandered treasure, and spilt blood, we cannot but wonder at
+the strange mixture of good and evil in the affairs of mankind, seeing
+in what we justly call progress so much hardly earned gain side by side
+with so much gratuitous loss, such immense additions to the substantial
+value of life to be set off against such enormous sacrifices to the
+shadow of a shade.
+
+[Footnote 160: W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No.
+5, Superstition, Magic, and Medicine_ (Brisbane, 1903), pp. 18, 23,
+Secs. 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. Sec. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 164: W. E. Roth. _op. cit._ p. 18, Sec. 68.]
+
+[Footnote 165: W. E. Roth, _op. cit._ pp. 17, 29, Secs. 65, 116.]
+
+[Footnote 166: W. E. Roth, _op. cit._ p. 17, Sec. 65.]
+
+[Footnote 167: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_ (Melbourne, Sydney,
+and Adelaide, 1881), pp. 110 _sq._; A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of
+South-East Australia_ (London, 1904), p. 442.]
+
+[Footnote 168: A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 445.]
+
+[Footnote 169: (Sir) George Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions of
+Discovery in North-West and Western Australia_ (London, 1841), i.
+301-303.]
+
+[Footnote 170: Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins, _An Account of the
+English Colony in New South Wales_, Second Edition (London, 1804), p.
+354.]
+
+[Footnote 171: Rev. G. Taplin, "The Narrinyeri," in _Native Tribes of
+South 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 Central
+Australia_, 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 of
+Discovery 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 Central
+Australia_, p. 628.]
+
+[Footnote 188: As to the place occupied by the Pleiades in primitive
+calendars, 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 the
+Ta-ta-thi tribe in New South Wales informed Mr. A. L. P. Cameron that
+the natives believed in a pit of fire where bad men were roasted after
+death. This reported belief, resting apparently on the testimony of a
+single informant, may without doubt be ascribed to the influence of
+Christian teaching. See A. L. P. Cameron, "Notes on some Tribes of New
+South 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 remains
+of the dead is to prevent the deceased from escaping from the tomb and
+frightening 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, _Memoires historiques sur l' Australie_
+(Paris, 1854), p. 261; _Missions Catholiques_, x. (1878) p. 247. For
+more 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," _Transactions
+of 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 Great
+Lacustrine and Riverine Depression of the Lower Murray, Lower
+Murrumbidgee, Lower Lachlan, and Lower Darling," _Journal and
+Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales_, xvii. (1883) p.
+29.]
+
+[Footnote 211: A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Australia," _Transactions
+of the Ethnological Society of London_, New Series, iii. (1865) p. 245.]
+
+[Footnote 212: W. E. Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the
+North-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 Central
+Australia_, p. 524.]
+
+[Footnote 215: F. Bonney, "On some Customs of the Aborigines of the
+River Darling, New South Wales," _Journal of the Anthropological
+Institute_, 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 graves
+for 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 Central
+deserts, we may detect the germs of a worship of the dead in certain
+attentions which the living pay to the spirits of the departed, for
+example 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 depositing
+his weapons and other property in the tomb for his use in the life after
+death. Another mark of respect shewn to the dead is the custom of
+erecting a hut on the grave for the accommodation of the ghost. Thus
+among the tribes of South Australia we are told that "upon the mounds,
+or tumuli, over the graves, huts of bark, or boughs, are generally
+erected to shelter the dead from the rain; they are also frequently
+wound round with netting."[216] Again, in Western Australia a small hut
+of rushes, grass, and so forth is said to have been set up by the
+natives over the grave.[217] Among the tribes of the Lower Murray, Lower
+Lachlan, and Lower Darling rivers, when a person died who had been
+highly esteemed in life, a neat hut was erected over his grave so as to
+cover it entirely. The hut was of oval shape, about five feet high, and
+roofed with thatch, which was firmly tied to the framework by cord many
+hundreds of yards in length. Sometimes the whole hut was enveloped in a
+net. At the eastern end of the hut a small opening was left just large
+enough to allow a full-grown man to creep in, and the floor was covered
+with grass, which was renewed from time to time as it became withered.
+Each of these graves was enclosed by a fence of brushwood forming a
+diamond-shaped enclosure, within which the tomb stood exactly in the
+middle. All the grass within the fence was neatly shaved off and the
+ground swept quite clean. Sepulchres of this sort were kept up for two
+or 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 were
+forgotten.[218] The intention of erecting huts on graves is not
+mentioned in these cases, but on analogy we may conjecture that they are
+intended for the convenience and comfort of the ghost. This is confirmed
+by an account given of a native burial on the Vasse River in Western
+Australia. We are told that when the grave had been filled in, the
+natives piled logs on it to a considerable height and then constructed a
+hut upon the logs, after which one of the male relations went into the
+hut and said, "I sit in his house."[219] Thus it would seem that the hut
+on the grave is regarded as the house of the dead man. If only these
+sepulchral huts were kept up permanently, they might develop into
+something like temples, in which the spirits of the departed might be
+invoked and propitiated with prayer and sacrifice. It is thus that the
+great round huts, in which the remains of dead kings of Uganda are
+deposited, have grown into sanctuaries or shrines, where the spirits of
+the deceased monarchs are consulted as oracles through the medium of
+priests.[220] But in Australia this development is prevented by the
+simple forgetfulness of the savages. A few years suffice with them to
+wipe out the memory of the deceased and with it his chance of developing
+into an ancestral deity. Like most savages, the Australian aborigines
+seem to fear only the ghosts of the recently departed; one writer tells
+us that they have no fear of the ghost of a man who has been dead say
+forty years.[221]
+
+[Sidenote: Fear of the dead and precautions taken by the living against
+them.]
+
+The burial customs of the Australian aborigines which I have described
+betray not only a belief in the existence of the ghost, but also a
+certain regard for his comfort and convenience. However, we may suspect
+that in most, if not in all, cases the predominant motive of these
+attentions is fear rather than affection. The survivors imagine that any
+want of respect for the dead, any neglect of his personal comforts in
+the grave, would excite his resentment and draw down on them his
+vengeance. That these savages are really actuated by fear of the dead is
+expressly affirmed of some tribes. Thus we are told that the Yuin "were
+always afraid that the dead man might come out of the grave and follow
+them."[222] After burying a body the Ngarigo were wont to cross a river
+in order to prevent the ghost from pursuing them;[223] obviously they
+shared the common opinion that ghosts for some reason are unable to
+cross water. The Wakelbura took other measures to throw the poor ghost
+off the scent. They marked all the trees in a circle round the place
+where the dead man was buried; so that when he emerged from the grave
+and set off in pursuit of his retiring relations, he would follow the
+marks on the trees in a circle and always come back to the point from
+which he had started. And to make assurance doubly sure they put coals
+in the dead man's ears, which, by bunging up these apertures, were
+supposed to keep his ghost in the body till his friends had got a good
+start away from him. As a further precaution they lit fires and put
+bushes in the forks of trees, with the idea that the ghost would roost
+in the bushes and warm himself at the fires, while they were hastening
+away.[224] Here, therefore, we see that the real motive for kindling
+fires for the use of the dead is fear, not affection. In this respect
+the burial customs of the tribes at the Herbert River are still more
+significant. These savages buried with the dead man his weapons, his
+ornaments, and indeed everything he had used in life; moreover, they
+built a hut on the grave, put a drinking-vessel in the hut, and cleared
+a path from it down to the water for the use of the ghost; and often
+they placed food and water on the grave. So far, these measures might be
+interpreted as marks of pure and disinterested affection for the soul of
+the departed. But such an interpretation is totally excluded by the
+ferocious treatment which these savages meted out to the corpse. To
+frighten the spirit, lest he should haunt the camp, the father or
+brother of the deceased, or the husband, if it was a woman, took a club
+and mauled the body with such violence that he often smashed the bones;
+further, he generally broke both its legs in order to prevent it from
+wandering of nights; and as if that were not enough, he bored holes in
+the stomach, the shoulders, and the lungs, and filled the holes with
+stones, so that even if the poor ghost should succeed by a desperate
+effort in dragging his mangled body out of the grave, he would be so
+weighed 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 time
+in their old haunts, the spirits were supposed at last to go up aloft to
+the Milky Way.[225] The Kwearriburra tribe, on the Lynd River, in
+Queensland, also took forcible measures to prevent the resurrection of
+the dead. Whenever a person died, they cut off his or her head, roasted
+it in a fire on the grave, and when it was thoroughly charred they
+smashed it in bits and left the fragments among the hot coals. They
+calculated that when the ghost rose from the grave with the view of
+following the tribe, he would miss his head and go groping blindly about
+for it till he scorched himself in the embers of the fire and was glad
+to shrink back into his narrow bed.[226]
+
+Thus even among those Australian tribes which have progressed furthest
+in the direction of religion, such approaches as they have made towards
+a worship of the dead appear to be determined far more by fear than by
+affection and reverence. And we are told that it is the nearest
+relations and the most influential men whose ghosts are most
+dreaded.[227]
+
+[Sidenote: Cuttings and brandings of the flesh of the living in honour
+of the dead.]
+
+There is another custom observed by the Australian aborigines in
+mourning which deserves to be mentioned. We all know that the Israelites
+were forbidden to make cuttings in their flesh for the dead.[228] The
+custom was probably practised by the heathen Canaanites, as it has been
+by savages in various parts of the world. Nowhere, perhaps, has the
+practice prevailed more generally or been carried out with greater
+severity than in aboriginal Australia. For example, with regard to the
+tribes in the central part of Victoria we are told that "the parents of
+the deceased lacerate themselves fearfully, especially if it be an only
+son whose loss they deplore. The father beats and cuts his head with a
+tomahawk until he utters bitter groans. The mother sits by the fire and
+burns her breasts and abdomen with a small fire-stick till she wails
+with pain; then she replaces the stick in the fire, to use again when
+the pain is less severe. This continues for hours daily, until the time
+of lamentation is completed; sometimes the burns thus inflicted are so
+severe as to cause death."[229] It is especially the women, and above
+all the widows, who torture themselves in this way. Speaking of the
+tribes of Victoria, a writer tells us that on the death of her husband a
+widow, "becoming frantic, seizes fire-sticks and burns her breasts,
+arms, legs, and thighs. Rushing from one place to another, and intent
+only on injuring herself, and seeming to delight in the self-inflicted
+torture, it would be rash and vain to interrupt her. She would fiercely
+turn on her nearest relative or friend and burn him with her brands.
+When exhausted, and when she can scarcely walk, she yet endeavours to
+kick the embers of the fire, and to throw them about. Sitting down, she
+takes the ashes in her hands, rubs them into her wounds, and then
+scratches her face (the only part not touched by the fire-sticks) until
+the blood mingles with the ashes which partly hide her cruel
+wounds."[230] Among the Kurnai of South-eastern Victoria the relations
+of the dead would cut and gash themselves with sharp stones and
+tomahawks until their heads and bodies streamed with blood.[231] In the
+Mukjarawaint tribe, when a man died, his kinsfolk wept over him and
+slashed themselves with tomahawks and other sharp instruments for about
+a week.[232] In the tribes of the Lower Murray and Lower Darling rivers
+mourners scored their backs and arms, sometimes even their faces, with
+red-hot brands, which raised hideous ulcers; afterwards they flung
+themselves prone on the grave, tore out their hair by handfuls, rubbed
+earth over their heads and bodies in great profusion, and ripped up
+their green ulcers till the mingled blood and grime presented a ghastly
+spectacle. These self-inflicted sores remained long unhealed.[233] Among
+the Kamilaroi, a large tribe of eastern New South Wales, the mourners,
+and especially the women, used to cut their heads with tomahawks and
+allow the blood to dry on them.[234] Speaking of a native burial on the
+Murray River, a writer says that "around the bier were many women,
+relations of the deceased, wailing and lamenting bitterly, and
+lacerating their thighs, backs, and breasts, with shells or flint, until
+the blood flowed copiously from the gashes."[235] In the Boulia district
+of Queensland women in mourning score their thighs, both inside and
+outside, with sharp stones or bits of glass, so as to make a series of
+parallel cuts; in neighbouring districts of Queensland the men make much
+deeper cross-shaped cuts on their thighs.[236] In the Arunta tribe of
+Central Australia a man is bound to cut himself on the shoulder in
+mourning for his father-in-law; if he does not do so, his wife may be
+given away to another man in order to appease the wrath of the ghost at
+his undutiful son-in-law. Arunta men regularly bear on their shoulders
+the raised scars which shew that they have done their duty by their dead
+fathers-in-law.[237] The female relations of a dead man in the Arunta
+tribe also cut and hack themselves in token of sorrow, working
+themselves up into a sort of frenzy as they do so; yet in all their
+apparent excitement they take care never to wound a vital part, but vent
+their 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 Gillen
+witnessed the mourning for a dead man. Even before the sufferer had
+breathed his last the lamentations and self-inflicted wounds began. When
+it was known that the end was near, all the native men ran at full speed
+to the spot, and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen followed them to see what
+was to be seen. What they saw, or part of what they saw, was this. Some
+of the women, who had gathered from all directions, were lying prostrate
+on the body of the dying man, while others were standing or kneeling
+around, digging the sharp ends of yam-sticks into the crown of their
+heads, from which the blood streamed down over their faces, while all
+the time they kept up a loud continuous wail. Many of the men, rushing
+up to the scene of action, flung themselves also higgledy-piggledy on
+the sufferer, the women rising and making way for them, till nothing was
+to be seen but a struggling mass of naked bodies all mixed up together.
+Presently up came a man yelling and brandishing a stone knife. On
+reaching the spot he suddenly gashed both his thighs with the knife,
+cutting right across the muscles, so that, unable to stand, he dropped
+down on the top of the struggling bodies, till his mother, wife, and
+sisters dragged him out of the scrimmage, and immediately applied their
+mouths to his gaping wounds, while he lay exhausted and helpless on the
+ground. Gradually the struggling mass of dusky bodies untwined itself,
+disclosing the unfortunate sick man, who was the object, or rather the
+victim, of this well-meant demonstration of affection and sorrow. If he
+had been ill before, he was much worse when his friends left him: indeed
+it was plain that he had not long to live. Still the weeping and wailing
+went on; the sun set, darkness fell on the camp, and later in the
+evening the man died. Then the wailing rose louder than before, and men
+and women, apparently frantic with grief, rushed about cutting
+themselves with knives and sharp-pointed sticks, while the women
+battered each other's heads with clubs, no one attempting to ward off
+either cuts or blows. An hour later a funeral procession set out by
+torchlight through the darkness, carrying the body to a wood about a
+mile 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 be
+seen in the camp where the man had died. All the people had removed
+their rude huts to some distance, leaving the place of death solitary;
+for nobody wished to meet the ghost of the deceased, who would certainly
+be hovering about, along with the spirit of the living man who had
+caused his death by evil magic, and who might be expected to come to the
+spot in the outward form of an animal to gloat over the scene of his
+crime. But in the new camp the ground was strewed with men lying
+prostrate, their thighs gashed with the wounds which they had inflicted
+on themselves with their own hands. They had done their duty by the dead
+and would bear to the end of their life the deep scars on their thighs
+as badges of honour. On one man Messrs. Spencer and Gillen counted the
+dints of no less than twenty-three wounds which he had inflicted on
+himself at various times. Meantime the women had resumed the duty of
+lamentation. Forty or fifty of them sat down in groups of five or six,
+weeping and wailing frantically with their arms round each other, while
+the actual and tribal wives, mothers, wives' mothers, daughters,
+sisters, mothers' mothers, sisters' husbands' mothers, and
+grand-daughters, according to custom, once more cut their scalps open
+with yam-sticks, and the widows afterwards in addition seared the scalp
+wounds with red-hot fire-sticks.
+
+[Sidenote: Cuttings for the dead strictly regulated by custom.]
+
+In these mourning customs, wild and extravagant as the expression of
+sorrow 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 would
+be severely punished, or even killed, by her brother. Similarly with the
+men, it is only those who stand in certain relationships to the deceased
+who must cut and hack themselves in his honour, and these relationships
+are determined by the particular exogamous class to which the dead man
+happened to belong. Of such classes there are eight in the Warramunga
+tribe. On the occasion described by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen it was a
+man of the Tjunguri class who died; and the men who gashed their thighs
+stood to him in one or other of the following relationships: grandfather
+on 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 on
+themselves may be intended to convince the ghost of the sincerity of
+their sorrow.]
+
+We naturally ask, What motive have these savages for inflicting all this
+voluntary and, as it seems to us, wholly superfluous suffering on
+themselves? It can hardly be that these wounds and burns are merely a
+natural and unfeigned expression of grief. We have seen that by
+experienced observers such extravagant demonstrations of sorrow are set
+down rather to fear than to affection. Similarly Messrs. Spencer and
+Gillen suggest that at least one motive is a fear entertained by the
+native lest, if he does not make a sufficient display of grief, the
+ghost of the dead man will be offended and do him a mischief.[240] In
+the Kaitish tribe of Central Australia it is believed that if a woman
+does not keep her body covered with ashes from the camp fire during the
+whole time of mourning, the spirit of her deceased husband, who
+constantly follows her about, will kill her and strip all the flesh from
+her bones.[241] Again, in the Arunta tribe mourners smear themselves
+with white pipeclay, and the motive for this custom is said to be to
+render themselves more conspicuous, so that the ghost may see and be
+satisfied that he is being properly mourned for.[242] Thus the fear of
+the ghost, who, at least among the Australian aborigines, is commonly of
+a jealous temper and stands very firmly on his supposed rights, may
+suffice to explain the practice of self-mutilation at mourning.
+
+[Sidenote: Custom of allowing the blood of mourners to drip on the
+corpse or into the grave.]
+
+But it is possible that another motive underlies the drawing of blood on
+these occasions. For it is to be observed that the blood of the mourners
+is often allowed to drop directly either on the dead body or into the
+grave. Thus, for example, among the tribes on the River Darling several
+men used to stand by the open grave and cut each other's heads with a
+boomerang; then they held their bleeding heads over the grave so that
+the blood dripped on the corpse lying in it. If the deceased was highly
+esteemed, the bleeding was repeated after some earth had been thrown on
+the body.[243] Among the Arunta it is customary for the women kinsfolk
+of the dead to cut their own and each other's heads so severely with
+clubs and digging-sticks that blood streams from them on the grave.[244]
+Again, at a burial on the Vasse River, in Western Australia, a writer
+describes how, when the grave was dug, the natives placed the corpse
+beside it, then "gashed their thighs, and at the flowing of the blood
+they all said, 'I have brought blood,' and they stamped the foot
+forcibly on the ground, sprinkling the blood around them; then wiping
+the wounds with a wisp of leaves, they threw it, bloody as it was, on
+the dead man."[245] With these Australian practices we may compare a
+custom observed by the civilised Greeks of antiquity. Every year the
+Peloponnesian lads lashed themselves on the grave of Pelops at Olympia,
+till the blood ran down their backs as a libation in honour of the dead
+man.[246]
+
+[Sidenote: The blood intended to strengthen the dead.]
+
+Now what is the intention of thus applying the blood of the living to
+the dead or pouring it into the grave? So far as the ancient Greeks are
+concerned the answer is not doubtful. We know from Homer that the ghosts
+of the dead were supposed to drink the blood that was offered to them
+and to be strengthened by the draught.[247] Similarly with the
+Australian savages, their object can hardly be any other than that of
+strengthening the spirit of the dead; for these aborigines are in the
+habit of giving human blood to the sick and the aged to drink for the
+purpose of restoring them to health and strength;[248] hence it would be
+natural for them to imagine that they could refresh and fortify the
+feeble ghost in like manner. Perhaps the blood was intended specially to
+strengthen 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 some
+Australian tribes of burying people, as far as possible, at the place
+where they were born. Thus in regard to the tribes of Western Victoria
+we are informed that "dying persons, especially those dying from old
+age, generally express an earnest desire to be taken to their
+birthplace, that they may die and be buried there. If possible, these
+wishes are always complied with by the relatives and friends. Parents
+will point out the spot where they were born, so that when they become
+old and infirm, their children may know where they wish their bodies to
+be disposed of."[249] Again, some tribes in the north and north-east of
+Victoria "are said to be more than ordinarily scrupulous in interring
+the 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 for
+weeks, in the hope of being able to bury it near the place where it was
+born; and a dead man will be conveyed a long distance, in order that the
+last 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 a
+black should be buried at or near the spot where he or she was born, and
+for this reason, when a black becomes seriously ill, the invalid is
+carried a long distance to these certain spots to die, as in this case.
+They apparently object to place a body in strange ground." The same
+writer mentions the case of a blackfellow, who began digging a grave
+close beside the kitchen door of a Mr. Campbell. When Mr. Campbell
+remonstrated with him, the native replied that he had no choice, for the
+dead man had been born on that very spot. With much difficulty Mr.
+Campbell persuaded him to bury his deceased friend a little further off
+from the kitchen door.[251] A practice of this sort would be
+intelligible on the theory of the Central Australians, who imagine that
+the spirits of all the dead return to the very spots where they entered
+into their mothers' wombs, and that they wait there until another
+opportunity presents itself to them of being born again into the world.
+For if people really believe, as do many Australian tribes, that when
+they die they will afterwards come to life again as infants, it is
+perfectly natural that they should take steps to ensure and facilitate
+the new birth. The Unmatjera and Kaitish tribes of Central Australia do
+this in the case of dead children. These savages draw a sharp
+distinction between young children and very old men and women. When very
+old people die, their bodies are at once buried in the ground, but the
+bodies of children are placed in wooden troughs and deposited on
+platforms of boughs in the branches of trees, and the motive for
+treating a dead child thus is, we are informed, the hope "that before
+very long its spirit may come back again and enter into the body of a
+woman--in all probability that of its former mother."[252] The reason
+for drawing this distinction between the young and the old by disposing
+of their bodies in different fashions, is explained with great
+probability by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen as follows: "In the Unmatjera
+and Kaitish tribes, while every old man has certain privileges denied to
+the younger men, yet if he be decidedly infirm and unable to take his
+part in the performance of ceremonies which are often closely
+concerned--or so at least the natives believe them to be--with the
+general welfare of the tribe, then the feeling undoubtedly is that there
+is no need to pay any very special respect to his remains. This feeling
+is probably vaguely associated with the idea that, as his body is
+infirm, so to a corresponding extent will his spirit part be, and
+therefore they have no special need to consider or propitiate this, as
+it can do them no harm. On the other hand they are decidedly afraid of
+hurting the feelings of any strong man who might be capable of doing
+them some mischief unless he saw that he was properly mourned for.
+Acting under much the same feeling they pay respect to the bodies of
+dead children and young women, in the hope that the spirit will soon
+return and undergo reincarnation. It is also worth noticing that they do
+not bury in trees any young man who has violated tribal law by taking as
+wife a woman who is forbidden to him; such an individual is always
+buried directly in the ground."[253] Apparently these law-abiding
+savages are not anxious that members of the criminal classes should be
+born again and should have the opportunity of troubling society once
+more.
+
+[Sidenote: Different modes of disposing of the dead adopted in the same
+tribe.]
+
+I would call your attention particularly to the different modes of
+burial thus accorded by these two tribes to different classes of
+persons. It is too commonly assumed that each tribe has one uniform way
+of disposing of all its dead, say either by burning or by burying, and
+on that assumption certain general theories have been built as to the
+different views taken of the state of the dead by different tribes. But
+in point of fact the assumption is incorrect. Not infrequently the same
+tribe disposes of different classes of dead people in quite different
+ways; for instance, it will bury some and burn others. Thus amongst the
+Angoni of British Central Africa the corpses of chiefs are burned with
+all their household belongings, but the bodies of commoners are buried
+with all their belongings in caves.[254] In various castes or tribes of
+India it is the custom to burn the bodies of married people but to bury
+the bodies of the unmarried.[255] With some peoples of India the
+distinction is made, not between the married and the unmarried, but
+between adults and children, especially children under two years old; in
+such cases the invariable practice appears to be to burn the old and
+bury the young. Thus among the Malayalis of Malabar the bodies of men
+and women are burned, but the bodies of children under two years are
+buried, and so are the bodies of all persons who have died of cholera or
+small-pox.[256] The same distinctions are observed by the Nayars,
+Kadupattans, and other castes or tribes of Cochin.[257] The old rule
+laid down in the ancient Hindoo law-book _The Grihya-Sutras_ was that
+children 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 obtained
+their permanent teeth, but they burn all other people.[259] Among the
+Komars the young are buried, and the old cremated.[260] The Coorgs bury
+the bodies of women and of boys under sixteen years of age, but they
+burn the bodies of men.[261] The Chukchansi Indians of California are
+said to have burned only those who died a violent death or were bitten
+by snakes, but to have buried all others.[262] The Minnetaree Indians
+disposed of their dead differently according to their moral character.
+Bad and quarrelsome men they buried in the earth that the Master of Life
+might 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 Tlingit
+Indians of Alaska burn their ordinary dead on a pyre, but deposit the
+bodies of shamans in large coffins, which are supported on four
+posts.[264] The ancient Mexicans thought that all persons who died of
+infectious diseases were killed by the rain-god Tlaloc; so they painted
+their bodies blue, which was the rain-god's colour, and buried instead
+of burning them.[265]
+
+[Sidenote: Special modes of burial adopted to prevent or facilitate the
+return of the spirit.]
+
+These examples may suffice to illustrate the different ways in which the
+same people may dispose of their dead according to the age, sex, social
+rank, or moral character of the deceased, or the manner of his death. In
+some cases the special mode of burial adopted seems clearly intended to
+guard against the return of the dead, whether in the form of ghosts or
+of children born again into the world. Such, for instance, was obviously
+the intention of the old English custom of burying a suicide at a
+cross-road with a stake driven through his body. And if some burial
+customs are plainly intended to pin down the dead in the earth, or at
+least to disable him from revisiting the survivors, so others appear to
+be planned with the opposite intention of facilitating the departure of
+the spirit from the grave, in order that he may repair to a more
+commodious lodging or be born again into the tribe. For example, the
+Arunta of Central Australia always bury their dead in the earth and
+raise a low mound over the grave; but they leave a depression in the
+mound on the side which faces towards the spot where the spirit of the
+deceased is supposed to have dwelt in the intervals between his
+successive reincarnations; and we are expressly told that the purpose of
+leaving this depression is to allow the spirit to go out and in easily;
+for until the final ceremony of mourning has been performed at the
+grave, the ghost is believed to spend his time partly in watching over
+his near relations and partly in the company of its _arumburinga_ or
+spiritual double, who lives at the old _nanja_ spot, that is, at the
+place where the disembodied soul tarries waiting to be born again.[266]
+Thus the Arunta imagine that for some time after death the spirit of the
+deceased is in a sort of intermediate state, partly hovering about the
+abode of the living, partly visiting his own proper spiritual home, to
+which on the completion of the mourning ceremonies he will retire to
+await the new birth. The final mourning ceremony, which marks the close
+of this intermediate state, takes place some twelve or eighteen months
+after the death. It consists mainly in nothing more or less than a ghost
+hunt; men armed with shields and spear-throwers assemble and with loud
+shouts beat the air, driving the invisible ghost before them from the
+spot where he died, while the women join in the shouts and buffet the
+air with the palms of their hands to chase away the dead man from the
+old camp which he loves to haunt. In this way the beaters gradually
+advance towards the grave till they have penned the ghost into it, when
+they immediately dance on the top of it, beating the air downwards as if
+to drive the spirit down, and stamping on the ground as if to trample
+him into the earth. After that, the women gather round the grave and cut
+each other's heads with clubs till the blood streams down on it. This
+brings 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 her
+sorrow are over, she wears at this final ceremony the gay feathers of
+the ring-neck parrot in her hair. The spirit of her dead husband, lying
+in the grave, is believed to know the sign and to bid her a last
+farewell. Even after he has thus been hunted into the grave and trampled
+down in it, his spirit may still watch over his friends, guard them from
+harm, and visit them in dreams.[267]
+
+[Sidenote: Departure of the ghost supposed to coincide with the
+disappearance of the flesh from his bones.]
+
+We may naturally ask, Why should the spirit of the dead be supposed at
+first to dwell more or less intermittently near the spot where he died,
+and afterwards to take up his abode permanently at his _nanja_ spot till
+the time comes for him to be born again? A good many years ago I
+conjectured[268] that this idea of a change in the abode of the ghost
+may be suggested by a corresponding change which takes place, or is
+supposed to take place, about the same time in the state of the body; in
+fact, that so long as the flesh adheres to the bones, so long the soul
+of the dead man may be thought to be detained in the neighbourhood of
+the body, but that when the flesh has quite decayed, the soul is
+completely liberated from its old tabernacle and is free to repair to
+its true spiritual home. In confirmation of this conjecture I pointed to
+the following facts. Some of the Indians of Guiana bring food and drink
+to their dead so long as the flesh remains on the bones; but when it has
+mouldered away, they conclude that the man himself has departed.[269]
+The Matacos Indians of the Gran Chaco in Argentina believe that the soul
+of a dead man does not pass down into the nether world until his body is
+decomposed or burnt. Further, the Alfoors of Central Celebes
+suppose that the spirits of the departed cannot enter the spirit-land
+until all the flesh has been removed from their bones; for until that
+has been done, the gods (_lamoa_) in the other world could not bear the
+stench of the corpse. Accordingly at a great festival the bodies of all
+who have died within a certain time are dug up and the decaying flesh
+scraped from the bones. Comparing these ideas, I suggested that
+they may explain the widespread custom of a second burial, that is, the
+practice of disinterring the dead after a certain time and disposing of
+their bones otherwise.
+
+[Sidenote: Second burial of the bones among the tribes of Central
+Australia. Final burial ceremony among the Warramunga.]
+
+Now so far as the tribes of Central Australia are concerned, my
+conjecture has been confirmed by the subsequent researches of Messrs.
+Spencer and Gillen in that region. For they have found that the tribes
+to 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 with
+the second burial, and apparently also, though this is not so definitely
+stated, that the time for the second burial is determined by the
+disappearance of the flesh from the bones. Amongst the tribes which
+practise a second burial the custom is first to deposit the dead on
+platforms among the branches of trees, till the flesh has quite
+mouldered away, and then to bury the bones in the earth: in short, they
+practise tree-burial first and earth-burial afterwards.[270] For
+example, in the Unmatjera and Kaitish tribes, when a man dies, his body
+is carried by his relations to a tree distant a mile or two from the
+camp. There it is laid on a platform by itself for some months. When the
+flesh has disappeared from the bones, a kinsman of the deceased, in
+strictness a younger brother (_itia_), climbs up into the tree,
+dislocates the bones, places them in a wooden vessel, and hands them
+down to a female relative. Then the bones are laid in the grave with the
+head facing in the direction in which his mother's brother is supposed
+to 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 his
+old _alcheringa_ home until such time as he once more undergoes
+reincarnation.[271] But in these tribes, as we saw, very old men and
+women receive only one burial, being at once laid in an earthy grave and
+never set up on a platform in a tree; and we have seen reason to think
+that this difference in the treatment of the aged springs from the
+indifference or contempt in which their ghosts are held by comparison
+with the ghosts of the young and vigorous. In the Warramunga tribe, who
+regularly deposit their dead in trees first and in the earth afterwards,
+so long as the corpse remains in the tree and the flesh has not
+completely disappeared from the bones, the mother of the deceased and
+the women who stand to him or her in the relation of tribal motherhood
+are obliged from time to time to go to the tree, and sitting under the
+platform to allow its putrid juices to drip down on their bodies, into
+which they rub them as a token of sorrow. This, no doubt, is intended to
+please the jealous ghost; for we are told that he is believed to haunt
+the tree and even to visit the camp, in order, if he was a man, to see
+for himself that his widows are mourning properly. The time during which
+the mouldering remains are left in the tree is at least a year and may
+be more.[272] The final ceremony which brings the period of mourning to
+an end is curious and entirely different from the one observed by the
+Arunta on the same occasion. When the bones have been taken down from
+the tree, an arm-bone is put carefully apart from the rest. Then the
+skull is smashed, and the fragments together with all the rest of the
+bones except the arm-bone, are buried in a hollow ant-hill near the
+tree. Afterwards the arm-bone is wrapt up in paper-bark and wound round
+with fur-string, so as to make a torpedo-shaped parcel, which is kept by
+a 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 last
+ceremony of all. On that day a design emblematic of the totem of the
+deceased is drawn on the ground, and beside it a shallow trench is dug
+about a foot deep and fifteen feet long. Over this trench a number of
+men, elaborately decorated with down of various colours, stand
+straddle-legged, while a line of women, decorated with red and yellow
+ochre, crawl along the trench under the long bridge made by the
+straddling legs of the men. The last woman carries the arm-bone of the
+dead in its parcel, and as soon as she emerges from the trench, the bone
+is snatched from her by a kinsman of the deceased, who carries it to a
+man standing ready with an uplifted axe beside the totemic drawing. On
+receiving the bone, the man at once smashes it, hastily buries it in a
+small pit beside the totemic emblem of the departed, and closes the
+opening with a large flat stone, signifying thereby that the season of
+mourning is over and that the dead man or woman has been gathered to his
+or her totem. The totemic design, beside which the arm-bone is buried,
+represents the spot at which the totemic ancestor of the deceased
+finally went down into the earth. When once the arm-bone has thus been
+broken 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, is
+supposed to go back to the place where it camped long ago in a previous
+incarnation, there to remain with the souls of other men and women of
+the same totem until the time comes for it to be born again.[273]
+
+[Sidenote: General conclusion as to the belief in immortality and the
+worship of the dead among the Australian aborigines.]
+
+This must conclude what I have to say as to the belief in immortality
+and the worship of the dead among the aborigines of Australia. The
+evidence I have adduced is sufficient to prove that these savages firmly
+believe both in the existence of the human soul after death and in the
+power which it can exert for good or evil over the survivors. On the
+whole the dominant motive in their treatment of the dead appears to be
+fear rather than affection. Yet the attention which many tribes pay to
+the comfort of the departed by providing them with huts, food, water,
+fire, clothing, implements and weapons, may not be dictated by purely
+selfish motives; in any case they are clearly intended to please and
+propitiate the ghosts, and therefore contain the germs of a regular
+worship of the dead.
+
+[Footnote 216: E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into
+Central Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 349.]
+
+[Footnote 217: A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Victoria," _Transactions
+of the Ethnological Society of London_, N.S. iii. (1865) p. 245.]
+
+[Footnote 218: P. Beveridge, in _Journal and Proceedings of the Royal
+Society of New South Wales_, xvii. (1883) pp. 29 _sq._ Compare R. Brough
+Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 100 note.]
+
+[Footnote 219: (Sir) G. Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions of
+Discovery_, 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 Royal
+Society 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 into
+Central Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 347.]
+
+[Footnote 236: W. E. Roth, _Studies among the North-West-Central
+Queensland 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 Central
+Australia_, 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 the
+River 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 of
+Discovery_, 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 Central
+Australia_, p. 506.]
+
+[Footnote 253: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, p. 512.]
+
+[Footnote 254: R. Sutherland Rattray, _Some Folk-lore Stories and Songs
+in Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), pp. 99-101, 182.]
+
+[Footnote 255: F. Fawcett, "The Kondayamkottai Maravars, a Dravidian
+Tribe of Tinnevelly, Southern India," _Journal of the Anthropological
+Institute_, xxxiii. (1903) p. 64; Captain Wolsley Haig, "Notes on the
+Rangari Caste in Barar," _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_,
+lxx. Part iii. (1901) p. 8; E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern
+India_ (Madras, 1909), iv. 226 (as to the Lambadis), vi. 244 (as to the
+Raniyavas); 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 and
+Castes_ (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 British
+Borderland_ (London, 1906), pp. 123 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 260: P. N. Bose, "Chhattisgar," _Journal of the Asiatic
+Society 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 Innere
+Nord-America_ (Coblenz, 1839-1841), ii. 235.]
+
+[Footnote 264: T. de Pauly, _Description Ethnographique des Peuples de
+la Russie, Peuples de l'Amerique Russe_ (St. Petersburg, 1862), p. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 265: E. Seler, _Altmexikanische Studien_, ii. (Berlin, 1899)
+p. 42 (_Veroeffentlichungen aus dem Koeniglichen Museum fuer Voelkerkunde_,
+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 de
+Cayenne_ (Paris, 1664), p. 392.]
+
+[Footnote 270: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, pp. 505 _sqq._]
+
+[Footnote 271: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, pp. 506-508.]
+
+[Footnote 272: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, p. 530.]
+
+[Footnote 273: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
+Australia_, pp. 530-543.]
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE VIII
+
+THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF THE TORRES STRAITS
+ISLANDS
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Islanders of Torres Straits. The Cambridge
+Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits.]
+
+In the last lecture I concluded my account of the belief in immortality
+and worship of the dead, or rather of the elements out of which such a
+worship might have grown, among the aborigines of Australia. To-day we
+pass to the consideration of a different people, the islanders of Torres
+Straits. As you may know, Torres Straits are the broad channel which
+divides Australia on the south from the great island of New Guinea on
+the north. The small islands which are scattered over the strait fall
+roughly into two groups, a Western and an Eastern, of which the eastern
+is at once the more isolated and the more fertile. In appearance,
+character, and customs the inhabitants of all these islands belong to
+the Papuan family, which inhabits the western half of New Guinea, but in
+respect of language there is a marked difference between the natives of
+the two groups; for while the speech of the Western Islanders is akin to
+that of the Australians, the speech of the Eastern Islanders is akin to
+that of the Papuans of New Guinea. The conclusion to be drawn from these
+facts appears to be that the Western Islands of Torres Straits were
+formerly inhabited by aborigines of the Australian family, and that at a
+later time they were occupied by immigrants from New Guinea, who adopted
+the language of the aboriginal inhabitants, but gradually extinguished
+the aboriginal type and character either by peaceful absorption or by
+conquest and extermination.[274] Hence the Western Islanders of Torres
+Straits form a transition both geographically and ethnographically
+between the aborigines of Australia on the one side and the aborigines
+of New Guinea on the other side. Accordingly in our survey of the belief
+in immortality among the lower races we may appropriately consider the
+Islanders of Torres Straits immediately after the aborigines of
+Australia and before we pass onward to other and more distant races.
+These Islanders have a special claim on the attention of a Cambridge
+lecturer, since almost all the exact knowledge we possess of them we owe
+to the exertions of Cambridge anthropologists and especially to Dr. A.
+C. Haddon, who on his first visit to the islands in 1888 perceived the
+urgent importance of procuring an accurate record of the old beliefs and
+customs of the natives before it was too late, and who never rested till
+that record was obtained, as it happily has been, first by his own
+unaided researches in the islands, and afterwards by the united
+researches of a band of competent enquirers. In the history of
+anthropology the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits in 1898 will
+always hold an honourable place, to the credit of the University which
+promoted it and especially to that of the zealous and devoted
+investigator who planned, organised, and carried it to a successful
+conclusion. Practically all that I shall have to tell you as to the
+beliefs and practices of the Torres Straits Islanders is derived from
+the 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 their
+discovery, in the condition which we call savagery, they stand on a far
+higher level of social and intellectual culture than the rude aborigines
+of Australia. To indicate roughly the degree of advance we need only say
+that, whereas the Australians are nomadic hunters and fishers, entirely
+ignorant of agriculture, and destitute to a great extent not only of
+houses but even of clothes, the natives of Torres Straits live in
+settled villages and diligently till the soil, raising a variety of
+crops, such as yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, sugar-cane, and
+tobacco.[275] Of the two groups of islands the eastern is the more
+fertile and the inhabitants are more addicted to agriculture than are
+the natives of the western islands, who, as a consequence of the greater
+barrenness of the soil, have to eke out their subsistence to a
+considerable extent by fishing.[276] And there is other evidence to shew
+that the Eastern Islanders have attained to a somewhat higher stage of
+social evolution than their Western brethren;[277] the more favourable
+natural conditions under which they live may possibly have contributed
+to raise the general level of culture. One of the most marked
+distinctions in this respect between the inhabitants of the two groups
+is that, whereas a regular system of totemism with its characteristic
+features prevails among the Western Islanders, no such system nor even
+any very clear evidence of its former existence is to be found among the
+Eastern Islanders, whether it be that they never had it or, what is more
+likely, that they once had but have lost it.[278]
+
+[Sidenote: Belief of the Torres Straits Islanders in the existence of
+the human spirit after death.]
+
+On the other hand, so far as regards our immediate subject, the belief
+in immortality and the worship of the dead, a general resemblance may be
+traced between the creed and customs of the Eastern and Western tribes.
+Both of them, like the Australian aborigines, firmly believe in the
+existence of the human spirit after death, but unlike the Australians
+they seem to have no idea that the souls of the departed are ever born
+again into the world; the doctrine of reincarnation, so widespread among
+the natives of Australia, appears to have no place in the creed of their
+near neighbours the Torres Straits Islanders, whose dead, like our own,
+though they may haunt the living for a time, are thought to depart at
+last to a distant spirit-land and to return no more. At the same time
+neither in the one group nor in the other is there any clear evidence of
+what may be called a worship of the dead in the strict sense of the
+word, unless we except the cults of certain more or less mythical
+heroes. On this point the testimony of Dr. Haddon is definite as to the
+Western Islanders. He says: "In no case have I obtained in the Western
+Islands an indication of anything approaching a worship of deceased
+persons ancestral or otherwise, with the exception of the heroes shortly
+to be mentioned; neither is there any suggestion that their own
+ancestors 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 cult
+of certain heroes, any regular worship of the dead, they certainly have
+the germ out of which such a worship might be developed, and that is a
+firm belief in ghosts and in the mischief which they may do to the
+living. The word for a ghost is _mari_ in the West and _mar_ in the
+East: it means also a shadow or reflection,[280] which seems to shew
+that these savages, like many others, have derived their notion of the
+human soul from the observation of shadows and reflections cast by the
+body on the earth or on water. Further, the Western Islanders appear to
+distinguish the ghosts of the recently departed (_mari_) from the
+spirits 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 the
+ghosts but believed in the general friendly disposition of the spirits
+of the departed."[282] Similarly we saw that the Australian aborigines
+regard with fear the ghosts of those who have just died, while they are
+either indifferent to the spirits of those who have died many years ago
+or even look upon them as beings of higher powers than their
+descendants, whom they can benefit in various ways. This sharp
+distinction between the spirits of the dead, according to the date at
+which they died, is widespread, perhaps universal among mankind. However
+truly the dead were loved in their lifetime, however bitterly they were
+mourned at their death, no sooner have they passed beyond our ken than
+the thought of their ghosts seems to inspire the generality of mankind
+with an instinctive fear and horror, as if the character of even the
+best friends and nearest relations underwent a radical change for the
+worse as soon as they had shuffled off the mortal coil. But among
+savages this belief in the moral deterioration of ghosts is certainly
+much more marked than among civilised races. Ghosts are dreaded both by
+the Western and the Eastern tribes of Torres Straits. Thus in Mabuiag,
+one of the Western Islands, the corpse was carried out of camp feet
+foremost, else it was thought that the ghost would return and trouble
+the survivors. Further, when the body had been laid upon a stage or
+platform on clear level ground away from the dwelling, the remains of
+any food and water of which the deceased might have been partaking in
+his last moments were carried out and placed beside the corpse lest the
+ghost should come back to fetch them for himself, to the annoyance and
+terror of his relations. This is the reason actually alleged by the
+natives for what otherwise might have been interpreted as a delicate
+mark of affection and thoughtful care for the comfort of the departed.
+If next morning the food was found scattered, the people said that the
+ghost was angry and had thrown it about.[283] Further, on the day of the
+death the mourners went into the gardens, slashed at the taro, knocked
+down coco-nuts, pulled up sweet potatoes, and destroyed bananas. We are
+told 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 the
+destruction was the same as that for laying food and water beside the
+corpse, namely, a wish to give the ghost no excuse for returning to
+haunt and pester his surviving relatives. How could he have the heart to
+return to the desolated garden which in his lifetime it had been his
+pride and joy to cultivate?
+
+[Sidenote: Fear of the ghosts of the recently departed among the Murray
+Islanders.]
+
+In Murray Island, also, which belongs to the Eastern group, the ghost of
+a recently deceased person is much dreaded; it is supposed to haunt the
+neighbourhood for two or three months, and the elaborate funeral
+ceremonies which these savages perform appear to be based on this belief
+and to be intended, in fact, to dismiss the ghost from the land of the
+living, where he is a very unwelcome visitor, to his proper place in the
+land of the dead.[285] "The Murray Islanders," says Dr. Haddon, "perform
+as many as possible of the necessary ceremonies in order that the ghost
+of the deceased might not feel slighted, for otherwise it was sure to
+bring trouble on the relatives by causing strong winds to destroy their
+gardens and break down their houses."[286] These islanders still believe
+that a ghost may feel resentment when his children are neglected or
+wronged, or when his lands or goods are appropriated by persons who have
+no claim to them. And this fear of the wrath of the ghost, Dr. Haddon
+tells us, no doubt in past times acted as a wholesome deterrent on
+evil-doers and helped to keep the people from crime, though now-a-days
+they look rather to the law than to ghosts for the protection of their
+rights and the avenging of their wrongs.[287] Yet here, as in so many
+places, it would seem that superstition has proved a useful crutch on
+which morality can lean until it is strong enough to walk alone. In the
+absence of the police the guardianship of law and morality may be
+provisionally entrusted to ghosts, who, if they are too fickle and
+uncertain in their temper to make ideal constables, are at least better
+than nothing. With this exception it does not appear that the moral code
+of the Torres Straits Islanders derived any support or sanction from
+their religion. No appeal was made by them to totems, ancestors, or
+heroes; no punishment was looked for from these quarters for any
+infringement of the rules and restraints which hold society
+together.[288]
+
+[Sidenote: The island home of the dead.]
+
+The land of the dead to which the ghosts finally depart is, in the
+opinion of the Torres Straits Islanders, a mythical island in the far
+west or rather north-west. The Western Islanders name it Kibu; the
+Eastern Islanders call it Boigu. The name Kibu means "sundown." It is
+natural enough that islanders should place the home of the dead in some
+far 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 to
+westward where the sun goes down; for it seems to be a common thought
+that the souls of the dead are attracted by the great luminary, like
+moths by a candle, and follow him when he sinks in radiant glory into
+the sea. To take a single example, in the Maram district of Assam it is
+forbidden to build houses facing westward, because that is the direction
+in which the spirits of the dead go to their long home.[289] But the
+Torres Straits Islanders have a special reason, as Dr. Haddon has well
+pointed out, for thinking that the home of the dead is away in the
+north-west; and the reason is that in these latitudes the trade wind
+blows steady and strong from the south-east for seven or eight months of
+the year; so that for the most part the spirits have only to let
+themselves go and the wind will sweep them away on its pinions to their
+place of rest. How could the poor fluttering things beat up to windward
+in the teeth of the blast?[290]
+
+[Sidenote: Elaborate funeral ceremonies observed by the Torres Straits
+Islanders.]
+
+The funeral ceremonies observed by the Torres Straits Islanders were
+numerous and elaborate, and they present some features of special
+interest. They succeeded each other at intervals, sometimes of months,
+and amongst the Eastern Islanders in particular there were so many of
+them that, were it not that the bodies of the very young and the very
+old were treated less ceremoniously, the living would have been
+perpetually occupied in celebrating the obsequies of the dead.[291] The
+obsequies differed somewhat from each other in the East and the West,
+but they had two characteristics in common: first, the skulls of the
+dead were commonly preserved apart from the bodies and were consulted as
+oracles; and, second, the ghosts of the recently deceased were
+represented in dramatic ceremonies by masked men, who mimicked the gait
+and gestures of the departed and were thought by the women and children
+to be the very ghosts themselves. But in details there were a good many
+variations between the practice of the Eastern and the Western
+Islanders. We will begin with the customs of the Western Islanders.
+
+[Sidenote: Funeral ceremonies observed by the Western Islanders. Removal
+and preservation of the skull. Skulls used in divination.]
+
+When a death had taken place, the corpse was carried out of the house
+and set on a staging supported by four forked posts and covered by a
+roof of mats. The office of attending to the body devolved properly on
+the brothers-in-law (_imi_) of the deceased, who, while they were
+engaged 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 of
+a 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 totem
+as the dead man's wife, which, on account of the law of exogamy, always
+differed from the totem of her husband. And if the dead person was a
+woman, the _mariget_ were her husband's brothers and therefore had his
+totem, which necessarily differed from hers. When they had discharged
+the preliminary duties to the corpse, the brothers-in-law went and
+informed the relations and friends. This they did not in words but by a
+prescribed pantomime. For example, if the deceased had had the crocodile
+for his totem, they imitated the ungainly gait of crocodiles waddling
+and resting, if the deceased had the snake for his totem, they in like
+manner mimicked the crawling of a snake. The relations then painted
+their bodies with white coral mud, cut their hair, plastered mud over
+their heads, and cut off their ear ornaments or severed the distended
+lobe 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 arrows
+at the men who were in attendance on it, that is, at the brothers-in-law
+of the deceased, who warded off the shafts as best they could.[292] The
+meaning of this sham attack on the men who were discharging the last
+offices of respect to the dead comes out clearly in another ceremony
+which was performed some time afterwards, as we shall see presently. For
+five or six days the corpse remained on the platform or bier watched by
+the brothers-in-law, who had to prevent certain large lizards from
+devouring it and to frighten away any prowling ghosts that might be
+lured to the spot by the stench. After the lapse of several days the
+relations 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 spirit
+that might be lingering about his mouldering remains. The reason for
+doing so was, that the time had now arrived for cutting off the head of
+the corpse, and they thought that the head would not come off easily if
+the man's spirit were still in the body; he might reasonably be expected
+to hold on tight to it and not to resign, without a struggle, so
+valuable a part of his person. When the poor ghost had thus been chased
+away with shouts and blows, the principal brother-in-law came forward
+and performed the amputation by sawing off the head. Having done so, he
+usually placed it in a nest of termites or white ants in order that the
+insects might pick it clean; but sometimes for the same purpose he
+deposited it in a creek. When it was thoroughly clean, the grinning
+white skull was painted red all over and placed in a decorated basket.
+Then followed the ceremony of formally handing over this relic of the
+dead to the relations. The brothers-in-law, who had been in attendance
+on the body, painted themselves black all over, covered their heads with
+leaves, and walked in solemn procession, headed by the chief
+brother-in-law, who carried the skull in the basket. Meantime the male
+relatives were awaiting them, seated on a large mat in the ceremonial
+ground, while the women grouped themselves in the background. As the
+procession of men approached bearing the skull, the mourners shot arrows
+over their heads as a sign of anger at them for having decapitated their
+relation. But this was a mere pretence, probably intended to soothe and
+flatter the angry ghost: the arrows flew over the men without hurting
+them.[293] Similarly in ancient Egypt the man who cut open a corpse for
+embalmment had no sooner done his office than he fled precipitately,
+pursued by the relations with stones and curses, because he had wounded
+and mangled the body of their kinsman.[294] Sometimes the skull was made
+up to resemble the head of a living man: an artificial nose of wood and
+beeswax supplied the place of a nose of flesh; pearl-shells were
+inserted in the empty eye-balls; and any teeth that might be missing
+were represented by pieces of wood, while the lower jaw was lashed
+firmly to the cranium.[295] Whether thus decorated or not, the skulls of
+the dead were preserved and used in divination. Whenever a skull was to
+be thus consulted, it was first cleaned, repainted, and either anointed
+with certain plants or placed upon them. Then the enquirer enjoined the
+skull to speak the truth, and placing it on his pillow at night went to
+sleep. The dream which he dreamed that night was the answer of the
+skull, which spoke with a clappering noise like that of teeth chattering
+together. When people went on voyages, they used to take a divining
+skull with them in the stern of the canoe.[296]
+
+[Sidenote: Great death-dance of the Western Islanders. The dead
+personated by masked actors.]
+
+The great funeral ceremony, or rather death-dance, of the Western
+Islanders took place in the island of Pulu. When the time came for it, a
+few men would meet and make the necessary preparations. The ceremony was
+always performed on the sacred or ceremonial ground (_kwod_), and the
+first 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 the
+screen had been erected, the drums which were to be used by the
+orchestra were placed in position beside it. Then the relations were
+summoned to attend the performance. The ceremony might be performed for
+a number of recently deceased people at once, and it varied in
+importance and elaboration according to the importance and the number of
+the deceased whose obsequies were being celebrated. The chief
+differences were in the number of the performers and the greater or less
+display of scenic apparatus. The head-dresses or leafy masks worn by the
+actors in the sacred drama were made secretly in the bush; no woman or
+uninitiated man might witness the operation. When all was ready, and the
+people were assembled, the men being stationed in front and the women
+and children in the background, the disguised actors appeared on the
+scene and played the part of the dead, each one of them mimicking the
+gait and actions of the particular man or woman whom he personated; for
+all the parts were played by men, no woman might act in these
+ceremonies. The order in which the various ghosts were to appear on the
+scene was arranged beforehand; so that when the actors came forward from
+behind the screen, the spectators knew which of the dead they were
+supposed to have before them. The performers usually danced in pairs,
+and vanished behind the screen when their dance was finished. Thus one
+pair would follow another till the play was over. Besides the actors who
+played the serious and solemn part of the dead, there was usually a
+clown who skipped about and cut capers, tumbling down and getting up
+again, to make the spectators laugh and so to relieve the strain on
+their emotions, which were deeply stirred by this dance of death. The
+beat of the drums proclaimed that the sacred drama was at an end. Then
+followed a great feast, at which special portions of food were assigned
+by the relatives of the deceased to the actors who had personated
+them.[297]
+
+[Sidenote: Intention of the ceremonies.]
+
+As to the intention of these curious dramatic performances we have no
+very definite information. Dr. Haddon says: "The idea evidently was to
+convey to the mourners the assurance that the ghost was alive and that
+in the person of the dancer he visited his friends; the assurance of his
+life after death comforted the bereaved ones."[298]
+
+[Sidenote: Funeral ceremonies observed by the Eastern Islanders. The
+soul of the dead carried away by a masked actor.]
+
+In the Eastern Islands of Torres Straits the funeral ceremonies seem to
+have been even more numerous and elaborate. The body was at first laid
+on the ground on a mat outside the house, if the weather were fine.
+There friends wept and wailed over it, the nearest relations, such as
+the wife and mother, sitting at the head of the corpse. About an hour
+after the sun had set, the drummers and singers arrived. All night the
+drums beat and the people sang, but just as the dawn was breaking the
+wild music died away into silence. The wants of the living were now
+attended to: the assembled people breakfasted on green coco-nuts; and
+then, about an hour after sunrise, they withdrew from the body and took
+up a position a little further off to witness the next act of the drama
+of death. The drums now struck up again in quicker time to herald the
+approach of an actor, who could be heard, but not seen, shaking his
+rattle in the adjoining forest. Faster and faster beat the drums, louder
+and louder rose the singing, till the spectators were wound up to a
+pitch of excitement bordering on frenzy. Then at last a strange figure
+burst from the forest and came skipping and posturing towards the
+corpse. It was Terer, a spirit or mythical being who had come to fetch
+the soul of the departed and to bear it far away to its place of rest in
+the island beyond the sea. On his head he wore a wreath of leaves: a
+mask made of the mid-ribs of coco-nut leaves or of croton leaves hid his
+face: a long feather of the white tern nodded on his brow; and a mantle
+of green coco-nut leaves concealed his body from the shoulders to the
+knees. His arms were painted red: round his neck he wore a crescent of
+pearl-shell: in his left hand he carried a bow and arrows, and in his
+mouth a piece of wood, to which were affixed two rings of green coco-nut
+leaf. Thus attired he skipt forwards, rattling a bunch of nuts in his
+right hand, bending his head now to one side and now to another, swaying
+his body backwards and forwards, but always keeping time to the measured
+beat of the drums. At last, after a series of rapid jumps from one foot
+to the other, he ended his dance, and turning round fled away westward
+along the beach. He had taken the soul of the dead and was carrying it
+away to the spirit-land. The excitement of the women now rose to the
+highest pitch. They screamed and jumped from the ground raising their
+arms in air high above their heads. Shrieking and wailing all pursued
+the retreating figure along the beach, the mother or widow of the dead
+man casting herself again and again prostrate on the sand and throwing
+it in handfuls over her head. Among the pursuers was another masked man,
+who represented Aukem, the mother of Terer. She, or rather he, was
+dressed in dried banana leaves: long tufts of grass hung from her head
+over her face and shoulders; and in her mouth she carried a lighted
+bundle of dry coco-nut fibre, which emitted clouds of smoke. With an
+unsteady rickety gait the beldame hobbled after her rapidly retreating
+son, who turned round from time to time, skipping and posturing
+derisively as if to taunt her, and then hurrying away again westward.
+Thus the two quaint figures retreated further and further, he in front
+and she behind, till they were lost to view. But still the drums
+continued to beat and the singers to chant their wild song, when nothing
+was to be seen but the deserted beach with the sky and the drifting
+clouds above and the white waves breaking on the strand. Meantime the
+two actors in the sacred drama made their way westward till their
+progress was arrested by the sea. They plunged into it and swimming
+westward unloosed their leafy envelopes and let them float away to the
+spirit-land in the far island beyond the rolling waters. But the men
+themselves swam back to the beach, resumed the dress of ordinary
+mortals, 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 immediately
+about ten o'clock in the morning. The actors in it were twenty or thirty
+men disguised as ghosts or spirits of the dead (_zera markai_). Their
+bodies were blackened from the neck to the ankles, but the lower part of
+their faces and their feet were dyed bright red, and a red triangle was
+painted on the front of their bodies. They wore head-dresses of grass
+with long projecting ribs of coco-nut leaves, and a long tail of grass
+behind reaching down to the level of the knees. In their hands they held
+long ribs of coco-nut leaf. They were preceded by a curious figure
+called _pager_, a man covered from head to foot with dry grass and dead
+banana leaves, who sidled along with an unsteady rolling gait in a
+zigzag course, keeping his head bowed, his red-painted hands clasped in
+front of his face, and his elbows sticking out from both sides of his
+body. In spite of his erratic course and curious mode of progression he
+drew away from the troop of ghosts behind him and came on towards the
+spectators, jerking his head from side to side, his hands shaking, and
+wailing as he went. Behind him marched the ghosts, with their hands
+crossed behind their backs and their faces looking out to sea. When they
+drew near to the orchestra, who were singing and drumming away, they
+halted and formed in two lines facing the spectators. They now all
+assumed the familiar attitude of a fencer on guard, one foot and arm
+advanced, the other foot and arm drawn back, and lunged to right and
+left as if they were stabbing something with the long ribs of the
+coco-nut leaves which they held in their hands. This manoeuvre they
+repeated several times, the orchestra playing all the time. Then they
+retreated into the forest, but only to march out again, form in line,
+stand on guard, and lunge again and again at the invisible foe. This
+appears to have been the whole of the second act of the drama. No
+explanation of it is given. We can only conjecture that the band of men,
+who seem from their name (_zera markai_) to have represented the ghosts
+or spirits of the dead, came to inform the living that the departed
+brother or sister had joined the majority, and that any attempt to
+rescue him or her would be vain. That perhaps was the meaning of the
+solemn pantomime of the lines of actors standing on guard and lunging
+again and again towards the spectators. But I must acknowledge that this
+is 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 mourners
+took up the body and with weeping and wailing laid it on a wooden
+framework resting on four posts at a little distance from the house of
+the deceased. Youths who had lately been initiated, and girls who had
+attained to puberty, now had the lobes of their ears cut. The blood
+streamed down over their faces and bodies and was allowed to drip on the
+feet of the corpse as a mark of pity or sorrow.[301] The other relatives
+cut their hair and left the shorn locks in a heap under the body. Blood
+and hair were probably regarded as offerings made to the departed
+kinsman or kinswoman. We saw that the Australian aborigines in like
+manner cut themselves and allow the blood to drip on the corpse; and
+they also offer their hair to the dead, cutting off parts of their
+beards, singeing them, and throwing them on the corpse.[302] Having
+placed the body on the stage and deposited their offerings of hair under
+it, the relatives took some large yams, cut them in pieces, and laid the
+pieces beside the body in order to serve as food for the ghost, who was
+supposed to eat it at night.[303] This notion seems inconsistent with
+the belief that the soul of the departed had already been carried off to
+Boigu, the island of the dead; but consistency in such matters is as
+little 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 was
+laid in a small canoe manned by some young people of the same sex as the
+deceased. They paddled it across the lagoon to the reef and there rubbed
+off the skin, extracted the bowels from the abdomen and the brain from
+the skull, and having sewed up the hole in the abdomen and thrown the
+bowels into the sea, they brought the remains back to land and lashed
+them to the wooden framework with string, while they fixed a small stick
+to the lower jaw to keep it from drooping. The framework with its
+ghastly 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 allow
+the juices of decomposition to escape, and a fire was kindled and kept
+burning 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 germinating
+coco-nuts was partaken of by the relations and friends, and portions
+were distributed to the assembled company, who carried them home in
+baskets. It was on this occasion that kinsfolk and friends assumed the
+garb of mourners. Their faces and bodies were smeared with a mixture of
+greyish earth and water: the ashes of a wood fire were strewn on their
+heads; 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 the
+fig-tree; the ends of it were passed between her legs and tucked up
+before and behind. She had to leave her hair unshorn during the whole
+period of her widowhood; and in time it grew into a huge mop of a light
+yellow 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 the
+occasion of this feast, on or about the tenth day after death, that
+young kinsfolk of the deceased had certain patterns cut in their flesh
+by a sharp shell. The persons so operated on were young adults of both
+sexes nearly related to the dead man or woman. Women generally operated
+on women and men on men. The patients were held down during the
+operation, which was painful, and they sometimes fainted under it. The
+patterns were first drawn on the skin in red paint and then cut in with
+the shell. They varied a good deal in shape. Some consisted of
+arrangements of lines and scrolls; a favourite one, which was only
+carved on women, represented a centipede. The blood which flowed from
+the wounds was allowed to drip on the corpse, thus forming a sacrifice
+or 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 the
+scaffold, and the process of mummification was far advanced, a dance of
+death was held to celebrate the final departure of the spirit for its
+long home. Several men, seldom exceeding four in number, were chosen to
+act the part of ghosts, including the ghost of him or her in whose
+honour the performance was specially held. Further, about a dozen men
+were selected to form a sort of chorus; their business was to act as
+intermediaries 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 a
+head-dress and shoulder-band of leaves. The chorus, if we may call them
+so, wore girdles of leaves round their waists and wreaths of leaves on
+their heads. When darkness had fallen, the first act of the drama was
+played. The chorus stood in line opposite the mummy. Beyond them stood
+or sat the drummers, and beyond them again the audience was crowded on
+the beach, the women standing furthest from the mummy and nearest to the
+sea. The drummers now struck up, chanting at the same time to the beat
+of the drums. This was the overture. Then a shrill whistle in the forest
+announced the approach of a ghost. The subdued excitement among the
+spectators, especially among the women, was intense. Meantime the
+chorus, holding each other's hands, advanced sidelong towards the mummy
+with strange gestures, the hollow thud of their feet as they stamped on
+the ground being supposed to be the tread of the ghosts. Thus they
+advanced to the red-painted mummy with its grinning mouth. Behind it by
+this time stood one of the ghosts, and between him and the chorus a
+dialogue ensued. "Whose ghost is there?" called out the chorus; and a
+strident voice answered from the darkness, "The ghost of so and so is
+here." At that the chorus retreated in the same order as they had
+advanced, and again the hollow thud of their feet sounded in the ears of
+the excited spectators as the tramp of the dead. On reaching the
+drummers in their retreat the chorus called out some words of uncertain
+meaning, 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 the
+ground, holding their hands aloft; then hurled themselves prone on the
+sand, throwing it over their heads and wailing. The drums now beat
+faster and a wild weird chant rose into the air, then died away and all
+was silent, except perhaps for the lapping of the waves on the sand or
+the muffled thunder of the surf afar off on the barrier reef. Thus one
+ghost after another was summoned from the dusty dead and vanished again
+into 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 he
+was seen by the chorus to glide behind the mummy on its stage, blew a
+whistle and informed the spectators in a weird voice that all the ghosts
+that had been summoned that night would appear before them in broad day
+light on the morrow. With that the audience dispersed. But the men who
+had played the parts of the ghosts came forward and sat down with the
+chorus and the drummers on mats beside the body. There they remained
+singing to the beat of the drums till the first faint streaks of dawn
+glimmered 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 who
+were to personate the ghosts, in order to make sure that they had
+learned their parts well and could mimick to the life the figure and
+gait of the particular dead persons whom they represented. By the time
+that these preparations were complete, the morning had worn on to noon.
+The audience was already assembled on the beach and on the long stretch
+of sand left by the ebbing tide; for the hour of the drama was always
+fixed at low water so as to allow ample space for the spectators to
+stand at a distance from the players, lest they should detect the
+features of the living under the masks of the dead. All being ready, the
+drummers marched in and took up their position just above the beach,
+facing the audience. The overture having been concluded, the first ghost
+was seen to glide from the forest and come dancing towards the beach. If
+he represented a woman, his costume was more elaborate than it had been
+under the shades of evening the night before. His whole body was painted
+red. A petticoat of leaves encircled his waist: a mask of leaves,
+surmounted by tufts of cassowary and pigeon feathers, concealed his
+head; and in his hands he carried brooms of coco-nut palm leaf. If he
+personated 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 a
+head-dress of leaves and feathers and a diamond-shaped ornament of
+bamboo, which he held in his teeth and which entirely concealed his
+features. He approached dancing and mimicking the gestures of the person
+whom he represented. At the sight the women wailed, and the widow would
+cry 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 which
+the women would fall to the ground, while the dancer retreated into the
+forest. In this way one ghost after the other would make his appearance,
+play his part, and vanish. Occasionally two of them would appear and
+dance together. The women and children, we are told, really believed
+that the actors were the ghosts of their dead kinsfolk. When the first
+dancer had thus danced before the people, he advanced with the drummers
+towards the framework on which the mummy was stretched, and there he
+repeated his dance before it. But the people were not allowed to witness
+this mystery; they remained wailing on the beach, for this was the
+moment at which the ghost of the dead man or woman was supposed to be
+departing 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 bamboo
+and carried into the hut. In former times the huts were of a beehive
+shape, and the framework which supported the mummy was fastened to the
+central post on which the roof rested. The body thus stood erect within
+the house. Its dried skin had been painted red. The empty orbits of the
+eyes had been filled with pieces of pearl-shell of the nautilus to
+imitate 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 of
+pearl-shell the breast. In the darkness of the old-fashioned huts the
+body looked like a living person. In course of time it became almost
+completely mummified and as light as if it were made of paper. Swinging
+to and fro with every breath of wind, it turned its gleaming eyes at
+each movement of the head. The hut was now surrounded by posts and ropes
+to prevent the ghost from making his way into it and taking possession
+of his old body. Ghosts were supposed to appear only at night, and it
+was imagined that in the dark they would stumble against the posts and
+entangle themselves in the ropes, till in despair they desisted from the
+attempt to penetrate into the hut. In time the mummy mouldered away and
+fell to pieces. If the deceased was a male, the head was removed and a
+wax model of it made and given to the brother, whether blood or tribal
+brother, of the dead man. The head thus prepared or modelled in wax,
+with eyes of pearl-shell, was used in divination. The decaying remains
+of the body were taken to the beach and placed on a platform supported
+by 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 and
+practices of the Torres Straits Islanders which I have described do not
+amount to a worship of the dead, they contain the elements out of which
+such a worship might easily have been developed. The preservation of the
+bodies of the dead, or at least their skulls, in the houses, and the
+consultation of them as oracles, prove that the spirits of the dead are
+supposed to possess knowledge which may be of great use to the living;
+and the custom suggests that in other countries the images of the gods
+may perhaps have been evolved out of the mummies of the dead. Further,
+the dramatic representation of the ghosts in a series of striking and
+impressive performances indicates how a sacred and in time a secular
+drama may elsewhere have grown out of a purely religious celebration
+concerned with the souls of the departed. In this connexion we are
+reminded of Professor Ridgeway's theory that ancient Greek tragedy
+originated in commemorative songs and dances performed at the tomb for
+the purpose of pleasing and propitiating the ghost of the mighty
+dead.[309] Yet the mortuary dramas of the Torres Straits Islanders can
+hardly be adduced to support that theory by analogy so long as we are
+ignorant of the precise significance which the natives themselves
+attached to these remarkable performances. There is no clear evidence
+that the dramas were acted for the amusement and gratification of the
+ghost rather than for the edification of the spectators. One important
+act certainly represented, and might well be intended to facilitate, the
+final departure of the spirit of the deceased to the land of souls. But
+the means taken to effect that departure might be adopted in the
+interests of the living quite as much as out of a tender regard for the
+welfare of the dead, since the ghost of the recently departed is
+commonly regarded with fear and aversion, and his surviving relations
+resort to many expedients for the purpose of ridding themselves of his
+unwelcome presence.
+
+[Footnote 274: S. H. Ray, in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological
+Expedition to Torres Straits_, iii. (Cambridge, 1907) pp. 509-511; A. C.
+Haddon, "The Religion of the Torres Straits Islanders," _Anthropological
+Essays 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 Essays
+presented to E. B. Tylor_, p. 179.]
+
+[Footnote 281: For authorities see the references in the preceding
+note.]
+
+[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._; _Cambridge
+Anthropological 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 to
+identify Boigu with the island of that name off the south coast of New
+Guinea; 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 of
+Discovery 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 special
+reference 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, and
+shewed that these savages firmly believe in the existence of the human
+soul after death, and that if their beliefs and customs in this respect
+do not always amount to an actual worship of the departed, they contain
+at least the elements out of which such a worship might easily be
+developed. To-day we pass from the small islands of Torres Straits to
+the vast neighbouring island, almost continent, of New Guinea, the
+greater part of which is inhabited by a race related by physical type
+and language to the Torres Straits Islanders, and exhibiting
+approximately the same level of social and intellectual culture. New
+Guinea, roughly speaking, appears to be occupied by two different races,
+to which the names of Papuan and Melanesian are now given; and it is to
+the Papuan race, not to the Melanesian, that the Torres Straits
+Islanders are akin. The Papuans, a tall, dark-skinned, frizzly-haired
+race, inhabit apparently the greater part of New Guinea, including the
+whole of the western and central portions of the island. The
+Melanesians, a smaller, lighter-coloured, frizzly-haired race, inhabit
+the long eastern peninsula, including the southern coast from about Cape
+Possession eastward,[310] and tribes speaking a Melanesian language are
+also settled about Finsch Harbour and Huon Gulf in German New
+Guinea.[311] These Melanesians are most probably immigrants who have
+settled in New Guinea from the north and east, where the great chain of
+islands known as Melanesia stretches in an immense semicircle from New
+Ireland on the north to New Caledonia on the south-east. The natives of
+this chain of islands or series of archipelagoes are the true
+Melanesians; their kinsmen in New Guinea have undergone admixture with
+the Papuan aborigines, and accordingly should rather be called
+Papuo-Melanesians than Melanesians simply. Their country appears to be
+wholly comprised within the limits of British and German New Guinea; so
+far as I am aware, the vast area of Dutch New Guinea is inhabited solely
+by tribes of the Papuan race. In respect of material culture both races
+stand approximately on the same level: they live in settled villages,
+they practise agriculture, they engage in commerce, and they have a
+fairly developed barbaric art. Thus they have made some progress in the
+direction of civilisation; certainly they have far outstripped the
+wandering savages of Australia, who subsist entirely on the products of
+the chase and on the natural fruits of the earth.
+
+[Sidenote: Scantiness of our information as to the natives of New
+Guinea.]
+
+But although the natives of New Guinea have now been under the rule of
+European powers, Britain, Germany, and Holland, for many years, we
+unfortunately possess little detailed information as to their mental and
+social condition. It is true that the members of the Cambridge
+Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits visited some parts of the
+southern coasts of British New Guinea, and several years later, in 1904,
+Dr. Seligmann was able to devote somewhat more time to the investigation
+of the same region and has given us the results of his enquiries in a
+valuable book. But the time at his disposal did not suffice for a
+thorough investigation of this large region; and accordingly his
+information, eked out though it is by that of Protestant and Catholic
+missionaries, still leaves us in the dark as to much which we should
+wish to know. Among the natives of British New Guinea our information is
+especially defective in regard to the Papuans, who occupy the greater
+part of the possession, including the whole of the western region; for
+Dr. Seligmann's book, which is the most detailed and systematic work yet
+published on the ethnology of British New Guinea, deals almost
+exclusively with the Melanesian portion of the population. Accordingly I
+shall begin what I have to say on this subject with the Melanesian or
+rather 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 fishermen
+and potters, who live in and about Port Moresby in the Central District
+of British New Guinea. Their language conforms to the Melanesian type.
+They are immigrants, but the country from which they came is
+unknown.[312] In their opinion the spirits of the dead dwell in a happy
+land where parted friends meet again and never suffer hunger. They fish,
+hunt, and plant, and are just like living men, except that they have no
+noses. When they first arrive in the mansions of the blest, they are
+laid out to dry on a sort of gridiron over a slow fire in order to purge
+away the grossness of the body and make them ethereal and light, as
+spirits should be. Yet, oddly enough, though they have no noses they
+cannot enter the realms of bliss unless their noses were pierced in
+their lifetime. For these savages bore holes in their noses and insert
+ornaments, or what they regard as such, in the holes. The operation is
+performed on children about the age of six years; and if children die
+before it has been performed on them, the parents will bore a hole in
+the nose of the corpse in order that the spirit of the child may go to
+the happy land. For if they omitted to do so, the poor ghost would have
+to 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 spirits
+of the dead are very powerful and visit bad people with their
+displeasure. Famine and scarcity of fish and game are attributed to the
+anger of the spirits. But they hearken to prayer and appear to their
+friends in dreams, sometimes condescending to give them directions for
+their 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 be
+the aboriginal inhabitants of the country and to belong to the Papuan
+stock. Their villages lie scattered for a distance of about forty miles
+along the coast, from a point about seven miles south-east of Port
+Moresby to a point on Redscar Bay to the north-west of that settlement.
+They live on friendly terms with the Motu and have intermarried with
+them for generations. The villages of the two tribes are usually built
+near to or even in direct continuity with each other. But while the Motu
+are mainly fishers and potters, the Koita are mainly tillers of the
+soil, though they have learned some arts or adopted some customs from
+their 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, and
+pottery 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 sickness
+and for the weather they happen to require; for they imagine that the
+Koita rule the elements and can make rain or sunshine, wind or calm by
+their magic. Thus, as in so many cases, the members of the immigrant
+race confess their inability to understand and manage the gods or
+spirits of the land, and have recourse in time of need to the magic of
+the aboriginal inhabitants. While the Koita belong to the Papuan stock
+and speak a Papuan language, most of the men understand the Motu tongue,
+which is one of the Melanesian family. Altogether these two tribes, the
+Koita and the Motu, may be regarded as typical representatives of the
+mixed 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 a
+mountain called Idu. But they think that the spirit can quit the body
+and return to it during life; it goes away, for example, in dreams, and
+if a sleeper should unfortunately waken before his soul has had time to
+return, he will probably fall sick. Sneezing is a sign that the soul has
+returned to the body, and if a man does not sneeze for many weeks
+together, his friends look on it as a grave symptom; his soul, they
+imagine, must be a very long way off.[315] Moreover, a man's soul may be
+enticed from his body and detained by a demon or _tabu_, as the Koita
+call it. Thus, when a man who has been out in the forest returns home
+and shakes with fever, it is assumed that he has fallen down and been
+robbed of his soul by a demon. In order to recover that priceless
+possession, the sufferer and his friends repair to the exact spot in the
+forest where the supposed robbery was perpetrated. They take with them a
+long bamboo with some valuable ornaments tied to it, and two men support
+it horizontally over a pot which is filled with grass. A light is put to
+the grass, and as it crackles and blazes a number of men standing round
+the 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 in
+his house with the bamboo and its ornaments hung over him. This is
+supposed to be all that is needed to effect a perfect cure; for the
+demon has kindly accepted the soul of the ornaments and released the
+soul 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 there
+appears to be no idea that it will ever return to life in the form of an
+infant, as the souls of the Central Australian aborigines are supposed
+to do. All Koita ghosts live together on Mount Idu, and their life is
+very like the one they led here on earth. There is no distinction
+between the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked, the strong
+and the weak, the young and the old; they all fare alike in the
+spirit-land, with one exception. Like the Motu, the Koita are in the
+habit of boring holes in their noses and inserting ornaments in the
+holes; and they think that if any person were so unfortunate as to be
+buried with his nose whole and entire, his ghost would have to go about
+in the other world with a creature like a slow-worm depending from his
+nostrils on either side. Hence, when anybody dies before the operation
+of nose-boring has been performed on him or her, the friends take care
+to bore a hole in the nose of the corpse in order that the ghost may not
+appear disfigured among his fellows in dead man's land. There the ghosts
+dwell in houses, cultivate gardens, marry wives, and amuse themselves
+just 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, never
+to revive again, not even as ghosts. The exact length of time they live
+in the spirit-land has not been accurately ascertained; but there seems
+to be a notion that they survive only so long as their names and their
+memories survive among the living. When these are utterly forgotten, the
+poor ghosts cease to exist. If that is so, it is obvious that the dead
+depend for their continued existence upon the recollection of the
+living; their names are in a sense their souls, so that oblivion of the
+name involves extinction of the soul.[317] But though the spirits of the
+dead go away to live for a time on Mount Idu, they often return to their
+native villages and haunt the place of their death. On these visits they
+shew little benevolence or lovingkindness to their descendants. They
+punish any neglect in the performance of the funeral rites and any
+infringement of tribal customs, and the punishment takes the form of
+sickness or of bad luck in hunting or fishing. This dread of the ghost
+commonly leads the Koita to desert a house after a death and to let it
+fall into decay; but sometimes the widow, or in rare cases a brother or
+sister, will continue to inhabit the house of the deceased. Children who
+play near dwellings which have been deserted on account of death may
+fall sick; and if people who are not members of the family partake of
+food which has been hung up in such houses, they also may sicken. It is
+in dreams that the ghosts usually appear to the survivors; but
+occasionally they may be seen or at least felt by people in the waking
+state. Some years ago four Motuan girls persuaded many natives of Port
+Moresby that they could evoke the spirit of a youth named Tamasi, who
+had died three years before. The mother and other sorrowing relatives of
+the deceased paid a high price to the principal medium, a young woman
+named Mea, for an interview with the ghost. The meeting took place in a
+house by night. The relations and friends squatted on the ground in
+expectation; and sure enough the ghost presented himself in the darkness
+and went round shaking hands most affably with the assembled company.
+However, a sceptic who happened to assist at this spiritual sitting, had
+the temerity to hold on tight to the proffered hand of the ghost, while
+another infidel assisted him to obtain a sight as well as a touch of the
+vanished hand by striking a light. It then turned out that the supposed
+apparition was no spirit but the medium Mea herself. She was brought
+before a magistrate, who sentenced her to a short term of imprisonment
+and relieved her of the property which she had amassed by the exercise
+of her spiritual talents.[318] It is hardly for us, or at least for some
+of us, to cast stones at the efforts of ignorant savages to communicate
+by means of such intermediaries with their departed friends. Similar
+attempts have been made in our own country within our lifetime, and I
+believe that they are still being made, in perfect good faith, by
+educated ladies and gentlemen, who like their black brethren and sisters
+in the faith are sometimes made the dupes of designing knaves. If New
+Guinea has its Meas, Europe has its Eusapias. Human credulity and vulgar
+imposture 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 which
+are observed by the Roro-speaking tribes who occupy a territory at the
+mouth of the St. Joseph river in British New Guinea.[319] When a death
+takes place, the female relations of the deceased lacerate their skulls,
+faces, breasts, bellies, arms, and legs with sharp shells, till they
+stream with blood and fall down exhausted. Moreover, a fire is kindled
+on the grave and kept up almost continually for months for the purpose,
+we are told, of warming the ghost.[320] These attentions might be
+interpreted as marks of affection rather than of fear; but in other
+customs of these people the dread of the ghost is unmistakable. For when
+the corpse has been placed in the grave a near kinsman strokes it twice
+with a branch from head to foot in order to drive away the dead man's
+spirit; and in Yule Island, when the ghost has thus been brushed away
+from the body, he is pursued by two men brandishing sticks and torches
+from the village to the edge of the forest, where with a last curse they
+hurl 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 from
+welcome, for all ghosts are supposed to be mischievous and to take no
+delight but in injuring the living. Hence, for example, a widower in
+mourning goes about everywhere armed with an axe to defend himself
+against the spirit of his dead wife, who might play him many an ill turn
+if she caught him defenceless and off his guard. And he is subject to
+many curious restrictions and has to lead the life of an outcast from
+society, apparently because people fear to come into contact with a man
+whose steps are dogged by so dangerous a spirit.[322] This account of
+the terrors of ghosts we owe to a Catholic missionary. But according to
+the information collected by Dr. Seligmann among these people the dread
+inspired by the souls of the dead is not so absolute. He tells us,
+indeed, that ghosts are thought to make people ill by stealing their
+souls; that the natives fear to go alone outside the village in the dark
+lest they should encounter a spectre; and that if too many quarrels
+occur among the women, the spirits of the dead may manifest their
+displeasure by visiting hunters and fishers with bad luck, so that it
+may be necessary to conjure their souls out of the village. On the other
+hand, it is said that if the ghosts abandoned a village altogether, the
+luck of the villagers would be gone, and if such a thing is supposed to
+have happened, measures are taken to bring back the spirits of the
+departed 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 of
+the St. Joseph River, there is a tribe known to their neighbours as the
+Mafulu, though they call themselves Mambule. They speak a Papuan
+language, but their physical characteristics are believed to indicate a
+strain of Negrito blood.[324] The Mafulu hold that at death the human
+spirit leaves the body and becomes a malevolent ghost. Accordingly they
+drive it away with shouts. It is supposed to go away to the tops of the
+mountains there to become, according to its age, either a shimmering
+light on the ground or a large sort of fungus, which is found only on
+the mountains. Hence natives who come across such a shimmering light or
+such a fungus are careful not to tread on it; much less would they eat
+the fungus. However, in spite of their transformation into these things,
+the ghosts come down from the mountains and prowl about the villages and
+gardens seeking what they may devour, and as their intentions are always
+evil their visits are dreaded by the people, who fill up the crevices
+and openings, except the doors, of their houses at night in order to
+prevent the incursions of these unquiet spirits. When a mission station
+was founded in their country, the Mafulu were amazed that the
+missionaries 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 the
+village, and pigs are killed at the funeral for the purpose of appeasing
+the ghost. Mourners wear necklaces of string and smear their faces,
+sometimes also their bodies, with black, which they renew from time to
+time. Instead of wearing a necklace, a widow, widower, or other near
+relative may abstain during the period of mourning from eating a
+favourite food of the deceased. A woman who has lost a child, especially
+a first-born or dearly loved child, will often amputate the first joint
+of one of her fingers with an adze; and she may repeat the amputation if
+she suffers another bereavement. A woman has been seen with three of her
+fingers mutilated in this fashion.[326] The corpses of chiefs, their
+wives, and other members of their families are not buried in graves but
+laid in rude coffins, which are then deposited either on rough platforms
+in the village or in the fork of a species of fig-tree. This sort of
+tree, called by the natives _gabi_, is specially used for such burials;
+one of them has been seen supporting no less than six coffins, one above
+the other. The Mafulu never cut down these trees, and in seeking a new
+site for a village they will often choose a place where one of them is
+growing. So long as the corpse of a chief is rotting and stinking on the
+platform or the tree, the village is deserted by the inhabitants; only
+two men, relatives of the deceased, remain behind exposed to the stench
+of the decaying body and the blood of the pigs which were slaughtered at
+the funeral feast. When decomposition is complete, the people return to
+the village. Should the coffin fall to the ground through the decay of
+the platform or the tree on which it rests, the people throw away all
+the 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 box
+on 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 other
+members of their families, which have thus been preserved, play a
+prominent part in the great feasts which the inhabitants of a Mafulu
+village celebrate at intervals of perhaps fifteen or twenty years. Great
+preparations are made for such a celebration. A series of tall posts,
+one for each household, is erected in the open space which intervenes
+between the two rows of the village houses. Yams and taro are fastened
+to the upper parts of the posts; and below them are hung in circles the
+skulls and arm and leg bones of dead chiefs, their wives, and kinsfolk,
+which have been preserved in the manner described. Any skulls and bones
+that remain over when all the posts have been thus decorated are placed
+on a platform, which has either served for the ordinary exposure of a
+chief's corpse or has been specially erected for the purpose of the
+festival. At a given moment of the ceremony the chief of the clan cuts
+down the props which support the platform, so that the skulls and bones
+roll on the ground. These are picked up and afterwards distributed,
+along with some of the skulls and bones from the posts, by the chief of
+the clan to the more important of the invited guests, who wear them as
+ornaments on their arms in a great dance. None but certain of the male
+guests take part in the dance; the villagers themselves merely look on.
+All the dancers are arrayed in full dancing costume, including heavy
+head-dresses of feathers, and they carry drums and spears, sometimes
+also 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 the
+fruits and vegetables which have been collected in large quantities are
+divided among the guests. On a subsequent morning a large number of pigs
+are killed, and certain of the hosts take some of the human bones from
+the posts and dip them in the blood which flows from the mouths of the
+slaughtered pigs. With these blood-stained bones they next touch the
+skulls and all the other bones on the posts, which include all the
+skulls and arm and leg bones of all the chiefs and members of their
+families and other prominent persons who have been buried in the village
+or in any other village of the community since the last great feast was
+held. These relics of mortality may afterwards be kept in the chief's
+house, or hung on a tree, or simply thrown away in the forest; but in no
+case are they ever again used for purposes of ceremony. The slaughtered
+pigs are cut up and the portions distributed among the guests, who carry
+them 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 notables
+for years, and the dipping of them in the blood of pigs at a great
+festival, must apparently be designed to propitiate or influence in some
+way the ghosts of the persons to whom the skulls and bones belonged in
+their lifetime. But Mr. R. W. Williamson, to whom we are indebted for
+the description of this interesting ceremony, was not able to detect any
+other 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, is
+reported to exist among some of the natives of the Aroma district in
+British New Guinea. Each family is said to have a sacred place, whither
+they carry offerings for the spirits of dead ancestors, whom they
+terribly 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 of
+the spirits is especially invoked and their favour wooed by means of
+offerings. Thus, when a house is being built and the central post has
+been erected, sacrifices of wallaby, fish, and bananas are presented to
+the souls of the dead, and a prayer is put up that they will be pleased
+to keep the house always full of food and to prevent it from falling
+down in stormy weather. Again, when the natives begin to plant their
+gardens, they first take a bunch of bananas and sugar-cane and standing
+in the middle of the garden call over the names of dead members of the
+family, adding, "There is your food, your bananas and sugar-cane; let
+our food grow well, and let it be plentiful. If it does not grow well
+and 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 to
+the spirits at the central post of the house and pray them to go before
+the traders and prepare the people, so that the trade may be good. Once
+more, when there is sickness in the family, a pig is killed and its
+carcase carried to the sacred place, where the spirits are asked to
+accept it. Sins, also, are confessed, such as that people have gathered
+bananas or coco-nuts without offering any of them to their dead
+ancestors. In presenting the pig they say, "There is a pig; accept it,
+and remove the sickness." But if prayers and sacrifices are vain, and
+the patient dies, then, while the relatives all stand round the open
+grave, the chief's sister or cousin calls out in a loud voice: "You have
+been angry with us for the bananas or the coco-nuts which we have
+gathered, and in your anger you have taken away this child. Now let it
+suffice, and bury your anger." So saying they lower the body into the
+grave and shovel in the earth on the top of it. The spirits of the
+departed, on quitting their bodies, paddle in canoes across the lagoon
+and go away to the mountains, where they live in perfect bliss, with no
+work to do and no trouble to vex them, chewing betel, dancing all night
+and resting all day.[330]
+
+[Sidenote: The Hood Peninsula. The town of Kalo.]
+
+Between the Aroma District in the south-east and Port Moresby on the
+north-west is situated the Hood Peninsula in the Central District of
+British New Guinea. It is inhabited by the Bulaa, Babaka, Kamali, and
+Kalo tribes, which all speak dialects of one language.[331] The village
+or town of Kalo, built at the base of the peninsula, close to the mouth
+of the Vanigela or Kemp Welch River, is said to be the wealthiest
+village in British New Guinea. It includes some magnificent native
+houses, all built over the water on piles, some of which are thirty feet
+high. The sight of these great houses perched on such lofty and massive
+props is very impressive. In front of each house is a series of large
+platforms like gigantic steps. Some of the posts and under-surfaces of
+the houses are carved with figures of crocodiles and so forth. The
+labour of cutting the huge planks for the flooring of the houses and the
+platforms must be immense, and must have been still greater in the old
+days, when the natives had only stone tools to work with. Many of the
+planks are cut out of the slab-like buttresses of tall forest trees
+which grow inland. So hard is the wood that the boards are handed down
+as heirlooms from father to son, and the piles on which the houses are
+built 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 and
+produce the betel nuts, which are in great demand for chewing with
+quick-lime and so constitute a source of wealth. Commanding the mouth of
+the Vanigela River, the people of Kalo absorb the trade with the
+interior; and their material prosperity is said to have rendered them
+conceited and troublesome.[332]
+
+[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the natives of
+the Hood Peninsula. Seclusion of the widow or widower.]
+
+The tribes inhabiting the Hood Peninsula are reported to have no belief
+in any good spirit but an unlimited faith in bad spirits, amongst whom
+they include the souls of their dead ancestors. At death the ghosts join
+their forefathers in a subterranean region, where they have splendid
+gardens, houses, and so forth. Yet not content with their life in the
+underworld, they are always on the watch to deal out sickness and death
+to their surviving friends and relations, who may have the misfortune to
+incur their displeasure. So the natives are most careful to do nothing
+that might offend these touchy and dangerous spirits. Like many other
+savages, they do not believe that anybody dies a natural death; they
+think that all the deaths which we should call natural are brought about
+either by an ancestral ghost (_palagu_) or by a sorcerer or witch
+(_wara_). Even when a man dies of snake-bite, they detect in the
+discoloration of the body the wounds inflicted upon him by the fell art
+of the magician.[333] On the approach of death the house of the sick man
+is filled by anxious relatives and friends, who sit around watching for
+the end. When it comes, there is a tremendous outburst of grief. The men
+beat their faces with their clenched fists; the women tear their cheeks
+with their nails till the blood streams down. They usually bury their
+dead in graves, which among the inland tribes are commonly dug near the
+houses of the deceased. The maritime tribes, who live in houses built on
+piles over the water, sometimes inter the corpse in the forest. But at
+other 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, and
+place them on the roof of the house. When the corpse is buried, a
+temporary hut is erected over the grave, and in it the widow or widower
+lives in seclusion for two or three months. During her seclusion the
+widow employs herself in fashioning her widow's weeds, which consist of
+a long grass petticoat reaching to the ankles. She wears a large
+head-dress made of shells; her head is shaved, and her body blackened.
+Further, she wears round her neck the waistband of her deceased husband
+with his lower jaw-bone attached to it. The costume of a widower is
+somewhat similar, though he does not wear a long grass petticoat.
+Instead of it he has a graceful fringe, which hangs from his waist half
+way to the knees. On his head he wears an elaborate head-dress made of
+shells, and on his arms he has armlets of the same material. His hair is
+cut off and his whole skin blackened. Round his neck is a string, from
+which depends his dead wife's petticoat. It is sewn up into small bulk
+and hangs under his right arm. While the widow or widower is living in
+seclusion on the grave, he or she is supplied with food by relations. At
+sundown on the day of the burial, a curious ceremony is performed. An
+old 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 deepening
+shadows under the coco-nut palms. At first she remains perfectly still,
+while the relations of the deceased watch her with painful anxiety. Soon
+her look becomes more piercing, and lowering her head, while she still
+gazes into the depth of the forest, she says in low and solemn tones, "I
+see coming hither So-and-So's grandfather" (mentioning the name of the
+dead 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 swaying
+her body from side to side. "Now they come," she cries, "I can see all
+our forefathers in a fast-gathering crowd. They are coming closer and
+yet closer. Make room, make room for the spirits of our departed
+ancestors." By this time she has worked herself up into a frenzy. She
+throws herself on the ground, beating her head with her clenched fists.
+Foam flies from her lips, her eyes become fixed, and she rolls over
+insensible. But the fit lasts only a short time. She soon comes to
+herself; the vision is past, and the visionary is restored to common
+life.[334]
+
+[Sidenote: Application of the juices of the dead to the persons of the
+living.]
+
+Some of the inland tribes of this district have a peculiar way of
+disposing of their dead. A double platform about ten feet high is
+erected near the village. On the upper platform the corpse is placed,
+and immediately below it the widow or widower sleeps on the lower
+platform, allowing juices of the decaying body to stream down on her or
+him. This application of the decomposing juices of a corpse to the
+persons of the living is not uncommon among savages; it appears to be a
+form of communion with the dead, the survivors thus in a manner
+identifying themselves with their departed kinsfolk by absorbing a
+portion of their bodily substance. Among the tribes in question a
+widower marks his affection for his dead wife by never washing himself
+during the period of mourning; he would not rid himself of those
+products of decomposition which link him, however sadly, with her whom
+he has lost. Every day, too, reeking with these relics of mortality, he
+solemnly stalks through the village.[335]
+
+[Sidenote: Precautions taken by man-slayers against the ghosts of their
+victims.]
+
+But there is a distinction between ghosts. If all of them are feared,
+some are more dreadful than others, and amongst the latter may naturally
+be reckoned the ghosts of slain enemies. Accordingly the slayer has to
+observe special precautions to guard against the angry and vengeful
+spirit of his victim. Amongst these people, we are told, a man who has
+taken life is held to be impure until he has undergone certain
+ceremonies. As soon as possible after the deed is done, he cleanses
+himself and his weapon. Then he repairs to his village and seats himself
+on the logs of sacrificial staging. No one approaches him or takes any
+notice whatever of him. Meantime a house is made ready, in which he must
+live by himself for several days, waited on only by two or three small
+boys. He may eat nothing but toasted bananas, and only the central parts
+of them; the ends are thrown away. On the third day a small feast is
+prepared for him by his friends, who also provide him with some new
+waistbands. Next day, arrayed in all his finery and wearing the badges
+which mark him as a homicide, he sallies forth fully armed and parades
+the village. Next day a hunt takes place, and from the game captured a
+kangaroo is selected. It is cut open, and with its spleen and liver the
+back of the homicide is rubbed. Then he walks solemnly down to the
+nearest water and standing straddle-legs in it washes himself. All young
+untried warriors then swim between his legs, which is supposed to impart
+his courage and strength to them. Next day at early dawn he dashes out
+of his house fully armed and calls aloud the name of his victim. Having
+satisfied himself that he has thoroughly scared the ghost of the dead
+man, he returns to his house. Further, floors are beaten and fires
+kindled for the sake of driving away the ghost, lest he should still be
+lingering in the neighbourhood. A day later the purification of the
+homicide is complete and he is free to enter his wife's house, which he
+might not do before.[336] This account of the purification of a homicide
+suggests that the purificatory rites, which have been observed in
+similar cases by many peoples, including the ancient Greeks, are
+primarily intended to free the slayer from the dangerous ghost of his
+victim, which haunts him and seeks to take his life. Such rites in fact
+appear designed, not to restore the homicide to a state of moral
+innocence, but merely to guard him against a physical danger; they are
+protective, not reformatory, in character; they are exorcisms, not
+purifications in the sense which we attach to the word. This
+interpretation of the ceremonies observed by manslayers among many
+peoples might be supported by a large array of evidence; but to go into
+the matter fully would lead me into a long digression. I have collected
+some of the evidence elsewhere.[337]
+
+[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the Massim of
+south-eastern New Guinea. Hiyoyoa, the land of the dead. Mourners bathe
+and shave their heads. Food deposited in the grave. Dietary restrictions
+imposed on mourners.]
+
+We now pass to that branch of the Papuo-Melanesian race which occupies
+the extreme south-eastern part of British New Guinea, and to which Dr.
+Seligmann gives the name of Massim. These people have been observed more
+especially at three places, namely Bartle Bay, Wagawaga, and Tubetube, a
+small island of the Engineer group lying off the south-eastern extremity
+of New Guinea. Among them the old custom was to bury the dead on the
+outskirts 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 them
+elsewhere.[338] At Wagawaga the name for the spirit or soul of a dead
+person is _arugo_, which also signifies a man's shadow or reflection in
+a glass or in water; and though animals and trees are not supposed to
+have spirits, their reflections bear the same name _arugo_.[339] The
+souls of the dead are believed to depart to the land of Hiyoyoa, which
+is under the sea, near Maivara, at the head of Milne Bay. The land of
+the 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 dead
+speak of the upper world in the language of Milne Bay instead of in that
+of Wagawaga. A certain being called Tumudurere receives the ghosts on
+their arrival and directs them where to make their gardens. The souls of
+living men and women can journey to the land of the dead and return to
+earth; indeed this happens not unfrequently. There is a man at Wagawaga
+who has often gone thither and come back; whenever he wishes to make the
+journey, he has nothing to do but to smear himself with a magical stuff
+and to fall asleep, after which he soon wakes up in Hiyoyoa. At first
+the ghosts whom he met in the other world did not invite him to partake
+of their food, because they knew that if he did so he could not return
+to the land of the living; but apparently practice has rendered him
+immune to the usually fatal effects of the food of the dead.[340] Though
+Hiyoyoa, at the head of Milne Bay, lies to the west of Wagawaga, the
+dead are buried in a squatting posture with their faces turned to the
+east, in order that their souls may depart to the other world.[341]
+Immediately after the funeral the relations who have taken part in the
+burial go down to the sea and bathe, and so do the widow and children of
+the deceased because they supported the dying husband and father in his
+extremity. After bathing in the sea the widow and children shave their
+heads.[342] Both the bathing and the shaving are doubtless forms of
+ceremonial purification; in other words, they are designed to rid the
+survivors of the taint of death, or perhaps more definitely to remove
+the ghost from their persons, to which he may be supposed to cling like
+a burr. At Bartle Bay the dead are buried on their sides with their
+heads pointing in the direction from which the totem clan of the
+deceased is said to have come originally; and various kinds of food, of
+which the dead man had partaken in his last illness, are deposited,
+along with some paltry personal ornaments, in the grave. Apparently the
+food is intended to serve as provision for the ghost on his journey to
+the other world. Curiously enough, the widow is forbidden to eat of the
+same kinds of food of which her husband ate during his last illness, and
+the prohibition is strictly observed until after the last of the funeral
+feasts.[343] The motive of the prohibition is not obvious; perhaps it
+may be a fear of attracting the ghost back to earth through the savoury
+food which he loved in the body. At Wagawaga, after the relatives who
+took part in the burial have bathed in the sea, they cut down several of
+the coco-nut trees which belonged to the deceased, leaving both nuts and
+trees to rot on the ground. During the first two or three weeks after
+the funeral these same relatives may not eat boiled food, but only
+roast; they may not drink water, but only the milk of young coco-nuts
+made hot, and although they may eat yams they must abstain from bananas
+and sugar-cane.[344] A man may not eat coco-nuts grown in his dead
+father's hamlet, nor pigs and areca-nuts from it during the whole
+remainder of his life.[345] The reasons for these dietary restrictions
+are not mentioned, but no doubt the abstinences are based on a fear of
+the ghost, or at all events on a dread of the contagion of death, to
+which all who had a share in the burial are especially exposed.
+
+[Sidenote: Funeral customs at Tubetube. The fire on the grave. The happy
+land.]
+
+At Tubetube, in like manner, immediately after a funeral a brother of
+the 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 from
+their 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 the
+hamlet; and similarly they must abstain from the pork of all pigs
+fattened in their dead father's village. But these prohibitions do not
+apply to the brothers, sisters, and other relatives of the departed. The
+relations who have assisted at the burial remain at the grave for five
+or six days, being fed by the brothers or other near kinsfolk of the
+deceased. They may not quit the spot even at night, and if it rains they
+huddle into a shelter built over the grave. During their vigil at the
+tomb they may not drink water, but are allowed a little heated coco-nut
+milk; they are supposed to eat only a little yam and other vegetable
+food.[346] On the day when the body is buried a fire is kindled at the
+grave and kept burning night and day until the feast of the dead has
+been held. "The reason for having the fire is that the spirit may be
+able to get warm when it rises from the grave. The natives regard the
+spirit as being very cold, even as the body is when the life has
+departed from it, and without this external warmth provided by the fire
+it would be unable to undertake the journey to its final home. The feast
+for the dead is celebrated when the flesh has decayed, and in some
+places the skull is taken from the grave, washed and placed in the
+house, being buried again when the feast is over. At Tubetube this
+custom of taking the skull from the grave is not regularly followed, in
+some instances it is, but the feast is always held, and on the night of
+the day on which the feast takes place, the fire, which has been in some
+cases kept burning for over a month, is allowed to burn out, as the
+spirit, being now safe and happy in the spirit-land, has no further need
+of it."[347] "In this spirit-land eternal youth prevails, there are no
+old men nor old women, but all are in the full vigour of the prime of
+life, or are attaining thereto, and having reached that stage never grow
+older. Old men and old women, who die as such on Tubetube, renew their
+youth in this happy place, where there are no more sickness, no evil
+spirits, and no death. Marriage, and giving in marriage, continue; if a
+man dies, his widow, though she may have married again, is at her death
+re-united to her first husband in the spirit-land, and the second
+husband when he arrives has to take one of the women already there who
+may be without a mate, unless he marries again before his death, in
+which case he would have to wait until his wife joins him. Children are
+born, and on arriving at maturity do not grow older. Houses are built,
+canoes are made but they are never launched, and gardens are planted and
+yield abundantly. The spirits of their animals, dogs, pigs, etc., which
+have died on Tubetube, precede and follow them to the spirit-land.
+Fighting and stealing are unknown, and all are united in a common
+brotherhood."[348]
+
+[Sidenote: The names of the dead not mentioned.]
+
+In the south-eastern part of New Guinea the fear of the dead is further
+manifested by the common custom of avoiding the mention of their names.
+If their names were those of common objects, the words are dropped from
+the language of the district so long as the memory of the departed
+persists, and new names are substituted for them. For example, when a
+man named Binama, which means the hornbill, died at Wagawaga, the name
+of the bird was changed to _ambadina_, which means "the plasterer."[349]
+In this way many words are either permanently lost or revived with
+modified or new meanings. Hence the fear of the dead is here, as in many
+other places, a fertile source of change in language. Another indication
+of the terror inspired by ghosts is the custom of abandoning or
+destroying the house in which a death has taken place; and this custom
+used to be observed in certain cases at Tubetube and Wagawaga.[350]
+
+[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead in the island of
+Kiwai.]
+
+Thus far I have dealt mainly with the beliefs and practices of the
+Papuo-Melanesians in the eastern part of British New Guinea. With regard
+to the pure Papuan population in the western part of the possession our
+information is much scantier. However, we learn that in Kiwai, a large
+island at the mouth of the Fly River, the dead are buried in the
+villages and the ghosts are supposed to live in the ground near their
+decaying bodies, but to emerge from time to time into the upper air and
+look about them, only, however, to return to their abode beneath the
+sod. Nothing is buried with the corpse; but a small platform is made
+over the grave, or sticks are planted in the ground along its sides, and
+on these are placed sago, yams, bananas, coco-nuts, and cooked crabs and
+fish, all for the spirit of the dead to eat. A fire is also kindled
+beside the grave and kept up by the friends for nine days in order that
+the poor ghost may not shiver with cold at night. These practices prove
+not merely a belief in the survival of the soul after death but a desire
+to make it comfortable. Further, when the deceased is a man, his bow and
+arrows 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 garment
+are intended for the use of the ghost, when he or she revisits the upper
+air. On the ninth day after the burial a feast is prepared, the drum is
+beaten, the conch shell blown, and the chief mourner declares that no
+more 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 went
+thither. The fear of ghosts.]
+
+According to the natives of Kiwai the land of the dead is called Adiri
+or Woibu. The first man to go thither and to open up a road for others
+to follow him, was Sido, a popular hero about whom the people tell many
+tales. But whereas in his lifetime Sido was an admired and beneficent
+being, in his ghostly character he became a mischievous elf who played
+pranks on such as he fell in with. His adventures after death furnish
+the theme of many stories. However, it is much to his credit that,
+finding the land of the dead a barren region without vegetation of any
+sort, he, by an act of generation, converted it into a garden, where
+bananas, yams, taro, coco-nuts and other fruits and vegetables grew and
+ripened in a single night. Having thus fertilised the lower region, he
+announced to Adiri, the lord of the subterranean realm, that he was the
+precursor of many more men and women who would descend thereafter into
+the spirit world. His prediction has been amply fulfilled; for ever
+since 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 days
+in the neighbourhood of its old home before setting out for the far
+country. During that time the spirit may occasionally be seen by
+ordinary people, and accordingly the natives are careful not to go out
+in the dark for fear of coming bolt on the ghost; and they sometimes
+adopt other precautions against the prowling spectre, who might
+otherwise haunt them and carry them off with him to deadland. Some
+classes of ghosts are particularly dreaded on account of their
+malignity; such, for example, are the spirits of women who have died in
+childbed, and of people who have hanged themselves or been devoured by
+crocodiles. Such ghosts loiter for a long time about the places where
+they died, and they are very dangerous, because they are for ever luring
+other people to die the same death which they died themselves. Yet
+another troop of evil ghosts are the souls of those who were beheaded in
+battle; for they kill and devour people, and at night you may see the
+blood shining like fire as it gushes from the gaping gashes in their
+throats.[353]
+
+[Sidenote: The path of the ghosts to Adiri. Adiri, the land of the
+dead.]
+
+The road to Adiri or deadland is fairly well known, and the people can
+point to many landmarks on it. For example, in the island of Paho there
+is a tree called _dani_, under which the departing spirits sit down and
+weep. When they have cried their fill and rubbed their poor
+tear-bedraggled faces with mud, they make little pellets of clay and
+throw them at the tree, and anybody can see for himself the pellets
+sticking to the branches. It is true that the pellets resemble the nests
+of insects, but this resemblance is only fortuitous. Near the tree is a
+rocking stone, which the ghosts set in motion, and the sound that they
+make in so doing is like the muffled roll of a drum. And while the stone
+rocks to and fro with a hollow murmur, the ghosts dance, the men on one
+side of the stone and the women on the other. Again at Mabudavane, where
+the Mawata people have gardens, you may sometimes hear, in the stillness
+of night, the same weird murmur, which indicates the presence of a
+ghost. Then everybody keeps quiet, the children are hushed to silence,
+and all listen intently. The murmur continues for a time and then ends
+abruptly in a splash, which tells the listeners that the ghost has
+leaped over the muddy creek. Further on, the spirits come to Boigu,
+where they swim in the waterhole and often appear to people in their
+real shape. But after Boigu the track of the ghosts is lost, or at least
+has not been clearly ascertained. The spirit world lies somewhere away
+in the far west, but the living are not quite sure of the way to it, and
+they are somewhat vague in their accounts of it. There is no difference
+between 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 from
+the same village probably live together in the same rooms of the long
+house of the ghosts. However, some native sceptics even doubt whether
+there is such a place as Adiri at all, and whether death may not be the
+end 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 or
+furnishing them with useful information with regard to the cultivation
+of their gardens, the practice of witchcraft, and so on. In order to
+obtain advice from his dead parents a man will sometimes dig up their
+skulls from the grave and sleep beside them; and to make sure of
+receiving their prompt attention he will not infrequently provide
+himself with a cudgel, with which he threatens to smash their skulls if
+they do not answer his questions. Some persons possess a special faculty
+of communicating with the departing spirit of a person who has just
+died. Should they desire to question it they will lurk beside the road
+which ghosts are known to take; and in order not to be betrayed by their
+smell, which is very perceptible to a ghost, they will chew the leaf or
+bark of a certain tree and spit the juice over their bodies. Then the
+ghost cannot detect them, or rather he takes them to be ghosts like
+himself, and accordingly he may in confidence impart to them most
+valuable information, such for example as full particulars with regard
+to the real cause of his death. This priceless intelligence the
+ghost-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 lay
+some of his weapons and ornaments, together with presents of food, upon
+his grave, no doubt for the use of the ghost; but some of these things
+they afterwards remove and bring back to the village, probably
+considering, with justice, that they will be more useful to the living
+than to the dead. But offerings to the dead may be presented to them at
+other places than their tombs. "The great power," says Dr. Landtman,
+"which the dead represent to the living has given rise to a sort of
+simple offering to them, almost the only kind of offering met with among
+the Kiwai Papuans. The natives occasionally lay down presents of food at
+places to which spirits come, and utter some request for assistance
+which the spirits are supposed to hear."[356] In such offerings and
+prayers 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 in
+supplying the natives with ideas about Adiri and life after death. A
+great number of dreams collected by me among the Kiwai people tell of
+wanderings to Adiri or of meetings with spirits of dead men, and as
+dreams are believed to describe the real things which the soul sees
+while roaming about outside the body, we understand that they must
+greatly influence the imagination of the people."[357]
+
+That concludes what I have to say as to the belief in immortality and
+the worship of the dead among the natives of British New Guinea. In the
+following lectures I shall deal with the same rudimentary aspect of
+religion as it is reported to exist among the aborigines of the vast
+regions 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 or
+Polynesian affinities, see Rev. W. Y. Turner, "The Ethnology of the
+Motu," _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 the
+Motu," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vii. (1878) pp. 484
+_sqq._; Rev. W. G. Lawes, "Ethnological Notes on the Motu, Koitapu and
+Koiari Tribes of New Guinea," _Journal of the Anthropological
+Institute_, 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 the
+Anthropological Institute_, vii. (1878) pp. 470 _sqq._; Rev. W. G.
+Lawes, "Ethnological Notes on the Motu, Koitapu and Koiari Tribes of New
+Guinea," _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 the
+desertion of the house after death, see _id._, pp. 89 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 319: The territory of the Roro-speaking tribes extends from
+Kevori, east of Waimatuma (Cape Possession), to Hiziu in the
+neighbourhood of Galley Reach. Inland of these tribes lies a region
+called by them Mekeo, which is inhabited by two closely related tribes,
+the Biofa and Vee. Off the coast lies Yule Island, which is commonly
+called Roro. See C. G. Seligmann, _op. cit._ p. 195.]
+
+[Footnote 320: V. Jouet, _La Societe des Missionaires du Sacre Coeur
+dans les Vicariats Apostoliques de la Melanesie et de la Micronesie_
+(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," _Missions
+Catholiques_, 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 British
+New 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 New
+Guinea_ (London, 1885), pp. 84-86.]
+
+[Footnote 331: R. E. Guise, "On the Tribes inhabiting the Mouth of the
+Wanigela 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 of
+the 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), quoted
+by 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. Seligmann
+seems to think that the custom is at present dictated by courtesy and a
+reluctance to grieve the relatives of the deceased; but the original
+motive 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 Anthropological
+Institute_, xxxiii. (1903) pp. 119, 120.]
+
+[Footnote 352: G. Landtman, "Wanderings of the Dead in the Folk-lore of
+the Kiwai-speaking Papuans," _Festskrift tillaegnad 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 without
+referring to the loss which the study of primitive religion has lately
+sustained by the death of one of my predecessors in this chair, one who
+was a familiar and an honoured figure in this place, Mr. Andrew Lang.
+Whatever may be the judgment of posterity on his theories--and all our
+theories on these subjects are as yet more or less tentative and
+provisional--there can be no question but that by the charm of his
+writings, the wide range of his knowledge, the freshness and vigour of
+his mind, and the contagious enthusiasm which he brought to bear on
+whatever he touched, he was a great power in promoting the study of
+primitive man not in this country only, but wherever the English
+language is spoken, and that he won for himself a permanent place in the
+history of the science to which he devoted so much of his remarkable
+gifts 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 perhaps
+be honoured by his presence at some of my lectures. But it was not to
+be. 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 been
+said of Macaulay that if his spirit ever revisited the earth, it might
+be expected to haunt the flagged walk beside the chapel in the great
+court of Trinity College, Cambridge, the walk which in his lifetime he
+loved to pace book in hand. And if Andrew Lang's spirit could be seen
+flitting pensively anywhere, would it not be just here, in "the college
+of the scarlet gown," in the "little city worn and grey," looking out on
+the cold North Sea, the city which he knew and loved so well? Be that as
+it may, his memory will always be associated with St. Andrews; and if
+the students who shall in future go forth from this ancient university
+to carry St. Andrew's Cross, if I may say so, on their banner in the
+eternal warfare with falsehood and error,--if they cannot imitate Andrew
+Lang in the versatility of his genius, in the variety of his
+accomplishments, in the manifold graces of his literary art, it is to be
+hoped that they will strive to imitate him in qualities which are more
+within the reach of us all, in his passionate devotion to knowledge, in
+his ardent and unflagging pursuit of truth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Review of preceding lectures.]
+
+In my last course of lectures I explained that I proposed to treat of
+the belief in immortality from a purely historical point of view. My
+intention is not to discuss the truth of the belief or to criticise the
+grounds on which it has been maintained. To do so would be to trench on
+the province of the theologian and the philosopher. I limit myself to
+the far humbler task of describing, first, the belief as it has been
+held by some savage races, and, second, some of the practical
+consequences which these primitive peoples have deduced from it for the
+conduct of life, whether these consequences take the shape of religious
+rites or moral precepts. Now in such a survey of savage creed and
+practice it is convenient to begin with the lowest races of men about
+whom we have accurate information and to pass from them gradually to
+higher and higher races, because we thus start with the simplest forms
+of religion and advance by regular gradations to more complex forms, and
+we may hope in this way to render the course of religious evolution more
+intelligible than if we were to start from the most highly developed
+religions and to work our way down from them to the most embryonic. In
+pursuance of this plan I commenced my survey with the aborigines of
+Australia, because among the races of man about whom we are well
+informed these savages are commonly and, I believe, justly supposed to
+stand at the foot of the human scale. Having given you some account of
+their beliefs and practices concerning the dead I attempted to do the
+same for the islanders of Torres Straits and next for the natives of
+British New Guinea. There I broke off, and to-day I shall resume the
+thread of my discourse at the broken end by describing the beliefs and
+practices concerning the dead, as these beliefs are entertained and
+these 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 British
+territory on the north throughout its entire length and comprises
+roughly a quarter of the whole island, the British and German
+possessions making up together the eastern half of New Guinea, while the
+western 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 very
+fragmentary, 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 less
+fully the customs and beliefs of the natives at various points of this
+long coast, and I shall extract from their descriptions some notices of
+that particular aspect of the native religion with which in these
+lectures we are specially concerned. The points on the coast as to which
+a certain amount of ethnographical information is forthcoming are, to
+take them in the order from west to east, Berlin Harbour, Potsdam
+Harbour, Astrolabe Bay, the Maclay Coast, Cape King William, Finsch
+Harbour, and the Tami Islands in Huon Gulf. I propose to say something
+as to the natives at each of these points, beginning with Berlin
+Harbour, the most westerly of them.
+
+[Sidenote: The island of Tumleo.]
+
+Berlin Harbour is formed by a group of four small islands, which here
+lie off the coast. One of the islands bears the name of Tumleo or
+Tamara, and we possess an excellent account of the natives of this
+island from the pen of a Catholic missionary, Father Mathias Josef
+Erdweg,[358] which I shall draw upon in what follows. We have also a
+paper by a German ethnologist, the late Mr. R. Parkinson, on the same
+subject,[359] but his information is in part derived from Father Erdweg
+and he appears to have erred by applying too generally the statements
+which 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 deg. 25" of East Longitude and 3 deg. 15" of
+South Latitude, and is distant about sixty sea-miles from the
+westernmost point of German New Guinea. It is a coral island, surrounded
+by a barrier reef and rising for the most part only a few feet above the
+sea.[361] In stature the natives fall below the average European height;
+but they are well fed and strongly built. Their colour varies from black
+to light brown. Their hair is very frizzly. Women and children wear it
+cut short; men wear it done up into wigs. They number less than three
+hundred, divided into four villages. The population seems to have
+declined through wars, disease, and infanticide.[362] Like the Papuans
+generally, they live in settled villages and engage in fishing,
+agriculture, and commerce. The houses are solidly built of wood and are
+raised above the ground upon piles, which consist of a hard and durable
+timber, sometimes iron-wood.[363] The staple food of the people is sago,
+which they obtain from the sago-palm. These stately palms, with their
+fan-like foliage, are rare on the coral island of Tumleo, but grow
+abundantly in the swampy lowlands of the neighbouring mainland.
+Accordingly in the months of May and June, when the sea is calm, the
+natives cross over to the mainland in their canoes and obtain a supply
+of sago in exchange for the products of their island. The sago is eaten
+in the form both of porridge and of bread.[364] Other vegetable foods
+are furnished by sweet potatoes, taro, yams, bananas, sugar-cane, and
+coco-nuts, all of which the natives cultivate.[365] Fishing is a
+principal industry of the people; it is plied by both sexes and by old
+and young, with nets, spears, and bows and arrows.[366] Pottery is
+another flourishing industry. As among many other savages, it is
+practised only by women, but the men take the pots to market; for these
+islanders do a good business in pots with the neighbouring tribes.[367]
+They build large outrigger canoes, which sail well before the wind, but
+can hardly beat up against it, being heavy to row. In these canoes the
+natives of Tumleo make long voyages along the coast; but as the craft
+are 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 stormy
+weather.[368] In regard to art the natives display some taste and skill
+in wood-carving. For example, the projecting house-beams are sometimes
+carved in the shape of crocodiles, birds, and grotesque human figures;
+and their canoes, paddles, head-rests, drums, drum-sticks, and vessels
+are also decorated with carving. Birds, fish, crocodiles, foliage, and
+scroll-work are the usual patterns.[369]
+
+[Sidenote: The temples (_paraks_) of Tumleo.]
+
+A remarkable feature in the villages of Tumleo and the neighbouring
+islands and mainland consists of the _paraks_ or temples, the high
+gables of which may be seen rising above the bushes in all the villages
+of this part of the coast. No such buildings exist elsewhere in this
+region. They are set apart for the worship of certain guardian spirits,
+and on them the native lavishes all the resources of his elementary arts
+of sculpture and painting. They are built of wood in two storeys and
+raised on piles besides. The approach to one of them is always by one or
+two ladders provided on both sides with hand-rails or banisters. These
+banisters are elaborately decorated with carving, which is always of the
+same pattern. One banister is invariably carved in the shape of a
+crocodile holding a grotesque human figure in its jaws, while on the
+other 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-like
+effigies seated one behind the other, each of them resting his arms on
+the shoulders of the figure in front. Often there are seven such figures
+in a row. The natives are so shy in speaking of these temples that it is
+difficult to ascertain the meaning of the curious carvings by which they
+are adorned. Mr. Parkinson supposed that they represent spirits, not
+apes. He tells us that there are no apes in New Guinea. The interior of
+the temple (_parak_) is generally empty. The only things to be seen in
+its two rooms, the upper and lower, are bamboo flutes and drums made out
+of the hollow trunks of trees. On these instruments men concealed in the
+temple discourse music in order to signify the presence of the
+spirit.[370]
+
+[Sidenote: The bachelors' houses (_alols_) of Tumleo.]
+
+Different from these _paraks_ or temples are the _alols_, which are
+bachelors' houses and council-houses in one. Like the temples, they are
+raised above the ground and approached by a ladder, but unlike the
+temples they have only one storey. In them the unmarried men live and
+the married men meet to take counsel and to speak of things which may
+not be mentioned before women. On a small stand or table in each of
+these _alols_ or men's clubhouses are kept the skulls of dead men. And
+as the temple (_parak_) is devoted to the worship of spirits, so the
+men's clubhouse (_alol_) is the place where the dead ancestors are
+worshipped. Women and children may not enter it, but it is not regarded
+with such superstitious fear as the temple. The dead are buried in their
+houses or beside them. Afterwards the bones are dug up and the skulls of
+grown men are deposited, along with one of the leg bones, on the stand
+or 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 in
+the clubhouse is quite full of grinning trophies of mortality, the old
+skulls are removed to make room for the new ones and are thrown away in
+a sort of charnel-house, where the other bones are deposited after they
+have been dug up from the graves. Such a charnel-house is called a
+_tjoll paru_. There is one such place for the bones of grown men and
+another for the bones of women and children. Some bones, however, are
+kept and used as ornaments or as means to work magic with. For the dead
+are often invoked, for example, to lay the wind or for other useful
+purposes; and at such invocations the bones play a part.[371]
+
+[Sidenote: Spirits of the dead thought to be the causes of sickness and
+disease.]
+
+But while the spirits of the dead are thus invited to help their living
+relations and friends, they are also feared as the causes of sickness
+and disease. Any serious ailment is usually attributed to magic or
+witchcraft, and the treatment which is resorted to aims rather at
+breaking the spell which has been cast on the sick man than at curing
+his malady by the application of physical remedies. In short the remedy
+is exorcism rather than physic. Now the enchantment under which the
+patient is supposed to be labouring is often, though not always,
+ascribed to the malignant arts of the spirits of the dead, or the _mos_,
+as the natives of Tumleo call them. In such a case the ghosts are
+thought to be clinging to the body of the sufferer, and the object of
+the 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 collect
+a number of herbs, including a kind of peppermint. These are tied into
+one or more bundles according to the number of the patients and then
+taken to the men's clubhouse (_alol_), where they are heated over a
+fire. Then the patient is brought, and two men strike him lightly with
+the packet of herbs on his body and legs, while they utter an
+incantation, inviting the ancestral spirits who are plaguing him to
+leave his body and go away, in order that he may be made whole. One such
+incantation, freely translated, runs thus: "Spirit of the
+great-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 no
+harm here and there. Tell the people of Leming (O spirit) to give us
+tobacco. When the waves are still, we push off from the land, sailing
+northward (to Tumleo). It is the time of the north-west wind (when the
+surf 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! Out
+there 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 hold
+on the sufferer appears to be curiously combined with a prayer or spell
+to calm the sea when the people sail across to the coast of Leming to
+fetch a cargo of tobacco. When the incantation has been recited and the
+patient stroked with the bundle of herbs, one of his ears and both his
+arm-pits are moistened with a blood-red spittle produced by the chewing
+of betel-nut, pepper, and lime. Then they take hold of his fingers and
+make each of them crack, one after the other, while they recite some of
+the words of the preceding incantation. Next three men take each of them
+a branch of the _volju_ tree, bend it into a bow, and stroke the sick
+man from head to foot, while they recite another incantation, in which
+they command the spirit to let the sick man alone and to go away into
+the water or the mud. Often when a man is seriously ill he will remove
+from his own house to the house of a relation or friend, hoping that the
+spirit who has been tormenting him will not be able to discover him at
+his new address.[372]
+
+[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs in Tumleo.]
+
+If despite of all these precautions the patient should die, he or she is
+placed in a wooden coffin and buried with little delay in a grave, which
+is dug either in the house or close beside it. The body is smeared all
+over 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 coffin
+is shut down. Sometimes arrows, sometimes a rudder, sometimes the bones
+of dead relations are buried with the corpse in the grave. When the
+grave is dug outside of the house, a small hut is erected over it, and a
+fire is kept burning on it for a time. In the house of mourning the
+wife, sister, or other female relative of the deceased must remain
+strictly secluded for a period which varies from a few weeks to three
+months. In token of mourning the widow's body is smeared with clay, and
+from time to time she is heard to chant a dirge in a whining, melancholy
+tone. This seclusion lasts so long as the ghost is supposed to be still
+on his way to the other world. When he has reached his destination, the
+fire is suffered to die down on the grave, and his widow or other female
+relative is free to quit the house and resume her ordinary occupations.
+Through her long seclusion in the shade her swarthy complexion assumes a
+lighter tint, but it soon deepens again when she is exposed once more to
+the strong tropical sunshine.[373]
+
+[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Tumleo people as to the fate of the human soul
+after death.]
+
+The people of Tumleo firmly believe in the existence of the human soul
+after death, though their notions of the disembodied soul or _mos_, as
+they call it, are vague. They think that on its departure from the body
+the soul goes to a place deep under ground, where there is a great
+water. Over that water every soul must pass on a ladder to reach the
+abode of bliss. The ladder is in the keeping of a spirit called _Su asin
+tjakin_ or "the Great Evil," who takes toll of the ghosts before he lets
+them use his ladder. Hence an ear-ring and a bracelet are deposited with
+every corpse in the grave in order that the dead man may have
+wherewithal to pay the toll to the spirit at the great water. When the
+ghost arrives at the place of passage and begs for the use of the
+ladder, the spirit asks him, "Shall I get my bracelet if I let you
+pass?" If he receives it and happens to be in a good humour, he will let
+the ghost scramble across the ladder to the further shore. But woe to
+the stingy ghost, who should try to sneak across the ladder without
+paying toll. The ghostly tollkeeper detects the fraud in an instant and
+roars 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 the
+deep water and is drowned. But the honest ghost, who has paid his way
+like a man and arrived on the further shore, is met by two other ghosts
+who ferry him in a canoe across to Sisano, which is a place on the
+mainland a good many miles to the north of Tumleo. A great river flows
+there and in the river are three cities of the dead, in one of which the
+newly arrived ghost takes up his abode. Then it is that the fire on his
+grave is allowed to go out and his widow may mingle with her fellows
+again. 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 the
+living 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 of
+the spirits of the dead which induces the survivors to erect monuments
+or memorials to them. In Tumleo these monuments consist for the most
+part of young trees, which are cut down, stripped of their leaves, and
+set up in the ground beside the house of the deceased. The branches of
+such a memorial tree are hung with fruits, coco-nuts, loin-cloths, pots,
+and personal ornaments, all of which we may suppose are intended for the
+comfort and convenience of the ghost when he returns from deadland to
+pay his friends a visit.[375] But the remains of the dead are not
+allowed to rest quietly in the grave for ever. After two or three years
+they are dug up with much ceremony at the point of noon, when the sun is
+high overhead. The skull of the deceased, if he was a man, is then
+deposited, as we saw, with one of the thigh bones in the men's
+clubhouse, while of the remaining bones some are kept by the relations
+and the others thrown away in a charnel-house. Among the relics which
+the relations preserve are the lower arm bones, the shoulder-blades, the
+ribs, and the vertebra. The vertebra is often fastened to a bracelet; a
+couple of ribs are converted into a necklace; and the shoulder-blades
+are used to decorate baskets. The lower arm bones are generally strung
+on a cord, which is worn on solemn occasions round the neck so that the
+bones hang down behind. They are especially worn thus in war, and they
+are made use of also when their owner desires to obtain a favourable
+wind for a voyage. No doubt, though this is not expressly affirmed, the
+spirit of the departed is supposed to remain attached in some fashion to
+his 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 keep
+watch and ward for some days in the men's clubhouse, where his grinning
+skull now stands amid similar trophies of mortality on a table or shelf.
+They may not quit the building except in case of necessity, and they
+must always speak in a whisper for fear of disturbing the ghost, who is
+very naturally lurking in the neighbourhood of his skull. However, in
+spite of these restrictions the watchers enjoy themselves; for baskets
+of sago and fish are provided abundantly for their consumption, and if
+their 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 of
+the departed and with other spirits, these powerful beings will bring
+them good luck in trade and on their voyages. Now the time when trade is
+lively and the calm sea is dotted with canoes plying from island to
+island or from island to mainland, is the season when the gentle
+south-east monsoon is blowing. On the other hand, when the waves run
+high under the blast of the strong north-west monsoon, the sea is almost
+deserted and the people stay at home;[377] the season is to these
+tropical islanders what winter is to the inhabitants of northern
+latitudes. Accordingly it is when the wind is shifting round from the
+stormy north-west to the balmy south-east that the natives set
+themselves particularly to win the favour of ghosts and spirits, and
+this they do by repairing the temples and clubhouses in which the
+spirits and ghosts are believed to dwell, and by cleaning and tidying up
+the open spaces around them. These repairs are the occasion of a
+festival accompanied by dances and games. Early in the morning of the
+festive day the shrill notes of the flutes and the hollow rub-a-dub of
+the drums are heard to proceed from the interior of the temple,
+proclaiming the arrival of the guardian spirit and his desire to partake
+of fish and sago. So the men assemble and the feast is held in the
+evening. Festivals are also held both in the temples and in the men's
+clubhouses on the occasion of a successful hunt or fishing. Out of
+gratitude for the help vouchsafed them by the ancestral spirits, the
+hunters or fishers bring the larger game or fish to the temples or
+clubhouses and eat them there; and then hang up some parts of the
+animals or fish, such as the skeletons, the jawbones of pigs, or the
+shells of turtles, in the clubhouses as a further mark of homage to the
+spirits of the dead.[378]
+
+[Sidenote: Guardian spirits (_tapum_) in Tumleo.]
+
+So far as appears, the spirits who dwell in the temples are not supposed
+to be ancestors. Father Erdweg describes them as guardian spirits or
+goddesses, for they are all of the female sex. Every village has several
+of them; indeed in the village of Sapi almost every family has its own
+guardian spirit. The name for these guardian spirits is _tapum_, which
+seems to be clearly connected with the now familiar word _tapu_ or
+taboo, in the sense of sacred, which is universally understood in the
+islands of the Pacific. On the whole the _tapum_ are kindly and
+beneficent spirits, who bring good luck to such as honour them. A hunter
+or a fisherman ascribes his success in the chase or in fishing to the
+protection of his guardian spirit; and when he is away from home trading
+for sago and other necessaries of life, it is his guardian spirit who
+gives him favour in the eyes of the foreigners with whom he is dealing.
+Curiously enough, though these guardian spirits are all female, they
+have no liking for women and children. Indeed, no woman or child may set
+foot in a temple, or even loiter in the open space in front of it. And
+at the chief festivals, when the temples are being repaired, all the
+women and children must quit the village till the evening shadows have
+fallen and the banquet of their husbands, fathers, and brothers at the
+temple is over.[379]
+
+On the whole, then, we conclude that a belief in the continued existence
+of the spirits of the dead, and in their power to help or harm their
+descendants, plays a considerable part in the life of the Papuans of
+Tumleo. Whether the guardian spirits or goddesses, who are worshipped in
+the temples, were originally conceived as ancestral spirits or not, must
+be left an open question for the present.
+
+[Sidenote: The Monumbo of Potsdam Harbour.]
+
+Passing eastward from Tumleo along the northern coast of German New
+Guinea we come to Monumbo or Potsdam Harbour, situated about the 145th
+degree of East Longitude. The Monumbo are a Papuan tribe numbering about
+four hundred souls, who inhabit twelve small villages close to the
+seashore. Their territory is a narrow but fertile strip of country, well
+watered and covered with luxuriant vegetation, lying between the sea and
+a 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 any
+weather. The villages, embowered on the landward side in groves of trees
+of many useful sorts and screened in front by rows of stately coco-nut
+palms, are composed of large houses solidly built of timber and are kept
+very clean and tidy. The Monumbo are a strongly-built people, of the
+average European height, with what is described as a remarkably Semitic
+type of features. The men wear their hair plaited about a long tube,
+decorated with shells and dogs' teeth, which sticks out stiffly from the
+head. The women wear their hair in a sort of mop, composed of countless
+plaits, which hang down in tangle. In disposition the Monumbo are
+cheerful and contented, proud of themselves and their country; they
+think they are the cleverest and most fortunate people on earth, and
+look down with pity and contempt on Europeans. According to them the
+business of the foreign settlers in their country is folly, and the
+teaching of the missionaries is nonsense. They subsist by agriculture,
+hunting, and fishing. Their well-kept plantations occupy the level
+ground and in some places extend up the hill-sides. Among the plants
+which they cultivate are taro, yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, various
+kinds of vegetables, and sugar-cane. Among their fruit-trees are the
+sago-palm, the coco-nut palm, and the bread-fruit tree. They make use
+both of earthenware and of wooden vessels. Their dances, especially
+their masked dances, which are celebrated at intervals of four or five
+years, 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 of
+a Catholic missionary who has laboured among them. "The Monumbo are
+acquainted with no Supreme Being, no moral good or evil, no rewards, no
+place of punishment or joy after death, no permanent immortality....
+When people die, their souls go to the land of spirits, a place where
+they dwell without work or suffering, but which they can also quit.
+Betel-chewing, smoking, dancing, sleeping, all the occupations that they
+loved 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 also
+help 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 obtain
+their assistance. But if the spirits of the dead do not help, they are
+rated in the plainest language. Death makes no great separation. The
+living converse with the dead very much as they converse with each
+other. Time alone brings with it a gradual oblivion of the departed.
+Falling stars and lightning are nothing but the souls of the dead, who
+stick dry banana leaves in their girdles, set them on fire, and then fly
+through the air. At last when the souls are old they die, but are not
+annihilated, for they are changed into animals and plants. Such animals
+are, for example, the white ants and a rare kind of wild pig, which is
+said not to allow itself to be killed. Such a tree, for example, is the
+_barimbar_. That, apparently, is the whole religion of the Monumbo. Yet
+they are ghost-seers of the most arrant sort. An anxious superstitious
+fear pursues them at every step. Superstitious views are the motives
+that determine almost everything that they do or leave undone."[381]
+Their dread of ghosts is displayed in their custom of doing no work in
+the plantations for three days after a death, lest the ghost, touched to
+the quick by their heartless indifference, should send wild boars to
+ravage the plantations. And when a man has slain an enemy in war, he has
+to remain a long time secluded in the men's clubhouse, touching nobody,
+not even his wife and children, while the villagers celebrate his
+victory with song and dance. He is believed to be in a state of
+ceremonial impurity (_bolobolo_) such that, if he were to touch his wife
+and children, they would be covered with sores. At the end of his
+seclusion he is purified by washings and other purgations and is clean
+once more.[382] The reason of this uncleanness of a victorious warrior
+is not mentioned, but analogy makes it nearly certain that it is a dread
+of the vengeful ghost of the man whom he has slain. A similar fear
+probably underlies the rule that a widower must abstain from certain
+foods, such as fish and sauces, and from bathing for a certain time
+after the death of his wife.[383]
+
+[Sidenote: The Tamos of Astrolabe Bay. Mistake of attempting to combine
+descriptive with comparative anthropology.]
+
+Leaving Potsdam Harbour and the Monumbo, and moving still eastward along
+the coast of German New Guinea, we come to a large indentation known as
+Astrolabe Bay. The natives of this part of the coast call themselves
+Tamos. The largest village on the bay bears the name of Bogadyim and in
+1894 numbered about three hundred inhabitants.[384] Our principal
+authority on the natives is a German ethnologist, Dr. B. Hagen, who
+spent about eighteen months at Stefansort on Astrolabe Bay.
+Unfortunately he has mixed up his personal observations of these
+particular people not merely with second-hand accounts of natives of
+other parts of New Guinea but with discussions of general theories of
+the origin and migrations of races and of the development of social
+institutions; so that it is not altogether easy to disentangle the facts
+for which he is a first-hand witness, from those which he reports at
+second, third, or fourth hand. Scarcely anything, I may observe in
+passing, more impairs the value and impedes the usefulness of personal
+observations of savage races than this deplorable habit of attempting to
+combine the work of description with the work of comparison and
+generalisation. The two kinds of work are entirely distinct in their
+nature, and require very different mental qualities for their proper
+performance; the one should never be confused with the other. The task
+of descriptive anthropology is to record observations, without any
+admixture of theory; the task of comparative anthropology is to compare
+the observations made in all parts of the world, and from the comparison
+to deduce theories, more or less provisional, of the origin and growth
+of beliefs and institutions, always subject to modification and
+correction by facts which may afterwards be brought to light. There is
+no harm, indeed there is great positive advantage, in the descriptive
+anthropologist making himself acquainted with the theories of the
+comparative anthropologist, for by so doing his attention will probably
+be called to many facts which he might otherwise have overlooked and
+which, when recorded, may either confirm or refute the theories in
+question. But if he knows these theories, he should keep his knowledge
+strictly in the background and never interlard his descriptions of facts
+with digressions into an alien province. In this way descriptive
+anthropology and comparative anthropology will best work hand in hand
+for the furtherance of their common aim, the understanding of the nature
+and development of man.
+
+[Sidenote: The religion of the Tamos. Beliefs of the Tamos as to the
+souls of the dead.]
+
+Like the Papuans in general, the Tamos of Astrolabe Bay are a settled
+agricultural people, who dwell in fixed villages, subsist mainly by the
+produce of the ground which they cultivate, and engage in a commerce of
+barter with their neighbours.[385] Their material culture thus does not
+differ essentially from that of the other Papuans, and I need not give
+particulars of it. With regard to their religious views Dr. Hagen tells
+us candidly that he has great hesitation in expressing an opinion.
+"Nothing," he says very justly, "is more difficult for a European than
+to form an approximately correct conception of the religious views of a
+savage people, and the difficulty is infinitely increased when the
+enquirer has little or no knowledge of their language." Dr. Hagen had,
+indeed, an excellent interpreter and intelligent assistant in the person
+of a missionary, Mr. Hoffmann; but Mr. Hoffmann himself admitted that he
+had no clear ideas as to the religious views of the Tamos; however, in
+his opinion they are entirely destitute of the conception of God and of
+a Creator. Yet among the Tamos of Bogadyim, Dr. Hagen tells us, a belief
+in the existence of the soul after death is proved by their assertion
+that after death the soul (_gunung_) goes to _buka kure_, which seems to
+mean the village of ghosts. This abode of the dead appears to be
+situated somewhere in the earth, and the Tamos speak of it with a
+shudder. They tell of a man in the village of Bogadyim who died and went
+away 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 and
+arrows and spear to hunt a wild boar. This boar-hunting ghost was very
+angry at meeting his brother, who had just died, and drove him back to
+the land of the living. From this narrative it would seem that in the
+other world the ghosts are thought to pursue the same occupations which
+they followed in life. The natives are in great fear of ghosts (_buka_).
+Travelling alone with them in the forest at nightfall you may mark their
+timidity and hear them cry anxiously, "Come, let us be going! The ghost
+is roaming about." The ghosts of those who have perished in battle do
+not go to the Village of Ghosts (_buka kure_); they repair to another
+place called _bopa kure_. But this abode of the slain does not seem to
+be a happy land or Valhalla; the natives are even more afraid of it than
+of the Village of Ghosts (_buka kure_). They will hardly venture at
+night to pass a spot where any one has been slain. Sometimes fires are
+kindled by night on such spots; and the sight of the flames flickering
+in the distance inspires all the beholders with horror, and nothing in
+the world would induce them to approach such a fire. The souls of men
+who have been killed, but whose death has not been avenged, are supposed
+to haunt the village. For some time after death the ghost is believed to
+linger in the neighbourhood of his deserted body. When Mr. Hoffmann went
+with some Tamos to another village to bring back the body of a fellow
+missionary, who had died there, and darkness had fallen on them in the
+forest, his native companions started with fear every moment, imagining
+that they saw the missionary's ghost popping out from behind a
+tree.[386]
+
+[Sidenote: Treatment of the corpse. Secret Society called _Asa_.]
+
+When death has taken place, the corpse is first exposed on a scaffold in
+front of the house, where it is decked with ornaments and surrounded
+with flowers. If the deceased was rich, a dog is hung on each side of
+the scaffold, and the souls of the animals are believed to accompany the
+ghost to the spirit-land. Taros, yams, and coco-nuts are also suspended
+from the scaffold, no doubt for the refreshment of the ghost. Then the
+melancholy notes of a horn are heard in the distance, at the sound of
+which all the women rush away. Soon the horn-blower appears, paints the
+corpse white and red, crowns it with great red hibiscus roses, then
+blows 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 men
+belong to the society; women and children are excluded from it and look
+upon 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 the
+distance, all the women and children scamper away. The natives are very
+unwilling to let any stranger enter one of the lodges of the society.
+The interior of such a building is usually somewhat bare, but it
+contains the wooden masks which are worn in the ceremonial dances of the
+society, and the horns and flutes on which the members discourse their
+awe-inspiring music. In construction it scarcely differs from the
+ordinary huts of the village; if anything it is worse built and more
+primitive. The secrets of the society are well kept; at least very
+little seems to have been divulged to Europeans. The most important of
+its ceremonies is that of the initiation of the young men, who on this
+occasion are circumcised before they are recognised as full-grown men
+and members of the secret society. At such times the men encamp and
+feast for weeks or even months together on the open space in front of
+the society's lodge, and masked dances are danced to the accompaniment
+of the instrumental music. These initiatory ceremonies are held at
+intervals of about ten or fifteen years, when there are a considerable
+number of young men to be initiated together.[388] Although we are still
+in the dark as to the real meaning of this and indeed of almost all
+similar secret societies among savages, the solemn part played by a
+member of the society at the funeral rites seems very significant. Why
+should he come mysteriously to the melancholy music of the horn, paint
+the corpse red and white, crown it with red roses, and then vanish again
+to music as he had come? It is scarcely rash to suppose that this
+ceremony has some reference to the state of the dead man's soul, and we
+may conjecture that just as the fruits hung on the scaffold are
+doubtless intended for the consumption of the ghost, and the souls of
+the dogs are expressly said to accompany him to the spirit-land, so the
+painting of the corpse and the crown of red roses may be designed in
+some way to speed the parting spirit on the way to its long home. In the
+absence of exact information as to the beliefs of these savages touching
+the state of the dead we can only guess at the meaning which they attach
+to these symbols. Perhaps they think that only ghosts who are painted
+red and white and who wear wreaths of red roses on their heads are
+admitted to the Village of the Ghosts, and that such as knock at the
+gate with no paint on their bodies and no wreath of roses on their brows
+are refused admittance and must turn sorrowfully away, to haunt their
+undutiful friends on earth who had omitted to pay the last marks of
+respect 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 paint
+and its flowers, for a short time on the scaffold, it is removed and
+buried. The exposure never lasts more than a day. If the man died in the
+morning, he is buried at night. The grave is dug in the house itself. It
+is only about three feet deep and four feet long. If the corpse is too
+long for the grave, as usually happens, the legs are remorselessly
+doubled up and trampled in. It is the relations on the mother's side who
+dig the grave and lower the body, shrouded in mats or leaves, into its
+narrow 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 are
+regarded as too valuable to be sacrificed. Yet a regard for the comfort
+of the dead is shewn by the custom of covering the open grave with wood
+and then heaping the mould on the top, in order, we are told, that the
+earth may not press heavy on him who sleeps below. _Sit tibi terra
+levis!_ After some months the grave is opened and the lower jaw removed
+from the corpse and preserved. This removal of the jaw is the occasion
+of solemnities and ceremonial washings, in which the whole male
+population of the village takes part. But as to the meaning of these
+ceremonies, and as to what is done with the jawbone, we have no exact
+information.[389] According to the Russian traveller, Baron N. von
+Miklucho-Maclay, who has also given us an account of the Papuans of
+Astrolabe Bay,[390] though not apparently of the villages described by
+Dr. Hagen, the whole skull is dug up and separated from the corpse after
+the lapse of about a year, but only the lower jawbone is carefully kept
+by the nearest kinsman as a memorial of the deceased. Baron
+Miklucho-Maclay had great difficulty in inducing a native to part with
+one of these memorials of a dead relation.[391] In any case the
+preservation of this portion of the deceased may be supposed to have for
+its object the maintenance of friendly relations between the living and
+the dead. Similarly in Uganda the jawbone is the only part of the body
+of a deceased king which, along with his navel-string, is carefully
+preserved in his temple-tomb and consulted oracularly.[392] We may
+conjecture that the reason for preserving this part of the human frame
+rather than any other is that the jawbone is an organ of speech, and
+that therefore it appears to the primitive mind well fitted to maintain
+intercourse with the dead man's spirit and to obtain oracular
+communications from him.
+
+[Sidenote: Sham fight as a funeral ceremony at Astrolabe Bay.]
+
+The Russian traveller, Baron Miklucho-Maclay, has described a curious
+funeral ceremony which is observed by some of the Papuans of Astrolabe
+Bay. 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 is
+announced to the neighbouring villages by a definite series of beats on
+the drum. On the same day or the next morning the whole male population
+assembles in the vicinity of the village of the deceased. All the men
+are in full warlike array. To the beat of drum the guests march into the
+village, where a crowd of men, also armed for war, await the new-comers
+beside the dead man's hut. After a short parley the men divide into two
+opposite camps, and thereupon a sham fight takes place. However, the
+combatants go to work very gingerly and make no use of their spears. But
+dozens of arrows are continually discharged, and not a few are wounded
+in the sham fight, though not seriously. The nearest relations and
+friends of the deceased appear especially excited and behave as if they
+were frantic. When all are hot and tired and all arrows have been shot
+away, the pretended enemies seat themselves in a circle and in what
+follows most of them act as simple spectators." Thereupon the nearest
+relations 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 the
+sago-palm, which had previously been spread out in the middle of the
+open space. Beside the corpse are laid his things, some presents from
+neighbours, and some freshly cooked food. While the men sit round in a
+circle, the women, even the nearest relatives of the deceased, may only
+look on from a distance. When all is ready, some men step out from the
+circle to help the nearest of kin in the next proceedings, which consist
+in tying the corpse up tightly into a bundle by means of rattans and
+creepers. Then the bundle is attached to a stout stick and carried back
+into the house. There the corpse in its bundle is fastened under the
+roof by means of the stick, and the dead man's property, together with
+the presents of the neighbours and the food, are left beside it. After
+that the house is abandoned, and the guests return to their own
+villages. A few days later, when decomposition is far advanced, the
+corpse is taken down and buried in a grave in the house, which continues
+to be inhabited by the family. After the lapse of about a year, the body
+is dug up, the skull separated from it, and the lower jawbone preserved
+by 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 people
+seems to be regularly enacted after a death? The writer who reports the
+custom offers no explanation of it. I would conjecture with all due
+caution that it may possibly be intended as a satisfaction to the ghost
+in order to make him suppose that his death has been properly avenged.
+In a former lecture I shewed that natural deaths are regularly imagined
+by many savages to be brought about by the magical practices of enemies,
+and that accordingly the relations of the deceased take vengeance on
+some innocent person whom for one reason or another they regard as the
+culprit. It is possible that these Papuans of Astrolabe Bay, instead of
+actually putting the supposed sorcerer to death, have advanced so far as
+to abandon that cruel and unjust practice and content themselves with
+throwing dust in the eyes of the ghost by a sham instead of a real
+fight. But that is only a conjecture of my own, which I merely suggest
+for what it is worth.
+
+Altogether, looking over the scanty notices of the beliefs and practices
+of these Papuans of Astrolabe Bay concerning the departed, we may say in
+general that while the fear of ghosts is conspicuous enough among them,
+there is but little evidence of anything that deserves to be called a
+regular worship of the dead.
+
+[Footnote 358: P. Mathias Josef Erdweg, "Die Bewohner der Insel Tumleo,
+Berlin-hafen, Deutsch-Neu-Guinea," _Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen
+Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxxii. (1902) pp. 274-310, 317-399.]
+
+[Footnote 359: R. Parkinson, "Die Berlinhafen Section, ein Beitrag zur
+Ethnographie der Neu-Guinea-Kueste," _Internationales Archiv fuer
+Ethnographie_, xiii. (1900) pp. 18-54.]
+
+[Footnote 360: See the note of Father P. W. Schmidt on Father Erdweg's
+paper, _op. cit._ p. 274.]
+
+[Footnote 361: Erdweg, _op. cit._ p. 274.]
+
+[Footnote 362: Erdweg, _op. cit._ pp. 277 _sq_. The frizzly character of
+the 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 zur
+Ethnographie der Neu-Guinea-Kueste," _Internationales Archiv fuer
+Ethnographie_, xiii. (1900) pp. 33-35. Father Erdweg speaks of the
+_parak_ as a spirit-temple or spirit-house in which the deities of the
+Tumleo dwell (_op. cit._ p. 377): he tells us that as a rule each
+village has only one _parak_. As to the spirits which dwell in these
+temples, 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._, "Zur
+Psychologie, 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 Bogadyim
+are 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 and
+details 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 ueber
+die Papuas der Maclay-Kueste in Neu-Guinea," _Natuurkundig Tijdschrift
+voor 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 practices
+concerning the dead which have been recorded among the Papuans of German
+New Guinea. To-day I resume the subject and shall first speak of the
+natives on the coast about Cape King William, at the foot of Mount
+Cromwell. We possess an account of their religion and customs from the
+pen of a German missionary, Mr. Stolz, who has lived three years among
+them and studied their language.[394] His description applies to the
+inhabitants of two villages only, namely Lamatkebolo and Quambu, or
+Sialum and Kwamkwam, as they are generally called on the maps, who
+together number about five hundred souls. They belong to the Papuan
+stock and subsist chiefly by the cultivation of yams, which they plant
+in April or May and reap in January or February. But they also cultivate
+sweet potatoes and make some use of bananas and coco-nuts. They clear
+the land for cultivation by burning down the grass and afterwards
+turning up the earth with digging-sticks, a labour which is performed
+chiefly by the men. The land is not common property; each family tills
+its own fields, though sometimes one family will aid another in the
+laborious task of breaking up the soil. Moreover they trade with the
+natives of the interior, who, inhabiting a more fertile and
+better-watered country, are able to export a portion of their
+superfluities, especially taro, sweet potatoes, betel-nuts, and tobacco,
+to the less favoured dwellers on the sea-coast, receiving mostly dried
+fish in return. Curiously enough the traffic is chiefly in the hands of
+old women.[395]
+
+[Sidenote: Propitiation of ghosts and spirits. The spirit Mate. Spirits
+called _Nai_.]
+
+With regard to the religion of these people Mr. Stolz tells us that they
+know nothing of a deity who should receive the homage of his
+worshippers; they recognise only spirits and the souls of the dead. To
+these last they bring offerings, not because they feel any need to do
+them reverence, but simply out of fear and a desire to win their favour.
+The offerings are presented at burials and when they begin to cultivate
+the fields. Their purpose is to persuade the souls of the dead to ward
+off all the evil influences that might thwart the growth of the yams,
+their staple food. The ghosts are also expected to guard the fields
+against the incursions of wild pigs and the ravages of locusts. At a
+burial the aim of the sacrifice is to induce the soul of the departed
+brother or sister to keep far away from the village and to do no harm to
+the people. Sacrifices are even offered to the souls of animals, such as
+dogs and pigs, to prevent them from coming back and working mischief.
+However, the ghosts of these creatures are not very exacting; a few
+pieces of sugar-cane, a coco-nut shell, or a taro shoot suffice to
+content their simple tastes and to keep them quiet. Amongst the spirits
+to whom the people pay a sort of worship there is one named Mate, who
+seems to be closely akin to Balum, a spirit about whom we shall hear
+more among the Yabim further to the east. However, not very much is
+known about Mate; his worship, if it can be called so, flourishes
+chiefly among the inland tribes, of whom the coast people stand so much
+in awe that they dare not speak freely on the subject of this mysterious
+being. Some of them indeed are bold enough to whisper that there is no
+such being as Mate at all, and that the whole thing is a cheat devised
+by sly rogues for the purpose of appropriating a larger share of roast
+pork at their religious feasts, from which women are excluded. Whatever
+may be thought of these sceptical views, it appears to be certain that
+the name of Mate is also bestowed on a number of spirits who disport
+themselves by day in open grassy places, while they retire by night to
+the deep shades of the forest; and the majority of these spirits are
+thought to be the souls of ancestors or of the recently departed. Again,
+there is another class of spirits called _Nai_, who unlike all other
+spirits are on friendly terms with men. These are the souls of dead
+villagers, who died far away from home. They warn people of danger and
+very obligingly notify them of the coming of trading steamers. When a
+man dies in a foreign land, his soul appears as a _Nai_ to his sorrowing
+relatives and announces his sad fate to them. He does so always at
+night. When the men are gathered round the fire on the open square of
+the village, the ghost climbs the platform which usually serves for
+public meetings and banquets, and from this coin of vantage, plunged in
+the deep shadow, he lifts up his voice and delivers his message of
+warning, news, or prediction, as the case may be.[396]
+
+[Sidenote: The creator Nemunemu. Sickness and death often regarded as
+the effects of sorcery.]
+
+However, ghosts of the dead are not the only spiritual beings with whom
+these people are acquainted. They know of a much higher being, of the
+name of Nemunemu, endowed with superhuman power, who made the heaven and
+the earth with the assistance of two brothers; the elder brother
+constructed the mainland of New Guinea, while the younger fashioned the
+islands and the sea. When the natives first saw a steamer on the horizon
+they thought it was Nemunemu's ship, and the smoke at the funnel they
+took to be the tobacco-smoke which he puffed to beguile the tedium of
+the voyage.[397] They are also great believers in magic and witchcraft,
+and cases of sickness and death, which are not attributed to the
+malignity of ghosts and spirits, are almost invariably set down to the
+machinations of sorcerers. Only the deaths of decrepit old folks are
+regarded as natural. When a man has died, and his death is believed to
+have been caused by magic, the people resort to divination in order to
+discover the wicked magician who has perpetrated the crime. For this
+purpose they place the corpse on a bier, cover it with a mat, and set it
+on the shoulders of four men, while a fifth man taps lightly with an
+arrow on the mat and enquires of the departed whether such and such a
+village has bewitched him to death. If the bier remains still, it means
+"No"; but if it rocks backward and forward, it means "Yes," and the
+avengers of blood must seek their victim, the guilty sorcerer, in that
+village. The answer is believed to be given by the dead man's ghost, who
+stirs his body at the moment when his murderer's village is named. It is
+useless for the inhabitants of that village to disclaim all knowledge of
+the sickness and death of the deceased. The people repose implicit faith
+in this form of divination. "His soul itself told us," they say, and
+surely he ought to know. Another form of divination which they employ
+for the same purpose is to put the question to the ghost, while two men
+hold a bow which belonged to him and to which some personal articles of
+his are attached. The answer is again yes or no according as the bow
+moves 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 from
+the relatives and prepared for burial. A shallow grave is dug under the
+house and lined with mats. Then the body is lowered into the grave: one
+of the sextons strikes up a lament, and the shrill voices of the women
+in the house join in the melancholy strain. When he lies in his narrow
+bed, the ornaments are removed from his person, but some of his tools,
+weapons, and other belongings are buried with him, no doubt for his use
+in the life hereafter. The funeral celebration, in which the whole
+village commonly takes part, lasts several days and consists in the
+bringing of offerings to the dead and the abstinence from all labour in
+the 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 the
+grave; the rest of the provisions is consumed by the mourners. The next
+of kin, especially the widow or widower, remain for about a week at the
+grave, watching day and night, lest the body should be dug up and
+devoured by a certain foul fiend with huge wings and long claws, who
+battens on corpses. The mourning costume of men consists in smearing the
+face with black and wearing a cord round the neck and a netted cap on
+the head. Instead of such a cap a woman in mourning wraps herself in a
+large net and a great apron of grass. While the other ensigns of woe are
+soon discarded or disappear, the cord about the neck is worn for a
+longer time, generally till next harvest. The sacrifice of a pig brings
+the period of mourning to an end and after it the cord may be laid
+aside. If any one were so hard-hearted as not to wear that badge of
+sorrow, the people believe that the angry ghost would come back and
+fetch him away. He would die.[399] Thus among these savages the mourning
+costume is regarded as a protection against the dangerous ghost of the
+departed; it soothes his wounded feelings and prevents him from making
+raids 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 that
+awaits them there, very vague and contradictory ideas prevail among the
+natives of this district. Some say that the ghosts go eastward to Bukaua
+on Huon Gulf and there lead a shadowy life very like their life on
+earth. Others think that the spirits hover near the village where they
+lived in the flesh. Others again are of opinion that they transmigrate
+into animals and prolong their life in one or other of the bodies of the
+lower creatures.[400]
+
+[Sidenote: The Yabim and Bukaua tribes.]
+
+Leaving Cape King William we pass eastward along the coast of German New
+Guinea and come to Finsch Harbour. From a point some miles to the north
+of Finsch Harbour as far as Samoa Harbour on Huon Gulf the coast is
+inhabited by two kindred tribes, the Yabim and the Bukaua, who speak a
+Melanesian language. I shall deal first with the Yabim tribe, whose
+customs and beliefs have been described for us with a fair degree of
+fulness by two German missionaries, Mr. Konrad Vetter and Mr. Heinrich
+Zahn.[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 a
+fresh clearing in the forest by cutting down the trees, burning the
+fallen timber, and planting taro, bananas, sugar-cane, and tobacco in
+the open glade. When the crops have been reaped, the place is abandoned,
+and is soon overgrown again by the rank tropical vegetation, while the
+natives move on to another patch, which they clear and cultivate in like
+manner. 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 people
+shift their habitations with their fields as they move on from one part
+of the forest to another. Among the Yabim the labour of clearing a patch
+for cultivation is performed by all the men of a village in common, but
+when the great trees have fallen with a crash to the ground, and the
+trunks, branches, foliage and underwood have been burnt, with a roar of
+flames and a crackling like a rolling fire of musketry, each family
+appropriates a portion of the clearing for its own use and marks off its
+boundaries with sticks. But they also subsist in part by fishing, and
+for this purpose they build outrigger canoes. They display considerable
+skill and taste in wood-carving, and are fond of ornamenting their
+houses, canoes, paddles, tools, spears, and drums with figures of
+crocodiles, fish, and other patterns.[402]
+
+[Sidenote: Men's clubhouses (_lum_).]
+
+The villages are divided into wards, and every ward contains its
+clubhouse for men, called a _lum_, in which young men and lads are
+obliged to pass the night. It consists of a bedroom above and a parlour
+with fireplaces below. In the parlour the grown men pass their leisure
+hours during the day, and here the councils are held. The wives cook the
+food at home and bring it for their husbands to the clubhouse. The
+bull-roarers which are used at the initiatory ceremonies are kept in the
+principal clubhouse of the village. Such a clubhouse serves as an
+asylum; men fleeing from the avenger of blood who escape into it are
+safe. It is said that the spirit (_balum_) has swallowed or concealed
+them. But if they steal out of it and attempt to make their way to
+another village, they carry their life in their hand.[403] Among the
+Yabim, according to Mr. Zahn, religion in the proper sense does not
+exist, but on the other hand the whole people is dominated by the fear
+of witchcraft and of the spirits of the dead.[404] The following is the
+account which Mr. Vetter gives of the beliefs and customs of these
+people concerning the departed.
+
+[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Yabim concerning the state of the dead. The
+ghostly ferry.]
+
+They do not believe that death is the end of all things for the
+individual; they think that his soul survives and becomes a spirit or
+ghost, which they call a _balum_. The life of human spirits in the other
+world is a shadowy continuation of the life on earth, and as such it has
+little attraction for the mind of the Papuan. Of heaven and hell, a
+place of reward and a place of punishment for the souls of the good and
+bad respectively, he has no idea. However, his world of the dead is to
+some extent divided into compartments. In one of them reside the ghosts
+of people who have been slain, in another the ghosts of people who have
+been hanged, and in a third the ghosts of people who have been devoured
+by a shark or a crocodile. How many more compartments there may be for
+the accommodation of the souls, we are not told. The place is in one of
+the islands of Siasi. No living man has ever set foot in the island, for
+smoke and mist hang over it perpetually; but from out the mist you may
+hear the sound of the barking of dogs, the grunting of swine, and the
+crowing of cocks, which seems to shew that in the opinion of these
+people animals have immortal souls as well as men. The natives of the
+Siasi islands say that the newly arrived ghosts may often be seen
+strolling on the beach; sometimes the people can even recognise the
+familiar features of friends with whom they did business in the flesh.
+The mode in which the spirits of the dead arrive at their destination
+from the mainland is naturally by a ferry: indeed, the prow of the
+ghostly 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 the
+village lay dying, and on his deathbed he promised to give his friends a
+sign of his continued existence after death by appearing as a ghost in
+their midst. Only he stipulated that in order to enable him to do so
+they 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 but
+hopeful relations awaited results. They had not very long to wait. For
+no sooner had the ghost, armed with the stone club, stepped down to the
+sea-shore than he called imperiously for the ferry-boat. It soon hove in
+sight, with the ghostly ferryman in it paddling to the beach to receive
+the passenger. But when the prow grated on the pebbles, the artful
+ghost, instead of stepping into it as he should have done, lunged out at
+it with the stone club so forcibly that he broke the prow clean off. In
+a rage the ferryman roared out to him, "I won't put you across! You and
+your people shall be kangaroos." The ghost had gained his point. He
+turned back from the ferry and brought to his friends as a trophy the
+prow of the ghostly canoe, which is treasured in the village to this
+day. I should add that the prow in question bears a suspicious
+resemblance to a powder-horn which has been floating about for some time
+in the water; but no doubt this resemblance is purely fortuitous and
+without any deep significance.
+
+[Sidenote: Transmigration of human souls into animals.]
+
+From this veracious narrative we gather that sometimes the souls of the
+dead, instead of going away to the spirit-land, transmigrate into the
+bodies of animals. The case of the kangaroos is not singular. In the
+village of Simbang Mr. Vetter knows two families, of whom the ghosts
+pass at death into the carcases of crocodiles and a species of fabulous
+pigs respectively. Hence members of the one family are careful not to
+injure crocodiles, lest the souls of their dead should chance to be
+lodged in the reptiles; and the members of the other family would be
+equally careful not to hurt the fabulous pigs if ever they fell in with
+them. However, the crocodile people, not to be behind their neighbours,
+assert that after death their spirits can also roam about the wood as
+ghosts and go to the spirit-land. In explanation they say that every
+human 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 which
+goes to the island of Siasi, while the land-soul is free to occupy the
+body 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 by
+no means strictly confined to it. They can return, especially at night,
+to roam about the woods and the villages, and the living are very much
+afraid of them, for the ghosts delight in doing mischief. It is
+especially in the first few days after a death that the ghost is an
+object of terror, for he is then still loitering about the village.
+During these days everybody is afraid to go alone into the forest for
+fear of meeting him, and if a dog or a pig strays in the wood and is
+lost, the people make sure that the ghost has made off with the animal,
+and the aggrieved owners roundly abuse the sorrowing family, telling
+them that their old father or mother, as the case may be, is no better
+than a thief. They are also very unwilling to mention the names of dead
+persons, imagining that were the ghost to hear his name pronounced he
+might fancy he was being called for and might accordingly suspend his
+habitual occupation of munching sour fruits in the forest to come and
+trouble the living.
+
+[Sidenote: Offerings to ghosts.]
+
+Hence in order to keep the short-tempered ghost in good humour by
+satisfying his wants, lest he should think himself neglected and wreak
+his vexation on the survivors, the people go a-fishing after a death, or
+they kill a pig or a dog; sometimes also they cut down a fruit-tree. But
+it is only the souls of the animals which are destined for the
+consumption of the ghost; their bodies are roasted and eaten by the
+living. On a grave you may sometimes see a small basket suspended from a
+stick; but if you look into it you will find nothing but a little soot
+and 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 to
+the door of the man who has done him to death by sorcery. Accordingly
+they provide the spirit with this necessary as follows. On the evening
+of the day on which the body has been buried, they kindle a fire on a
+potsherd and heap dry leaves on it. As they do so they mention the names
+of all the sorcerers they can think of, and he at whose name the
+smouldering leaves burst into a bright flame is the one who has done the
+deed. Having thus ascertained the true cause of death, beyond reach of
+cavil, they proceed to light up the ghost to the door of his murderer.
+For this purpose a procession is formed. A man, holding the smouldering
+fire 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 a
+water-bottle of the deceased, which he finally smashes. After these two
+march a number of young fellows who make a plumping sound by smacking
+their thighs with the hollow of their hands. This solemn procession
+wends its way to a path in the neighbouring forest. By this time the
+shades of night have fallen. The firebearer now sets the fire on the
+ground and calls on the ghost to come and take it. They firmly believe
+that he does so and that having got it he hies away to cast the glowing
+embers down at the door of the man who has done him to death. They even
+fancy they see the flickering light carried by the invisible hand
+retreating through the shadows into the depth of the forest; and in
+order to follow it with their eyes they will sometimes climb tall trees
+or launch a canoe and put out to sea, gazing intently at the glimmering
+ray till it vanishes from their sight in the darkness. Perhaps the gleam
+of fire-flies, which abound in these tropical forests, or the flashing
+of 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 as
+harm the living. Good crops and a successful hunt are attributed to
+their influence. It is especially the spirits of the ancient owners of
+the land who are credited with the power of promoting the growth of the
+crops. Hence when a clearing has been made in the forest and planted
+with taro, and the plants are shewing a good head of leaves,
+preparations are made to feast the ghosts of the people to whom the land
+belonged 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 all
+their 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 the
+village and partake of the sago-porridge and pork that have been made
+ready for them. But the invisible guests content themselves as usual
+with snuffing up the fragrant smell of the roast pork and the steam of
+the porridge; the substance of these dainties is consumed by the living.
+Yet the help which the ghosts give in the cultivation of the land would
+seem to be conceived as a purely negative one; the offerings are made to
+them for the purpose of inducing them to keep away and not injure the
+growing crops. It is also believed that the ghosts of the dead make
+communications to the living in dreams or by whistling, and even that
+they 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 is
+one of fear; the power of the ghosts is oftener exerted for evil than
+for 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 beating
+of drums; and by way of facilitating his departure they launch a model
+of a canoe, laden with taro and tobacco, in order to transport him with
+all 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 to
+the houses where they died. Some trifles are laid with the body in the
+grave, in order that the dead man or woman may have the use of them in
+the other world. But any valuables that may be deposited with the corpse
+are afterwards dug up and appropriated by the survivors. If the deceased
+was the householder himself or his wife, the house is almost always
+deserted, however solidly it may be built. The reason for thus
+abandoning so valuable a piece of property is not mentioned; but we may
+assume that the motive is a fear of the ghost, who is supposed to haunt
+his old home. A temporary hut is built on the grave, and in it the
+family of the deceased take up their abode for six weeks or more; here
+they cook, eat, and sleep. A widower sits in a secluded corner by
+himself, invisible to all and unwashed; during the period of full
+mourning he may not shew himself in the village. When he does come forth
+again, he wears a mourning hat made of bark in the shape of a cylinder
+without crown or brim; a widow wears a great ugly net, which wraps her
+up almost completely from the head to the knees. Sometimes in memory of
+the deceased they wear a lock of his hair or a bracelet. Other relations
+wear cords round their necks in sign of mourning. The period of mourning
+varies greatly; it may last for months or even years. Sometimes the
+bodies of beloved children or persons who have been much respected are
+not buried but tied up in bundles and set up in a house until the flesh
+has quite mouldered away; then the skull and the bones of the arms and
+legs are anointed, painted red, and preserved for a time. Mr. Vetter
+records the case of a chief whose corpse was thus preserved in the
+assembly-house of the village, after it had been dried over a fire. When
+it had been reduced to a mummy, the skull and the arm-bones and
+leg-bones were detached, oiled, and reddened, and then kept for some
+years in the house of the chief's eldest son, till finally they were
+deposited in the grave of a kinsman. In some of the inland villages of
+this part of New Guinea the widow is sometimes throttled by her
+relations at the death of her husband, in order that she may accompany
+him 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 death
+is caused by sorcery; hence when anybody has departed this life, his
+relations make haste to discover the wicked sorcerer who has killed
+their kinsman. For that purpose they have recourse to various forms of
+divination. One of them has been already described, but they have
+others. For example, they put a powder like sulphur in a piece of bamboo
+tube and kindle a fire under it. Then an old man takes a bull-roarer and
+taps with it on the bamboo tube, naming all the sorcerers in the
+neighbouring villages. He at the mention of whose name the fire catches
+the powder and blazes up is the guilty man. Another way of detecting the
+culprit is to attach the feather of a bird of paradise to a staff and
+give the staff to two men to hold upright between the palms of their
+right hands. Then somebody names the sorcerers, and he at whose name the
+staff turns round and the feather points downwards is the one who caused
+the death. When the avengers of blood, wrought up to a high pitch of
+fury, fall in with the family of the imaginary criminal, they may put
+the whole of them to death lest the sons should afterwards avenge their
+father's murder by the black art. Sometimes a dangerous and dreaded
+sorcerer will be put out of the way with the connivance of the chief of
+his own village; and after a few days the murderers will boldly shew
+themselves in the village where the crime was perpetrated and will
+reassure the rest of the people, saying, "Be still. The wicked man has
+been 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, is
+applied by the Yabim to the instrument now generally known among
+anthropologists as a bull-roarer. It is a small fish-shaped piece of
+wood which, being tied to a string and whirled rapidly round, produces a
+humming or booming sound like the roaring of a bull or the muttering of
+distant thunder. Instruments of this sort are employed by savages in
+many parts of the world at their mysteries; the weird sound which the
+implement makes when swung is supposed by the ignorant and uninitiated
+to be the voice of a spirit and serves to impress them with a sense of
+awe and mystery. So it is with the Papuans about Finsch Harbour, with
+whom we are at present concerned. At least one such bull-roarer is kept
+in the _lum_ or bachelors' clubhouse of every village, and the women and
+uninitiated boys are forbidden to see it under pain of death. The
+instrument plays a great part in the initiation of young men, which
+takes place at intervals of several years, when there are a number of
+youths ready to be initiated, and enough pigs can be procured to furnish
+forth the feasts which form an indispensable part of the ceremony. The
+principal initiatory rite consists of circumcision, which is performed
+on all youths before they are admitted to the rank of full-grown men.
+The age of the candidates varies considerably, from four years up to
+twenty. Many are married before they are initiated. The operation is
+performed in the forest, and the procession of the youths to the place
+appointed is attended by a number of men swinging bull-roarers. As the
+procession sets out, the women look on from a distance, weeping and
+howling, for they are taught to believe that the lads, their sons and
+brothers, are about to be swallowed up by a monster called a _balum_ or
+ghost, who will only release them from his belly on condition of
+receiving a sufficient number of roast pigs. How, then, can the poor
+women be sure that they will ever see their dear ones again? So amid the
+noise of weeping and wailing the procession passes into the forest, and
+the booming sound of the bull-roarers dies away in the distance.
+
+[Sidenote: The rite of circumcision; the lads supposed to be swallowed
+by 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 the
+rear. This represents the belly of the monster which is to swallow up
+the candidates. To keep up the delusion a pair of great eyes are painted
+over the entrance, and above them the projecting roots of a betel-palm
+represent the monster's hair, while the trunk of the tree passes for his
+backbone. As the awe-struck lads approach this imposing creature, he is
+heard from time to time to utter a growl. The growl is in fact no other
+than the humming note of bull-roarers swung by men, who are concealed
+within the edifice. When the procession has come to a halt in front of
+the artificial monster, a loud defiant blast blown on shell-trumpets
+summons him to stand forth. The reply follows in the shape of another
+muffled roar of the bull-roarers from within the building. At the sound
+the men say that "Balum is coming up," and they raise a shrill song like
+a scream and sacrifice pigs to the monster in order to induce him to
+spare the lives of the candidates. When the operation has been performed
+on the lads, they must remain in strict seclusion for three or four
+months, avoiding all contact with women and even the sight of them. They
+live in the long hut, which represents the monster's belly, and their
+food is brought them by elder men. Their leisure time is spent in
+weaving baskets and playing on certain sacred flutes, which are never
+used except at such seasons. The instruments are of two patterns. One is
+called the male and the other the female, and they are supposed to be
+married to each other. No woman may see these mysterious flutes; if she
+did she would die. Even if she hears their shrill note in the distance,
+she will hasten to hide herself in a thicket. When the initiatory
+ceremonies are over, the flutes are carefully kept in the men's
+clubhouse of the village till the next time they are wanted for a
+similar occasion. On the other hand, if the women are obliged to go near
+the place where the lads are living in seclusion, they beat on certain
+bamboo 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 that
+case the men explain his disappearance to the women by saying that the
+monster has a pig's stomach as well as a human stomach, and that
+unfortunately the deceased young man slipped by mistake into the wrong
+stomach and so perished miserably. But as a rule the candidates pass
+into the right stomach and after a sufficient period has been allowed
+for digestion, they come forth safe and sound, the monster having kindly
+consented to let them go free in consideration of the roast pigs which
+have been offered to him by the men. Indeed he is not very exacting, for
+he contents himself with devouring the souls of the pigs, while he
+leaves their bodies to be consumed by his worshippers. This is a kindly
+and considerate way of dealing with sacrifice, which our New Guinea
+ghost or monster shares with many deities of much higher social
+pretensions. However, lest he should prove refractory and perhaps run
+away with the poor young men in his inside, or possibly make a dart at
+any women or children who might be passing, the men take the precaution
+of 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 the
+ropes and let the monster go free. He avails himself of his liberty to
+return to his subterranean abode, and the young men are brought back to
+the village with much solemnity.
+
+[Sidenote: The return of the novices to the village.]
+
+An eye-witness has described the ceremony. The lads, now ranking as
+full-grown men, were first bathed in the sea and then elaborately
+decorated with paint and so forth. In marching back to the village they
+had to keep their eyes tightly shut, and each of them was led by a man
+who acted as a kind of god-father. As the procession moved on, an old
+bald-headed man touched each boy solemnly on the chin and brow with a
+bull-roarer. In the village preparations for a banquet had meanwhile
+been made, and the women and girls were waiting in festal attire. The
+women were much moved at the return of the lads; they sobbed and tears
+of joy ran down their cheeks. Arrived in the village the newly-initiated
+lads were drawn up in a row and fresh palm leaves were spread in front
+of them. Here they stood with closed eyes, motionless as statues. Then a
+man passed behind them, touching each of them in the hams with the
+handle of an axe and saying, "O circumcised one, sit down." But still
+the lads remained standing, stiff and motionless. Not till another man
+had knocked repeatedly on the ground with the stalk of a palm-leaf,
+crying, "O circumcised ones, open your eyes!" did the youths, one after
+another, open their eyes as if awaking from a profound stupor. Then they
+sat 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 lads
+were bathed in the sea and painted red instead of white. After that they
+might talk to women. This was the end of the ceremony.[411]
+
+[Sidenote: The essence of the initiatory rites seems to be a simulation
+of death and resurrection; the novice is supposed to be killed and to
+come to life or be born again. The new birth among the Akikuyu of
+British East Africa.]
+
+The meaning of these curious ceremonies observed on the return of the
+lads to the village is not explained by the writer who describes them;
+but the analogy of similar ceremonies observed at initiation by many
+other races allows us to divine it with a fair degree of probability. As
+I have already observed in a former lecture, the ceremony of initiation
+at puberty is very often regarded as a process of death and
+resurrection; the candidate is supposed to die or to be killed and to
+come to life again or be born again; and the pretence of a new birth is
+not uncommonly kept up by the novices feigning to have forgotten all the
+most common actions of life and having accordingly to learn them all
+over again like newborn babes. We may conjecture that this is why the
+young circumcised Papuans, with whom we are at present concerned, march
+back to their village with closed eyes; this is why, when bidden to sit
+down, they remain standing stiffly, as if they understood neither the
+command nor the action; and this, too, we may surmise, is why their
+mothers and sisters receive them with a burst of emotion, as if their
+dead had come back to them from the grave. This interpretation of the
+ceremony is confirmed by a curious rite which is observed by the Akikuyu
+of British East Africa. Amongst them every boy or girl at or about the
+age of ten years has solemnly to pretend to be born again, not in a
+moral or religious, but in a physical sense. The mother of the child,
+or, if she is dead, some other woman, goes through an actual pantomime
+of bringing forth the boy or girl. I will spare you the details of the
+pantomime, which is very graphic, and will merely mention that the
+bouncing infant squalls like a newborn babe. Now this ceremony of the
+new birth was formerly enacted among the Akikuyu at the rite of
+circumcision, though the two ceremonies are now kept distinct.[412]
+Hence it is not very rash to conjecture that the ceremony performed by
+the young Papuans of Finsch Harbour on their return to the village after
+undergoing circumcision is merely a way of keeping up the pretence of
+being born again and of being therefore as ignorant and helpless as
+babes.
+
+[Sidenote: The mock death of the novices as a preliminary to the mock
+birth.]
+
+But if the end of the initiation is a mock resurrection, or rather new
+birth, as it certainly seems to be, we may infer with some confidence
+that the first part of it, namely the act of circumcision, is a mock
+death. This is borne out by the explicit statement of a very good
+authority, Mr. Vetter, that "the circumcision is designated as a process
+of being swallowed by the spirit, out of whose stomach (represented by a
+long hut) the release must take place by means of a sacrifice of
+pigs."[413] And it is further confirmed by the observation that both the
+spirit 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 the
+Tugeri or Kaya-Kaya, a large Papuan tribe on the south coast of Dutch
+New Guinea, the name of the bull-roarer, which they call _sosom_, is
+given to a mythical giant, who is supposed to appear every year with the
+south-east monsoon. When he comes, a festival is held in his honour and
+bull-roarers are swung. Boys are presented to the giant, and he kills
+them, but brings them to life again.[414] Thus the initiatory rite of
+circumcision, to which all lads have to submit among the Yabim, seems to
+be closely bound up with their conception of death and with their belief
+in a life after death; since the whole ceremony apparently consists in a
+simulation of dying and coming to life again. That is why I have touched
+upon these initiatory rites, which at first sight might appear to have
+no connexion with our immediate subject, the belief in immortality and
+the 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 practical
+belief in a life after death, and that while their attitude to the
+spirits of the departed is generally one of fear, they nevertheless look
+to these spirits also for information and help on various occasions.
+Thus their beliefs and practices contain at least in germ the elements
+of a worship of the dead.
+
+[Footnote 394: Stolz, "Die Umgebung von Kap Koenig 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 herueber und hilf uns! oder die Arbeit
+der Neuen-Dettelsauer Mission_, Nos. 1-4 (Barmen, 1898); _id._, in
+_Nachrichten ueber 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 zu
+Jena_, 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 herueber 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 herueber und hilf uns!_ iii. 21 _sq._
+According to Mr. H. Zahn (_op. cit._ p. 324) every village has its own
+entrance into the spirit-land.]
+
+[Footnote 406: K. Vetter, _Komm herueber und hilf uns!_ iii. 19-24;
+_id._, in _Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xii.
+(1893) pp. 96 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 407: K. Vetter, _Komm herueber und hilf uns!_ ii. 7, iii. 24;
+_id._, in _Nachrichten ueber Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und den
+Bismarck-Archipel_, 1897, p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 408: K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten ueber Kaiser Wilhelms-Land_,
+1897, p. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 409: K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten ueber Kaiser Wilhelms-Land_,
+1897, pp. 94 _sq._; _id._, _Komm herueber 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 _Deutsch
+Neu-Guinea_, iii. 318-320.]
+
+[Footnote 411: K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten ueber Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und
+den Bismarck-Archipel_, 1897, pp. 92 _sq._; _id._, in _Mitteilungen der
+Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xi. (1892) p. 105; _id._, _Komm
+herueber und hilf uns!_ ii. (1898) p. 18; _id._, cited by M. Krieger,
+_Neu-Guinea_, pp. 167-170; O. Schellong, "Das Barlum (_sic_)-fest der
+Gegend Finsch-hafens (Kaiserwilhelmsland), ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der
+Beschneidung der Melanesier," _Internationales Archiv fuer Ethnographie_,
+ii. (1889) pp. 145-162; H. Zahn, "Die Jabim," in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch
+Neu-Guinea_, iii. 296-298.]
+
+[Footnote 412: W. S. Routledge and K. Routledge, _With a Prehistoric
+People, the Akikuyu of British East Africa_ (London, 1910), pp. 151
+_sq._ Compare _Totemism and Exogamy_, iv. 228; C. W. Hobley, "Kikuyu
+Customs and Beliefs," _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_,
+xl. (1910) pp. 440 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 413: K. Vetter, in _Nachrichten ueber Kaiser Wilhelmsland und
+den Bismarck-Archipel_, 1897, p. 93.]
+
+[Footnote 414: R. Poech, "Vierter Bericht ueber meine Reise nach
+Neu-Guinea," _Sitzungsberichte der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen
+Klasse 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 the
+dead 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, which
+occupies the coast lands of the northern portion of Huon Gulf from
+Schollenbruch Point to Samoa Harbour. The language which the Bukaua
+speak belongs, like the language of the Yabim, to the Melanesian, not to
+the Papuan family. Their customs and beliefs have been reported by a
+German missionary, Mr. Stefan Lehner, whose account I follow.[415] In
+many 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 of
+taro which they raise. But they also cultivate many kinds of bananas and
+vegetables, together with sugar-cane, sago, and tobacco. From time to
+time they cut down and burn the forest in order to obtain fresh fields
+for cultivation. The land is not held in common. Each family has its own
+fields and patches of forest, and would resent the intrusion of others
+on their hereditary domain. Hunting and fishing supply them with animal
+food to eke out the vegetable nourishment which they draw from their
+fields and plantations.[416] Every village contains one or more of the
+men's clubhouses which are a common feature in the social life of the
+tribes on this coast. In these clubhouses the young men are obliged to
+sleep, and on the platforms in front of them the older men hold their
+councils. 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 after
+death. They think that a man's soul can even quit his body temporarily
+in his lifetime during sleep or a swoon, and that in its disembodied
+state it can appear to people at a distance; but such apparitions are
+regarded as omens of approaching death, when the soul will depart for
+good and all. The soul of a dead man is called a _balum_. The spirits of
+the departed are believed to be generally mischievous and spiteful to
+the living, but they can be appeased by sacrifice, and other measures
+can be taken to avert their dangerous influence.[418] They are very
+touchy, and if they imagine that they are not honoured enough by their
+kinsfolk, and that the offerings made to them are insufficient, they
+will avenge the slight by visiting their disrespectful and stingy
+relatives with sickness and disease. Among the maladies which the
+natives ascribe to the anger of ghosts are epilepsy, fainting fits, and
+wasting decline.[419] When a man suffers from a sore which he believes
+to have been inflicted on him by a ghost, he will take a stone from the
+fence of the grave and heat it in the fire, saying: "Father, see, thou
+hast gone, I am left, I must till the land in thy stead and care for my
+brothers and sisters. Do me good again." Then he dips the hot stone in a
+puddle on the grave, and holds his sore in the steam which rises from
+it. His pain is eased thereby and he explains the alleviation which he
+feels by saying, "The spirit of the dead man has eaten up the
+wound."[420]
+
+[Sidenote: Sickness and death often ascribed by the Bukaua to sorcery.]
+
+But like most savages the Bukaua attribute many illnesses and many
+deaths not to the wrath of ghosts but to the malignant arts of
+sorcerers; and in such cases they usually endeavour by means of
+divination to ascertain the culprit and to avenge the death of their
+friend by taking the life of his imaginary murderer.[421] If they fail
+to exact vengeance, the ghost is believed to be very angry, and they
+must be on their guard against him. He may meet them anywhere, but is
+especially apt to dog the footsteps of the sorcerer who killed him.
+Hence when on the occasion of a great feast the sorcerer comes to the
+village of his victim, the surviving relatives of the dead man are at
+particular pains to protect themselves and their property against the
+insidious attacks of the prowling ghost. For this purpose they bury a
+creeper with white blossoms in the path leading to the village; the
+ghost is thought to be filled with fear at the sight of it and to turn
+back, 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 slain
+foes. They are believed to pursue their slayers to the village and to
+blind them so that sooner or later they fall an easy prey to their
+enemies. Hence when a party of warriors has returned home from a
+successful attack on a village, in which they have butchered all on whom
+they could lay their hands, they kindle a great fire, dance wildly about
+it, and hurl burning brands in the direction of the battlefield in order
+to keep the ghosts of their slaughtered foes at bay. Phosphorescent
+lights seen under the houses throw the inmates into great alarm, for
+they are thought to be the souls of the slain. Sometimes the vanquished
+in battle resort to a curious ruse for the purpose of avenging
+themselves on the victors by means of a ghost. They take the
+sleeping-mat of one of the slain, roll it up in a bundle along with his
+loin-cloth, apron, netted bag, or head-rest, and give the bundle to two
+cripples to carry. Then they steal quietly to the landing-place of their
+foes, peering warily about lest they should be observed. The bundle
+represents 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 ghost
+of the victim, whose things are carried in the bundle, is supposed to
+make their enemies weak and tottery. Strong young men are not given the
+bundle to carry, lest the ghost should spoil their manly figures;
+whereas if he should wound or maim a couple of poor cripples, no great
+harm is done.[423]
+
+[Sidenote: Ghosts of ancestors appealed to for help, especially in the
+cultivation of the ground. First-fruits offered to the spirits of the
+dead.]
+
+However, the Bukaua also look on the ghosts of their ancestors in a more
+amiable light as beings who, if properly appealed to, can and will help
+them in the affairs of life, especially by procuring for them good
+crops. Hence when they are planting their fields, which are formed in
+clearings of the forest, they take particular care to insert shoots of
+all their crops in the ground near the tree stumps which remain
+standing, because the souls of their dead grandfathers and
+great-grandfathers are believed to be sitting on the stumps watching
+their descendants at their work. Accordingly in the act of planting they
+call out the names of these forefathers and pray them to guard the field
+in order that their living children may have food and not suffer from
+hunger. And at harvest, when the first-fruits of the taro, bananas,
+sugar-cane, and so forth have been brought back from the fields, a
+portion of them is offered in a bowl to the spirits of the forefathers
+in the house of the landowner, and the spirits are addressed in prayer
+as 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, the
+householder will surreptitiously stir the offerings in the bowl with his
+finger, and will then shew the bowl to the others as a proof that the
+souls of the dead have really partaken of the good things provided for
+them.[424] A hunter will also pray to his dead father to drive the wild
+pigs into his net.[425]
+
+[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs of the Bukaua.]
+
+The Bukaua bury their dead in shallow graves, which are sometimes dug
+under the houses but more usually in front of or beside them. Along with
+the corpses are deposited bags of taro, nuts, drinking-vessels, and
+other articles of daily use. Only the stone axes are too valuable to be
+thus sacrificed. Over the grave is erected a rude hut in which the
+widower, if the deceased was a married woman, remains for a time in
+seclusion. A widow on the death of her husband remains in the house.
+Widow and widower may not shew themselves in public until they have
+prepared their mourning costume. The widower wears a black hat made of
+bark, cords round his neck, wicker work on his arms and feet, and a torn
+old bracelet of his wife in a bag on his breast. A widow is completely
+swathed in nets, one over the other, and she carries about with her the
+loincloth of her deceased husband. The souls of the dead dwell in a
+subterranean region called _lamboam_, and their life there seems to
+resemble life here on earth; but the ideas of the people on the subject
+are very vague.[426]
+
+[Sidenote: Initiation of young men among the Bukaua. Lads at
+circumcision supposed to be swallowed by a monster.]
+
+The customs and beliefs of the Bukaua in regard to the initiation of
+young men are practically identical with those of their neighbours the
+Yabim. Indeed the initiatory ceremonies are performed by the tribes
+jointly, now in the territory of the Bukaua, now in the territory of the
+Yabim, or in the land of the Kai, a tribe of mountaineers, or again in
+the neighbouring Tami islands. The intervals between the ceremonies vary
+from ten to eighteen years.[427] The central feature of the initiatory
+rites is the circumcision of the novices. It is given out that the lads
+are swallowed by a ferocious monster called a _balum_, who, however, is
+induced by the sacrifice of many pigs to vomit them up again. In spewing
+them out of his maw he bites or scratches them, and the wound so
+inflicted is circumcision. This explanation of the rite is fobbed off on
+the women, who more or less believe it and weep accordingly when their
+sons are led away to be committed to the monster's jaws. And when the
+time for the ceremony is approaching, the fond mothers busy themselves
+with rearing and fattening young pigs, so that they may be able with
+them 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 from
+the effect of the operation, he is secretly buried, and his sorrowful
+mother is told that the monster swallowed him and refused to bring him
+up again. What really happens is that the youths are shut up for several
+months in a house specially built for the purpose in the village. During
+their seclusion they are under the charge of guardians, usually two
+young 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 forth
+and circumcised in front of the house amid a prodigious uproar made by
+the swinging of bull-roarers. The noise is supposed to be the voice of
+the monster who swallows and vomits up the novice at circumcision. The
+bull-roarer as well as the monster bears the name of _balum_, and the
+building in which the novices are lodged before and after the operation
+is called the monster's house (_balumslum_). After they have been
+circumcised the lads remain in the house for several months till their
+wounds are healed; then, painted and bedizened with all the ornaments
+that can be collected, they are brought back and restored to their
+joyful mothers. Women must vacate the village for a long time while the
+initiatory ceremonies are being performed.[428]
+
+[Sidenote: Novices at circumcision supposed to be killed and then
+restored to a new and higher life.]
+
+The meaning of the whole rite, as I pointed out in dealing with the
+similar initiatory rite of the Yabim, appears to be that the novices are
+killed and then restored to a new and better life; for after their
+initiation they rank no longer as boys but as full-grown men, entitled
+to all the privileges of manhood and citizenship, if we can speak of
+such a thing as citizenship among the savages of New Guinea. This
+interpretation of the rite is supported by the notable fact that the
+Bukaua, like the Yabim, give the name of _balum_ to the souls of the
+dead as well as to the mythical monster and to the bull-roarer; this
+shews how intimately the three things are associated in their minds.
+Indeed not only is the bull-roarer in general associated with the souls
+of the dead by a community of name, but among the Bukaua each particular
+bull-roarer bears in addition the name of a particular dead man and
+varies in dignity and importance with the dignity and importance of the
+deceased person whom it represents. The most venerated of all are
+curiously carved and have been handed down for generations; they bear
+the names of famous warriors or magicians of old and are supposed to
+reproduce the personal peculiarities of the celebrated originals in
+their shape and tones. And there are smaller bull-roarers which emit
+shriller notes and are thought to represent the shrill-voiced wives of
+the ancient heroes.[429]
+
+[Sidenote: The Kai tribe of Saddle Mountain in German New Guinea. The
+land of the Kai. Their mode of cultivation. Their villages.]
+
+The Bukaua and the Yabim, the two tribes with which I have been dealing
+in this and the last lecture, inhabit, as I have said, the coast about
+Finsch Harbour and speak a Melanesian language. We now pass from them to
+the consideration of another people, belonging to a different stock and
+speaking a different language, who inhabit the rugged and densely wooded
+mountains inland from Finsch Harbour. Their neighbours on the coast call
+these mountaineers by the name of Kai, a word which signifies forest or
+inland in opposition to the seashore; and this name of the tribe we may
+adopt, following the example of a German missionary, Mr. Ch. Keysser,
+who has laboured among them for more than eleven years and has given us
+an excellent description of their customs and beliefs. His account
+applies particularly to the natives of what is called Saddle Mountain,
+the part of the range which advances nearest to the coast and rises to
+the 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 the
+clearings which the sparse inhabitants have made for the purpose of
+cultivation. Water is plentiful. Springs gush forth everywhere in the
+glens and valleys, and rushing streams of crystal-clear water pour down
+the mountain sides, and in the clefts of the hills are lonely tarns, the
+undisturbed haunts of wild ducks and other water fowl. During the wet
+season, which extends from June to August, the rain descends in sheets
+and the mountains are sometimes covered for weeks together with so thick
+a 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 day
+crouching over a fire. They are a shorter and sturdier race than the
+tribes on the coast; the expression of their face is less frank and
+agreeable, and their persons are very much dirtier. They belong to the
+aboriginal Papuan stock, whereas the Yabim and Bukaua on the coast are
+probably immigrants from beyond the sea, who have driven the indigenous
+population back into the mountains.[430] Their staple foods are taro and
+yams, which they grow in their fields. A field is cultivated for only
+one year at a time; it is then allowed to lie fallow and is soon
+overgrown with rank underwood. Six or eight years may elapse before it
+is again cleared and brought under cultivation. Game and fish abound in
+the woods and waters, and the Kai make free use of these natural
+resources. They keep pigs and dogs, and eat the flesh of both. Pork is
+indeed a favourite viand, figuring largely in the banquets which are
+held at the circumcision festivals.[431] The people live in small
+villages, each village comprising from two to six houses. The houses are
+raised on piles and the walls are usually constructed of pandanus
+leaves, though many natives now make them of boards. After eighteen
+months or two years the houses are so rotten and tumble-down that the
+village is deserted and a new one built on another site. Assembly-houses
+are erected only for the circumcision ceremonies, and the bull-roarers
+used on these occasions are kept in them. Husband and wife live
+together, often two couples in one hut; but each family has its own side
+of the house and its own fireplace. In times of insecurity the Kai used
+to build their huts for safety among the spreading boughs of great
+trees. A whole village, consisting of three or four huts, might thus be
+quartered on a single tree. Of late years, with the peace and protection
+for life introduced by German rule, these tree-houses have gone out of
+fashion.[432]
+
+[Sidenote: Observations of a German missionary on the animistic beliefs
+of the Kai.]
+
+After describing the manners and customs of the Kai people at some
+length, the German missionary, who knows them intimately, proceeds to
+give us a very valuable account of their old native religion or
+superstition. He prefaces his account with some observations, the fruit
+of long experience, which deserve to be laid to heart by all who attempt
+to penetrate into the inner life, the thoughts, the feelings, the
+motives of savages. As his remarks are very germane to the subject of
+these lectures, I will translate them. He says: "In the preceding
+chapters I have sketched the daily life of the Kai people. But I have
+not attempted to set forth the reasons for their conduct, which is often
+very peculiar and unintelligible. The explanation of that conduct lies
+in the animistic view which the Papuan takes of the world. It must be
+most emphatically affirmed that nobody can judge the native aright who
+has not gained an insight into what we may call his religious opinions.
+The native must be described as very religious, although his ideas do
+not coincide with ours. His feelings, thoughts, and will are most
+intimately connected with his belief in souls. With that belief he is
+born, he has sucked it in with his mother's milk, and from the
+standpoint of that belief he regards the things and occurrences that
+meet him in life; by that belief he regulates his behaviour. An
+objective way of looking at events is unknown to him; everything is
+brought by him into relation to his belief, and by it he seeks to
+explain everything that to him seems strange and rare."[433] "The
+labyrinth of animistic customs at first sight presents an appearance of
+wild confusion to him who seeks to penetrate into them and reduce them
+to order; but on closer inspection he will soon recognise certain
+guiding lines. These guiding lines are the laws of animism, which have
+passed into the flesh and blood of the Papuan and influence his thought
+and speech, his acts and his omissions, his love and hate, in short his
+whole life and death. When once we have discovered these laws, the whole
+of the superstitious nonsense falls into an orderly system which compels
+us to regard it with a certain respect that increases in proportion to
+the contempt in which we had previously held the people. We need not
+wonder, moreover, that the laws of animism partially correspond to
+general laws of nature."[434]
+
+[Sidenote: The essential rationality of the savage.]
+
+Thus according to Mr. Keysser, who has no theory to maintain and merely
+gives us in this passage the result of long personal observation, the
+Kai savages are thinking, reasoning men, whose conduct, however strange
+and at first sight unintelligible it may appear to us, is really based
+on a definite religious or if you please superstitious view of the
+world. It is true that their theory as well as their practice differs
+widely from ours; but it would be false and unjust to deny that they
+have a theory and that on the whole their practice squares with it.
+Similar testimony is borne to other savage races by men who have lived
+long among them and observed them closely;[435] and on the strength of
+such testimony I think we may lay it down as a well-established truth
+that savages in general, so far as they are known to us, have certain
+more or less definite theories, whether we call them religious or
+philosophical, by which they regulate their conduct, and judged by which
+their acts, however absurd they may seem to the civilised man, are
+really both rational and intelligible. Hence it is, in my opinion, a
+profound mistake hastily to conclude that because the behaviour of the
+savage does not agree with our notions of what is reasonable, natural,
+and proper, it must therefore necessarily be illogical, the result of
+blind impulse rather than of deliberate thought and calculation. No
+doubt the savage like the civilised man does often act purely on
+impulse; his passions overmaster his reason, and sweep it away before
+them. He is probably indeed much more impulsive, much more liable to be
+whirled about by gusts of emotion than we are; yet it would be unfair to
+judge his life as a whole by these occasional outbursts rather than by
+its general tenour, which to those who know him from long observation
+reveals a groundwork of logic and reason resembling our own in its
+operations, though differing from ours in the premises from which it
+sets out. I think it desirable to emphasise the rational basis of savage
+life because it has been the fashion of late years with some writers to
+question or rather deny it. According to them, if I understand them
+aright, the savage acts first and invents his reasons, generally very
+absurd reasons, for so doing afterwards. Significantly enough, the
+writers who argue in favour of the essential irrationality of savage
+conduct have none of them, I believe, any personal acquaintance with
+savages. Their conclusions are based not on observation but on purely
+theoretical deductions, a most precarious foundation on which to erect a
+science of man or indeed of anything. As such, they cannot be weighed in
+the balance against the positive testimony of many witnesses who have
+lived for years with the savage and affirm emphatically the logical
+basis which underlies and explains his seeming vagaries. At all events I
+for one have no hesitation in accepting the evidence of such men to
+matters of fact with which they are acquainted, and I unhesitatingly
+reject all theories which directly contradict that evidence. If there
+ever has been any race of men who invariably acted first and thought
+afterwards, I can only say that in the course of my reading and
+observation I have never met with any trace of them, and I am apt to
+suppose that, if they ever existed anywhere but in the imagination of
+bookish dreamers, their career must have been an exceedingly short one,
+since in the struggle for existence they would surely succumb to
+adversaries who tempered and directed the blind fury of combat with at
+least a modicum of reason and sense. The myth of the illogical or
+prelogical savage may safely be relegated to that museum of learned
+absurdities and abortions which speculative anthropology is constantly
+enriching with fresh specimens of misapplied ingenuity and wasted
+industry. 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 by
+their conception of the soul. That conception differs greatly from and
+is very much more extensive than ours. The Kai regards his reflection
+and his shadow as his soul or parts of it; hence you should not tread on
+a man's shadow for fear of injuring his soul. The soul likewise dwells
+in his heart, for he feels it beating. Hence if you give a native a
+friendly poke in the ribs, he protests, saying, "Don't poke me so; you
+might drive my soul out of my body, and then I should die." The soul
+moreover resides in the eye, where you may see it twinkling; when it
+departs, the eye grows dim and vacant. Moreover, the soul is in the foot
+as much as in the head; it lurks even in the spittle and the other
+bodily excretions. The soul in fact pervades the body just as warmth
+does; everything that a man touches he infects, so to say, with his
+soul; that mysterious entity exists in the very sound of his voice. The
+sorcerer catches a man's soul by his magic, shuts it up tight, and
+destroys it. Then the man dies. He dies because the sorcerer has killed
+his soul. Yet the Kai believes, whether consistently or not, that the
+soul of the dead man continues to live. He talks to it, he makes
+offerings to it, he seeks to win its favour in order that he may have
+luck in the chase; he fears its ill-will and anger; he gives it food to
+eat, liquor to drink, tobacco to smoke, and betel to chew. What could a
+reasonable ghost ask for more?[436]
+
+[Sidenote: Two kinds of human souls.]
+
+Thus, according to Mr. Keysser, whose exposition I am simply
+reproducing, the Kai believes not in one nor yet in many souls belonging
+to each individual; he implicitly assumes that there are two different
+kinds of souls. One of these is the soul which survives the body at
+death; in all respects it resembles the man himself as he lived on
+earth, except that it has no body. It is not indeed absolutely
+incorporeal, but it is greatly shrunken and attenuated by death. That is
+why the souls of the dead are so angry with the living; they repine at
+their own degraded condition; they envy the full-blooded life which the
+living enjoy and which the dead have lost. The second kind of soul is
+distinguished by Mr. Keysser from the former as a spiritual essence or
+soul-stuff, which pervades the body as sap pervades the tree, and which
+diffuses itself like corporeal warmth over everything with which the
+body is brought into contact.[437] In these lectures we are concerned
+chiefly with the former kind of soul, which is believed to survive the
+death of the body, and which answers much more nearly than the second to
+the popular European conception of the soul. Accordingly in what follows
+we 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 a
+natural death; they think that everybody dies through the maleficent
+arts of sorcerers or ghosts. Even in the case of old people, we are
+told, they assume the cause of death to be sorcery, and to sorcery all
+misfortunes are ascribed. If a man falls on the path and wounds himself
+to death, as often happens, on the jagged stump of a bamboo, the natives
+conclude that he was bewitched. The way in which the sorcerer brought
+about the catastrophe was this. He obtained some object which was
+infected with the soul-stuff or spiritual essence of his victim; he
+stuck a pile in the ground, he spread the soul-stuff on the pile; then
+he pretended to wound himself on the pile and to groan with pain.
+Anybody can see for himself that by a natural and necessary
+concatenation of causes this compelled the poor fellow to stumble over
+that jagged bamboo stump and to perish miserably. Again, take the case
+of 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 you
+that the cause of death was the boar. But you would assuredly be
+mistaken. The real cause of death was again a sorcerer, who pounded up
+the soul-stuff of his victim with a boar's tooth. Again, suppose that a
+man is bitten by a serpent and dies. A shallow rationalist might say
+that the man died of the bite; but the Kai knows better. He is aware
+that what really killed him was the sorcerer who took a pinch of his
+victim's soul and bunged it up tight in a tube along with the sting of a
+snake. Similarly, if a woman dies in childbed, or if a man hangs
+himself, the cause of death is still a sorcerer operating with the
+appropriate means and gestures. Thus to make a man hang himself all that
+the sorcerer has to do is to get a scrap of his victim's soul--and the
+smallest scrap is quite enough for his purpose, it may be a mere shred
+or speck of soul adhering to a hair of the man's head, to a drop of his
+sweat, or to a crumb of his food,--I say that the sorcerer need only
+obtain a tiny little bit of his victim's soul, clap it in a tube, set
+the tube dangling at the end of a string, and go through a pantomime of
+gurgling, goggling and so forth, like a man in the last stage of
+strangulation, and his victim is thereby physically compelled to put his
+neck 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 sorcerer
+is an unpopular character. He naturally therefore shrinks from publicity
+and hides his somewhat lurid light under a bushel. Not to put too fine a
+point on it, he carries his life in his hand and may be knocked on the
+head at any moment without the tedious formality of a trial. Once his
+professional reputation is established, all the deaths in the
+neighbourhood may be set down at his door. If he gets wind of a plot to
+assassinate him, he may stave off his doom for a while by soothing the
+angry passions of his enemies with presents, but sooner or later his
+fate is sealed.[439]
+
+[Sidenote: Many hurts and maladies attributed by the Kai to the action
+of ghosts. In other cases the sickness is traced to witchcraft.
+Capturing a lost soul.]
+
+However, the Kai savage is far from attributing all deaths without
+distinction to sorcerers.[440] In many hurts and maladies he detects the
+cold clammy hand of a ghost. If a man, for example, wounds himself in
+the forest, perhaps in the pursuit of a wild beast, he may imagine that
+he has been speared or clubbed by a malignant ghost. And when a person
+falls ill, the first thing to do is naturally to ascertain the cause of
+the illness in order that it may be treated properly. In all such
+enquiries, Mr. Keysser tells us, suspicion first falls on the ghosts;
+they are looked upon as even worse than the sorcerers.[441] So when a
+doctor is called in to see a patient, the only question with him is
+whether the sickness is caused by a sorcerer or a ghost. To decide this
+nice 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 decides
+that ghosts are the cause of the malady; but if on the other hand he
+detects a minute roll of leaves, he knows that the sufferer is
+bewitched. In the latter case the obvious remedy is to discover the
+sorcerer and to induce him, for an adequate consideration, to give up
+the magic tube in which he has bottled up a portion of the sick man's
+soul. If, however, the magician turns a deaf ear alike to the voice of
+pity and the allurement of gain, the resources of the physician are not
+yet exhausted. He now produces his whip or scourge for souls. This
+valuable instrument consists, like a common whip, of a handle with a
+lash attached to it, but what gives it the peculiar qualities which
+distinguish it from all other whips is a small packet tied to the end of
+the lash. The packet contains a certain herb, and the sick man and his
+friends must all touch it in order to impregnate it with the volatile
+essence of their souls. Armed with this potent implement the doctor goes
+by night into the depth of the forest; for the darkness of night and the
+solitude of the woods are necessary for the success of the delicate
+operation which this good physician of souls has now to perform. Finding
+himself alone he whistles for the lost soul of the sufferer, and if only
+the sorcerer by his infernal craft has not yet brought it to death's
+door, the soul appears at the sound of the whistle; for it is strongly
+attracted by the soul-stuff of its friends in the packet. But the doctor
+has still to catch it, a feat which is not so easily accomplished as
+might 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 soul
+with all his might. If only he hits it, the business is done, the soul
+is captured, the doctor carries it back to the house in triumph, and
+restores it to the body of the poor sick man, who necessarily
+recovers.[442]
+
+[Sidenote: Extracting ghosts from a sick man.]
+
+But suppose that the result of the diagnosis is different, and that on
+mature consideration the doctor should decide that a ghost and not a
+sorcerer is at the bottom of the mischief. The question then naturally
+arises whether the sick man has not of late been straying on haunted
+ground and infected himself with the very dangerous soul-stuff or
+spiritual essence of the dead. If he remembers to have done so, some
+leaves are fetched from the place in the forest where the mishap
+occurred, and with them the whole body of the sufferer or the wound, as
+the case may be, is stroked or brushed down. The healing virtue of this
+procedure is obvious. The ghosts who are vexing the patient are
+attracted by the familiar smell of the leaves which come from their old
+home; and yielding in a moment of weakness to the soft emotions excited
+by the perfume they creep out of the body of the sick man and into the
+leaves. Quick as thought the doctor now whisks the leaves away with the
+ghosts in them; he belabours them with a cudgel, he hangs them up in the
+smoke, or he throws them into the fire. Such powerful disinfectants have
+their natural results; if the ghosts are not absolutely destroyed they
+are 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 ends
+remain entire, and give it to two men to hold. Then the sick man pokes
+his head through the cleft; after that you rub him with the stick from
+the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. In this way you
+obviously scrape off the bloodsucking ghosts who are clinging like flies
+or mosquitoes to his person, and having thus transferred them to the
+cleft stick you throw it away or otherwise destroy it. The cure is now
+complete, and if the patient does not recover, he cannot reasonably
+blame the doctor, who has done all that humanly speaking could be done
+to bring back the bloom of health to the poor sick man.[443]
+
+[Sidenote: Extravagant demonstrations of grief at the death of a sick
+man.]
+
+If, however, the sick man obstinately persists in dying, there is a
+great uproar in the village. For the fear of his ghost has now fallen
+like a thunderclap on all the people. His disembodied spirit is believed
+to be hovering in the air, seeing everything that is done, hearing every
+word that is spoken, and woe to the unlucky wight who does not display a
+proper degree of sorrow for the irreparable loss that has just befallen
+the community. Accordingly shrieks of despair begin to resound, and
+crocodile tears to flow in cataracts. The whole population assemble and
+give themselves up to the most frantic demonstrations of grief. Cries
+are raised on all sides, "Why must he die?" "Wherefore did they bewitch
+him?" "Those wicked, wicked men!" "I'll do for them!" "I'll hew them in
+pieces!" "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?" "O
+friend, how can I live without you?" To make good these threats one man
+will be seen prancing wildly about and stabbing with a spear at the
+invisible sorcerers; another catches up a cudgel and at one blow shivers
+a water-pot of the deceased into atoms, or rushes out like one demented
+and lays a palm-tree level with the ground. Some fling themselves
+prostrate 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 out
+the 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 a
+frenzy of grief one of them will leap to his feet, shriek, bellow, stamp
+on the floor, grapple with the roof beams, shake the walls, as if he
+would pull the house down, and finally hurl himself on the ground and
+roll over and over howling as if his distress was more than he could
+endure. 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 ate
+out of the same dish?" Then there is a quick movement of the knife, and
+down he falls. But he is not dead. He has only slit the flap of one of
+his ears, and the trickling blood bedabbles his body. Meantime with the
+hoarse cries of the men are mingled the weeping and wailing, the shrill
+screams and lamentations of the women; while above all the din and
+uproar rises the booming sound of the shell trumpets blown to carry the
+tidings of death to all the villages in the neighbourhood. But gradually
+the wild tumult dies away into silence. Grief or the simulation of it
+has exhausted itself: the people grow calm; they sit down, they smoke or
+chew betel, while some engage in the last offices of attention to the
+dead.[444]
+
+[Sidenote: Hypocritical character of these demonstrations, which are
+intended to deceive the ghost.]
+
+A civilised observer who witnessed such a scene of boisterous
+lamentation, but did not know the natives well, might naturally set down
+all these frantic outbursts to genuine sorrow, and might enlarge
+accordingly on the affectionate nature of savages, who are thus cut to
+the heart by the death of any one of their acquaintance. But the
+missionary who knows them better assures us that most of these
+expressions of mourning and despair are a mere blind to deceive and
+soothe the dreaded ghost of the deceased into a comfortable persuasion
+that he is fondly loved and sadly missed by his surviving relatives and
+friends. This view of the essential hypocrisy of the lamentations is
+strongly confirmed by the threats which sick people will sometimes utter
+to their attendants. "If you don't take better care of me," a man will
+sometimes say, "and if you don't do everything you possibly can to
+preserve my valuable life, my ghost will serve you out." That is why
+friends and relations are so punctilious in paying visits of respect and
+condolence to the sick. Sometimes the last request which a dying man
+addresses to his kinsfolk is that they will kill this or that sorcerer
+who has killed him; and he enforces the injunction by threats of the
+terrible things he will do to them in his disembodied state if they fail
+to avenge his death on his imaginary murderer. As all the relatives of a
+dead man stand in fear of his ghost, the body may not be buried until
+all of them have had an opportunity of paying their respects to it. If,
+as sometimes happens, a corpse is interred before a relative can arrive
+from a distance, he will on arrival break out into reproaches and
+upbraidings against the grave-diggers for exposing him to the wrath of
+the departed spirit.[445]
+
+[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs of the Kai. Preservation of the
+lower jawbone.]
+
+When all the relations and friends have assembled and testified their
+sorrow, the body is buried on the second or third day after death. The
+grave is usually dug under the house and is so shallow that even when it
+has been closed the stench is often very perceptible. The ornaments
+which were placed on the body when it was laid out are removed before it
+is lowered into the grave, and the dead takes his last rest wrapt in a
+simple leaf-mat. Often a dying man expresses a wish not to be buried. In
+that case his corpse, tightly bandaged, is deposited in a corner of the
+house, and the products of decomposition are allowed to drain through a
+tube into the ground. When they have ceased to run, the bundle is opened
+and the bones taken out and buried, except the lower jawbone, which is
+preserved, sometimes along with one of the lower arm bones. The lower
+jawbone reminds the possessor of the duty of blood revenge which he owes
+to the deceased, and which the dying man may have inculcated on him with
+his last breath. The lower arm bone brings luck in the chase, especially
+if the departed relative was a mighty hunter. However, if the hunters
+have a long run of bad luck, they conclude that the ghost has departed
+to the under world and accordingly bury the lower arm bone and the lower
+jawbone with the rest of the skeleton. The length of the period of
+mourning is similarly determined by the good or bad fortune of the
+huntsmen. If the ghost provides them with game in abundance for a long
+time after his death, the days of mourning are proportionately extended;
+but when the game grows scarce or fails altogether, the mourning comes
+to an end and the memory of the deceased soon fades away.[446] The
+savage is a thoroughly practical man and is not such a fool as to waste
+his sorrow over a ghost who gives him nothing in return. Nothing for
+nothing is his principle. His relations to the dead stand on a strictly
+commercial basis.
+
+[Sidenote: Mourning costume. Widows strangled to accompany their dead
+husbands.]
+
+The mourning costume consists of strings round the neck, bracelets of
+reed on the arms, and a cylindrical hat of bark on the head. A widow is
+swathed in nets. The intention of the costume is to signify to the ghost
+the 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, a
+little fire will be kept up for a time at the foot of the grave in order
+to warm his homeless spirit.[447] The widow or widower has to discharge
+the disagreeable duty of living day and night for several weeks in a
+hovel built directly over the grave. Not unfrequently the lot of a widow
+is much harder. At her own request she is sometimes strangled and buried
+with her husband in the grave, in order that her soul may accompany his
+on the journey to the other world. The other relations have no interest
+in encouraging the woman to sacrifice herself, rather the contrary; but
+if she insists they fear to balk her, lest they should offend the ghost
+of her husband, who would punish them in many ways for keeping his wife
+from him. But even such voluntary sacrifices, if we may believe Mr. Ch.
+Keysser, are dictated rather by a selfish calculation than by an impulse
+of disinterested affection. He mentions the case of a man named Jabu,
+both of whose wives chose thus to attend their husband in death. The
+deceased was an industrious man, a skilful hunter and farmer, who
+provided his wives with abundance of food. As such men are believed to
+work hard also in the other world, tilling fields and killing game just
+as here, the widows thought they could not do better than follow him as
+fast as possible to the spirit land, since they had no prospect of
+getting such another husband here on earth. "How firmly convinced," adds
+the missionary admiringly, "must these people be of the reality of
+another world when they sacrifice their earthly existence, not for the
+sake of a better life hereafter, but merely in order to be no worse off
+there than they have been on earth." And he adds that this consideration
+explains why no man ever chooses to be strangled at the death of his
+wife. The labour market in the better land is apparently not recruited
+from 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 of
+the dead is believed to haunt it and make it unsafe at night. If the
+deceased was a chief or a man of importance, the whole village is
+abandoned and a new one built on another site.[449]
+
+[Footnote 415: Stefan Lehner, "Bukaua," in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch
+Neu-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 of
+Borneo_ (London, 1912), ii. 221 _sq._: "It has often been attempted to
+exhibit the mental life of savage peoples as profoundly different from
+our own; to assert that they act from motives, and reach conclusions by
+means of mental processes, so utterly different from our own motives and
+processes that we cannot hope to interpret or understand their behaviour
+unless we can first, by some impossible or at least by some hitherto
+undiscovered method, learn the nature of these mysterious motives and
+processes. These attempts have recently been renewed in influential
+quarters. If these views were applied to the savage peoples of the
+interior of Borneo, we should characterise them as fanciful delusions
+natural to the anthropologist who has spent all the days of his life in
+a stiff collar and a black coat upon the well-paved ways of civilised
+society. We have no hesitation in saying that, the more intimately one
+becomes acquainted with these pagan tribes, the more fully one realises
+the close similarity of their mental processes to one's own. Their
+primary 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 some
+of the older philosophers, whose every action proceeded from a nice and
+logical calculation of the algebraic sum of pleasures and pains to be
+derived from alternative lines of conduct; but we ourselves are equally
+unlike that purely mythical personage. The Kayan or the Iban often acts
+impulsively in ways which by no means conduce to further his best
+interests or deeper purposes; but so do we also. He often reaches
+conclusions by processes that cannot be logically justified; but so do
+we also. He often holds, and upon successive occasions acts upon,
+beliefs that are logically inconsistent with one another; but so do we
+also." For further testimonies to the reasoning powers of savages, which
+it would be superfluous to affirm if it were not at present a fashion
+with 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 the
+savage mind in particular, calmly to acquiesce in inconsistent and even
+contradictory conclusions, I may refer to a note in _Adonis, Attis,
+Osiris_, Second Edition, p. 4. But indeed to observe such contradictions
+in 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 tubes
+in 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 Kai
+sorcery "is regarded as the cause of all deaths" (_op. cit._ p. 102),
+and again that "all men without exception die in consequence of the
+baneful acts of these sorcerers and their accomplices" (p. 134); and
+again that "even in the case of old people they assume sorcery to be the
+cause of death; to sorcery, too, all misfortunes whatever are ascribed"
+(p. 140). But that these statements are exaggerations seems to follow
+from Mr. Keysser's own account of the wounds, sicknesses, and deaths
+which 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 which
+the Kai of German New Guinea entertain for the spirits of the dead.
+Believing that the ghost is endowed with all the qualities and faculties
+which distinguished the man in his lifetime, they naturally dread most
+the ghosts of warlike, cruel, violent, and passionate men, and take the
+greatest pains to soothe their anger and win their favour. For that
+purpose they give the departed spirit all sorts of things to take with
+him to the far country. And in order that he may have the use of them it
+is necessary to smash or otherwise spoil them. Thus the spear that is
+given him must be broken, the pot must be shivered, the bag must be
+torn, the palm-tree must be cut down. Fruits are offered to the ghost by
+dashing 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 to
+him by being laid on the corpse; but the economical savage removes these
+precious things from the body at burial. All such offerings and
+sacrifices, we are told, are made simply out of fear of the ghost. It is
+no pleasure to a man to cut down a valuable palm-tree, which might have
+helped to nourish himself and his family for years; he does it only lest
+a worse thing should befall him at the hands of the departed
+spirit.[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 to
+take vengeance on the sorcerer who caused his death by witchcraft. The
+first thing is to discover the villain, and in the search for him the
+ghost obligingly assists his surviving kinsfolk. Sometimes, however, it
+is 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, is
+cowering in a dark corner or reposing at full length in the grave, his
+relatives 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 the
+dead man, so that the whole erection may appear to the eye of the
+unsuspecting 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 completely
+concealed by the piled-up fruits. When darkness has fallen, out comes
+the ghost and prowling about espies the heap of yams and taro. At sight
+of the devastation wrought in his field he flies into a passion, and
+curses and swears in the feeble wheezy whisper in which ghosts always
+speak. In the course of his fluent imprecations he expresses a wish that
+the miscreants who have wasted his substance may suffer so and so at the
+hands of the sorcerer. That is just what the men in hiding have been
+waiting for. No sooner do they hear the name of the sorcerer than they
+jump up with a great shout; the startled ghost takes to his heels; and
+all the people in the village come pouring out of the houses. Very glad
+they are to know that the murderer has been found out, and sooner or
+later they will have his blood.[451]
+
+[Sidenote: Another way of detecting the sorcerer.]
+
+Another mode of eliciting the requisite information from the ghost is
+this. In order to allow him to communicate freely with his mouldering
+body, his relations insert a tube through the earth of the grave down to
+the corpse; then they sprinkle powdered lime on the grave. At night the
+ghost comes along, picks up the powdered lime, and makes off in a bee
+line for the village where the sorcerer who bewitched him resides. On
+the way he drops some of the powder here and there, so that next
+morning, on the principle of the paper-chase, his relatives can trace
+his footsteps to the very door of his murderer. In many districts the
+people tie a packet of lime to the knee of a corpse so that his ghost
+may 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 his
+decease is by means of fire. A few men go out before nightfall from the
+village and sit down in a row, one behind the other, on the path. The
+man in front has a leaf-mat drawn like a hood over his head and back in
+order that the ghost may not touch him from behind unawares. In his hand
+he holds a glowing coal and some tinder, and as he puts the one to the
+other he calls to the ghost, "Come, take, take, take; come, take, take,
+take," and so on. Meantime his mates behind him are reckoning up the
+names of all the men near and far who are suspected of sorcery, and a
+portion of the village youth have clambered up trees and are on the
+look-out for the ghost. If they do not see his body they certainly see
+his eye twinkling in the gloom, though the uninstructed European might
+easily mistake it for a glow-worm. No sooner do they catch sight of it
+than they bawl out, "Come hither, fetch the fire, and burn him who burnt
+thee." If the tinder blazes up at the name of a sorcerer, it is flung
+towards the village where the man in question dwells. And if at the same
+time a glow-worm is seen to move in the same direction, the people
+entertain no doubt that the ghost has appeared and fetched the soul of
+the fire.[453]
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity of destroying the sorcerer who caused a death.]
+
+In whichever way the author of the death may be detected, the avengers
+of blood set out for the village of the miscreant and seek to take his
+life. Almost all the wars between villages or tribes spring from such
+expeditions. The sorcerer or sorcerers must be extirpated, nay all their
+kith and kin must be destroyed root and branch, if the people are to
+live in peace and quiet. The ghost of the dead calls, nay clamours for
+vengeance, and if he does not get it, he will wreak his spite on his
+negligent 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 and
+root up the crops, and he will do them every mischief in his power. If
+rain does not fall, so that the freshly planted root crops wither; or if
+sickness is rife, the people recognise in the calamity the wrath of the
+ghost, who can only be appeased by the slaughter of the wicked magician
+or of somebody else. Hence the avengers of blood often do not set out
+until a fresh death, an outbreak of sickness, failure in the chase, or
+some other misfortune reminds the living of the duty they owe to the
+dead. The Kai is not by nature warlike, and he might never go to war if
+it were not that he dreads the vengeance of ghosts more than the wrath
+of men.[454]
+
+[Sidenote: Slayers dread the ghosts of the slain.]
+
+If the expedition has been successful, if the enemy's village has been
+surprised and stormed, the men and old women butchered, and the young
+women taken prisoners, the warriors beat a hasty retreat with their
+booty in order to be safe at home, or at least in the shelter of a
+friendly village, before nightfall. Their reason for haste is the fear
+of being overtaken in the darkness by the ghosts of their slaughtered
+foes, who, powerless by day, are very dangerous and terrible by night.
+Restlessly through the hours of darkness these unquiet spirits follow
+like sleuth-hounds in the tracks of their retreating enemies, eager to
+come up with them and by contact with the bloodstained weapons of their
+slayers to recover the spiritual substance which they have lost. Not
+till they have done so can they find rest and peace. That is why the
+victors are careful not at first to bring back their weapons into the
+village but to hide them somewhere in the bushes at a safe distance.
+There they leave them for some days until the baffled ghosts may be
+supposed to have given up the chase and returned, sad and angry, to
+their mangled bodies in the charred ruins of their old home. The first
+night 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 if
+the night passes quietly, their terror gradually subsides and gives
+place 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 the
+soul-stuff or spiritual essence of their slain foes adhering to their
+persons, none of their friends will venture to touch them for some time
+after their return to the village. Everybody avoids them and goes
+carefully out of their way. If during this time any of the villagers
+suffers from a pain in his stomach, he thinks that he must have
+inadvertently sat down where one of the warriors had sat before him. If
+somebody endures the pangs of toothache, he makes sure that he must have
+eaten a fruit which had been touched by one of the slayers. All the
+refuse of the meals of these gallant men must be most carefully put away
+lest a pig should devour it; for if it did do so, the animal would
+certainly die, which would be a serious loss to the owner. Hence when
+the warriors have satisfied their hunger, any food that remains over is
+burnt or buried. The fighting men themselves are not very seriously
+incommoded, or at all events endangered, by the ghosts of their victims;
+for they have taken the precaution to disinfect themselves by the sap of
+a certain creeper, which, if it does not render them absolutely immune
+to ghostly influence, at least fortifies their constitution to a very
+considerable extent.[456]
+
+[Sidenote: Feigned indignation of a man who has connived at the murder
+of 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 the
+wicked sorcerer resides, the people of one village will come to a secret
+understanding with the people of the sorcerer's village to have the
+miscreant quietly put out of the way. A hint is given to the scoundrel's
+next of kin, it may be his brother, son, or nephew, that if he will only
+wink at the slaughter of his obnoxious relative, he will receive a
+handsome compensation from the slayers. Should he privately accept the
+offer, he is most careful to conceal his connivance at the deed of
+blood, lest he should draw down on his head the wrath of his murdered
+kinsman's ghost. So, when the deed is done and the murder is out, he
+works himself up into a state of virtuous sorrow and indignation, covers
+his head with the leaves of a certain plant, and chanting a dirge in
+tones of heart-rending grief, marches straight to the village of the
+murderers. There, on the public square, surrounded by an attentive
+audience, he opens the floodgates of his eloquence and pours forth the
+torrent of an aching heart. "You have slain my kinsman," says he, "you
+are wicked men! How could you kill so good a man, who conferred so many
+benefits on me in his lifetime? I knew nothing of the plot. Had I had an
+inkling of it, I would have foiled it. How can I now avenge his death? I
+have no property with which to hire men of war to go and punish his
+murderers. Yet in spite of everything my murdered kinsman will not
+believe 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 openly
+whether I had any share whatever in his death, and come and strew lime
+on my head in order that he may convince himself of my innocence." This
+appeal of injured innocence meets with a ready response. The people dust
+the leaves on his head with powdered lime; and so, decorated with the
+white badge of spotless virtue, and enriched with a boar's tusk or other
+valuable object as the price of his compliance, he returns to his
+village with a conscience at peace with all the world, reflecting with
+satisfaction on the profitable transaction he has just concluded, and
+laughing in his sleeve at the poor deluded ghost of his murdered
+relative.[457]
+
+[Sidenote: Comedy acted to deceive the ghost of a murdered kinsman.]
+
+Sometimes the worthy soul who thus for a valuable consideration consents
+to waive all his personal feelings, will even carry his self-abnegation
+so far as to be present and look on at the murder of his kinsman. But
+true to his principles he will see to it that the thing is done decently
+and humanely. When the struggle is nearly over and the man is down,
+writhing on the ground with the murderers busy about him, his loving
+kinsman will not suffer them to take an unfair advantage of their
+superior numbers to cut him up alive with their knives, to chop him with
+their axes, or to smash him with their clubs. He will only allow them to
+stab him with their spears, repeating of course the stabs again and
+again till the victim ceases to writhe and quiver, and lies there dead
+as a stone. Then begins the real time of peril for the virtuous kinsman
+who has been a spectator and director of the scene; for the ghost of the
+murdered man has now deserted its mangled body, and, still blinded with
+blood and smarting with pain, might easily and even excusably
+misunderstand the situation. It is essential, therefore, in order to
+prevent a painful misapprehension, that the kinsman should at once and
+emphatically disclaim any part or parcel in the murder. This he
+accordingly does in language which leaves no room for doubt or
+ambiguity. He falls into a passion: he rails at the murderers: he
+proclaims his horror at their deed. All the way home he refuses to be
+comforted. He upbraids the assassins, he utters the most frightful
+threats against them; he rushes at them to snatch their weapons from
+them and dash them in pieces. But they easily wrench the weapons from
+his 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 being
+convinced of the innocence of his dear kinsman may not punish him with
+bad crops, wounds, sickness, and other misfortunes. Even when he has
+reached the village, he keeps up the comedy for a time, raging, fretting
+and fuming at the irreparable loss he has sustained by the death of his
+lamented relative.[458]
+
+[Sidenote: Pretence of avenging the ghost of a murdered sorcerer.]
+
+Similarly when a chief has among his subjects a particular sorcerer whom
+he fears but with whom he is professedly on terms of friendship, he will
+sometimes engage a man to murder him. No sooner, however, is the murder
+perpetrated than the chief who bespoke it hastens in seeming indignation
+with a band of followers to the murderer's village. The assassin, of
+course, has got a hint of what is coming, and he and his friends take
+care not to be at home when the chief arrives on his mission of
+vengeance. Balked by the absence of their victim the avengers of blood
+breathe out fire and slaughter, but content themselves in fact with
+smashing an old pot or two, knocking down a deserted hut, and perhaps
+felling a banana-tree or a betel-palm. Having thus given the ghost of
+the murdered man an unequivocal proof of the sincerity of their
+friendship, they return quietly home.[459]
+
+[Sidenote: The Kai afraid of ghosts.]
+
+The habits of Kai ghosts are to some extent just the contrary of those
+of living men. They sleep by day and go about their business by night,
+when they frighten people and play them all kinds of tricks. Usually
+they appear in the form of animals. As light has the effect of blinding
+or at least dazzling them, they avoid everything bright, and hence it is
+easy to scare them away by means of fire. That is why no native will go
+even a short way in the dark without a bamboo torch. If it is absolutely
+necessary to go out by night, which he is very loth to do, he will hum
+and haw loudly before quitting the house so as to give notice to any
+lurking ghost that he is coming with a light, which allows the ghost to
+scuttle out of his way in good time. The people of a village live in
+terror above all so long as a corpse remains unburied in it; after
+nightfall nobody would then venture out of sight of the houses. When a
+troop of people go by night to a neighbouring village with flaring
+torches in their hands, nobody is willing to walk last on the path; they
+all huddle together for safety in the middle, till one man braver than
+the rest consents to act as rearguard. The rustling of a bush in the
+evening twilight startles them with the dread of some ghastly
+apparition; the sight of a pig in the gloaming is converted by their
+fears into the vision of a horrible spectre. If a man stumbles, it is
+because a ghost has pushed him, and he fancies he perceives the
+frightful thing in a tree-stump or any chance object. No wonder a Kai
+man fears ghosts, since he believes that the mere touch of one of them
+may be fatal. People who fall down in fits or in faints are supposed to
+have been touched by ghosts; and on coming to themselves they will tell
+their friends with the most solemn assurance how they felt the
+death-cold hand of the ghost on their body, and how a shudder ran
+through 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 a
+source of danger, annoyance, and discomfort, and nothing more. That is
+not so. They may and do render the Kai the most material services in
+everyday life, particularly by promoting the supply of food both
+vegetable and animal. I have said that these practical savages stand
+towards their departed kinsfolk on a strictly commercial footing; and I
+will now illustrate the benefits which the Kai hope to receive from the
+ghosts in return for all the respect and attention lavished on them. In
+the first place, then, so long as a ghost remains in the neighbourhood
+of the village, it is expected of him that he shall make the crops
+thrive and neither tread them down himself nor allow wild pigs to do so.
+The expectation is reasonable, yet the conduct of the ghost does not
+always answer to it. Occasionally, whether out of sheer perverseness or
+simple absence of mind, he will sit down in a field; and wherever he
+does so, he makes a hollow where the fruits will not grow. Indeed any
+fruit that he even touches with his foot in passing, shrivels up. Where
+these things have happened, the people offer boiled taro and a few crabs
+to the ghosts to induce them to keep clear of the crops and to repose
+their 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 is
+the good luck which they vouchsafe to hunters. Hence in order to assure
+himself of the favour of the dead the hunter hangs his nets on a grave
+before he uses them. If a man was a good and successful hunter in his
+lifetime, his ghost will naturally be more than usually able to assist
+his brethren in the craft after his death. For that reason when such a
+man has just died, the people, to adopt a familiar proverb, hasten to
+make hay while the sun shines by hunting very frequently, in the
+confident expectation of receiving ghostly help from the deceased
+hunter. In the evening, when they return from the chase, they lay a
+small portion of their bag near his grave, scatter a powder which
+possesses 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 of
+all we have." If after such an offering and invocation the night wind
+rustles the tops of the trees or shakes the thatch of leaves on the
+roofs, they know that the ghost is in the village. The twinkle of a
+glow-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 dead
+huntsman will go betimes to his grave, stamp on it to waken the sleeper
+below, and call out, "So-and-so, come! we are now about to go out
+hunting. Help us to a good bag!" If they have luck, they praise the
+deceased as a good spirit and in the evening supply his wants again with
+food, tobacco, and betel. The sacrifice, as usually happens in such
+cases, does not call for any great exercise of self-denial; since the
+spirit consumes only the spiritual essence of the good things, while he
+leaves 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 that
+the hunters return in the evening hungry and empty-handed. This may even
+be repeated day after day, and still the people will not lose hope. They
+think that the ghost is perhaps busy working in his field, or that he
+has gone on a visit and will soon come home. To give him time to do his
+business or see his friends at leisure, they will remain in the village
+for several days. Then, when they imagine that he must surely have
+returned, they go out into the woods and try their luck again. But
+should there still be no ghost and no game, they begin to be seriously
+alarmed. They think that some evil must have befallen him. But if time
+goes on and still he gives no sign and the game continues scarce and
+shy, their feelings towards the ghost undergo a radical alteration.
+Passion getting the better of prudence, they will even reproach him with
+ingratitude, taunt him with his uselessness, and leave him to starve.
+Should he after that still remain deaf to their railing and regardless
+of the short commons to which they have reduced him, they will discharge
+a volley of abuse at his grave and trouble themselves about him no more.
+However, if, not content with refusing his valuable assistance in the
+chase, the ghost should actually blight the crops or send wild boars
+into the fields to trample them down, the patience of the long-suffering
+people is quite exhausted: the vials of their wrath overflow; and
+snatching up their cudgels in a fury they belabour his grave till his
+bones ache, or even drive him with blows and curses altogether from the
+village.[463]
+
+[Sidenote: The journey of ghosts to the spirit land.]
+
+Such an outcast ghost, if he does not seek his revenge by prowling in
+the neighbourhood and preying on society at large, will naturally
+bethink himself of repairing to his long home in the under world. For
+sooner or later the spirits of the dead congregate there. It is
+especially when the flesh has quite mouldered away from his bones that
+the 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 Saddle
+Mountain. Here in the gully there is a projecting tree-stump on which
+the ghosts perch waiting for a favourable moment to jump into the mouth
+of the cavern. When a slight earthquake is felt, a Kai man will often
+say, "A ghost has just leaped from the tree into the cave; that is why
+the 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 over
+to the further shore. "Blood or wax?" is the laconic question which he
+puts to the ghost on the bank. He means to say, "Were you killed or were
+you done to death by magic?" For it is with wax that the sorcerer stops
+up 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 the
+newcomer is that the ghosts of the slain and the ghosts of the bewitched
+dwell in separate places. Right in front of the land of souls rises a
+high steep wall, which cannot be climbed even by ghosts. The spirits
+have accordingly to make their way through it and thereupon find
+themselves in their new abode. According to some Kai, before the ghosts
+are admitted to ghost land they must swing to and fro on a rope and then
+drop into water, where they are washed clean of bloodstains and all
+impurity; after which they ascend, spick and span, the last slope to the
+village of ghosts.
+
+[Sidenote: Life of ghosts in the other world.]
+
+Tulmeng has the reputation of being a very stern ruler in his weird
+realm, but the Kai really know very little about him. He beats
+refractory souls, and it is essential that every ghost should have his
+ears and nose bored. The operation is very painful, and to escape it
+most people take the precaution of having their ears and noses bored in
+their lifetime. Life in the other world goes on just like life in this
+one. Houses are built exactly like houses on earth, and there as here
+pigs swarm in the streets. Fields are tilled and crops are got in;
+ghostly men marry ghostly women, who give birth to ghostly children. The
+same old round of love and hate, of quarrelling and fighting, of battle,
+murder and sudden death goes on in the shadowy realm below ground just
+as in the more solid world above ground. Sorcerers are there also, and
+they breed just as bad blood among the dead as among the living. All
+things indeed are the same except for their shadowy unsubstantial
+texture.[464]
+
+[Sidenote: Ghosts die and turn into animals.]
+
+But the ghosts do not live for ever in the nether world. They die the
+second death and turn into animals, generally into cuscuses. In the
+shape of animals they haunt the wildest, deepest, darkest glens of the
+rugged mountains. No one but the owner has the right to set foot on such
+haunted ground. He may even kill the ghostly animals. Any one else who
+dared to disturb them in their haunts would do so at the peril of his
+life. But even the owner of the land who has killed one of the ghostly
+creatures is bound to appease the spirit of the dead beast. He may not
+cut up the carcase at once, but must leave it for a time, perhaps for a
+whole night, after laying on it presents which are intended to mollify
+and 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 may
+eat it." When the animal's ghost has appropriated the spiritual essence
+of the offerings, the hunter and his family may eat the carcase. Should
+one of these ghostly creatures die or be killed, its spirit turns either
+into an insect or into an ant-hill. Children who would destroy such an
+ant-hill or throw little darts at it, are warned by their elders not to
+indulge in such sacrilegious sport. When the insect also dies, the
+series of spiritual transformations is at an end.[465]
+
+[Sidenote: Ghosts of persons eminent for good or evil in their lives are
+remembered and appealed to for help long after their deaths. Prayers to
+ghosts for rain, a good crop of yams, and so forth.]
+
+The ghosts whose help is invoked by hunters and farmers are commonly the
+spirits of persons who have lately died, since such spirits linger for a
+time in the neighbourhood, or rather in the memory of the people. But
+besides these spirits of the recent dead there are certain older ghosts
+who may be regarded as permanent patrons of hunting and other
+departments of life and nature, because their fame has survived long
+after the men or women themselves were gathered to their fathers. For
+example, men who were bold and resolute in battle during their life will
+be invoked long after their death, whenever a stout heart is needed for
+some feat of daring. And men who were notorious thieves and villains in
+the flesh will be invited, long after their bodies have mouldered in the
+grave, to lend their help when a deed of villainy is to be done. The
+names of men or women who were eminent for good or evil in their lives
+survive indefinitely in the memory of the tribe. Thus before a battle
+many a Kai warrior will throw something over the enemy's village and as
+he does so he will softly call on two ghosts, "We and Gunang, ye two
+heroes, come and guard me and keep the foes from me, that they may not
+be able to hurt me! But stand by me that I may be able to riddle them
+with spears!" Again, when a magician wishes to cause an earthquake, he
+will take a handful of ashes, wrap them in certain leaves, and pronounce
+the following spell over the packet: "Thou man Saiong, throw about
+everything that exists; houses, villages, paths, fields, bushes and tall
+forest trees, yams, and taro, throw them all hither and thither; break
+and smash everything, but leave me in peace!" While he utters this
+incantation or prayer, the sorcerer's body itself twitches and quivers
+more and more violently, till the hut creaks and cracks and his strength
+is exhausted. Then he throws the packet of ashes out of the hut, and
+after that the earthquake is sure to follow sooner or later. So when
+they 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, so
+that the rain which she is holding up may fall upon the earth. The
+prayer for rain addressed to the ghosts is combined with a magical spell
+pronounced over a stone. And when rain has fallen in abundance and the
+Kai wish to make it cease, they strew hot ashes on the stone or lay it
+in a wood fire. On the principle of homoeopathic magic the heat of the
+ashes or of the fire is supposed to dry up the rain. Thus in these
+ceremonies for the production or cessation of rain we see that religion,
+represented by the invocation of the ghosts, goes hand in hand with
+magic, represented by the hocus-pocus with the stone. Again, certain
+celebrated 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 of
+taro in his hand and pray, "O Mrs. Zewanong, may my taro leaves unfold
+till they are as broad as the petticoat which covers thy loins!" When
+they are planting yams, they pray to two women named Tendung and Molewa
+that they would cause the yams to put forth as long suckers as the
+strings which the women twist to make into carrying-nets. Before they
+dig up the yams, they take a branch and drive with it the evil spirits
+or ghosts from the house in which the yams are to be stored. Having
+effected this clearance they stick the branch in the roof of the house
+and appoint a certain ghostly man named Ehang to act as warden. Again,
+fowlers invoke a married pair of ghosts called Manze and Tamingoka to
+frighten the birds from the trees and drive them on the limed twigs. Or
+they pray to a ghostly woman named Lane, saying, "In all places of the
+neighbourhood shake the betel-nuts from the palms, that they may fall
+down 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 the
+lime on the branches. Again, when a fisherman wishes to catch eels, he
+prays to two ghosts called Yambi and Ngigwali, saying: "Come, ye two
+men, and go down into the holes of the pool; smite the eels in them, and
+draw them out on the bank, that I may kill them!" Once more, when a
+child suffers from enlarged spleen, which shews as a swelling on its
+body, the parent will pray to a ghost named Aidolo for help in these
+words: "Come and help this child! It is big with a ball of sickness. Cut
+it up and squeeze and squash it, that the blood and pus may drain away
+and my child may be made whole!" To give point to the prayer the
+petitioner simultaneously pretends to cut a cross on the swelling with a
+knife.[466]
+
+[Sidenote: Possible development of departmental gods out of ghosts.]
+
+From this it appears that men and women who impressed their
+contemporaries by their talents, their virtues, or their vices in their
+lifetime, are sometimes remembered long after their death and continue
+to be invoked by their descendants for help in the particular department
+in which they had formerly rendered themselves eminent either for good
+or for evil. Such powerful and admired or dreaded ghosts might easily
+grow in time into gods and goddesses, who are worshipped as presiding
+over the various departments of nature and of human life. There is good
+reason to think that among many tribes and nations of the world the
+history of a god, if it could be recovered, would be found to be the
+history of a spirit who served his apprenticeship as a ghost before he
+was promoted to the rank of deity.
+
+[Sidenote: Kai lads at circumcision supposed to be swallowed by a
+monster. Bull-roarers.]
+
+Before quitting the Kai tribe I will mention that they, like the other
+tribes on this coast, practise circumcision and appear to associate the
+custom more or less vaguely with the spirits of the dead. Like their
+neighbours, they impress women with the belief that at circumcision the
+lads are swallowed by a monster, who can only be induced to disgorge
+them by the bribe of much food and especially of pigs, which are
+accordingly bred and kept nominally for this purpose, but really to
+furnish a banquet for the men alone. The ceremony is performed at
+irregular intervals of several years. A long hut, entered through a high
+door at one end and tapering away at the other, is built in a lonely
+part of the forest. It represents the monster which is to swallow the
+novices in its capacious jaws. The process of deglutition is represented
+as follows. In front of the entrance to the hut a scaffold is erected
+and a man mounts it. The novices are then led up one by one and passed
+under the scaffold. As each comes up, the man overhead makes a gesture
+of swallowing, while at the same time he takes a great gulp of water
+from a coco-nut flask. The trembling novice is now supposed to be in the
+maw of the monster; but a pig is offered for his redemption, the man on
+the scaffold, as representative of the beast, accepts the offering, a
+gurgling sound is heard, and the water which he had just gulped descends
+in a jet on the novice, who now goes free. The actual circumcision
+follows immediately on this impressive pantomime. The monster who
+swallows the lads is named Ngosa, which means "Grandfather"; and the
+same 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 less
+elaborately carved, which being swung at the end of a string emits the
+usual droning, booming sound. When they are not in use, the instruments
+are kept, carefully wrapt up, in the men's house, which no woman may
+enter. Only the old men have the right to undo these precious bundles
+and take out the sacred bull-roarers. Women, too, are strictly excluded
+from the neighbourhood of the circumcision ground; any who intrude on it
+are put to death. The mythical monster who is supposed to haunt the
+ground is said to be very dangerous to the female sex. When the novices
+go forth to be swallowed by him in the forest, the women who remain in
+the village weep and wail; and they rejoice greatly when the lads come
+back safe and sound.[467]
+
+[Sidenote: The Tami Islanders of Huon Gulf.]
+
+The last tribe of German New Guinea to which I shall invite your
+attention are the Tami. Most of them live not on the mainland but in a
+group of islands in Huon Gulf, to the south-east of Yabim. They are of a
+purer Melanesian stock than most of the tribes on the neighbouring coast
+of New Guinea. The German missionary Mr. G. Bamler, who lived amongst
+them for ten years and knows the people and their language intimately,
+thinks that they may even contain a strong infusion of Polynesian
+blood.[468] They are a seafaring folk, who extend their voyages all
+along 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 a
+short one. The long soul is identified with the shadow. It is only
+loosely attached to its owner, wandering away from his body in sleep and
+returning to it when he wakes with a start. The seat of the long soul is
+in the stomach. When the man dies, the long soul quits his body and
+appears to his relations at a distance, who thus obtain the first
+intimation of his decease. Having conveyed the sad intelligence to them,
+the long soul departs by way of Maligep, on the west coast of New
+Britain, to a village on the north coast, the inhabitants of which
+recognise 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 but
+only after death. Even then it tarries for a time in the neighbourhood
+of the body before it takes its departure for Lamboam, which is the
+abode of the dead in the nether world. The Tami bury their dead in
+shallow graves under or near the houses. They collect in a coco-nut
+shell the maggots which swarm from the decaying corpse; and when the
+insects cease to swarm, they know that the short soul has gone away to
+its long home. It is the short soul which receives and carries away with
+it the offerings that are made to the deceased. These offerings serve a
+double purpose; they form the nucleus of the dead man's property in the
+far country, and they ensure him a friendly reception on his arrival.
+For example, the soul shivers with cold, when it first reaches the
+subterranean realm, and the other ghosts, the old stagers, obligingly
+heat stones to warm it up.[471]
+
+[Sidenote: Dilemma of the Tami.]
+
+However, the restless spirit returns from time to time to haunt and
+terrify the sorcerer, who was the cause of its death. But its threats
+are idle; it can really do him very little harm. Yet it keeps its
+ghostly eye on its surviving relatives to see that they do not stand on
+a friendly footing with the wicked sorcerer. Strictly speaking the Tami
+ought to avenge his death, but as a matter of fact they do not. The
+truth of it is that the Tami do a very good business with the people on
+the mainland, among whom the sorcerer is usually to be found; and the
+amicable relations which are essential to the maintenance of commerce
+would unquestionably suffer if a merchant were to indulge his resentment
+so far as to take his customer's head instead of his sago and bananas.
+These considerations reduce the Tami to a painful dilemma. If they
+gratify the ghost they lose a customer; if they keep the customer they
+must bitterly offend the ghost, who will punish them for their
+disrespect to his memory. In this delicate position the Tami endeavour
+to make the best of both worlds. On the one hand, by loudly professing
+their wrath and indignation against the guilty sorcerer they endeavour
+to appease the ghost; and on the other hand, by leaving the villain
+unmolested 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-thirsty
+ghost, they are at great pains to testify their respect for him in all
+other ways. The whole village takes part in the mourning and lamentation
+for a death. The women dance death dances, the men lend a hand in the
+preparations for the burial. All festivities are stopped: the drums are
+silent. As the people believe that when anybody has died, the ghosts of
+his dead kinsfolk gather in the village and are joined by other ghosts,
+they are careful not to leave the mourners alone, exposed to the too
+pressing attentions of the spectral visitors; they keep the bereaved
+family company, especially at night; indeed, if the weather be fine, the
+whole population of the village will encamp round the temporary hut
+which is built on the grave. This watch at the grave lasts about eight
+days. The watchers are supported and comforted in the discharge of their
+pious duty by a liberal allowance of food and drink. Nor are the wants
+of the ghost himself forgotten. Many families offer him taro broth at
+this time. The period of mourning lasts two or three years. During the
+first year the observances prescribed by custom are strictly followed,
+and the nearest relations must avoid publicity. After a year they are
+allowed more freedom; for example, the widow may lay aside the heavy
+net, which is her costume in full mourning, and may replace it by a
+lighter one; moreover, she may quit the house. At the end of the long
+period of mourning, dances are danced in honour of the deceased. They
+begin in the evening and last all night till daybreak. The mourners on
+these occasions smear their heads, necks, and breasts with black earth.
+A great quantity of food, particularly of pigs and taro broth, has been
+made ready; for the whole village, and perhaps a neighbouring village
+also, has been invited to share in the festivity, which may last eight
+or ten days, if the provisions suffice. The dances begin with a gravity
+and solemnity appropriate to a memorial of the dead; but towards the
+close the performers indulge in a lighter vein and act comic pieces,
+which so tickle the fancy of the spectators, that many of them roll on
+the ground with laughter. Finally, the temporary hut erected on the
+grave is taken down and the materials burned. As the other ghosts of the
+village are believed to be present in attendance on the one who is the
+guest of honour, all the villagers bring offerings and throw them into
+the fire. However, persons who are not related to the ghosts may snatch
+the offerings from the flames and convert them to their own use.
+Precious objects, such as boars' tusks and dogs' teeth, are not
+committed to the fire but merely swung over it in a bag, while the name
+of the person who offers the valuables in this economical fashion is
+proclaimed aloud for the satisfaction of the ghost. With these dances,
+pantomimes, and offerings the living have discharged the last duties of
+respect and affection to the dead. Yet for a while his ghost is thought
+to linger as a domestic or household spirit; but the time comes when he
+is 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 these
+ordinary ceremonies, dig up the bodies of their dead when the flesh has
+mouldered away, redden the bones with ochre, and keep them bundled up in
+the house for two or three years, when these relics of mortality are
+finally committed to the earth. The intention of thus preserving the
+bones for years in the house is not mentioned, but no doubt it is to
+maintain a closer intimacy with the departed spirit than seems possible
+if his skeleton is left to rot in the grave. When he is at last laid in
+the ground, the tomb is enclosed by a strong wooden fence and planted
+with ornamental shrubs. Yet in the course of years, as the memory of the
+deceased fades away, his grave is neglected, the fence decays, the
+shrubs run wild; another generation, which knew him not, will build a
+house on the spot, and if in digging the foundations they turn up his
+bleached and mouldering bones, it is nothing to them: why should they
+trouble themselves about the spirit of a man or woman whose very name is
+forgotten?[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 the
+ghosts are spoken of simply as spirits (_Geister_); but the context
+proves 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 _Deutsch
+Neu-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 NEW
+GUINEA
+
+
+[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 of
+Melanesian stock who inhabit a group of islands off the mainland of New
+Guinea. 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 of
+which survive his death, but depart in different directions, one of them
+repairing to the lower world, and the other being last sighted off the
+coast of New Britain. But the knowledge which these savages possess of
+the spiritual world is not limited to the souls of men; they are
+acquainted with several deities (_buwun_), who live in the otherwise
+uninhabited 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 also
+cause 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 little
+pig or a mangy cur; and should an earthquake last longer than usual they
+will rap on the ground, saying, "Hullo, you down there! easy a little!
+We men are still here." They also profess acquaintance with a god named
+Anuto, who created the heaven and the earth together with the first man
+and woman. He is a good being; nobody need be afraid of him. At
+festivals and meat markets the Tami offer him the first portion in a
+little basket, which a lad carries away into the wood and leaves there.
+As usual, the deity consumes only the soul of the offering; the bearer
+eats the material substance.[475] The Tami further believe in certain
+spirits called Tago which are very old, having been created at the same
+time as the village. Every family or clan possesses its own familiar
+spirits of this class. They are represented by men who disguise their
+bodies in dense masses of sago leaves and their faces in grotesque masks
+with long hooked noses. In this costume the maskers jig it as well as
+the heavy unwieldy disguise allows them to do. But the dance consists in
+little more than running round and round in a circle, with an occasional
+hop; the orchestra stands in the middle, singing and thumping drums.
+Sometimes two or three of the masked men will make a round of the
+village, pelting the men with pebbles or hard fruits, while the women
+and children scurry out of their way. When they are not in use the masks
+are hidden away in a hut in the forest, which women and children may not
+approach. Their secret is sternly kept: any betrayal of it is punished
+with death. The season for the exhibition of these masked dances recurs
+only once in ten or twelve years, but it extends over a year or
+thereabout. During the whole of the dancing-season, curiously enough,
+coco-nuts are strictly tabooed; no person may eat them, so that the
+unused nuts accumulate in thousands. As coco-nuts ordinarily form a
+daily article of diet with the Tami, their prohibition for a year is
+felt by the people as a privation. The meaning of the prohibition and
+also of the masquerades remains obscure.[476]
+
+[Sidenote: The superhuman beings with whom the Tami are chiefly
+concerned are the souls of the dead. Offerings to the dead.]
+
+But while the Tami believe in gods and spirits of various sorts, the
+superhuman beings with whom they chiefly concern themselves are the
+souls of the dead. On this subject Mr. Bamler writes: "All the spirits
+whom we have thus far described are of little importance in the life and
+thought of the Tami; they are remembered only on special occasions. The
+spirits who fill the thoughts and attract the attention of the Tami are
+the _kani_, that is, the souls of the departed. The Tami therefore
+practise the worship of ancestors. Yet the memory of ancestors does not
+reach far back; people occupy themselves only with the souls of those
+relatives whom they have personally known. Hence the worship seldom
+extends beyond the grandfather, even when a knowledge of more remote
+progenitors survives. An offering to the ancestors takes the form of a
+little dish of boiled taro, a cigar, betel-nuts, and the like; but the
+spirits partake only of the image or soul of the things offered, while
+the material substance falls to the share of mankind. There is no fixed
+rule as to the manner or time of the offering. It is left to the caprice
+or 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 a
+sprat to catch a salmon; the man brings his offering only when he needs
+the help of the spirits. There is very little ceremony about it. The
+offerer will say, for example, 'There, I lay a cigar for you; smoke it
+and 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 is
+presented is the shelf for pots and dishes under the roof. Thus they
+imagine that the spirits exert a tolerably far-reaching influence over
+all created things, and it is their notion that the spirits take
+possession of the objects. In like manner the spirits can injure a man
+by thwarting his plans, for example, by frightening away the fish,
+blighting the fruits of the fields, and so forth. If the native is
+forced to conclude that the spirits are against him, he has no
+hesitation about deceiving them in the grossest manner. Should the
+requisite sacrifices be inconvenient to him, he flatly refuses them, or
+gives the shabbiest things he can find. In all this the native displays
+the same craft and cunning which he is apt to practise in his dealings
+with the whites. He fears the power which the spirit has over him, yet
+he tries whether he cannot outwit the spirit like an arrant
+block-head."[477]
+
+[Sidenote: Crude motives for sacrifice.]
+
+This account of the crude but quite intelligible motives which lead
+these savages to sacrifice to the spirits of their dead may be commended
+to the attention of writers on the history of religion who read into
+primitive sacrifice certain subtle and complex ideas which it never
+entered into the mind of primitive man to conceive and which, even if
+they were explained to him, he would in all probability be totally
+unable 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 a
+rock. The natives of the mainland also call Hades by the name of
+Lamboam; but whereas according to them every village has its own little
+Lamboam, the Tami hold that there is only one big Lamboam for everybody,
+though it is subdivided into many mansions, of which every village has
+one to itself. In Lamboam everything is fairer and more perfect than on
+earth. The fruits are so plentiful that the blessed spirits can, if they
+choose, give themselves up to the delights of idleness; the villages are
+full of ornamental plants. Yet on the other hand we are informed that
+life beneath the ground is very like life above it: people work and
+marry, they squabble and wrangle, they fall sick and even die, just as
+people do on earth. Souls which die the second death in Lamboam are
+changed into vermin, such as ants and worms; however, others say that
+they turn into wood-spirits, who do men a mischief in the fields. It is
+not so easy as is commonly supposed to effect an entrance into the
+spirit-land. You must pass a river, and even when you have crossed it
+you will be very likely to suffer from the practical jokes which the
+merry old ghosts play on a raw newcomer. A very favourite trick of
+theirs is to send him up a pandanus tree to look for fruit. If he is
+simple enough to comply, they catch him by the legs as he is swarming up
+the trunk and drag him down, so that his whole body is fearfully
+scratched, if not quite ripped up, by the rough bark. That is why people
+put valuable things with the dead in the grave, in order that their
+ghosts on arrival in Lamboam may have the wherewithal to purchase the
+good graces of the facetious old stagers.[478]
+
+[Sidenote: Return of the ghosts to earth, sometimes in the form of
+serpents.]
+
+However, even when the ghosts have succeeded in effecting a lodgment in
+Lamboam, they are not strictly confined to it. They can break bounds at
+any moment and return to the upper air. This they do particularly when
+any of their surviving relations is at the point of death. Ghosts of
+deceased kinsfolk and of others gather round the parting soul and attend
+it to the far country. Yet sometimes, apparently, the soul sets out
+alone, for the anxious relatives will call out to it, "Miss not the
+way." But ghosts visit their surviving friends at other times than at
+the moment of death. For example, some families possess the power of
+calling up spirits in the form of serpents from the vasty deep. The
+spirits whom they evoke are usually those of persons who have died quite
+lately; for such ghosts cannot return to earth except in the guise of
+serpents. In this novel shape they naturally feel shy and hide under a
+mat. They come out only in the dusk of the evening or the darkness of
+night and sit on the shelf for pots and dishes under the roof. They have
+lost the faculty of speech and can express themselves only in whistles.
+These whistles the seer, who is generally a woman, understands perfectly
+and interprets to his or her less gifted fellows. In this way a
+considerable body of information, more or less accurate in detail, is
+collected as to life in the other world. More than that, it is even
+possible for men, and especially for women, to go down alive into the
+nether world and prosecute their enquiries at first hand among the
+ghosts. Women who possess this remarkable faculty transmit it to their
+daughters, so that the profession is hereditary. When anybody wishes to
+ascertain how it fares with one of his dead kinsfolk in Lamboam, he has
+nothing to do but to engage the services of one of these professional
+mediums, giving her something which belonged to his departed friend. The
+medium rubs her forehead with ginger, muttering an incantation, lies
+down on the dead man's property, and falls asleep. Her soul then goes
+down in a dream to deadland and elicits from the ghosts the required
+information, which on waking from sleep she imparts to the anxious
+enquirer.[479]
+
+[Sidenote: Sickness caused by a spirit.]
+
+Sickness accompanied by fainting fits is ascribed to the action of a
+spirit, 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 blast
+blown on a triton-shell, in which some chewed ginger or _massoi_ bark
+has been inserted. The booming sound attracts the attention of the
+vagrant spirit, while the smell of the bark or of the ginger drives away
+the ghost.[480]
+
+[Sidenote: Tami lads supposed to be swallowed by a monster at
+circumcision; the monster and the bull-roarer are both called _kani_.]
+
+The name which the Tami give to the spirits of the dead is _kani_; but
+like other tribes in this part of New Guinea they apply the same term to
+the bull-roarer and also to the mythical monster who is supposed to
+swallow the lads at circumcision. The identity of the name for the three
+things seems to prove that in the mind of the Tami the initiatory rites,
+of which circumcision is the principal feature, are closely associated
+with their conception of the state of the human soul after death, though
+what the precise nature of the association may be still remains obscure.
+Like their neighbours on the mainland of New Guinea, the Tami give out
+that the novices at initiation are swallowed by a monster or dragon, who
+only consents to disgorge his prey in consideration of a tribute of
+pigs, the rate of the tribute being one novice one pig. In the act of
+disgorging the lad the dragon bites him, and the bite is visible to all
+in the cut called circumcision. The voice of the monster is heard in the
+hum of the bull-roarers, which are swung at the ceremony in such numbers
+and with such force that in still weather the booming sound may be heard
+across the sea for many miles. To impress women and children with an
+idea of the superhuman strength of the dragon deep grooves are cut in
+the trunks of trees and afterwards exhibited to the uninitiated as the
+marks made by the monster in tugging at the ropes which bound him to the
+trees. However, the whole thing is an open secret to the married women,
+though they keep their knowledge to themselves, fearing to incur the
+penalty of death which is denounced upon all who betray the mystery.
+
+[Sidenote: The rite of circumcision. Seclusion and return of the newly
+circumcised 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 the
+village and special quarters prepared for them elsewhere; for they are
+strictly forbidden to set foot in the village while the monster or
+spirit who swallows the lads has his abode in it. A special hut is then
+built for the accommodation of the novices during the many months which
+they spend in seclusion before and after the operation of circumcision.
+The hut represents the monster; it consists of a framework of thin poles
+covered with palm-leaf mats and tapering down at one end. Looked at from
+a distance it resembles a whale. The backbone is composed of a betel-nut
+palm, which has been grubbed up with its roots. The root with its fibres
+represents the monster's head and hair, and under it are painted a pair
+of eyes and a great mouth in red, white, and black. The passage of the
+novices into the monster's belly is represented by causing them to
+defile past a row of men who hold bull-roarers aloft over the heads of
+the candidates. Before this march past takes place, each of the
+candidates is struck by the chief with a bull-roarer on his chin and
+brow. The operation of circumcising the lads is afterwards performed
+behind a screen set up near the monster-shaped house. It is followed by
+a great feast on swine's flesh. After their wounds are healed the
+circumcised lads have still to remain in seclusion for three or four
+months. Finally, they are brought back to the village with great pomp.
+For this solemn ceremony their faces, necks, and breasts are whitened
+with a thick layer of chalk, while red stripes, painted round their
+mouths and eyes and prolonged to the ears, add to the grotesqueness of
+their appearance. Their eyes are closed with a plaster of chalk, and
+thus curiously arrayed and blindfolded they are led back to the village
+square, where leave is formally given them to open their eyes. At the
+entrance to the village they are received by the women, who weep for joy
+and strew boiled field-fruits on the way. Next morning the newly
+initiated lads wash off the crust of chalk, and have their hair, faces,
+necks, and breasts painted bright red. This ends their time of
+seclusion, which has lasted five or six months; they now rank as
+full-grown men.[481]
+
+[Sidenote: Simulation of death and resurrection.]
+
+In these initiatory rites, as in the similar rites of the neighbouring
+tribes on the mainland of New Guinea, we may perhaps detect a simulation
+of death and of resurrection to a new and higher life. But why
+circumcision should form the central feature of such a drama is a
+question to which as yet no certain or even very probable answer can be
+given. The bodily mutilations of various sorts, which in many savage
+tribes mark the transition from boyhood to manhood, remain one of the
+obscurest features in the life of uncultured races. That they are in
+most cases connected with the great change which takes place in the
+sexes at puberty seems fairly certain; but we are far from understanding
+the 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 life
+hereafter which are entertained by the natives of German New Guinea. We
+now turn to the natives of Dutch New Guinea, who occupy roughly speaking
+the western half of the great island. Our information as to their
+customs and beliefs on this subject is much scantier, and accordingly my
+account 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 northern
+coast a deep and wide indentation known as Geelvink Bay, which in its
+north-west corner includes a very much smaller indentation known as
+Doreh Bay. Scattered about in the waters of the great Geelvink Bay are
+many islands of various sizes, such as Biak or Wiak, Jappen or Jobi, Run
+or Ron, Noomfor, and many more. It is in regard to the natives who
+inhabit the coasts or islands of Geelvink Bay that our information is
+perhaps least imperfect, and it is accordingly with them that I shall
+begin. In physical appearance, expression of the face, mode of wearing
+the hair, and still more in manners and customs these natives of the
+coast and islands differ from the natives of the mountains in the
+interior. The name given to them by Dutch and German writers is Noofoor
+or Noomfor. Their original home is believed to be the island of Biak or
+Wiak, which lies at the northern entrance of the bay, and from which
+they are supposed to have spread southwards and south-westwards to the
+other islands and to the mainland of New Guinea.[482] They are a
+handsomely built race. Their colour is usually dark brown, but in some
+individuals it shades off to light-brown, while in others it deepens
+into black-brown. The forehead is high and narrow; the eye is dark brown
+or black with a lively expression; the nose broad and flat, the lips
+thick and projecting. The cheekbones are not very high. The facial angle
+agrees with that of Europeans. The hair is abundant and frizzly. The
+people live in settled villages and subsist by agriculture, hunting, and
+fishing. Their large communal houses are raised above the ground on
+piles; on the coast they are built over the water. Each house has a long
+gallery, one in front and one behind, and a long passage running down
+the middle of the dwelling, with the rooms arranged on either side of
+it. 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 a
+hundred or more men, women, and children, besides dogs, fowls, parrots,
+and other creatures. When the house is built over the water, it is
+commonly connected with the shore by a bridge; but in some places no
+such bridge exists, and at high water the inmates can only communicate
+with the shore by means of their canoes. The staple food of the people
+is sago, which they extract from the sago-palm; but they also make use
+of bread-fruit, together with millet, rice, and maize, whenever they can
+obtain 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 their
+gardens, which they lay out in clearings of the dense tropical forest,
+employing chiefly axes and chopping-knives as their instruments of
+tillage. Of ploughs they, like most savages, seem to know nothing. The
+rice and other plants which they raise in these gardens are produced by
+the dry method of cultivation. In hunting birds they employ chiefly bows
+and arrows, but sometimes also snares. The arrows with which they shoot
+the birds of paradise are blunted so as not to injure the splendid
+plumage of the birds. Turtle-shells, feathers of the birds of paradise,
+and trepang are among the principal articles which they barter with
+traders for cotton-goods, knives, swords, axes, beads and so forth. They
+display some skill and taste in wood-carving. The art of working in iron
+has been introduced among them from abroad and is now extensively
+practised by the men. They make large dug-out canoes with outriggers,
+which seem to be very seaworthy, for they accomplish long voyages even
+in stormy weather. The making of pottery, basket-work, and weaving,
+together with pounding rice and cooking food, are the special business
+of women. The men wear waistbands or loin-cloths made of bark, which is
+beaten till it becomes as supple as leather. The women wear petticoats
+or strips of blue cotton round their loins, and as ornaments they have
+rings of silver, copper, or shell on their arms and legs.[483] Thus the
+people 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 savages
+the fear of ghosts and the reverence entertained for them have developed
+into something which might almost be called a systematic worship of the
+dead. As to their fear of ghosts I will quote the evidence of a Dutch
+missionary, Mr. J. L. van Hasselt, who lived for many years among them
+and is the author of a grammar and dictionary of their language. He
+says: "That a great fear of ghosts prevails among the Papuans is
+intelligible. Even by day they are reluctant to pass a grave, but
+nothing would induce them to do so by night. For the dead are then
+roaming about in their search for gambier and tobacco, and they may also
+sail out to sea in a canoe. Some of the departed, above all the
+so-called _Mambrie_ or heroes, inspire them with especial fear. In such
+cases for some days after the burial you may hear about sunset a
+simultaneous and horrible din in all the houses of all the villages, a
+yelling, screaming, beating and throwing of sticks; happily the uproar
+does not last long: its intention is to compel the ghost to take himself
+off: they have given him all that befits him, namely, a grave, a funeral
+banquet, and funeral ornaments; and now they beseech him not to thrust
+himself on their observation any more, not to breathe any sickness upon
+the survivors, and not to kill them or 'fetch' them, as the Papuans put
+it. Their ideas of the spirit-world are very vague. Their usual answer
+to such questions is, 'We know not.' If you press them, they will
+commonly say that the spirit realm is under the earth or under the
+bottom of the sea. Everything there is as it is in the upper world, only
+the vegetation down below is more luxuriant, and all plants grow faster.
+Their fear of death and their helpless wailing over the dead indicate
+that the misty kingdom of the shades offers but little that is
+consolatory to the Papuan at his departure from this world."[484]
+
+[Sidenote: Fear of ghosts in general and of the ghosts of the slain in
+particular.]
+
+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 he
+cherishes a great fear of the ghosts of slain persons, for which reason
+their bodies remain unburied on the spot where they were murdered. When
+a murder has taken place in the village, the inhabitants assemble for
+several evenings in succession and raise a fearful outcry in order to
+chase away the soul, in case it should be minded to return to the
+village. They set up miniature wooden houses here and there on trees in
+the forest for the ghosts of persons who die of disease or through
+accidents, believing that the souls take up their abode in them."[485]
+The same writer remarks that these savages have no priests, but that
+they have magicians (_kokinsor_), who practise exorcisms, work magic,
+and heal the sick, for which they receive a small payment in articles of
+barter or food.[486] Speaking of the Papuans of Dutch New Guinea in
+general another writer informs us that "they honour the memory of the
+dead in every way, because they ascribe to the spirits of the departed a
+great influence on the life of the survivors.... Whereas in life all
+good and evil comes from the soul, after death, on the other hand, the
+spirit works for the most part only evil. It loves especially to haunt
+by night the neighbourhood of its old dwelling and the grave; so the
+people particularly avoid the neighbourhood of graves at night, and when
+darkness has fallen they will not go out except with a burning brand....
+According to the belief of the Papuans the ghosts cause sickness, bad
+harvests, war, and in general every misfortune. From fear of such evils
+and in order to keep them in good humour, the people make provision for
+the spirits of the departed after death. Also they sacrifice to them
+before every important undertaking and never fail to ask their
+advice."[487]
+
+[Sidenote: Papuan ideas as to the state of the dead.]
+
+A Dutch writer, who has given us a comparatively full account of the
+natives of Geelvink Bay, describes as follows their views in regard to
+the state of the dead: "According to the Papuans the soul, which they
+imagine to have its seat in the blood, continues to exist at the bottom
+of the sea, and every one who dies goes thither. They imagine the state
+of things there to be much the same as that in which they lived on
+earth. Hence at his burial the dead man is given an equipment suitable
+to 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 him
+in good stead in the life hereafter. This provision must not be
+neglected, for it is a prevalent opinion that the dead continue always
+to maintain relations with the world and with the living, that they
+possess superhuman power, exercise great influence over the affairs of
+life on earth, and are able to protect in danger, to stand by in war, to
+guard against shipwreck at sea, and to grant success in fishing and
+hunting. For such weighty reasons the Papuans do all in their power to
+win the favour of their dead. On undertaking a journey they are said
+never to forget to hang amulets about themselves in the belief that
+their dead will then surely help them; hence, too, when they are at sea
+in rough weather, they call upon the souls of the departed, asking them
+for better weather or a favourable breeze, in case the wind happens to
+be contrary."[488]
+
+[Sidenote: Wooden images of the dead (_korwar_).]
+
+In order to communicate with these powerful spirits and to obtain their
+advice and help in time of need, the Papuans of Geelvink Bay make wooden
+images of their dead, which they keep in their houses and consult from
+time to time. Every family has at least one such ancestral image, which
+forms the medium whereby the soul of the deceased communicates with his
+or her surviving relatives. These images or Penates, as we may call
+them, are carved of wood, about a foot high, and represent the deceased
+person in a standing, sitting, or crouching attitude, but commonly with
+the hands folded in front. The head is disproportionately large, the
+nose long and projecting, the mouth wide and well furnished with teeth;
+the eyes are formed of large green or blue beads with black dots to
+indicate the pupils. Sometimes the male figures carry a shield in the
+left hand and brandish a sword in the right; while the female figures
+are represented grasping with both hands a serpent which stands on its
+coiled tail. Rags of many colours adorn these figures, and the hair of
+the deceased, whom they represent, is placed between their legs. Such an
+ancestral image is called a _korwar_ or _karwar_. The natives identify
+these effigies with the deceased persons whom they portray, and
+accordingly they will speak of one as their father or mother or other
+relation. Tobacco and food are offered to the images, and the natives
+greet them reverentially by bowing to the earth before them with the two
+hands joined and raised to the forehead.
+
+[Sidenote: Such images carried on voyages and consulted as oracles. The
+images consulted in sickness.]
+
+Such images are kept in the houses and carried in canoes on voyages, in
+order that they may be at hand to help and advise their kinsfolk and
+worshippers. They are consulted on many occasions, for example, when the
+people 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 know
+whether he will recover. At these consultations the enquirer may either
+take the image in his hands or crouch before it on the ground, on which
+he places his offerings of tobacco, cotton, beads, and so forth. The
+spirit of the dead is thought to be in the image and to pass from it
+into the enquirer, who thus becomes inspired by the soul of the deceased
+and acquires his superhuman knowledge. As a sign of his inspiration the
+medium shivers and shakes. According to some accounts, however, this
+shivering and shaking of the medium is an evil omen; whereas if he
+remains tranquil, the omen is good. It is especially in cases of
+sickness that the images are consulted. The mode of consultation has
+been described as follows by a Dutch writer: "When any one is sick and
+wishes to know the means of cure, or when any one desires to avert
+misfortune or to discover something unknown, then in presence of the
+whole family one of the members is stupefied by the fumes of incense or
+by other means of producing a state of trance. The image of the deceased
+person whose advice is sought is then placed on the lap or shoulder of
+the medium in order to cause the soul to pass out of the image into his
+body. At the moment when that happens, he begins to shiver; and,
+encouraged by the bystanders, the soul speaks through the mouth of the
+medium and names the means of cure or of averting the calamity. When he
+comes 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 sometimes
+reported that the souls go to the underworld, but that is not true. The
+Papuans think that after death the soul abides by the corpse and is
+buried with it in the grave; hence before an image is made, if it is
+necessary to consult the soul, the enquirer must betake himself to the
+grave in order to do so. But when the image is made, the soul enters
+into it and is supposed to remain in it so long as satisfactory answers
+are obtained from it in consultation. But should the answers prove
+disappointing, the people think that the soul has deserted the image, on
+which 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 has
+lost its power."[489] The person who acts as medium in consulting the
+spirit 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 who
+was suffering from a painful sore on his finger and wished to ascertain
+the cause of the trouble. So he set one of the ancestral images before
+him and questioned it closely. At first the image made no reply; but at
+last the man remembered that he had neglected his duty to his dead
+brother by failing to marry his widow, as, according to native custom,
+he should have done. Now the natives believe that the dead can punish
+them for any breach of customary law; so it occurred to our enquirer
+that the ghost of his dead brother might have afflicted him with the
+sore on his finger for not marrying his widow. Accordingly he put the
+question to the image, and in doing so the compunction of a guilty
+conscience caused him to tremble. This trembling he took for an answer
+of the image in the affirmative, wherefore he went off and took the
+widow 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 cause
+of a death; and if the image attributes the death to the evil magic of a
+member of another tribe, an expedition will be sent to avenge the wrong
+by slaying the supposed culprit. For the souls of the dead take it very
+ill and wreak their spite on the survivors, if their death is not
+avenged on their enemies. Not uncommonly the consultation of the images
+merely furnishes a pretext for satisfying a grudge against an individual
+or a tribe.[492] The mere presence of these images appears to be
+supposed to benefit the sick; a woman who was seriously ill has been
+seen to lie with four or five ancestral figures fastened at the head of
+her 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 and
+friends.[493] Again, the images are taken by the natives with them to
+war, because they hope thereby to secure the help of the spirits whom
+the images represent. Also they make offerings from time to time to the
+effigies and hold feasts in their honour.[494] They observe, indeed,
+that the food which they present to these household idols remains
+unconsumed, but they explain this by saying that the spirits are content
+to snuff up the savour of the viands, and to leave their gross material
+substance 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. But
+in the island of Ron or Run they are also made of persons who have died
+away from home or have fallen in battle. In such cases the difficulty is
+to compel the soul to quit its mortal remains far away and come to
+animate the image. However, the natives of Ron have found means to
+overcome this difficulty. They first carve the wooden image of the dead
+person and then call his soul back to the village by setting a great
+tree 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 and
+shaking and falling into a trance after the approved fashion of mediums
+in many lands. After this ceremony the image is supposed to be animated
+by the soul of the deceased, and it is kept in the house with as much
+confidence as any other.[496]
+
+[Sidenote: Sometimes the head of the image is composed of the skull of
+the 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 the
+top of the effigy. In such cases the body of the image is of wood and
+the head of bone. It is especially men who have distinguished themselves
+by their bravery or have earned a name for themselves in other ways who
+are thus represented. Apparently the notion is that as a personal relic
+of the departed the skull is better fitted to retain his soul than a
+mere head of wood. But in the island of Ron or Run, and perhaps
+elsewhere, skull-topped images of this sort are made for all firstborn
+children, whether male or female, young or old, at least for all who die
+from the age of twelve years and upward. These images have a special
+name, _bemar boo_, which means "head of a corpse." They are kept in the
+room 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 of
+the firstborn child, who dies at the age of years or upwards, is laid in
+a small canoe, which is deposited in a hut erected behind the
+dwelling-house. Here the mother is obliged to keep watch night and day
+beside the corpse and to maintain a blazing fire till the head drops off
+the body, which it generally does about twenty days after the death.
+Then the trunk is wrapped in leaves and buried, but the head is brought
+into the house and carefully preserved. Above the spot where it is
+deposited a small opening is made in the roof, through which a stick is
+thrust bearing some rags or flags to indicate that the remains of a dead
+body 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 have
+mouldered away, the relations and friends assemble in the house of
+mourning. In the middle of the assembly the father of the child crouches
+on his hams with downcast look in an attitude of grief, while one of the
+persons present begins to carve a new nose and a new pair of ears for
+the skull out of a piece of wood. The kind of wood varies according as
+the deceased was a male or a female. All the time that the artist is at
+work, the rest of the company chant a melancholy dirge. When the nose
+and ears are finished and have been attached to the skull, and small
+round fruits have been inserted in the hollow sockets of the eyes to
+represent 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 wood
+on 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 the
+skull is carefully kept in a corner of the chamber to be consulted as an
+oracle in time of need. The bodies of fathers and mothers are treated in
+the same way as those of firstborn children. On the other hand the
+bodies of children who die under the age of two years are never buried.
+The remains are packed in baskets of rushes covered with lids and
+tightly corded, and the baskets are then hung on the branches of tall
+trees, where no more notice is taken of them. Four or five such baskets
+containing the mouldering bodies of infants may sometimes be seen
+hanging on a single tree.[498] The reason for thus disposing of the
+remains of young children is said to be as follows. A thick mist hangs
+at evening over the top of the dense tropical forest, and in the mist
+dwell two spirits called Narwur and Imgier, one male and the other
+female, 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 the
+forest, hoping that the spirit pair will take it and be satisfied, and
+will spare its small brothers and sisters.[499]
+
+[Sidenote: Mummification of the dead.]
+
+In some parts of Geelvink Bay, however, the bodies of the dead are
+treated differently. For example, on the south coast of the island of
+Jobi or Jappen and elsewhere the corpses are reduced to mummies by being
+dried on a bamboo stage over a slow fire; after which the mummies, wrapt
+in cloth, are kept in the house, being either laid along the wall or
+hung from the ceiling. When the number of these relics begins to
+incommode the living inmates of the house, the older mummies are removed
+and deposited in the hollow trunks of ancient trees. In some tribes who
+thus mummify their dead the juices of corruption which drip from the
+rotting 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 she
+were to reject the loathsome beverage.[500]
+
+[Sidenote: Restrictions observed by mourners. Tattooing in honour of the
+dead. Teeth of the dead worn by relatives.]
+
+The family in which a death has taken place is subject for a time to
+certain burdensome restrictions, which are probably dictated by a fear
+of the ghost. Thus all the time till the effigy of the deceased has been
+made and a feast given in his honour, they are obliged to remain in the
+house without going out for any purpose, not even to bathe or to fetch
+food and drink. Moreover they must abstain from the ordinary articles of
+diet and confine themselves to half-baked cakes of sago and other
+unpalatable viands. As these restrictions may last for months they are
+not only irksome but onerous, especially to people who have no slaves to
+fetch and carry for them. However, in that case the neighbours come to
+the rescue and supply the mourners with wood, water, and the other
+necessaries of life, until custom allows them to go out and help
+themselves. After the effigy of the dead has been made, the family go in
+state to a sacred place to purify themselves by bathing. If the journey
+is made by sea, no other canoe may meet or sail past the canoe of the
+mourners under pain of being confiscated to them and redeemed at a heavy
+price. On their return from the holy place, the period of mourning is
+over, and the family is free to resume their ordinary mode of life and
+their ordinary victuals.[501] That the seclusion of the mourners in the
+house for some time after the death springs from a fear of the ghost is
+not only probable on general grounds but is directly suggested by a
+custom which is observed at the burial of the body. When it has been
+laid in the earth along with various articles of daily use, which the
+ghost is supposed to require for his comfort, the mourners gather round
+the grave and each of them picks up a leaf, which he folds in the shape
+of a spoon and holds several times over his head as if he would pour out
+the contents upon it. As they do so, they all murmur, "_Rur i rama_,"
+that is, "The spirit comes." This exclamation or incantation is supposed
+to prevent the ghost from troubling them. The gravediggers may not enter
+their houses till they have bathed and so removed from their persons the
+contagion of death, in order that the soul of the deceased may have no
+power over them.[502] Mourners sometimes tattoo themselves in honour of
+the dead. For a father, the marks are tattooed on the cheeks and under
+the eyes; for a grandfather, on the breast; for a mother, on the
+shoulders and arms; for a brother, on the back. On the death of a father
+or mother, the eldest son or, if there is none such, the eldest daughter
+wears the teeth and hair of the deceased. When the teeth of old people
+drop out, they are kept on purpose to be thus strung on a string and
+worn by their sons or daughters after their death. Similarly, a mother
+wears as a permanent mark of mourning the teeth of her dead child strung
+on a cord round her neck, and as a temporary mark of mourning a little
+bag on her throat containing a lock of the child's hair.[503] The
+intention of these customs is not mentioned. Probably they are not
+purely commemorative but designed in some way either to influence for
+good the spirit of the departed or to obtain its help and protection for
+the living.
+
+[Sidenote: Rebirth of parents in their children.]
+
+Thus far we have found no evidence among the natives of New Guinea of a
+belief that the dead are permanently reincarnated in their human
+descendants. However, the inhabitants of Ayambori, an inland village
+about an hour distant to the east of Doreh, are reported to believe that
+the soul of a dead man returns in his eldest son, and that the soul of a
+dead woman returns in her eldest daughter.[504] So stated the belief is
+hardly clear and intelligible; for if a man has several sons, he must
+evidently be alive and not dead when the eldest of them is born, and
+similarly with a woman and her eldest daughter. On the analogy of
+similar beliefs elsewhere we may conjecture that these Papuans imagine
+every firstborn son to be animated by the soul of his father, whether
+his father be alive or dead, and every firstborn daughter to be animated
+by the soul of her mother, whether her mother be alive or dead.
+
+[Sidenote: Customs concerning the dead observed in the islands off the
+western end of New Guinea.]
+
+Beliefs and customs concerning the dead like those which we have found
+among the natives of Geelvink Bay are reported to prevail in other parts
+of 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 small
+islands (Waaigeoo, Salawati, Misol, Waigama, and so on), the inhabitants
+of which make _karwar_ or wooden images of their dead ancestors. These
+they keep in separate rooms of their houses and take with them as
+talismans to war. In these inner rooms are also kept miniature wooden
+houses in which their ancestors are believed to reside, and in which
+even Mohammedans (for some of the natives profess Islam) burn incense on
+Fridays in honour of the souls of the dead. These souls are treated like
+living beings, for in the morning some finely pounded sago is placed in
+the shrines; at noon it is taken away, but may not be eaten by the
+inmates of the house. Curiously enough, women are forbidden to set food
+for the dead in the shrines: if they did so, it is believed that they
+would be childless. Further, in the chief's house there are shrines for
+the souls of all the persons who have died in the whole village. Such a
+house might almost be described as a temple of the dead. Among the
+inhabitants of the Negen Negorijen or "Nine Villages" the abodes of the
+ancestral spirits are often merely frameworks of houses decorated with
+coloured rags. These frameworks are called _roem seram_. On festal
+occasions they are brought forth and the people dance round them to
+music. The mountain tribes of these islands to the west of New Guinea
+seldom have any such little houses for the souls of the dead. They think
+that the spirits of the departed dwell among the branches of trees, to
+which accordingly the living attach strips of red and white cotton,
+always to the number of seven or a multiple of seven. Also they place
+food on the branches or hang it in baskets on the boughs,[505] no doubt
+in order to feed the hungry ghosts. But among the tribes on the coast,
+who make miniature houses for the use of their dead, these little
+shrines form a central feature of the religious life of the people. At
+festivals, especially on the occasion of a marriage or a death, the
+shrines are brought out from the side chamber and are set down in the
+central room of the house, where the people dance round them, singing
+and making music for days together with no interruption except for
+meals.[506]
+
+[Sidenote: Wooden images of the dead.]
+
+According to the Dutch writer, Mr. de Clercq, whose account I am
+reproducing, this worship of the dead, represented by wooden images
+(_karwar_) and lodged in miniature houses, is, together with a belief in
+good and bad spirits, the only thing deserving the name of religion that
+can be detected among these people. It is certain that the wooden images
+represent members of the family who died a natural death at home; they
+are never, as in Ansoes and Waropen, images of persons who have been
+murdered or slain in battle. Hence they form a kind of Penates, who are
+supposed to lead an invisible life in the family circle. The natives of
+the Negen Negorijen, for example, believe that these wooden images
+(_karwar_), which are both male and female, contain the souls of their
+ancestors, who protect the house and household and are honoured at
+festivals by having portions of food set beside their images.[507] The
+Seget Sele, who occupy the extreme westerly point of New Guinea, bury
+their dead in the island of Lago and set up little houses in the forest
+for the use of the spirits of their ancestors. But these little houses
+may never be entered or even approached by members of the family.[508] A
+traveller, who visited a hut occupied by members of the Seget tribe in
+Princess Island, or Kararaboe, found a sick man in it and observed that
+before the front and back door were set up double rows of roughly hewn
+images painted with red and black stripes. He was told that these images
+were intended to keep off the sickness; for the natives thought that it
+would not dare to run the gauntlet between the double rows of figures
+into the house.[509] We may conjecture that these rude images
+represented ancestral spirits who were doing sentinel duty over the sick
+man.
+
+[Sidenote: Customs concerning the dead among the natives of the Macluer
+Gulf.]
+
+Among the natives of the Macluer Gulf, which penetrates deep into the
+western part of Dutch New Guinea, the souls of dead men who have
+distinguished themselves by bravery or in other ways are honoured in the
+shape of wooden images, which are sometimes wrapt in cloth and decorated
+with shells about the neck. In Sekar, a village on the south side of the
+gulf, small bowls, called _kararasa_ after the spirits of ancestors who
+are believed to lodge in them, are hung up in the houses; on special
+occasions food is placed in them. In some of the islands of the Macluer
+Gulf the dead are laid in hollows of the rocks, which are then adorned
+with drawings of birds, hands, and so forth. The hands are always
+painted white or yellowish on a red ground. The other figures are drawn
+with chalk on the weathered surface of the rock. But the natives either
+cannot 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 New
+Guinea, sometimes bury their dead in shallow graves near the huts;
+sometimes they place them in coffins on rough trestles and leave them
+there till decomposition is complete, when they remove the skull and
+preserve it in the house, either burying it in the sand of the floor or
+hanging it in a sort of basket from the roof, where it becomes brown
+with smoke and polished with frequent handling. The people do not appear
+to be particularly attached to these relics of their kinsfolk and they
+sell them readily to Europeans. Mourners plaster themselves all over
+with mud, and sometimes they bathe in the river, probably as a mode of
+ceremonial purification. They believe in ghosts, which they call
+_niniki_; but beyond that elementary fact we have no information as to
+their beliefs concerning the state of the dead.[511]
+
+[Sidenote: Burial customs at Windessi.]
+
+The natives of Windessi in Dutch New Guinea generally bury their dead
+the day after the decease. As a rule the corpse is wrapt in mats and a
+piece of blue cloth and laid on a scaffold; few are coffined. All the
+possessions of the dead, including weapons, fishing-nets, wooden bowls,
+pots, and so forth, according as the deceased was a man or a woman, are
+placed beside him or her. If the death is attributed to the influence of
+an evil spirit, they take hold of a lock of hair of the corpse and
+mention 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 somebody
+at the place which was mentioned at the moment. But if the hair does not
+come out, they infer that evil spirits had no hand in the affair. Before
+the body is carried away, the family bathes, no doubt to purify
+themselves from the contagion of death. Among the people of Windessi it
+is a common custom to bury the dead in an island. At such a burial the
+bystanders pick up a fallen leaf, tear it in two, and stroke the corpse
+with it, in order that the ghost of the departed may not kill them. When
+the body has been disposed of either in a grave or on a scaffold, they
+embark in the canoe and sit listening for omens. One of the men in a
+loud voice bids the birds and the flies to be silent; and all the others
+sit as still as death in an attitude of devotion. At last, after an
+interval of silence, the man who called out tells his fellows what he
+has heard. If it was the buzz of the blue flies that he heard, some one
+else will die. If it was the booming sound of a triton shell blown in
+the 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 the
+triton shell is believed to betray the place of the enemy who has
+wrought the death by magic, and that accordingly an expedition must be
+sent to avenge the supposed crime on the supposed murderer. If the note
+of 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 are
+heard 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 men
+disembark, climb up the ladder (for the houses seem to be built on piles
+over the water) and run the whole length of the long house with their
+paddles on their shoulders. Curiously enough, they never do this at any
+other time, because they imagine that it would cause the death of
+somebody. Meantime the women have gone into the forest to get bark,
+which they beat into bark-cloth and make into mourning caps for
+themselves. The men busy themselves with plaiting armlets and leglets of
+rattan, in which some red rags are stuck. Large blue and white beads are
+strung on a red cord and worn round the neck. Further, the hair is shorn
+in sign of mourning. Mourners are forbidden to eat anything cooked in a
+pot. Sago-porridge, which is a staple food with some of the natives of
+New Guinea, is also forbidden to mourners at Windessi. If they would eat
+rice, it must be cooked in a bamboo. The doors and windows of the house
+are closed with planks or mats, just as with us the blinds are lowered
+in a house after a death. The surviving relatives make as many long
+sago-cakes as there are houses in the village and send them to the
+inmates; they also prepare a few for themselves. All who do not belong
+to the family now leave the house of mourning. Then the eldest brother
+or 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 so
+forth. Every one touches these implements. Since the death, there has
+been no working in the house, but this time of inactivity is now over
+and every one is free to resume his usual occupations. This ends the
+preliminary ceremonies of mourning, which go by the name of _djawarra_.
+
+A month afterwards round cakes of sago are baked on the fire, and all
+the members of the family, their friends, and the persons who assisted
+at the burial receive three such cakes each. Only very young children
+are now allowed to eat sago-porridge. This ceremony is called _djawarra
+baba_.
+
+[Sidenote: Festival of the dead. Wooden images of the dead.]
+
+When a year or more has elapsed, the so-called festival of the dead
+takes place. Often the festival is held for several dead at the same
+time, and in that case the cost is borne in common. From far and near
+the people have collected sago, coco-nuts, and other food. For two
+nights and a day they dance and sing, but without the accompaniment of
+drums (_tifa_) and gongs. The first night, the signs of mourning are
+still worn, hence no sago-porridge may be eaten; only friends who are
+not in mourning are allowed to partake of it. The night is spent in
+eating, drinking, smoking, singing and dancing. Next day many people
+make _korwars_ of their dead, that is, grotesque wooden images carved in
+human form, which are regarded as the representatives of the departed.
+Some people fetch the head of the deceased person, and having made a
+wooden image with a large head and a hole in the back of it, they insert
+the skull into the wooden head from behind. After that friends feed the
+mourners with sago-porridge, putting it into their mouths with the help
+of the chopsticks which are commonly used in eating sago. When that is
+done, the period of mourning is at an end, and the signs of mourning are
+thrown away. A dance on the beach follows, at which the new wooden
+images of the dead make their appearance. But still the drums and gongs
+are silent. Dancing and singing go on till the next morning, when the
+whole 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 may
+conjecture that they are based in large measure on the fear of the
+ghost. That fear comes out plainly in the ceremony of stroking the
+corpse with leaves in order to prevent the ghost from killing the
+survivors. The writer to whom we are indebted for an account of these
+customs tells us in explanation of them that among these people death is
+ascribed to the influence of evil spirits called _manoam_, who are
+supposed to be incarnate in some human beings. Hence they often seek to
+avenge a death by murdering somebody who has the reputation of being an
+evil spirit incarnate. If they succeed in doing so, they celebrate the
+preliminary mourning ceremonies called _djawarra_ and _djawarra baba_,
+but the festival of the dead is changed into a memorial festival, at
+which the people dance and sing to the accompaniment of drums (_tifa_),
+gongs, and triton shells; and instead of carving a wooden image of the
+deceased, they make marks on the fleshless skull of the murdered
+man.[514]
+
+[Sidenote: Beliefs of the natives of Windessi as to the life after
+death. Medicine-men inspired by the spirits of the dead.]
+
+The natives of Windessi are said to have the following belief as to the
+life after death, though we are told that the creed is now known to very
+few of them; for their old beliefs and customs are fading away under the
+influence of a mission station which is established among them.
+According to their ancient creed, every man and every woman has two
+spirits, and in the nether world, called _sarooka_, is a large house
+where 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 are
+clothed with flesh and bones, need do no work, and live for ever. But
+when a man dies, only one of his spirits must go to the under world; the
+other may pass or transmigrate into a living man or, in rare cases, into
+a 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 to
+heal the sick. When a person wishes to become a medicine-man or
+medicine-woman, he or she acts as follows. If a man has died, and his
+friends are sitting about the corpse lamenting, the would-be
+medicine-man suddenly begins to shiver and to rub his knee with his
+folded hands, while he utters a monotonous sound. Gradually he falls
+into an ecstasy, and if his whole body shakes convulsively, the spirit
+of the dead man is supposed to have entered into him, and he becomes a
+medicine-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, who
+dwell in certain thick trees, are invoked to take possession of him. He
+is now himself called a lunatic, and on returning home behaves as if he
+were half-crazed. This completes his training as a medicine-man, and he
+is now fully qualified to kill or cure the sick. His mode of cure
+depends on the native theory of sickness. These savages think that
+sickness is caused by a malicious or angry spirit, apparently the spirit
+of a dead person; for a patient will say, "The _korwar_" (that is, the
+wooden image which represents a particular dead person) "is murdering
+me, or is making me sick." So the medicine-man is called in, and sets to
+work on the sufferer, while the _korwar_, or wooden image of the spirit
+who is supposed to be doing all the mischief, stands beside him. The
+principal method of cure employed by the doctor is massage. He chews a
+certain fruit fine and rubs the patient with it; also he pinches him all
+over the body as if to drive out the spirit. Often he professes to
+extract a stone, a bone, or a stick from the body of the sufferer. At
+last he gives out that he has ascertained the cause of the sickness; the
+sick man has done or has omitted to do something which has excited the
+anger of the spirit.[515]
+
+[Sidenote: Ghosts of slain enemies dreaded.]
+
+From all this it would seem that the souls of the dead are more feared
+than loved and reverenced by the Papuans of Windessi. Naturally the
+ghosts of enemies who have perished at their hands are particularly
+dreaded by them. That dread explains some of the ceremonies which are
+observed in the village at the return of a successful party of
+head-hunters. As they draw near the village, they announce their
+approach and success by blowing on triton shells. Their canoes also are
+decked with branches. The faces of the men who have taken a head are
+blackened with charcoal; and if several have joined in killing one man,
+his skull is divided between them. They always time their arrival so as
+to reach home in the early morning. They come paddling to the village
+with a great noise, and the women stand ready to dance in the verandahs
+of the houses. The canoes row past the _roem sram_ or clubhouse where
+the young men live; and as they pass, the grimy-faced slayers fling as
+many 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 or
+blow on the conch, and at other times they beat on the walls of the
+houses with sticks, shouting loudly at the same time, to drive away the
+ghosts of their victims.[516]
+
+That concludes what I have to say as to the fear and worship of the dead
+in 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 Papuastaemme an der Geelvinkbai
+(Neu-guinea)," _Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_,
+ix. (1890) p. 1; F. S. A. de Clercq, "De West en Noordkust van
+Nederlandsch Nieuw-Guinea," _Tijdschrift van het Kon. Nederlandsch
+Aardrijkskundig 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 Papuastaemme 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 dated
+1899), pp. 401, 402.]
+
+[Footnote 488: A. Goudswaard, _De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai_
+(Schiedam, 1863), p. 77. Compare O. Finsch, _Neu-Guinea und seine
+Bewohner_ (Bremen, 1865), p. 105.]
+
+[Footnote 489: F. S. A. de Clercq, "De West- en Noordkust van
+Nederlandsch Nieuw-Guinea," _Tijdschrift van het Kon. Nederlandsch
+Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_, Tweede Serie, x. (1893) p. 631. On these
+_korwar_ or _karwar_ (images of the dead) see further A. Goudswaard, _De
+Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai_, pp. 72 _sq._, 77-79; O. Finsch,
+_Neu-Guinea und seine Bewohner_, pp. 104-106; H. von Rosenberg, _Der
+Malayische Archipel_, pp. 460 _sq._; J. L. van Hasselt, "Die Papuastaemme
+an der Geelvinkbaai (Neu-Guinea)" _Mitteilungen der Geographischen
+Gesellschaft zu Jena_, ix. (1891) p. 100; M. Krieger, _Neu-Guinea_, pp.
+400 _sq._, 402 _sq._, 498 _sqq._ In the text I have drawn on these
+various 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 Geographischen
+Gesellschaft zu Jena_, iv. (1886) pp. 118 _sq._ As to the spirit or
+spirits who dwell in tree tops and draw away the souls of the living to
+themselves, see further "Eenige bijzonderheden betreffende de Papoeas
+van de Geelvinksbaai van Nieuw-Guinea," _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Landen
+Volkenkunde van Neerlandsch-Indie_, 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 Gesellschaft
+zu 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 Geographischen
+Gesellschaft 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 onderzocht
+en beschreven_ (Amsterdam, 1862), p. 162.]
+
+[Footnote 505: F. S. A. de Clercq, "De West- en Noordkust van
+Nederlandsch Nieuw-Guinea," _Tijdschrift van het Kon. Nederlandsch
+Aardrijkskundig 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._ A
+German traveller, Mr. H. Kuehn, spent some time at Sekar and purchased a
+couple of what he calls "old heathen idols," which are now in the
+ethnological 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 in
+the protection of these "idols" that they leave their jewellery and
+other possessions unguarded beside them, in the full belief that nobody
+would dare to steal anything from spots protected by such mighty beings.
+See H. Kuehn, "Mein Aufenthalt in Neu-Guinea," _Festschrift des
+25jaehrigen Bestehens des Vereins fuer 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 van
+Windessi," _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 (NEW
+CALEDONIA)
+
+
+[Sidenote: Melanesia and the Melanesians.]
+
+In the last lecture I concluded our survey of the beliefs and practices
+concerning death and the dead which are reported to prevail among the
+natives of New Guinea. We now pass to the natives of Melanesia, the
+great archipelago or rather chain of archipelagoes, which stretches
+round the north-eastern and eastern ends of New Guinea and southward,
+parallel to the coast of Queensland, till it almost touches the tropic
+of Capricorn. Thus the islands lie wholly within the tropics and are for
+the most part characterised by tropical heat and tropical luxuriance of
+vegetation. Only New Caledonia, the most southerly of the larger
+islands, differs somewhat from the rest in its comparatively cool
+climate and scanty flora.[517] The natives of the islands belong to the
+Melanesian race. They are dark-skinned and woolly-haired and speak a
+language which is akin to the Polynesian language. In material culture
+they stand roughly on the same level as the natives of New Guinea, a
+considerable part of whom in the south-eastern part of the island, as I
+pointed out before, are either pure Melanesians or at all events exhibit
+a strong infusion of Melanesian blood. They cultivate the ground, live
+in settled villages, build substantial houses, construct
+outrigger-canoes, display some aptitude for art, possess strong
+commercial instincts, and even employ various mediums of exchange, of
+which shell-money is the most notable.[518]
+
+[Sidenote: The New Caledonians.]
+
+We shall begin our survey of these islands with New Caledonia in the
+south, and from it shall pass northwards through the New Hebrides and
+Solomon Islands to the Bismarck Archipelago, which consists chiefly of
+the two great islands of New Britain and New Ireland with the group of
+the Admiralty Islands terminating it to the westward. For our knowledge
+of the customs and religion of the New Caledonians we depend chiefly on
+the evidence of a Catholic missionary, Father Lambert, who has worked
+among them since 1856 and has published a valuable book on the
+subject.[519] To be exact, his information applies not to the natives of
+New Caledonia itself, but to the inhabitants of a group of small
+islands, which lie immediately off the northern extremity of the island
+and are known as the Belep group. Father Lambert began to labour among
+the Belep at a time when no white man had as yet resided among them. At
+a later time circumstances led him to transfer his ministry to the Isle
+of Pines, which lies off the opposite or southern end of New Caledonia.
+A comparative study of the natives at the two extremities of New
+Caledonia revealed to him an essential similarity in their beliefs and
+customs; so that it is not perhaps very rash to assume that similar
+customs prevail among the aborigines of New Caledonia itself, which lies
+intermediate between the two points observed by Father Lambert.[520] The
+assumption is confirmed by evidence which was collected by Dr. George
+Turner from the mainland of New Caledonia so long ago as 1845.[521]
+Accordingly in what follows I shall commonly speak of the New
+Caledonians in general, though the statements for the most part apply in
+particular 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, are
+supposed to be immortal, at least to survive death for an indefinite
+period. They all go, good and bad alike, to dwell in a very rich and
+beautiful country situated at the bottom of the sea, to the north-east
+of the island of Pott. The name of the land of souls is Tsiabiloum. But
+before they reach this happy land they must run the gauntlet of a grim
+spirit called Kiemoua, who has his abode on a rock in the island of
+Pott. He is a fisherman of souls; for he catches them as they pass in a
+net and after venting his fury on them he releases them, and they pursue
+their journey to Tsiabiloum, the land of the dead. It is a country more
+fair and fertile than tongue can tell. Yams, taros, sugar-canes, bananas
+all grow there in profusion and without cultivation. There are forests
+of wild orange-trees, also, and the golden fruits serve the blessed
+spirits as playthings. You can tell roughly how long it is since a
+spirit quitted the upper world by the colour of the orange which he
+plays 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 oranges
+of those who died long ago are dry and wizened. There is no night in
+that blessed land, and no sleep; for the eyes of the spirits are never
+weighed down with slumber. Sorrow and sickness, decrepitude and death
+never enter; even boredom is unknown. But it is only the nights, or
+rather the hours corresponding to nights on earth, which the spirits
+pass in these realms of bliss. At daybreak they revisit their old home
+on earth and take up their posts in the cemeteries where they are
+honoured; then at nightfall they flit away back to the spirit-land
+beneath the sea, there to resume their sport with oranges, green,
+golden, or withered, till dawn of day. On these repeated journeys to and
+fro they have nothing to fear from the grim fisherman and his net; it is
+only on their first passage to the nether world that he catches and
+trounces them.[522]
+
+[Sidenote: Burial customs of the New Calendonians.]
+
+The bodies of the dead are buried in shallow graves, which are dug in a
+sacred grove. The corpse is placed in a crouching attitude with the head
+at or above the surface of the ground, in order to allow of the skull
+being easily detached from the trunk, at a subsequent time. In token of
+sorrow the nearest relations of the deceased tear the lobes of their
+ears and inflict large burns on their arms and breasts. The houses,
+nets, and other implements of the dead are burnt; his plantations are
+ravaged, his coco-nut palms felled with the axe. The motive for this
+destruction of the property of the deceased is not mentioned, but the
+custom points to a fear of the ghost; the people probably make his old
+home as unattractive as possible in order to offer him no temptation to
+return and haunt them. The same fear of the ghost, or at all events of
+the infection of death, is revealed by the stringent seclusion and
+ceremonial pollution of the grave-diggers. They are two in number; no
+other persons may handle the corpse. After they have discharged their
+office they must remain near the corpse for four or five days, observing
+a rigorous fast and keeping apart from their wives. They may not shave
+or cut their hair, and they are obliged to wear a tall pyramidal and
+very cumbersome head-dress. They may not touch food with their hands. If
+they help themselves to it, they must pick it up with their mouths alone
+or with a stick, not with their fingers. Oftener they are fed by an
+attendant, who puts the victuals into their mouths as he might do if
+they were palsied. On the other hand they are treated by the people with
+great respect; common folk will not pass near them without
+stooping.[523]
+
+[Sidenote: Sham fight as a mourning ceremony.]
+
+A curious ceremony which the New Caledonians observe at a certain period
+of mourning for the dead is a sham fight. Father Lambert describes one
+such combat which he witnessed. A number of men were divided into two
+parties; one party was posted on the beach, the other and much larger
+party was stationed in the adjoining cemetery, where food and property
+had been collected. From time to time a long piercing yell would be
+heard; then a number of men would break from the crowd in the cemetery
+and rush furiously down to the beach with their slings and stones ready
+to assail their adversaries. These, answering yell with yell, would then
+plunge into the sea, armed with battle-axes and clubs, while they made a
+feint of parrying the stones hurled at them by the other side. But
+neither the shots nor the parries appeared to be very seriously meant.
+Then when the assailants retired, the fugitives pretended to pursue
+them, till both parties had regained their original position. The same
+scene of alternate attack and retreat was repeated hour after hour, till
+at last, the pretence of enmity being laid aside, the two parties joined
+in a dance, their heads crowned with leafy garlands. Father Lambert, who
+describes 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 be
+an effect of sorcery, we may conjecture that the sham fight is intended
+to delude the ghost into thinking that his death is being avenged on the
+sorcerer who killed him.[524] In former lectures I shewed that similar
+pretences are made, apparently for a similar purpose, by some of the
+natives of Australia and New Guinea.[525] If the explanation is correct,
+we can hardly help applauding the ingenuity which among these savages
+has discovered a bloodless mode of satisfying the ghost's craving for
+blood.
+
+[Sidenote: Preservation of the skulls of the dead.]
+
+About a year after the death, when the flesh of the corpse is entirely
+decayed, the skull is removed and placed solemnly in another
+burying-ground, or rather charnel-house, where all the skulls of the
+family are deposited. Every family has such a charnel-house, which is
+commonly situated near the dwelling. It appears to be simply an open
+space in the forest, where the skulls are set in a row on the
+ground.[526] Yet in a sense it may be called a temple for the worship of
+ancestors; for recourse is had to the skulls on various occasions in
+order to obtain the help of the spirits of the dead. "The true worship
+of the New Caledonians," says Father Lambert, "is the worship of
+ancestors. Each family has its own; it religiously preserves their name;
+it is proud of them and has confidence in them. Hence it has its
+burial-place and its pious hearth for the sacrifices to be offered to
+their ghosts. It is the most inviolable piece of property; an
+encroachment 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 New
+Caledonians. When a person is sick, a member of the family, never a
+stranger, is appointed to heal him by means of certain magical
+insufflations. To enable him to do so with effect the healer first
+repairs to the family charnel-house and lays some sugar-cane leaves
+beside the skulls, saying, "I lay these leaves on you that I may go and
+breathe upon our sick relative, to the end that he may live." Then he
+goes to a tree belonging to the family and lays other sugar-cane leaves
+at its foot, saying, "I lay these leaves beside the tree of my father
+and 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 it
+into a mash, and then goes and breathes on the patient, his breath being
+moistened with spittle which is charged with particles of the leaves or
+the bark.[528] Thus the healing virtue of his breath would seem to be
+drawn from the spirits of the dead as represented partly by their skulls
+and partly by the leaves and bark of the tree which belonged to them in
+life, and to which their souls appear in some manner to be attached in
+death.
+
+[Sidenote: Prayers for fish.]
+
+Again, when a shoal of fish has made its appearance on the reef, a
+number of superstitious ceremonies have to be performed before the
+people may go and spear them in the water. On the eve of the fishing-day
+the medicine-man of the tribe causes a quantity of leaves of certain
+specified plants to be collected and roasted in the native ovens. Next
+day the leaves are taken from the ovens and deposited beside the
+ancestral skulls, which have been arranged and decorated for the
+ceremony. All the fishermen, armed with their fishing-spears, repair to
+the holy ground or sacred grove where the skulls are kept, and there
+they draw themselves up in two rows, while the medicine-man chants an
+invocation or prayer for a good catch. At every verse the crowd raises a
+cry of approval and assent. At its conclusion the medicine-man sets an
+example by thrusting with his spear at a fish, and all the men
+immediately 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-man
+will lay a sugar-cane beside the ancestral skulls, saying, "This is for
+you. 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 beginning
+to be felt, the New Caledonians celebrate a festival called _moulim_ in
+which the worship of their ancestors is the principal feature. A staff
+is wreathed with branches, apparently to represent a yam, and a hedge of
+coco-nut leaves is made near the ancestral skulls. The decorated staff
+is then set up there, and prayers for the prosperity of the crops are
+offered over and over again. After that nobody may enter a yam-field or
+a cemetery or touch sea-water for three days. On the third day a man
+stationed on a mound chants an invocation or incantation in a loud
+voice. Next all the men go down to the shore, each of them with a
+firebrand in his hand, and separating into two parties engage in a sham
+fight. Afterwards they bathe and repairing to the charnel-house deposit
+coco-nut leaves beside the skulls of their ancestors. They are then free
+to partake of the feast which has been prepared by the women.[531]
+
+[Sidenote: Caverns used by the natives as charnel-houses in the Isle of
+Pines.]
+
+While the beliefs and customs of the New Caledonians in regard to the
+dead bear a general resemblance to each other, whether they belong to
+the north or to the south of the principal island, a special feature is
+introduced into the mortuary customs of the natives of the Isle of Pines
+by the natural caves and grottoes with which the outer rim of the
+island, to the distance of several miles from the shore, is riddled; for
+in these caverns the natives in the old heathen days were wont to
+deposit the bones and skulls of their dead and to use the caves as
+sanctuaries or chapels for the worship of the spirits of the departed.
+Some of the caves are remarkable both in themselves and in their
+situation. Most of those which the natives turned into charnel-houses
+are hidden away, sometimes at great distances, in the rank luxuriance of
+the tropical forests. Some of them open straight from the level of the
+ground; to reach others you must clamber up the rocks; to explore others
+you must descend into the bowels of the earth. A glimmering twilight
+illumines some; thick darkness veils others, and it is only by
+torchlight that you can explore their mysterious depths. Penetrating
+into the interior by the flickering gleam of flambeaus held aloft by the
+guides, and picking your steps among loose stones and pools of water,
+you might fancy yourself now in the great hall of a ruined castle, now
+in the vast nave of a gothic cathedral with its chapels opening off it
+into the darkness on either hand. The illusion is strengthened by the
+multitude of stalactites which hang from the roof of the cavern and,
+glittering in the fitful glow of the torches, might be taken for burning
+cressets kindled to light up the revels in a baronial hall, or for holy
+lamps twinkling in the gloom of a dim cathedral aisle before holy
+images, where solitary worshippers kneel in silent devotion. In the
+shifting play of the light and shadow cast by the torches the fantastic
+shapes of the incrustations which line the sides or rise from the floor
+of the grotto appear to the imagination of the observer now as the
+gnarled trunks of huge trees, now as statues or torsos of statues, now
+as altars, on which perhaps a nearer approach reveals a row of blanched
+and grinning skulls. No wonder if such places, chosen for the last
+resting-places of the relics of mortality, have fed the imagination of
+the natives with weird notions of a life after death, a life very
+different from that which the living lead in the glowing sunshine and
+amid the rich tropical verdure a few paces outside of these gloomy
+caverns. It is with a shiver and a sense of relief that the visitor
+escapes from them to the warm outer air and sees again the ferns and
+creepers hanging over the mouth of the cave like a green fringe against
+the intense blue of the sky.[532]
+
+[Sidenote: Sea-caves.]
+
+While this is the general character of the caves which are to be found
+hidden away in the forests, many of those near the shore consist simply
+of apertures hollowed out in the face of the cliffs by the slow but
+continuous action of the waves in the course of ages. On the beach
+itself sea-caves are found in which the rising tide precipitates itself
+with a hollow roar as of subterranean thunder; and at a point, some way
+back from the strand, where the roof of one of these caves has fallen
+in, the salt water is projected into the air in the form of intermittent
+jets of spray, which vary in height with the force of the wind and
+tide.[533]
+
+[Sidenote: Prayers and sacrifices offered to the dead by the New
+Caledonians.]
+
+With regard to the use which the natives make of these caves as
+charnel-houses and mortuary chapels, Father Lambert tells us that any
+one of them usually includes three compartments, a place of burial, a
+place of skulls, and a place of sacrifice. But often the place of skulls
+is also the place of sacrifice; and in no case is the one far from the
+other. The family priest, who is commonly the senior member of the
+family, may address his prayers to the ancestors in the depth of the
+cavern, in the place of skulls, or in the place of sacrifice, whenever
+circumstances call for a ritual of unusual solemnity. Otherwise with the
+help of his amulets he may pray to the souls of the forefathers
+anywhere; for these amulets consist of personal and portable relics of
+the dead, such as locks of hair, teeth, and so forth; or again they may
+be leaves or other parts of plants which are sacred to the family; so
+that a wizard who is in possession of them can always and anywhere
+communicate with the ancestral spirits. The place of sacrifice would
+seem to be more often in the open air than in a cave, for Father Lambert
+tells 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 and
+stones which are used in cooking the food offered to the dead. In this
+worship of the dead a certain differentiation of functions or division
+of labour obtains between the various families. All have not the same
+gifts and graces. The prayers of one family offered to their ancestral
+ghosts are thought to be powerful in procuring rain in time of drought;
+the prayers of another will cause the sun to break through the clouds
+when the sky is overcast; the supplications of a third will produce a
+fine crop of yams; the earnest entreaties of a fourth will ensure
+victory in war; and the passionate pleadings of a fifth will guard
+mariners against the perils and dangers of the deep. And so on through
+the whole gamut of human needs, so far as these are felt by savages. If
+only wrestling in prayer could satisfy the wants of man, few people
+should be better provided with all the necessaries and comforts of life
+than the New Caledonians. And according to the special purpose to which
+a family devotes its spiritual energies, so will commonly be the
+position of its oratory. For example, if rain-making is their strong
+point, their house of prayer will be established near a cultivated
+field, in order that the crops may immediately experience the benefit to
+be derived from their orisons. Again, if they enjoy a high reputation
+for procuring a good catch of fish, the family skulls will be placed in
+the mouth of a cave looking out over the great ocean, or perhaps on a
+bleak little wind-swept isle, where in the howl of the blast, the
+thunder of the waves on the strand, and the clangour of the gulls
+overhead, the fancy of the superstitious savage may hear the voices of
+his dead forefathers keeping watch and ward over their children who are
+tossed on the heaving billows.[534] Thus among these fortunate islanders
+religion and industry go hand in hand; piety has been reduced to a
+co-operative system which diffuses showers of blessings on the whole
+community.
+
+[Sidenote: Prayer-posts.]
+
+As it is clearly impossible even for the most devout to pray day and
+night without cessation, the weakness of the flesh requiring certain
+intervals for refreshment and repose, the New Caledonians have devised
+an ingenious method of continuing their orisons at the shrine in their
+own absence. For this purpose they make rods or poles of various
+lengths, carve and paint them rudely, wind bandages of native cloth
+about them, and having fastened large shells to the top, set them up
+either in the sepulchral caves or in the place of skulls. In setting up
+one of these poles the native will pray for the particular favour which
+he desires to obtain from the ancestors for himself or his family; and
+he appears to think that in some way the pole will continue to recite
+the prayer in the ears of the ghosts, when he himself has ceased to
+speak and has returned to his customary avocations. And when members of
+his family visit the shrine and see the pole, they will be reminded of
+the particular benefit which they are entitled to expect from the souls
+of the departed. A certain rude symbolism may be traced in the materials
+and other particulars of these prayer-posts. A hard wood signifies
+strength; a tall pole overtopping all the rest imports a wish that he
+for whose sake it was erected may out-top all his rivals; and so
+on.[535]
+
+[Sidenote: Religion combined with magic in the ritual of the New
+Caledonians. Sacred stones endowed with special magical virtues. The
+"stone of famine."]
+
+We may assume with some probability that in the mind of the natives such
+resemblances are not purely figurative or symbolic, but that they are
+also magical in intention, being supposed not merely to represent the
+object of the supplicant's prayer, but actually, on the principle of
+homoeopathic or imitative magic, to contribute to its accomplishment. If
+that is so, we must conclude that the religion of these savages, as
+manifested in their prayers to the spirits of the dead, is tinctured
+with an alloy of magic; they do not trust entirely to the compassion of
+the spirits and their power to help them; they seek to reinforce their
+prayers by a certain physical compulsion acting through the natural
+properties of the prayer-posts. This interpretation is confirmed by a
+parallel use which these people make of certain sacred stones, which
+apart from their possible character as representatives of the ancestors,
+seem to be credited with independent magical virtues by reason of their
+various shapes and appearances. For example, there is a piece of
+polished jade which is called "the stone of famine," because it is
+supposed capable of causing either dearth or abundance, but is oftener
+used by the sorcerer to create, or at least to threaten, dearth, in
+order thereby to extort presents from his alarmed fellow tribesmen. This
+stone is kept in a burial-ground and derives its potency from the dead.
+The worshipper or the sorcerer (for he combines the two characters) who
+desires to cause a famine repairs to the burial-ground, uncovers the
+stone, rubs it with certain plants, and smears one half of it with black
+pigment. Then he makes a small hole in the ground and inserts the
+blackened end of the stone in the hole. Next he prays to the ancestors
+that nothing may go well with the country. If this malevolent rite
+should be followed by the desired effect, the sorcerer soon sees
+messengers arriving laden with presents, who entreat him to stay the
+famine. If his cupidity is satisfied, he rubs the stone again, inserts
+it upside down in the ground, and prays to his ancestors to restore
+plenty 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 this
+purpose the sorcerer has only to strike one of them with the branches of
+a certain tree and to pray to the ancestral spirits that they would
+deprive so-and-so of his senses.[537]
+
+[Sidenote: Stones to blight coco-nut palms. Stones to make bread-fruit
+trees bear fruit.]
+
+Again, there is a stone which they use in cursing a plantation of
+coco-nut palms. The stone resembles a blighted coco-nut, and no doubt it
+is this resemblance which is supposed to endow it with the magical power
+to blight coco-nut trees. In order to effect his malicious purpose the
+sorcerer rubs the stone in the cemetery with certain leaves and then
+deposits it in a hole at the foot of a coco-nut tree, covers it up, and
+prays that all the trees of the plantation may be barren. This ceremony
+combines the elements of magic and religion. The prayer, which is no
+doubt addressed to the spirits of the dead, though this is not expressly
+affirmed, is purely religious; but the employment of a stone resembling
+a blighted coco-nut for the purpose of blighting the coco-nut palms is a
+simple piece of homoeopathic or imitative magic, in which, as usual, the
+desired effect is supposed to be produced by an imitation of it.
+Similarly, in order to make a bread-fruit tree bear fruit they employ
+two stones, one of which resembles the unripe and the other the ripe
+fruit. These are kept, as usual, in a cemetery; and when the trees begin
+to put forth fruit, the small stone resembling the unripe fruit is
+buried at the foot of one of the trees with the customary prayers and
+ceremonies; and when the fruits are more mature the small stone is
+replaced by the larger stone which resembles the ripe fruit. Then, when
+the fruits on the tree are quite ripe, the two stones are removed and
+deposited again in the cemetery: they have done their work by bringing
+to maturity the fruits which they resemble. This again is a piece of
+pure homoeopathic or imitative magic working by means of mimicry; but
+the magical virtue of the stones is reinforced by the spiritual power of
+the dead, for the stones have been kept in a cemetery and prayers have
+been 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 the
+centre, which together make up what they call "the stone of the sun." No
+doubt it is regarded as a symbol of the sun, and as such it is employed
+to cause drought in a ceremony which, like the preceding, combines the
+elements of magic and religion. The sun-stone is kept in one of the
+sacred places, and when a sorcerer wishes to make drought with it, he
+brings offerings to the ancestral spirits in the sacred place. These
+offerings are purely religious, but the rest of the ceremony is purely
+magical. At the moment when the sun rises from the sea, the magician or
+priest, whichever we choose to call him (for he combines both
+characters), passes a burning brand in and out of the hole in the
+sun-stone, while he says, "I kindle the sun, in order that he may eat up
+the 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 pure
+homoeopathic or imitative magic, designed to increase the burning heat
+of the sun by mimicry.[539]
+
+[Sidenote: Stones to make rain.]
+
+On the contrary, when a wizard desires to make rain, he proceeds as
+follows. The place of sacrifice is decorated and enclosed with a fence,
+and a large quantity of provisions is deposited in it to be offered to
+the ancestors whose skulls stand there in a row. Opposite the skulls the
+wizard places a row of pots full of a medicated water, and he brings a
+number of sacred stones of a rounded form or shaped like a skull. Each
+of 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 long
+litany or series of invocations to the ancestors, which may be
+summarised thus: "We pray you to help us, in order that our country may
+revive and live anew." Then holding a branch in his hand he climbs a
+tree and scans the horizon if haply he may descry a cloud, be it no
+larger than a man's hand. Should he be fortunate enough to see one, he
+waves the branch to and fro to make the cloud mount up in the sky, while
+he also stretches out his arms to right and left to enlarge it so that
+it may hide the sun and overcast the whole heaven.[540] Here again the
+prayers and offerings are purely religious; while the placing of the
+skull-shaped stones in pots full of water, and the waving of the branch
+to bring up the clouds, are magical ceremonies designed to produce rain
+by mimicry and compulsion.
+
+[Sidenote: Stones to make or mar sea-voyages.]
+
+Again, the natives have a stone in the shape of a canoe, which they
+employ in ceremonies for the purpose of favouring or hindering
+navigation. If the sorcerer desires to make a voyage prosperous, he
+places the canoe-shaped stone before the ancestral skulls with the right
+side up; but if he wishes to cause his enemy to perish at sea, he places
+the canoe-shaped stone bottom upwards before the skulls, which, on the
+principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic, must clearly make his
+enemy's canoe to capsize and precipitate its owner into the sea.
+Whichever of these ceremonies he performs, the wizard accompanies the
+magical rite, as usual, with prayers and offerings of food to the
+ancestral 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 they
+naturally have a large number of sacred stones which they use for the
+purpose of securing the blessing of the ancestral spirits on the
+business of the fisherman. Indeed each species of fish has its own
+special sacred stone. These stones are kept in large shells in a
+cemetery. A wizard who desires to make use of one of them paints the
+stone with a variety of colours, chews certain leaves, and then breathes
+on the stone and moistens it with his spittle. After that he sets up the
+stone before the ancestral skulls, saying, "Help us, that we may be
+successful in fishing." The sacrifices to the spirits consist of
+bananas, sugar-cane, and fish, never of taros or yams. After the fishing
+and the sacrificial meal, the stone is put back in its place, and
+covered up respectfully.[542]
+
+[Sidenote: Stones to make yams grow.]
+
+Lastly, the natives of the Isle of Pines cultivate many different kinds
+of yams, and they have a correspondingly large number of sacred stones
+destined to aid them in the cultivation by ensuring the blessing of the
+dead upon the work. In shape and colour these stones differ from each
+other, each of them bearing a resemblance, real or fanciful, to the
+particular species of yam which it is supposed to quicken. But the
+method of operating with them is much the same for all. The stone is
+placed before the skulls, wetted with water, and wiped with certain
+leaves. Yams and fish, cooked on the spot, are offered in sacrifice to
+the dead, the priest or magician saying, "This is your offering in order
+that the crop of yams may be good." So saying he presents the food to
+the dead and himself eats a little of it. After that the stone is taken
+away and buried in the yam field which it is designed to fertilise.[543]
+Here, again, the prayer and sacrifice to the dead are purely religious
+rites intended to propitiate the spirits and secure their help; while
+the burying of the yam-shaped stone in the yam-field to make the yams
+grow is a simple piece of homoeopathic or imitative magic. Similarly in
+order to cultivate taros and bananas, stones resembling taros and
+bananas are buried in the taro field or the banana grove, and their
+magical virtue is reinforced by prayers and offerings to the dead.[544]
+
+[Sidenote: The religion of the New Caledonians is mainly a worship of
+the dead tinctured with magic.]
+
+On the whole we may conclude that among the natives of New Caledonia
+there exists a real worship of the dead, and that this worship is indeed
+the principal element in their religion. The spirits of the dead, though
+they are supposed to spend part of their time in a happy land far away
+under the sea, are nevertheless believed to be near at hand, hovering
+about in the burial-grounds or charnel-houses and embodied apparently in
+their skulls. To these spirits the native turns for help in all the
+important seasons and emergencies of life; he appeals to them in prayer
+and seeks to propitiate them by sacrifice. Thus in his attitude towards
+his dead ancestors we perceive the elements of a real religion. But, as
+I have just pointed out, many rites of this worship of ancestors are
+accompanied by magical ceremonies. The religion of these islanders is in
+fact deeply tinged with magic; it marks a transition from an age of pure
+magic 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 furnished
+by Dr. G. Turner.]
+
+Thus far I have based my account of the beliefs and customs of the New
+Caledonians concerning the dead on the valuable information which we owe
+to the Catholic missionary Father Lambert. But, as I pointed out, his
+evidence refers not so much to the natives of the mainland as to the
+inhabitants of certain small islands at the two extremities of the great
+island. It may be well, therefore, to supplement his description by some
+notes which a distinguished Protestant missionary, the Rev. Dr. George
+Turner, obtained in the year 1845 from two native teachers, one a Samoan
+and the other a Rarotongan, who lived in the south-south-eastern part of
+New Caledonia for three years.[545] Their evidence, it will be observed,
+goes to confirm Father Lambert's view as to the general similarity of
+the 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 separate
+districts, each with its own name, and war, perpetual war, was the rule
+between the neighbouring communities. They cultivated taro, yams,
+coco-nuts, and sugar-cane; but they had no intoxicating _kava_ and kept
+no pigs. They cooked their food in earthenware pots manufactured by the
+women. In former days their only edge-tools were made of stone, and they
+felled trees by a slow fire smouldering close to the ground. Similarly
+they hollowed out the fallen trees by means of a slow fire to make their
+canoes. Their villages were not permanent. They migrated within certain
+bounds, as they planted. A village might comprise as many as fifty or
+sixty 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 off
+the nails of the fingers and toes, and kept them as relics. They spread
+the grave with a mat, and buried all the body but the head. After ten
+days the friends twisted off the head, extracted the teeth to be kept as
+relics, and preserved the skull also. In cases of sickness and other
+calamities they presented offerings of food to the skulls of the dead.
+The teeth of the old women were taken to the yam plantations and were
+supposed to fertilise them; and their skulls were set up on poles in the
+plantations for the same purpose. When they buried a chief, they erected
+spears at his head, fastened a spear-thrower to his forefinger, and laid
+a club on the top of his grave,[547] no doubt for the convenience of the
+ghost.
+
+[Sidenote: Prayers to ancestors.]
+
+"Their gods," we are told, "were their ancestors, whose relics they kept
+up and idolised. At one place they had wooden idols before the chiefs'
+houses. The office of the priest was hereditary. Almost every family had
+its priest. To make sure of favours and prosperity they prayed not only
+to their own gods, but also, in a general way, to the gods of other
+lands. Fishing, planting, house-building, and everything of importance
+was preceded by prayers to their guardian spirits for success. This was
+especially the case before going to battle. They prayed to one for the
+eye, that they might see the spear as it flew towards them. To another
+for 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 the
+enemy; for the heart, that they might be courageous; for the body, that
+they 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, they
+went off to battle."[548]
+
+[Sidenote: "Grand concert of spirits."]
+
+The spirits of the dead were believed to go away into the forest. Every
+fifth month they had a "spirit night" or "grand concert of spirits."
+Heaps of food were prepared for the occasion. The people assembled in
+the afternoon round a certain cave. At sundown they feasted, and then
+one stood up and addressed the spirits in the cave, saying, "You spirits
+within, may it please you to sing a song, that all the women and men out
+here may listen to your sweet voices." Thereupon a strange unearthly
+concert of voices burst on their ears from the cave, the nasal squeak of
+old men and women forming the dominant note. But the hearers outside
+listened with delight to the melody, praised the sweet voices of the
+singers, and then got up and danced to the music. The singing swelled
+louder and louder as the dance grew faster and more furious, till the
+concert closed in a nocturnal orgy of unbridled license, which, but for
+the absence of intoxicants, might compare with the worst of the ancient
+bacchanalia. The singers in the cave were the old men and women who had
+ensconced themselves in it secretly during the day; but the hoax was not
+suspected by the children and young people, who firmly believed that the
+spirits of the dead really assembled that night in the cavern and
+assisted 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 the
+human rain-maker proceeded as follows. He blackened himself all over,
+exhumed a dead body, carried the bones to a cave, jointed them, and
+suspended the skeleton over some taro leaves. After that he poured water
+on 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, converted
+it into rain, and then caused it to descend in refreshing showers. But
+the rain-maker had to stay in the cavern fasting till his efforts were
+crowned with success, and when the ghost was tardy in executing his
+commission, the rain-maker sometimes died of hunger. As a rule, however,
+they chose the showery months of March and April for the operation of
+rain-making, so that the wizard ran little risk of perishing a martyr to
+the cause of science. When there was too much rain, and they wanted fine
+weather, the magician procured it by a similar process, except that
+instead of drenching the skeleton with water he lit a fire under it and
+burned it up,[550] which naturally induced or compelled the ghost to
+burn up the clouds and let the sun shine out.
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of maleficent sorcerers. Reincarnation of the dead
+in white people.]
+
+Another class of magicians were the maleficent sorcerers who caused
+people to fall ill and die by burning their personal rubbish. When one
+of these rascals was convicted of repeated offences of that sort, he was
+formally tried and condemned. The people assembled and a great festival
+was 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 and
+body painted black. Thus arrayed he came dashing forward, rushed through
+the 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 they
+identified with the spirits of the dead; and assigned this belief as a
+reason for their wish to kill the strangers.[551]
+
+[Footnote 517: F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, II. _Malaysia and the
+Pacific 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, see
+R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), pp. 323 _sqq._; R.
+Parkinson, _Dreissig Jaehre in der Suedsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 82
+_sqq._]
+
+[Footnote 519: Le Pere Lambert, _Moeurs et Superstitions des
+Neo-Caledoniens_ (Noumea, 1900). This work originally appeared as a
+series of articles in the Catholic missionary journal _Les Missions
+Catholiques_.]
+
+[Footnote 520: Lambert, _Moeurs et Superstitions des Neo-Caledoniens_,
+pp. ii., iv. _sq._; 255.]
+
+[Footnote 521: George Turner, LL.D., _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and long
+before_ (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 long
+before_ (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 the
+religion of the Eastern and Western Islanders.]
+
+In our survey of savage beliefs and practices concerning the dead we now
+pass from New Caledonia, the most southerly island of Melanesia, to the
+groups of islands known as the New Hebrides, the Banks' Islands, the
+Torres Islands, the Santa Cruz Islands, and the Solomon Islands, which
+together constitute what we may call Central Melanesia. These groups of
+islands may themselves be distinguished into two archipelagoes, a
+western and an eastern, of which the Western comprises the Solomon
+Islands and the Eastern includes all the rest. Corresponding to this
+geographical distinction there is a religious distinction; for while the
+religion of the Western islanders (the Solomon Islanders) consists
+chiefly in a fear and worship of the ghosts of the dead, the religion of
+the Eastern islanders is characterised mainly by the fear and worship of
+spirits which are not supposed ever to have been incarnate in human
+bodies. Both groups of islanders, the Western and the Eastern, recognise
+indeed both classes of spirits, namely ghosts that once were men and
+spirits who never were men; but the religious bias of the one group is
+towards ghosts rather than towards pure spirits, and the religious bias
+of the other group is towards pure spirits rather than towards ghosts.
+It is not a little remarkable that the islanders whose bent is towards
+ghosts have carried the system of sacrifice and the arts of life to a
+higher level than the islanders whose bent is towards pure spirits; this
+applies particularly to the sacrificial system, which is much more
+developed in the west than in the east.[552] From this it would seem to
+follow that if a faith in ghosts is more costly than a faith in pure
+spirits, it is at the same time more favourable to the evolution of
+culture.
+
+[Sidenote: Dr. R. H. Codrington on the Melanesians.]
+
+For the whole of this region we are fortunate in possessing the evidence
+of the Rev. Dr. R. H. Codrington, one of the most sagacious, cautious,
+and accurate of observers, who laboured as a missionary among the
+natives for twenty-four years, from 1864 to 1887, and has given us a
+most valuable account of their customs and beliefs in his book _The
+Melanesians_, which must always remain an anthropological classic. In
+describing the worship of the dead as it is carried on among these
+islanders I shall draw chiefly on the copious evidence supplied by Dr.
+Codrington; and I shall avail myself of his admirable researches to
+enter into considerable details on the subject, since details recorded
+by an accurate observer are far more instructive than the vague
+generalities of superficial observers, which are too often all the
+information 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 is
+composed of a body and a soul, that death is the final parting of the
+soul from the body, and that after death the soul continues to exist as
+a conscious and more or less active being.[553] Thus the creed of these
+savages on this profound subject agrees fundamentally with the creed of
+the average European; if my hearers were asked to state their beliefs as
+to the nature of life and death, I imagine that most of them would
+formulate them in substantially the same way. However, when the Central
+Melanesian savage attempts to define the nature of the vital principle
+or soul, which animates the body during life and survives it after
+death, he finds himself in a difficulty; and to continue the parallel I
+cannot help thinking that if my hearers in like manner were invited to
+explain their conception of the soul, they would similarly find
+themselves embarrassed for an answer. But an examination of the Central
+Melanesian theory of the soul would lead us too far from our immediate
+subject; we must be content to say that, "whatever word the Melanesian
+people use for soul, they mean something essentially belonging to each
+man's nature which carries life to his body with it, and is the seat of
+thought and intelligence, exercising therefore power which is not of the
+body and is invisible in its action."[554] However the soul may be
+defined, the Melanesians are universally of opinion that it survives the
+death 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 most
+part to live for an indefinite time, though some of them, as we shall
+see presently, are supposed to die a second death and so to come to an
+end altogether. In Western Melanesia, that is, in the Solomon Islands,
+the abode of the dead is supposed to be in certain islands, which differ
+in the creed of different islanders; but in Eastern Melanesia the abode
+of the dead is thought to be a subterranean region called Panoi.[555]
+
+[Sidenote: Distinction between ghosts of power and ghosts of no
+account.]
+
+But though the souls of the departed go away to the spirit land,
+nevertheless, with a seeming or perhaps real inconsistency, their ghosts
+are also supposed to haunt their graves and their old homes and to
+exercise great power for good or evil over the living, who are
+accordingly often obliged to woo their favour by prayer and sacrifice.
+According to the Solomon Islanders, however, among whom ghosts are the
+principal objects of worship, there is a great distinction to be drawn
+among ghosts. "The distinction," says Dr. Codrington, "is between ghosts
+of power and ghosts of no account, between those whose help is sought
+and their wrath deprecated, and those from whom nothing is expected and
+to whom no observance is due. Among living men there are some who stand
+out distinguished for capacity in affairs, success in life, valour in
+fighting, and influence over others; and these are so, it is believed,
+because of the supernatural and mysterious powers which they have, and
+which are derived from communication with those ghosts of the dead gone
+before them who are full of those same powers. On the death of a
+distinguished man his ghost retains the powers that belonged to him in
+life, in greater activity and with stronger force; his ghost therefore
+is powerful and worshipful, and so long as he is remembered the aid of
+his powers is sought and worship is offered him; he is the _tindalo_ of
+Florida, the _lio'a_ of Saa. In every society, again, the multitude is
+composed of insignificant persons, '_numerus fruges consumeri nati_,' of
+no particular account for valour, skill, or prosperity. The ghosts of
+such persons continue their insignificance, and are nobodies after death
+as before; they are ghosts because all men have souls, and the souls of
+dead men are ghosts; they are dreaded because all ghosts are awful, but
+they get no worship and are soon only thought of as the crowd of the
+nameless population of the lower world."[556]
+
+[Sidenote: Ghosts of the great and of the recently dead are chiefly
+regarded. Supernatural power (_mana_) acquired through ghosts.]
+
+From this account of Dr. Codrington we see that it is only the ghosts of
+great and powerful people who are worshipped; the ghosts of ordinary
+people are indeed feared, but no worship is paid to them. Further, we
+are told that it is the ghosts of those who have lately died that are
+deemed to be most powerful and are therefore most regarded; as the dead
+are forgotten, their ghosts cease to be worshipped, their power fades
+away,[557] and their place in the religion of the people is taken by the
+ghosts of the more recently departed. In fact here, as elsewhere, the
+existence 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 be
+noticed that in the Solomon Islands what we should call a man's natural
+powers and capacities are regarded as supernatural endowments acquired
+by communication with a mighty ghost. If a man is a great warrior, it is
+not because he is strong of arm, quick of eye, and brave of heart; it is
+because he is supported by the ghost of a dead warrior, whose power he
+has drawn to himself through an amulet of stone tied round his neck, or
+a 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 the
+ghost.[558] And similarly with all other pre-eminent capacities and
+virtues; in the mind of the Solomon Islanders, they are all supernatural
+gifts and graces bestowed on men by ghosts. This all-pervading
+supernatural power the Central Melanesian calls _mana_.[559] Thus for
+these savages the whole world teems with ghostly influences; their minds
+are filled, we may almost say, obsessed, with a sense of the unseen
+powers which encompass and determine even in its minute particulars the
+life 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 puppets
+made to dance by hands invisible. Truly the attitude of these savages to
+the universe is deeply religious.
+
+We may now consider the theory and practice of the Central Melanesians
+on this subject somewhat more in detail; and in doing so we shall begin
+with their funeral customs, which throw much light on their views of
+death and the dead.
+
+[Sidenote: Burial customs in the Solomon Islands. Land burial and sea
+burial. Land-ghosts and sea-ghosts.]
+
+Thus, for example, in Florida, one of the Solomon Islands, the corpse is
+usually 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 a
+sanctuary (_vunuhu_); the skull is often dug up and hung in the house.
+On the return from the burial the mourners take a different road from
+that by which they carried the corpse to the grave; this they do in
+order to throw the ghost off the scent and so prevent him from following
+them home. This practice clearly shews the fear which the natives feel
+for the ghosts of the newly dead. A man is buried with money, porpoise
+teeth, and some of his personal ornaments; but, avarice getting the
+better of superstition, these things are often secretly dug up again and
+appropriated by the living. Sometimes a dying man will express a wish to
+be cast into the sea; his friends will therefore paddle out with the
+corpse, tie stones to the feet, and sink it in the depths. In the island
+of Savo, another of the Solomon Islands, common men are generally thrown
+into the sea and only great men are buried.[560] The same distinction is
+made 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 of
+consequence are buried, and some relic of them, it may be a skull, a
+tooth, or a finger-bone, is preserved in a shrine at the village. From
+this difference in burial customs flows a not unimportant religious
+difference. The souls of the great people who are buried on land turn
+into land-ghosts, and the souls of commoners who are sunk in the sea
+turn into sea-ghosts. The land-ghosts are seen to hover about the
+villages, haunting their graves and their relics; they are also heard to
+speak in hollow whispers. Their aid can be obtained by such as know
+them. The sea-ghosts have taken a great hold on the imagination of the
+natives of the south-eastern Solomon Islands; and as these people love
+to illustrate their life by sculpture and painting, they shew us clearly
+what they suppose these sea-ghosts to be like. At Wango there used to be
+a canoe-house full of sculptures and paintings illustrative of native
+life; amongst others there was a series of scenes like those which are
+depicted on the walls of Egyptian tombs. One of the scenes represented a
+canoe attacked by sea-ghosts, which were portrayed as demons compounded
+partly of human limbs, partly of the bodies and tails of fishes, and
+armed with spears and arrows in the form of long-bodied garfish and
+flying-fish. If a man falls ill on returning from a voyage or from
+fishing on the rocks, it is thought that one of these sea-ghosts has
+shot him. Hence when men are in danger at sea, they seek to propitiate
+the ghosts by throwing areca-nuts and fragments of food into the water
+and by praying to the ghosts not to be angry with them. Sharks are also
+supposed to be animated by the ghosts of the dead.[561] It is
+interesting and instructive to find that in this part of the world
+sea-demons, who might be thought to be pure spirits of nature, are in
+fact 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 any
+person who was much esteemed, the relatives and friends assemble and
+hold a funeral feast, at which they throw a bit of food into the fire
+for the ghost, saying, "This is for you."[562] In other of the Solomon
+Islands morsels of food are similarly thrown on the fire at the
+death-feasts as the dead man's share.[563] Thus, in the Shortlands
+Islands, when a famous chief named Gorai died, his body was burnt and
+his relatives cast food, beads, and other property into the fire. The
+dead chief had been very fond of tea, so one of his daughters threw a
+cup of tea into the flames. Women danced a funeral dance round the pyre
+till the body was consumed.[564] Why should the dead man's food and
+property be burnt? No explanation of the practice is given by our
+authorities, so we are left to conjecture the reason of it. Is it that
+by volatilising the solid substance of the food you make it more
+accessible to the thin unsubstantial nature of the ghost? Is it that you
+destroy the property of the ghost lest he should come back in person to
+fetch it and so haunt and trouble the survivors? Is it that the spirits
+of the dead are supposed to reside in the fire on the hearth, so that
+offerings cast into the flames are transmitted to them directly? Whether
+it is with any such ideas that the Solomon Islanders throw food into the
+fire for ghosts, I cannot say. The whole question of the meaning of
+burnt 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 with
+great lamentations in his house; everything remains afterwards untouched
+and the house falls into ruins, which as time goes on are thickly
+mantled with the long tendrils of the sprouting yams. But we are told
+that the weapons are not intended to accompany the ghost to the land of
+souls; 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 mark
+of respect and affection, not with any notion of these things serving
+him 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, they
+think that the ghost benefits by burial; for if a man is killed and his
+body remains unburied, his restless ghost will haunt the place.[565] The
+ghosts of such Florida people as have been duly buried depart to
+Betindalo, which seems to be situated in the south-eastern part of the
+great island of Guadalcanar. A ship waits to ferry them across the sea
+to the spirit-land. This is almost the only example of a ferry-boat used
+by ghosts in Melanesia. On their way to the ferry the ghosts may be
+heard twittering; and again on the shore, while they are waiting for the
+ferry-boat, a sound of their dancing breaks the stillness of night; but
+no man can see the dancers. It is not until they land on the further
+shore that they know they are dead. There they are met by a ghost, who
+thrusts a rod into their noses to see whether the cartilage is pierced
+as it should be; ghosts whose noses have been duly bored in life follow
+the onward path with ease, but all others have pain and difficulty in
+making their way to the realm of the shades. Yet though the souls of the
+dead thus depart to Betindalo, nevertheless their ghosts as usual not
+only haunt their burial-places, but come to the sacrifices offered to
+them 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 dead
+live 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 to
+haunt their graves and shew themselves to the survivors by night. In the
+island of the dead there is a pool with a narrow tree-trunk lying across
+it. Here is stationed Bolafagina, the ghostly lord of the place. Every
+newly arrived ghost must appear before him, and he examines their hands
+to see whether they bear the mark of the sacred frigate-bird cut on
+them; if they have the mark, the ghosts pass across the tree-trunk and
+mingle with the departed spirits in the world of the dead. But ghosts
+who have not the mark on their hands are cast into the gulf and perish
+out of their ghostly life: this is the second death.[567] The same
+notion of a second death meets us in a somewhat different form among the
+natives of Saa in Malanta, another of the Solomon Islands. All the
+ghosts of these people swim across the sea to two little islands called
+Marapa, which lie off Marau in Guadalcanar. There the ghosts of children
+live in one island and the ghosts of grown-up people in another; for the
+older people would be plagued by the chatter of children if they all
+dwelt together in one island. Yet in other respects the life of the
+departed spirits in these islands is very like life on earth. There are
+houses, gardens, and canoes there just as here, but all is thin and
+unsubstantial. Living men who land in the islands see nothing of these
+things; there is a pool where they hear laughter and merry cries, and
+where the banks are wet with invisible bathers. But the life of the
+ghosts in these islands is not eternal. The spirits of common folk soon
+turn into the nests of white ants, which serve as food for the more
+robust 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?" The
+ghosts of persons who were powerful on earth last much longer. So long
+as they are remembered and worshipped by the living, their natural
+strength remains unabated; but when men forget them, and turn to worship
+some of the more recent dead, then no more food is offered to them in
+sacrifice, so they pine away and change into white ants' nests just like
+common folk. This is the second death. However, while the ghosts survive
+they can return from the islands to Saa and revisit their village and
+friends. The living can even discern them in the form of dim and
+fleeting shadows. A man who wishes for any reason to see a ghost can
+always do so very simply by taking a pinch of lime from his betel-box
+and smearing it on his forehead. Then the ghost appears to him quite
+plainly.[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 the
+flesh has decayed the bones are taken up and heaped on one side. But if
+the deceased was a very great man or a beloved father, his body is
+preserved for a time in his son's house, being hung up either in a canoe
+or in the carved effigy of a sword-fish. Very favourite children are
+treated 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 are
+removed to the common burial-ground, but the skull and jawbone are
+detached from the skeleton and kept in the house enclosed in the hollow
+wooden figure of a bonito-fish. By means of these relics the survivors
+think that they can secure the aid of the powerful ghost. Sometimes the
+corpse and afterwards the skull and jawbone are preserved, not in the
+house of the deceased, but in the _oha_ or public canoe-house, which so
+far becomes a sort of shrine or temple of the dead.[569] At Santa Cruz
+in the Solomon Islands the corpse is buried in a very deep grave in the
+house. Inland they dig up the bones again to make arrow-heads; also they
+detach the skull and keep it in a chest in the house, saying that it is
+the man himself. They even set food before the skull, no doubt for the
+use of the ghost. Yet they imagine that the ghosts of the dead go to the
+great volcano Tamami, where they are burnt in the crater and thus being
+renewed stay in the fiery region. Nevertheless the souls of the dead
+also haunt the forests in Santa Cruz; on wet and dark nights the natives
+see them twinkling in the gloom like fire-flies, and at the sight they
+are sore afraid.[570] So little consistent with itself is the creed of
+these islanders touching the state of the dead. At Bugotu in the island
+of Ysabel (one of the Solomon Islands) a chief is buried with his head
+near the surface and a fire is kept burning over the grave, in order
+that the skull may be taken up and preserved in the house of his
+successor. The spirit of the dead chief has now become a worshipful
+ghost, and an expedition is sent out to cut off and bring back human
+heads in his honour. Any person, not belonging to the place, whom the
+head-hunters come across will be killed by them and his or her skull
+added to the collection, which is neatly arranged on the shore. These
+ghastly trophies are believed to add fresh spiritual power (_mana_) to
+the ghost of the dead chief. Till they have been procured, the people of
+the place take care not to move about. The grave of the chief is built
+up with stones and sacrifices are offered upon it.[571]
+
+[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs of the Eastern islanders concerning the
+dead. Panoi, the subterranean abode of the dead.]
+
+Thus far we have been considering the beliefs and practices concerning
+the dead which prevail among the Western Melanesians of the Solomon
+Islands and Santa Cruz. We now turn to those of the Eastern Melanesians,
+who inhabit the Torres Islands, the Banks' Islands, and the New
+Hebrides. A broad distinction exists between the ghosts of these two
+regions in as much as the ghosts of the Western Melanesians all live in
+islands, but the ghosts of all Eastern Melanesians live underground in a
+subterranean region which commonly bears the name of Panoi. The exact
+position of Panoi has not been ascertained; all that is regarded as
+certain is that it is underground. However, there are many entrances to
+it and some of them are well known. One of them, for example, is a rock
+on the mountain at Mota, others are at volcanic vents which belch flames
+on the burning hill of Garat over the lake at Gaua, and another is on
+the great mountain of Vanua Lava. The ghosts congregate on points of
+land before their departure, as well as at the entrances to the
+underworld, and there on moonlight nights you may hear the ghostly crew
+dancing, singing, shouting, and whistling on the claws of land-crabs. It
+is not easy to extract from the natives a precise and consistent account
+of 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 full
+and precise details on a subject about which the sources of information
+are 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 many
+respects it resembles the land of the living; for there are houses there
+and villages, and trees with red leaves, and day and night. Yet all is
+hollow 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 the
+ghosts, resplendent in all his trinkets and finery; but like everything
+else in the underworld these ornaments, for all the brave show they
+make, are mere unsubstantial shadows. The pigs which were killed at his
+funeral feast and the food that was heaped on his grave cannot go down
+with 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? It
+is clearly impossible. The ghosts in the nether world do not mix
+indiscriminately. There are separate compartments for such as died
+violent deaths. There is one compartment for those who were shot, there
+is another for those who were clubbed, and there is another for those
+who were done to death by witchcraft. The ghosts of those who were shot
+keep rattling the reeds of the arrows which dealt them their fatal
+wounds. Ghosts in the nether world have no knowledge of things out of
+their sight and hearing; yet the living call upon them in time of need
+and trouble, as if they could hear and help. Life, too, in the kingdom
+of shadows is not eternal. The ghosts die the second death. Yet some say
+that there are two such kingdoms, each called Panoi, the one over the
+other; and that when the dead die the second death in the upper realm
+they rise again from the dead in the nether realm, where they never die
+but only turn into white ants' nests.[572]
+
+[Sidenote: Distinction between the fate of the good and the fate of the
+bad in the other world.]
+
+It is interesting and not unimportant to observe that some of these
+islanders make a distinction between the fate of good people and the
+fate 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 the
+good 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 the
+ghost of his victim, who withstands him and turns him back. All the bad
+ghosts go away to a bad place, where they live, not indeed in physical
+pain, but in misery: they quarrel, they are restless, homeless,
+pitiable, malignant: they wander back to earth: they eat the foulest
+food, their breath is noisome: they harm the living out of spite, they
+eat men's souls, they haunt graves and woods. But in the true Panoi the
+souls of the good live in peace and harmony.[573] Thus these people
+believe that the state of the soul after death depends on the kind of
+life a man led on earth; if he was good, he will be happy; if he was
+bad, he will be miserable. If this creed is of purely native origin, and
+Dr. Codrington seems to entertain no doubt that it is so, it marks a
+considerable 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 land
+of the dead and return alive to the upper world. Sometimes they do this
+in the body, but at other times only in the spirit, when they are asleep
+or in a faint; for at such times their souls quit their bodies and can
+wander away down to Panoi. When the living thus make their way to the
+spirit land, they are sometimes cautioned by friendly ghosts to eat
+nothing there, no doubt lest by partaking of ghostly food they should be
+turned to ghosts and never return to the land of the living.[574]
+
+[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead among the Eastern islanders. Burial
+customs of the Banks' Islanders.]
+
+We will now consider the various modes in which the Eastern Melanesians
+dispose of their dead; for funeral customs commonly furnish some
+indication of the ideas which a people entertain as to the state of the
+soul after death. The Banks' Islanders generally buried their dead in
+the forest not far from the village; but if the deceased was a great man
+or died a remarkable death, they might inter him in the village near the
+men's clubhouse (_gamal_). A favourite son or child might be buried in
+the house itself; but in such cases the grave would be opened after
+fifty 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 some
+places there was, and indeed still is, a custom of keeping the
+putrefying 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 over
+it during these days drank the juices of putrefaction which dripped from
+the decaying flesh. The same thing used formerly to be done in Mota,
+another of the Banks' Islands. The corpses of great men in these islands
+were adorned in all their finery and laid out on the open space in the
+middle of the village. Here bunches of coco-nuts, yams, and other food
+were heaped up beside the body; and an orator of fluent speech addressed
+the ghost telling him that when he had gone down to Panoi, the spirit
+land, and the ghosts asked him after his rank, he was to give them a
+list of all the things heaped beside his dead body; then the ghosts
+would know what a great man he was and would treat him with proper
+deference. The orator dealt very candidly with the moral character of
+the deceased. If he had been a bad man, the speaker would say, "Poor
+ghost, will you be able to enter Panoi? I think not." The food which is
+piled up beside the body while the orator is pronouncing the eulogium or
+the censure of the departed is afterwards heaped up on the grave or
+buried in it. At Gaua they kill pigs and hang up the carcases or parts
+of them at the grave. The object of all this display is to make a
+favourable impression on the ghosts in the spirit land, in order that
+they may give the newly deceased man a good reception. When the departed
+was an eminent warrior or sorcerer, his friends will sometimes give him
+a sham burial and hide his real grave, lest people should dig up his
+bones and his skull to make magic with them; for the relics of such a
+man are naturally endowed with great magical virtue.[575]
+
+[Sidenote: Ghosts driven away from the village. Expulsion of the ghosts
+of persons who suffered from sores and ulcers.]
+
+In these islands the ghost does not at once leave the neighbourhood of
+his old body; he shews no haste to depart to the nether world. Indeed he
+commonly loiters about the house and the grave for five or ten days,
+manifesting his presence by noises in the house and by lights upon the
+grave. By the fifth day his relations generally think that they have had
+quite enough of him, and that it is high time he should set out for his
+long home. Accordingly they drive him away with shouts and the blowing
+of conch-shells or the booming sound of bull-roarers.[576] At
+Ureparapara the mode of expelling the ghost from the village is as
+follows. Missiles to be hurled at the lingering spirit are collected in
+the shape of small stones and pieces of bamboo, which have been charmed
+by wizards so as to possess a ghost-expelling virtue. The artillery
+having been thus provided, the people muster at one end of the village,
+armed with bags of enchanted stones and pieces of enchanted bamboos. The
+signal 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 they
+clink together. At the sound of the clinking the women begin to wail and
+the men to march; tramp, tramp they go like one man through the village
+from end to end, throwing stones into the houses and all about and
+beating the bamboos together. Thus they drive the reluctant ghost step
+by step from the village into the forest, where they leave him to find
+his own way down to the land of the dead. Till that time the widow of
+the deceased was bound to remain on his bed without quitting it for a
+moment except on necessity; and if she had to leave it for a few minutes
+she always left a coco-nut on the bed to represent her till she came
+back. The reason for this was that her husband's ghost was believed to
+be lingering in the house all these days, and he would naturally expect
+to see his wife in the nuptial chamber. At Motlav the people are not so
+hard upon the poor ghosts: they do not drive away all ghosts from their
+old homes, but only the ghosts of such as had in their lifetime the
+misfortune to be afflicted with grievous sores and ulcers. The expulsion
+of such ghosts may therefore be regarded as a sanitary precaution
+designed to prevent the spirits from spreading the disease. When a man
+who suffers severely from sores or ulcers lies dying, the people of his
+village, taking time by the forelock, send word to the inhabitants of
+the next village westwards, warning them to be in readiness to give the
+ghost a warm reception. For it is well known that at their departure
+from the body ghosts always go westward towards the setting sun. So when
+the poor man is dead, they bury his diseased body in the village and
+devote all their energies to the expulsion of his soul. By blowing
+blasts on shell-trumpets and beating the ground with the stalks of
+coco-nut fronds they chase the ghost clean away from their own village
+and on to the next. The inhabitants of that village meantime are ready
+to receive their unwelcome visitor, and beating their bounds in the most
+literal sense they soon drive him onwards to the land of their next
+neighbours. So the chase goes on from village to village, till the ghost
+has been finally hunted into the sea at the point of the shore which
+faces the setting sun. There at last the beaters throw away the stalks
+which have served to whack the ghost, and return home in the perfect
+assurance that he has left the island and gone to his own place down
+below, so that he cannot afflict anybody with the painful disease from
+which 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 spiritual
+and the unseen; they do not stoop to regard the material and
+carnal.[577]
+
+[Sidenote: Special treatment of the ghosts of women who died in
+childbed.]
+
+A special treatment is accorded to the ghosts of women who died in
+childbed. If the mother dies and the child lives, her ghost will not go
+away to the nether world without taking the infant with her. Hence in
+order to deceive the ghost, they wrap a piece of a banana-trunk loosely
+in leaves and lay it on the bosom of the dead mother when they lower her
+into the grave. The ghost clasps the bundle to her breast, thinking it
+is 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 the
+infant stirring; for she has not all her wits about her, ghosts being
+naturally in a dazed state at first on quitting their familiar bodies.
+But when she arrives in deadland and finds she has been deceived, and
+when perhaps some heartless ghosts even jeer at her wooden baby, back
+she comes tearing to earth in grief and rage to seek and carry off the
+real infant. However, the survivors know what to expect and have taken
+the precaution of removing the child to another house where the mother
+will never find it; but she keeps looking for it always, and a sad and
+angry ghost is she.[578]
+
+[Sidenote: Funeral feasts.]
+
+After the funeral follows a series, sometimes a long series, of funeral
+feasts, which form indeed one of the principal institutions of these
+islands. The number of the feasts and the length of time during which
+they are repeated vary much in the different islands, and depend also on
+the consideration in which the deceased was held. The days on which the
+feasts are celebrated are the fifth and the tenth after the death, and
+afterwards every tenth day up to the hundredth or even it may be, in the
+case of a father, a mother, or a wife, up to the thousandth day. These
+feasts appear now to be chiefly commemorative, but they also benefit the
+dead; for the ghost is naturally gratified by seeing that his friends
+remember him and do their duty by him so handsomely. At these banquets
+food is put aside for the dead with the words "This is for thee." The
+practice of thus setting aside food for the ghost at a series of funeral
+feasts appears at first sight, as Dr. Codrington observes, inconsistent
+with the theory that the ghosts live underground.[579] But the objection
+thus suggested is rather specious than real; for we must always bear in
+mind that, to judge from the accounts given of them in all countries,
+ghosts experience no practical difficulty in obtaining temporary leave
+of absence from the other world and coming to this one, so to say, on
+furlough for the purpose of paying a surprise visit to their sorrowing
+friends and relations. The thing is so well known that it would be at
+once superfluous and tedious to illustrate it at length; many examples
+have incidentally met us in the course of these lectures.
+
+[Sidenote: Funeral customs in Vate or Efat. Old people buried alive.]
+
+The natives of Vate or Efat, one of the New Hebrides, set up a great
+wailing at a death and scratched their faces till they streamed with
+blood. Bodies of the dead were buried. When a corpse was laid in the
+grave, a pig was brought to the place and its head was chopped off and
+thrown into the grave to be buried with the body. This, we are told,
+"was supposed to prevent disease spreading to other members of the
+family." Probably, in the opinion of the natives, the pig's head was a
+sop thrown to the ghost to keep him from coming and fetching away other
+people to deadland. With the same intention, we may take it, they buried
+with the dead the cups, pillows, and other things which he had used in
+his lifetime. On the top of the grave they kindled a fire to enable the
+soul of the deceased to rise to the sun. If that were not done, the soul
+went to the wretched regions of Pakasia down below. The old were buried
+alive at their own request. It was even deemed a disgrace to the family
+of an aged chief if they did not bury him alive. When an old man felt
+sick and weak and thought that he was dying, he would tell his friends
+to get all ready and bury him. They yielded to his wishes, dug a deep
+round pit, wound a number of fine mats round his body, and lowered him
+into the grave in a sitting posture. Live pigs were then brought to the
+brink of the grave, and each of them was tethered by a cord to one of
+the old man's arms. When the pigs had thus, as it were, been made over
+to 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 old
+man took away with him to the spirit land, and the more of them he took
+the warmer and more gratifying was the reception he met with from the
+ghosts. Having thus ensured his eternal welfare by the pig strings which
+dangled at his arms, the old man was ready; more mats were laid over
+him, the earth was shovelled in, and his dying groans were drowned amid
+the weeping and wailing of his affectionate kinsfolk.[580]
+
+[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs in Aurora, one of the New
+Hebrides. Behaviour of the soul at death.]
+
+At Maewo in Aurora, one of the New Hebrides, when a death has taken
+place, the body is buried in a grave near the village clubhouse. For a
+hundred days afterwards the female mourners may not go into the open and
+their faces may not be seen; they stay indoors and in the dark and cover
+themselves with a large mat reaching to the ground. But the widow goes
+every day, covered with her mat, to weep at the grave; this she does
+both in the morning and in the afternoon. During this time of mourning
+the 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 bush
+where they grow wild, not eating those which have been planted." They
+count five days after the death and then build up great heaps of stones
+over the grave. After that, if the deceased was a very great man, who
+owned 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 the
+deceased 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 kill
+pigs for the benefit of their departed friend, his ghost has no proper
+existence, but hangs miserably on tangled creepers. After the sacrifice
+they 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 they
+are not eating good food.[581] They imagine that as soon as the soul
+quits the body at death, it mounts into a tree where there is a bird's
+nest fern, and sitting there among the fronds it laughs and mocks at the
+people who are crying and making great lamentations over his deserted
+tabernacle. "There he sits, wondering at them and ridiculing them. 'What
+are they crying for?' he says; 'whom are they sorry for? Here am I.' For
+they think that the real thing is the soul, and that it has gone away
+from the body just as a man throws off his clothes and leaves them, and
+the clothes lie by themselves with nothing in them."[582] This estimate
+of the comparative value of soul and body is translated from the words
+of a New Hebridean native; it singularly resembles that which is
+sometimes held up to our admiration as one of the finest fruits of
+philosophy and religion. So narrow may be the line that divides the
+meditations of the savage and the sage.
+
+When a Maewo ghost has done chuckling at the folly of his surviving
+relatives, who sorrow as those who have no hope, he turns his back on
+his old home and runs along the line of hills till he comes to a place
+where there are two rocks with a deep ravine between them. He leaps the
+chasm, and if he lands on the further side, he is dead indeed; but if he
+falls short, he returns to life. At the land's end, where the mountains
+descend into the sea, all the ghosts of the dead are gathered to meet
+him. If in his lifetime he had slain any one by club or arrow, or done
+any man to death by magic, he must now run the gauntlet of the angry
+ghosts of his victims, who beat and tear him and stab him with daggers
+such as people stick pigs with; and as they do so, they taunt him,
+saying, "While you were still in the world you thought yourself a
+valiant man; but now we will take our revenge on you." At another point
+in the path there is a deep gully, where if a ghost falls he is
+inevitably dashed to pieces; and if he escapes this peril, there is a
+ferocious pig waiting for him further on, which devours the ghosts of
+all persons who in their life on earth omitted to plant pandanus trees,
+from which mats are made. But the wise man, who planted pandanus
+betimes, now reaps the fruit of his labours; for when the pig makes a
+rush at his departed spirit, the ghost nimbly swarms up the pandanus
+tree and so escapes his pursuer. That is why everybody in Maewo likes to
+plant 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 for
+the comfort of his children in the other world by building a miniature
+house for each of them in his garden when the child is a year old; if
+the infant is a boy, he puts a bow, an arrow, and a club in the little
+house; if the child is a girl, he plants pandanus for her beside the
+tiny dwelling.[583]
+
+[Sidenote: Only ghosts of powerful men are worshipped.]
+
+So much for the fate of common ghosts in Central Melanesia. We have now
+to consider the position of the more powerful spirits, who after death
+are believed to exercise great influence over the living, especially
+over their surviving relations, and who have accordingly to be
+propitiated with prayer and sacrifice. This worship of the dead, as we
+saw, forms the principal feature in the religion of the Solomon
+Islanders. "But it must not be supposed," says Dr. Codrington, "that
+every ghost becomes an object of worship. A man in danger may call upon
+his father, his grandfather, or his uncle: his nearness of kin is
+sufficient ground for it. The ghost who is to be worshipped is the
+spirit of a man who in his lifetime had _mana_ [supernatural or magical
+power] in him; the souls of common men are the common herd of ghosts,
+nobodies alike before and after death. The supernatural power abiding in
+the powerful living man abides in his ghost after death, with increased
+vigour and more ease of movement. After his death, therefore, it is
+expected that he should begin to work, and some one will come forward
+and claim particular acquaintance with the ghost; if his power should
+shew itself, his position is assured as one worthy to be invoked, and to
+receive offerings, till his cultus gives way before the rising
+importance of one newly dead, and the sacred place where his shrine once
+stood and his relics were preserved is the only memorial of him that
+remains; if no proof of his activity appears, he sinks into oblivion at
+once."[584]
+
+[Sidenote: Worship paid chiefly to the recent and well-remembered dead.]
+
+From this instructive account we learn that worship is paid chiefly to
+the recent and well-remembered dead, to the men whom the worshippers
+knew personally and feared or respected in their lifetime. On the other
+hand, when men have been long dead, and all who knew them have also been
+gathered to their fathers, their memory fades away and with it their
+worship gradually falls into complete desuetude. Thus the spirits who
+receive the homage of these savages were real men of flesh and blood,
+not mythical beings conjured up by the fancy of their worshippers, which
+some legerdemain of the mind has foisted into the shrine and encircled
+with the halo of divinity. Not that the Melanesians do not also worship
+beings who, so far as we can see, are purely mythical, though their
+worshippers firmly believe in their reality. But "they themselves make a
+clear distinction between the existing, conscious, powerful disembodied
+spirits of the dead, and other spiritual beings that never have been men
+at all. It is true that the two orders of beings get confused in native
+language and thought, but their confusion begins at one end and the
+confusion of their visitors at another; they think so much and
+constantly of ghosts that they speak of beings who were never men as
+ghosts; Europeans take the spirits of the lately dead for gods; less
+educated Europeans call them roundly devils."[585]
+
+[Sidenote: Way in which a dead warrior came to be worshipped as a
+martial ghost.]
+
+As an example of the way in which the ghost of a real man who has just
+died may come to be worshipped Dr. Codrington tells us the story of
+Ganindo, which he had from Bishop Selwyn. This Ganindo was a great
+fighting man of Honggo in Florida, one of the Solomon Islands. He went
+with other warriors on a head-hunting expedition against Gaeta; but
+being mortally wounded with an arrow near the collar-bone he was brought
+back by his comrades to the hill of Bonipari, where he died and was
+buried. His friends cut off his head, put it in a basket, built a house
+for it, and said that he was a worshipful ghost (_tindalo_). Afterwards
+they said, "Let us go and take heads." So they embarked on their canoe
+and paddled away to seek the heads of enemies. When they came to quiet
+water, they stopped paddling and waited till they felt the canoe rock
+under them, and when they felt it they said, "That is a ghost." To find
+out 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. So
+they knew that it was he who was making the canoe to rock. In like
+manner they learned what village they were to attack. Returning
+victorious with the heads of the foe they threw a spear into the roof of
+Ganindo's house, blew conch-shells, and danced round it, crying, "Our
+ghost is strong to kill!" Then they sacrificed fish and other food to
+him. Also they built him a new house, and made four images of him for
+the four corners, one of Ganindo himself, two of his sisters, and
+another. When it was all ready, eight men translated the relics to the
+new shrine. One of them carried Ganindo's bones, another his betel-nuts,
+another his lime-box, another his shell-trumpet. They all went into the
+shrine crouching down, as if burdened by a heavy weight, and singing in
+chorus, "Hither, hither, let us lift the leg!" At that the eight legs
+went up together, and then they sang, "Hither, hither!" and at that the
+eight legs went down together. In this solemn procession the relics were
+brought and laid on a bamboo platform, and sacrifices to the new martial
+ghost were inaugurated. Other warlike ghosts revered in Florida are
+known not to have been natives of the island but famous warriors of the
+western isles, where supernatural power is believed to be stronger.[586]
+
+[Sidenote: Offerings to the dead.]
+
+Throughout the islands of Central Melanesia prayers and offerings are
+everywhere made to ghosts or spirits or to both. The simplest and
+commonest sacrificial act is that of throwing a small portion of food to
+the dead; this is probably a universal practice in Melanesia. A morsel
+of food ready to be eaten, for example of yam, a leaf of mallow, or a
+bit of betel-nut, is thrown aside; and where they drink kava, a libation
+is made of a few drops, as the share of departed friends or as a
+memorial of them with which they will be pleased. At the same time the
+offerer may call out the name of some one who either died lately or is
+particularly remembered at the time; or without the special mention of
+individuals he may make the offering generally to the ghosts of former
+members of the community. To set food on a burial-place or before some
+memorial image is a common practice, though in some places, as in Santa
+Cruz, 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 my
+country," 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 with
+any other place, the chief men of the village and the sacrificers and
+the old men, and the elder and younger men, assemble in the place sacred
+to this ghost; and his name is Harumae. When they are thus assembled to
+sacrifice, the chief sacrificer goes and takes a pig; and if it be not a
+barrow pig they would not sacrifice it to that ghost, he would reject it
+and not eat of it. The pig is killed (it is strangled), not by the chief
+sacrificer, but by those whom he chooses to assist, near the sacred
+place. Then they cut it up; they take great care of the blood lest it
+should 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 up
+is finished, the chief sacrificer takes a bit of flesh from the pig, and
+he takes a cocoa-nut shell and dips up some of the blood. Then he takes
+the 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 to
+you with this pig, that you may help us to smite that place; and
+whatsoever we shall carry away shall be your property, and we also will
+be yours.' Then he burns the bit of flesh in a fire upon a stone, and
+pours down the blood upon the fire. Then the fire blazes greatly upwards
+to the roof, and the house is full of the smell of pig, a sign that the
+ghost 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 house
+he puts away his bag, and washes his hands thoroughly, to shew that the
+ghost shall not reject him with disgust." The pig was afterwards eaten.
+It should be observed that this Harumae who received sacrifices as a
+martial ghost, mighty in war, had not been dead many years when the
+foregoing account of the mode of sacrificing to him was written. The
+elder men remembered him alive, nor was he a great warrior, but a kind
+and generous man, believed to be plentifully endowed with supernatural
+power. His shrine was a small house in the village, where relics of him
+were preserved.[588] Had the Melanesians been left to themselves, it
+seems possible that this Harumae might have developed into the war-god
+of San Cristoval, just as in Central Africa another man of flesh and
+blood 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 information
+furnished by Sualo, a Samoan teacher, who lived for a long time on the
+island. 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. More
+probably the fire was intended to warm the shivering ghost. I do not
+remember any other evidence that the souls of the Melanesian dead ascend
+to the sun; certainly it is much more usual for them to descend into the
+earth.]
+
+[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 Ethnological
+Museum 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 sacrifices
+are offered to a martial ghost in San Cristoval, one of the Solomon
+Islands. We saw that the flesh of a pig is burned in honour of the ghost
+and that the victim's blood is poured on the flames. Similarly in
+Florida, another of the Solomon Islands, food is conveyed to worshipful
+ghosts by being burned in the fire. Some ghosts are known by name to
+everybody, others may be known only to individuals, who have found out
+or been taught how to approach them, and who accordingly regard such
+ghosts as their private property. In every village a public ghost is
+worshipped, and the chief is the sacrificer. He has learned from his
+predecessor how to throw or heave the sacrifice, and he imparts this
+knowledge to his son or nephew, whom he intends to leave as his
+successor. The place of sacrifice is an enclosure with a little house or
+shrine in which the relics are kept; it is new or old according as the
+man whose ghost is worshipped died lately or long ago. When a public
+sacrifice is performed, the people assemble near but not in the sacred
+place; boys but not women may be present. The sacrificer alone enters
+the shrine, but he takes with him his son or other person whom he has
+instructed in the ritual. Muttering an incantation he kindles a fire of
+sticks, but may not blow on the holy flame. Then from a basket he takes
+some 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, while
+at the same time he prays for whatever is desired. If the fire blazes up
+and consumes the food, it is a good sign; it proves that the ghost is
+present and that he is blowing up the flame. The remainder of the food
+the sacrificer takes back to the assembled people; some of it he eats
+himself and some of it he gives to his assistant to eat. The people
+receive their portions of the food at his hands and eat it or take it
+away. While the sacrificing is going on, there is a solemn silence. If a
+pig is killed, the portion burned in the sacrificial fire is the heart
+in Florida, but the gullet at Bugotu. One ghost who is commonly known
+and 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 rises
+the sun, Manoga! come hither and eat thy _tutu_ mash!" Then turning he
+lifts it towards where sets the sun, and says, "If thou dwellest in the
+west, where sets the sun, Manoga! come hither and eat thy _tutu_!" There
+is not a quarter to which he does not lift it up. And when he has
+finished lifting it he says, "If thou dwellest in heaven above, Manoga!
+come hither and eat thy _tutu_! If thou dwellest in the Pleiades or
+Orion's belt; if below in Turivatu; if in the distant sea; if on high in
+the 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 a
+village take part. One of these occasions is when the canarium nut, so
+much used in native cookery, is ripe. None of the nuts may be eaten till
+the 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 to
+an English enquirer. The knowledge of the way in which the first-fruits
+must be offered is handed down from generation to generation, and the
+man who is learned in this lore has authority to open the season. He
+observes the state of the crop, and early one morning he is heard to
+shout. He climbs a tree, picks some nuts, cracks them, eats, and puts
+some on the stones in his sacred place for the ghost. Then the rest of
+the people may gather the nuts for themselves. The chief himself
+sacrifices the new nuts, mixed with other food, to the public ghost on
+the stones of the village sanctuary; and every man who has a private
+ghost of his own does the same in his own sacred place. About two months
+afterwards there is another public sacrifice when the root crops
+generally have been dug; pig or fish is then offered; and a man who digs
+up his yams, or whatever it may be, offers his private sacrifice
+besides.[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. On
+this subject I will quote the evidence of the veteran missionary, the
+Rev. Dr. George Turner, who lived in Tanna for seven months in 1841. He
+says: "The general name for gods seemed to be _aremha_; that means a
+_dead man_, and hints alike at the origin and nature of their religious
+worship. The spirits of their departed ancestors were among their gods.
+Chiefs who reach an advanced age were after death deified, addressed by
+name, and prayed to on various occasions. They were supposed especially
+to 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 a
+little of the fruit on some stone, or shelving branch of the tree, or
+some more temporary altar of a few rough sticks from the bush, lashed
+together with strips of bark, in the form of a table, with its four feet
+stuck 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_, all
+united in a shout. This took place about mid-day, and afterwards those
+who were assembled continued together feasting and dancing till midnight
+or 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 whole
+village, many a man keeps, so to say, a private or tame ghost of his own
+on 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 natural
+faculties or he may learn it from somebody else. However he may obtain
+the knowledge, he uses it for his own personal advantage, sacrificing to
+the ghost in order to win his favour and get something from him in
+return. The mode of sacrificing to a private ghost is the same as to a
+public 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 in
+the fire. A man often keeps a fighting ghost (_keramo_), who helps him
+in battle or in slaying his private enemy. Before he goes out to commit
+homicide, he pulls up his ginger-plant and judges from the ease or
+difficulty with which the plant yields to or resists his tug, whether he
+will succeed in the enterprise or not. Then he sacrifices to the ghost,
+and having placed some ginger and leaves on his shield, and stuffed some
+more in his belt and right armlet, he sallies forth. He curses his enemy
+by his fighting ghost, saying, "Siria (if that should be the name of the
+ghost) eats thee, and I shall slay thee"; and if he kills him, he cries
+to the ghost, "Thine is this man, Siria, and do thou give me
+supernatural power!" No prudent Melanesian would attempt to commit
+manslaughter without a ghost as an accomplice; to do so would be to
+court disaster, for the slain man's ghost would have power over the
+slayer; therefore before he imbrues his hands in blood he deems it
+desirable to secure the assistance of a valiant ghost who can, if need
+be, overcome the ghost of his victim in single combat. If he cannot
+procure such a useful auxiliary in any other way, he must purchase him.
+Further, he fortifies himself with some personal relic, such as a tooth
+or lock of hair of the deceased warrior, whose ghost he has taken into
+his service; this relic he wears as an amulet in a little bag round the
+neck, when he is on active service; at other times it is kept in the
+house.[593]
+
+[Sidenote: Garden ghosts.]
+
+Different from these truculent spirits are the peaceful ghosts who cause
+the 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 no
+such friend in the spirit world, he must employ an expert. The man of
+skill goes into the midst of the garden with a little mashed food in his
+left hand, and smiting it with his right hand he calls on the ghost to
+come and eat. He says: "This produce thou shall eat; give supernatural
+power (_mana_) to this garden, that food may be good and plentiful." He
+digs holes at the four corners of the garden, and in them he buries such
+leaves as the ghost loves, so that the garden may have ghostly power and
+be fruitful. And when the yams sprout, he twines them with the
+particular creeper and fastens them with the particular wood to which
+the ghost is known to be partial. These agricultural ghosts are very
+sensitive; if a man enters the garden, who has just eaten pork or cuscus
+or fish or shell-fish, the ghost of the garden manifests his displeasure
+by causing the produce of the garden to droop; but if the eater lets
+three or four days go by after his meal, he may then enter the garden
+with impunity, for the food has left his stomach. For a similar reason,
+apparently, when the yam vines are being trained, the men sleep near the
+gardens and never approach their wives; for should they tread the garden
+after conjugal intercourse, the yams would be blighted.[594]
+
+[Sidenote: Human sacrifices to ghosts.]
+
+Sometimes the favour of a ghost is obtained by human sacrifices. On
+these occasions the flesh of the victim does not, like the flesh of a
+pig, furnish the materials of a sacrificial banquet; but little bits of
+it are eaten by young men to improve their fighting power and by elders
+for a special purpose. Such sacrifices are deemed more effectual than
+the sacrifices of less precious victims; and advantage was sometimes
+taken of a real or imputed crime to offer the criminal to some ghost.
+So, for example, within living memory Dikea, chief of Ravu, convicted a
+certain man of stealing tobacco, and sentenced him to be sacrificed; and
+the grown lads ate pieces of him cooked in the sacrificial fire. Again,
+the same chief offered another human sacrifice in the year 1886. One of
+his wives had proved false, and he sent her away vowing that she should
+not return till he had offered a human sacrifice to Hauri. Also his son
+died, and he vowed to kill a man for him. The vow was noised abroad, and
+everybody knew that he would pay well for somebody to kill. Now the Savo
+people had bought a captive boy in Guadalcanar, but it turned out a bad
+bargain, for the boy was lame and nearly blind. So they brought him to
+Dikea, and he gave them twenty coils of shell money for the lad. Then
+the chief laid his hand on the victim's breast and cried, "Hauri! here
+is a man for you," and his followers killed him with axes and clubs. The
+cripple's skull was added to the chief's collection, and his legs were
+sent about the country to make known what had been done. In Bugotu of
+Ysabel, when the people had slain an enemy in fight, they used to bring
+back 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 sacred
+place, the grave of the man whose ghost was to be honoured. There they
+bound him hand and foot and buffeted him till he died, or if he did not
+die under the buffets they cut his throat. As they beat the man with
+their 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 to
+ghosts on various occasions. Thus on his return from a voyage a man will
+put food in the case which contains the relics of his dead father; and
+in the course of his voyage, if he should land in a desert isle, he will
+throw food and call on father, grandfather, and other deceased friends.
+Again, when sickness is ascribed to the anger of a ghost, a man of skill
+is sent for to discover what particular ghost is doing the mischief.
+When he has ascertained the culprit, he is furnished by the patient's
+relatives with a little pig, which he is to sacrifice to the ghost as a
+substitute for the sick man. Provided with this vicarious victim he
+repairs to the haunt of the ghost, strangles the animal, and burns it
+whole in a fire along with grated yam, coco-nut, and fish. As he does
+so, he calls out the names of all the ghosts of his family, his
+ancestors, and all who are deceased, down even to children and women,
+and he names the man who furnished the pig for the ghostly repast. A
+portion of the mixed food he preserves unburnt, wraps it in a dracaena
+leaf, and puts it beside the case which contains the relics of the man
+to whose ghost the sacrifice has been offered. Sometimes, however,
+instead of burning a pig in the fire, which is an expensive and wasteful
+form of sacrifice, the relatives of the sick man content themselves with
+cooking a pig or a dog in the oven, cutting up the carcase, and laying
+out all the parts in order. Then the sacrificer comes and sits at the
+animal's head, and calls out the names of all the dead members of the
+ghost's family in order downwards, saying, "Help, deliver this man, cut
+short the line that has bound him." Then the pig is eaten by all present
+except 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 the
+sacrifice of first-fruits. Thus, when the yams are ripe the people fetch
+some of them from each garden to offer to the ghosts. All the male
+members 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 which
+lies there, and cries with a loud voice to the ghost, "This is yours to
+eat." The others call quietly on the names of all the ancestors and give
+their yams, which are very many in number, because one from each garden
+is given to each ghost. If any man has besides a relic of the dead, such
+as a skull, bones, or hair, in his house, he takes home a yam and sets
+it beside the relic. Again, the first flying-fish of the season are
+sacrificed to ghosts, who may take the form of sharks; for we shall see
+presently that Melanesian ghosts are sometimes supposed to inhabit the
+bodies of these ferocious monsters. Some ghost-sharks have sacred places
+ashore, where figures of sharks are set up. In that case the first
+flying-fish are cooked and set before the shark images. But it may be
+that a shark ghost has no sacred place on land, and then there is
+nothing for it but to take the flying-fish out to sea and shred them
+into the water, while the sacrificer calls out the name of the
+particular 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 a
+certain malignant ghost called Tapia, who is believed to seize a man's
+soul and tie it up to a banyan tree. When that has happened, a man who
+knows how to manage Tapia intercedes with him. He takes a pig or fish to
+the sacred place and offers it to the grim ghost, saying, "This is for
+you to eat in place of that man; eat this, don't kill him." With that he
+can loose the captive soul and take it back to the sick man, who
+thereupon recovers.[598]
+
+[Sidenote: Sacrifices to ghosts in Santa Cruz. The dead represented by a
+stock.]
+
+In Santa Cruz the sacrifices offered to ghosts are very economical; for
+if the offering is of food, the living eat it up after a decent
+interval; if it is a valuable, they remove it and resume the use of it
+themselves. The principle of this spiritual economy probably lies in the
+common belief that ghosts, being immaterial, absorb the immaterial
+essence of the objects, leaving the material substance to be enjoyed by
+men. When a man of mark dies in Santa Cruz, his relations set up a stock
+of wood in his house to represent him. This is renewed from time to
+time, till after a while the man is forgotten or thrown into the shade
+by the attractions of some newer ghost, so that the old stock is
+neglected. But when the stock is first put up, a pig is killed and two
+strips of flesh from the back bone are set before the stock as food for
+the 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 stock
+is renewed. Again, when a garden is planted, they spread feather-money
+and red native cloth round it for the use of the ghost; but his
+enjoyment 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 Santa
+Cruz, I will add a description of some of them which was given by a
+native of Santa Cruz in his own language and translated for us by a
+missionary. It runs thus: "When anyone begins to fall sick he seeks a
+doctor (_meduka_), and when the doctor comes near the sick man he
+stiffens his body, and all those in the house think a ghost has entered
+into the doctor, and they are all very quiet. Some doctors tell the sick
+man'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 and
+invite some other men, and they eat with prayers to the ghost; and the
+doctor 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 of
+thy servant, that he may be well again.' The little portion they have
+offered to the ghost is then eaten; but small boys may not eat of
+it."[600] "Every year the people plant yams and tomagos; and when they
+begin 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 an
+offering place in the bush, and they go there and take much food, and
+also feather money. Men, women, and children do this, and they think the
+ghost notices if there are many children, and gives much food at
+harvest; and the ghost to whom they offer is named Ilene. When the
+bread-fruit begins to bear they take great care lest anyone should light
+a fire near the bole of the tree, or throw a stone at the tree. The
+ghost, who they think protects the bread-fruit, is called Duka-Kane or
+Kae Tuabia, who has two names; they think this ghost has four
+eyes."[601] "The heathen thinks a ghost makes the sun to shine and the
+rain. If it is continual sunshine and the yams are withering the people
+assemble together and contribute money, and string it to the man with
+whom the rain-ghost abides, and food also, and beseech him not to do the
+thing he was doing. That man will not wash his face for a long time, he
+will not work lest he perspire and his body be wet, for he thinks that
+if his body be wet it will rain. Then this man, with whom the rain-ghost
+is, takes water and goes into the ghost-house and sprinkles it at the
+head of the ghost-post (_duka_), and if there are many ghost-posts in
+the 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 magic
+with religion. The appeal to the rain-ghost is religious; but the
+pouring of the water on the ghost-post is magical, being an imitation of
+the result which the officiating priest or magician, whichever we choose
+to call him, desires to produce. The taboos observed by the owner of the
+rain-ghost so long as he wishes to prevent the rain from falling are
+also based on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic: he
+abstains from washing his face or working, lest the water or the sweat
+trickling down his body should mimick rain and thereby cause it to
+fall.[603]
+
+[Sidenote: Prayers to the dead.]
+
+The natives of Aneiteum, one of the Southern New Hebrides, worshipped
+the spirits of their ancestors, chiefly on occasions of sickness.[604]
+Again, the people of Vate 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 prayers
+offered to the dead we may take the petition which the natives of
+Florida put up at sea to Daula, a well-known ghost, who is associated
+with the frigate-bird. They say: "Do thou draw the canoe, that it may
+reach the land; speed my canoe, grandfather, that I may quickly reach
+the shore whither I am bound. Do thou, Daula, lighten the canoe, that it
+may quickly gain the land and rise upon the shore." They also invoke
+Daula to help them in fishing. "If thou art powerful, O Daula," they
+say, "put a fish or two into this net and let them die there." After a
+good 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 upon
+their immediate forefathers; one will call on his grandfather, another
+on his father, another on some dead friend, calling with reverence and
+saying, "Save us on the deep! Save us from the tempest! Bring us to the
+shore!" In San Cristoval people apply to ghosts for victory in battle,
+health in sickness, and good crops; but the word which they use to
+signify such an application conveys the notion of charm rather than of
+prayer. However, in the Banks' Islands what may be called prayer is
+strictly speaking an invocation of the dead; indeed the very word for
+prayer (_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 his
+dead 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 cooked
+mallow 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." So
+when they pour water on the oven, they pray to the ghost, saying, "Pour
+it on the head of him down there who has laid plots against me, has
+clubbed 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, they
+pray, saying, "Grandfather! this is your lucky drop of kava; let boars
+come in to me; the money I have spent, let it come back to me; the food
+that is gone, let it come back hither to the house of you and me." And
+on starting for a voyage they will say, "Uncle! father! plenty of boars
+for you, plenty of money; kava for your drinking, lucky food for your
+eating in the canoe. I pray you with this, look down upon me, let me go
+on a safe sea." Or when the canoe labours with a heavy freight, they
+will pray, "Take off your burden from us, that we may speed on a safe
+sea."[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 the
+garden-ground, sometimes in the forest. If it is in the village, it is
+fenced about, lest the foot of any rash intruder should infringe its
+sanctity. Sometimes the sanctuary is the place where the dead man is
+buried; sometimes it merely contains his relics, which have been
+translated thither. In some sanctuaries there is a shrine and in some an
+image. Generally, if not always, stones may be seen lying in such a holy
+place. The sight of one of them has probably struck the fancy of the man
+who founded the worship; he thought it a likely place for the ghost to
+haunt, and other smaller stones and shells have been subsequently added.
+Once a sanctuary has been established, everything within it becomes
+sacred (_tambu_) and belongs to the ghost. Were a tree growing within it
+to fall across the path, nobody would step over it. When a sacrifice is
+to be offered to the ghost on the holy ground, the man who knows the
+ghost, and whose duty it is to perform the sacrifice, enters first and
+all who attend him follow, treading in his footsteps. In going out no
+one will look back, lest his soul should stay behind. No one would pass
+such 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 man
+himself into his den. If there were a shrine in the sanctuary, nobody
+but the sacrificer might enter it. Such a shrine contained the weapons
+and other properties which belonged in his lifetime to the man whose
+ghost was worshipped on the spot.[607]
+
+[Sidenote: Sanctuaries of ghosts in Malanta.]
+
+At Saa in Malanta, another of the Solomon Islands, all burial-grounds
+where common people are interred are so far sacred that no one will go
+there without due cause; but places where the remains of nobles repose,
+and where sacrifices are offered to their ghosts, are regarded with very
+great respect, they may indeed be called family sanctuaries. Some of
+them are very old, the powerful ghosts who are worshipped in them being
+remote ancestors. It sometimes happens that the man who used to
+sacrifice in such a place dies without having instructed his son in the
+proper chant of invocation with which the worshipful ghost should be
+approached. In such a case the young man who succeeds him may fear to go
+to the old sanctuary, lest he should commit a mistake and offend the
+ghost; so he will take some ashes from the old sacrificial fire-place
+and found a new sanctuary. It is not common in that part of Malanta to
+build shrines for the relics of the dead, but it is sometimes done. Such
+shrines, on the other hand, are common in the villages of San Cristoval
+and in the sacred places of that island where great men lie buried. To
+trespass on them would be likely to rouse the anger of the ghosts, some
+of 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 their
+sanctity from the presence of a ghost. In the island of Florida the
+appearance of something wonderful will cause any place to become a
+sanctuary, the wonder being accepted as proof of a ghostly presence. For
+example, in the forest near Olevuga a man planted some coco-nut and
+almond trees and died not long afterwards. Then there appeared among the
+trees a great rarity in the shape of a white cuscus. The people took it
+for granted that the animal was the dead man's ghost, and therefore they
+called it by his name. The place became a sanctuary; no one would gather
+the coco-nuts and almonds that grew there, till two Christian converts
+set the ghost at defiance and appropriated his garden, with the
+coco-nuts and almonds. Through the same part of the forest ran a stream
+full of eels, one of which was so big that the people were quite sure it
+must 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 not
+to be sacred. Again, in Bugotu, a district of Ysabel, which is another
+of the Solomon Islands, there is a pool known to be the haunt of a very
+old ghost. When a man has an enemy whom he wishes to harm he will obtain
+some scraps of his food and throw them into the water. If the food is at
+once 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 who
+knows the habits of the ghost and how to propitiate him. In these sacred
+places there are stones, on which people place food in order to obtain
+good crops, while for success in fishing they deposit morsels of cooked
+fish. Such stones are treated with reverence and seem to be in a fair
+way to develop into altars. However, when the old ghost is superseded,
+as he often is, by younger rivals, the development of an altar out of
+the 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 can
+sometimes take up their abode in animals, such as cuscuses, eels, and
+fish. The creatures which are oftenest used as vehicles by the spirits
+of the dead are sharks, alligators, snakes, bonitos, and frigate-birds.
+Snakes which haunt a sacred place are themselves sacred, because they
+belong to or actually embody the ghost. Sharks, again, in all these
+islands are very often thought to be the abode of ghosts; for men before
+their death will announce that they will appear as sharks, and
+afterwards any shark remarkable for size or colour which haunts a
+certain shore or coast is taken to be somebody's ghost and receives the
+name of the deceased. At Saa certain food, such as coco-nuts from
+particular trees, is reserved to feed such a ghost-shark; and men of
+whom it is known for certain that they will be sharks after their death
+are allowed to anticipate the posthumous honours which await them by
+devouring such food in the sacred place, just as if they were real
+sharks. Sharks are very commonly believed to be the abode of ghosts in
+Florida and Ysabel, and in Savo, where they are particularly numerous;
+hence, though all sharks are not venerated, there is no living creature
+so commonly held sacred by the Central Melanesians as a shark; and
+shark-ghosts seem even to form a class of powerful supernatural beings.
+Again, when a lizard was seen frequenting a house after a death, it
+would be taken for the ghost returning to its old home; and many ghosts,
+powerful to aid the mariner at sea, take up their quarters in
+frigate-birds.[610]
+
+[Sidenote: The belief in ghosts underlies the Melanesian conception of
+magic.]
+
+Again, a belief in powerful ghosts underlies to a great extent the
+Melanesian conception of magic, as that conception is expounded by Dr.
+Codrington. "That invisible power," he tells us, "which is believed by
+the natives to cause all such effects as transcend their conception of
+the regular course of nature, and to reside in spiritual beings, whether
+in the spiritual part of living men or in the ghosts of the dead, being
+imparted by them to their names and to various things that belong to
+them, such as stones, snakes, and indeed objects of all sorts, is that
+generally known as _mana_. Without some understanding of this it is
+impossible to understand the religious beliefs and practices of the
+Melanesians; and this again is the active force in all they do and
+believe to be done in magic, white or black. By means of this men are
+able to control or direct the forces of nature, to make rain or
+sunshine, wind or calm, to cause sickness or remove it, to know what is
+far off in time and space, to bring good luck and prosperity, or to
+blast and curse. No man, however, has this power of his own; all that he
+does 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 magic
+long before it becomes a department of science, every serious sickness
+is believed to be brought about by ghosts or spirits, but generally it
+is to the ghosts of the dead that illness is ascribed both by the
+Eastern and by the Western islanders. Hence recourse is had to ghosts
+for aid both in causing and in curing sickness. They are thought to
+inflict disease, not only because some offence, such as trespass, has
+been committed against them, or because one who knows their ways has
+instigated them thereto by sacrifice and spells, but because there is a
+certain malignity in the feeling of all ghosts towards the living, who
+offend them simply by being alive. All human faculties, apart from the
+mere bodily functions, are supposed to be enhanced by death; hence the
+ghost of a powerful and ill-natured man is only too ready to take
+advantage of his increased powers for mischief.[612] Thus in the island
+of Florida illness is regularly laid at the door of a ghost; the only
+question 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 him
+on a bed of sickness. In that case no special intercessor is required;
+the patient himself or one of his kinsfolk will sacrifice and beg the
+ghost to take the sickness away; it is purely a family affair. Sometimes
+the sick man thinks that it is his own private or tame ghost who is
+afflicting him; so he will leave the house in order to escape his
+tormentor. But if the cause of sickness remains obscure, a professional
+doctor or medicine-man will be consulted. He always knows, or at least
+can ascertain, the ghost who is causing all the trouble, and he takes
+his measures accordingly. Thus he will bind on the sick man the kind of
+leaves that the ghost loves; he will chew ginger and blow it into the
+patient'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 the
+sickness. Should all these remedies prove vain, the doctor is by no
+means at the end of his resources. He may shrewdly suspect that
+somebody, who has an ill-will at the patient, has set his private ghost
+to maul the sick man and do him a grievous bodily injury. If his
+suspicions are confirmed and he discovers the malicious man who is
+egging on the mischievous ghost, he will bribe him to call off his
+ghost; and if the man refuses, the doctor will hire another ghost to
+assault and batter the original assailant. At Wango in San Cristoval
+regular battles used to be fought by the invisible champions above the
+sickbed of the sufferer, whose life or death depended on the issue of
+the combat. Their weapons were spears, and sometimes more than one ghost
+would be engaged on either side.[613]
+
+[Sidenote: Diagnosis of ghosts who have caused illness.]
+
+In Ysabel the doctor employs an ingenious apparatus for discovering the
+cause of sickness and ascertaining its cure. He suspends a stone at one
+end of a string while he holds the other end in his hand. Then he
+recites the names of all the people who died lately, and when the stone
+swings at anybody's name, he knows that the ghost of that man has caused
+the illness. It remains to find out what the ghost will take to relax
+his clutch on the sick man, it may be a mash of yams, a fish, a pig, or
+perhaps a human substitute. The question is put and answered as before;
+and whatever the oracle declares to be requisite is offered on the dead
+man's grave. Thus the ghost is appeased and the sufferer is made
+whole.[614] In these islands a common cause of illness is believed to be
+an unwarrantable intrusion on premises occupied by a ghost, who punishes
+the trespasser by afflicting him with bodily pains and ailments, or it
+may be by carrying off his soul. At Maewo in Aurora, one of the New
+Hebrides, when there is reason to think that a sickness is due to
+ghostly agency, the friends of the sick man send for a professional
+dreamer, whose business it is to ascertain what particular ghost has
+been offended and to make it up with him. So the dreamer falls asleep
+and in his sleep he dreams a dream. He seems to himself to be in the
+place where the patient was working before his illness; and there he
+spies a queer little old man, who is really no other than the ghost. The
+dreamer falls into conversation with him, learns his name, and winning
+his confidence extracts from him a true account of the whole affair. The
+fact is that in working at his garden the man encroached, whether
+wittingly or not is no matter, on land which the ghost regards as his
+private preserve; and to punish the intrusion the ghost carried off the
+intruder's soul and impounded it in a magic fence in his garden, where
+it still languishes in durance vile. The dreamer at once tenders a frank
+and manly apology on behalf of his client; he assures the ghost that the
+trespass was purely inadvertent, that no personal disrespect whatever
+was intended, and he concludes by requesting the ghost to overlook the
+offence for this time and to release the imprisoned soul. This appeal to
+the better feelings of the ghost has its effect; he pulls up the fence
+and lets the soul out of the pound; it flies back to the sick man, who
+thereupon recovers. Sometimes an orphan child is made sick by its dead
+mother, whose ghost draws away the soul of the infant to keep her
+company in the spirit land. In such a case, again, a dreamer is employed
+to bring back the lost soul from the far country; and if he can persuade
+the mother's ghost to relinquish the tiny soul of her baby, the child
+will 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's
+shadow so much as falls on one of them, the ghost in the stone will
+clutch the shadow and pull the soul clean out of the man, who dies
+accordingly. Such stones, dangerous as they unquestionably are to the
+chance passer-by, nevertheless for that very reason possess a valuable
+property 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-dog
+in his absence; and if he sends a friend to fetch something out of it
+which he has forgotten, the messenger, on approaching the house, will
+take good care to call out the owner's name, lest the ghost in the
+stone, mistaking him for a thief and a robber, should pounce out on him
+and 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 first
+requisite is an intimate acquaintance, not with the anatomy of the human
+frame and the properties of drugs, but with ghosts, their personal
+peculiarities, habits, and haunts. Only by means of the influence which
+such a knowledge enables him to exert on these powerful and dangerous
+beings can the good physician mitigate and assuage the sufferings of
+poor humanity. His professional skill, while it certainly aims at the
+alleviation of physical evils, attains its object chiefly, if not
+exclusively, by a direct appeal to those higher, though invisible,
+powers which encompass the life of man, or at all events of the
+Melanesian. The firm faith in the spiritual and the unseen which these
+sable doctors display in their treatment of the sick presents a striking
+contrast to the procedure of their European colleagues, who trust
+exclusively to the use of mere physical remedies, such as drugs and
+lancets, now carving the body of the sufferer with knives, and now
+inserting substances, about which they know little, into places about
+which they know nothing. Has not science falsely so called still much to
+learn 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, important
+as these are to human welfare, which in Melanesia are directed and
+controlled by spiritual forces. The weather in those regions is also
+regulated by ghosts and spirits. It is they who cause the wind to blow
+or 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; hence
+fertility and abundance or dearth and famine prevail alternately at the
+will of these spiritual directors. From this it follows that men who
+stand on a footing of intimacy with ghosts and spirits can by judicious
+management induce them to adapt the weather to the varying needs of
+mankind. But it is to be observed that the supernatural beings, who are
+the real sources of atmospheric phenomena, have delegated or deputed a
+portion of their powers not merely to certain material objects, such as
+stones or leaves, but to certain set forms of words, which men call
+incantations or spells; and accordingly all such objects and formulas
+do, by virtue of this delegation, possess in themselves a real and we
+may almost say natural influence over the weather, which is often
+manifested in a striking congruity or harmony between the things
+themselves and the effects which they are calculated to produce. This
+adaptation of means to end in nature may perhaps be regarded as a
+beautiful proof of the existence of spirits and ghosts working their
+purposes unseen behind the gaily coloured screen or curtain of the
+physical universe. At all events men who are acquainted with the ghostly
+properties of material objects and words can turn them to account for
+the benefit of their friends and the confusion of their foes, and they
+do so very readily if only it is made worth their while. Hence it comes
+about that in these islands there are everywhere weather-doctors or
+weather-mongers, who through their familiarity with ghosts and spirits
+and their acquaintance with the ghostly or spiritual properties of
+things, are able to control the weather and to supply their customers
+with wind or calm, rain or sunshine, famine or abundance, at a
+reasonable rate and a moderate figure.[617] The advantages of such a
+system over our own blundering method of managing the weather, or rather
+of leaving it to its own devices, are too obvious to be insisted on. To
+take 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 ghost
+loves, 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. This
+naturally produces rain and with the rain a calm. In the seafaring life
+of the Solomon Islanders the maker of calms is a really valuable
+citizen.[618] The Santa Cruz people are also great voyagers, and their
+wizards control the weather on their expeditions, taking with them the
+stock or log which represents their private or tame ghost and setting it
+up on a stage in the cabin. The presence of the familiar ghost being
+thus secured, the weather-doctor will undertake to provide wind or calm
+according to circumstances.[619] We have already seen how in these
+islands the wizard makes rain by pouring water on the wooden posts which
+represent the rain-ghosts.[620]
+
+[Sidenote: Black magic working through personal refuse or rubbish of the
+victim.]
+
+Such exercises of ghostly power for the healing of the sick and the
+improvement of the weather are, when well directed and efficacious,
+wholly beneficial. But ghostly power is a two-edged weapon which can
+work evil as well as good to mankind. In fact it can serve the purpose
+of witchcraft. The commonest application of this pernicious art is one
+which is very familiar to witches and sorcerers in many parts of the
+world. 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 closely
+connected with the person of his intended victim. This is the medium
+through which the power of the ghost or spirit is brought to bear; it
+is, so to say, the point of support on which the magician rests the
+whole weight of his infernal engine. In order to give effect to the
+charm it is very desirable, if not absolutely necessary, to possess some
+personal relic, such as a bone, of the dead man whose ghost is to set
+the machinery in motion. At all events the essential thing is to bring
+together the man who is to be injured and the ghost or spirit who is to
+injure him; and this can be done most readily by placing the personal
+relics or refuse of the two men, the living and the dead, in contact
+with each other; for thus the magic circuit, if we may say so, is
+complete, and the fatal current flows from the dead to the living. That
+is why it is most dangerous to leave any personal refuse or rubbish
+lying about; you never can tell but that some sorcerer may get hold of
+it and work your ruin by means of it. Hence the people are naturally
+most careful to hide or destroy all such refuse in order to prevent it
+from falling into the hands of witches and wizards; and this sage
+precaution has led to habits of cleanliness which the superficial
+European is apt to mistake for what he calls enlightened sanitation, but
+which a deeper knowledge of native thought would reveal to him in their
+true character as far-seeing measures designed to defeat the nefarious
+art 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 fell
+purpose even without any personal relic of his victim. In the Banks'
+Islands, for example, he need only procure a bit of human bone or a
+fragment of some lethal weapon, it may be a splinter of a club or a chip
+of an arrow, which has killed somebody. This he wraps up in the proper
+leaves, recites over it the appropriate charm, and plants it secretly in
+the path along which his intended victim is expected to pass. The ghost
+of the man who owned the bone in his life or perished by the club or the
+arrow, is now lurking like a lion in the path; and if the poor fellow
+strolls along it thinking no evil, the ghost will spring at him and
+strike him with disease. The charm is perfectly efficient if the man
+does come along the path, but clearly it misses fire if he does not. To
+remedy this defect in the apparatus a sorcerer sometimes has recourse to
+a portable instrument, a sort of pocket pistol, which in the Banks'
+Islands is known as a ghost-shooter. It is a bamboo tube, loaded not
+with powder and shot, but with a dead man's bone and other magical
+ingredients, over which the necessary spell has been crooned. Armed with
+this deadly weapon the sorcerer has only to step up to his unsuspecting
+enemy, whip out the pocket pistol, uncork the muzzle by removing his
+thumb from the orifice, and present it at the victim; the fatal
+discharge follows in an instant and the man drops to the ground. The
+ghost in the pistol has done his work. Sometimes, however, an accident
+happens. The marksman misses his victim and hits somebody else. This
+occurred, for example, not very many years ago in the island of Mota. A
+man named Isvitag was waiting with his ghost-shooter to pop at his
+enemy, but in his nervous excitement he let fly too soon, just as a
+woman with a child on her hip stepped across the path. The shot, or
+rather the ghost, hit the child point-blank, and it was his sister's
+child, his own next of kin! You may imagine the distress of the
+affectionate uncle at this deplorable miscarriage. To prevent
+inflammation of the wound he, with great presence of mind, plunged his
+pocket pistol in water, and this timely remedy proved so efficacious
+that the child took no hurt.[622]
+
+[Sidenote: Prophecy inspired by ghosts.]
+
+Another department of Melanesian life in which ghosts figure very
+prominently is prophecy. The knowledge of future events is believed to
+be conveyed to the people by a ghost or spirit speaking with the voice
+of a man, who is himself unconscious while he speaks. The predictions
+which emanate from the prophet under these circumstances are in the
+strictest sense inspired. His human personality is for the time being in
+abeyance, and he is merely the mouthpiece of the powerful spirit which
+has temporarily taken possession of his body and speaks with his voice.
+The possession is indeed painfully manifest. His eyes glare, foam bursts
+from his mouth, his limbs writhe, his whole body is convulsed. These are
+the workings of the mighty spirit shaking and threatening to rend the
+frail tabernacle of flesh. This form of inspiration is not clearly
+distinguishable from what we call madness; indeed the natives do not
+attempt to distinguish between the two things; they regard the madman
+and the prophet as both alike inspired by a ghost or spirit, and a man
+will sometimes pretend to be mad in order that he may get the reputation
+of being a prophet. At Saa a man will speak with the voice of a powerful
+man deceased, while he twists and writhes under the influence of the
+ghost; he calls himself by the name of the deceased who speaks through
+him, and he is so addressed by others; he will eat fire, lift enormous
+weights, and foretells things to come. When the inspiration, or
+insanity, is particularly violent, and the Banks' Islanders think they
+have had quite enough of it, the friends of the prophet or of the madman
+will sometimes catch him and hold him struggling and roaring in the
+smoke of strong-smelling leaves, while they call out the names of the
+dead men whose ghosts are most likely to be abroad at the time, for as
+soon as the right name is mentioned the ghost departs from the man, who
+then returns to his sober senses. But this method of smoking out a ghost
+is not always successful.[623]
+
+[Sidenote: Divination by means of ghosts.]
+
+There are many methods by which ghosts and spirits are believed to make
+known to men who employ them the secret things which the unassisted
+human intelligence could not discover; and some of them hardly perhaps
+need the intervention of a professional wizard. These methods of
+divination differ very little in the various islands. In the Solomon
+Islands, for instance, when an expedition has started in a fleet of
+canoes, there is sometimes a hesitation whether they shall proceed, or a
+doubt as to what direction they should take. Thereupon a diviner may
+declare that he has felt a ghost step on board; for did not the canoe
+tip 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 canoe
+rocks, 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 is
+vexing or, as they say, eating him, a diviner or wizard is sent for. He
+comes bringing an assistant, and the two sit down, the wizard in front
+and the assistant at his back, and they hold a stick or bamboo by the
+two 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 of
+itself becomes violently agitated.[624] We are not informed, but we may
+probably assume, that it is the ghost and not the man who really
+agitates the stick. A somewhat different mode of divination was
+occasionally employed at Motlav in the Banks' Islands in order to
+discover a thief or other criminal. After a burial they would take a
+bag, put some Tahitian chestnut and scraped banana into it, and tie it
+to the end of a hollow bamboo tube about ten feet long in such a way
+that the end of the tube was inserted in the mouth of the bag. Then the
+bag was laid on the dead man's grave, and the diviners grasped the other
+end 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 in
+their hands, for a ghost was scrambling up from the bag into the hollow
+of the bamboo. Having thus secured him they carried the imprisoned ghost
+in the bamboo into the village, where the roll of the recent dead was
+again called over in order to learn whose ghost had been caught in the
+trap. When wrong names were mentioned, the free end of the bamboo moved
+from side to side, but at the mention of the right name it revolved
+briskly. Having thus ascertained whom they had to deal with, they
+questioned the entrapped ghost, "Who stole so and so? Who was guilty in
+such 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 when
+the 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 permeated
+by a belief in ghostly power the last which I shall mention is the
+institution of taboo. In Melanesia, indeed, the institution is not so
+conspicuous as it used to be in Polynesia; yet even there it has been a
+powerful instrument in the consolidation of the rights of private
+property, and as such it deserves the attention of historians who seek
+to 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 on
+certain things by the arbitrary will of a chief or other powerful man.
+Somebody whose authority with the people gives him confidence to make
+the announcement will declare that such and such an object may not be
+touched, that such and such a place may not be approached, and that such
+and such an action may not be performed under a certain penalty, which
+in the last resort will be inflicted by ghostly or spiritual agency. The
+object, place, or action in question becomes accordingly taboo or
+sacred. Hence in these islands taboo may be defined as a prohibition
+with a curse expressed or implied. The sanction or power at the back of
+the taboo is not that of the man who imposes it; rather it is that of
+the ghost or spirit in whose name or in reliance upon whom the taboo is
+imposed. Thus in Florida a chief will forbid something to be done or
+touched under a penalty; he may proclaim, for example, that any one who
+violates 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 on
+the persuasion that the chief has his mighty ghost at his back. The
+sense of this in the particular case is indeed remote, the fear of the
+chiefs anger is present and effective, but the ultimate sanction is the
+power of the ghost. If a common man were to take upon himself to taboo
+anything he might do so; people would imagine that he would not dare to
+make such an announcement unless he knew he could enforce it; so they
+would watch, and if anybody violated the taboo and fell sick afterwards,
+they would conclude that the taboo was supported by a powerful ghost who
+punished infractions of it. Hence the reputation and authority of the
+man who imposed the taboo would rise accordingly; for it would be seen
+that he had a powerful ghost at his back. Every ghost has a particular
+kind of leaf for his badge; and in imposing his taboo a man will set the
+leaf of his private ghost as a mark to warn trespassers of the spiritual
+power with which they have to reckon; when people see a leaf stuck, it
+may be, on a tree, a house, or a canoe, they do not always know whose it
+is; but they do know that if they disregard the mark they have to deal
+with a ghost and not with a man,[626] and the knowledge is a more
+effectual check on thieving and other crimes than the dread of mere
+human justice. Many a rascal fears a ghost who does not fear the face of
+man.
+
+[Sidenote: The life of the Central Melanesians deeply influenced by
+their belief in the survival of the human soul after death.]
+
+What I have said may suffice to impress you with a sense of the deep
+practical influence which a belief in the survival of the human soul
+after death exercises on the life and conduct of the Central Melanesian
+savage. To him the belief is no mere abstract theological dogma or
+speculative tenet, the occasional theme of edifying homilies and pious
+meditation; it is an inbred, unquestioning, omnipresent conviction which
+affects his thoughts and actions daily and at every turn; it guides his
+fortunes as an individual and controls his behaviour as a member of a
+community, by inculcating a respect for the rights of others and
+enforcing a submission to the public authorities. With him the fear of
+ghosts and spirits is a bulwark of morality and a bond of society; for
+he firmly believes in their unseen presence everywhere and in the
+punishments which they can inflict on wrongdoers. His whole theory of
+causation differs fundamentally from ours and necessarily begets a
+fundamental difference of practice. Where we see natural forces and
+material substances, the Melanesian sees ghosts and spirits. A great
+gulf divides his conception of the world from ours; and it may be
+doubted whether education will ever enable him to pass the gulf and to
+think and act like us. The products of an evolution which has extended
+over many ages cannot be forced like mushrooms in a summer day; it is
+vain 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 long
+before_ (London, 1884), pp. 318 _sq._ Yams are the principal fruits
+cultivated by the Tannese, who bestow a great deal of labour on the
+plantation 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 Anthropological
+Institute_, 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 to
+sickness supposed to be caused by trespass on the premises of a ghost
+see 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. The
+spirit whom the Florida wizard appeals to for good or bad weather is
+called a _vigona_; and the natives believe it to be always the ghost of
+a dead man. But it seems very doubtful whether this opinion is strictly
+correct. See R. H. Codrington, _op cit._ pp. 124, 134.]
+
+[Footnote 619: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 201. The Santa Cruz name
+for 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 EASTERN
+MELANESIA
+
+
+[Sidenote: Northern Melanesia. Material culture of the North
+Melanesians.]
+
+In the last lecture I concluded my account of the belief in immortality
+and 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 to
+be understood the great archipelago lying to the north-east of New
+Guinea. It comprises the two large islands of New Britain and New
+Ireland, now called New Pomerania and New Mecklenburg, with the much
+smaller Duke of York Island lying between them, and the chain of New
+Hanover and the Admiralty Islands stretching away westward from the
+north-western extremity of New Ireland. The whole of the archipelago,
+together with the adjoining island of Bougainville in the Solomon
+Islands, is now under German rule. The people belong to the same stock
+and speak the same language as the natives of Central and Southern
+Melanesia, and their level of culture is approximately the same. They
+live in settled villages and subsist chiefly by the cultivation of the
+ground, 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 hunt
+cassowaries, wallabies, and wild pigs, and they catch fish by both nets
+and traps. Women and children take part in the fishing and many of them
+become very expert in spearing fish. Among the few domestic animals
+which they keep are pigs, dogs, and fowls. The villages are generally
+situated in the midst of a dense forest; but on the coast the natives
+build their houses not far from the beach as a precaution against the
+attacks of the forest tribes, of whom they stand greatly in fear. A New
+Britain village generally consists of a number of small communities or
+families, each of which dwells in a separate enclosure. The houses are
+very small and badly built, oblong in shape and very low. Between the
+separate hamlets which together compose a village lie stretches of
+virgin forest, through which run irregular and often muddy foot-tracks,
+scooped out here and there into mud-holes where the pigs love to wallow
+during the heat of the tropical day. As the people of any one district
+used generally to be at war with their neighbours, it was necessary that
+they should live together for the sake of mutual protection.[627]
+
+[Sidenote: Commercial habits of the North Melanesians. Their
+backwardness in other respects.]
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of their limited intercourse with surrounding
+villages, the natives of the New Britain or the Bismarck Archipelago
+were essentially a trading people. They made extensive use of shell
+money and fully recognised the value of any imported articles as mediums
+of exchange or currency. Markets were held on certain days at fixed
+places, where the forest people brought their yams, taro, bananas and so
+forth and exchanged them for fish, tobacco, and other articles with the
+natives of the coast. They also went on long trading expeditions to
+procure canoes, cuscus teeth, pigs, slaves, and so forth, which on their
+return they generally sold at a considerable profit. The shell which
+they used as money is the _Nassa immersa_ or _Nassa calosa_, found on
+the north coast of New Britain. The shells were perforated and threaded
+on strips of cane, which were then joined together in coils of fifty to
+two hundred fathoms.[628] The rights of private property were fully
+recognised. All lands belonged to certain families, and husband and wife
+had each the exclusive right to his or her goods and chattels. But while
+in certain directions the people had made some progress, in others they
+remained very backward. Pottery and the metals were unknown; no metal or
+specimen of metal-work has been found in the archipelago; on the other
+hand the natives made much use of stone implements, especially adzes and
+clubs. In war they never used bows and arrows.[629] They had no system
+of government, unless that name may be given to the power wielded by the
+secret societies and by chiefs, who exercised a certain degree of
+influence principally by reason of the reputation which they enjoyed as
+sorcerers and magicians. They were not elected nor did they necessarily
+inherit their office; they simply claimed to possess magical powers, and
+if they succeeded in convincing the people of the justice of their
+claim, their authority was recognised. Wealth also contributed to
+establish 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 not
+fully informed, but so far as these have been described they appear to
+agree closely with those of their kinsfolk in Central Melanesia. The
+first European to settle in the archipelago was the veteran missionary,
+the Rev. George Brown, D.D., who resided in the islands from 1875 to
+1880 and has revisited them on several occasions since; he reduced the
+language to writing for the first time,[631] and is one of our best
+authorities on the people. In what follows I shall make use of his
+valuable 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 by
+a soul, which survives his death and may afterwards influence the
+survivors for good or evil. Their word for soul is _nio_ or _niono_,
+meaning a shadow. The root is _nio_, which by the addition of personal
+suffixes becomes _niong_ "my soul or shadow," _niom_ "your soul or
+shadow," _niono_ "his soul or shadow." They think that the soul is like
+the man himself, and that it always stays inside of his body, except
+when it goes out on a ramble during sleep or a faint. A man who is very
+sleepy may say, "My soul wants to go away." They believe, however, that
+it departs for ever at death; hence when a man is sick, his friends will
+offer 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 present
+itself in the form of a wraith or apparition to people at the moment of
+or soon after death. On being asked why he thought that the soul does
+not perish with the body, a native said, "Because it is different; it is
+not of the same nature at all." They believe that the souls of the dead
+occasionally visit the living and are seen by them, and that they haunt
+houses and burial-places. They are very much afraid of the ghosts and do
+all 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 have
+killed and eaten. The man who is cutting up a human body takes care to
+tie a bandage over his mouth and nose during the operation of carving in
+order to prevent the enraged soul of the victim from entering into his
+body by these apertures; and for a similar reason the doors of the
+houses are shut while the cannibal feast is going on inside. And to keep
+the victim's ghost quiet while his body is being devoured, a cut from a
+joint is very considerately placed on a tree outside of the house, so
+that he may eat of his own flesh and be satisfied. At the conclusion of
+the banquet, the people shout, brandish spears, beat the bushes, blow
+horns, beat drums, and make all kinds of noises for the purpose of
+chasing the ghost or ghosts of the murdered and eaten men away from the
+village. But while they send away the souls, they keep the skulls and
+jawbones of the victims; as many as thirty-five jawbones have been seen
+hanging 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 on
+the 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 to
+obtain the bodies and bury them. They offer food to the souls of their
+departed kinsfolk for a long time after death, until all the funeral
+feasts are over; but they do not hold annual festivals in honour of dead
+ancestors. The food offered to the dead is laid every day on a small
+platform in a tree; but the natives draw a distinction between offerings
+to the soul of a man who died a natural death and offerings to the soul
+of a man who was killed in a fight; for whereas they place the former on
+a living tree, they deposit the latter on a dead tree. Moreover, they
+lay money, weapons, and property, often indeed the whole wealth of the
+family, near the corpse of their friend, in order that the soul of the
+deceased 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 is
+removed by its owners for their own use. However, the relations will
+sometimes detach a few shells from the coils of shell money and a few
+beads from a necklace and drop them in a fire for the behoof of the
+ghost. But when the deceased was a chief or other person of importance,
+some of his property would be buried with him. And before burial his
+body would be propped up on a special chair in front of his house,
+adorned with necklaces, wreaths of flowers and feathers, and gaudy with
+war-paint. In one hand would be placed a large cooked yam, and in the
+other a spear, while a club would be put on his shoulder. The yam was to
+stay the pangs of hunger on his long journey, and the weapons were to
+enable him to fight the foes who might resist his entrance into the
+spirit land. In the Duke of York Island the corpse was usually disposed
+of by being sunk in a deep part of the lagoon; but sometimes it was
+buried in the house and a fire kept burning on the spot.[633]
+
+[Sidenote: Burial customs in New Ireland and New Britain. Preservation
+of the skull.]
+
+In New Ireland the dead were rolled up in winding-sheets made of
+pandanus leaves, then weighted with stones and buried at sea. However,
+at some places they were deposited in deep underground watercourses or
+caverns. Towards the northern end of New Ireland corpses were burned on
+large piles of firewood in an open space of the village. A number of
+images curiously carved out of wood or chalk were set round the blazing
+pyre, but the meaning of these strange figures is uncertain. Men and
+women uttered the most piteous wailings, threw themselves on the top of
+the corpse, and pulled at the arms and legs. This they did not merely to
+express their grief, but because they thought that if they saw and
+handled the dead body while it was burning, the ghost could not or would
+not haunt them afterwards.[634] Amongst the natives of the Gazelle
+Peninsula in New Britain the dead are generally buried in shallow graves
+in or near their houses. Some of the shell money which belonged to a man
+in life is buried with him. Women with blackened bodies sleep on the
+grave for weeks.[635] When the deceased was a great chief, his corpse,
+almost covered with shell money, is placed in a canoe, which is
+deposited in a small house. Thereupon the nearest female relations are
+led into the house, and the door being walled up they are obliged to
+remain there with the rotting body until all the flesh has mouldered
+away. Food is passed in to them through a hole in the wall, and under no
+pretext are they allowed to leave the hut before the decomposition of
+the corpse is complete. When nothing of the late chief remains but a
+skeleton, the hut is opened and the solemn funeral takes place. The
+bones of the dead are buried, but his skull is hung up in the taboo
+house in order, we are told, that his ghost may remain in the
+neighbourhood of the village and see how his memory is honoured. After
+the burial of the headless skeleton feasting and dancing go on, often
+for more than a month, and the expenses are defrayed out of the riches
+left by the deceased.[636] Even in the case of eminent persons who have
+been buried whole and entire in the usual way, a special mark of respect
+is sometimes paid to their memory by digging up their skulls after a
+year or more, painting them red and white, decorating them with
+feathers, and setting them up on a scaffold constructed for the
+purpose.[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 of
+New Britain who inhabit a mountainous and well-watered country to the
+south of the Gazelle Peninsula. When a Sulka dies, his plantation is
+laid waste, and the young fruit-trees cut down, but the ripe fruits are
+first distributed among the living. His pigs are slaughtered and their
+flesh in like manner distributed, and his weapons are broken. If the
+deceased was a rich man, his wife or wives will sometimes be killed. The
+corpse is usually buried next morning. A hole is dug in the house and
+the body deposited in it in a sitting posture. The upper part of the
+corpse projects from the grave and is covered with a tower-like
+structure of basket-work, which is stuffed with banana-leaves. Great
+care is taken to preserve the body from touching the earth. Stones are
+laid round about the structure and a fire kindled. Relations come and
+sleep for a time beside the corpse, men and women separately. Some while
+afterwards the soul of the deceased is driven away. The time for
+carrying out the expulsion is settled by the people in whispers, lest
+the ghost should overhear them and prepare for a stout resistance. The
+evening before the ceremony takes place many coco-nut leaves are
+collected. Next morning, as soon as a certain bird (_Philemon
+coquerelli_) is heard to sing, the people rise from their beds and set
+up a great cry. Then they beat the walls, shake the posts, set fire to
+dry coco-nut leaves, and finally rush out into the paths. At that
+moment, so the people think, the soul of the dead quits the hut. When
+the flesh of the corpse is quite decayed, the bones are taken from the
+grave, sewed in leaves, and hung up. Soon afterwards a funeral feast is
+held, at which men and women dance. For some time after a burial taro is
+planted beside the house of death and enclosed with a fence. The Sulka
+think that the ghost comes and gathers the souls of the taro. The ripe
+fruit is allowed to rot. Falling stars are supposed to be the souls of
+the dead which have been hurled up aloft and are now descending to bathe
+in the sea. The trail of light behind them is thought to be a tail of
+coco-nut leaves which other souls have fastened to them and set on fire.
+In like manner the phosphorescent glow on the sea comes from souls
+disporting themselves in the water. Persons who at their death left few
+relations, or did evil in their life, or were murdered outside of the
+village, are not buried in the house. Their corpses are deposited on
+rocks or on scaffolds in the forest, or are interred on the spot where
+they met their death. The reason for this treatment of their corpses is
+not mentioned; but we may conjecture that their ghosts are regarded with
+contempt, dislike, or fear, and that the survivors seek to give them a
+wide berth by keeping their bodies at a distance from the village. The
+corpses of those who died suddenly are not buried but wrapt up in leaves
+and 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 or
+distrust of their ghosts.[638]
+
+[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead among the Moanus of the Admiralty
+Islands. Prayers offered to the skull of a dead chief.]
+
+Among the Moanus of the Admiralty Islands the dead are kept in the
+houses unburied until the flesh is completely decayed and nothing
+remains but the bones. Old women then wash the skeleton carefully in
+sea-water, after which it is disjointed and divided. The backbone,
+together with the bones of the legs and upper arms, is deposited in one
+basket and put away somewhere; the skull, together with the ribs and the
+bones of the lower arms, is deposited in another basket, which is sunk
+for a time in the sea. When the bones are completely cleaned and
+bleached in the water, they are laid with sweet-smelling herbs in a
+wooden vessel and placed in the house which the dead man inhabited
+during his life. But the teeth have been previously extracted from the
+skull and converted into a necklace for herself by the sister of the
+deceased. After a time the ribs are distributed by the son among the
+relatives. The principal widow gets two, other near kinsfolk get one
+apiece, and they wear these relics under their arm-bands. The
+distribution of the ribs is the occasion of a great festival, and it is
+followed some time afterwards by a still greater feast, for which
+extensive preparations are made long beforehand. All who intend to be
+present at the ceremony send vessels of coco-nut oil in advance; and if
+the deceased was a great chief the number of the oil vessels and of the
+guests may amount to two thousand. Meantime the giver of the feast
+causes a scaffold to be erected for the reception of the skull, and the
+whole art of the wood-carver is exhausted in decorating the scaffold
+with figures of turtles, birds, and so forth, while a wooden dog acts as
+sentinel at either end. When the multitude has assembled, and the
+orchestra of drums, collected from the whole neighbourhood, has sent
+forth a far-sounding crash of music, the giver of the feast steps
+forward and pronounces a florid eulogium on the deceased, a warm
+panegyric on the guests who have honoured him by their presence, and a
+fluent invective against his absent foes. Nor does he forget to throw in
+some delicate allusions to his own noble generosity in providing the
+assembled visitors with this magnificent entertainment. For this great
+effort of eloquence the orator has been primed in the morning by the
+sorcerer. The process of priming consists in kneeling on the orator's
+shoulders and tugging at the hair of his head with might and main, which
+is clearly calculated to promote the flow of his rhetoric. If none of
+the hair comes out in the sorcerer's hands, a masterpiece of oratory is
+confidently looked forward to in the afternoon. When the speech, for
+which such painful preparations have been made, is at last over, the
+drums again strike up. No sooner have their booming notes died away over
+land and sea, than the sorcerer steps up to the scaffold, takes from it
+the bleached skull, and holds it in both his hands. Then the giver of
+the feast goes up to him, dips a bunch of dracaena leaves in a vessel of
+oil, and smites the skull with it, saying, "Thou art my father!" At that
+the drums again beat loudly. Then he strikes the skull a second time
+with the leaves, saying, "Take the food that has been made ready in
+thine honour!" And again there is a crash of drums. After that he smites
+the skull yet again and prays saying, "Guard me! Guard my people! Guard
+my children!" And every prayer of the litany is followed by the solemn
+roll of the drums. When these impressive invocations to the spirit of
+the dead chief are over, the feasting begins. The skull is thenceforth
+carefully preserved.[639]
+
+[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead in the Kaniet Islands. Preservation of
+the skull.]
+
+In the Kaniet Islands, a small group to the north-west of the Admiralty
+Islands, the dead are either sunk in the sea or buried in shallow
+graves, face downward, near the house. All the movable property of the
+deceased is piled on the grave, left there for three weeks, and then
+burnt. Afterwards the skull is dug up, placed in a basket, and having
+been decorated with leaves and feathers is hung up in the house. Thus
+adorned it not only serves to keep the dead in memory, but is also
+employed in many conjurations to defeat the nefarious designs of other
+ghosts, who are believed to work most of the ills that afflict
+humanity.[640] Apparently these islanders employ a ghost to protect them
+against 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, are
+believed to die from natural causes alone; if they are not killed in war
+they are commonly supposed to perish by witchcraft or sorcery, even when
+the cause of death might seem to the uninstructed European to be
+sufficiently obvious in such things as exposure to heavy rain, the
+carrying of too heavy a burden, or remaining too long a time under
+water. So when a man has died, his friends are anxious to discover who
+has bewitched him to death. In this enquiry the ghost is expected to
+lend his assistance. Thus on the night after the decease the friends
+will assemble outside the house, and a sorcerer will address the ghost
+and request him to name the author of his death. If the ghost, as
+sometimes happens, makes no reply, the sorcerer will jog his memory by
+calling out the name of some suspected person; and should the ghost
+still be silent, the wizard will name another and another, till at the
+mention of one name a tapping sound is heard like the drumming of
+fingers on a board or on a mat The sound may proceed from the house or
+from a pearl shell which the sorcerer holds in his hand; but come from
+where it may, it is taken as a certain proof that the man who has just
+been named did the deed, and he is dealt with accordingly. Many a poor
+wretch in New Britain has been killed and eaten on no other evidence
+than that of the fatal tapping.[641]
+
+[Sidenote: Burial customs in the Duke of York Island. Preservation of
+the skull.]
+
+When a man of mark is buried in the Duke of York Island, the masters of
+sorcery take leaves, spit on them, and throw them, with a number of
+poisonous things, into the grave, uttering at the same time loud
+imprecations on the wicked enchanter who has killed their friend. Then
+they go and bathe, and returning they fall to cursing again; and if the
+miscreant survived the first imprecations, it is regarded as perfectly
+certain that he will fall a victim to the second. Sometimes, when the
+deceased was a chief distinguished for bravery and wisdom, his corpse
+would be exposed on a high platform in front of his house and left there
+to rot, while his relatives sat around and inhaled the stench,
+conceiving that with it they absorbed the courage and skill of the
+departed worthy. Some of them would even anoint their bodies with the
+drippings from the putrefying corpse for the same purpose. The women
+also made fires that the ghost might warm himself at them. When the head
+became detached from the trunk, it was carefully preserved by the next
+of kin, while the other remains were buried in a shallow grave in the
+house. All the female relatives blackened their dusky faces for a long
+time, after which the skull was put on a platform, a great feast was
+held, and dances were performed for many nights in its honour. Then at
+last the spirit of the dead man, which till that time was supposed to be
+lingering about his old abode, took his departure, and his friends
+troubled 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 beings
+whose help can be invoked on special occasions, such as fighting or
+fishing or any other matter of importance; and since the spirits whom
+they invoke are always those of their own kindred they are presumed to
+be friendly to the petitioners. The objects for which formal prayers are
+addressed to the souls of ancestors appear to be always temporal
+benefits, such as victory over enemies and plenty of food; prayers for
+the promotion of moral virtue are seemingly unknown. For example, if a
+woman laboured hard in childbirth, she was thought to be bewitched, and
+prayers would be offered to the spirits of dead ancestors to counteract
+the spell. Again, young men are instructed by their elders in the useful
+art of cursing the enemies of the tribe; and among a rich variety of
+imprecations 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 the
+enemy that he may not hear, to cover his eyes that he may not see, and
+to stop his mouth that he may not cry for help, but may fall an easy
+prey to the curser and his friends.[643] More amiable and not less
+effectual are the prayers offered to the spirits of the dead over a sick
+man. At the mention of each name in the prayer the supplicants make a
+chirping or hissing sound, and rub lime over the patient. Before
+administering medicine they pray over it to the spirits of the dead;
+then the patient gulps it down, thus absorbing the virtue of the
+medicine and of the prayer in one. In New Britain they reinforce the
+prayers to the dead in time of need by wearing the jawbone of the
+deceased; and in the Duke of York Island people often wear a tooth or
+some hair of a departed relative, not merely as a mark of respect, but
+as 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 their
+departure for the spirit land. But the information which has reached the
+living as to that far country is at once vague and inconsistent. They
+call it _Matana nion_, but whereabout it lies they cannot for the most
+part precisely tell. All they know for certain is that it is far away,
+and that there is always some particular spot in the neighbourhood from
+which the souls take their departure; for example, the Duke of York
+ghosts 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, and
+people who have been killed in battle go to another. They do not go
+unattended; for when a man dies two friends sleep beside his corpse the
+first night, one on each side, and their spirits are believed to
+accompany the soul of the dead man to the spirit land. They say that on
+their 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 that
+were 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, strange
+tales to tell of what they saw among the ghosts. The principal personage
+in the other world is called the "keeper of souls." It is said that once
+on a time the masterful ghost of a dead chief attempted to usurp the
+post of warden of the dead; in pursuance of this ambitious project he
+attacked the warden with a tomahawk and cut off one of his legs, but the
+amputated limb immediately reunited itself with the body; and a second
+amputation was followed by the same disappointing result. Life in the
+other world is reported to be very like life in this world. Some people
+find it very dismal, and others very beautiful. Those who were rich here
+will be rich there, and those who were poor on earth will be poor in
+Hades. As to any moral retribution which may overtake evil-doers in the
+life to come, their ideas are very vague; only they are sure that the
+ghosts of the niggardly will be punished by being dumped very hard
+against the buttress-roots of chestnut-trees. They say, too, that all
+breaches of etiquette or of the ordinary customs of the country will
+meet with certain appropriate punishments in the spirit land. When the
+soul has thus done penance, it takes possession of the body of some
+animal, for instance, the flying-fox. Hence a native is much alarmed if
+he should be sitting under a tree from which a flying-fox has been
+frightened away. Should anything drop from the bat or from the tree on
+which it was hanging, he would look on it as an omen of good or ill
+according to the nature of the thing which fell on or near him. If it
+were useless or dirty, he would certainly apprehend some serious
+misfortune. Sometimes when a man dies and his soul arrives in the spirit
+land, his friends do not want him there and drive him back to earth, so
+he comes to life again. That is the explanation which the natives give
+of what we call the recovery of consciousness after a faint or
+swoon.[645]
+
+[Sidenote: The land of the dead. State of the dead in the other world
+supposed to depend on the amount of money they left in this one.]
+
+Some of the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain imagine that
+the home of departed spirits is in Nakanei, the part of the coast to
+which they sail to get their shell money. Others suppose that it is in
+the islands off Cape Takes. So when they are sailing past these islands
+they dip the paddles softly in the water, and observe a death-like
+stillness, cowering down in the canoes, lest the ghosts should spy them
+and do them a mischief. At the entrance to these happy isles is posted a
+stern watchman to see that no improper person sneaks into them. To every
+ghost that arrives he puts three questions, "Who are you? Where do you
+come from? How much shell money did you leave behind you?" On his
+answers to these three questions hangs the fate of the ghost. If he left
+much money, he is free to enter the realm of bliss, where he will pass
+the time with other happy souls smoking and eating and enjoying other
+sensual delights. But if he left little or no money, he is banished the
+earthly paradise and sent home to roam like a wild beast in the forest,
+battening on leaves and filth. With bitter sighs and groans he prowls
+about the villages at night and seeks to avenge himself by scaring or
+plaguing the survivors. To stay his hunger and appease his wrath
+relatives or friends will sometimes set forth food for him to devour.
+Yet even for such an impecunious soul there is hope; for if somebody
+only takes pity on him and gives a feast in his honour and distributes
+shell money to the guests, the ghost may return to the islands of the
+blest, 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 among
+the Northern Melanesians of New Britain and the Bismarck Archipelago. We
+now pass to the consideration of a similar belief among another people
+of the same stock, who have been longer known to Europe, the Fijians.
+The archipelago which they occupy lies to the east of the New Hebrides
+and forms in fact the most easterly outpost of the black Melanesian race
+in the Pacific. Beyond it to the eastward are situated the smaller
+archipelagoes of Samoa and Tonga, inhabited by branches of the brown
+Polynesian race, whose members are scattered over the islands of the
+Pacific Ocean from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south. Of
+all the branches of the Melanesian stock the Fijians at the date of
+their discovery by Europeans appear to have made the greatest advance in
+culture, material, social, and political. "The Fijian," says one who
+knew him long and intimately, "takes no mean place among savages in the
+social scale. Long before the white man visited his shores he had made
+very considerable progress towards civilisation. His intersexual code
+had advanced to the 'patriarchal stage': he was a skilful and diligent
+husbandman, who carried out extensive and laborious agricultural
+operations: he built good houses, whose interior he ornamented with no
+little taste, carved his weapons in graceful and intricate forms,
+manufactured excellent pottery, beat out from the inner bark of a tree a
+serviceable papyrus-cloth, upon which he printed, from blocks either
+carved or ingeniously pieced together, elegant and elaborate patterns in
+fast colours; and, with tools no better than a stone hatchet, a pointed
+shell, and a firestick, he constructed large canoes capable of carrying
+more than a hundred warriors across the open sea."[647]
+
+[Sidenote: Political superiority of the Fijians over the other
+Melanesians.]
+
+Politically the Fijians shewed their superiority to all the other
+Melanesians in the advance they had made towards a regular and organised
+government. While among the other branches of the same race government
+can hardly be said to exist, the power of chiefs being both slender and
+precarious, in Fiji the highest chiefs exercised despotic sway and
+received from Europeans the title of kings. The people had no voice in
+the state; the will of the king was generally law, and his person was
+sacred. Whatever he touched or wore became thereby holy and had to be
+made over to him; nobody else could afterwards touch it without danger
+of being struck dead on the spot as if by an electric shock. One king
+took advantage of this superstition by dressing up an English sailor in
+his royal robes and sending him about to throw his sweeping train over
+any article of food, whether dead or alive, which he might chance to
+come near. The things so touched were at once conveyed to the king
+without a word of explanation being required or a single remonstrance
+uttered. Some of the kings laid claim to a divine origin and on the
+strength of the claim exacted and received from their subjects the
+respect due to deities. In these exorbitant pretensions they were
+greatly strengthened by the institution of taboo, which lent the
+sanction of religion to every exertion of arbitrary power.[648]
+Corresponding with the growth of monarchy was the well-marked gradation
+of social ranks which prevailed in the various tribes from the king
+downwards through chiefs, warriors, and landholders, to slaves. The
+resulting political constitution has been compared to the old feudal
+system of Europe.[649]
+
+[Sidenote: Means of subsistence of the Fijians. Ferocity and depravity
+of the Fijians.]
+
+Like the other peoples of the Melanesian stock the Fijians subsist
+chiefly 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 proportion
+of their food is derived from yams (_Dioscorea_), of which they
+cultivate five or six varieties.[650] It has been observed that "the
+increase of cultivated plants is regular on receding from the Hawaiian
+group up to Fiji, where roots and fruits are found that are unknown on
+the more eastern islands."[651] Yet the Fijians in their native state,
+like all other Melanesian and Polynesian peoples, were entirely ignorant
+of the cereals; and in the opinion of a competent observer the
+consequent defect in their diet has contributed to the serious defects
+in their national character. The cereals, he tells us, are the staple
+food of all races that have left their mark in history; and on the other
+hand "the apathy and indolence of the Fijians arise from their climate,
+their diet and their communal institutions. The climate is too kind to
+stimulate them to exertion, their food imparts no staying power. The
+soil gives the means of existence for every man without effort, and the
+communal institutions destroy the instinct of accumulation."[652] Nor
+are apathy and indolence the only or the worst features in the character
+of these comparatively advanced savages. Their ferocity, cruelty, and
+moral depravity are depicted in dark colours by those who had the best
+opportunity of knowing them in the old days before their savagery was
+mitigated by contact with a milder religious faith and a higher
+civilisation. "In contemplating the character of this extraordinary
+portion of mankind," says one observer, "the mind is struck with wonder
+and awe at the mixture of a complicated and carefully conducted
+political system, highly finished manners, and ceremonious politeness,
+with a ferocity and practice of savage vices which is probably
+unparalleled in any other part of the world."[653] One of the first
+civilised men to gain an intimate acquaintance with the Fijians draws a
+melancholy contrast between the baseness and vileness of the people and
+the 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 volcanic
+origin, mostly high and mountainous, but intersected by picturesque
+valleys, clothed with woods, and festooned with the most luxuriant
+tropical vegetation. "Among their attractions," we are told, "are high
+mountains, abrupt precipices, conical hills, fantastic turrets and crags
+of rock frowning down like olden battlements, vast domes, peaks
+shattered into strange forms; native towns on eyrie cliffs, apparently
+inaccessible; and deep ravines, down which some mountain stream, after
+long murmuring in its stony bed, falls headlong, glittering as a silver
+line on a block of jet, or spreading like a sheet of glass over bare
+rocks which refuse it a channel. Here also are found the softer features
+of rich vales, cocoa-nut groves, clumps of dark chestnuts, stately palms
+and bread-fruit, patches of graceful bananas or well-tilled taro-beds,
+mingling in unchecked luxuriance, and forming, with the wild
+reef-scenery of the girdling shore, its beating surf, and far-stretching
+ocean beyond, pictures of surpassing beauty."[655] Each island is
+encircled by a reef of white coral, on which the sea breaks, with a
+thunderous roar, in curling sheets of foam; while inside the reef
+stretches the lagoon, a calm lake of blue crystalline water revealing in
+its translucent depths beautiful gardens of seaweed and coral which fill
+the beholder with delighted wonder. Great and sudden is the contrast
+experienced by the mariner when he passes in a moment from the tossing,
+heaving, roaring billows without into the unbroken calm of the quiet
+haven within the barrier reef.[656]
+
+[Sidenote: Fijian doctrine of souls.]
+
+Like most savages, the Fijians believed that man is animated by a soul
+which quits his body temporarily in sleep and permanently at death, to
+survive for a longer or a shorter time in a disembodied state
+thereafter. Indeed, they attributed souls to animals, vegetables,
+stones, tools, houses, canoes, and many other things, allowing that all
+of them may become immortal.[657] On this point I will quote the
+evidence of one of the earliest and best authorities on the customs and
+beliefs of the South Sea Islanders. "There seems," says William Mariner,
+"to be a wide difference between the opinions of the natives in the
+different clusters of the South Sea islands respecting the future
+existence of the soul. Whilst the Tonga doctrine limits immortality to
+chiefs, _matabooles_, and at most, to _mooas_, the Fiji doctrine, with
+abundant liberality, extends it to all mankind, to all brute animals, to
+all vegetables, and even to stones and mineral substances. If an animal
+or a plant die, its soul immediately goes to Bolotoo; if a stone or any
+other substance is broken, immortality is equally its reward; nay,
+artificial bodies have equal good luck with men, and hogs, and yams. If
+an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, away flies its soul for the
+service of the gods. If a house is taken down, or any way destroyed, its
+immortal part will find a situation on the plains of Bolotoo; and, to
+confirm this doctrine, the Fiji people can show you a sort of natural
+well, or deep hole in the ground, at one of their islands, across the
+bottom of which runs a stream of water, in which you may clearly
+perceive the souls of men and women, beasts and plants, of stocks and
+stones, canoes and houses, and of all the broken utensils of this frail
+world, swimming or rather tumbling along one over the other pell-mell
+into the regions of immortality. Such is the Fiji philosophy, but the
+Tonga people deny it, unwilling to think that the residence of the gods
+should be encumbered with so much useless rubbish. The natives of
+Otaheite entertain similar notions respecting these things, viz. that
+brutes, plants, and stones exist hereafter, but it is not mentioned that
+they extend the idea to objects of human invention."[658]
+
+[Sidenote: Reported Fijian doctrine of two human souls, a light one and
+a dark one.]
+
+According to one account, the Fijians imagined that every man has two
+souls, a dark soul, consisting of his shadow, and a light soul,
+consisting of his reflection in water or a looking-glass: the dark soul
+departs at death to Hades, while the light soul stays near the place
+where he died or was killed. "Probably," says Thomas Williams, "this
+doctrine of shadows has to do with the notion of inanimate objects
+having spirits. I once placed a good-looking native suddenly before a
+mirror. He stood delighted. 'Now,' said he, softly, 'I can see into the
+world of spirits.'"[659] However, according to another good authority
+this distinction of two human souls rests merely on a misapprehension of
+the Fijian word for shadow, _yaloyalo_, which is a reduplication of
+_yalo_, the word for soul.[660] Apparently the Fijians pictured to
+themselves the human soul as a miniature of the man himself. This may be
+inferred from the customs observed at the death of a chief among the
+Nakelo tribe. When a chief dies, certain men who are the hereditary
+undertakers call him, as he lies, oiled and ornamented, on fine mats,
+saying, "Rise, sir, the chief, and let us be going. The day has come
+over the land." Then they conduct him to the river side, where the
+ghostly ferryman comes to ferry Nakelo ghosts across the stream. As they
+attend the chief on his last journey, they hold their great fans close
+to the ground to shelter him, because, as one of them explained to a
+missionary, "His soul is only a little child."[661]
+
+[Sidenote: Absence of the soul in sleep. Catching the soul of a rascal
+in a scarf.]
+
+The souls of some men were supposed to quit their bodies in sleep and
+enter into the bodies of other sleepers, troubling and disturbing them.
+A soul that had contracted this bad habit was called a _yalombula_. When
+any one fainted or died, his vagrant spirit might, so the Fijians
+thought, be induced to come back by calling after it. Sometimes, on
+awaking from a nap, a stout man might be seen lying at full length and
+bawling out lustily for the return of his own soul.[662] In the windward
+islands of Fiji there used to be an ordeal called _yalovaki_ which was
+much dreaded by evil-doers. When the evidence was strong against
+suspected criminals, and they stubbornly refused to confess, the chief,
+who was also the judge, would call for a scarf, with which "to catch
+away the soul of the rogue." A threat of the rack could not have been
+more effectual. The culprit generally confessed at the sight and even
+the mention of the light instrument; but if he did not, the scarf would
+be waved over his head until his soul was caught in it like a moth or a
+fly, after which it would be carefully folded up and nailed to the small
+end of a chief's canoe, and for want of his soul the suspected person
+would pine and die.[663]
+
+[Sidenote: Fijian dread of sorcery and witchcraft.]
+
+Further, the Fijians, like many other savages, stood in great terror of
+witchcraft, believing that the sorcerer had it in his power to kill them
+by the practice of his nefarious art. "Of all their superstitions," says
+Thomas Williams, "this exerts the strongest influence on the minds of
+the people. Men who laugh at the pretensions of the priest tremble at
+the power of the wizard; and those who become christians lose this fear
+last of all the relics of their heathenism."[664] Indeed "native agents
+of the mission who, in the discharge of their duty, have boldly faced
+death by open violence, have been driven from their posts by their dread
+of the sorcerer; and my own observation confirms the statement of more
+than one observer that savages not unfrequently die of fear when they
+think themselves bewitched."[665] Professed practitioners of witchcraft
+were dreaded by all classes, and by destroying mutual confidence they
+annulled the comfort and shook the security of society. Almost all
+sudden deaths were set down to their machinations. A common mode of
+effecting their object was to obtain a shred of the clothing of the man
+they 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 in
+certain leaves, and then cooked or buried it or hung it up in the
+forest; whereupon the victim was supposed to die of a wasting disease.
+Another way was to bury a coco-nut, with the eye upward, beneath the
+hearth of the temple, on which a fire was kept constantly burning; and
+as the life of the nut was destroyed, so the health of the person whom
+the nut represented would fail till death put an end to his sufferings.
+"The native imagination," we are told, "is so absolutely under the
+control of fear of these charms, that persons, hearing that they were
+the object of such spells, have lain down on their mats, and died
+through fear."[666] To guard against the fell craft of the magician the
+people resorted to many precautions. A man who suspected another of
+plotting against him would be careful not to eat in his presence or at
+all events to leave no morsel of food behind, lest the other should
+secrete it and bewitch him by it; and for the same reason people
+disposed of their garments so that no part could be removed; and when
+they had their hair cut they generally hid the clippings in the thatch
+of their own houses. Some even built themselves a small hut and
+surrounded it with a moat, believing that a little water had power to
+neutralise the charms directed against them.[667]
+
+[Sidenote: The fear of sorcery has had the beneficial effect of
+enforcing habits of personal cleanliness.]
+
+"In the face of such instances as these," says one who knows the Fijians
+well, "it demands some courage to assert that upon the whole the belief
+in witchcraft was formerly a positive advantage to the community. It
+filled, in fact, the place of a system of sanitation. The wizard's tools
+consisting in those waste matters that are inimical to health, every man
+was his own scavenger. From birth to old age a man was governed by this
+one fear; he went into the sea, the graveyard or the depths of the
+forest to satisfy his natural wants; he burned his cast-off _malo_; he
+gave every fragment left over from his food to the pigs; he concealed
+even the clippings of his hair in the thatch of his house. This
+ever-present fear even drove women in the western districts out into the
+forest for the birth of their children, where fire destroyed every trace
+of their lying-in. Until Christianity broke it down, the villages were
+kept 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 believed
+that the ghosts of the dead appeared often and afflicted mankind,
+especially in sleep. The spirits of slain men, unchaste women, and women
+who died in childbed were most dreaded. After a death people have been
+known to hide themselves for a few days, until they supposed the soul of
+the departed was at rest. Also they shunned the places where people had
+been murdered, particularly when it rained, because then the moans of
+the ghost could be heard as he sat up, trying to relieve his pain by
+resting his poor aching head on the palms of his hands. Some however
+said that the moans were caused by the soul of the murderer knocking
+down the soul of his victim, whenever the wretched spirit attempted to
+get up.[669] When Fijians passed a spot in the forest where a man had
+been clubbed to death, they would sometimes throw leaves on it as a mark
+of homage to his spirit, believing that they would soon be killed
+themselves if they failed in thus paying their respects to the
+ghost.[670] And after they had buried a man alive, as they very often
+did, these savages used at nightfall to make a great din with large
+bamboos, trumpet-shells, and so forth, in order to drive away his spirit
+and deter him from loitering about his old home. "The uproar is always
+held in the late habitation of the deceased, the reason being that as no
+one knows for a certainty what reception he will receive in the
+invisible world, if it is not according to his expectations he will most
+likely repent of his bargain and wish to come back. For that reason they
+make a great noise to frighten him away, and dismantle his former
+habitation of everything that is attractive, and clothe it with
+everything that to their ideas seems repulsive."[671]
+
+[Sidenote: Killing a ghost.]
+
+However, stronger measures were sometimes resorted to. It was believed
+to be possible to kill a troublesome ghost. Once it happened that many
+chiefs feasted in the house of Tanoa, King of Ambau. In the course of
+the evening one of them related how he had slain a neighbouring chief.
+That very night, having occasion to leave the house, he saw, as he
+believed, the ghost of his victim, hurled his club at him, and killed
+him stone dead. On his return to the house he roused the king and the
+rest of the inmates from their slumbers, and recounted his exploit. The
+matter was deemed of high importance, and they all sat on it in solemn
+conclave. Next morning a search was made for the club on the scene of
+the murder; it was found and carried with great pomp and parade to the
+nearest temple, where it was laid up for a perpetual memorial. Everybody
+was firmly persuaded that by this swashing blow the ghost had been not
+only killed but annihilated.[672]
+
+[Sidenote: Dazing the ghost of a grandfather.]
+
+A more humane method of dealing with an importunate ghost used to be
+adopted in Vanua-levu, the largest but one of the Fijian islands. In
+that island, as a consequence, it is said, of reckoning kinship through
+the mother, a child was considered to be more closely related to his
+grandfather than to his father. Hence when a grandfather died, his ghost
+naturally desired to carry off the soul of his grandchild with him to
+the spirit land. The wish was creditable to the warmth of his domestic
+affection, but if the survivors preferred to keep the child with them a
+little longer in this vale of tears, they took steps to baffle
+grandfather's ghost. For this purpose when the old man's body was
+stretched on the bier and raised on the shoulders of half-a-dozen stout
+young fellows, the mother's brother would take the grandchild in his
+arms and begin running round and round the corpse. Round and round he
+ran, and grandfather's ghost looked after him, craning his neck from
+side to side and twisting it round and round in the vain attempt to
+follow the rapid movements of the runner. When the ghost was supposed to
+be quite giddy with this unwonted exercise, the mother's brother made a
+sudden dart away with the child in his arms, the bearers fairly bolted
+with the corpse to the grave, and before he could collect his scattered
+wits grandfather was safely landed in his long home.[673]
+
+[Sidenote: Special relation of grandfather to grandchild. Soul of a
+grandfather reborn in his grandchildren.]
+
+Mr. Fison, who reports this quaint mode of bilking a ghost, explains the
+special attachment of the grandfather to his grandchild by the rule of
+female descent which survives in Vanua-levu; and it is true that where
+exogamy prevails along with female descent, a child regularly belongs to
+the exogamous class of its grandfather and not of its father and hence
+may be regarded as more closely akin to the grandfather than to the
+father. But on the other hand it is to be observed that exogamy at
+present is unknown in Fiji, and at most its former prevalence in the
+islands can only be indirectly inferred from relics of totemism and from
+the existence of the classificatory system of relationship.[674] Perhaps
+the real reason why in Vanua-levu a dead grandfather is so anxious to
+carry off the soul of his living grandchild lies nearer to hand in the
+apparently widespread belief that the soul of the grandfather is
+actually reborn in his grandchild. For example, in Nukahiva, one of the
+Marquesas Islands, every one "is persuaded that the soul of a
+grandfather is transmitted by nature into the body of his grandchildren;
+and that, if an unfruitful wife were to place herself under the corpse
+of 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 the
+life in another world. It is generally believed that the soul of a
+grandfather may pass into one of his grandchildren, and an old man will
+try to secure the passage of his soul to a favourite grandchild by
+holding it above his head from time to time. The grandfather usually
+gives up his name to his eldest grandson, and reassumes the original
+name of his childhood with the prefix or title _Laki_, and the custom
+seems to be connected with this belief or hope."[676]
+
+[Sidenote: A dead grandfather may reasonably reclaim his own soul from
+his grandchild.]
+
+Now where such a belief is held, it seems reasonable enough that a dead
+grandfather should reclaim his own soul for his personal use before he
+sets out for the spirit land; else how could he expect to be admitted to
+that blissful abode if on arriving at the portal he were obliged to
+explain to the porter that he had no soul about him, having left that
+indispensable article behind in the person of his grandchild? "Then you
+had better go back and fetch it. There is no admission at this gate for
+people without souls." Such might very well be the porter's retort; and
+foreseeing it any man of ordinary prudence would take the precaution of
+recovering his lost spiritual property before presenting himself to the
+Warden of the Dead. This theory would sufficiently account for the
+otherwise singular behaviour of grandfather's ghost in Vanua-levu. At
+the same time it must be admitted that the theory of the reincarnation
+of a grandfather in a grandson would be suggested more readily in a
+society where the custom of exogamy was combined with female descent
+than in one where the same custom coexisted with male descent; since,
+given exogamy and female descent, grandfather and grandson regularly
+belong to the same exogamous class, whereas father and son never do
+so.[677] Thus Mr. Fison may after all be right in referring the
+partiality of a Fijian grandfather for his grandson in the last resort
+to 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 Kuestenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Muenster, 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 the
+dead in New Ireland is described more fully by Mr. R. Parkinson, who
+says that the life-sized figures which are burned with the corpse
+represent the deceased (_Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_, 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 Albert
+Hahl, "Das mittlere Neumecklenburg," _Globus_, xci. (1907) p. 314.]
+
+[Footnote 635: R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_ (Stuttgart,
+1907) p. 78; P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Kuestenbewohner der
+Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Muenster, N.D.), p. 222.]
+
+[Footnote 636: Mgr. Couppe, "En Nouvelle-Pomeranie," _Les Missions
+Catholiques_, xxiii. (1891) pp. 364 _sq._; J. Graf Pfeil, _Studien und
+Beobachtungen aus der Suedsee_ (Brunswick, 1899), p. 79.]
+
+[Footnote 637: R. Parkinson, _op. cit._ p. 81.]
+
+[Footnote 638: _P._ Rascher, _M.S.C._, "Die Sulka, ein Beitrag zur
+Ethnographic Neu-Pommern," _Archiv fuer Anthropologie_, xxix. (1904) pp.
+214 _sq._, 216; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_, pp.
+185-187.]
+
+[Footnote 639: R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_, 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 the
+wide-spread belief in New Britain that what we call natural deaths are
+brought about by sorcery, see further _P._ Rascher, _M.S.C._, "Die
+Sulka, ein Beitrag zur Ethnographic Neu-Pommern," _Archiv fuer
+Ethnographie_, xxix. (1904) pp. 221 _sq._; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre
+in der Suedsee_, pp. 117 _sq._ 199-201; P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die
+Kuesten-bewohner der Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Muenster, 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 Kuestenbewohner der
+Gazellehalbinsel_, pp. 225 _sq._ Compare R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre
+in der Suedsee_, 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 Exploring
+Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 77; Th. Williams, _op.
+cit._ i. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 650: Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring
+Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 332 _sqq._; Thomas
+Williams _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition (London, 1860), i. 60
+_sqq._; Berthold Seeman, _Viti_ (Cambridge, 1862), pp. 279 _sqq._; Basil
+Thomson, _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._ The
+Fijians are in the main vegetarians, but the vegetables which they
+cultivate "contain a large proportion of starch and water, and are
+deficient in proteids. Moreover, the supply of the principal staples is
+irregular, being greatly affected by variable seasons, and the attacks
+of insects and vermin. Very few of them will bear keeping, and almost
+all of them must be eaten when ripe. As the food is of low nutritive
+value, a native always eats to repletion. In times of plenty a
+full-grown man will eat as much as ten pounds' weight of vegetables in
+the day; he will seldom be satisfied with less than five. A great
+quantity, therefore, is required to feed a very few people, and as
+everything is transported by hand, a disproportionate amount of time is
+spent in transporting food from the plantation to the consumer. The time
+spent 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 fruits
+they grow and to grind them into flour, as is done in Africa.]
+
+[Footnote 653: Capt. J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the
+Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), pp. 272 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 654: Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 46, 363. As to the cruelty
+and 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 to
+the scenery of the Fijian archipelago see further _id._, i. 4 _sqq._;
+Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 46, 322; _Stanford's Compendium of Geography
+and Travel, Australasia_, vol. ii. _Malaysia and the Pacific
+Archipelago_, 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 remarkable
+difference not only in climate but in appearance between the windward
+and the leeward sides of these islands. The windward side, watered by
+abundant showers, is covered with luxuriant tropical vegetation; the
+leeward side, receiving little rain, presents a comparatively barren and
+burnt appearance, the vegetation dying down to the grey hues of the
+boulders among which it struggles for life. Hence the dry leeward side
+is better adapted for European settlement. See Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._
+iii. 320 _sq._; Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 10; B. Seeman, _Viti, an
+Account of a Government Mission to the Vitian or Fijian Islands in the
+years 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 Tonga
+Islands_, Second Edition (London, 1818), ii. 129 _sq._ The _matabooles_
+were a sort of honourable attendants on chiefs and ranked next to them
+in the social hierarchy; the _mooas_ were the next class of people below
+the _matabooles_. See W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 84, 86. Bolotoo or Bulu
+was 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. Lorimer
+Fison, which he communicated to me in a letter dated 26th August, 1898.]
+
+[Footnote 661: Communication of the late Rev. Lorimer Fison in a letter
+to me dated 3rd November, 1898. I have already published it in _Taboo
+and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 29 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 662: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 242; Lorimer Fison, _Tales
+from 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 the
+Anthropological 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 belief
+which the Fijians entertain with regard to the survival of the human
+soul after death. "The native superstitions with regard to a future
+state," we are told, "go far to explain the apparent indifference of the
+people about death; for, while believing in an eternal existence, they
+shut out from it the idea of any moral retribution in the shape either
+of reward or punishment. The first notion concerning death is that of
+simple 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 to
+happiness, and I was informed that nine out of ten look forward to it
+with anxiety, in order to escape from the infirmities of old age, or the
+sufferings of disease."[679]
+
+[Sidenote: John Jackson's account of the burying alive of a young Fijian
+man. Son buried alive by his father.]
+
+The cool indifference with which the Fijians commonly regarded their own
+death and that of other people might be illustrated by many examples. I
+will give one in the words of an English eye-witness, who lived among
+these savages for some time like one of themselves. At a place on the
+coast of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian Islands, he says, "I
+walked into a number of temples, which were very plentiful, and at last
+into a _bure theravou_ (young man's _bure_), where I saw a tall young
+man about twenty years old. He appeared to be somewhat ailing, but not
+at all emaciated. He was rolling up the mat he had been sleeping upon,
+evidently preparing to go away somewhere. I addressed him, and asked him
+where he was going, when he immediately answered that he was going to be
+buried. I observed that he was not dead yet, but he said he soon should
+be dead when he was put under ground. I asked him why he was going to be
+buried? He said it was three days since he had eaten anything, and
+consequently he was getting very thin; and that if he lived any longer
+he 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 away
+for fear of being laughed at; and asked him what or who his private god
+was, knowing it to be no use talking to him about Providence, a thing he
+had never heard of. He said his god was a shark, and that if he were
+cast away in a canoe and was obliged to swim, the sharks would not bite
+him. I asked him if he believed the shark, his god, had any power to act
+over him? He said yes. 'Well then,' said I, 'why do you not live a
+little longer, and trust to your god to give you an appetite?' Finding
+that he could not give me satisfactory answers, and being determined to
+get buried to avoid the jeers of the ladies, which to a Feejeean are
+intolerable, he told me I knew nothing about it, and that I must not
+compare 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, and
+said 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 it
+was all to no purpose. By this time all his relations had collected
+round the door. His father had a kind of wooden spade to dig the grave
+with, his mother a new suit of _tapa_ [bark-cloth], his sister some
+vermilion and a whale's tooth, as an introduction to the great god of
+Rage-Rage. He arose, took up his bed and walked, not for life, but for
+death, his father, mother, and sister following after, with several
+other distant relations, whom I accompanied. I noticed that they seemed
+to follow him something in the same way that they follow a corpse in
+Europe to the grave (that is, as far as relationship and acquaintance
+are concerned), but, instead of lamenting, they were, if not rejoicing,
+acting and chatting in a very unconcerned way. At last we reached a
+place where several graves could be seen, and a spot was soon selected
+by the man who was to be buried. The old man, his father, began digging
+his grave, while his mother assisted her son in putting on a new _tapa_
+[bark-cloth], and the girl (his sister) was besmearing him with
+vermilion and lamp-black, so as to send him decent into the invisible
+world, he (the victim) delivering messages that were to be taken by his
+sister to people then absent. His father then announced to him and the
+rest that the grave was completed, and asked him, in rather a surly
+tone, if he was not ready by this time. The mother then _nosed_ him, and
+likewise the sister. He said, 'Before I die, I should like a drink of
+water.' His father made a surly remark, and said, as he ran to fetch it
+in a leaf doubled up, 'You have been a considerable trouble during your
+life, and it appears that you are going to trouble us equally at your
+death.' The father returned with the water, which the son drank off, and
+then looked up into a tree covered with tough vines, saying he should
+prefer being strangled with a vine to being smothered in the grave. His
+father became excessively angry, and, spreading the mat at the bottom of
+the grave, told the son to die _faka tamata_ (like a man), when he
+stepped into the grave, which was not more than four feet deep, and lay
+down on his back with the whale's tooth in his hands, which were clasped
+across his belly. The spare sides of the mats were lapped over him so as
+to prevent the earth from getting to his body, and then about a foot of
+earth was shovelled in upon him as quickly as possible. His father
+stamped it immediately down solid, and called out in a loud voice, '_Sa
+tiko, sa tiko_ (You are stopping there, you are stopping there),'
+meaning 'Good-bye, good-bye.' The son answered with a very audible
+grunt, and then about two feet more earth was shovelled in and stamped
+as before by the loving father, and '_Sa tiko_' called out again, which
+was answered by another grunt, but much fainter. The grave was then
+completely filled up, when, for curiosity's sake, I said myself, '_Sa
+tiko_' 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 mother
+then turned back to back on the middle of the grave, and, having dropped
+some kind of leaves from their hands, walked away in opposite directions
+towards a running stream of water hard by, where they and all the rest
+washed themselves, and made me wash myself, and then we returned to the
+town, where there was a feast prepared. As soon as the feast was over
+(it being then dark), began the dance and uproar which are always
+carried on either at natural or violent deaths."[680]
+
+[Sidenote: The readiness of the Fijians to die seems to have been partly
+a consequence of their belief in immortality.]
+
+The readiness with which the Fijians submitted to or even sought death
+appears to have been to some extent a direct consequence of their belief
+in immortality and of their notions as to the state of the soul
+hereafter. Thus we are informed by an early observer of this people that
+"self-immolation is by no means rare, and they believe that as they
+leave this life, so will they remain ever after. This forms a powerful
+motive to escape from decrepitude, or from a crippled condition, by a
+voluntary death."[681] Or, as another equally early observer puts it
+more fully, "the custom of voluntary suicide on the part of the old men,
+which is among their most extraordinary usages, is also connected with
+their superstitions respecting a future life. They believe that persons
+enter upon the delights of their elysium with the same faculties, mental
+and physical, that they possess at the hour of death, in short, that the
+spiritual life commences where the corporeal existence terminates. With
+these views, it is natural that they should desire to pass through this
+change before their mental and bodily powers are so enfeebled by age as
+to deprive them of their capacity for enjoyment. To this motive must be
+added the contempt which attaches to physical weakness among a nation of
+warriors, and the wrongs and insults which await those who are no longer
+able to protect themselves. When therefore a man finds his strength
+declining with the advance of age, and feels that he will soon be
+unequal to discharge the duties of this life, and to partake in the
+pleasures of that which is to come, he calls together his relations, and
+tells them that he is now worn out and useless, that he sees they are
+all ashamed of him, and that he has determined to be buried." So on a
+day 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 emanate
+from the parties principally concerned; when a son, for example, thought
+that his parents were growing too old and becoming a burden to him, he
+would give them notice that it was time for them to die, a notice which
+they usually accepted with equanimity, if not alacrity. As a rule, it
+was left to the choice of the aged and infirm to say whether they would
+prefer to be buried alive or to be strangled first and buried
+afterwards; and having expressed a predilection one way or the other
+they were dealt with accordingly. To strangle parents or other frail and
+sickly relatives with a rope was considered a more delicate and
+affectionate way of dispatching them than to knock them on the head with
+a club. In the old days the missionary Mr. Hunt witnessed several of
+these tender partings. "On one occasion, he was called upon by a young
+man, who desired that he would pray to his spirit for his mother, who
+was dead. Mr. Hunt was at first in hopes that this would afford him an
+opportunity of forwarding their great cause. On inquiry, the young man
+told him that his brothers and himself were just going to bury her. Mr.
+Hunt accompanied the young man, telling him he would follow in the
+procession, and do as he desired him, supposing, of course, the corpse
+would be brought along; but he now met the procession, when the young
+man said that this was the funeral, and pointed out his mother, who was
+walking along with them, as gay and lively as any of those present, and
+apparently as much pleased. Mr. Hunt expressed his surprise to the young
+man, and asked him how he could deceive him so much by saying his mother
+was dead, when she was alive and well. He said, in reply, that they had
+made 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, and
+it was time to bury her, to which she had willingly assented, and they
+were about it now. He had come to Mr. Hunt to ask his prayers, as they
+did those of the priest. He added, that it was from love for his mother
+that he had done so; that, in consequence of the same love, they were
+now going to bury her, and that none but themselves could or ought to do
+so sacred an office! Mr. Hunt did all in his power to prevent so
+diabolical an act; but the only reply he received was, that she was
+their mother, and they were her children, and they ought to put her to
+death. On reaching the grave, the mother sat down, when they all,
+including children, grandchildren, relations, and friends, took an
+affectionate 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 the
+usual ceremonies. They returned to feast and mourn, after which she was
+entirely 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 of
+their husbands, and generally at their own instance. Such scenes were
+frequently witnessed by white residents in the old days. On one occasion
+a Mr. David Whippy drove away the murderers, rescued the woman, and
+carried her to his own house, where she was resuscitated. But far from
+feeling grateful for her preservation, she loaded him with reproaches
+and ever afterwards manifested the most deadly hatred towards him. "That
+women should desire to accompany their husbands in death, is by no means
+strange when it is considered that it is one of the articles of their
+belief, that in this way alone can they reach the realms of bliss, and
+she who meets her death with the greatest devotedness, will become the
+favourite wife in the abode of spirits. The sacrifice is not, however,
+always voluntary; but, when a woman refuses to be strangled, her
+relations often compel her to submit. This they do from interested
+motives; for, by her death, her connexions become entitled to the
+property 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 principal
+wife delayed the ceremony, by taking leave of those around her;
+whereupon Tanoa, the present king, chid her. The victim was his own
+aunt, and he assisted in putting the rope around her neck, and
+strangling her, a service he is said to have rendered on a former
+occasion to his own mother."[684] In the case of men who were drowned at
+sea or killed and eaten by enemies in war, their wives were sacrificed
+in the usual way. Thus when Ra Mbithi, the pride of Somosomo, was lost
+at sea, seventeen of his wives were destroyed; and after the news of a
+massacre of the Namena people at Viwa in 1839 eighty women were
+strangled 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 were
+regularly laid at the bottom of the grave to serve as a cushion for the
+dead husband to lie upon; in this capacity they were called grass
+(_thotho_), being compared to the dried grass which in Fijian houses
+used to be thickly strewn on the floors and covered with mats.[686] On
+this point, however, a nice distinction was observed. While wives were
+commonly sacrificed at the death of their husbands, in order to be
+spread like grass in their graves, it does not transpire that husbands
+were ever sacrificed at the death of their wives for the sake of serving
+as grass to their dead spouses in the grave. The great truth that all
+flesh is grass appears to have been understood by the Fijians as
+applicable chiefly to the flesh of women. Sometimes a man's mother was
+strangled 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 to
+follow their masters to the far country. The confidential companion of a
+chief 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, a
+chief of high rank and greatly esteemed in Mathuata, died in the year
+1840, not only his wife but five men with their wives were strangled to
+form the floor of his grave. They were laid on a layer of mats, and the
+body of the chief was stretched upon them.[687] There used to be a
+family in Vanua Levu which enjoyed the high privilege of supplying a
+hale man to be buried with the king of Fiji on every occasion of a royal
+decease. 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 other
+world, 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 the
+life of his father or father's brother. The rite of circumcision
+followed by a licentious orgy.]
+
+A curious sacrifice offered in honour of a dead chief consisted in the
+foreskins of all the boys who had arrived at a suitable age; the lads
+were circumcised on purpose to furnish them. Many boys had their little
+fingers chopped off on the same occasion, and the severed foreskins and
+fingers were placed in the chief's grave. When this bloody rite had been
+performed, the chief's relatives presented young bread-fruit trees to
+the mutilated boys, whose friends were bound to cultivate them till the
+boys could do it for themselves.[689] Women as well as boys had their
+fingers cut off in mourning. We read of a case when after the death of a
+king of Fiji sixty fingers were amputated and being each inserted in a
+slit reed were stuck along the eaves of the king's house.[690] Why
+foreskins and fingers were buried with a dead chief or stuck up on the
+roof 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 the
+land of souls. At all events it deserves to be noted that according to a
+very good authority a similar sacrifice of foreskins used to be made not
+only for the dead but for the living. When a man of note was dangerously
+ill, a family council would be held, at which it might be agreed that a
+circumcision should take place as a propitiatory measure. Notice having
+been given to the priests, an uncircumcised lad, the sick man's own son
+or 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_, or
+offering of atonement, in order that his father or father's brother
+might be made whole. His escort at the same time made a present of
+valuable property at the shrine and promised much more in future, should
+their prayers be answered. The present and the promises were graciously
+received by the priest, who appointed a day on which the operation was
+to be performed. In the meantime no food might be taken from the
+plantations except what was absolutely required for daily use; no pigs
+or fowls might be killed, and no coco-nuts plucked from the trees.
+Everything, in short, was put under a strict taboo; all was set apart
+for the great feast which was to follow the performance of the rite. On
+the 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 take
+advantage of the occasion. Their foreskins, stuck in the cleft of a
+split reed, were taken to the sacred enclosure (_Nanga_) and presented
+to the chief priest, who, holding the reeds in his hand, offered them to
+the ancestral gods and prayed for the sick man's recovery. Then followed
+a great feast, which ushered in a period of indescribable revelry and
+licence. 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 practised
+unmentionable abominations openly in the public square of the town. The
+nearest relationships, even that of own brother and sister, seemed to be
+no bar to the general licence, the extent of which was indicated by the
+expressive phrase of an old Nandi chief, who said, "While it lasts, we
+are just like the pigs." This feasting and orgy might be kept up for
+several days, after which the ordinary restraints of society and the
+common decencies of life were observed once more. The rights of private
+property were again respected; the abandoned revellers and debauchees
+settled down into staid married couples; and brothers and sisters, in
+accordance with the regular Fijian etiquette, might not so much as speak
+to one another. It should be added that these extravagances in connexion
+with the rite of circumcision appear to have been practised only in
+certain districts of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian Islands, where
+they were always associated with the sacred stone enclosures which went
+by the name of _Nanga_.[691]
+
+[Sidenote: These orgies were apparently associated with the worship of
+the dead, to whom offerings were made in the _Nanga_ or sacred enclosure
+of stones.]
+
+The meaning of such orgies is very obscure, but from what we know of the
+savage and his ways we may fairly assume that they were no mere
+outbursts of unbridled passion, but that in the minds of those who
+practised them they had a definite significance and served a definite
+purpose. The one thing that seems fairly clear about them is that in
+some way they were associated with the worship or propitiation of the
+dead. At all events we are told on good authority that the _Nanga_, or
+sacred enclosure of stones, in which the severed foreskins were offered,
+was "the Sacred Place where the ancestral spirits are to be found by
+their worshippers, and thither offerings are taken on all occasions when
+their aid is to be invoked. Every member of the _Nanga_ has the
+privilege of approaching the ancestors at any time. When sickness visits
+himself or his kinsfolk, when he wishes to invoke the aid of the spirits
+to avert calamity or to secure prosperity, or when he deems it advisable
+to present a thank-offering, he may enter the _Nanga_ with proper
+reverence and deposit on the dividing wall his whale's tooth, or bundle
+of cloth, or dish of toothsome eels so highly prized by the elders, and
+therefore by the ancestors whose living representatives they are: or he
+may drag into the Sacred _Nanga_ his fattened pig, or pile up there his
+offering of the choicest yams. And, having thus recommended himself to
+the dead, he may invoke their powerful aid, or express his thankfulness
+for the benefits they have conferred, and beg for a continuance of their
+goodwill."[692] The first-fruits of the yam harvest were presented with
+great ceremony to the ancestors in the _Nanga_ before the bulk of the
+crop was dug for the people's use, and no man might taste of the new
+yams until the presentation had been made. The yams so offered were
+piled up in the sacred enclosure and left to rot there. If any one were
+impious enough to appropriate them to his own use, it was believed that
+he would be smitten with madness. Great feasts were held at the
+presentation of the first-fruits; and the sacred enclosure itself was
+often 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 rites
+performed in the _Nanga_ or sacred stone enclosure was the periodical
+initiation of young men, who by participation in the ceremony were
+admitted to the full privileges of manhood. According to one account the
+ceremony of initiation was performed as a rule only once in two years;
+according to another account it was observed annually in October or
+November, when the _ndrala_ tree (_Erythrina_) was in flower. The
+flowering of the tree marked the beginning of the Fijian year; hence the
+novices who were initiated at this season bore the title of _Vilavou_,
+that is, "New Year's Men." As a preparation for the feasts which
+attended the ceremony enormous quantities of yams were garnered and
+placed under a strict taboo; pigs were fattened in large numbers, and
+bales of native cloth stored on the tie-beams of the house-roofs. Spears
+of many patterns and curiously carved clubs were also provided against
+the festival. On the day appointed the initiated men went first into the
+sacred enclosure and made their offerings, the chief priest having
+opened the proceedings by libation and prayer. The heads of the novices
+were 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 a
+spear 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. The
+procession was headed by a priest bearing his carved staff of office,
+and it was received on the holy ground by the initiates, who sat
+chanting a song in a deep murmuring tone, which occasionally swelled to
+a considerable volume of sound and was thought to represent the muffled
+roar of the surf breaking on a far-away coral reef. On entering the
+enclosure the youths threw down their weapons before them, and with the
+help of the initiated men divested themselves of the huge folds of
+native cloth in which they were enveloped, each man revolving slowly on
+his axis, while his attendant pulled at the bandage and gathered in the
+slack. The weapons and the cloth were the offerings presented by the
+novices to the ancestral spirits for the purpose of rendering themselves
+acceptable to these powerful beings. The offerings were repeated in like
+manner on four successive days; and as each youth was merely, as it
+were, the central roller of a great bale of cloth, the amount of cloth
+offered was considerable. It was all put away, with the spears and
+clubs, in the sacred storehouse by the initiated men. A feast concluded
+each 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 of
+the young men were shaven again and their bodies swathed in the largest
+and best rolls of cloth. Then, taking their choicest weapons in their
+hands, they followed their leader as before into the sacred enclosure.
+But the outer compartment of the holy place, where on the previous days
+they had been received by the grand chorus of initiated men, was now
+silent and deserted. The procession stopped. A dead silence prevailed.
+Suddenly from the forest a harsh scream of many parrots broke forth, and
+then followed a mysterious booming sound which filled the souls of the
+novices with awe. But now the priest moves slowly forward and leads the
+train of trembling novices for the first time into the inner shrine, the
+Holy of Holies, the _Nanga tambu-tambu_. Here a dreadful spectacle meets
+their startled gaze. In the background sits the high priest, regarding
+them 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 entrails
+protruding. The leader steps over them one by one, and the awestruck
+youths follow him until they stand in a row before the high priest,
+their very souls harrowed by his awful glare. Suddenly he utters a great
+yell, and at the cry the dead men start to their feet, and run down to
+the river to cleanse themselves from the blood and filth with which they
+are besmeared. They are initiated men, who represent the departed
+ancestors for the occasion; and the blood and entrails are those of many
+pigs that have been slaughtered for that night's revelry. The screams of
+the parrots and the mysterious booming sound were produced by a
+concealed orchestra, who screeched appropriately and blew blasts on
+bamboo 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 their
+weapons and the bales of native cloth in which they were swathed. These
+were accordingly removed to the storehouse and the young men were made
+to sit down in front of it. Then the high priest, cheered perhaps by the
+sight of the offerings, unbent the starched dignity of his demeanour.
+Skipping from side to side he cried in stridulous tones, "Where are the
+people of my enclosure? Are they gone to Tongalevu? Are they gone to the
+deep sea?" He had not called long when an answer rang out from the river
+in a deep-mouthed song, and soon the singers came in view moving
+rhythmically to the music of their solemn chant. Singing they filed in
+and 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 of
+it should touch the hands of the bearer; the second carried a piece of
+baked pork similarly enveloped; the third held a drinking-cup of
+coco-nut shell or earthenware filled with water and wrapt round with
+native cloth; and the fourth bore a napkin of the same material.
+Thereupon the first elder passed along the row of novices putting the
+end of the yam into each of their mouths, and as he did so each of them
+nibbled a morsel of the sacred food; the second elder did the same with
+the sacred pork; the third elder followed with the holy water, with
+which each novice merely wetted his lips; and the rear was brought up by
+the fourth elder, who wiped all their mouths with his napkin. Then the
+high priest or one of the elders addressed the young men, warning them
+solemnly against the sacrilege of divulging to the profane any of the
+high mysteries they had seen and heard, and threatening all such
+traitors 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 of
+nearly raw pork; whereupon the young men took the food and went away to
+cook it for eating. When the evening twilight had fallen, a huge pig,
+which had been specially set aside at a former festival, was dragged
+into the sacred enclosure and there presented to the novices, together
+with other swine, if they should be needed to furnish a plenteous
+repast.
+
+[Sidenote: Acceptance of the novices by the ancestral spirits.]
+
+The novices were now "accepted members of the _Nanga_, qualified to take
+their place among the men of the community, though still only on
+probation. As children--their childhood being indicated by their shaven
+heads--they were presented to the ancestors, and their acceptance was
+notified by what (looking at the matter from the natives' standpoint) we
+might, without irreverence, almost call the _sacrament_ of food and
+water, too sacred even for the elders' hands to touch. This acceptance
+was acknowledged and confirmed on the part of all the _Lewe ni Nanga_
+[junior initiated men] by their gift of food, and it was finally
+ratified by the presentation of the Sacred Pig. In like manner, on the
+birth of an infant, its father acknowledges it as legitimate, and
+otherwise acceptable, by a gift of food; and his kinsfolk formally
+signify approval and confirmation of his decision on the part of the
+clan by similar presentations."
+
+[Sidenote: The initiation followed by a period of sexual license. Sacred
+pigs.]
+
+Next morning the women, their hair dyed red and wearing waistbands of
+hibiscus or other fibre, came to the sacred enclosure and crawled
+through it on hands and knees into the Holy of Holies, where the elders
+were singing their solemn chant. The high priest then dipped his hands
+into the water of the sacred bowl and prayed to the ancestral spirits
+for the mothers and for their children. After that the women crawled
+back on hands and feet the way they had come, singing as they went and
+creeping over certain mounds of earth which had been thrown up for the
+purpose in the sacred enclosure. When they emerged from the holy ground,
+the men and women addressed each other in the vilest language, such as
+on ordinary occasions would be violently resented; and thenceforth to
+the close of the ceremonies some days later very great, indeed almost
+unlimited, licence prevailed between the sexes. During these days a
+number of pigs were consecrated to serve for the next ceremony. The
+animals were deemed sacred, and had the run of the fleshpots in the
+villages in which they were kept. Indeed they were held in the greatest
+reverence. To kill one, except for sacrifice at the rites in the
+_Nanga_, would have been a sacrilege which the Fijian mind refused to
+contemplate; and on the other hand to feed the holy swine was an act of
+piety. Men might be seen throwing down basketfuls of food before the
+snouts of the worshipful pigs, and at the same time calling the
+attention of the ancestral spirits to the meritorious deed. "Take
+knowledge of me," they would cry, "ye who lie buried, our heads! I am
+feeding this pig of yours." Finally, all the men who had taken part in
+the ceremonies bathed together in the river, carefully cleansing
+themselves from every particle of the black paint with which they had
+been bedaubed. When the novices, now novices no more, emerged from the
+water, the high priest, standing on the river bank, preached to them an
+eloquent sermon on the duties and responsibilities which devolved on
+them in their new position.[694]
+
+[Sidenote: The intention of the initiatory rites seems to be to
+introduce the young men to the ancestral spirits. The drama of death and
+resurrection. The Fijian rites of initiation seem to have been imported
+by 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 young
+men to the ancestral spirits at their sanctuary, to incorporate them, so
+to say, in the great community which embraces all adult members of the
+tribe, whether living or dead. At all events this interpretation fits in
+very well with the prayers which are offered to the souls of departed
+kinsfolk on these occasions, and it is supported by the analogy of the
+New Guinea initiatory rites which I described in former lectures; for in
+these rites, as I pointed out, the initiation of the youths is closely
+associated with the conceptions of death and the dead, the main feature
+in the ritual consisting indeed of a simulation of death and subsequent
+resurrection. It is, therefore, significant that the very same
+simulation figures prominently in the Fijian ceremony, nay it would seem
+to be the very pivot on which the whole ritual revolves. Yet there is an
+obvious and important difference between the drama of death and
+resurrection as it is enacted in New Guinea and in Fiji; for whereas in
+New 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 the
+ancestors, while the novices merely look on with horror and amazement at
+the awe-inspiring spectacle. Of the two forms of ritual the New Guinea
+one is probably truer to the original purpose of the rite, which seems
+to have been to enable the novices to put off the old, or rather the
+young, man and to put on a higher form of existence by participating in
+the marvellous powers and privileges of the mighty dead. And if such was
+really the intention of the ceremony, it is obvious that it was better
+effected by compelling the young communicants, as we may call them, to
+die and rise from the dead in their own persons than by obliging them to
+assist as mere passive spectators at a dramatic performance of death and
+resurrection. Yet in spite of this difference between the two rituals,
+the general resemblance between them is near enough to justify us in
+conjecturing that there may be a genetic connexion between the one and
+the other. The conjecture is confirmed, first, by the very limited and
+definite area of Fiji in which these initiatory rites were practised,
+and, second, by the equally definite tradition of their origin. With
+regard to the first of these points, the _Nanga_ or sacred stone
+enclosure with its characteristic rites was known only to certain
+tribes, who occupied a comparatively small area, a bare third of the
+island of Viti Levu. These tribes are the Nuyaloa, Vatusila, Mbatiwai,
+and Mdavutukia. They all seem to have spread eastward and southward from
+a place of origin in the western mountain district. Their physical type
+is pure Melanesian, with fewer traces of Polynesian admixture than can
+be detected in the tribes on the coast.[695] Hence it is natural to
+enquire whether the ritual of the _Nanga_ may not have been imported
+into Fiji by Melanesian immigrants from the west. The question appears
+to be answered in the affirmative by native tradition. "This is the word
+of our fathers concerning the _Nanga_," said an old Wainimala grey-beard
+to Mr. Fison. "Long, long ago their fathers were ignorant of it; but one
+day two strangers were found sitting in the _rara_ (public square), and
+they said they had come up from the sea to give them the _Nanga_. They
+were little men, and very dark-skinned, and one of them had his face and
+bust painted red, while the other was painted black. Whether these two
+were gods or men our fathers did not tell us, but it was they who taught
+our people the _Nanga_. This was in the old old times when our fathers
+were living in another land--not in this place, for we are strangers
+here. Our fathers fled hither from Navosa in a great war which arose
+among them, and when they came there was no _Nanga_ in the land. So they
+built one of their own after the fashion of that which they left behind
+them." "Here," says Mr. Basil Thomson, "we have the earliest
+tradition of missionary enterprise in the Pacific. I do not doubt that
+the two sooty-skinned little men were castaways driven eastward by one
+of those strong westerly gales that have been known to last for three
+weeks at a time. By Fijian custom the lives of all castaways were
+forfeit, but the pretence to supernatural powers would have saved men
+full of the religious rites of their Melanesian home, and would have
+assured them a hearing. The Wainimala tribes can name six generations
+since they settled in their present home, and therefore the introduction
+of the _Nanga_ cannot have been less than two centuries ago. During that
+time 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 the
+temporary licence accorded to the sexes and the suspension of
+proprietary rites in general. What is the meaning of this curious and to
+the civilised mind revolting custom? Here again the most probable,
+though merely conjectural, answer is furnished by Mr. Fison. "We cannot
+for a moment believe," he says, "that it is a mere licentious outbreak,
+without an underlying meaning and purpose. It is part of a religious
+rite, and is supposed to be acceptable to the ancestors. But why should
+it be acceptable to them unless it were in accordance with their own
+practice in the far-away past? There may be another solution of this
+difficult problem, but I confess myself unable to find any other which
+will cover all the corroborating facts."[696] In other words, Mr. Fison
+supposes that in the sexual licence and suspension of the rights of
+private property which characterise these festivals we have a
+reminiscence of a time when women and property were held in common by
+the community, and the motive for temporarily resuscitating these
+obsolete customs was a wish to propitiate the ancestral spirits, who
+were thought to be gratified by witnessing a revival of that primitive
+communism 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 the
+construction of a _Nanga_ or sacred stone enclosure, as it used to exist
+in Fiji. At the present day only ruins of these structures are to be
+seen, but by an observation of the ruins and a comparison of the
+traditions which still survive among the natives on the subject it is
+possible to reconstruct one of them with a fair degree of exactness. A
+_Nanga_ has been described as an open-air temple, and the description is
+just. It consisted of a rough parallelogram enclosed by flat stones set
+upright and embedded endwise in the earth. The length of the enclosure
+thus formed was about one hundred feet and its breadth about fifty feet.
+The upright stones which form the outer walls are from eighteen inches
+to three feet high, but as they do not always touch they may be
+described as alignments rather than walls. The long walls or alignments
+run east and west, the short ones north and south; but the orientation
+is not very exact. At the eastern end are two pyramidal heaps of stones,
+about five feet high, with square sloping sides and flat tops. The
+narrow passage between them is the main entrance into the sacred
+enclosure. Internally the structure was divided into three separate
+enclosures or compartments by two cross-walls of stone running north and
+south. These compartments, taking them from east to west, were called
+respectively the Little Nanga, the Great Nanga, and the Sacred Nanga or
+Holy of Holies (_Nanga tambu-tambu_). The partition walls between them
+were built solid of stones, with battering sides, to a height of five
+feet, and in the middle of each there was an opening to allow the
+worshippers to pass from one compartment to another. Trees, such as the
+candlenut and the red-leaved dracaena, and odoriferous shrubs were
+planted round the enclosure; and outside of it, to the west of the Holy
+of Holies, was a bell-roofed hut called _Vale tambu_, the Sacred House
+or Temple. The sacred _kava_ bowl stood in the Holy of Holies.[697] It
+is said that when the two traditionary founders of the _Nanga_ in Fiji
+were 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 that
+the people of the tribe, both old and young, might live before
+them."[698]
+
+[Sidenote: Comparison of the _Nanga_ with the cromlechs and other
+megalithic monuments of Europe.]
+
+The sacred enclosures of stones which I have described have been
+compared to the alignments of stones at Carnac in Brittany and Merivale
+on Dartmoor, and it has been suggested that in the olden time these
+ancient European monuments may have witnessed religious rites like those
+which were till lately performed in the rude open-air temples of
+Fiji.[699] If there is any truth in the suggestion, which I mention for
+what it is worth, it would furnish another argument in favour of the
+view that our European cromlechs and other megalithic monuments were
+erected specially for the worship of the dead. The mortuary character of
+Stonehenge, for example, is at least suggested by the burial mounds
+which cluster thick around and within sight of it; about three hundred
+such tombs have been counted within a radius of three miles, while the
+rest of the country in the neighbourhood is comparatively free from
+them.[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 Exploring
+Expedition_, 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 seaman
+who resided alone among the Fijians for nearly two years and learned
+their language.]
+
+[Footnote 681: Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 96.]
+
+[Footnote 682: _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnology and
+Philology_, by H. Hale (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 65. Compare Capt. J. E.
+Erskine, _op. cit._ p. 248: "It would also seem that a belief in the
+resurrection of the body, in the exact condition in which it leaves the
+world, is one of the causes that induce, in many instances, a desire for
+death in the vigour of manhood, rather than in the decrepitude of old
+age"; Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 183: "The heathen notion is, that, as
+they die, such will their condition be in another world; hence their
+desire 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 from
+Old 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 of
+circumcision was after the death of a chief, and he tells us that "many
+rude games attend it. Blindfolded youths strike at thin vessels of water
+hung from the branch of a tree. At Lakemba, the men arm themselves with
+branches of the cocoa-nut, and carry on a sham fight. At Ono, they
+wrestle. At Mbau, they fillip small stones from the end of a bamboo with
+sufficient 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 Stone
+Enclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji," _Journal of the Anthropological
+Institute_, xiv. (1885) pp. 27 _sq._ On the other hand Mr. Basil
+Thomson's enquiries, made at a later date, did not confirm Mr. Fison's
+statement that the rite of circumcision was practised as a propitiation
+to recover a chief from sickness. "I was assured," he says, "on the
+contrary, that while offerings were certainly made in the _Nanga_ for
+the recovery of the sick, every youth was circumcised as a matter of
+routine, and that the rite was in no way connected with sacrifice for
+the sick" (Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp. 156 _sq._). However, Mr.
+Fison was a very careful and accurate enquirer, and his testimony is not
+to be lightly set aside.]
+
+[Footnote 692: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred Stone
+Enclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji," _Journal of the Anthropological
+Institute_, xiv. (1885) p. 26. Compare Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, p.
+147: "The _Nanga_ was the 'bed' of the Ancestors, that is, the spot
+where their descendants might hold communion with them; the _Mbaki_ were
+the rites celebrated in the _Nanga_, whether of initiating the youths,
+or of presenting the first-fruits, or of recovering the sick, or of
+winning charms against wounds in battle."]
+
+[Footnote 693: Rev. Lorimer Fison, _op. cit._ p. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 694: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred Stone
+Enclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji," _Journal of the Anthropological
+Institute_, xiv. (1885) pp. 14-26. The _Nanga_ and its rites have also
+been described by Mr. A. B. Joske ("The Nanga of Viti-levu,"
+_Internationales Archiv fuer Ethnographie_, ii. (1889) pp. 254-266), and
+Mr. Basil Thomson (_The Fijians_, pp. 146-156). As to the interval
+between the initiatory ceremonies Mr. Fison tells us that it was
+normally two years, but he adds: "This period, however, is not
+necessarily restricted to two years. There are always a number of youths
+who are growing to the proper age, and the length of the interval
+depends upon the decision of the elders. Whenever they judge that there
+is a sufficient number of youths ready for admission, a _Nanga_ is
+appointed 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 evidence
+as to the gross license which prevailed between the sexes after the
+admission of the women to the sacred enclosure is confirmed by Mr. Basil
+Thomson, who says, amongst other things, that "a native of Mbau, who
+lived for some years near the _Nanga_, assured me that the visit of the
+women to the _Nanga_ resulted in temporary promiscuity; all tabus were
+defied, and relations who could not speak to one another by customary
+law committed incest" (_op. cit._ p. 154).]
+
+[Footnote 695: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred Stone
+Enclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji," _Journal of the Anthropological
+Institute_, 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 so
+alike that one description would serve for all. He speaks of only two
+inner compartments, which he calls the Holy of Holies (_Nanga
+tambu-tambu_) and the Middle Nanga (_Loma ni Nanga_), but the latter
+name appears to imply a third compartment, which is explicitly mentioned
+and named by Mr. Fison. The bell-shaped hut or temple to the west of the
+sacred 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 (Lord
+Avebury), _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 in
+certain parts of Fiji used to be celebrated at the sacred enclosures of
+stones known as _Nangas_. But the worship of ancestral spirits was by no
+means confined to the comparatively small area in Fiji where such sacred
+enclosures were erected, nor were these open-air temples the only
+structures where the homage of the living was paid to the dead. On the
+contrary we are told by one who knew the Fijians in the old heathen days
+that among them "as soon as beloved parents expire, they take their
+place amongst the family gods. _Bures_, or temples, are erected to their
+memory, and offerings deposited either on their graves or on rudely
+constructed altars--mere stages, in the form of tables, the legs of
+which are driven into the ground, and the top of which is covered with
+pieces of native cloth. The construction of these altars is identical
+with that observed by Turner in Tanna, and only differs in its inferior
+finish from the altars formerly erected in Tahiti and the adjacent
+islands. The offerings, consisting of the choicest articles of food, are
+left exposed to wind and weather, and firmly believed by the mass of
+Fijians to be consumed by the spirits of departed friends and relations;
+but, if not eaten by animals, they are often stolen by the more
+enlightened class of their countrymen, and even some of the foreigners
+do 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 a
+young chief to empty a bowl containing _kava_, which he did, muttering
+to himself, 'There, father, is some _kava_ for you. Protect me from
+illness or breaking any of my limbs whilst in the mountains.'"[701]
+
+[Sidenote: Fijian notion of divinity. Two classes of gods, namely, gods
+strictly so called, and deified men.]
+
+"The native word expressive of divinity is _kalou_, which, while used to
+denote the people's highest notion of a god, is also constantly heard as
+a qualificative of any thing great or marvellous, or, according to
+Hazlewood's Dictionary, 'anything superlative, whether good or bad.'...
+Often the word sinks into a mere exclamation, or becomes an expression
+of flattery. 'You are a _kalou_!' or, 'Your countrymen are gods!' is
+often uttered by the natives, when hearing of the triumphs of art among
+civilized nations."[702] The Fijians distinguished two classes of gods:
+first, _kalou vu_, literally "Root-gods," that is, gods strictly so
+called, and second, _kalou yalo_, literally, "Soul-gods," that is,
+deified mortals. Gods of the first class were supposed to be absolutely
+eternal; gods of the second class, though raised far above mere
+humanity, were thought nevertheless to be subject to human passions and
+wants, to accidents, and even to death. These latter were the spirits of
+departed chiefs, heroes, and friends; admission into their number was
+easy, and any one might secure his own apotheosis who could ensure the
+services of some one to act as his representative and priest after his
+death.[703] However, though the Fijians admitted the distinction between
+the two classes of gods in theory, they would seem to have confused them
+in practice. Thus we are informed by an early authority that "they have
+superior and inferior gods and goddesses, more general and local
+deities, and, were it not an obvious contradiction, we should say they
+have gods _human_, and gods _divine_; for they have some gods who were
+gods originally, and some who were originally men. It is impossible to
+ascertain with any degree of probability how many gods the Fijians have,
+as any man who can distinguish himself in murdering his fellow-men may
+certainly secure to himself deification after death. Their friends are
+also sometimes deified and invoked. I have heard them invoke their
+friends who have been drowned at sea. I need not advert to the absurdity
+of praying to those who could not save themselves from a watery grave.
+Tuikilakila, the chief of Somosomo, offered Mr. Hunt a preferment of
+this sort. 'If you die first,' said he, 'I shall make you my god.' In
+fact, there appears to be no certain line of demarcation between
+departed spirits and gods, nor between gods and living men, for many of
+the priests and old chiefs are considered as sacred persons, and not a
+few of them will also claim to themselves the right of divinity. 'I am a
+god,' Tuikilakila would sometimes say; and he believed it too. They were
+not merely the words of his lips; he believed he was something above a
+mere man."[704]
+
+Writers on Fiji have given us lists of some of the principal gods of the
+first class,[705] who were supposed never to have been men; but in their
+account of the religious ritual they do not distinguish between the
+worship which was paid to such deities and that which was paid to
+deified men. Accordingly we may infer that the ritual was practically
+the same, and in the sequel I shall assume that what is told us of the
+worship of gods in general holds good of the worship of deified men in
+particular.
+
+[Sidenote: The Fijian temple (_bure_).]
+
+Every Fijian town had at least one _bure_ or temple, many of them had
+several. Significantly enough the spot where a chief had been killed was
+sometimes chosen for the site of a temple. The structure of these
+edifices was somewhat peculiar. Each of them was built on the top of a
+mound, which was raised to the height of from three to twenty feet above
+the 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 of
+which was cut into notched steps. The proportions of the sacred edifice
+itself were inelegant, if not uncouth, its height being nearly twice as
+great as its breadth at the base. The roof was high-pitched; the
+ridge-pole was covered with white shells (_Ovula cypraea_) and projected
+three or four feet at each end. For the most part each temple had two
+doors and a fire-place in the centre. From some temples it was not
+lawful to throw out the ashes, however much they might accumulate, until
+the end of the year, which fell in November. The furniture consisted of
+a few boxes, mats, several large clay jars, and many drinking vessels. A
+temple might also contain images, which, though highly esteemed as
+ornaments and held sacred, were not worshipped as idols. From the roof
+depended a long piece of white bark-cloth; it was carried down the angle
+so as to hang before the corner-post and lie on the floor. This cloth
+formed the path down which the god was believed to pass in order to
+enter and inspire his priest. It marked the holy place which few but he
+dared to approach. However, the temples were by no means dedicated
+exclusively to the use of religion. Each of them served also as a
+council-chamber and town-hall; there the chiefs lounged for hours
+together; there strangers were entertained; and there the head persons
+of the village might even sleep.[706] In some parts of Viti Levu the
+dead were sometimes buried in the temples, "that the wind might not
+disturb, nor the rain fall upon them," and in order that the living
+might have the satisfaction of lying near their departed friends. A
+child of high rank having died under the charge of the queen of
+Somosomo, the little body was placed in a box and hung from the tie-beam
+of the principal temple. For some months afterwards the daintiest food
+was brought daily to the dead child, the bearers approaching with the
+utmost respect and clapping their hands when the ghost was thought to
+have finished his meal just as a chiefs retainers used to do when he had
+done 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 necessary
+repairs were first carried out. No regular worship was maintained, no
+habitual reverence was displayed at the shrines. The principle of fear,
+we are told, seemed to be the only motive of religious observances, and
+it was artfully fomented by the priests, through whom alone the people
+had access to the gods when they desired to supplicate the favour of the
+divine 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, or
+spear sufficed. Of the food brought by the worshippers part was
+dedicated to the god, but as usual he only ate the soul of it, the
+substance being consumed by the priest and old men; the remainder
+furnished a feast of which all might partake.[708]
+
+[Sidenote: The priests.]
+
+The office of priest (_mbete_, _bete_) was usually hereditary, but when
+a priest died without male heirs a cunning fellow, ambitious of enjoying
+the sacred character and of living in idleness, would sometimes simulate
+the convulsive frenzy, which passed for a symptom of inspiration, and if
+he succeeded in the imposture would be inducted into the vacant
+benefice. Every chief had his priest, with whom he usually lived on a
+very good footing, the two playing into each other's hands and working
+the oracle for their mutual benefit. The people were grossly
+superstitious, and there were few of their affairs in which the priest
+had not a hand. His influence over them was great. In his own district
+he passed for the representative of the deity; indeed, according to an
+early missionary, the natives seldom distinguished the idea of the god
+from that of his minister, who was viewed by them with a reverence that
+almost 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 the
+god, 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, for
+showers of rain, for protection in battle, for a safe voyage, or for a
+storm to drive canoes ashore, so that the supplicant might rob, murder,
+and eat the castaways. To lend force to one or other of these pious
+prayers the worshipper brought a whale's tooth to the temple and
+presented it to the priest. The man of god might have had word of his
+coming and time to throw himself into an appropriate attitude. He might,
+for example, be seen lying on the floor near the sacred corner, plunged
+in a profound meditation. On the entrance of the enquirer the priest
+would rouse himself so far as to get up and then seat himself with his
+back to the white cloth, down which the deity was expected to slide into
+the medium's body. Having received the whale's tooth he would abstract
+his mind from all worldly matters and contemplate the tooth for some
+time with rapt attention. Presently he began to tremble, his limbs
+twitched, his features were distorted. These symptoms, the visible
+manifestation of the entrance of the spirit into him, gradually
+increased in violence till his whole frame was convulsed and shook as
+with a strong fit of ague: his veins swelled: the circulation of the
+blood 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 said
+and did in the paroxysm passed for the words and acts of the indwelling
+deity. Shrill cries of "_Koi au! Koi au!_" "It is I! It is I!" filled
+the air, proclaiming the actual presence of the powerful spirit in the
+vessel of flesh and blood. In giving the oracular response the priest's
+eyes protruded from their sockets and rolled as in a frenzy: his voice
+rose into a squeak: his face was pallid, his lips livid, his breathing
+depressed, his whole appearance that of a furious madman. At last sweat
+burst from every pore, tears gushed from his eyes: the strain on the
+organism was visibly relieved; and the symptoms gradually abated. Then
+he 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 by
+throwing himself on his mat or striking the ground with his club, while
+blasts on a shell-trumpet conveyed to those at a distance the tidings
+that the deity had withdrawn from mortal sight into the world
+invisible.[710] "I have seen," says Mr. Lorimer Fison, "this possession,
+and a horrible sight it is. In one case, after the fit was over, for
+some time the man's muscles and nerves twitched and quivered in an
+extraordinary way. He was naked except for his breech-clout, and on his
+naked breast little snakes seemed to be wriggling for a moment or two
+beneath his skin, disappearing and then suddenly reappearing in another
+part of his chest. When the _mbete_ (which we may translate 'priest' for
+want of a better word) is seized by the possession, the god within him
+calls out his own name in a stridulous tone, 'It is I! Katouviere!' or
+some other name. At the next possession some other ancestor may declare
+himself."[711]
+
+[Sidenote: Specimens of the oracular utterances of Fijian gods.]
+
+From this last description of an eye-witness we learn that the spirit
+which possessed a priest and spoke through him was often believed to be
+that of a dead ancestor. Some of the inspired utterances of these
+prophets have been recorded. Here are specimens of Fijian inspiration.
+Speaking in the name of the great god Ndengei, who was worshipped in the
+form 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, I
+shall sink it into the sea, whilst Kamba shall rise to the sky. If I
+step on Kamba, it will be lost in the sea, whilst Muaimbila would rise
+into the skies. Yes, Viti Levu is my small war-club. I can turn it as I
+please. I can turn it upside down." Again, speaking by the mouth of a
+priest, the god Tanggirianima once made the following observations: "I
+and Kumbunavannua only are gods. I preside over wars, and do as I please
+with sickness. But it is difficult for me to come here, as the foreign
+god fills the place. If I attempt to descend by that pillar, I find it
+pre-occupied by the foreign god. If I try another pillar, I find it the
+same. However, we two are fighting the foreign god; and if we are
+victorious, we will save the woman. I _will_ save the woman. She will
+eat food to-day. Had I been sent for yesterday, she would have eaten
+then," and so on. The woman, about whose case the deity was consulted
+and whom he announced his fixed intention of saving, died a few hours
+afterwards.[712]
+
+[Sidenote: Human sacrifices in Fiji.]
+
+Ferocious and inveterate cannibals themselves, the Fijians naturally
+assumed that their gods were so too; hence human flesh was a common
+offering, indeed the most valued of all.[713] Formal human sacrifices
+were frequent. The victims were usually taken from a distant tribe, and
+when war and violence failed to supply the demand, recourse was
+sometimes had to negotiation. However obtained, the victims destined for
+sacrifice were often kept for a time and fattened to make them better
+eating. Then, tightly bound in a sitting posture, they were placed on
+hot stones in one of the usual ovens, and being covered over with leaves
+and earth were roasted alive, while the spectators roared with laughter
+at the writhings and contortions of the victims in their agony. When
+their struggles ceased and the bodies were judged to be done to a
+nicety, they were raked out of the oven, their faces painted black, and
+so carried to the temple, where they were presented to the gods, only,
+however, to be afterwards removed, cut up, and devoured by the
+people.[714]
+
+[Sidenote: Human sacrifices offered when a king's house was built or a
+great new canoe launched.]
+
+However, roasting alive in ovens was not the only way in which men and
+women were made away with in the service of religion. When a king's
+house was built, men were buried alive in the holes dug to receive the
+posts: they were compelled to clasp the posts in their arms, and then
+the earth was shovelled over them and rammed down. And when a large new
+canoe was launched, it was hauled down to the sea over the bodies of
+living men, who were pinioned and laid out at intervals on the beach to
+serve as rollers on which the great vessel glided smoothly into the
+water, leaving a row of mangled corpses behind. The theory of both these
+modes of sacrifice was explained by the Fijians to an Englishman who
+witnessed them. I will quote their explanation in his words. "They said
+in answer to the questions I put respecting the people being buried
+alive with the posts, that a house or palace of a king was just like a
+king's canoe: if the canoe was not hauled over men, as rollers, she
+would not be expected to float long, and in like manner the palace could
+not stand long if people were not to sit down and continually hold the
+posts up. But I said, 'How could they hold the posts up after they were
+dead?' They said, if they sacrificed their lives endeavouring to hold
+the posts in their right position to their superior's _turanga kai na
+kalou_ (chiefs and god), that the virtue of the sacrifice would
+instigate the gods to uphold the house after they were dead, and that
+they were honoured by being considered adequate to such a noble
+task."[715] Apparently the Fijians imagined that the souls of the dead
+men would somehow strengthen the souls of the houses and canoes and so
+prolong the lives of these useful objects; for it is to be remembered
+that according to Fijian theology houses and canoes as well as men and
+women 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 high
+honour in which the Fijian held the act of murder and for the admiration
+which he bestowed on all murderers. "Shedding of blood," we are told,
+"to him is no crime, but a glory. Whoever may be the victim,--whether
+noble or vulgar, old or young, man, woman, or child,--whether slain in
+war, or butchered by treachery,--to be somehow an acknowledged murderer
+is the object of the Fijian's restless ambition."[716] It was customary
+throughout Fiji to give honorary names to such as had clubbed to death a
+human being, of any age or either sex, during a war. The new epithet was
+given with the complimentary prefix _Koroi_. Mr. Williams once asked a
+man why he was called _Koroi_. "Because," he replied, "I, with several
+other men, found some women and children in a cave, drew them out and
+clubbed them, and then was consecrated."[717] Mr. Fison learned from
+another stout young warrior that he had earned the honourable
+distinction of _Koroi_ by lying in wait among the mangrove bushes at the
+waterside and killing a miserable old woman of a hostile tribe, as she
+crept along the mudflat seeking for shellfish. The man would have been
+equally honoured, adds Mr. Fison, if his victim had been a child. The
+hero of such an exploit, for two or three days after killing his man or
+woman, was allowed to besmear his face and bust with a mixture of
+lampblack and oil which differed from the common black war-paint;
+decorated with this badge of honour he strutted proudly through the
+town, the cynosure of all eyes, an object of envy to his fellows and of
+tender interest to the girls. The old men shouted approval after him,
+the women would _lulilu_ admiringly as he passed by, and the boys looked
+up to him as a superior being whose noble deeds they thirsted to
+emulate. Higher titles of honour still were bestowed on such as had
+slain their ten, or twenty, or thirty; and Mr. Fison tells us of a chief
+whose admiring countrymen had to compound all these titles into one in
+order to set forth his superlative claims to glory. A man who had never
+killed anybody was of very little account in this life, and he received
+the penalty due to his sin in the life hereafter. For in the spirit land
+the ghost of such a poor-spirited wretch was sentenced to what the
+Fijians regarded as the most degrading of all punishments, to beat a
+heap of muck with his bloodless club.[718]
+
+[Sidenote: Ceremony of consecrating a manslayer. The temporary
+restrictions laid on a manslayer were probably dictated by a fear of his
+victim's ghost.]
+
+The ceremony of consecrating a manslayer was elaborate. He was anointed
+with red oil from the hair of his head to the soles of his feet; and
+when he had been thus incarnadined he exchanged clubs with the
+spectators, who believed that their weapons acquired a mysterious virtue
+by passing through his holy hands. Afterwards the anointed one, attended
+by the king and elders, solemnly stalked down to the sea and wetted the
+soles of his feet in the water. Then the whole company returned to the
+town, while the shell-trumpets sounded and the men raised a peculiar
+hoot. Custom required that a hut should be built in which the anointed
+man and his companions must pass the next three nights, during which the
+hero might not lie down, but had to sleep as he sat; all that time he
+might not change his bark-cloth garment, nor wash the red paint away
+from his body, nor enter a house in which there was a woman.[719] The
+reason for observing these curious restrictions is not mentioned, but in
+the light of similar practices, some of which have been noticed in these
+lectures,[720] we may conjecture that they were dictated by a fear of
+the victim's ghost, who among savages generally haunts his slayer and
+will do him a mischief, if he gets a chance. As it is especially in
+dreams that the naturally incensed spirit finds his opportunity, we can
+perhaps understand why the slayer might not lie down for the first three
+nights after the slaughter; the wrath of the ghost would then be at its
+hottest, and if he spied his murderer stretched in slumber on the
+ground, the temptation to take an unfair advantage of him might have
+been too strong to be resisted. But when his anger had had time to cool
+down or he had departed for his long home, as ghosts generally do after
+a reasonable time, the precautions taken to baffle his vengeance might
+be safely relaxed. Perhaps, as I have already hinted, the reverence
+which the Fijians felt for any man who had taken a human life, or at all
+events the life of an enemy, may have partly sprung from a belief that
+the slayer increased his own strength and valour either by subjugating
+the ghost of his victim and employing it as his henchman, or perhaps
+rather by simply absorbing in some occult fashion the vital energy of
+the slain. This view is confirmed by the permission given to the killer
+to assume the name of the killed, whenever his victim was a man of
+distinguished rank;[721] for by taking the name he, according to an
+opinion 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 manifested
+itself, if my interpretation of the customs is right, in the treatment
+of manslayers, seems to have imprinted itself, though in a more
+attenuated form, on some of the practices observed by Fijian mourners
+after 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 touch
+anything for some time afterwards; in particular they were strictly
+debarred from touching their food with their hands; their victuals were
+brought to them by others, and they were fed like infants by attendants
+or obliged to pick up their food with their mouths from the ground. The
+time during which this burdensome restriction lasted was different
+according to the rank of the deceased: in the case of great chiefs it
+lasted from two to ten months; in the case of a petty chief it did not
+exceed one month; and in the case of a common person a taboo of not more
+than four days sufficed. When a chief's principal wife did not follow
+him to the other world by being strangled or buried alive, she might not
+touch her own food with her hands for three months. When the mourners
+grew 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 would
+remove the taboo whenever they pleased. Accordingly they sent him
+presents of pigs and other provisions, which he shared among the people.
+Then the tabooed persons went into a stream and washed themselves; after
+that they caught some animal, such as a pig or a turtle, and wiped their
+hands on it, and the animal thereupon became sacred to the chief. Thus
+the taboo was removed, and the men were free once more to work, to feed
+themselves, and to live with their wives. Lazy and idle fellows
+willingly undertook the duty of waiting on the dead, as it relieved them
+for some time from the painful necessity of earning their own
+bread.[722] The reason why such persons might not touch food with their
+hands was probably a fear of the ghost or at all events of the infection
+of death; the ghost or the infection might be clinging to their hands
+and 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 was
+hereditary in a certain clan. After the funeral the grave-digger was
+shut up in a house and painted black from head to foot. When he had to
+make a short excursion, he covered himself with a large mantle of
+painted native cloth and was supposed to be invisible. His food was
+brought to the house after dark by silent bearers, who placed it just
+within the doorway. His seclusion might last for a long time;[723] it
+was 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, or
+very 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 occasions
+they used to wear wigs, some of which were very skilfully made. The
+practice of cutting off finger-joints in mourning has already been
+mentioned; one early authority affirms and another denies that joints of
+the little toes were similarly amputated by the living as a mark of
+sorrow for the dead. So common was the practice of lopping off the
+little fingers in mourning that till recently few of the older natives
+could be found who had their hands intact; most of them indeed had lost
+the little fingers of both hands. There was a Fijian saying that the
+fourth finger "cried itself hoarse in vain for its absent mate"
+(_droga-droga-wale_). The mutilation was usually confined to the
+relations of the deceased, unless he happened to be one of the highest
+chiefs. However, the severed joints were often sent by poor people to
+wealthy families in mourning, who never failed to reward the senders for
+so delicate a mark of sympathy. Female mourners burned their skin into
+blisters by applying lighted rolls of bark-cloth to various parts of
+their bodies; the brands so produced might be seen on their arms,
+shoulders, necks, and breasts.[724] During the mourning for a king
+people fasted till evening for ten or twenty days; the coast for miles
+was 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 in
+leaves 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 suppose
+that they were intended to soothe and please the ghost by testifying to
+the sorrow felt by the survivors at his decease. It is more doubtful
+whether the same explanation would apply to another custom which the
+Fijians used to observe in mourning. During ten days after a death,
+while the soul of a deceased chief was thought to be still lingering in
+or near his body, all the women of the town provided themselves with
+long whips, knotted with shells, and applied them with great vigour to
+the bodies of the men, raising weals and inflicting bloody wounds, while
+the men retorted by flirting pellets of clay from splinters of
+bamboo.[726] According to Mr. Williams, this ceremony was performed on
+the tenth day or earlier, and he adds: "I have seen grave personages,
+not accustomed to move quickly, flying with all possible speed before a
+company of such women. Sometimes the men retaliate by bespattering their
+assailants with mud; but they use no violence, as it seems to be a day
+on which they are bound to succumb."[727] As the soul of the dead was
+believed to quit his body and depart to his destined abode on the tenth
+day after death,[728] the scourging of the men by the women was probably
+supposed 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 in
+a wall. Examples of the custom among Aryan peoples.]
+
+When a certain king of Fiji died, the side of the house was broken down
+to allow the body to be carried out, though there were doorways wide
+enough for the purpose close at hand. The missionary who records the
+fact could not learn the reason of it.[729] The custom of taking the
+dead out of the house by a special opening, which is afterwards closed
+up, has not been confined to Fiji; on the contrary it has been practised
+by a multitude of peoples, savage, barbarous, and civilised, in many
+parts of the world. For example, it was an old Norse rule that a corpse
+might not be carried out of the house by the door which was used by the
+living; hence a hole was made in the wall at the back of the dead man's
+head and he was taken out through it backwards, or a hole was dug in the
+ground 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 or
+Indo-european peoples, for it is mentioned in other of their ancient
+records and has been observed by widely separated branches of that great
+family down to modern times. Thus, the Zend-Avesta prescribes that, when
+a death has occurred, a breach shall be made in the wall and the corpse
+carried out through it by two men, who have first stripped off their
+clothes.[731] In Russia "the corpse was often carried out of the house
+through a window, or through a hole made for the purpose, and the custom
+is still kept up in many parts."[732] Speaking of the Hindoos a French
+traveller of the eighteenth century says that "instead of carrying the
+corpse out by the door they make an opening in the wall by which they
+pass it out in a seated posture, and the hole is closed up after the
+ceremony."[733] Among various Hindoo castes it is still customary, when
+a death has occurred on an inauspicious day, to remove the corpse from
+the house not through the door, but through a temporary hole made in the
+wall.[734] Old German law required that the corpses of criminals and
+suicides should be carried out through a hole under the threshold.[735]
+In the Highlands of Scotland the bodies of suicides were not taken out
+of the house for burial by the doors, but through an opening made
+between 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. It
+was an ancient Chinese practice to knock down part of the wall of a
+house for the purpose of carrying out a corpse.[737] Some of the
+Canadian Indians would never take a corpse out of the hut by the
+ordinary door, but always lifted a piece of the bark wall near which the
+dead man lay and then drew him through the opening.[738] Among the
+Esquimaux of Bering Strait a corpse is usually raised through the
+smoke-hole in the roof, but is never taken out by the doorway. Should
+the smoke-hole be too small, an opening is made in the rear of the house
+and then closed again.[739] When a Greenlander dies, "they do not carry
+out the corpse through the entry of the house, but lift it through the
+window, 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 backward
+and forward, and says: 'There is nothing more to be had here.'"[740]
+Similarly the Hottentots, Bechuanas, Basutos, Marotse, Barongo, and many
+other tribes of South and West Africa never carry a corpse out by the
+door of the hut but always by a special opening made in the wall.[741] A
+similar custom is observed by the maritime Gajos of Sumatra[742] and by
+some of the Indian tribes of North-west America, such as the Tlingit and
+the Haida.[743] Among the Lepchis of Sikhim, whose houses are raised on
+piles, the dead are taken out by a hole made in the floor.[744] Dwellers
+in tents who practise this custom remove a corpse from the tent, not by
+the door, but through an opening made by lifting up an edge of the
+tent-cover: this is done by European gypsies[745] and by the Koryak of
+north-eastern Asia.[746]
+
+[Sidenote: The motive of the custom is a desire to prevent the ghost
+from returning to the house.]
+
+In all such customs the original motive probably was a fear of the ghost
+and a wish to exclude him from the house, lest he should return and
+carry off the survivors with him to the spirit land. Ghosts are commonly
+credited with a low degree of intelligence, and it appears to be
+supposed that they can only find their way back to a house by the
+aperture through which their bodies were carried out. Hence people made
+a practice of taking a corpse out not by the door, but through an
+opening specially made for the purpose, which was afterwards blocked up,
+so that when the ghost returned from the grave and attempted to enter
+the house, he found the orifice closed and was obliged to turn away
+disappointed. That this was the train of reasoning actually followed by
+some peoples may be gathered from the explanations which they themselves
+give of the custom. Thus among the Tuski of Alaska "those who die a
+natural death are carried out through a hole cut in the back of the hut
+or _yarang_. This is immediately closed up, that the spirit of the dead
+man may not find his way back."[747] Among the Esquimaux of Hudson Bay
+"the nearest relatives on approach of death remove the invalid to the
+outside of the house, for if he should die within he must not be carried
+out of the door but through a hole cut in the side wall, and it must
+then be carefully closed to prevent the spirit of the person from
+returning."[748] Again, "when a Siamese is dead, his relations deposit
+the body in a coffin well covered. They do not pass it through the door
+but let it down into the street by an opening which they make in the
+wall. They also carry it thrice round the house, running at the top of
+their speed. They believe that if they did not take this precaution, the
+dead man would remember the way by which he had passed, and that he
+would return by night to do some ill turn to his family."[749] In
+Travancore the body of a dead rajah "is taken out of the palace through
+a breach in the wall, made for the purpose, to avoid pollution of the
+gate, and afterwards built up again so that the departed spirit may not
+return through the gate to trouble the survivors."[750] Among the Kayans
+of Borneo, whose dwellings are raised on piles above the ground, the
+coffin is conveyed out of the house by lowering it with rattans either
+through the floor, planks being taken up for the purpose, or under the
+eaves at the side of the gallery. "In this way they avoid carrying it
+down the house-ladder; and it seems to be felt that this precaution
+renders it more difficult for the ghost to find its way back to the
+house."[751] Among the Cheremiss of Russia, "old custom required that
+the corpse should not be carried out by the door but through a breach in
+the north wall, where there is usually a sash-window. But the custom has
+long been obsolete, even among the heathen, and only very old people
+speak of it. They explain it as follows: to carry it out by the door
+would be to shew the _Asyren_ (the dead man) the right way into the
+house, whereas a breach in the wooden wall is immediately closed by
+replacing the beams in position, and thus the _Asyren_ would in vain
+seek for an entrance."[752] The Samoyeds never carry a corpse out of the
+hut by the door, but lift up a piece of the reindeer-skin covering and
+draw the body out, head foremost, through the opening. They think that
+if they were to carry a corpse out by the door, the ghost would soon
+return and fetch away other members of the family.[753] On the same
+principle, as soon as the Indians of Tumupasa, in north-west Bolivia,
+have carried a corpse out of the house, "they shift the door to the
+opposite side, in order that the deceased may not be able to find
+it."[754] Once more, in Mecklenburg "it is a law regulating the return
+of the dead that they are compelled to return by the same way by which
+the corpse was removed from the house. In the villages of Picher,
+Bresegard, and others the people used to have movable thresholds at the
+house-doors, which, being fitted into the door-posts, could be shoved
+up. 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 persons
+whose ghosts are especially feared.]
+
+Even without such express testimonies to the meaning of the custom we
+may infer from a variety of evidence that the real motive for practising
+it is a fear of the ghost and a wish to prevent his return. For it is to
+be observed that some peoples do not carry out all their dead by a
+special opening, but that they accord this peculiar mode of removal only
+to persons who die under unlucky or disgraceful circumstances, and whose
+ghosts accordingly are more than usually dreaded. Thus we have seen that
+some modern Hindoo castes observe the custom only in the case of people
+who have died on inauspicious days; and that in Germany and the
+Highlands of Scotland this mode of removal was specially reserved for
+the bodies of suicides, whose ghosts are exceedingly feared by many
+people, as appears from the stringent precautions taken against
+them.[756] Again, among the Kavirondo of Central Africa, "when a woman
+dies without having borne a child, she is carried out of the back of the
+house. A hole is made in the wall and the corpse is ignominiously pushed
+through the hole and carried some distance to be buried, as it is
+considered a curse to die without a child. If the woman has given birth
+to a child, then her corpse is carried out through the front door and
+buried in the verandah of the house."[757] In Brittany a stillborn child
+is removed from the house, not by the door, but by the window; "for if
+by ill-luck it should chance otherwise, the mothers who should pass
+through that fatal door would bear nothing but stillborn infants."[758]
+In Perche, another province of France, the same rule is observed with
+regard to stillborn children, though the reason for it is not
+alleged.[759] But of all ghosts none perhaps inspire such deep and
+universal terror as the ghosts of women who have died in childbed, and
+extraordinary measures are accordingly taken to disable these dangerous
+spirits from returning and doing a mischief to the living.[760] Amongst
+the precautions adopted to keep them at bay is the custom of carrying
+their corpses out of the house by a special opening, which is afterwards
+blocked up. Thus in Laos, a province of Siam, "the bodies of women dying
+in childbirth, or within a month afterwards, are not even taken out of
+the house in the ordinary way by the door, but are let down through the
+floor."[761] The Kachins of Burma stand in such fear of the ghosts of
+women dying in childbed that no sooner has such a death occurred than
+the husband, the children, and almost all the people in the house take
+to flight lest the woman's ghost should bite them. "The body of the
+deceased must be burned as soon as possible in order to punish her for
+dying 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 her
+from seeing anything; they wrap her in a mat, and they carry her out of
+the house, not by the ordinary door, but by an opening made for the
+purpose in the wall or the floor of the room where she breathed her
+last. 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 made
+use; and they burn the whole to cinders, to which they refuse the rites
+of sepulture. Thus they destroy all the property of the unfortunate
+woman, in order that her soul may not think of coming to fetch it
+afterwards and to bite people in the attempt."[762] Similarly among the
+Kayans or Bahaus of Central Borneo "the corpses of women dying in
+childbed excite a special horror; no man and no young woman may touch
+them; 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 having
+been removed for the purpose."[763] Indeed so great is the alarm felt by
+the Kayans at a miscarriage of this sort that when a woman labours hard
+in childbed, the news quickly spreads through the large communal house
+in which the people dwell; and if the attendants begin to fear a fatal
+issue, 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 is
+night, they will clamber up among the beams of the roof and there hide
+in terror; and, if the worst happens, they remain there until the
+woman's corpse has been removed from the house for burial.[764]
+
+[Sidenote: Sometimes the custom is observed when the original motive for
+it is forgotten.]
+
+Sometimes, while the custom continues to be practised, the idea which
+gave rise to it has either become obscured or has been incorrectly
+reported. Thus we are told that when a death has taken place among the
+Indians of North-west America "the body is at once taken out of the
+house through an opening in the wall from which the boards have been
+removed. It is believed that his ghost would kill every one if the body
+were to stay in the house."[765] Such a belief, while it would furnish
+an excellent reason for hurrying the corpse out of the house as soon as
+possible, does not explain why it should be carried out through a
+special opening instead of through the door. Again, when a Queen of Bali
+died, "the body was drawn out of a large aperture made in the wall to
+the right-hand side of the door, in the absurd opinion of _cheating the
+devil_, whom these islanders believe to lie in wait in the ordinary
+passage."[766] Again, in Mukden, the capital of Manchuria, the corpses
+of children "must not be carried out of a door or window, but through a
+new or disused opening, in order that the evil spirit which causes the
+disease may not enter. The belief is that the Heavenly Dog which eats
+the sun at an eclipse demands the bodies of children, and that if they
+are denied to him he will bring certain calamity on the household."[767]
+These explanations of the custom are probably misinterpretations adopted
+at a later time when its original meaning was forgotten. For a custom
+often outlives the memory of the motives which gave it birth. And as
+royalty is very conservative of ancient usages, it would be no matter
+for surprise if the corpses of kings should continue to be carried out
+through special openings long after the bodies of commoners were allowed
+to be conveyed in commonplace fashion through the ordinary door. In
+point of fact we find the old custom observed by kings in countries
+where it has apparently ceased to be observed by their subjects. Thus
+among the Sakalava and Antimerina of Madagascar, "when a sovereign or a
+prince of the royal family dies within the enclosure of the king's
+palace, 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 sovereign
+could not pass through the door that had been polluted by the passage of
+a dead body."[768] Similarly among the Macassars and Buginese of
+Southern Celebes there is in the king's palace a window reaching to the
+floor 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 once
+applied to everybody becomes all the more probable, when we learn that
+in the island of Saleijer, which lies to the south of Celebes, each
+house has, besides its ordinary windows, a large window in the form of a
+door, through which, and not through the ordinary entrance, every corpse
+is regularly removed at death.[770]
+
+[Sidenote: Another Fijian funeral custom.]
+
+To return from this digression to Fiji, we may conclude with a fair
+degree of probability that when the side of a Fijian king's house was
+broken down to allow his corpse to be carried out, though there were
+doors at hand wide enough for the purpose, the original intention was to
+prevent the return of his ghost, who might have proved a very unwelcome
+intruder to his successor on the throne. But I cannot offer any
+explanation of another Fijian funeral custom. You may remember that in
+Fiji it was customary after the death of a chief to circumcise such lads
+as had reached a suitable age.[771] Well, on the fifth day after a
+chief's death a hole used to be dug under the floor of a temple and one
+of the newly circumcised lads was secreted in it. Then his companions
+fastened the doors of the temple securely and ran away. When the lad
+hidden in the hole blew on a shell-trumpet, the friends of the deceased
+chief surrounded the temple and thrust their spears at him through the
+fence.[772] What the exact significance of this curious rite may have
+been, I cannot even conjecture; but we may assume that it had something
+to do with the state of the late chief's soul, which was probably
+supposed to be lingering in the neighbourhood.
+
+[Sidenote: Fijian notions concerning the other world and the way
+thither. The River of the Souls.]
+
+It remains to say a little as to the notions which the Fijians
+entertained of the other world and the way thither. After death the
+souls of the departed were believed to set out for Bulu or Bulotu, there
+to dwell with the great serpent-shaped god Ndengei. His abode seems to
+have been generally placed in the Nakauvandra mountains, towards the
+western end of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian Islands. But on this
+subject the ideas of the people were, as might be expected, both vague
+and inconsistent. Each tribe filled in the details of the mythical land
+and the mythical journey to suit its own geographical position. The
+souls had generally to cross water, either the sea or a river, and they
+were put across it by a ghostly ferryman, who treated the passengers
+with scant courtesy.[773] According to some people, the River of the
+Souls (_Waini-yalo_) is what mortals now call the Ndravo River. When the
+ghosts arrived on the bank, they hailed the ferryman and he paddled his
+canoe over to receive them. But before he would take them on board they
+had to state whether they proposed to ship as steerage or as cabin
+passengers, and he gave them their berths accordingly; for there was no
+mixing up of the classes in the ferry-boat; the ghosts of chiefs kept
+strictly to themselves at one end of the canoe, and the ghosts of
+commoners huddled together at the other end.[774] The natives of
+Kandavu, in Southern Fiji, say that on clear days they often see Bulotu,
+the spirit land, lying away across the sea with the sun shining sweetly
+on it; but they have long ago given up all hope of making their way to
+that 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 through
+which the spirits passed on their long journey to the far country, yet
+there was one called Nai Thombothombo, which appears to have been more
+popular and frequented than any of the others as a place of embarcation
+for ghosts. It is at the northern point of Mbua Bay, and the ghosts shew
+their good taste in choosing it as their port to sail from, for really
+it is a beautiful spot. The foreland juts out between two bays. A
+shelving beach slopes up to precipitous cliffs, their rocky face mantled
+with a thick green veil of creepers. Further inland the shade of tall
+forest trees and the softened gloom cast by crags and rocks lend to the
+scene an air of solemnity and hallowed repose well fitted to impress the
+susceptible native mind with an awful sense of the invisible beings that
+haunt these sacred groves. Natives have been known to come on pilgrimage
+to 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 (_Sala
+Ni Yalo_). Of these one of the most celebrated is a certain pandanus
+tree, at which every ghost must throw the ghost of the real whale's
+tooth which was placed for the purpose in his hand at burial. If he hits
+the tree, it is well for him; for it shews that his friends at home are
+strangling his wives, and accordingly he sits down contentedly to wait
+for the ghosts of his helpmeets, who will soon come hurrying to him. But
+if he makes a bad shot and misses the tree, the poor ghost is very
+disconsolate, for he knows that his wives are not being strangled, and
+who 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 and
+especially 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, and
+it was also of great use to her friends: why then is she not allowed to
+follow me? Do my friends love me no better than this, after so many
+years 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 of
+bachelor ghosts. In the first place there is a terrible being called the
+Great 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 worse
+monster, of the name of Nangganangga, from whom there is, humanly
+speaking, no escape. This ferocious goblin lays himself out to catch the
+souls of bachelors, and so vigilant and alert is he that not a single
+unmarried Fijian ghost is known to have ever reached the mansions of the
+blest. He sits beside a big black stone at high-water mark waiting for
+his prey. The bachelor ghosts are aware that it would be useless to
+attempt to march past him when the tide is in; so they wait till it is
+low water and then try to sneak past him on the wet sand left by the
+retiring billows. Vain hope! Nangganangga, sitting by the stone, only
+smiles grimly and asks, with withering sarcasm, whether they imagine
+that the tide will never flow again? It does so only too soon for the
+poor ghosts, driving them with every breaking wave nearer and nearer to
+their implacable enemy, till the water laps on the fatal stone, and then
+he grips the shivering souls and dashes them to pieces on the big black
+block.[778]
+
+[Sidenote: The Killer of Souls.]
+
+Again, there is a very terrible giant armed with a great axe, who lies
+in wait for all and sundry. He makes no nice distinction between the
+married and the unmarried, but strikes out at all ghosts
+indiscriminately. Those whom he wounds dare not present themselves in
+their damaged state to the great God Ndengei; so they never reach the
+happy fields, but are doomed to roam the rugged mountains disconsolate.
+However, many ghosts contrive to slip past him unscathed. It is said
+that after the introduction of fire-arms into the islands the ghost of a
+certain chief made very good use of a musket which had been
+providentially buried with his body. When the giant drew near and was
+about to lunge out with the axe in his usual style, the ghost discharged
+the blunderbuss in his face, and while the giant was fully engaged in
+dodging the hail of bullets, the chief rushed past him and now enjoys
+celestial happiness.[779] Some lay the scene of this encounter a little
+beyond the town of Nambanaggatai; for it is to be remembered that many
+of the places in the Path of the Souls were identified with real places
+in the Fijian Islands. And the name of the giant is Samu-yalo, that is,
+the Killer of Souls. He artfully conceals himself in some mangrove
+bushes just beyond the town, from which he rushes out in the nick of
+time to fell the passing ghosts. Whenever he kills a ghost, he cooks and
+eats 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 through
+the town of Nambanaggatai; so all the doorways of the houses were placed
+opposite each other to allow free and uninterrupted passage to the
+invisible travellers. And the inhabitants spoke to each other in low
+tones and communicated at a little distance by signs. The screech of a
+paroquet in the woods was the signal of the approach of a ghost or
+ghosts; the number of screeches was proportioned to the number of the
+ghosts,--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 to
+Naindelinde, one of the highest peaks of the Kauvandra mountains. Here
+the path ends abruptly on the brink of a precipice, the foot of which is
+washed by a deep lake. Over the edge of the precipice projects a large
+steer-oar, and the handle is held either by the great god Ndengei
+himself or, according to the better opinion, by his deputy. When a ghost
+comes up and peers ruefully over the precipice, the deputy accosts him.
+"Under what circumstances," he asks, "do you come to us? How did you
+conduct 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 was
+that of a chief. I had great wealth, many wives, and ruled over a
+powerful 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 enough
+to accept the invitation, he has no sooner seated himself on the blade
+of the oar with his legs dangling over the abyss, than the deputy-deity
+tilts up the other end of the oar and precipitates him into the deep
+water, far far below. A loud smack is heard as the ghost collides with
+the water, there is a splash, a gurgle, a ripple, and all is over. The
+ghost has gone to his account in Murimuria, a very second-rate sort of
+heaven, if it is nothing worse. But a ghost who is in favour with the
+great god Ndengei is warned by him not to sit down on the blade of the
+oar but on the handle. The ghost takes the hint and seats himself firmly
+on the safe end of the oar; and when the deputy-deity tries to heave it
+up, he cannot, for he has no purchase. So the ghost remains master of
+the situation, and after an interval for refreshment is sent back to
+earth 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, the
+departed 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. But
+the Fijian notion of sin differs widely from ours. Thus we saw that the
+ghosts of men who did no murder in their lives were punished for their
+negligence by having to pound muck with clubs. Again, people who had not
+their ears bored on earth are forced in Hades to go about for ever
+bearing on their shoulders one of the logs of wood on which bark-cloth
+is beaten out with mallets, and all who see the sinner bending under the
+load jeer at him. Again, women who were not tattooed in their life are
+chased by the female ghosts, who scratch and cut and tear them with
+sharp shells, giving them no respite; or they scrape the flesh from
+their bones and bake it into bread for the gods. And ghosts who have
+done anything to displease the gods are laid flat on their faces in rows
+and converted into taro beds. But the few who do find their way into the
+Fijian Elysium are blest indeed. There the sky is always cloudless; the
+groves are perfumed with delicious scents; the open glades in the forest
+are pleasant; there is abundance of all that heart can desire. Language
+fails to describe the ineffable bliss of the happy land. There the souls
+of the truly good, who have murdered many of their fellows on earth and
+fed 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 to
+depart by the Spirit Path to the other world or to stay there for ever.
+To a certain extent the doctrines of transmigration found favour with
+the Fijians. Some of them held that the spirits of the dead wandered
+about the villages in various shapes and could make themselves visible
+or invisible at pleasure. The places which these vagrant souls loved to
+haunt were known to the people, who in passing by them were wont to make
+propitiatory offerings of food or cloth. For that reason, too, they were
+very loth to go abroad on a dark night lest they should come bolt upon a
+ghost. Further, it was generally believed that the soul of a celebrated
+chief might after death enter into some young man of the tribe and
+animate him to deeds of valour. Persons so distinguished were pointed
+out and regarded as highly favoured; great respect was paid to them,
+they enjoyed many personal privileges, and their opinions were treated
+with 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 the
+Fijian heaven, and the many risks which the souls of the dead ran of
+dying the second death in the other world or of being knocked on the
+head by the living in this, we shall probably agree with the missionary
+Mr. Williams in concluding that under the old Fijian dispensation there
+were few indeed that were saved. "Few, comparatively," he says, "are
+left to inhabit the regions of Mbulu, and the immortality even of these
+is sometimes disputed. The belief in a future state is universal in
+Fiji; 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 immortality
+among mankind. At the outset I had expected to carry the survey further,
+but I have already exceeded the usual limits of these lectures and I
+must not trespass further on your patience. Yet the enquiry which I have
+opened seems worthy to be pursued, and if circumstances should admit of
+it, I shall hope at some future time to resume the broken thread of
+these researches and to follow it a little further through the labyrinth
+of human history. Be that as it may, I will now conclude with a few
+general observations suggested by the facts which I have laid before
+you.
+
+[Sidenote: Strength and universality of the natural belief in
+immortality among savages. Wars between savage tribes spring in large
+measure from their belief in immortality. Economic loss involved in
+sacrifices to the dead.]
+
+In the first place, then, it is impossible not to be struck by the
+strength, and perhaps we may say the universality, of the natural belief
+in immortality among the savage races of mankind. With them a life after
+death is not a matter of speculation and conjecture, of hope and fear;
+it is a practical certainty which the individual as little dreams of
+doubting as he doubts the reality of his conscious existence. He assumes
+it without enquiry and acts upon it without hesitation, as if it were
+one of the best-ascertained truths within the limits of human
+experience. The belief influences his attitude towards the higher
+powers, the conduct of his daily life, and his behaviour towards his
+fellows; more than that, it regulates to a great extent the relations of
+independent communities to each other. For the state of war, which
+normally 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 appease
+the angry ghosts of friends, who are supposed to have perished by the
+baleful arts of sorcerers in another tribe, and who, if vengeance is not
+inflicted on their real or imaginary murderers, will wreak their fury on
+their undutiful fellow-tribesmen. Thus the belief in immortality has not
+merely coloured the outlook of the individual upon the world; it has
+deeply affected the social and political relations of humanity in all
+ages; for the religious wars and persecutions, which distracted and
+devastated Europe for ages, were only the civilised equivalents of the
+battles and murders which the fear of ghosts has instigated amongst
+almost all races of savages of whom we possess a record. Regarded from
+this point of view, the faith in a life hereafter has been sown like
+dragons' teeth on the earth and has brought forth crop after crop of
+armed men, who have turned their swords against each other. And when we
+consider further the gratuitous and wasteful destruction of property as
+well as of life which is involved in sacrifices to the dead, we must
+admit that with all its advantages the belief in immortality has
+entailed heavy economical losses upon the races--and they are
+practically all the races of the world--who have indulged in this
+expensive luxury. It is not for me to estimate the extent and gravity of
+the consequences, moral, social, political, and economic, which flow
+directly from the belief in immortality. I can only point to some of
+them and commend them to the serious attention of historians and
+economists, as well as of moralists and theologians.
+
+[Sidenote: How does the savage belief in immortality bear on the
+question of the truth or falsehood of that belief in general? The answer
+depends to some extent on the view we take of human nature. The view of
+the grandeur and dignity of man.]
+
+My second observation concerns, not the practical consequences of the
+belief in immortality, but the question of its truth or falsehood. That,
+I need hardly say, is an even more difficult problem than the other, and
+as I intimated at the outset of the lectures I find myself wholly
+incompetent to solve it. Accordingly I have confined myself to the
+comparatively easy task of describing some of the forms of the belief
+and some of the customs to which it has given rise, without presuming to
+pass judgment upon them. I must leave it to others to place my
+collections of facts in the scales and to say whether they incline the
+balance for or against the truth of this momentous belief, which has
+been so potent for good or ill in history. In every enquiry much depends
+upon the point of view from which the enquirer approaches his subject;
+he will see it in different proportions and in different lights
+according to the angle and the distance from which he regards it. The
+subject under discussion in the present case is human nature itself; and
+as we all know, men have formed very different estimates of themselves
+and their species. On the one hand, there are those who love to dwell on
+the grandeur and dignity of man, and who swell with pride at the
+contemplation of the triumphs which his genius has achieved in the
+visionary 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 away
+like 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, it
+cannot 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 his
+creator to imagine that the grave is the end of all. To those who take
+this lofty view of human nature it is easy and obvious to find in the
+similar beliefs of savages a welcome confirmation of their own cherished
+faith, and to insist that a conviction so widely spread and so firmly
+held must be based on some principle, call it instinct or intuition or
+what you will, which is deeper than logic and cannot be confuted by
+reasoning.
+
+[Sidenote: The view of the pettiness and insignificance of man.]
+
+On the other hand, there are those who take a different view of human
+nature, and who find in its contemplation a source of humility rather
+than of pride. They remind us how weak, how ignorant, how short-lived is
+the individual, how infirm of purpose, how purblind of vision, how
+subject to pain and suffering, to diseases that torture the body and
+wreck the mind. They say that if the few short years of his life are not
+wasted in idleness and vice, they are spent for the most part in a
+perpetually recurring round of trivialities, in the satisfaction of
+merely animal wants, in eating, drinking, and slumber. When they survey
+the history of mankind as a whole, they find the record chequered and
+stained by folly and crime, by broken faith, insensate ambition, wanton
+aggression, injustice, cruelty, and lust, and seldom illumined by the
+mild radiance of wisdom and virtue. And when they turn their eyes from
+man himself to the place he occupies in the universe, how are they
+overwhelmed by a sense of his littleness and insignificance! They see
+the earth which he inhabits dwindle to a speck in the unimaginable
+infinities of space, and the brief span of his existence shrink into a
+moment in the inconceivable infinities of time. And they ask, Shall a
+creature so puny and frail claim to live for ever, to outlast not only
+the present starry system but every other that, when earth and sun and
+stars have crumbled into dust, shall be built upon their ruins in the
+long long hereafter? It is not so, it cannot be. The claim is nothing
+but the outcome of exaggerated self-esteem, of inflated vanity; it is
+the claim of a moth, shrivelled in the flame of a candle, to outlive the
+sun, the claim of a worm to survive the destruction of this terrestrial
+globe in which it burrows. Those who take this view of the pettiness and
+transitoriness of man compared with the vastness and permanence of the
+universe find little in the beliefs of savages to alter their opinion.
+They see in savage conceptions of the soul and its destiny nothing but a
+product of childish ignorance, the hallucinations of hysteria, the
+ravings of insanity, or the concoctions of deliberate fraud and
+imposture. They dismiss the whole of them as a pack of superstitions and
+lies, unworthy the serious attention of a rational mind; and they say
+that if such drivellings do not refute the belief in immortality, as
+indeed from the nature of things they cannot do, they are at least
+fitted to invest its high-flown pretensions with an air of ludicrous
+absurdity.
+
+[Sidenote: The conclusion left open.]
+
+Such are the two opposite views which I conceive may be taken of the
+savage testimony to the survival of our conscious personality after
+death. I do not presume to adopt the one or the other. It is enough for
+me to have laid a few of the facts before you. I leave you to draw your
+own conclusion.
+
+[Footnote 701: Berthold Seeman, _Viti, an Account of a Government
+Mission 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._; Basil
+Thomson, _The Fijians_, p. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 704: Hazlewood, quoted by Capt. J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a
+Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), pp. 246
+_sq._]
+
+[Footnote 705: Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring
+Expedition_, 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 Exploring
+Expedition_, 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; Lorimer
+Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_ (London, 1904), pp. 166 _sq._ As for the
+treatment of castaways, see J. E. Erskine, _op. cit._ p. 249; Th.
+Williams, _op. cit._ i. 210. The latter writer mentions a recent case in
+which fourteen or sixteen shipwrecked persons were cooked and eaten.]
+
+[Footnote 711: The Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to me dated August
+26th, 1898. I have already quoted the passage in _The Magic Art and the
+Evolution 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 whom
+the canoe was dragged were cut off and hung on a sacred tree
+(_akau-tambu_), "which was already artificially prolific in fruit, both
+of the masculine and feminine gender." The tree which bore such
+remarkable fruit was commonly an ironweed tree standing in a conspicuous
+situation. 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 witnessed
+what he calls the ceremony of consecration in the case of a young man of
+the highest rank in Somosomo and he has described what he saw. In this
+case a special hut was not built for the manslayer, and he was allowed
+to 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 Lorimer
+Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_, p. 163: "A person who has defiled himself
+by touching a corpse is called _yambo_, and is not allowed to touch food
+with his hands for several days." The custom as to a surviving widow is
+mentioned 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; Basil
+Thomson, _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 Vendidad,_ translated by
+James Darmesteter (Oxford, 1880), p. 95 (Fargard, viii. 2. 10) (_Sacred
+Books 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 a la Chine_
+(Paris, 1782), i. 86.]
+
+[Footnote 734: J. A. Dubois, _Moeurs, Institutions et Ceremonies des
+Peuples de l'Inde_ (Paris, 1825), ii. 225; E. Thurston, _Ethnographic
+Notes in Southern India_ (Madras, 1906), pp. 226 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 735: J. Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthuemer_ 3rd ed.
+(Goettingen, 1881), pp. 726 _sqq._]
+
+[Footnote 736: Rev. J. G. Campbell, _Superstitions of the Highlands and
+Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), p. 242.]
+
+[Footnote 737: _The Sacred Books of China_, translated by James Legge,
+Part iii. _The Li-Ki_, 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._, citing
+Le Comte, _Nouv. Memoires de la Chine_, vol. ii. p. 187.]
+
+[Footnote 738: _Relations des Jesuites_, 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 Arctic
+Expedition_ (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 of
+Good Hope," in Pinkerton's _Voyages and Travels_, xvi. (London, 1814) p.
+142; _Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie_ (Paris), ii, Serie, ii.
+(1834) p. 196 (Bechuanas); _id._, vii. Serie, vii. (1886) p. 587
+(Fernando Po); T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, _Relation d'un Voyage
+d'Exploration au Nord-est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Esperance_
+(Paris, 1842), pp. 502 _sq._; C. J. Andersson, _Lake Ngami_, Second
+Edition (London, 1856), p. 466; G. Fritsch, _Die Eingeborenen
+Sued-Afrika's_ (Breslau, 1872), pp. 210, 335; R. Moffat, _Missionary
+Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa_ (London, 1842), p. 307; E.
+Casalis, _The Basutos_ (London, 1861), p. 202; Ladislaus Magyar, _Reisen
+in Sued-Afrika_ (Buda-Pesth and Leipsic, 1859), p. 350; Rev. J.
+Macdonald, _Light in Africa_, Second Edition (London, 1890), p. 166; E.
+Beguin, _Les Ma-Rotse_ (Lausanne and Fontaines, 1903), p. 115; Henri A.
+Junod, _Les Ba-Ronga_ (Neuchatel, 1898), p. 48; _id._, _The Life of a
+South African Tribe_, i. (Neuchatel, 1912) p. 138; Dudley Kidd, _The
+Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), p. 247; A. F. Mockler-Ferryman,
+_British Nigeria_ (London, 1902), p. 234; Ramseyer and Kuehne, _Four
+Years in Ashantee_ (London, 1875), p. 50; A. B. Ellis, _The Land of
+Fetish_ (London, 1883), p. 13; _id._, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the
+Gold Coast_ (London, 1887), p. 239; E. Perregaud, _Chez les Achanti_
+(Neuchatel, 1906), p. 127; J. Spieth, _Die Ewe-Staemme_ (Berlin, 1906),
+p. 756; H. R. Palmer, "Notes on the Kororofawa and Jukon," _Journal of
+the African Society_, No. 44 (July, 1912), p. 414. The custom is also
+observed by some tribes of Central Africa. See Miss A. Werner, _The
+Natives of British Central Africa_ (London, 1906), p. 161; B. Gutmann,
+"Trauer und Begraebnisssitten 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-western
+Tribes of Canada_, p. 23 (separate reprint from the _Report of the
+British 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 Pacific
+Expedition, 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 religioeser Brauch der
+Zigeuner_ (Muenster 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 the
+American 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 of
+Ethnology_ (Washington, 1894), p. 191.]
+
+[Footnote 749: Mgr. Bruguiere, in _Annales de l'Association de la
+Propagation 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 oestlichen 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," _Indian
+Antiquary_, 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, "Ueber den Glauben vom Jenseits und den
+Todtencultus der Tscheremissen," _Internationales Archiv fuer
+Ethnographie_, ix. (1896) p. 157.]
+
+[Footnote 753: P. S. Pallas, _Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des
+Russischen Reichs_ (St. Petersburg, 1771-1776), iii. 75; Middendorff,
+_Reise in den aeussersten Norden und Osten Sibiriens_, iv. 1464.]
+
+[Footnote 754: _Exploraciones y Noticias hidrograficas de los Rios del
+Norte 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 anos de 1884 y 1885_ (La Paz, 1890), p. 20: _"Cuando muere
+alguno, apenas sacan el cadaver de la casa, cambian la puerta al lado
+opuesto, para que no de con ella el difunto."_]
+
+[Footnote 755: Karl Bartsch, _Sagen, Maerchen und Gebraeuche aus
+Meklenburg_ (Vienna, 1879-1880), ii. 100, Sec. 358.]
+
+[Footnote 756: For some evidence on this subject, see R. Lasch, "Die
+Behandlung der Leiche des Selbstmoerders," _Globus_, lxxxvi. (1899) pp.
+63-66; Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 20 _sq._; A.
+Karasek, "Beitraege zur Kenntnis der Waschamba," _Baessler-Archiv_, i.
+(1911) pp. 190 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 757: Rev. N. Stam, "The Religious Conceptions of the
+Kavirondo," _Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 361.]
+
+[Footnote 758: Alfred de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes, et Traditions des
+Provinces de France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 198.]
+
+[Footnote 759: Felix 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 the
+North-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 Indian
+Archipelago_ (Edinburgh, 1820), ii. 245. Compare Adolf Bastian, _Die
+Voelker des oestlichen Asien_, v. (Jena, 1869) p. 83.]
+
+[Footnote 767: Mrs. Bishop (Isabella L. Bird), _Korea and her
+Neighbours_ (London, 1898), i. 239 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 768: Arnold van Gennep, _Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar_
+(Paris, 1904), p. 65, quoting Dr. Catat.]
+
+[Footnote 769: B. F. Matthes, _Bijdragen tot de Ethnologie van
+Zuid-Celebes_ (The Hague, 1875), p. 139; _id._, "Over de ada's of
+gewoonten der Makassaren en Boegineezen," _Verslagen en Mededeelingen
+der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen_, Afdeeling Letterkunde,
+Derde Reeks, ii. (Amsterdam, 1885) p. 142.]
+
+[Footnote 770: W. M. Donselaar "Aanteekeningen over het eiland
+Saleijer," _Mededeelingen van wege het Nederlandsche
+Zendelinggenootschap_, 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 Exploring
+Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 83; Basil Thomson, _The
+Fijians_, 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 Berthold
+Seeman, _Viti, an Account of a Government Mission to the Vitian of
+Fijian Islands in the years 1860-1861_ (Cambridge, 1862), p. 399;
+Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_, p. 163; Basil Thomson, _The
+Fijians_, 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 explain
+the 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 these
+bundles will you have? The large one contains knives, looking-glasses,
+cloth and so forth; and the small one contains immortal life." "I cannot
+choose by myself," answered the man; "I must go and ask the other people
+in the town." While he was gone to ask the others, some women arrived
+and the choice was left to them. They tried the edges of the knives,
+decked themselves in the cloth, admired themselves in the
+looking-glasses, and, without more ado, chose the big bundle. The little
+man, picking up the small bundle, vanished. So when the man came back
+from the town, the little man and his bundles were gone. The women
+exhibited and shared the things, but death continued on the earth. Hence
+the people often say, "Oh, if those women had only chosen the small
+bundle, 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 the
+Upper Congo," _Folk-lore_, xii. (1901) p. 461; _id._, _Among Congo
+Cannibals_ (London, 1913), p. 218. The country of the Balolo lies five
+miles south of the Equator, on Longitude 18 deg. 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
+
+_Asyren_, 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
+
+Bakairi, 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 of
+the ghost, 271 _sqq._
+
+Dene or Tinneh Indians, their ideas as to death, 39 _sq._
+
+Departure of ghost thought to coincide with disappearance of flesh from
+bones, 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 social
+progress, 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 the
+living, 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 female
+kinship, 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 the
+ghost, 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 touch
+food 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 who
+is 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 Souef, 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 human
+life, 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 the
+dead, 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 the
+transmigration 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
+
+Schuermann, 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 Sele, 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 inanimate
+things, 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 Dene 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 the
+landscape, 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
+
+Vate 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 reborn
+in, 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
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Works by J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.
+
+
+THE GOLDEN BOUGH
+
+A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION
+
+Third Edition, revised and enlarged. 8vo.
+
+Part I. The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings. Two volumes, 20s. net.
+
+II. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul. One volume. 10s. net.
+
+III. The Dying God. One volume. Second Impression. 10s. net.
+
+IV. Adonis, Attis, Osiris. One volume. Second Edition. 10s. net.
+
+V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild. Two volumes. 20s. net.
+
+VI. The Scapegoat.            (_Spring_, 1913.)
+
+VII. Balder the Beautiful.         (_Spring_, 1913.)
+
+    _TIMES._--"The verdict of posterity will probably be that _The
+    Golden Bough_ has influenced the attitude of the human mind
+    towards supernatural beliefs and symbolical rituals more
+    profoundly than any other books published in the nineteenth
+    century except those of Darwin and Herbert Spencer."
+
+
+LECTURES ON THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE KINGSHIP. 8vo. 8s. 6d. net.
+
+    _ATHENAEUM._--"It is the effect of a good book not only to teach,
+    but also to stimulate and to suggest, and we think this the best
+    and highest quality, and one that will recommend these lectures
+    to all intelligent readers, as well as to the learned."
+
+
+PSYCHE'S TASK. A Discourse concerning the Influence of Superstition on
+the Growth of Institutions. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
+
+    _TIMES._--"Dr. Frazer has answered the question of how the moral
+    law has been safeguarded, especially in its infancy, with a
+    wealth of learning and a clearness of utterance that leave
+    nothing to be desired. Perhaps the uses of superstition is not
+    quite such a new theme as he seems to fancy. Even the most
+    ignorant of us were aware that many false beliefs of a religious
+    or superstitious character had had very useful moral or
+    physical, or especially sanitary, results. But if the theme is
+    fairly familiar, the curious facts which are adduced in support
+    of it will be new to most people, and will make the book as
+    interesting to read as the lectures must have been to hear."
+
+
+THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY. 8vo. Sewed. 6d. net.
+
+    _OXFORD MAGAZINE._--"In his inaugural lecture the new Professor
+    of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool defines
+    his Science, states its aims, and puts in a spirited plea for
+    the scientific study of primitive man while there is still time,
+    before the savage in his natural state becomes as extinct as the
+    dodo."
+
+TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY. A Treatise on Certain Early Forms of Superstition
+and Society. With Maps. Four vols. 8vo. 50s. net.
+
+    Mr. A. E. Crawley in _NATURE_.--"Prof. Frazer is a great artist
+    as well as a great anthropologist. He works on a big scale; no
+    one in any department of research, not even Darwin, has employed
+    a wider induction of facts. No one, again, has dealt more
+    conscientiously with each fact; however seemingly trivial, it is
+    prepared with minute pains and cautious tests for its destiny as
+    a slip to be placed under the anthropological microscope. He
+    combines, so to speak, the merits of Tintoretto and
+    Meissonier.... That portion of the book which is concerned with
+    totemism (if we may express our own belief at the risk of
+    offending Prof. Frazer's characteristic modesty) is actually
+    'The Complete History of Totemism, its Practice and its Theory,
+    its Origin and its End.'... Nearly two thousand pages are
+    occupied with an ethnographical survey of totemism, an
+    invaluable compilation. The maps, including that of the
+    distribution of totemic peoples, are a new and useful feature."
+
+
+PAUSANIAS'S DESCRIPTION OF GREECE.
+Translated with a Commentary, Illustrations, and Maps.
+Second Edition. Six vols.  8vo.  126s. net.
+
+    _ATHENAEUM._--"All these writings in many languages Mr. Frazer
+    has read and digested with extraordinary care, so that his book
+    will be for years _the_ book of reference on such matters, not
+    only in England, but in France and Germany. It is a perfect
+    thesaurus of Greek topography, archaeology, and art. It is,
+    moreover, far more interesting than any dictionary of the
+    subject; for it follows the natural guidance of the Greek
+    traveller, examining every town or village which he describes;
+    analysing and comparing with foreign parallels every myth or
+    fairy tale which he records; citing every information which can
+    throw light on the works of art he admires."
+
+
+PAUSANIAS AND OTHER GREEK SKETCHES.
+Globe 8vo. 4s. net.
+
+    _GUARDIAN._--"Here we have material which every one who has
+    visited Greece, or purposes to visit it, most certainly should
+    read and enjoy.... We cannot imagine a more excellent book for
+    the educated visitor to Greece."
+
+
+LETTERS OF WILLIAM COWPER. Chosen and
+Edited with a Memoir and a few Notes by J. G. Frazer,
+D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D. Two vols. Globe 8vo. 8s. net.
+
+(_Eversley Series._)
+
+    Mr. Clement Shorter in the _DAILY CHRONICLE_.--"To the task Dr.
+    Frazer has given a scholarly care that will make the edition one
+    that is a joy to possess. His introductory Memoir, of some
+    eighty pages in length, is a valuable addition to the many
+    appraisements of Cowper that these later years have seen. It is
+    no mere perfunctory 'introduction' but a piece of sound
+    biographical work.... Dr. Frazer has given us two volumes that
+    are an unqualified joy."
+
+
+
+MacMillan and Co., Ltd., London.
+
+
+
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