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 life of the Central Melanesians deeply influenced by
their belief in the survival of the human soul after death.]

What I have said may suffice to impress you with a sense of the deep
practical influence which a belief in the survival of the human soul
after death exercises on the life and conduct of the Central Melanesian
savage. To him the belief is no mere abstract theological dogma or
speculative tenet, the occasional theme of edifying homilies and pious
meditation; it is an inbred, unquestioning, omnipresent conviction which
affects his thoughts and actions daily and at every turn; it guides his
fortunes as an individual and controls his behaviour as a member of a
community, by inculcating a respect for the rights of others and
enforcing a submission to the public authorities. With him the fear of
ghosts and spirits is a bulwark of morality and a bond of society; for
he firmly believes in their unseen presence everywhere and in the
punishments which they can inflict on wrongdoers. His whole theory of
causation differs fundamentally from ours and necessarily begets a
fundamental difference of practice. Where we see natural forces and
material substances, the Melanesian sees ghosts and spirits. A great
gulf divides his conception of the world from ours; and it may be
doubted whether education will ever enable him to pass the gulf and to
think and act like us. The products of an evolution which has extended
over many ages cannot be forced like mushrooms in a summer day; it is
vain to pluck the fruit of the tree of knowledge before it is ripe.

[Footnote 590: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 130-132.]

[Footnote 591: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 132 _sq._; C. M.
Woodford, _A Naturalist among the Head-hunters_ (London, 1890), pp.
26-28.]

[Footnote 592: G. Turner, LL.D., _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and long
before_ (London, 1884), pp. 318 _sq._ Yams are the principal fruits
cultivated by the Tannese, who bestow a great deal of labour on the
plantation and keep them in fine order. See G. Turner, _op. cit._ pp.
317 _sq._]

[Footnote 593: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 133 _sq._]

[Footnote 594: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 134.]

[Footnote 595: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 135 _sq._]

[Footnote 596: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 137 _sq._]

[Footnote 597: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 138.]

[Footnote 598: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 138 _sq._]

[Footnote 599: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 139.]

[Footnote 600: "Native Stories of Santa Cruz and Reef Islands,"
translated by the Rev. W. O'Ferrall, _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xxxiv. (1904) p. 223.]

[Footnote 601: "Native Stories from Santa Cruz and Reef Islands," _op.
cit._ p. 224.]

[Footnote 602: "Native Stories from Santa Cruz and Reef Islands," _op.
cit._ p. 225.]

[Footnote 603: Compare _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i.
269 _sqq._]

[Footnote 604: G. Turner, _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and long before_
(London, 1884), p. 326.]

[Footnote 605: G. Turner, _op. cit._ p. 334.]

[Footnote 606: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 145-148.]

[Footnote 607: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 175 _sq._]

[Footnote 608: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 176 _sq._]

[Footnote 609: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 177 _sq._]

[Footnote 610: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 178-180.]

[Footnote 611: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 191.]

[Footnote 612: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 194.]

[Footnote 613: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 194-196.]

[Footnote 614: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 196.]

[Footnote 615: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 208 _sq._ As to
sickness supposed to be caused by trespass on the premises of a ghost
see further _id._, pp. 194, 195, 218.]

[Footnote 616: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 184.]

[Footnote 617: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 200.]

[Footnote 618: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 200, 201. The
spirit whom the Florida wizard appeals to for good or bad weather is
called a _vigona_; and the natives believe it to be always the ghost of
a dead man. But it seems very doubtful whether this opinion is strictly
correct. See R. H. Codrington, _op cit._ pp. 124, 134.]

[Footnote 619: R. H. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 201. The Santa Cruz name
for such a ghost is _duka_ (_ibid._ p. 139).]

[Footnote 620: Above, p. 375.]

[Footnote 621: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 202-204.]

[Footnote 622: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 205 _sq._]

[Footnote 623: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 209 _sq._,
218-220.]

[Footnote 624: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 210.]

[Footnote 625: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 211 _sq._]

[Footnote 626: R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, pp. 215 _sq._]

LECTURE XVIII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF NORTHERN AND EASTERN
MELANESIA

[Sidenote: Northern Melanesia. Material culture of the North
Melanesians.]

In the last lecture I concluded my account of the belief in immortality
and the worship of the dead among the natives of Central Melanesia.
To-day we pass to what may be called Northern Melanesia, by which is to
be understood the great archipelago lying to the north-east of New
Guinea. It comprises the two large islands of New Britain and New
Ireland, now called New Pomerania and New Mecklenburg, with the much
smaller Duke of York Island lying between them, and the chain of New
Hanover and the Admiralty Islands stretching away westward from the
north-western extremity of New Ireland. The whole of the archipelago,
together with the adjoining island of Bougainville in the Solomon
Islands, is now under German rule. The people belong to the same stock
and speak the same language as the natives of Central and Southern
Melanesia, and their level of culture is approximately the same. They
live in settled villages and subsist chiefly by the cultivation of the
ground, raising crops of taro, yams, bananas, sugar-cane, and so forth.
Most of the agricultural labour is performed by the women, who plant,
weed the ground, and carry the produce to the villages. The ground is,
or rather used to be, dug by sharp-pointed sticks. The men hunt
cassowaries, wallabies, and wild pigs, and they catch fish by both nets
and traps. Women and children take part in the fishing and many of them
become very expert in spearing fish. Among the few domestic animals
which they keep are pigs, dogs, and fowls. The villages are generally
situated in the midst of a dense forest; but on the coast the natives
build their houses not far from the beach as a precaution against the
attacks of the forest tribes, of whom they stand greatly in fear. A New
Britain village generally consists of a number of small communities or
families, each of which dwells in a separate enclosure. The houses are
very small and badly built, oblong in shape and very low. Between the
separate hamlets which together compose a village lie stretches of
virgin forest, through which run irregular and often muddy foot-tracks,
scooped out here and there into mud-holes where the pigs love to wallow
during the heat of the tropical day. As the people of any one district
used generally to be at war with their neighbours, it was necessary that
they should live together for the sake of mutual protection.[627]

[Sidenote: Commercial habits of the North Melanesians. Their
backwardness in other respects.]

Nevertheless, in spite of their limited intercourse with surrounding
villages, the natives of the New Britain or the Bismarck Archipelago
were essentially a trading people. They made extensive use of shell
money and fully recognised the value of any imported articles as mediums
of exchange or currency. Markets were held on certain days at fixed
places, where the forest people brought their yams, taro, bananas and so
forth and exchanged them for fish, tobacco, and other articles with the
natives of the coast. They also went on long trading expeditions to
procure canoes, cuscus teeth, pigs, slaves, and so forth, which on their
return they generally sold at a considerable profit. The shell which
they used as money is the _Nassa immersa_ or _Nassa calosa_, found on
the north coast of New Britain. The shells were perforated and threaded
on strips of cane, which were then joined together in coils of fifty to
two hundred fathoms.[628] The rights of private property were fully
recognised. All lands belonged to certain families, and husband and wife
had each the exclusive right to his or her goods and chattels. But while
in certain directions the people had made some progress, in others they
remained very backward. Pottery and the metals were unknown; no metal or
specimen of metal-work has been found in the archipelago; on the other
hand the natives made much use of stone implements, especially adzes and
clubs. In war they never used bows and arrows.[629] They had no system
of government, unless that name may be given to the power wielded by the
secret societies and by chiefs, who exercised a certain degree of
influence principally by reason of the reputation which they enjoyed as
sorcerers and magicians. They were not elected nor did they necessarily
inherit their office; they simply claimed to possess magical powers, and
if they succeeded in convincing the people of the justice of their
claim, their authority was recognised. Wealth also contributed to
establish their position in the esteem of the public.[630]

[Sidenote: The Rev. George Brown on the Melanesians.]

With regard to the religious ideas and customs of the natives we are not
fully informed, but so far as these have been described they appear to
agree closely with those of their kinsfolk in Central Melanesia. The
first European to settle in the archipelago was the veteran missionary,
the Rev. George Brown, D.D., who resided in the islands from 1875 to
1880 and has revisited them on several occasions since; he reduced the
language to writing for the first time,[631] and is one of our best
authorities on the people. In what follows I shall make use of his
valuable testimony along with that of more recent observers.

[Sidenote: North Melanesian theory of the soul. Fear of ghosts,
especially the ghosts of persons who have been killed and eaten.]

The natives of the archipelago believe that every person is animated by
a soul, which survives his death and may afterwards influence the
survivors for good or evil. Their word for soul is _nio_ or _niono_,
meaning a shadow. The root is _nio_, which by the addition of personal
suffixes becomes _niong_ "my soul or shadow," _niom_ "your soul or
shadow," _niono_ "his soul or shadow." They think that the soul is like
the man himself, and that it always stays inside of his body, except
when it goes out on a ramble during sleep or a faint. A man who is very
sleepy may say, "My soul wants to go away." They believe, however, that
it departs for ever at death; hence when a man is sick, his friends will
offer prayers to prevent its departure. There is only one kind of soul,
but it can appear in many shapes and enter into animals, such as rats,
lizards, birds, and so on. It can hear, see, and speak, and present
itself in the form of a wraith or apparition to people at the moment of
or soon after death. On being asked why he thought that the soul does
not perish with the body, a native said, "Because it is different; it is
not of the same nature at all." They believe that the souls of the dead
occasionally visit the living and are seen by them, and that they haunt
houses and burial-places. They are very much afraid of the ghosts and do
all they can to drive or frighten them away. Above all, being cannibals,
they stand in great fear of the ghosts of the people whom they have
killed and eaten. The man who is cutting up a human body takes care to
tie a bandage over his mouth and nose during the operation of carving in
order to prevent the enraged soul of the victim from entering into his
body by these apertures; and for a similar reason the doors of the
houses are shut while the cannibal feast is going on inside. And to keep
the victim's ghost quiet while his body is being devoured, a cut from a
joint is very considerately placed on a tree outside of the house, so
that he may eat of his own flesh and be satisfied. At the conclusion of
the banquet, the people shout, brandish spears, beat the bushes, blow
horns, beat drums, and make all kinds of noises for the purpose of
chasing the ghost or ghosts of the murdered and eaten men away from the
village. But while they send away the souls, they keep the skulls and
jawbones of the victims; as many as thirty-five jawbones have been seen
hanging in a single house in New Ireland. As for the skulls, they are,
or rather were placed on the branch of a dead tree and so preserved on
the beach or near the house of the man who had taken them.[632]

[Sidenote: Offerings to the souls of the dead.]

With regard to the death of their friends they deem it very important to
obtain the bodies and bury them. They offer food to the souls of their
departed kinsfolk for a long time after death, until all the funeral
feasts are over; but they do not hold annual festivals in honour of dead
ancestors. The food offered to the dead is laid every day on a small
platform in a tree; but the natives draw a distinction between offerings
to the soul of a man who died a natural death and offerings to the soul
of a man who was killed in a fight; for whereas they place the former on
a living tree, they deposit the latter on a dead tree. Moreover, they
lay money, weapons, and property, often indeed the whole wealth of the
family, near the corpse of their friend, in order that the soul of the
deceased may carry off the souls of these valuables to the spirit land.
But when the body is carried away to be buried, most of the property is
removed by its owners for their own use. However, the relations will
sometimes detach a few shells from the coils of shell money and a few
beads from a necklace and drop them in a fire for the behoof of the
ghost. But when the deceased was a chief or other person of importance,
some of his property would be buried with him. And before burial his
body would be propped up on a special chair in front of his house,
adorned with necklaces, wreaths of flowers and feathers, and gaudy with
war-paint. In one hand would be placed a large cooked yam, and in the
other a spear, while a club would be put on his shoulder. The yam was to
stay the pangs of hunger on his long journey, and the weapons were to
enable him to fight the foes who might resist his entrance into the
spirit land. In the Duke of York Island the corpse was usually disposed
of by being sunk in a deep part of the lagoon; but sometimes it was
buried in the house and a fire kept burning on the spot.[633]

[Sidenote: Burial customs in New Ireland and New Britain. Preservation
of the skull.]

In New Ireland the dead were rolled up in winding-sheets made of
pandanus leaves, then weighted with stones and buried at sea. However,
at some places they were deposited in deep underground watercourses or
caverns. Towards the northern end of New Ireland corpses were burned on
large piles of firewood in an open space of the village. A number of
images curiously carved out of wood or chalk were set round the blazing
pyre, but the meaning of these strange figures is uncertain. Men and
women uttered the most piteous wailings, threw themselves on the top of
the corpse, and pulled at the arms and legs. This they did not merely to
express their grief, but because they thought that if they saw and
handled the dead body while it was burning, the ghost could not or would
not haunt them afterwards.[634] Amongst the natives of the Gazelle
Peninsula in New Britain the dead are generally buried in shallow graves
in or near their houses. Some of the shell money which belonged to a man
in life is buried with him. Women with blackened bodies sleep on the
grave for weeks.[635] When the deceased was a great chief, his corpse,
almost covered with shell money, is placed in a canoe, which is
deposited in a small house. Thereupon the nearest female relations are
led into the house, and the door being walled up they are obliged to
remain there with the rotting body until all the flesh has mouldered
away. Food is passed in to them through a hole in the wall, and under no
pretext are they allowed to leave the hut before the decomposition of
the corpse is complete. When nothing of the late chief remains but a
skeleton, the hut is opened and the solemn funeral takes place. The
bones of the dead are buried, but his skull is hung up in the taboo
house in order, we are told, that his ghost may remain in the
neighbourhood of the village and see how his memory is honoured. After
the burial of the headless skeleton feasting and dancing go on, often
for more than a month, and the expenses are defrayed out of the riches
left by the deceased.[636] Even in the case of eminent persons who have
been buried whole and entire in the usual way, a special mark of respect
is sometimes paid to their memory by digging up their skulls after a
year or more, painting them red and white, decorating them with
feathers, and setting them up on a scaffold constructed for the
purpose.[637]

[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead among the Sulka of New Britain.]

Somewhat similar is the disposal of the dead among the Sulka, a tribe of
New Britain who inhabit a mountainous and well-watered country to the
south of the Gazelle Peninsula. When a Sulka dies, his plantation is
laid waste, and the young fruit-trees cut down, but the ripe fruits are
first distributed among the living. His pigs are slaughtered and their
flesh in like manner distributed, and his weapons are broken. If the
deceased was a rich man, his wife or wives will sometimes be killed. The
corpse is usually buried next morning. A hole is dug in the house and
the body deposited in it in a sitting posture. The upper part of the
corpse projects from the grave and is covered with a tower-like
structure of basket-work, which is stuffed with banana-leaves. Great
care is taken to preserve the body from touching the earth. Stones are
laid round about the structure and a fire kindled. Relations come and
sleep for a time beside the corpse, men and women separately. Some while
afterwards the soul of the deceased is driven away. The time for
carrying out the expulsion is settled by the people in whispers, lest
the ghost should overhear them and prepare for a stout resistance. The
evening before the ceremony takes place many coco-nut leaves are
collected. Next morning, as soon as a certain bird (_Philemon
coquerelli_) is heard to sing, the people rise from their beds and set
up a great cry. Then they beat the walls, shake the posts, set fire to
dry coco-nut leaves, and finally rush out into the paths. At that
moment, so the people think, the soul of the dead quits the hut. When
the flesh of the corpse is quite decayed, the bones are taken from the
grave, sewed in leaves, and hung up. Soon afterwards a funeral feast is
held, at which men and women dance. For some time after a burial taro is
planted beside the house of death and enclosed with a fence. The Sulka
think that the ghost comes and gathers the souls of the taro. The ripe
fruit is allowed to rot. Falling stars are supposed to be the souls of
the dead which have been hurled up aloft and are now descending to bathe
in the sea. The trail of light behind them is thought to be a tail of
coco-nut leaves which other souls have fastened to them and set on fire.
In like manner the phosphorescent glow on the sea comes from souls
disporting themselves in the water. Persons who at their death left few
relations, or did evil in their life, or were murdered outside of the
village, are not buried in the house. Their corpses are deposited on
rocks or on scaffolds in the forest, or are interred on the spot where
they met their death. The reason for this treatment of their corpses is
not mentioned; but we may conjecture that their ghosts are regarded with
contempt, dislike, or fear, and that the survivors seek to give them a
wide berth by keeping their bodies at a distance from the village. The
corpses of those who died suddenly are not buried but wrapt up in leaves
and laid on a scaffold in the house, which is then shut up and deserted.
This manner of disposing of them seems also to indicate a dread or
distrust of their ghosts.[638]

[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead among the Moanus of the Admiralty
Islands. Prayers offered to the skull of a dead chief.]

Among the Moanus of the Admiralty Islands the dead are kept in the
houses unburied until the flesh is completely decayed and nothing
remains but the bones. Old women then wash the skeleton carefully in
sea-water, after which it is disjointed and divided. The backbone,
together with the bones of the legs and upper arms, is deposited in one
basket and put away somewhere; the skull, together with the ribs and the
bones of the lower arms, is deposited in another basket, which is sunk
for a time in the sea. When the bones are completely cleaned and
bleached in the water, they are laid with sweet-smelling herbs in a
wooden vessel and placed in the house which the dead man inhabited
during his life. But the teeth have been previously extracted from the
skull and converted into a necklace for herself by the sister of the
deceased. After a time the ribs are distributed by the son among the
relatives. The principal widow gets two, other near kinsfolk get one
apiece, and they wear these relics under their arm-bands. The
distribution of the ribs is the occasion of a great festival, and it is
followed some time afterwards by a still greater feast, for which
extensive preparations are made long beforehand. All who intend to be
present at the ceremony send vessels of coco-nut oil in advance; and if
the deceased was a great chief the number of the oil vessels and of the
guests may amount to two thousand. Meantime the giver of the feast
causes a scaffold to be erected for the reception of the skull, and the
whole art of the wood-carver is exhausted in decorating the scaffold
with figures of turtles, birds, and so forth, while a wooden dog acts as
sentinel at either end. When the multitude has assembled, and the
orchestra of drums, collected from the whole neighbourhood, has sent
forth a far-sounding crash of music, the giver of the feast steps
forward and pronounces a florid eulogium on the deceased, a warm
panegyric on the guests who have honoured him by their presence, and a
fluent invective against his absent foes. Nor does he forget to throw in
some delicate allusions to his own noble generosity in providing the
assembled visitors with this magnificent entertainment. For this great
effort of eloquence the orator has been primed in the morning by the
sorcerer. The process of priming consists in kneeling on the orator's
shoulders and tugging at the hair of his head with might and main, which
is clearly calculated to promote the flow of his rhetoric. If none of
the hair comes out in the sorcerer's hands, a masterpiece of oratory is
confidently looked forward to in the afternoon. When the speech, for
which such painful preparations have been made, is at last over, the
drums again strike up. No sooner have their booming notes died away over
land and sea, than the sorcerer steps up to the scaffold, takes from it
the bleached skull, and holds it in both his hands. Then the giver of
the feast goes up to him, dips a bunch of dracaena leaves in a vessel of
oil, and smites the skull with it, saying, "Thou art my father!" At that
the drums again beat loudly. Then he strikes the skull a second time
with the leaves, saying, "Take the food that has been made ready in
thine honour!" And again there is a crash of drums. After that he smites
the skull yet again and prays saying, "Guard me! Guard my people! Guard
my children!" And every prayer of the litany is followed by the solemn
roll of the drums. When these impressive invocations to the spirit of
the dead chief are over, the feasting begins. The skull is thenceforth
carefully preserved.[639]

[Sidenote: Disposal of the dead in the Kaniet Islands. Preservation of
the skull.]

In the Kaniet Islands, a small group to the north-west of the Admiralty
Islands, the dead are either sunk in the sea or buried in shallow
graves, face downward, near the house. All the movable property of the
deceased is piled on the grave, left there for three weeks, and then
burnt. Afterwards the skull is dug up, placed in a basket, and having
been decorated with leaves and feathers is hung up in the house. Thus
adorned it not only serves to keep the dead in memory, but is also
employed in many conjurations to defeat the nefarious designs of other
ghosts, who are believed to work most of the ills that afflict
humanity.[640] Apparently these islanders employ a ghost to protect them
against ghosts on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief.