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: Extracting ghosts from a sick man.]

But suppose that the result of the diagnosis is different, and that on
mature consideration the doctor should decide that a ghost and not a
sorcerer is at the bottom of the mischief. The question then naturally
arises whether the sick man has not of late been straying on haunted
ground and infected himself with the very dangerous soul-stuff or
spiritual essence of the dead. If he remembers to have done so, some
leaves are fetched from the place in the forest where the mishap
occurred, and with them the whole body of the sufferer or the wound, as
the case may be, is stroked or brushed down. The healing virtue of this
procedure is obvious. The ghosts who are vexing the patient are
attracted by the familiar smell of the leaves which come from their old
home; and yielding in a moment of weakness to the soft emotions excited
by the perfume they creep out of the body of the sick man and into the
leaves. Quick as thought the doctor now whisks the leaves away with the
ghosts in them; he belabours them with a cudgel, he hangs them up in the
smoke, or he throws them into the fire. Such powerful disinfectants have
their natural results; if the ghosts are not absolutely destroyed they
are at least disarmed, and the sick is made whole.

[Sidenote: Scraping ghosts from the patient's body.]

Another equally effective cure for sickness caused by ghosts is this.
You take a stout stick, cleave it down the middle so that the two ends
remain entire, and give it to two men to hold. Then the sick man pokes
his head through the cleft; after that you rub him with the stick from
the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. In this way you
obviously scrape off the bloodsucking ghosts who are clinging like flies
or mosquitoes to his person, and having thus transferred them to the
cleft stick you throw it away or otherwise destroy it. The cure is now
complete, and if the patient does not recover, he cannot reasonably
blame the doctor, who has done all that humanly speaking could be done
to bring back the bloom of health to the poor sick man.[443]

[Sidenote: Extravagant demonstrations of grief at the death of a sick
man.]

If, however, the sick man obstinately persists in dying, there is a
great uproar in the village. For the fear of his ghost has now fallen
like a thunderclap on all the people. His disembodied spirit is believed
to be hovering in the air, seeing everything that is done, hearing every
word that is spoken, and woe to the unlucky wight who does not display a
proper degree of sorrow for the irreparable loss that has just befallen
the community. Accordingly shrieks of despair begin to resound, and
crocodile tears to flow in cataracts. The whole population assemble and
give themselves up to the most frantic demonstrations of grief. Cries
are raised on all sides, "Why must he die?" "Wherefore did they bewitch
him?" "Those wicked, wicked men!" "I'll do for them!" "I'll hew them in
pieces!" "I'll destroy their crops!" "I'll fell all their palm-trees!"
"I'll stick all their pigs!" "O brother, why did you leave me?" "O
friend, how can I live without you?" To make good these threats one man
will be seen prancing wildly about and stabbing with a spear at the
invisible sorcerers; another catches up a cudgel and at one blow shivers
a water-pot of the deceased into atoms, or rushes out like one demented
and lays a palm-tree level with the ground. Some fling themselves
prostrate beside the corpse and sob as if their very hearts would break.
They take the dead man by the hand, they stroke him, they straighten out
the poor feet which are already growing cold. They coo to him softly,
they lift up the languid head, and then lay it gently down. Then in a
frenzy of grief one of them will leap to his feet, shriek, bellow, stamp
on the floor, grapple with the roof beams, shake the walls, as if he
would pull the house down, and finally hurl himself on the ground and
roll over and over howling as if his distress was more than he could
endure. Another looks wildly about him. He sees a knife. He grasps it.
His teeth are set, his mind is made up. "Why need he die?" he cries,
"he, my friend, with whom I had all things in common, with whom I ate
out of the same dish?" Then there is a quick movement of the knife, and
down he falls. But he is not dead. He has only slit the flap of one of
his ears, and the trickling blood bedabbles his body. Meantime with the
hoarse cries of the men are mingled the weeping and wailing, the shrill
screams and lamentations of the women; while above all the din and
uproar rises the booming sound of the shell trumpets blown to carry the
tidings of death to all the villages in the neighbourhood. But gradually
the wild tumult dies away into silence. Grief or the simulation of it
has exhausted itself: the people grow calm; they sit down, they smoke or
chew betel, while some engage in the last offices of attention to the
dead.[444]

[Sidenote: Hypocritical character of these demonstrations, which are
intended to deceive the ghost.]

A civilised observer who witnessed such a scene of boisterous
lamentation, but did not know the natives well, might naturally set down
all these frantic outbursts to genuine sorrow, and might enlarge
accordingly on the affectionate nature of savages, who are thus cut to
the heart by the death of any one of their acquaintance. But the
missionary who knows them better assures us that most of these
expressions of mourning and despair are a mere blind to deceive and
soothe the dreaded ghost of the deceased into a comfortable persuasion
that he is fondly loved and sadly missed by his surviving relatives and
friends. This view of the essential hypocrisy of the lamentations is
strongly confirmed by the threats which sick people will sometimes utter
to their attendants. "If you don't take better care of me," a man will
sometimes say, "and if you don't do everything you possibly can to
preserve my valuable life, my ghost will serve you out." That is why
friends and relations are so punctilious in paying visits of respect and
condolence to the sick. Sometimes the last request which a dying man
addresses to his kinsfolk is that they will kill this or that sorcerer
who has killed him; and he enforces the injunction by threats of the
terrible things he will do to them in his disembodied state if they fail
to avenge his death on his imaginary murderer. As all the relatives of a
dead man stand in fear of his ghost, the body may not be buried until
all of them have had an opportunity of paying their respects to it. If,
as sometimes happens, a corpse is interred before a relative can arrive
from a distance, he will on arrival break out into reproaches and
upbraidings against the grave-diggers for exposing him to the wrath of
the departed spirit.[445]

[Sidenote: Burial and mourning customs of the Kai. Preservation of the
lower jawbone.]

When all the relations and friends have assembled and testified their
sorrow, the body is buried on the second or third day after death. The
grave is usually dug under the house and is so shallow that even when it
has been closed the stench is often very perceptible. The ornaments
which were placed on the body when it was laid out are removed before it
is lowered into the grave, and the dead takes his last rest wrapt in a
simple leaf-mat. Often a dying man expresses a wish not to be buried. In
that case his corpse, tightly bandaged, is deposited in a corner of the
house, and the products of decomposition are allowed to drain through a
tube into the ground. When they have ceased to run, the bundle is opened
and the bones taken out and buried, except the lower jawbone, which is
preserved, sometimes along with one of the lower arm bones. The lower
jawbone reminds the possessor of the duty of blood revenge which he owes
to the deceased, and which the dying man may have inculcated on him with
his last breath. The lower arm bone brings luck in the chase, especially
if the departed relative was a mighty hunter. However, if the hunters
have a long run of bad luck, they conclude that the ghost has departed
to the under world and accordingly bury the lower arm bone and the lower
jawbone with the rest of the skeleton. The length of the period of
mourning is similarly determined by the good or bad fortune of the
huntsmen. If the ghost provides them with game in abundance for a long
time after his death, the days of mourning are proportionately extended;
but when the game grows scarce or fails altogether, the mourning comes
to an end and the memory of the deceased soon fades away.[446] The
savage is a thoroughly practical man and is not such a fool as to waste
his sorrow over a ghost who gives him nothing in return. Nothing for
nothing is his principle. His relations to the dead stand on a strictly
commercial basis.

[Sidenote: Mourning costume. Widows strangled to accompany their dead
husbands.]

The mourning costume consists of strings round the neck, bracelets of
reed on the arms, and a cylindrical hat of bark on the head. A widow is
swathed in nets. The intention of the costume is to signify to the ghost
the sympathy which the mourner feels for him in his disembodied state.
If the man in his lifetime was wont to crouch shivering over the fire, a
little fire will be kept up for a time at the foot of the grave in order
to warm his homeless spirit.[447] The widow or widower has to discharge
the disagreeable duty of living day and night for several weeks in a
hovel built directly over the grave. Not unfrequently the lot of a widow
is much harder. At her own request she is sometimes strangled and buried
with her husband in the grave, in order that her soul may accompany his
on the journey to the other world. The other relations have no interest
in encouraging the woman to sacrifice herself, rather the contrary; but
if she insists they fear to balk her, lest they should offend the ghost
of her husband, who would punish them in many ways for keeping his wife
from him. But even such voluntary sacrifices, if we may believe Mr. Ch.
Keysser, are dictated rather by a selfish calculation than by an impulse
of disinterested affection. He mentions the case of a man named Jabu,
both of whose wives chose thus to attend their husband in death. The
deceased was an industrious man, a skilful hunter and farmer, who
provided his wives with abundance of food. As such men are believed to
work hard also in the other world, tilling fields and killing game just
as here, the widows thought they could not do better than follow him as
fast as possible to the spirit land, since they had no prospect of
getting such another husband here on earth. "How firmly convinced," adds
the missionary admiringly, "must these people be of the reality of
another world when they sacrifice their earthly existence, not for the
sake of a better life hereafter, but merely in order to be no worse off
there than they have been on earth." And he adds that this consideration
explains why no man ever chooses to be strangled at the death of his
wife. The labour market in the better land is apparently not recruited
from the ranks of women.[448]

[Sidenote: House or village deserted after a death.]

The house in which anybody has died is deserted, because the ghost of
the dead is believed to haunt it and make it unsafe at night. If the
deceased was a chief or a man of importance, the whole village is
abandoned and a new one built on another site.[449]

[Footnote 415: Stefan Lehner, "Bukaua," in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch
Neu-Guinea_, iii. (Berlin, 1911) pp. 395-485.]

[Footnote 416: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ pp. 399, 433 _sq._, 437 _sqq._]

[Footnote 417: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ p. 399.]

[Footnote 418: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ p. 414.]

[Footnote 419: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ p. 466, 468.]

[Footnote 420: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ p. 469.]

[Footnote 421: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ pp. 462 _sqq._, 466, 467, 471
_sqq._]

[Footnote 422: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ p. 462.]

[Footnote 423: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ pp. 444 _sq._]

[Footnote 424: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ pp. 434 _sqq._; compare _id._, pp.
478 _sq._]

[Footnote 425: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ p. 462.]

[Footnote 426: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ pp. 430, 470, 472 _sq._, 474 _sq._]

[Footnote 427: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ p. 403.]

[Footnote 428: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ pp. 402-410.]

[Footnote 429: S. Lehner, _op. cit._ pp. 410-414.]

[Footnote 430: Ch. Keysser, "Aus dem Leben der Kaileute," in R.
Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_, iii. 3-6.]

[Footnote 431: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 12 _sq._, 17-20.]

[Footnote 432: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 9-12.]

[Footnote 433: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 111.]

[Footnote 434: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 113.]

[Footnote 435: Compare Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of
Borneo_ (London, 1912), ii. 221 _sq._: "It has often been attempted to
exhibit the mental life of savage peoples as profoundly different from
our own; to assert that they act from motives, and reach conclusions by
means of mental processes, so utterly different from our own motives and
processes that we cannot hope to interpret or understand their behaviour
unless we can first, by some impossible or at least by some hitherto
undiscovered method, learn the nature of these mysterious motives and
processes. These attempts have recently been renewed in influential
quarters. If these views were applied to the savage peoples of the
interior of Borneo, we should characterise them as fanciful delusions
natural to the anthropologist who has spent all the days of his life in
a stiff collar and a black coat upon the well-paved ways of civilised
society. We have no hesitation in saying that, the more intimately one
becomes acquainted with these pagan tribes, the more fully one realises
the close similarity of their mental processes to one's own. Their
primary impulses and emotions seem to be in all respects like our own.
It is true that they are very unlike the typical civilised man of some
of the older philosophers, whose every action proceeded from a nice and
logical calculation of the algebraic sum of pleasures and pains to be
derived from alternative lines of conduct; but we ourselves are equally
unlike that purely mythical personage. The Kayan or the Iban often acts
impulsively in ways which by no means conduce to further his best
interests or deeper purposes; but so do we also. He often reaches
conclusions by processes that cannot be logically justified; but so do
we also. He often holds, and upon successive occasions acts upon,
beliefs that are logically inconsistent with one another; but so do we
also." For further testimonies to the reasoning powers of savages, which
it would be superfluous to affirm if it were not at present a fashion
with some theorists to deny, see _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp.
420 _sqq._ And on the tendency of the human mind in general, not of the
savage mind in particular, calmly to acquiesce in inconsistent and even
contradictory conclusions, I may refer to a note in _Adonis, Attis,
Osiris_, Second Edition, p. 4. But indeed to observe such contradictions
in practice the philosopher need not quit his own study.]

[Footnote 436: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 111 _sq._]

[Footnote 437: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 112.]

[Footnote 438: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 140. As to the magical tubes
in which the sorcerer seals up some part of his victim's soul, see
_id._, p. 135.]

[Footnote 439: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 140 _sq._]

[Footnote 440: Mr. Keysser indeed affirms that in the mind of the Kai
sorcery "is regarded as the cause of all deaths" (_op. cit._ p. 102),
and again that "all men without exception die in consequence of the
baneful acts of these sorcerers and their accomplices" (p. 134); and
again that "even in the case of old people they assume sorcery to be the
cause of death; to sorcery, too, all misfortunes whatever are ascribed"
(p. 140). But that these statements are exaggerations seems to follow
from Mr. Keysser's own account of the wounds, sicknesses, and deaths
which these savages attribute to ghosts and not to sorcerers.]

[Footnote 441: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 141.]

[Footnote 442: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 133 _sq._]

[Footnote 443: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 141 _sq._]

[Footnote 444: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 80 _sq._, 142.]

[Footnote 445: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 142.]

[Footnote 446: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 82, 83.]

[Footnote 447: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 82, 142 _sq._]

[Footnote 448: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 83 _sq._, 143.]

[Footnote 449: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 83.]

LECTURE XIII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN NEW GUINEA
(_continued_)

[Sidenote: Offerings to appease ghosts.]

In the last lecture I gave you some account of the fear and awe which
the Kai of German New Guinea entertain for the spirits of the dead.
Believing that the ghost is endowed with all the qualities and faculties
which distinguished the man in his lifetime, they naturally dread most
the ghosts of warlike, cruel, violent, and passionate men, and take the
greatest pains to soothe their anger and win their favour. For that
purpose they give the departed spirit all sorts of things to take with
him to the far country. And in order that he may have the use of them it
is necessary to smash or otherwise spoil them. Thus the spear that is
given him must be broken, the pot must be shivered, the bag must be
torn, the palm-tree must be cut down. Fruits are offered to the ghost by
dashing them in pieces or hanging a bunch of them over the grave.
Objects of value, such as boars' tusks or dogs' teeth, are made over to
him by being laid on the corpse; but the economical savage removes these
precious things from the body at burial. All such offerings and
sacrifices, we are told, are made simply out of fear of the ghost. It is
no pleasure to a man to cut down a valuable palm-tree, which might have
helped to nourish himself and his family for years; he does it only lest
a worse thing should befall him at the hands of the departed
spirit.[450]

[Sidenote: Mode of discovering the sorcerer who caused a death.]

But the greatest service that the Kai can render to a dead man is to
take vengeance on the sorcerer who caused his death by witchcraft. The
first thing is to discover the villain, and in the search for him the
ghost obligingly assists his surviving kinsfolk. Sometimes, however, it
is necessary to resort to a stratagem in order to secure his help. Thus,
for example, one day while the ghost, blinded by the strong sunlight, is
cowering in a dark corner or reposing at full length in the grave, his
relatives will set up a low scaffold in a field, cover it with leaves,
and pile up over it a mass of the field fruits which belonged to the
dead man, so that the whole erection may appear to the eye of the
unsuspecting ghost a heap of taro, yams, and so forth, and nothing more.
But before the sun goes down, two or three men steal out from the house,
and ensconce themselves under the scaffold, where they are completely
concealed by the piled-up fruits. When darkness has fallen, out comes
the ghost and prowling about espies the heap of yams and taro. At sight
of the devastation wrought in his field he flies into a passion, and
curses and swears in the feeble wheezy whisper in which ghosts always
speak. In the course of his fluent imprecations he expresses a wish that
the miscreants who have wasted his substance may suffer so and so at the
hands of the sorcerer. That is just what the men in hiding have been
waiting for. No sooner do they hear the name of the sorcerer than they
jump up with a great shout; the startled ghost takes to his heels; and
all the people in the village come pouring out of the houses. Very glad
they are to know that the murderer has been found out, and sooner or
later they will have his blood.[451]

[Sidenote: Another way of detecting the sorcerer.]

Another mode of eliciting the requisite information from the ghost is
this. In order to allow him to communicate freely with his mouldering
body, his relations insert a tube through the earth of the grave down to
the corpse; then they sprinkle powdered lime on the grave. At night the
ghost comes along, picks up the powdered lime, and makes off in a bee
line for the village where the sorcerer who bewitched him resides. On
the way he drops some of the powder here and there, so that next
morning, on the principle of the paper-chase, his relatives can trace
his footsteps to the very door of his murderer. In many districts the
people tie a packet of lime to the knee of a corpse so that his ghost
may have it to hand when he wants it.[452]

[Sidenote: Cross-questioning the ghost by means of fire.]

But the favourite way of cross-questioning the ghost on subject of his
decease is by means of fire. A few men go out before nightfall from the
village and sit down in a row, one behind the other, on the path. The
man in front has a leaf-mat drawn like a hood over his head and back in
order that the ghost may not touch him from behind unawares. In his hand
he holds a glowing coal and some tinder, and as he puts the one to the
other he calls to the ghost, "Come, take, take, take; come, take, take,
take," and so on. Meantime his mates behind him are reckoning up the
names of all the men near and far who are suspected of sorcery, and a
portion of the village youth have clambered up trees and are on the
look-out for the ghost. If they do not see his body they certainly see
his eye twinkling in the gloom, though the uninstructed European might
easily mistake it for a glow-worm. No sooner do they catch sight of it
than they bawl out, "Come hither, fetch the fire, and burn him who burnt
thee." If the tinder blazes up at the name of a sorcerer, it is flung
towards the village where the man in question dwells. And if at the same
time a glow-worm is seen to move in the same direction, the people
entertain no doubt that the ghost has appeared and fetched the soul of
the fire.[453]

[Sidenote: Necessity of destroying the sorcerer who caused a death.]

In whichever way the author of the death may be detected, the avengers
of blood set out for the village of the miscreant and seek to take his
life. Almost all the wars between villages or tribes spring from such
expeditions. The sorcerer or sorcerers must be extirpated, nay all their
kith and kin must be destroyed root and branch, if the people are to
live in peace and quiet. The ghost of the dead calls, nay clamours for
vengeance, and if he does not get it, he will wreak his spite on his
negligent relations. Not only will he give them no luck in the chase,
but he will drive the wild swine into the fields to trample down and
root up the crops, and he will do them every mischief in his power. If
rain does not fall, so that the freshly planted root crops wither; or if
sickness is rife, the people recognise in the calamity the wrath of the
ghost, who can only be appeased by the slaughter of the wicked magician
or of somebody else. Hence the avengers of blood often do not set out
until a fresh death, an outbreak of sickness, failure in the chase, or
some other misfortune reminds the living of the duty they owe to the
dead. The Kai is not by nature warlike, and he might never go to war if
it were not that he dreads the vengeance of ghosts more than the wrath
of men.[454]

[Sidenote: Slayers dread the ghosts of the slain.]

If the expedition has been successful, if the enemy's village has been
surprised and stormed, the men and old women butchered, and the young
women taken prisoners, the warriors beat a hasty retreat with their
booty in order to be safe at home, or at least in the shelter of a
friendly village, before nightfall. Their reason for haste is the fear
of being overtaken in the darkness by the ghosts of their slaughtered
foes, who, powerless by day, are very dangerous and terrible by night.
Restlessly through the hours of darkness these unquiet spirits follow
like sleuth-hounds in the tracks of their retreating enemies, eager to
come up with them and by contact with the bloodstained weapons of their
slayers to recover the spiritual substance which they have lost. Not
till they have done so can they find rest and peace. That is why the
victors are careful not at first to bring back their weapons into the
village but to hide them somewhere in the bushes at a safe distance.
There they leave them for some days until the baffled ghosts may be
supposed to have given up the chase and returned, sad and angry, to
their mangled bodies in the charred ruins of their old home. The first
night after the return of the warriors is always the most anxious time;
all the villagers are then on the alert for fear of the ghosts; but if
the night passes quietly, their terror gradually subsides and gives
place to the dread of their surviving enemies.[455]

[Sidenote: Seclusion of man-slayers from fear of their victims' ghosts.]

As the victors in a raid are supposed to have more or less of the
soul-stuff or spiritual essence of their slain foes adhering to their
persons, none of their friends will venture to touch them for some time
after their return to the village. Everybody avoids them and goes
carefully out of their way. If during this time any of the villagers
suffers from a pain in his stomach, he thinks that he must have
inadvertently sat down where one of the warriors had sat before him. If
somebody endures the pangs of toothache, he makes sure that he must have
eaten a fruit which had been touched by one of the slayers. All the
refuse of the meals of these gallant men must be most carefully put away
lest a pig should devour it; for if it did do so, the animal would
certainly die, which would be a serious loss to the owner. Hence when
the warriors have satisfied their hunger, any food that remains over is
burnt or buried. The fighting men themselves are not very seriously
incommoded, or at all events endangered, by the ghosts of their victims;
for they have taken the precaution to disinfect themselves by the sap of
a certain creeper, which, if it does not render them absolutely immune
to ghostly influence, at least fortifies their constitution to a very
considerable extent.[456]