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: The Koita or Koitapu.]

Side by side with the Motu live the Koita or Koitapu, who appear to be
the aboriginal inhabitants of the country and to belong to the Papuan
stock. Their villages lie scattered for a distance of about forty miles
along the coast, from a point about seven miles south-east of Port
Moresby to a point on Redscar Bay to the north-west of that settlement.
They live on friendly terms with the Motu and have intermarried with
them for generations. The villages of the two tribes are usually built
near to or even in direct continuity with each other. But while the Motu
are mainly fishers and potters, the Koita are mainly tillers of the
soil, though they have learned some arts or adopted some customs from
their neighbours. They say to the Motu, "Yours is the sea, the canoes,
the nets; ours the land and the wallaby. Give us fish for our flesh, and
pottery for our yams and bananas." The Motu look down upon the Koita,
but fear their power of sorcery, and apply to them for help in sickness
and for the weather they happen to require; for they imagine that the
Koita rule the elements and can make rain or sunshine, wind or calm by
their magic. Thus, as in so many cases, the members of the immigrant
race confess their inability to understand and manage the gods or
spirits of the land, and have recourse in time of need to the magic of
the aboriginal inhabitants. While the Koita belong to the Papuan stock
and speak a Papuan language, most of the men understand the Motu tongue,
which is one of the Melanesian family. Altogether these two tribes, the
Koita and the Motu, may be regarded as typical representatives of the
mixed race to which the name of Papuo-Melanesian is now given.[314]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Koita concerning the human soul.]

The Koita believe that the human spirit or ghost, which they call _sua_,
leaves the body at death and goes away to live with other ghosts on a
mountain called Idu. But they think that the spirit can quit the body
and return to it during life; it goes away, for example, in dreams, and
if a sleeper should unfortunately waken before his soul has had time to
return, he will probably fall sick. Sneezing is a sign that the soul has
returned to the body, and if a man does not sneeze for many weeks
together, his friends look on it as a grave symptom; his soul, they
imagine, must be a very long way off.[315] Moreover, a man's soul may be
enticed from his body and detained by a demon or _tabu_, as the Koita
call it. Thus, when a man who has been out in the forest returns home
and shakes with fever, it is assumed that he has fallen down and been
robbed of his soul by a demon. In order to recover that priceless
possession, the sufferer and his friends repair to the exact spot in the
forest where the supposed robbery was perpetrated. They take with them a
long bamboo with some valuable ornaments tied to it, and two men support
it horizontally over a pot which is filled with grass. A light is put to
the grass, and as it crackles and blazes a number of men standing round
the pot strike it with stones till it breaks, whereat they all groan.
Then the company returns to the village, and the sick man lies down in
his house with the bamboo and its ornaments hung over him. This is
supposed to be all that is needed to effect a perfect cure; for the
demon has kindly accepted the soul of the ornaments and released the
soul of the sufferer, who ought to recover accordingly.[316]

[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Koita concerning the state of the dead.
Alleged communications with the dead by means of mediums.]

However, at death the soul goes away for good and all; at least there
appears to be no idea that it will ever return to life in the form of an
infant, as the souls of the Central Australian aborigines are supposed
to do. All Koita ghosts live together on Mount Idu, and their life is
very like the one they led here on earth. There is no distinction
between the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked, the strong
and the weak, the young and the old; they all fare alike in the
spirit-land, with one exception. Like the Motu, the Koita are in the
habit of boring holes in their noses and inserting ornaments in the
holes; and they think that if any person were so unfortunate as to be
buried with his nose whole and entire, his ghost would have to go about
in the other world with a creature like a slow-worm depending from his
nostrils on either side. Hence, when anybody dies before the operation
of nose-boring has been performed on him or her, the friends take care
to bore a hole in the nose of the corpse in order that the ghost may not
appear disfigured among his fellows in dead man's land. There the ghosts
dwell in houses, cultivate gardens, marry wives, and amuse themselves
just as they did here on earth. They live a long time, but not for ever;
for they grow weaker and weaker and at last die the second death, never
to revive again, not even as ghosts. The exact length of time they live
in the spirit-land has not been accurately ascertained; but there seems
to be a notion that they survive only so long as their names and their
memories survive among the living. When these are utterly forgotten, the
poor ghosts cease to exist. If that is so, it is obvious that the dead
depend for their continued existence upon the recollection of the
living; their names are in a sense their souls, so that oblivion of the
name involves extinction of the soul.[317] But though the spirits of the
dead go away to live for a time on Mount Idu, they often return to their
native villages and haunt the place of their death. On these visits they
shew little benevolence or lovingkindness to their descendants. They
punish any neglect in the performance of the funeral rites and any
infringement of tribal customs, and the punishment takes the form of
sickness or of bad luck in hunting or fishing. This dread of the ghost
commonly leads the Koita to desert a house after a death and to let it
fall into decay; but sometimes the widow, or in rare cases a brother or
sister, will continue to inhabit the house of the deceased. Children who
play near dwellings which have been deserted on account of death may
fall sick; and if people who are not members of the family partake of
food which has been hung up in such houses, they also may sicken. It is
in dreams that the ghosts usually appear to the survivors; but
occasionally they may be seen or at least felt by people in the waking
state. Some years ago four Motuan girls persuaded many natives of Port
Moresby that they could evoke the spirit of a youth named Tamasi, who
had died three years before. The mother and other sorrowing relatives of
the deceased paid a high price to the principal medium, a young woman
named Mea, for an interview with the ghost. The meeting took place in a
house by night. The relations and friends squatted on the ground in
expectation; and sure enough the ghost presented himself in the darkness
and went round shaking hands most affably with the assembled company.
However, a sceptic who happened to assist at this spiritual sitting, had
the temerity to hold on tight to the proffered hand of the ghost, while
another infidel assisted him to obtain a sight as well as a touch of the
vanished hand by striking a light. It then turned out that the supposed
apparition was no spirit but the medium Mea herself. She was brought
before a magistrate, who sentenced her to a short term of imprisonment
and relieved her of the property which she had amassed by the exercise
of her spiritual talents.[318] It is hardly for us, or at least for some
of us, to cast stones at the efforts of ignorant savages to communicate
by means of such intermediaries with their departed friends. Similar
attempts have been made in our own country within our lifetime, and I
believe that they are still being made, in perfect good faith, by
educated ladies and gentlemen, who like their black brethren and sisters
in the faith are sometimes made the dupes of designing knaves. If New
Guinea has its Meas, Europe has its Eusapias. Human credulity and vulgar
imposture are much the same all the world over.

[Sidenote: Fear of the dead.]

The fear of the dead is strongly marked in some funeral customs which
are observed by the Roro-speaking tribes who occupy a territory at the
mouth of the St. Joseph river in British New Guinea.[319] When a death
takes place, the female relations of the deceased lacerate their skulls,
faces, breasts, bellies, arms, and legs with sharp shells, till they
stream with blood and fall down exhausted. Moreover, a fire is kindled
on the grave and kept up almost continually for months for the purpose,
we are told, of warming the ghost.[320] These attentions might be
interpreted as marks of affection rather than of fear; but in other
customs of these people the dread of the ghost is unmistakable. For when
the corpse has been placed in the grave a near kinsman strokes it twice
with a branch from head to foot in order to drive away the dead man's
spirit; and in Yule Island, when the ghost has thus been brushed away
from the body, he is pursued by two men brandishing sticks and torches
from the village to the edge of the forest, where with a last curse they
hurl the sticks and torches after him.[321]

[Sidenote: Ghost of dead wife feared by widower.]

Among these people the visits of ghosts, though frequent, are far from
welcome, for all ghosts are supposed to be mischievous and to take no
delight but in injuring the living. Hence, for example, a widower in
mourning goes about everywhere armed with an axe to defend himself
against the spirit of his dead wife, who might play him many an ill turn
if she caught him defenceless and off his guard. And he is subject to
many curious restrictions and has to lead the life of an outcast from
society, apparently because people fear to come into contact with a man
whose steps are dogged by so dangerous a spirit.[322] This account of
the terrors of ghosts we owe to a Catholic missionary. But according to
the information collected by Dr. Seligmann among these people the dread
inspired by the souls of the dead is not so absolute. He tells us,
indeed, that ghosts are thought to make people ill by stealing their
souls; that the natives fear to go alone outside the village in the dark
lest they should encounter a spectre; and that if too many quarrels
occur among the women, the spirits of the dead may manifest their
displeasure by visiting hunters and fishers with bad luck, so that it
may be necessary to conjure their souls out of the village. On the other
hand, it is said that if the ghosts abandoned a village altogether, the
luck of the villagers would be gone, and if such a thing is supposed to
have happened, measures are taken to bring back the spirits of the
departed to the old home.[323]

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

Inland from the Roro-speaking tribes, among the mountains at the head of
the St. Joseph River, there is a tribe known to their neighbours as the
Mafulu, though they call themselves Mambule. They speak a Papuan
language, but their physical characteristics are believed to indicate a
strain of Negrito blood.[324] The Mafulu hold that at death the human
spirit leaves the body and becomes a malevolent ghost. Accordingly they
drive it away with shouts. It is supposed to go away to the tops of the
mountains there to become, according to its age, either a shimmering
light on the ground or a large sort of fungus, which is found only on
the mountains. Hence natives who come across such a shimmering light or
such a fungus are careful not to tread on it; much less would they eat
the fungus. However, in spite of their transformation into these things,
the ghosts come down from the mountains and prowl about the villages and
gardens seeking what they may devour, and as their intentions are always
evil their visits are dreaded by the people, who fill up the crevices
and openings, except the doors, of their houses at night in order to
prevent the incursions of these unquiet spirits. When a mission station
was founded in their country, the Mafulu were amazed that the
missionaries should sleep alone in rooms with open doors and windows,
through which the ghosts might enter.[325]

[Sidenote: Burial customs of the Mafulu.]

Common people among the Mafulu are buried in shallow graves in the
village, and pigs are killed at the funeral for the purpose of appeasing
the ghost. Mourners wear necklaces of string and smear their faces,
sometimes also their bodies, with black, which they renew from time to
time. Instead of wearing a necklace, a widow, widower, or other near
relative may abstain during the period of mourning from eating a
favourite food of the deceased. A woman who has lost a child, especially
a first-born or dearly loved child, will often amputate the first joint
of one of her fingers with an adze; and she may repeat the amputation if
she suffers another bereavement. A woman has been seen with three of her
fingers mutilated in this fashion.[326] The corpses of chiefs, their
wives, and other members of their families are not buried in graves but
laid in rude coffins, which are then deposited either on rough platforms
in the village or in the fork of a species of fig-tree. This sort of
tree, called by the natives _gabi_, is specially used for such burials;
one of them has been seen supporting no less than six coffins, one above
the other. The Mafulu never cut down these trees, and in seeking a new
site for a village they will often choose a place where one of them is
growing. So long as the corpse of a chief is rotting and stinking on the
platform or the tree, the village is deserted by the inhabitants; only
two men, relatives of the deceased, remain behind exposed to the stench
of the decaying body and the blood of the pigs which were slaughtered at
the funeral feast. When decomposition is complete, the people return to
the village. Should the coffin fall to the ground through the decay of
the platform or the tree on which it rests, the people throw away all
the bones except the skull and the larger bones of the arms and legs;
these they bury in a shallow grave under the platform, or put in a box
on a burial tree, or hang up in the chief's house.[327]

[Sidenote: Use made of the skulls and bones at a great festival.]

The skulls and leg and arm bones of chiefs, their wives, and other
members of their families, which have thus been preserved, play a
prominent part in the great feasts which the inhabitants of a Mafulu
village celebrate at intervals of perhaps fifteen or twenty years. Great
preparations are made for such a celebration. A series of tall posts,
one for each household, is erected in the open space which intervenes
between the two rows of the village houses. Yams and taro are fastened
to the upper parts of the posts; and below them are hung in circles the
skulls and arm and leg bones of dead chiefs, their wives, and kinsfolk,
which have been preserved in the manner described. Any skulls and bones
that remain over when all the posts have been thus decorated are placed
on a platform, which has either served for the ordinary exposure of a
chief's corpse or has been specially erected for the purpose of the
festival. At a given moment of the ceremony the chief of the clan cuts
down the props which support the platform, so that the skulls and bones
roll on the ground. These are picked up and afterwards distributed,
along with some of the skulls and bones from the posts, by the chief of
the clan to the more important of the invited guests, who wear them as
ornaments on their arms in a great dance. None but certain of the male
guests take part in the dance; the villagers themselves merely look on.
All the dancers are arrayed in full dancing costume, including heavy
head-dresses of feathers, and they carry drums and spears, sometimes
also clubs or adzes. The dance lasts the whole night. When it is over,
the skulls and bones are hung up again on the tall posts. Afterwards the
fruits and vegetables which have been collected in large quantities are
divided among the guests. On a subsequent morning a large number of pigs
are killed, and certain of the hosts take some of the human bones from
the posts and dip them in the blood which flows from the mouths of the
slaughtered pigs. With these blood-stained bones they next touch the
skulls and all the other bones on the posts, which include all the
skulls and arm and leg bones of all the chiefs and members of their
families and other prominent persons who have been buried in the village
or in any other village of the community since the last great feast was
held. These relics of mortality may afterwards be kept in the chief's
house, or hung on a tree, or simply thrown away in the forest; but in no
case are they ever again used for purposes of ceremony. The slaughtered
pigs are cut up and the portions distributed among the guests, who carry
them away for consumption in their own villages.[328]

[Sidenote: Trace of ancestor worship among the Mafulu.]

This preservation of the skulls and bones of chiefs and other notables
for years, and the dipping of them in the blood of pigs at a great
festival, must apparently be designed to propitiate or influence in some
way the ghosts of the persons to whom the skulls and bones belonged in
their lifetime. But Mr. R. W. Williamson, to whom we are indebted for
the description of this interesting ceremony, was not able to detect any
other clear indications of ancestor worship among the people.[329]

[Sidenote: Worship of the dead among the natives of the Aroma district.]

However, a real worship of the dead, or something approaching to it, is
reported to exist among some of the natives of the Aroma district in
British New Guinea. Each family is said to have a sacred place, whither
they carry offerings for the spirits of dead ancestors, whom they
terribly fear. Sickness in the family, death, famine, scarcity of fish,
and so forth, are all set down to the anger of these dreadful beings,
who must accordingly be propitiated. On certain occasions the help of
the spirits is especially invoked and their favour wooed by means of
offerings. Thus, when a house is being built and the central post has
been erected, sacrifices of wallaby, fish, and bananas are presented to
the souls of the dead, and a prayer is put up that they will be pleased
to keep the house always full of food and to prevent it from falling
down in stormy weather. Again, when the natives begin to plant their
gardens, they first take a bunch of bananas and sugar-cane and standing
in the middle of the garden call over the names of dead members of the
family, adding, "There is your food, your bananas and sugar-cane; let
our food grow well, and let it be plentiful. If it does not grow well
and plentifully, you all will be full of shame, and so shall we." Again,
before the people set out on a trading expedition, they present food to
the spirits at the central post of the house and pray them to go before
the traders and prepare the people, so that the trade may be good. Once
more, when there is sickness in the family, a pig is killed and its
carcase carried to the sacred place, where the spirits are asked to
accept it. Sins, also, are confessed, such as that people have gathered
bananas or coco-nuts without offering any of them to their dead
ancestors. In presenting the pig they say, "There is a pig; accept it,
and remove the sickness." But if prayers and sacrifices are vain, and
the patient dies, then, while the relatives all stand round the open
grave, the chief's sister or cousin calls out in a loud voice: "You have
been angry with us for the bananas or the coco-nuts which we have
gathered, and in your anger you have taken away this child. Now let it
suffice, and bury your anger." So saying they lower the body into the
grave and shovel in the earth on the top of it. The spirits of the
departed, on quitting their bodies, paddle in canoes across the lagoon
and go away to the mountains, where they live in perfect bliss, with no
work to do and no trouble to vex them, chewing betel, dancing all night
and resting all day.[330]

[Sidenote: The Hood Peninsula. The town of Kalo.]

Between the Aroma District in the south-east and Port Moresby on the
north-west is situated the Hood Peninsula in the Central District of
British New Guinea. It is inhabited by the Bulaa, Babaka, Kamali, and
Kalo tribes, which all speak dialects of one language.[331] The village
or town of Kalo, built at the base of the peninsula, close to the mouth
of the Vanigela or Kemp Welch River, is said to be the wealthiest
village in British New Guinea. It includes some magnificent native
houses, all built over the water on piles, some of which are thirty feet
high. The sight of these great houses perched on such lofty and massive
props is very impressive. In front of each house is a series of large
platforms like gigantic steps. Some of the posts and under-surfaces of
the houses are carved with figures of crocodiles and so forth. The
labour of cutting the huge planks for the flooring of the houses and the
platforms must be immense, and must have been still greater in the old
days, when the natives had only stone tools to work with. Many of the
planks are cut out of the slab-like buttresses of tall forest trees
which grow inland. So hard is the wood that the boards are handed down
as heirlooms from father to son, and the piles on which the houses are
built last for generations. The inhabitants of Kalo possess gardens,
where the rich alluvial soil produces a superabundance of coco-nuts,
bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, and taro. Areca palms also flourish and
produce the betel nuts, which are in great demand for chewing with
quick-lime and so constitute a source of wealth. Commanding the mouth of
the Vanigela River, the people of Kalo absorb the trade with the
interior; and their material prosperity is said to have rendered them
conceited and troublesome.[332]

[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the natives of
the Hood Peninsula. Seclusion of the widow or widower.]

The tribes inhabiting the Hood Peninsula are reported to have no belief
in any good spirit but an unlimited faith in bad spirits, amongst whom
they include the souls of their dead ancestors. At death the ghosts join
their forefathers in a subterranean region, where they have splendid
gardens, houses, and so forth. Yet not content with their life in the
underworld, they are always on the watch to deal out sickness and death
to their surviving friends and relations, who may have the misfortune to
incur their displeasure. So the natives are most careful to do nothing
that might offend these touchy and dangerous spirits. Like many other
savages, they do not believe that anybody dies a natural death; they
think that all the deaths which we should call natural are brought about
either by an ancestral ghost (_palagu_) or by a sorcerer or witch
(_wara_). Even when a man dies of snake-bite, they detect in the
discoloration of the body the wounds inflicted upon him by the fell art
of the magician.[333] On the approach of death the house of the sick man
is filled by anxious relatives and friends, who sit around watching for
the end. When it comes, there is a tremendous outburst of grief. The men
beat their faces with their clenched fists; the women tear their cheeks
with their nails till the blood streams down. They usually bury their
dead in graves, which among the inland tribes are commonly dug near the
houses of the deceased. The maritime tribes, who live in houses built on
piles over the water, sometimes inter the corpse in the forest. But at
other times they place it in a canoe, which they anchor off the village.
Then, when the body has dried up, they lay it on a platform in a tree.
Finally, they collect and clean the bones, tie them in a bundle, and
place them on the roof of the house. When the corpse is buried, a
temporary hut is erected over the grave, and in it the widow or widower
lives in seclusion for two or three months. During her seclusion the
widow employs herself in fashioning her widow's weeds, which consist of
a long grass petticoat reaching to the ankles. She wears a large
head-dress made of shells; her head is shaved, and her body blackened.
Further, she wears round her neck the waistband of her deceased husband
with his lower jaw-bone attached to it. The costume of a widower is
somewhat similar, though he does not wear a long grass petticoat.
Instead of it he has a graceful fringe, which hangs from his waist half
way to the knees. On his head he wears an elaborate head-dress made of
shells, and on his arms he has armlets of the same material. His hair is
cut off and his whole skin blackened. Round his neck is a string, from
which depends his dead wife's petticoat. It is sewn up into small bulk
and hangs under his right arm. While the widow or widower is living in
seclusion on the grave, he or she is supplied with food by relations. At
sundown on the day of the burial, a curious ceremony is performed. An
old woman or man, supposed to be gifted with second-sight, is sent for.
Seating herself at the foot of the grave she peers into the deepening
shadows under the coco-nut palms. At first she remains perfectly still,
while the relations of the deceased watch her with painful anxiety. Soon
her look becomes more piercing, and lowering her head, while she still
gazes into the depth of the forest, she says in low and solemn tones, "I
see coming hither So-and-So's grandfather" (mentioning the name of the
dead person). "He says he is glad to welcome his grandson to his abode.
I see now his father and his own little son also, who died in infancy."
Gradually, she grows more and more excited, waving her arms and swaying
her body from side to side. "Now they come," she cries, "I can see all
our forefathers in a fast-gathering crowd. They are coming closer and
yet closer. Make room, make room for the spirits of our departed
ancestors." By this time she has worked herself up into a frenzy. She
throws herself on the ground, beating her head with her clenched fists.
Foam flies from her lips, her eyes become fixed, and she rolls over
insensible. But the fit lasts only a short time. She soon comes to
herself; the vision is past, and the visionary is restored to common
life.[334]