The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead

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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.sumed 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 gra.s.s. A light is put to the gra.s.s, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sembled company.

However, a sceptic who happened to a.s.sist at this spiritual sitting, had the temerity to hold on tight to the proffered hand of the ghost, while another infidel a.s.sisted 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 ama.s.sed 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, b.r.e.a.s.t.s, bellies, arms, and legs with sharp sh.e.l.ls, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 quant.i.ties 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 ma.s.sive 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 b.u.t.tresses 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 const.i.tute 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 gra.s.s petticoat reaching to the ankles. She wears a large head-dress made of sh.e.l.ls; 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 gra.s.s 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 sh.e.l.ls, 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 Ma.s.sim 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 pa.s.s 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 Ma.s.sim. 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sisted 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.