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The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3)

S >> Sir James George Frazer >> The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3)




[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]

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