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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[Footnote 150: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_,
pp. 316 _sq._]

[Footnote 151: Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ p. 320.]

[Footnote 152: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, pp. 199-204.]

[Footnote 153: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, pp. 179 _sq._]

[Footnote 154: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, pp. 179 _sq._]

[Footnote 155: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_,
pp. 358 _sq._, and p. 343, fig 73.]

[Footnote 156: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_,
p. 176.]

[Footnote 157: Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ pp. 182 _sq._]

[Footnote 158: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, p. 297.]

[Footnote 159: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, p. 197.]

LECTURE VI

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE OTHER ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA

[Sidenote: Customs and beliefs concerning the dead in the other tribes
of Australia.]

In the last lecture I concluded my account of the beliefs and practices
of the Central Australian aborigines in regard to the dead. To-day I
propose to consider the customs and beliefs concerning the dead which
prevail among the native tribes in other parts of Australia. But at the
outset I must warn you that our information as to these other tribes is
far less full and precise than that which we possess as to the tribes of
the centre, which have had the great advantage of being observed and
described by two highly qualified scientific observers, Messrs. Spencer
and Gillen. Our knowledge of all other Australian tribes is
comparatively fragmentary, and accordingly it is impossible to give even
an approximately complete view of their notions concerning the state of
the human spirit after death, and of the rites which they observe for
the purpose of disarming or propitiating the souls of the departed. We
must therefore content ourselves with more or less partial glimpses of
this side of native religion.

[Sidenote: Belief in the reincarnation of the dead among the natives of
Queensland. The _ngai_ spirits.]

The first question we naturally ask is whether the belief in the
reincarnation of the dead, which prevails universally among the Central
tribes, reappears among tribes in other parts of the continent. It
certainly does so, and although the evidence on this subject is very
imperfect it suffices to raise presumption that a similar belief in the
rebirth or reincarnation of the dead was formerly universal among the
Australian aborigines. Unquestionably the belief is entertained by some
of the natives of Queensland, who have been described for us by Mr. W.
E. Roth. Thus, for example, the aborigines on the Pennefather River
think that every person's spirit undergoes a series of reincarnations,
and that in the interval between two reincarnations the spirit resides
in one or other of the haunts of Anjea, a mythical being who causes
conception in women by putting mud babies into their bodies. Such spots,
haunted by the fabulous being Anjea and by the souls of the dead
awaiting rebirth, may be a tree, a rock, or a pool of water; they
clearly correspond to the local totem centres (_oknanikilla_ among the
Arunta, _mungai_ among the Warramunga) of the Central Australian tribes
which I described in former lectures. The natives of the Pennefather
River observe a ceremony at the birth of a child in order to ascertain
the exact spot where its spirit tarried in the interval since its last
incarnation; and when they have discovered it they speak of the child as
obtained from a tree, a rock, or a pool of water, according to the place
from which its spirit is supposed to have passed into its mother.[160]
Readers of the classics can hardly fail to be reminded of the Homeric
phrase to be "born of an oak or a rock,"[161] which seems to point to a
similar belief in the possibility of human souls awaiting reincarnation
in the boughs of an oak-tree or in the cleft of a rock. In the opinion
of the Pennefather natives all disembodied human spirits or _choi_, as
they call them, are mischief-makers and evildoers, for they make people
sick or crazy; but the medicine-men can sometimes control them for good
or evil. They wander about in the bush, but there are certain hollow
trees or clumps of trees with wide-spreading branches, which they most
love to haunt, and they can be heard in the rustling of the leaves or
the crackling of the boughs at night. Anjea himself, who puts babies
into women, is never seen, but you may hear him laughing in the depths
of the forest, among the rocks, in the lagoons, and along the mangrove
swamps; and when you hear his laugh you may be sure that he has got a
baby.[162] If a native happens to hurt himself near a tree, he imagines
that the spirit of some dead person is lurking among the branches, and
he will never cut that tree down lest a worse thing should befall him at
the hands of the vengeful ghost.[163] A curious feature in the beliefs
of these Pennefather natives is that apart from the spirit called
_choi_, which lives in a disembodied state between two incarnations,
every person is supposed to have a spirit of a different sort called
_ngai_, which has its seat in the heart; they feel it beating within
their breast; it talks to them in sleep and so is the cause of dreams.
At death a man's _ngai_ spirit does not go away into the bush to await
reincarnation like his _choi_ spirit; on the contrary, it passes at once
into his children, boys and girls alike; for before their father's death
children are supposed not to possess a _ngai_ spirit; if a child dies
before its father, they think that it never had a _ngai_ spirit at all.
And the _ngai_ spirit may leave a man in his lifetime as well as at
death; for example, when a person faints, the natives think that he does
so because his _ngai_ spirit has departed from him, and they will stamp
on the ground to make it return. On the other hand the _choi_ spirit is
supposed never to quit a man during life; it is thought to be in some
undefined way related to the shadow, whereas the _ngai_ spirit, as we
saw, manifests itself in the beating of the heart. When a woman dies,
her _ngai_ spirit goes not into her children but into her sisters, one
after the other; and when all the sisters are dead, the woman's _ngai_
spirit goes away among the mangroves and perishes altogether.[164]

Thus these savages explain the phenomena of birth and death, of
conscious and unconscious life, by a theory of a double human spirit,
one associated with the heart and the other with the shadow. The
psychology is rudimentary, still it is interesting as an attempt to
solve problems which still puzzle civilised man.

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the natives of Cape Bedford in Queensland.]

Other Queensland aborigines associate the vital principle not with the
heart but with the breath. For example, at Cape Bedford the natives call
it _wau-wu_ and think that it never leaves the body sleeping or waking
till death, when it haunts its place of burial for a time and may
communicate with the living. Thus, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, it
will often appear to a near kinsman or intimate friend, tell him the
pitiful tale how he was done to death by an enemy, and urge him to
revenge. Again, the soul of a man's dead father or friend may bear him
company on a journey and, like the beryl-stone in Rossetti's poem _Rose
Mary_, warn him of an ambuscade lurking for him in a spot where the man
himself sees nothing. But the spirits of the dead do not always come
with such friendly intent; they may drive the living distracted; a
peculiar form of mental excitement and bewilderment is attributed to
their action. Further, these aborigines at Cape Bedford, in Queensland,
believe that all spirits of nature are in fact souls of the dead. Such
spirits usually leave their haunts in the forests and caves at night.
Stout-hearted old men can see and converse with them and receive from
them warnings of danger; but women and children fear these spirits and
never see them. But some spirits of the dead, when they have ceased to
haunt their places of burial, go away eastward and are reincarnated in
white people; hence these savages often look for a resemblance to some
deceased tribesman among Europeans, and frequently wonder why it is that
the white man, on whom their fancy has pitched, remembers nothing about
his former life as a black man among blacks.[165]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the natives of the Tully River in Queensland.]

The natives of the Tully River in Queensland associate the principle of
life both with the breath and with the shadow. It departs from the body
temporarily in sleep and fainting-fits and permanently in death, after
which it may be heard at night tapping on the top of huts or creaking in
the branches of trees. It is everlasting, so far as these savages have
any idea of eternity, and further it is intangible; hence in its
disembodied state it needs no food, and none is set out for it. The
disposition of these disembodied spirits of the dead is good or bad,
according to their disposition in life. Yet when a man is alone by
himself, the spirit even of one of his own dead kinsfolk will sometimes
come and do him a mischief. On the other hand it can do nothing to
several people together; there is safety in numbers. They may all see
and hear the ghost, but he will not attack them. Hence these savages
have been taught from childhood to beware of going alone: solitary
people are liable at any moment to be assailed by the spirits of the
dead. The only means they know of warding off these ghostly assailants
is by lighting good fires.[166]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Australian aborigines that their dead are
reborn in white people.]

I have mentioned the belief of the Cape Bedford natives that the spirits
of their dead are sometimes reincarnated in white people. A similar
notion is reported from other and widely separated parts of Australia,
and wherever it exists may be taken as evidence of a general belief as
to the rebirth or reincarnation of the dead, even where such a belief is
not expressly recorded. This superstition has sometimes proved of
service to white people who have been cast among the blacks, for it has
ensured them a hospitable and even affectionate welcome, where otherwise
they might have encountered suspicion and hostility, if not open
violence. Thus, for example, the convict Buckley, who escaped from the
penal settlement on Port Phillip Bay in 1803, was found by some of the
Wudthaurung tribe carrying a piece of a broken spear, which he had
abstracted from the grave of one of their people. So they took him to be
the dead man risen from the grave; he received the name of the deceased,
was adopted by his relations, and lived with the tribe for thirty-two
years without ever conversing with a white man; when at last he met one,
he had forgotten the English language.[167] Again, a Mr. Naseby, who
lived in the Kamilaroi country for fifty years, happened to have the
marks of cupping on his back, and the natives could not be persuaded
that he was not one of themselves come to life again with the family
scars on his body,[168] for the Australian aborigines commonly raise
scars on the bodies of young men at initiation. The late Sir George Grey
was identified by an old Australian woman as her dead son come to life
again. It may be worth while to quote his account of this unlooked-for
meeting with his long-lost mother; for it will impress on you, better
than any words of mine could do, the firmness of the faith which these
savages repose in the resurrection of the body, or at all events in the
reincarnation of the soul. Grey writes as follows:--

[Sidenote: Experience of Sir George Grey.]

"After we had tethered the horses, and made ourselves tolerably
comfortable, we heard loud voices from the hills above us: the effect
was fine,--for they really almost appeared to float in the air; and as
the wild cries of the women, who knew not our exact position, came by
upon the wind, I thought it was well worth a little trouble to hear
these savage sounds under such circumstances. Our guides shouted in
return, and gradually the approaching cries came nearer and nearer. I
was, however, wholly unprepared for the scene that was about to take
place. A sort of procession came up, headed by two women, down whose
cheeks tears were streaming. The eldest of these came up to me, and
looking for a moment at me, said,--'_Gwa, gwa, bundo, bal_,'--'Yes, yes,
in truth it is him'; and then throwing her arms round me, cried
bitterly, her head resting on my breast; and although I was totally
ignorant of what their meaning was, from mere motives of compassion, I
offered no resistance to her caresses, however disagreeable they might
be, for she was old, ugly, and filthily dirty; the other younger one
knelt at my feet, also crying. At last the old lady, emboldened by my
submission, deliberately kissed me on each cheek, just in the manner a
Frenchwoman would have done; she then cried a little more, and at length
relieving me, assured me that I was the ghost of her son, who had some
time before been killed by a spear-wound in his breast. The younger
female was my sister; but she, whether from motives of delicacy, or from
any imagined backwardness on my part, did not think proper to kiss me.
My new mother expressed almost as much delight at my return to my
family, as my real mother would have done, had I been unexpectedly
restored to her. As soon as she left me, my brothers, and father (the
old man who had previously been so frightened), came up and embraced me
after their manner,--that is, they threw their arms round my waist,
placed their right knee against my right knee, and their breast against
my breast, holding me in this way for several minutes. During the time
that the ceremony lasted, I, according to the native custom, preserved a
grave and mournful expression of countenance. This belief, that white
people are the souls of departed blacks, is by no means an uncommon
superstition amongst them; they themselves never having an idea of
quitting their own land, cannot imagine others doing it;--and thus, when
they see white people suddenly appear in their country, and settling
themselves down in particular spots, they imagine that they must have
formed an attachment for this land in some other state of existence; and
hence conclude the settlers were at one period black men and their own
relations. Likenesses, whether real or imagined, complete the delusion;
and from the manner of the old woman I have just alluded to, from her
many tears, and from her warm caresses, I feel firmly convinced that she
really believed I was her son, whose first thought, upon his return to
earth, had been to re-visit his old mother, and bring her a
present."[169]

[Sidenote: In South-eastern Australia the natives believed that the
souls of the dead were not reborn but went up to the sky.]

On the whole then we may conclude that a belief in the reincarnation of
the dead has not been confined to the tribes of Central Australia, but
has been held by the tribes in many, perhaps at one time in all, other
parts of the continent. Yet, if we may judge from the imperfect records
which we possess, this faith in the return of the dead to life in human
form would seem to have given way and been replaced to some extent by a
different creed among many tribes of South-eastern Australia. In this
part of the continent it appears to have been often held by the natives
that after death the soul is not born again among men, but goes away for
ever to some distant country either in the sky or beyond the sea, where
all the spirits of the dead congregate. Thus Lieutenant-Colonel Collins,
who was Governor of New South Wales in the early days of the colony, at
the end of the eighteenth century, reports that when the natives were
often questioned "as to what became of them after their decease, some
answered that they went either on or beyond the great water; but by far
the greater number signified, that they went to the clouds."[170] Again,
the Narrinyeri tribe of South Australia believed that all the dead went
up to the sky and that some of them at least became stars. We possess an
excellent description of the beliefs and customs of this tribe from the
pen of a missionary, the Rev. George Taplin, who lived among them for
many years. His account of their theory of the state of the dead is
instructive. It runs thus:--

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Narrinyeri concerning the dead.]

"The Narrinyeri point out several stars, and say that they are deceased
warriors who have gone to heaven (_Wyirrewarre_). There are Wyungare,
and Nepalle, and the Manchingga, and several others. Every native
expects to go to _Wyirrewarre_ after death. They also believe that the
dead descend from thence, and walk the earth; and that they are able to
injure those whom they dislike. Consequently, men who have been
notorious in life for a domineering and revengeful disposition are very
much dreaded after death. For instance, there is Karungpe, who comes in
the dead of night, when the camp fire has burned low, and like a rushing
wind scatters the dying embers, and then takes advantage of the darkness
to rob some sleeper of life; and it is considered dangerous to whistle
in the dark, for Karungpe is especially attracted by a whistle. There is
another restless spirit--the deceased father of a boy whom I well
know--who is said to rove about armed with a rope, with which he catches
people. All the Narrinyeri, old and young, are dreadfully afraid of
seeing ghosts, and none of them will venture into the scrub after dark,
lest he should encounter the spirits which are supposed to roam there. I
have heard some admirable specimens of ghost stories from them. In one
case I remember the ghost was represented to have set fire to a _wurley_
[hut], and ascended to heaven in the flame. The Narrinyeri regard the
disapprobation of the spirits of the dead as a thing to be dreaded; and
if a serious quarrel takes place between near relatives, some of the
friends are sure to interpose with entreaties to the contentious parties
to be reconciled, lest the spirits of the dead should be offended at
unseemly disputes between those who ought to be at peace. The name of
the dead must not be mentioned until his body has decayed, lest a want
of sorrow should seem to be indicated by the common and flippant use of
his name. A native would have the deceased believe that he cannot hear
or speak his name without weeping."[171]

[Sidenote: Narrinyeri fear of the dead. Mourning customs.]

From this account it would appear that the Narrinyeri have no belief in
the reincarnation of the dead; they suppose that the souls of the
departed live up aloft in the sky, from which they descend at night in
the form of ghosts to haunt and trouble the living. On the whole the
attitude of the Narrinyeri towards their dead kinsfolk seems to be
dominated by fear; of affection there is apparently little or no trace.
It is true that like most Australian tribes they indulge in extravagant
demonstrations of grief at the death of their kinsfolk. A great
lamentation and wailing is made by all the relations and friends of the
deceased. They cut off their hair close to the head and besmudge
themselves with oil and pounded charcoal. The women besmear themselves
with the most disgusting filth. All beat and cut themselves and make a
violent show of sorrow; and all the time that the corpse, rubbed over
with grease and red ochre, is being dried over a slow fire in the hut,
the women take it by turns to weep and wail before it, so that the
lamentation never ceases for days. Yet Mr. Taplin was persuaded "that
fear has more to do with most of these exhibitions than grief"; and he
tells us that "for one minute a woman will appear in the deepest agony
of grief and tears; a few minutes after, the conventional amount of
weeping having been accomplished, they will laugh and talk with the
merriest."[172] The principal motive, in fact, for all this excessive
display of sorrow would seem to be a fear lest the jealous ghost should
think himself slighted and should avenge the slight on the cold-hearted
relatives who do not mourn sufficiently for the irreparable loss they
have sustained by his death. We may conjecture that the same train of
thought explains the ancient and widespread custom of hiring
professional mourners to wail over the dead; the tears and lamentations
of his kinsfolk are not enough to soothe the wounded feelings of the
departed, they must be reinforced by noisier expressions of regret.

[Sidenote: Deaths attributed by the Narrinyeri to sorcery.]

But there is another powerful motive for all these violent
demonstrations of grief, into the secret of which we are let by Mr.
Taplin. He says that "all the relatives are careful to be present and
not to be wanting in the proper signs of sorrow, lest they should be
suspected of complicity in causing the death."[173] In fact the
Narrinyeri, like many other savages, attribute all, or most, natural
deaths to sorcery. When a person dies, they think that he or she has
been killed by the evil magic of some ill-wisher, and one of the first
things to be done is to discover the culprit in order that his life may
be taken in revenge. For this purpose the Narrinyeri resort to a form of
divination. On the first night after the death the nearest relation of
the deceased sleeps with his head on the corpse, hoping thus to dream of
the sorcerer who has done the mischief. Next day the corpse is placed on
a sort of bier supported on men's shoulders. The friends of the deceased
gather round and call out the names of suspected persons to see whether
the corpse will give any sign. At last the next of kin calls out the
name of the person of whom he has dreamed, and if at the sound the
corpse makes a movement towards him, which the bearers say they cannot
resist, it is regarded as a clear token that the man so named is the
malefactor. It only remains for the kinsfolk of the dead to hunt down
the culprit and kill him.[174] Thus not only the relations but everybody
in the neighbourhood has the strongest motive for assuming at least an
appearance of sorrow at a death, lest the suspicion of having caused it
by sorcery should fall upon him.

[Sidenote: Pretence made by the Narrinyeri of avenging the death of
their friends on the guilty sorcerer.]

It deserves to be noted, that while the Narrinyeri nominally
acknowledged the duty of killing the sorcerer who in their opinion had
caused the death of their friend, they by no means always discharged the
duty, but sometimes contented themselves with little more than a
pretence of revenge. Mr. Taplin's account of the proceedings observed on
such an occasion is instructive. It runs thus: "The spirit of the dead
is not considered to have been appeased until his relatives have avenged
his death. They will kill the sorcerer who has caused it if they can
catch him; but generally they cannot catch him, and often do not wish
it. Most probably he belongs to some other tribe of the Narrinyeri.
Messengers pass between the tribes relative to the affair, and the
friends of the accused person at last formally curse the dead man and
all his dead relatives. This constitutes a _casus belli_. Arrangements
are forthwith made for a pitched battle, and the two tribes meet in
company with their respective allies. The tribe to which the dead man
belongs weep and make a great lamentation for him, and the opposing
tribe sets some fellows to dance about and play antics in derision of
their enemies. Then the whole tribe will set up a great laugh by way of
further provocation. If there is any other cause of animosity between
the tribes besides the matter of avenging the dead there will now be a
pretty severe fight with spears. If, however, the tribes have nothing
but the dead man to fight about, they will probably throw a few spears,
indulge in considerable abuse of each other, perhaps one or two will get
slightly wounded, and then some of the old men will declare that enough
has been done. The dead man is considered to have been appeased by the
efforts of his friends to avenge his death by fighting, and the two
tribes are friendly again. In such a case the fight is a mere
ceremony."[175] Thus among the Narrinyeri the duty of blood revenge was
often supposed to be sufficiently discharged by a sham fight performed
apparently for the satisfaction of the ghost, who was supposed to be
looking on and to be gratified by the sight of his friends hurling
spears at the author of his death. Merciful pretences of the same sort
have been practised by other savages in order to satisfy the vengeful
ghost without the effusion of blood. Examples of them will come before
us later on.[176]

[Sidenote: Magical virtue ascribed to the hair of the dead.]

However, the attitude of the Narrinyeri towards their dead was not
purely one of fear and aversion. They imagined that they could derive
certain benefits from their departed kinsfolk, and the channel through
which these benefits flowed was furnished by their hair. They cut off
the hair of the dead and spun it into a cord, and this cord was commonly
worn by the men as a head-band. They said that thereby they "smelled the
dead," and that the smell made their eyes large and their sight keen, so
that in a fight they could see the spears coming and could parry or
avoid them.[177] Similar magical virtues are ascribed to the hair of the
dead by the Arunta. Among them the hair of a dead man is cut off and
made into a magic girdle, which is a valued possession and is only worn
when a man is going out to engage in a tribal fight or to stalk a foe
for the purpose of destroying him by witchcraft. The girdle is supposed
to be endowed with magic power and to impart to its possessor all the
warlike qualities of the dead man from whose hair it was made; in
particular, it is thought to ensure accuracy of aim in the wearer, while
at the same time it destroys that of his adversary.[178] Hence the
girdle is worn by the man who takes the lead in avenging the death of
the deceased on his supposed murderer; the mere sight of it, they think,
so terrifies the victim that his legs tremble under him, he becomes
incapable of fighting, and is easily speared.[179]