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)

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To illustrate at once the nature and the abundance of these legends I
will quote a passage in which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen describe a
journey they took in company with some Warramunga natives over part of
their country:--"For the first two days our way lay across miserable
plain country covered with poor scrub, with here and there low ranges
rising. Every prominent feature of any kind was associated with some
tradition of their past. A range some five miles away from Tennant Creek
arose to mark the path traversed by the great ancestor of the Pittongu
(bat) totem. Several miles further on a solitary upstanding column of
rock represented an opossum man who rested here, looked about the
country, and left spirit children behind him; a low range of remarkably
white quartzite hills indicated a large number of white ant eggs thrown
here in the _wingara_[146] by the Munga-munga women as they passed
across the country. A solitary flat-topped hill arose to mark the spot
where the Wongana (crow) ancestor paused for some time to pierce his
nose; and on the second night we camped by the side of a waterhole where
the same crow lived for some time in the _wingara_, and where now there
are plenty of crow spirit children. All the time, as we travelled along,
the old men were talking amongst themselves about the natural features
associated in tradition with these and other totemic ancestors of the
tribe, and pointing them out to us. On the third day we travelled, at
first for some hours, by the side of a river-bed,--perfectly dry of
course,--and passed the spot where two hawks first made fire by rubbing
sticks together, two fine gum-trees on the banks now representing the
place where they stood up. A few miles further on we came to a
water-hole by the side of which the moon-man met a bandicoot woman, and
while the two were talking together the fire made by the hawks crept
upon them and burnt the woman, who was, however, restored to life again
by the moon-man, with whom she then went up into the sky. Late in the
afternoon we skirted the eastern base of the Murchison Range, the rugged
quartzite hills in this part being associated partly with the crow
ancestor and partly with the bat. Following up a valley leading into the
hills we camped, just after sunset, by the side of a rather picturesque
water-pool amongst the ranges. A short distance before reaching this the
natives pointed out a curious red cliff, standing out amongst the low
hills which were elsewhere covered with thin scrub. This, which is
called Tjiti, represents the spot where an old woman spent a long time
digging for yams, the latter being indicated by great heaps of stones
lying all around. On the opposite side of the valley a column of stone
marks the spot where the woman went into the earth. The water-hole by
which we were camped was called Wiarminni. It was in reality a deep pool
in the bed of a creek coming down from the hills. Behind it the rocks
rose abruptly, and amongst them there was, or rather would have been if
a stream had been flowing, a succession of cascades and rocky
water-holes. Two of the latter, just above Wiarminni, are connected with
a fish totem, and represent the spot where two fish men arose in the
_alcheringa_, fought one another, left spirit children behind, and
finally went down into the ground. We were now, so to speak, in the very
midst of _mungai_ [i.e. of places associated with the totems], for the
old totemic ancestors of the tribe, who showed a most commendable
fondness for arising and walking about in the few picturesque spots
which their country contained, had apparently selected these rocky
gorges as their central home. All around us the water-holes, gorges, and
rocky crags were peopled with spirit individuals left behind by one or
other of the following totemic ancestors:--Wollunqua, Pittongu (bat),
Wongana (crow), wild dog, emu, bandicoot, and fish, whose lines of
travel in the _alcheringa_ formed a regular network over the whole
countryside."[147]

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

Similar evidence could be multiplied, but this may suffice to teach us
how to the minds of these Central Australian savages the whole country
is haunted, in the literal sense, not merely by the memories of their
dead, but by the spirits which they left behind them and which are
constantly undergoing reincarnation. And not only are the minds of the
aborigines preoccupied by the thought of their ancestors, who are
recalled to them by all the familiar features of the landscape, but they
spend a considerable part of their time in dramatically representing the
legendary doings of their rude forefathers of the remote past. It is
astonishing, we are told, how large a part of a native's life is
occupied with the performance of these dramatic ceremonies. The older he
grows, the greater is the share he takes in them, until at last they
actually absorb the greater part of his thoughts. The rites which seem
so trivial to us are most serious matters to him. They are all connected
with the great ancestors of the tribe, and he is firmly convinced that
when he dies his spirit will rejoin theirs and live in communion with
them until the time comes for him to be born again into the world. With
such solemnity does he look on the celebration of these commemorative
services, as we may call them, that none but initiated men are allowed
to witness them; women and children are strictly excluded from the
spectacle. These sacred dramas are often, though by no means always,
associated with the rites of initiation which young men have to pass
through before they are admitted to full membership of the tribe and to
participation in its deepest mysteries. The rites of initiation are not
all undergone by a youth at the same time; they succeed each other at
longer or shorter intervals of time, and at each of them he is
privileged to witness some of the solemn ceremonies in which the
traditions of the tribal ancestors are dramatically set forth before
him, until, when he has passed through the last of the rites and
ordeals, he is free to behold and to take part in the whole series of
mystery plays or professedly historical dramas. Sometimes the
performance of these dramas extends over two or three months, during
which one or more of them are acted daily.[148] For the most part, they
are very short and simple, each of them generally lasting only a few
minutes, though the costumes of the actors are often elaborate and may
have taken hours to prepare. I will describe a few of them as samples.

[Sidenote: Ceremony of the Hakea flower totem.]

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

[Sidenote: Ceremony of a fish totem.]

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

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

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

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

In all these ceremonies you will observe that the action of the drama is
strictly appropriate to the totem. In the drama of the Hakea flower
totem the actors pretend to make and drink the beverage brewed from
Hakea flowers; in the ceremony of the fish totem the actor feigns to be
a fish and also to catch fish; in the ceremony of the plum-tree totem
the actors pretend to knock down and eat plums; and in the ceremony of
the ant totem the actors make believe to gather ants for food.
Similarly, to take a few more examples, in a ceremony of the witchetty
grub totem of the Arunta tribe the body of the actor was decorated with
lines of white and red down, and he had a shield adorned with a number
of concentric circles of down. The smaller circles represented the bush
on which the grub lives first of all, and the larger circles represented
the bush on which the adult insect lays its eggs. When all was ready,
the performer seated himself on the ground and imitated the grub,
alternately doubling himself up and rising on his knees, while he
extended his arms and made them quiver in imitation of the insect's
wings; and every now and then he would bend over the shield and sway to
and fro, and up and down, in imitation of the insect hovering over the
bushes on which it lays its eggs.[153] In another ceremony of the
witchetty grub totem, which followed immediately the one I have just
described, the actor had two shields beside him. The smaller of the
shields was ornamented with zigzag lines of white pipe-clay which were
supposed to indicate the tracks of the grub; the larger shield was
covered with larger and smaller series of concentric circles, the larger
representing the seeds of a bush on which the insect feeds, while the
smaller stood for the eggs of the adult insect. As before, the actor
wriggled and flapped his arms in imitation of the fluttering of the
insect when it first leaves its chrysalis case in the ground and
attempts to fly. In acting thus he was supposed to represent a
celebrated ancestor of the witchetty grub totem.[154]

[Sidenote: Ceremony of the emu totem.]

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

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

What are we to think of the intention of these little dramas which the
Central Australian aborigines regard as sacred and to the performance of
which they devote so much time and labour? At first sight they are
simply commemorative services, designed to represent the ancestors as
they lived and moved in the far-past times, to recall their adventures,
of which legend has preserved the memory, and to set them dramatically
before the eyes of their living descendants. So far, therefore, the
dramas might be described as purely historical in intention, if not in
reality. But there are reasons for thinking that in all cases a deeper
meaning underlies, or formerly underlay, the performance of all these
apparently simple historical plays; in fact, we may suspect that
originally they were all magical ceremonies observed for the practical
purpose of supplying the people with food, water, sunshine, and
everything else of which they stand in need. This conclusion is
suggested first of all by the practice of the Arunta and other Central
Australian tribes, who observe very similar ceremonies with the avowed
intention of thereby multiplying the totemic animals and plants in order
that they may be eaten by the tribe, though not by the particular clan
which has these animals or plants for its totem. It is true that the
Arunta distinguish these magical ceremonies for the multiplication of
the totems from what we may call the more purely commemorative or
historical performances, and they have a special name for the former,
namely _intichiuma_, which they do not bestow on the latter. Yet these
_intichiuma_ or magical ceremonies resemble the commemorative ceremonies
so closely that it is difficult to suppose they can always have been
wholly distinct. For example, in the magical ceremonies for the
multiplication of witchetty grubs the performers pretend to be the
insects emerging from their chrysalis cases,[156] just as the actors do
in the similar commemorative ceremony which I have described; and again
in a magical ceremony for the multiplication of emus the performers wear
head-dresses to represent the long neck and small head of the bird, and
they mimic its gait,[157] exactly as the actors do in the commemorative
ceremony. It seems reasonable, therefore, to conjecture that the
ceremonies which now are, or seem to be, purely commemorative or
historical were originally magical in intention, being observed for the
practical purpose of multiplying edible animals and plants or supplying
other wants of the tribe.

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

Now this conjecture is strongly confirmed by the actual usage of the
Warramunga tribe, amongst whom the commemorative or historical dramas
are avowedly performed as magical rites: in other words, the Warramunga
attribute a magical virtue to the simple performance of such dramas:
they think that by merely acting the parts of their totemic ancestors
they thereby magically multiply the edible animals or plants which these
ancestors had for their totems. Hence in this tribe the magical
ceremonies and the dramatic performances practically coincide: with
them, as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, the _intichiuma_ or magical
ceremonies (called by the Warramunga _thalamminta_) "for the most part
simply consist in the performance of a complete series representing the
_alcheringa_ history of the totemic ancestor. In this tribe each totemic
group has usually one great ancestor, who arose in some special spot and
walked across the country, making various natural features as he did
so,--creeks, plains, ranges, and water-holes,--and leaving behind him
spirit individuals who have since been reincarnated. The _intichiuma_
[or magical] ceremony of the totem really consists in tracking these
ancestors' paths, and repeating, one after the other, ceremonies
commemorative of what are called the _mungai_ spots, the equivalent of
the _oknanikilla_ amongst the Arunta--that is, the places where he left
the spirit children behind."[158] Apparently the Warramunga imagine that
by imitating a totemic ancestor at the very place where he left spirit
children of the same totem behind him, they thereby enable these spirit
children to be born again and so increase the food supply, whenever
their totem is an edible animal or plant; for we must always remember
that in the mind of these savages the idea of a man or woman is
inextricably confused with the idea of his or her totem; they seem
unable to distinguish between the two, and therefore they believe that
in multiplying human beings at their local totemic centres (_mungai_ or
_oknanikilla_) they simultaneously multiply their totems; and as the
totems are commonly edible animals and plants, it follows that in the
opinion of the Warramunga the general effect of performing these
ancestral plays is to increase the supply of food of the tribe. No
wonder, therefore, that the dramas are sacred, and that the natives
attribute the most serious significance to their performance: the
neglect to perform them might, in their judgment, bring famine and ruin
on the whole tribe. As Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, speaking of these
ceremonies, justly observe: "Their proper performance is a matter of
very great importance in the eyes of the natives, because, not only do
they serve to keep alive and hand down from generation to generation the
traditions of the tribe, but they are, at least amongst the Warramunga,
intimately associated with the most important object of maintaining the
food supply, as every totemic group is held responsible for the
maintenance of the material object the name of which it bears."[159]

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

To sum up the attitude of the Central Australian natives towards their
dead. They believe that their dead are constantly undergoing
reincarnation by being born again of women into the world, in fact that
every living man, woman, and child is nothing but a dead person come to
life again, that so it has been from the beginning and that so it will
be to the end. Of a special world of the departed, remote and different
from the material world in which they live and from the familiar scenes
to which they have been accustomed from infancy, they have no
conception; still less, if that is possible, have they any idea of a
division of the world of the dead into a realm of bliss and a realm of
woe, where the spirits of the good live ineffably happy and the spirits
of the bad live unspeakably miserable. To their simple minds the spirits
of the dead dwell all about them in the rocky gorges, the barren plains,
the wooded dells, the rustling trees, the still waters of their native
land, haunting in death the very spots where they last entered into
their mothers' wombs to be born, and where in future they will again
enter into the wombs of other women to be born again as other children
into the world. And so, they think, it will go on for ever and ever.
Such a creed seems at first sight, as I have pointed out, irreconcilable
with a worship of the dead in the proper sense of the word; and so
perhaps it would be, if these savages were strictly consistent and
logical in their theories. But they are not. They admit that their
remote ancestors, in other words, that they themselves in former
incarnations, possessed certain marvellous powers to which in the
present degenerate days they can lay no claim; and in this significant
admission we may detect a rift, a real distinction of kind, between the
living and the dead, which in time might widen out into an impassable
gulf. In other words, we may suppose that the Central Australians, if
left to themselves, might come to hold that the dead return no more to
the land of the living, and that, acknowledging as they do the vast
superiority of their remote ancestors to themselves, they might end by
worshipping them, at first simply as powerful ancestral spirits, and
afterwards as supernatural deities, whose original connexion with
humanity had been totally forgotten. In point of fact we saw that among
the Warramunga the mythical water-snake Wollunqua, who is regarded as an
ancestor of a totemic clan, has made some progress towards deification;
for while he is still regarded as the forefather of the clan which bears
his name, it is no longer supposed that he is born again of women into
the world, but that he lives eternal and invisible under the water of a
haunted pool, and that he has it in his power both to help and to harm
his people, who pray to him and perform ceremonies in his honour. This
awful being, whose voice is heard in the peal of thunder and whose
dreadful name may not be pronounced in common life, is not far from
godhead; at least he is apparently the nearest approach to it which the
imagination of these rude savages has been able to conceive. Lastly, as
I have pointed out, the reverence which the Central Australians
entertain for their dead ancestors is closely bound up with their
totemism; they fail to distinguish clearly or at all between men and
their totems, and accordingly the ceremonies which they perform to
commemorate the dead are at the same time magical rites designed to
ensure an abundant supply of food and of all the other necessaries and
conveniences which savage life requires or admits of; indeed, we may
with some probability conjecture that the magical intention of these
ceremonies is the primary and original one, and that the commemorative
intention is secondary and derivative. If that could be proved to be so
(which is hardly to be expected), we should be obliged to conclude that
in this as in so many enquiries into the remote human past we detect
evidence of an Age of Magic preceding anything that deserves to be
dignified with the name of religion.

That ends what I have to say at present as to the belief in immortality
and the worship of the dead among the Central Australian aborigines. In
my next lecture I propose to pursue the enquiry among the other tribes
of Australia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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