The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead

5-1/2 feet.
PROFILE OF THE STEPS.

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4 feet.

Some thirty years later the tombs of the Tooitongas were visited and described by the French explorer, J. Dumont d'Urville. His description is worth quoting. He says: "I directed my steps to the splendid _fa-tokas_ of the Fata-Fas. As these monuments are essentially taboo, in the absence of the Tooi-tonga no one looks after their upkeep, and they are now buried on every side among dark ma.s.ses of trees and almost impenetrable thickets. Hence we had some difficulty in approaching them, and it was impossible for us to get a single general view of the whole of these structures, which must have a somewhat solemn effect when the ground is properly cleared.

"For the most part these mausoleums have the form of great rectangular s.p.a.ces surrounded by enormous blocks of stone, of which some are as much as from fifteen to twenty feet long by six or eight broad and two feet thick. The most sumptuous of these monuments have four or five rows of steps, making up a total height of eighteen or twenty feet. The interior is filled up with shingle and fragments of unhewn coral. One of these _fa-tokas_, which I measured, was a hundred and eighty feet long by a hundred and twenty broad. At one of the upper angles I observed a block of considerable size with a deep cutting in it. I was told that it was the seat of the Tooi-tonga-fafine[153]; it was there that she sat to preside at the ceremony of the funeral of the Tooi-tonga.

[153] The Tooi-tonga-fafine (or fefine) was the Tooitonga's sister and ranked above him. Her t.i.tle means "the lady Tooi-tonga." "Her dignity is very great. She is treated as a kind of divinity. Her rank is too high to allow of her uniting herself in marriage with any mortal: but it is not thought wrong or degrading for her to have a family, and in case of the birth of a daughter the child becomes the _Tamaha_. This lady rises higher than her mother in rank, and is nearer the G.o.ds. Every one approaches her with gifts and homage. Her grandfather will bring his offerings and sit down before her, with all humility, like any of the common people. Sick people come to her for cure"


(Miss Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga and the Friendly Islands_, p. 145, apparently from the information of Mr. John Thomas). Captain Cook learned with surprise that Poulaho, the Tooitonga of his time (whom Cook speaks of as the king) acknowledged three women as his superiors. "On our inquiring, who these extraordinary personages were, whom they distinguish by the name and t.i.tle of _Tammaha_, we were told that the late king, Poulaho's father, had a sister of equal rank, and elder than himself; that she, by a man who came from the island of Feejee, had a son and two daughters; and that these three persons, as well as their mother, rank above Futtafaihe the king. We endeavoured, in vain, to trace the reason of this singular pre-eminence of the _Tammahas_; for we could learn nothing besides this account of their pedigree. The mother and one of the daughters called Tooeela-Kaipa, live at Vavaoo. Latoolibooloo, the son, and the other daughter, whose name is Moungoula-Kaipa, reside at Tongataboo. The latter is the woman who is mentioned to have dined with me on the 21st of June. This gave occasion to our discovering her superiority over the king, who would not eat in her presence, though she made no scruple to do so before him, and received from him the customary obeisance, by touching her foot." See Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 430 _sq._

"Some of these edifices were of an oval form, but they were much smaller. Each of them was surmounted by a small hut, which served as an oratory or house for the spirit of the dead; most of them have been destroyed by the lapse of time, and only traces of them are left scattered on the ground.

"The enormous blocks of coral employed in the construction of these monuments have all been brought by sea from Hifo to Mooa. They were got on the sh.o.r.e of the sea at Hifo, were hewn on the spot, and were transported in great canoes; then they were landed at Mooa and drawn on rollers to the place of their destination. These monuments are astonishing evidence of the patience which they must have demanded on the part of these islanders; they were ocular testimony to me of the high degree of civilisation which the natives had reached. Man must have risen to ideas of a much higher order than those of a simple savage before he would take so great pains for the single object of consecrating the memory of his chiefs.

"Such tombs are no longer built in Tongataboo: people content themselves with simple mounds surrounded by a row of posts or even an ordinary palisade. However, Singleton a.s.sured me that Finow the Younger had erected two great _fa-tokas_ of stone in Vavao, one for the last Tooitonga, and one for his father."[154]

[154] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage_, iv. (Paris, 1832) pp. 106-108. Singleton was an Englishman, one of the crew of the _Port-au-Prince_, the ship in which Mariner sailed. When Dumont d'Urville visited Tonga, Singleton had lived as a native among the natives for twenty-three years; he was married and had children, and he hoped to end his days in Tongataboo. See J. Dumont d'Urville, _op. cit._ iv. 23 _sq._

The Frenchman, De Sainson, who accompanied Dumont d'Urville on his visit to Tongataboo, has also described the tombs of the Tooitongas at Mooa from personal observation. I will quote his description: "It is in the heart of the forest that the ancient inhabitants of these countries, who idolized their Kings (Tooi-tongas), placed the tombs of that sacred race. These monuments of a more enterprising age still astonish the beholder by their ma.s.s and their extent. The _fai-tokas_, as these burial-places are called, are artificial eminences, on the top of which, in the form of a square, are three or four crosses of great granitic blocks arranged as steps, of which each block may be four or five feet high. If there is only a single step on the top of the mound, it is because only a single Tooi-tonga sleeps there in the grave; if the bones of a whole family are deposited in a common tomb, three or four steps, one above the other, mark their union in death. Some of these monuments which contain only a single body are arranged in an oval. I counted more than twelve of these immense structures, and yet we left a great many aside. I counted more than one stone between eight and fifteen feet long; and I conceived a high idea of those men of ancient days who erected over the remains of their kings these imperishable mausoleums, in an island based on coral, where it would be difficult to find a stone of two feet square. I imagined them to be very different from their effeminate descendants, those men of old who went in their canoes more than a hundred and fifty leagues to look for the enormous blocks of which these tombs are built, who cut them without the help of iron, and succeeded, by means unknown, in planting them on these hillocks, where by their own weight they are fixed for ever, like the Druidical monuments of Brittany, which one would say were dropped on earth rather by the magic of talismans than by the power of man.

"The present inhabitants of Tonga contemplate with a pious awe the fruit of the labours and patience of their forefathers, without dreaming for a moment of imitating them in their n.o.ble enterprises. A distant voyage affrights these degenerate scions of a hardy race, and the great canoes which still survive, sheltered under sheds very skilfully built, are little more than the useless enc.u.mbrance of chiefs grown languid in the long peace which has infected the whole people with habits of indolence.

"The most recent tombs consist of a small house enclosed on all sides, built on a rising ground, and shaded by a circle of mimosas, a tree sacred to the dead. Most of the ill.u.s.trious graves are cl.u.s.tered together at Mafanga, a large village of which the whole territory is sacred on account of the hallowed relics which it contains. Along with the corpse they bury at the depth of a few inches small wooden effigies representing persons of both s.e.xes. I had occasion to unearth a few of these little statues, and I remarked in them an astonishing feeling for artistic design."[155]

[155] "Extrait du Journal de M. de Sainson," in J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage_, iv.

(Paris, 1832) pp. 361 _sq._

Some sixteen years later a Catholic missionary, living among the heathen population of Tongataboo, wrote thus: "Nothing equals the care which they take in the burial of their dead. As soon as a native has breathed his last, the neighbours are informed, and immediately all the women come to weep about the corpse. Here the men never weep. The body is kept thus for a day or two, during which they are busy building a tomb near the dwelling of the deceased's family. The sepulchral house is neat, built on an eminence, surrounded by a pretty fence of choice bamboos; the enclosure is planted with all kinds of odoriferous shrubs, especially evergreens. Finally, the monument is covered by a roof artistically constructed. For the tombs of kings and the greatest chiefs they go to distant islands to find huge stones to crown the grave. I have seen one twenty-four feet long by eight broad and at least eighteen inches thick. One of these tombs was built by the natives of Wallis Island, who brought the enormous blocks in immense canoes. It is wonderful for these peoples."[156]

[156] Jerome Grange, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xvii. (1845) pp. 12 _sq._

Captain Erskine, who visited Tongataboo in 1849, says that "near the landing-place at the village of Holobeka, off which we were lying, we saw overshadowed with trees, one of the _faitokas_, or old burial-places of the country, which, although no longer 'tabu,' are still in some cases used as places of sepulture, and very carefully kept. This one was an oblong square platform a few feet high, surrounded by a stone wall, the interior being beautifully paved with coloured corals and gravel; the house or temple, which Captain Cook and others describe as occupying the centre, having been, I suppose, removed. I saw but one other of these monuments during our stay among the islands, the largest of which stands on several rows of steps, as described by all former visitors."[157]

[157] J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), p. 130.

Thomas West, who lived as a missionary in the Tongan islands from 1846 to 1855, tells us that "chiefs were usually interred in tombs, constructed of blocks of sandstone, cut from suitable localities by the seash.o.r.e, where, at a little depth from the surface, layers of hard and durable sandstone are found, even on many of the coralline islands. In several of the ancient burial-places, similar stones, arranged in terraces, surround the whole enclosure. Some of these are of immense size, and seem to indicate the possession, on the part of former inhabitants, either of greater energy than the present race, or of better tools and appliances. The burial-places of the Tonguese are always surrounded by the most imposing foliage of the tropics, and placed in sequestered spots. A mound of earth is raised, of dimensions varying with the necessities of the place; and, whenever a grave is opened within the limits of this mound, it is always filled up with beautiful white sand, and never contains more than one body. No particle of clay or earthy mould is allowed to touch the remains of the dead. The sand is brought in baskets by the chief mourners, who sometimes sail or journey many miles to procure it; and each person pours the contents into the grave until it is sufficiently filled up. The top of the grave is, afterwards, carefully tended and decorated with black pebbles and red coral, arranged in various devices, which have a very pretty effect.

Small houses are also placed over the tombs of the chiefs and gentry."[158]

[158] Thomas West, _Ten Years in South-Central Polynesia_ (London, 1865), pp. 268 _sq._

In more recent years the tombs of the Tooitongas at Mooa have been visited by Sir Basil Thomson, who has described and discussed them.[159]

From an anonymous pamphlet called _The Wairarapa Wilderness_, written by the pa.s.sengers of the s.s. _Wairarapa_ and published in 1884, Sir Basil Thomson quotes a pa.s.sage containing a description of the tombs, with measurements which, he tells us, are accurate as far as they go. From it I will extract a few particulars. The writers inform us that the tombs are built of blocks of coral which vary in length and thickness; some of the largest they found to be from fifteen to eighteen feet long and from one and a half to two feet thick. The largest measured by them is twenty-two feet long and two feet thick and stands between seven and eight feet above the ground. This great stone, now split in two, is at the middle of the lowest step of one of the pyramidal tombs. The height of the steps varies much in the different pyramids; one step was found to be four feet high. The breadth of each step is three feet or more: it has been carefully levelled and covered with coral gravel. The stones fit very closely and are very regular at top and bottom throughout the tiers. The corners of one pyramid observed by the writers are formed of huge rectangular stones, which seem to have been put in position before they were finally faced. On the upper surface of the largest stone is a deep hollow about the size and shape of a large chestnut mortar. Sir Basil Thomson, who has examined this hollow, believes it to be a natural cavity which has been artificially smoothed by a workman. He suggests that it may have been lined with leaves and used as a bowl for brewing kava at the funeral ceremonies. On one mound the writers of the pamphlet remarked a large flat stone, some five and a half feet square; and in several of the tombs they noticed huge slabs of volcanic stone placed indiscriminately side by side with blocks of coral. The writers measured the bases of three of the tombs and found them to be about two chains (one hundred and thirty-two feet) long by a chain and a half (ninety-nine feet) broad; the base of a fourth was even larger.[160]

[159] (Sir) Basil Thomson, _Diversions of a Prime Minister_, pp.

379 _sq._; _id._ "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, x.x.xii. (1902) pp. 86-88.

[160] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, x.x.xii.

(1902) pp. 87 _sq._

Surveying these various accounts of the tombs of the Tooitongas or sacred chiefs, we may perhaps conclude that, while the type of tomb varied in different cases, the most characteristic, and certainly the most remarkable, type was that of a stepped or terraced pyramid built of such large blocks of stone as to merit the name of megalithic monuments.

So far as I have observed in the accounts given of them, this type of tomb was reserved exclusively for the sacred chiefs, the Tooitongas, whom the Tongans regarded as divine and as direct descendants of the G.o.ds. The civil kings, so far as appears, were not buried in these ma.s.sive pyramids, but merely in stone vaults sunk in the summits of gra.s.sy mounds.

It is natural, with Sir Basil Thomson,[161] to compare the pyramids of the Tooitongas with the similar structures called _morais_ or _marais_ which are found in Tahiti and the Marquesas islands. Indeed, the very name _morai_ was sometimes applied to them by the Tongans themselves, though more usually they called them _fiatookas_, which was simply the common word for burying-ground.[162] In Tahiti and the Marquesas islands these _marais_ were in like manner truncated pyramids, rising in a series of steps or tiers, built of stones, some of which were large, but apparently not so large as in the corresponding Tongan edifices; for in describing one of the largest of the Tahitian _morais_ or _marais_ Cook mentions only one stone measuring as much as four feet seven inches in length by two feet four in breadth, though he found several three and a half feet long by two and a half feet broad. These dimensions can hardly compare with the size of the blocks in the tombs of the Tooitongas, some of which, as we have seen, measure fifteen, eighteen, and even twenty-two or twenty-four feet in length by eight or twelve feet in height. These Tahitian and Marquesan pyramids are commonly described as temples, and justly so, because the G.o.ds were worshipped there and human sacrifices were offered on them.[163] But they were also, like the similar structures in Tonga, used in certain cases for the burial of the dead, or at all events for the preservation of their embalmed bodies.

Captain Cook seems even to have regarded the Tahitian _morais_ primarily as burying-grounds and only secondarily as places of worship.[164] In the island of Huahine, one of the Society Islands, the sovereign chiefs were buried in a _marai_, where they lay, we are told, in more than Oriental state.[165] William Ellis, one of our best authorities on the religion of the Tahitians, tells us that "the family, district, or royal _maraes_ were the general depositories of the bones of the departed, whose bodies had been embalmed, and whose skulls were sometimes preserved in the dwelling of the survivors. The _marae_ or temple being sacred, and the bodies being under the guardianship of the G.o.ds, were in general considered secure when deposited there. This was not, however, always the case; and in times of war, the victors sometimes not only despoiled the temples of the vanquished, and bore away their idol, but robbed the sacred enclosure of the bones of celebrated individuals."[166] Moerenhout, another good authority on the Tahitian religion, informs us that the _marais_ which belonged to individuals often served as cemeteries and were only the more respected on that account; but he says that in the public _marais_ almost the only persons buried were the human victims offered in sacrifice, and sometimes the priests, who were laid face downwards in the grave, for the curious reason that otherwise the gaze of the dead men would blight the trees and cause the fruit to fall to the ground.[167]

[161] (Sir) Basil Thomson, _Diversions of a Prime Minister_, p.

379.

[162] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 424. Elsewhere (v. 364) he speaks of "a _morai_ or _fiatooka_"; and shortly afterwards, referring to the same structure, he mentions it as "this _morai_, or what I may as well call temple" (p. 365). As to the equivalence of the words _morai_ and _marai_ (_marae_), see J.

A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux iles du Grand Ocean_ (Paris, 1837), i. 466; and as to the significance of the word in its various dialectical forms, see E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. 213, _s.v._ "malae."

[163] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, i. 157 _sqq._; J. R.

Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage round the World_ (London, 1788), pp. 543 _sqq._; Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_, pp. 207 _sqq._; David Porter, _Journal of a Cruise made to the Pacific Ocean_ (New York, 1822), ii. 38 _sq._; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and Travels_ (London, 1831), i. 240-248, 265 _sqq._, 271, 274, 529 _sq._, ii. 13 _sq._, 38 _sq._; W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i.

340, 405; J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux iles du Grand Ocean_, i. 466-470; G. H. von Langsdorff, _Reise um die Welt_ (Frankfurt am Mayn, 1812), i. 115, 134; H. Melville, _Typee_ (London, N.D.), pp. 166-169 (_Everyman's Library_); Matthias G----, _Lettres sur les iles Marquises_ (Paris, 1843), pp. 54 _sq._; C. E. Meinicke, _Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans_ (Leipzig, 1875-1876), i. 49, ii. 180, 183 _sq._; G. Gerland, in Th. Waitz, _Anthropologie_, vi (Leipzig, 1872) pp. 376 _sqq._

[164] Capt. James Cook, _Voyages_, i. 157 _sq._, "Their name for such burying-grounds, which are also places of worship, is _Morai_." Compare _id._, i. 217, 219, 220, 224, vi. 37, 41; J.

Turnbull, _Voyage round the World_ (London, 1813), p. 151, "the _morais_, which serve the double purpose of places of worship and receptacles for the dead." Compare J. R. Forster, _Observations_, p. 545, "To ornament the _marais_ and to honour by it the G.o.ds and the decayed buried there, the inhabitants plant several sorts of trees near them."

[165] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 271.

[166] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 405. Elsewhere (p.

401), speaking of the Tahitian burial customs, Ellis observes that "the skull was carefully kept in the family, while the other bones, etc., were buried within the precincts of the family temple."

[167] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 470. As to the Tahitian custom of burying the dead in the _marais_, see also C. E.

Meinicke, _Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans_, ii. 183 _sq._, according to whom only the bodies of persons of high rank were interred in these sanctuaries.

In the Marquesas islands the _morais_ appear to have been also used occasionally or even regularly as burial-places. Langsdorff, one of our earliest authorities on these islands, speaks of a _morai_ simply as a place of burial.[168] He tells us that the mummified bodies of the dead were deposited on scaffolds in the _morai_ or family burial-place, and that the people of neighbouring but hostile districts used to try to steal each other's dead from the _morais_, and deemed it a great triumph when they succeeded in the attempt. To defeat such attempts, when the inhabitants of a district expected to be attacked in force by their enemies, they were wont to remove their dead from the _morai_ and bury them in the neighbourhood.[169] Again, in their monograph on the Marquesas islands, the French writers Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz recognise only the mortuary aspect of the _morais_. They say: "The _morais_, funeral monuments where the bodies are deposited, are set up on a platform of stone, which is the base of all Nukahivan constructions. They are to be found scattered in the whole extent of the valleys; no particular condition seems to be required in the choice of the site. Near the sh.o.r.e of Taohae is the _morai_ which contains the remains of a brother of the _atepeou Patini_, an uncle of Moana, who died some years ago, as they tell us."[170]

[168] G. H. von Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 115.

[169] G. H. von Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 134.

[170] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _iles Marquises ou Nouka-hiva_ (Paris, 1843), p. 253.

Thus to some extent, in function as well as in form, these pyramidical temples of Tahiti and the Marquesas islands corresponded to the megalithic monuments of the Tooitongas or sacred chiefs of Tonga; in fact, they were mausoleums as well as temples. We are not at liberty to a.s.sume, with one authority on the Polynesians, that they were mausoleums first and foremost, and that they only developed into temples at a later time.[171] It is possible, on the contrary, that from the outset they were temples dedicated to the worship of the high G.o.ds, and that the custom of depositing the dead in them was a later practice adopted for the sake of the protection which these holy places might be expected to afford against the efforts of enemies to carry off and desecrate the remains of the departed. Dr. Rivers propounded a theory that the custom of building these megalithic monuments in the form of pyramids was introduced into the Pacific by a people who brought with them a secret worship of the sun, and he apparently inclined to regard the monuments themselves as at least a.s.sociated with that worship.[172] The theory can hardly apply to the megalithic monuments of the Tooitongas in Tongataboo; for the evidence which I have adduced seems to render it certain that these monuments were erected primarily as tombs to receive the bodies of the sacred chiefs. It is true that these tombs enjoyed a sacred character and were the scene of worship which justly ent.i.tles them to rank as temples; but so far as they were temples, they were devoted to the worship, not of the sun, but of the dead.

[171] C. E. Meinicke, _Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans_, ii. 180.

[172] W. H. R. Rivers, "Sun-cult and Megaliths in Oceania,"

_American Anthropologist_, N.S. xvii. (1915) pp. 431 _sqq._

Thus our enquiry into the meaning and origin of these interesting monuments entirely confirms the view of the shrewd and observant Captain Cook that the _fiatookas_, as the Tongans called them, were both places of burial and places of worship.

Finally, the evidence which I have cited appears to render it highly probable that these imposing monuments were built, not by a prehistoric people, predecessors of the Tongans in the islands, but by the Tongans themselves; for not only do the people affirm that the tombs were erected by their ancestors, but they have definite traditions of some of the chiefs who built them, and are buried in them; and they still profess to remember some of the islands from which the huge stones were brought to Tongataboo in great double canoes.

That the graves of the great chiefs were, like temples, regarded by the people with religious reverence appears plainly from a statement of Mariner. He tells us that a place called Mafanga, in the western part of Tongataboo, being a piece of land about half a mile square, was consecrated ground. "In this spot," he says, "are the graves where the greatest chiefs from time immemorial have been buried, and the place is therefore considered sacred; it would be a sacrilege to fight here, and n.o.body can be prevented from landing: if the most inveterate enemies meet upon this ground, they must look upon each other as friends, under penalty of the displeasure of the G.o.ds, and consequently an untimely death, or some great misfortune. There are several of these consecrated places on different islands."[173] Thus the reverence paid to the tombs of the chiefs was like the reverence paid to the consecrated houses and enclosures of the G.o.ds; we have already seen what a sacrilege it was deemed to fight or to pursue an enemy within the consecrated enclosure of a G.o.d,[174] and we now learn that it was equally a sacrilege to fight within the ground that was hallowed by the graves of the chiefs.

[173] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 88.