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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[Sidenote: Belief that the souls of the dead go up to the sky.]

Among the tribes of South-eastern Australia the Narrinyeri were not
alone in holding the curious belief that the souls of the dead go up
into the sky to live there for ever, but that their ghosts come down
again from time to time, roam about their old haunts on earth, and
communicate with the living. This, for example, was the belief of the
Dieri, the Buandik, the Kurnai, and the Kulin tribes.[180] The Buandik
thought that everything in skyland was better than on earth; a fat
kangaroo, for example, was compared to a kangaroo of heaven, where, of
course, the animals might be expected to abound.[181] The Kulin imagined
that the spirits of the dead ascended to heaven by the bright rays of
the setting sun.[182] The Wailwun natives in New South Wales used to
bury their dead in hollow trees, and when they dropped the body into its
place, the bearers and the bystanders joined in a loud whirring sound,
like the rush of the wind. They said that this represented the upward
flight of the soul to the sky.[183]

[Sidenote: Appearance of the dead to the living, especially in dreams.]

With regard to the ghosts on earth, some tribes of South-eastern
Australia believe that they can be seen by the living, can partake of
food, and can warm themselves at a fire. It is especially the graves,
where their mouldering bodies are deposited, that these restless spirits
are supposed to haunt; it is there that they shew themselves either to
people generally or to such as have the second sight.[184] But it is
most commonly in dreams that they appear to the living and hold
communication with them. Often these communications are believed to be
helpful. Thus the tribes of the Wotjobaluk nation thought that the
ghosts of their dead relations could visit them in sleep to protect
them. A Mukjarawaint man told Dr. Howitt that his father came to him in
a dream and warned him to beware or he would be killed. This, the man
believed, was the saving of his life; for he afterwards came to the
place which he had seen in his dream; whereupon, instead of going on, he
turned back, so that his enemies, who might have been waiting for him
there, did not catch him.[185] Another man informed Dr. Howitt that his
dead uncle appeared to him in sleep and taught him charms against
sickness and other evils; and the Chepara tribe similarly believed that
male ancestors visited sleepers and imparted to them charms to avert
evil magic.[186]

[Sidenote: Savage faith in the truth of dreams. Association of the stars
with the souls of the dead.]

Such notions follow naturally from the savage theory of dreams. Almost
all savages appear to believe firmly in the truth of dreams; they fail
to draw the distinction, which to us seems obvious, between the
imaginary creations of the mind in sleep and the waking realities of the
physical world. Whatever they dream of must, they think, be actually
existing; for have they not seen it with their own eyes? To argue that
the visions of sleep have no real existence is, therefore, in their
opinion, to argue against the plain evidence of their senses; and they
naturally treat such exaggerated scepticism with incredulity and
contempt. Hence when they dream of their dead friends and relations they
necessarily conclude that these persons are still alive somewhere and
somehow, though they do not commonly appear by daylight to people in
their waking hours. Unquestionably this savage faith in the reality of
dreams has been one of the principal sources of the widespread, almost
universal, belief in the survival of the human soul after death. It
explains why ghosts are supposed to appear rather by night than by day,
since it is chiefly by night that men sleep and dream dreams. Perhaps it
may also partly account for the association of the stars with the souls
of the dead. For if the dead appear to the living mainly in the hours of
darkness, it seems not unnatural to imagine that the bright points of
light which then bespangle the canopy of heaven are either the souls of
the departed or fires kindled by them in their home aloft. For example,
the Central Australian aborigines commonly suppose the stars to be the
camp-fires of natives who live on the banks of the great river which we
civilised men, by a survival of primitive mythology, call the Milky Way.
However, these rude savages, we are told, as a general rule "appear to
pay very little attention to the stars in detail, probably because they
enter very little into anything which is connected with their daily
life, and more especially with their food supply."[187] The same
observation which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen here make as to the natives
of Central Australia might be applied to most savages who have remained
in the purely hunting stage of social development. Such men are not much
addicted to star-gazing, since the stars have little or nothing to tell
them that they wish to know. It is not till people have betaken
themselves to sowing and reaping crops that they begin to scan the
heavens more carefully in order to determine the season of sowing by
observation of the great celestial time-keepers, the rising and setting
of certain constellations, above all, apparently, of the Pleiades.[188]
In short, the rise of agriculture favours the rise of astronomy.

[Sidenote: Creed of the South-eastern Australians touching the dead.]

But to return to the ideas of the Australian aborigines concerning the
dead, we may say of the natives of the south-eastern part of the
continent, in the words of Dr. Howitt, that "there is a universal belief
in the existence of the human spirit after death, as a ghost, which is
able to communicate with the living when they sleep. It finds its way to
the sky-country, where it lives in a land like the earth, only more
fertile, better watered, and plentifully supplied with game."[189] This
belief is very different from that of the Central Australian natives,
who think that the souls of the dead tarry on earth in their old
familiar haunts until the time comes for them to be born again into the
world. Of the two different creeds that of the south-eastern tribes may
be regarded as the more advanced, since it admits that the dead do not
return to life, and that their disembodied spirits do not haunt
perpetually a multitude of spiritual parks or reservations dotted over
the face of the country.

[Sidenote: The creed seems to form part of a general advance of culture
in this part of the continent.]

But how are we to account for this marked difference of belief between
the natives of the Centre and the natives of the South-east? Perhaps the
most probable explanation is that the creed of the south-eastern tribes
in this respect is part of a general advance of culture brought about by
the more favourable natural conditions under which they live as compared
with the forlorn state of the rude inhabitants of the Central deserts.
That advance of culture manifests itself in a variety of ways. On the
material side it is seen in more substantial and permanent dwellings and
in warmer and better clothing. On the social side it is seen in an
incipient tendency to the rise of a regular chieftainship, a thing which
is quite unknown among the democratic or rather oligarchic savages of
the Centre, who are mainly governed by the old men in council.[190] But
the rise of chieftainship is a great step in political progress; since a
monarchical government of some sort appears to be essential to the
emergence of mankind from savagery. On the whole, then, the beliefs of
the South-eastern Australian aborigines seem to mark a step on the
upward road towards civilisation.

[Sidenote: Possible influence of European teaching on native beliefs.]

At the same time we must not forget that these beliefs may have been
influenced by the lessons which they have learned from white settlers
with whom in this part of Australia they have been so long in contact.
The possibility of such a transfusion of the new wine of Europe into the
old bottles of Australia did not escape the experienced Mr. James
Dawson, an early settler in Victoria, who has given us a valuable
account of the natives of that region in the old days when they were
still comparatively little contaminated by intercourse with the whites.
He describes as follows the views which prevailed as to the dead among
the tribes of Western Victoria:--"After the disposal of the body of a
good person, its shade walks about for three days; and although it
appears to people, it holds no communication with them. Should it be
seen and named by anyone during these three days, it instantly
disappears. At the expiry of three days it goes off to a beautiful
country above the clouds, abounding with kangaroo and other game, where
life will be enjoyed for ever. Friends will meet and recognize each
other there; but there will be no marrying, as the bodies have been left
on earth. Children under four or five years have no souls and no future
life. The shades of the wicked wander miserably about the earth for one
year after death, frightening people, and then descend to Ummekulleen,
never to return." After giving us this account of the native creed Mr.
Dawson adds very justly: "Some of the ideas described above may possibly
have originated with the white man, and been transmitted from Sydney by
one tribe to another."[191] The probability of white influence on this
particular doctrine of religion is increased by the frank confession
which these same natives made of the religious deterioration (as they
regarded it) which they had suffered in another direction through the
teaching of the missionaries. On this subject, to quote again from Mr.
Dawson, the savages are of opinion that "the good spirit, Pirnmeheeal,
is a gigantic man, living above the clouds; and as he is of a kindly
disposition, and harms no one, he is seldom mentioned, but always with
respect. His voice, the thunder, is listened to with pleasure, as it
does good to man and beast, by bringing rain, and making grass and roots
grow for their benefit. But the aborigines say that the missionaries and
government protectors have given them a dread of Pirnmeheeal; and they
are sorry that the young people, and many of the old, are now afraid of
a being who never did any harm to their forefathers."[192]

[Sidenote: Vagueness and inconsistency of native beliefs as to the state
of the dead. Custom or ritual as the interpreter of belief.]

However, it is very difficult to ascertain the exact beliefs of savages
as to the dead. The thought of the savage is apt to be vague and
inconsistent; he neither represents his ideas clearly to his own mind
nor can he express them lucidly to others, even if he wishes to do so.
And his thought is not only vague and inconsistent; it is fluid and
unstable, liable to shift and change under alien influence. For these
and other reasons, such as the distrust of strangers and the difficulty
of language, which often interposes a formidable barrier between savage
man and the civilised enquirer, the domain of primitive beliefs is beset
by so many snares and pitfalls that we might almost despair of arriving
at the truth, were it not that we possess a clue to guide us on the dark
and slippery way. That clue is action. While it is generally very
difficult to ascertain what any man thinks, it is comparatively easy to
ascertain what he does; and what a man does, not what he says, is the
surest touchstone to his real belief. Hence when we attempt to study the
religion of backward races, the ritual which they practise is generally
a safer indication of their actual creed than the loudest profession of
faith. In regard to the state of the human soul after death the beliefs
of the Australian aborigines are clearly reflected in many of the
customs which they observe at the death and burial of their friends and
enemies, and it is accordingly with an account of some of these customs
that I propose to conclude this part of my subject.

[Sidenote: Burial customs of the Australian aborigines as evidence of
their beliefs concerning the state of the soul after death. Food placed
on the grave for the use of the ghost and fires kindled to warm him.]

Now some of the burial customs observed by the Australian savages reveal
in the clearest manner their belief that the human soul survives the
death of the body, that in its disembodied state it retains
consciousness and feeling, and can do a mischief to the living; in
short, they shew that in the opinion of these people the departed live
in the form of dangerous ghosts. Thus, for example, when the deceased is
a person of importance, the Dieri place food for many days on the grave,
and in winter they kindle a fire in order that the ghost may warm
himself at it. If the food remains untouched on the grave, they think
that the dead is not hungry.[193] The Blanch-water section of that tribe
fear the spirits of the dead and accordingly take steps to prevent their
resurrection. For that purpose they tie the toes of the corpse together
and the thumbs behind the back, which must obviously make it difficult
for the dead man to arise in his might and pursue them. Moreover, for a
month after the death they sweep a clear space round the grave at dusk
every evening, and inspect it every morning. If they find any tracks on
it, they assume that they have been made by the restless ghost in his
nocturnal peregrinations, and accordingly they dig up his mouldering
remains and bury them in some other place, where they hope he will sleep
sounder.[194] The Kukata tribe think that the ghost may be thirsty, so
they obligingly leave a drinking vessel on the grave, that he may slake
his thirst. Also they deposit spears and other weapons on the spot,
together with a digging-stick, which is specially intended to ward off
evil spirits who may be on the prowl.[195] The ghosts of the natives on
the Maranoa river were also thirsty souls, so vessels full of water were
sometimes suspended for their use over the grave.[196] A custom of
lighting a fire on the grave to warm the poor shivering ghost seems to
have been not uncommon among the aboriginal Australians. The Western
Victorians, for example, kept up large fires all night for this
purpose.[197] In the Wiimbaio tribe two fires were kept burning for a
whole month on the grave, one to the right and the other to the left, in
order that the ghost might come out and warm himself at them in the
chill night air. If they found tracks near the grave, they inferred,
like the Dieri, that the perturbed spirit had quitted his narrow bed to
pace to and fro in the long hours of darkness; but if no footprints were
visible they thought that he slept in peace.[198] In some parts of
Western Australia the natives maintained fires on the grave for more
than a month for the convenience of the ghost; and they clearly expected
him to come to life again, for they detached the nails from the thumb
and forefinger of the corpse and deposited them in a small hole beside
the grave, in order that they might know their friend at his
resurrection.[199] The length of time during which fires were maintained
or kindled daily on the grave is said to have varied, according to the
estimation in which the man was held, from a few days to three or four
years.[200] We have seen that the Dieri laid food on the grave for the
hungry ghost to partake of, and the same custom was observed by the
Gournditch-mara tribe.[201] However, some intelligent old aborigines of
Western Victoria derided the custom as "white fellow's gammon."[202]

[Sidenote: Property of the dead buried with them.]

Further, in some tribes of South-eastern Australia it was customary to
deposit the scanty property of the deceased, usually consisting of a few
rude weapons or implements, on the grave or to bury it with him. Thus
the natives of Western Victoria buried all a dead man's ornaments,
weapons, and property with him in the grave, only reserving his stone
axes, which were too valuable to be thus sacrificed: these were
inherited by the next of kin.[203] The Wurunjerri also interred the
personal property of the dead with him; if the deceased was a man, his
spear-thrower was stuck in the ground at the head of the grave; if the
deceased was a woman, the same thing was done with her digging-stick.
That these implements were intended for the use of the ghost and not
merely as headstones to mark the situation of the tomb and the sex of
the departed, is clear from a significant exception to the custom. When
the departed brother was a man of violent temper, who had been
quarrelsome and a brawler in his life, no weapons were buried with him,
obviously lest in a fit of ill-temper he should sally from the grave and
assault people with them.[204] Similarly the Turrbal tribe, who
deposited their dead in the forks of trees, used to leave a spear and
club near the corpse "that the spirit of the dead might have weapons
wherewith to kill game for his sustenance in the future state. A
yam-stick was placed in the ground at a woman's grave, so that she might
go away at night and seek for roots."[205] The Wolgal tribe were very
particular about burying everything that belonged to a dead man with
him; spears and nets, though valuable articles of property, were thus
sacrificed; even a canoe has been known to be cut up in order that the
pieces of it might be deposited in the grave. In fact "everything
belonging to a dead man was put out of sight."[206] Similarly in the
Geawe-gal tribe all the implements and inanimate property of a warrior
were interred with him.[207] In the Gringai country not only was all a
man's property buried with him, but every native present at the burial
contributed something, and these contributions were piled together at
the head of the corpse before the grave was filled in.[208] Among the
tribes of Southern Victoria, when the grave has been dug and lined with
fresh leaves and twigs so as to make a soft bed, the dead man's property
is brought in two bags, and the sorcerer shakes out the contents. They
consist of such small articles as pieces of hard stone suitable for
cutting or paring skins, bones for boring holes, twine made of opossum
wool, and so forth. These are placed in the grave, and the bags and rugs
of the deceased are torn up and thrown in likewise. Then the sorcerer
asks whether the dead man had any other property, and if he had, it is
brought forward and laid beside the torn fragments of the bags and rugs.
Everything that a man owned in life must be laid beside him in
death.[209] Again, among the tribes of the Lower Murray, Lachlan, and
Darling rivers in New South Wales, all a dead man's property, including
his weapons and nets, was buried with his body in the grave.[210]
Further, we are told that among the natives of Western Australia the
weapons and personal property of the deceased are placed on the grave,
"so that when he rises from the dead they may be ready to his
hand."[211] In the Boulia district of Queensland the things which
belonged to a dead man, such as his boomerangs and spears, are either
buried with him, destroyed by fire, or sometimes, though rarely,
distributed among his tribal brothers, but never among his
children.[212]

[Sidenote: Intention of destroying the property of the dead. The
property of the dead not destroyed in Central Australia.]

Thus among certain tribes of Australia, especially in the south-eastern
part of the continent, it appears that the custom of burying or
destroying a dead man's property has been very common. That the
intention of the custom in some cases is to supply the supposed needs of
the ghost, seems to be fairly certain; but we may doubt whether this
explanation would apply to the practice of burning or otherwise
destroying the things which had belonged to the deceased. More probably
such destruction springs from an overpowering dread of the ghost and a
wish to sever all connexion with him, so that he may have no excuse for
returning and haunting the survivors, as he might do if his property
were either kept by them or deposited in the grave. Whatever the motive
for the burial or destruction of a dead man's property may be, the
custom appears not to prevail among the tribes of Central Australia. In
the eastern Arunta tribe, indeed, it is said that sometimes a little
wooden vessel used in camp for holding small objects may be buried with
the man, but this is the only instance which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
could hear of in which any article of ordinary use is buried in the
grave. Far from wasting property in that way, these economical savages
preserve even a man's personal ornaments, such as his necklaces,
armlets, and the fur string which he wore round his head; indeed, as we
have seen, they go so far as to cut off the hair from the head of the
deceased and to keep it for magical uses.[213] In the Warramunga tribe
all the belongings of a dead man go to the tribal brothers of his
mother.[214]

[Sidenote: Property of the dead hung up on trees, then washed and
distributed. Economic loss entailed by sacrifices to the dead.]

The difference in this respect between the practice of the Central
tribes and that of the tribes nearer the sea, especially in Victoria and
New South Wales, is very notable. A custom intermediate between the two
is observed by some tribes of the Darling River, who hang up the
weapons, nets, and other property of the deceased on trees for about two
months, then wash them, and distribute them among the relations.[215]
The reason for hanging the things up and washing them is no doubt to rid
them of the infection of death in order that they may be used with
safety by the survivors. Such a custom points clearly to a growing fear
of the dead; and that fear or reverence comes out still more clearly in
the practice of either burying the property of the dead with them or
destroying it altogether, which is observed by the aborigines of
Victoria and other parts of Australia who live under more favourable
conditions of life than the inhabitants of the Central deserts. This
confirms the conclusion which we have reached on other grounds, that
among the aboriginal population of Australia favourable natural
conditions in respect of climate, food, and water have exercised a most
important influence in stimulating social progress in many directions,
and not least in the direction of religion. At the same time, while we
recognise that the incipient tendency to a worship of the dead which may
be detected in these regions marks a step forward in religious
development, we must acknowledge that the practice of burying or
destroying the property of the dead, which is one of the ways in which
the tendency manifests itself, is, regarded from the side of economic
progress, a decided step backward. It marks, in fact, the beginning of a
melancholy aberration of the human mind, which has led mankind to
sacrifice the real interests of the living to the imaginary interests of
the dead. With the general advance of society and the accompanying
accumulation of property these sacrifices have at certain stages of
evolution become heavier and heavier, as the demands of the ghosts
became more and more exacting. The economic waste which the belief in
the immortality of the soul has entailed on the world is incalculable.
When we contemplate that waste in its small beginnings among the rude
savages of Australia it appears insignificant enough; the world is not
much the poorer for the loss of a parcel of boomerangs, spears, fur
string, and skin rugs. But when we pass from the custom in this its
feeble source and follow it as it swells in volume through the nations
of the world till it attains the dimensions of a mighty river of wasted
labour, squandered treasure, and spilt blood, we cannot but wonder at
the strange mixture of good and evil in the affairs of mankind, seeing
in what we justly call progress so much hardly earned gain side by side
with so much gratuitous loss, such immense additions to the substantial
value of life to be set off against such enormous sacrifices to the
shadow of a shade.

[Footnote 160: W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No.
5, Superstition, Magic, and Medicine_ (Brisbane, 1903), pp. 18, 23,
Secs. 68, 83.]

[Footnote 161: Homer, _Odyssey_, xix. 163.]

[Footnote 162: W. E. Roth, _ll. cc._]

[Footnote 163: W. E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No.
5_ (Brisbane, 1903), p. 29. Sec. 116.]

[Footnote 164: W. E. Roth. _op. cit._ p. 18, Sec. 68.]

[Footnote 165: W. E. Roth, _op. cit._ pp. 17, 29, Secs. 65, 116.]

[Footnote 166: W. E. Roth, _op. cit._ p. 17, Sec. 65.]

[Footnote 167: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_ (Melbourne, Sydney,
and Adelaide, 1881), pp. 110 _sq._; A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of
South-East Australia_ (London, 1904), p. 442.]

[Footnote 168: A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 445.]

[Footnote 169: (Sir) George Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions of
Discovery in North-West and Western Australia_ (London, 1841), i.
301-303.]