The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3)

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[Sidenote: The fear of sorcery has had the beneficial effect of
enforcing habits of personal cleanliness.]

"In the face of such instances as these," says one who knows the Fijians
well, "it demands some courage to assert that upon the whole the belief
in witchcraft was formerly a positive advantage to the community. It
filled, in fact, the place of a system of sanitation. The wizard's tools
consisting in those waste matters that are inimical to health, every man
was his own scavenger. From birth to old age a man was governed by this
one fear; he went into the sea, the graveyard or the depths of the
forest to satisfy his natural wants; he burned his cast-off _malo_; he
gave every fragment left over from his food to the pigs; he concealed
even the clippings of his hair in the thatch of his house. This
ever-present fear even drove women in the western districts out into the
forest for the birth of their children, where fire destroyed every trace
of their lying-in. Until Christianity broke it down, the villages were
kept clean; there were no festering rubbish-heaps nor filthy
_raras_."[668]

[Sidenote: Fijian dread of ghosts. Uproar made to drive away ghosts.]

Of apparitions the Fijians used to be very much afraid. They believed
that the ghosts of the dead appeared often and afflicted mankind,
especially in sleep. The spirits of slain men, unchaste women, and women
who died in childbed were most dreaded. After a death people have been
known to hide themselves for a few days, until they supposed the soul of
the departed was at rest. Also they shunned the places where people had
been murdered, particularly when it rained, because then the moans of
the ghost could be heard as he sat up, trying to relieve his pain by
resting his poor aching head on the palms of his hands. Some however
said that the moans were caused by the soul of the murderer knocking
down the soul of his victim, whenever the wretched spirit attempted to
get up.[669] When Fijians passed a spot in the forest where a man had
been clubbed to death, they would sometimes throw leaves on it as a mark
of homage to his spirit, believing that they would soon be killed
themselves if they failed in thus paying their respects to the
ghost.[670] And after they had buried a man alive, as they very often
did, these savages used at nightfall to make a great din with large
bamboos, trumpet-shells, and so forth, in order to drive away his spirit
and deter him from loitering about his old home. "The uproar is always
held in the late habitation of the deceased, the reason being that as no
one knows for a certainty what reception he will receive in the
invisible world, if it is not according to his expectations he will most
likely repent of his bargain and wish to come back. For that reason they
make a great noise to frighten him away, and dismantle his former
habitation of everything that is attractive, and clothe it with
everything that to their ideas seems repulsive."[671]

[Sidenote: Killing a ghost.]

However, stronger measures were sometimes resorted to. It was believed
to be possible to kill a troublesome ghost. Once it happened that many
chiefs feasted in the house of Tanoa, King of Ambau. In the course of
the evening one of them related how he had slain a neighbouring chief.
That very night, having occasion to leave the house, he saw, as he
believed, the ghost of his victim, hurled his club at him, and killed
him stone dead. On his return to the house he roused the king and the
rest of the inmates from their slumbers, and recounted his exploit. The
matter was deemed of high importance, and they all sat on it in solemn
conclave. Next morning a search was made for the club on the scene of
the murder; it was found and carried with great pomp and parade to the
nearest temple, where it was laid up for a perpetual memorial. Everybody
was firmly persuaded that by this swashing blow the ghost had been not
only killed but annihilated.[672]

[Sidenote: Dazing the ghost of a grandfather.]

A more humane method of dealing with an importunate ghost used to be
adopted in Vanua-levu, the largest but one of the Fijian islands. In
that island, as a consequence, it is said, of reckoning kinship through
the mother, a child was considered to be more closely related to his
grandfather than to his father. Hence when a grandfather died, his ghost
naturally desired to carry off the soul of his grandchild with him to
the spirit land. The wish was creditable to the warmth of his domestic
affection, but if the survivors preferred to keep the child with them a
little longer in this vale of tears, they took steps to baffle
grandfather's ghost. For this purpose when the old man's body was
stretched on the bier and raised on the shoulders of half-a-dozen stout
young fellows, the mother's brother would take the grandchild in his
arms and begin running round and round the corpse. Round and round he
ran, and grandfather's ghost looked after him, craning his neck from
side to side and twisting it round and round in the vain attempt to
follow the rapid movements of the runner. When the ghost was supposed to
be quite giddy with this unwonted exercise, the mother's brother made a
sudden dart away with the child in his arms, the bearers fairly bolted
with the corpse to the grave, and before he could collect his scattered
wits grandfather was safely landed in his long home.[673]

[Sidenote: Special relation of grandfather to grandchild. Soul of a
grandfather reborn in his grandchildren.]

Mr. Fison, who reports this quaint mode of bilking a ghost, explains the
special attachment of the grandfather to his grandchild by the rule of
female descent which survives in Vanua-levu; and it is true that where
exogamy prevails along with female descent, a child regularly belongs to
the exogamous class of its grandfather and not of its father and hence
may be regarded as more closely akin to the grandfather than to the
father. But on the other hand it is to be observed that exogamy at
present is unknown in Fiji, and at most its former prevalence in the
islands can only be indirectly inferred from relics of totemism and from
the existence of the classificatory system of relationship.[674] Perhaps
the real reason why in Vanua-levu a dead grandfather is so anxious to
carry off the soul of his living grandchild lies nearer to hand in the
apparently widespread belief that the soul of the grandfather is
actually reborn in his grandchild. For example, in Nukahiva, one of the
Marquesas Islands, every one "is persuaded that the soul of a
grandfather is transmitted by nature into the body of his grandchildren;
and that, if an unfruitful wife were to place herself under the corpse
of her deceased grandfather, she would be sure to become pregnant."[675]
Again, the Kayans of Borneo "believe in the reincarnation of the soul,
although this belief is not clearly harmonised with the belief in the
life in another world. It is generally believed that the soul of a
grandfather may pass into one of his grandchildren, and an old man will
try to secure the passage of his soul to a favourite grandchild by
holding it above his head from time to time. The grandfather usually
gives up his name to his eldest grandson, and reassumes the original
name of his childhood with the prefix or title _Laki_, and the custom
seems to be connected with this belief or hope."[676]

[Sidenote: A dead grandfather may reasonably reclaim his own soul from
his grandchild.]

Now where such a belief is held, it seems reasonable enough that a dead
grandfather should reclaim his own soul for his personal use before he
sets out for the spirit land; else how could he expect to be admitted to
that blissful abode if on arriving at the portal he were obliged to
explain to the porter that he had no soul about him, having left that
indispensable article behind in the person of his grandchild? "Then you
had better go back and fetch it. There is no admission at this gate for
people without souls." Such might very well be the porter's retort; and
foreseeing it any man of ordinary prudence would take the precaution of
recovering his lost spiritual property before presenting himself to the
Warden of the Dead. This theory would sufficiently account for the
otherwise singular behaviour of grandfather's ghost in Vanua-levu. At
the same time it must be admitted that the theory of the reincarnation
of a grandfather in a grandson would be suggested more readily in a
society where the custom of exogamy was combined with female descent
than in one where the same custom coexisted with male descent; since,
given exogamy and female descent, grandfather and grandson regularly
belong to the same exogamous class, whereas father and son never do
so.[677] Thus Mr. Fison may after all be right in referring the
partiality of a Fijian grandfather for his grandson in the last resort
to a system of exogamy and female kinship.

[Footnote 627: G. Brown, D.D., _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London,
1910), pp. 23 _sq._, 125, 320 _sqq._]

[Footnote 628: G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 294 _sqq._; P. A. Kleintitschen,
_Die Kuestenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Muenster, N.D.),
pp. 90 _sqq._ The shell money is called _tambu_ in New Britain, _diwara_
in the Duke of York Island, and _aringit_ in New Ireland.]

[Footnote 629: Rev. G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 307, 313, 435, 436.]

[Footnote 630: Rev. G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 270 _sq._, compare pp. 127,
200.]

[Footnote 631: Rev. G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. v., 18.]

[Footnote 632: G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 141 _sq._, 144, 145, 190-193.]

[Footnote 633: G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 142, 192, 385, 386 _sq._]

[Footnote 634: G. Brown, _op. cit._ p. 390. The custom of cremating the
dead in New Ireland is described more fully by Mr. R. Parkinson, who
says that the life-sized figures which are burned with the corpse
represent the deceased (_Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_, pp. 273 _sqq._).
In the central part of New Ireland the dead are buried in the earth;
afterwards the bones are dug up and thrown into the sea. See Albert
Hahl, "Das mittlere Neumecklenburg," _Globus_, xci. (1907) p. 314.]

[Footnote 635: R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_ (Stuttgart,
1907) p. 78; P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Kuestenbewohner der
Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Muenster, N.D.), p. 222.]

[Footnote 636: Mgr. Couppe, "En Nouvelle-Pomeranie," _Les Missions
Catholiques_, xxiii. (1891) pp. 364 _sq._; J. Graf Pfeil, _Studien und
Beobachtungen aus der Suedsee_ (Brunswick, 1899), p. 79.]

[Footnote 637: R. Parkinson, _op. cit._ p. 81.]

[Footnote 638: _P._ Rascher, _M.S.C._, "Die Sulka, ein Beitrag zur
Ethnographic Neu-Pommern," _Archiv fuer Anthropologie_, xxix. (1904) pp.
214 _sq._, 216; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_, pp.
185-187.]

[Footnote 639: R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_, pp.
404-406.]

[Footnote 640: R. Parkinson, _op. cit._ pp. 441 _sq._]

[Footnote 641: G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 176, 183, 385 _sq._ As to the
wide-spread belief in New Britain that what we call natural deaths are
brought about by sorcery, see further _P._ Rascher, _M.S.C._, "Die
Sulka, ein Beitrag zur Ethnographic Neu-Pommern," _Archiv fuer
Ethnographie_, xxix. (1904) pp. 221 _sq._; R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre
in der Suedsee_, pp. 117 _sq._ 199-201; P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die
Kuesten-bewohner der Gazellehalbinsel_ (Hiltrup bei Muenster, N.D.), p.
215.]

[Footnote 642: G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 387-390.]

[Footnote 643: G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 35, 89, 196, 201.]

[Footnote 644: G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 177, 183, 184.]

[Footnote 645: G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 192-195.]

[Footnote 646: P. A. Kleintitschen, _Die Kuestenbewohner der
Gazellehalbinsel_, pp. 225 _sq._ Compare R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre
in der Suedsee_, p. 79.]

[Footnote 647: Lorimer Fison, _Tales from Old Fiji_ (London, 1904), p.
xiv.]

[Footnote 648: Thomas Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition
(London, 1860), i. 22-26.]

[Footnote 649: Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 77; Th. Williams, _op.
cit._ i. 18.]

[Footnote 650: Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 332 _sqq._; Thomas
Williams _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition (London, 1860), i. 60
_sqq._; Berthold Seeman, _Viti_ (Cambridge, 1862), pp. 279 _sqq._; Basil
Thomson, _The Fijians_ (London, 1908), pp. 335 _sq._]

[Footnote 651: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 60 _sq._]

[Footnote 652: Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp. 338, 389 _sq._ The
Fijians are in the main vegetarians, but the vegetables which they
cultivate "contain a large proportion of starch and water, and are
deficient in proteids. Moreover, the supply of the principal staples is
irregular, being greatly affected by variable seasons, and the attacks
of insects and vermin. Very few of them will bear keeping, and almost
all of them must be eaten when ripe. As the food is of low nutritive
value, a native always eats to repletion. In times of plenty a
full-grown man will eat as much as ten pounds' weight of vegetables in
the day; he will seldom be satisfied with less than five. A great
quantity, therefore, is required to feed a very few people, and as
everything is transported by hand, a disproportionate amount of time is
spent in transporting food from the plantation to the consumer. The time
spent in growing native food is also out of all proportion to its value"
(Basil Thomson, _op. cit._ pp. 334 _sq._). The same writer tells us (p.
335) that it has never occurred to the Fijians to dry any of the fruits
they grow and to grind them into flour, as is done in Africa.]

[Footnote 653: Capt. J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the
Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), pp. 272 _sq._]

[Footnote 654: Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 46, 363. As to the cruelty
and depravity of the Fijians in the old days see further Lorimer Fison,
_Tales from Old Fiji_ (London, 1904), pp. xv. _sqq._]

[Footnote 655: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 6 _sq._ As to
the scenery of the Fijian archipelago see further _id._, i. 4 _sqq._;
Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 46, 322; _Stanford's Compendium of Geography
and Travel, Australasia_, vol. ii. _Malaysia and the Pacific
Archipelago_, edited by F. H. H. Guillemard (London, 1894), pp. 467
_sqq._; Miss Beatrice Grimshaw, _From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands_
(London, 1907), pp. 43 _sq._, 54 _sq._, 76-78, 106, 109 _sq._]

[Footnote 656: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 5 _sq._, 11; Ch.
Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 46 _sq._ However, there is a remarkable
difference not only in climate but in appearance between the windward
and the leeward sides of these islands. The windward side, watered by
abundant showers, is covered with luxuriant tropical vegetation; the
leeward side, receiving little rain, presents a comparatively barren and
burnt appearance, the vegetation dying down to the grey hues of the
boulders among which it struggles for life. Hence the dry leeward side
is better adapted for European settlement. See Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._
iii. 320 _sq._; Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 10; B. Seeman, _Viti, an
Account of a Government Mission to the Vitian or Fijian Islands in the
years 1860-1861_ (Cambridge, 1862), pp. 277 _sq._]

[Footnote 657: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 241; J. E. Erskine, _op.
cit._ p. 249; B. Seeman, _Viti_ (Cambridge, 1862), p. 398.]

[Footnote 658: William Mariner, _An Account of the Natives of the Tonga
Islands_, Second Edition (London, 1818), ii. 129 _sq._ The _matabooles_
were a sort of honourable attendants on chiefs and ranked next to them
in the social hierarchy; the _mooas_ were the next class of people below
the _matabooles_. See W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 84, 86. Bolotoo or Bulu
was the mythical land of the dead.]

[Footnote 659: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 241.]

[Footnote 660: This is the opinion of my late friend, the Rev. Lorimer
Fison, which he communicated to me in a letter dated 26th August, 1898.]

[Footnote 661: Communication of the late Rev. Lorimer Fison in a letter
to me dated 3rd November, 1898. I have already published it in _Taboo
and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 29 _sq._]

[Footnote 662: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 242; Lorimer Fison, _Tales
from Old Fiji_, pp. 163 _sq._; _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp.
39 _sq._]

[Footnote 663: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 250.]

[Footnote 664: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 248.]

[Footnote 665: Lorimer Fison, _op. cit._ p. xxxii.]

[Footnote 666: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 248 _sq._; Lorimer Fison,
_op. cit._ pp. xxxi. _sq._]

[Footnote 667: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 249.]

[Footnote 668: Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_ (London, 1908), p. 166. A
_rara_ is a public square (Rev. Lorimer Fison, in _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xiv. (1885) p. 17).]

[Footnote 669: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 241.]

[Footnote 670: Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 50.]

[Footnote 671: Narrative of John Jackson, in Capt. J. E. Erskine's
_Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London,
1853), p. 477.]

[Footnote 672: Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 85.]

[Footnote 673: Lorimer Fison, _op. cit._ pp. 168 _sq_.]

[Footnote 674: W. H. R. Rivers, "Totemism in Fiji," _Man_, viii. (1908)
pp. 133 _sqq._; _Totemism and Exogamy_, ii. 134 _sqq._]

[Footnote 675: U. Lisiansky, _A Voyage Round the World_ (London, 1814),
p. 89.]

[Footnote 676: Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_
(London, 1912), ii. 47.]

[Footnote 677: Compare _Totemism and Exogamy_, iii. 297-299.]

LECTURE XIX

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF EASTERN MELANESIA (FIJI)
(_continued_)

[Sidenote: Fijian indifference to death.]

At the close of last lecture I illustrated the unquestioning belief
which the Fijians entertain with regard to the survival of the human
soul after death. "The native superstitions with regard to a future
state," we are told, "go far to explain the apparent indifference of the
people about death; for, while believing in an eternal existence, they
shut out from it the idea of any moral retribution in the shape either
of reward or punishment. The first notion concerning death is that of
simple rest, and is thus contained in one of their rhymes:--

"Death is easy:
Of what use is life?
To die is rest."[678]

Again, another writer, speaking of the Fijians, says that "in general,
the passage from life to death is considered as one from pain to
happiness, and I was informed that nine out of ten look forward to it
with anxiety, in order to escape from the infirmities of old age, or the
sufferings of disease."[679]

[Sidenote: John Jackson's account of the burying alive of a young Fijian
man. Son buried alive by his father.]

The cool indifference with which the Fijians commonly regarded their own
death and that of other people might be illustrated by many examples. I
will give one in the words of an English eye-witness, who lived among
these savages for some time like one of themselves. At a place on the
coast of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian Islands, he says, "I
walked into a number of temples, which were very plentiful, and at last
into a _bure theravou_ (young man's _bure_), where I saw a tall young
man about twenty years old. He appeared to be somewhat ailing, but not
at all emaciated. He was rolling up the mat he had been sleeping upon,
evidently preparing to go away somewhere. I addressed him, and asked him
where he was going, when he immediately answered that he was going to be
buried. I observed that he was not dead yet, but he said he soon should
be dead when he was put under ground. I asked him why he was going to be
buried? He said it was three days since he had eaten anything, and
consequently he was getting very thin; and that if he lived any longer
he would be much thinner, and then the women would call him a _lila_
(skeleton), and laugh at him. I said he was a fool to throw himself away
for fear of being laughed at; and asked him what or who his private god
was, knowing it to be no use talking to him about Providence, a thing he
had never heard of. He said his god was a shark, and that if he were
cast away in a canoe and was obliged to swim, the sharks would not bite
him. I asked him if he believed the shark, his god, had any power to act
over him? He said yes. 'Well then,' said I, 'why do you not live a
little longer, and trust to your god to give you an appetite?' Finding
that he could not give me satisfactory answers, and being determined to
get buried to avoid the jeers of the ladies, which to a Feejeean are
intolerable, he told me I knew nothing about it, and that I must not
compare him to a white man, who was generally insensible to all shame,
and did not care how much he was laughed at. I called him a fool, and
said the best thing he could do was to get buried out of the way,
because I knew that most of them work by the rules of contrary; but it
was all to no purpose. By this time all his relations had collected
round the door. His father had a kind of wooden spade to dig the grave
with, his mother a new suit of _tapa_ [bark-cloth], his sister some
vermilion and a whale's tooth, as an introduction to the great god of
Rage-Rage. He arose, took up his bed and walked, not for life, but for
death, his father, mother, and sister following after, with several
other distant relations, whom I accompanied. I noticed that they seemed
to follow him something in the same way that they follow a corpse in
Europe to the grave (that is, as far as relationship and acquaintance
are concerned), but, instead of lamenting, they were, if not rejoicing,
acting and chatting in a very unconcerned way. At last we reached a
place where several graves could be seen, and a spot was soon selected
by the man who was to be buried. The old man, his father, began digging
his grave, while his mother assisted her son in putting on a new _tapa_
[bark-cloth], and the girl (his sister) was besmearing him with
vermilion and lamp-black, so as to send him decent into the invisible
world, he (the victim) delivering messages that were to be taken by his
sister to people then absent. His father then announced to him and the
rest that the grave was completed, and asked him, in rather a surly
tone, if he was not ready by this time. The mother then _nosed_ him, and
likewise the sister. He said, 'Before I die, I should like a drink of
water.' His father made a surly remark, and said, as he ran to fetch it
in a leaf doubled up, 'You have been a considerable trouble during your
life, and it appears that you are going to trouble us equally at your
death.' The father returned with the water, which the son drank off, and
then looked up into a tree covered with tough vines, saying he should
prefer being strangled with a vine to being smothered in the grave. His
father became excessively angry, and, spreading the mat at the bottom of
the grave, told the son to die _faka tamata_ (like a man), when he
stepped into the grave, which was not more than four feet deep, and lay
down on his back with the whale's tooth in his hands, which were clasped
across his belly. The spare sides of the mats were lapped over him so as
to prevent the earth from getting to his body, and then about a foot of
earth was shovelled in upon him as quickly as possible. His father
stamped it immediately down solid, and called out in a loud voice, '_Sa
tiko, sa tiko_ (You are stopping there, you are stopping there),'
meaning 'Good-bye, good-bye.' The son answered with a very audible
grunt, and then about two feet more earth was shovelled in and stamped
as before by the loving father, and '_Sa tiko_' called out again, which
was answered by another grunt, but much fainter. The grave was then
completely filled up, when, for curiosity's sake, I said myself, '_Sa
tiko_' but no answer was given, although I fancied, or really did see,
the earth crack a little on the top of the grave. The father and mother
then turned back to back on the middle of the grave, and, having dropped
some kind of leaves from their hands, walked away in opposite directions
towards a running stream of water hard by, where they and all the rest
washed themselves, and made me wash myself, and then we returned to the
town, where there was a feast prepared. As soon as the feast was over
(it being then dark), began the dance and uproar which are always
carried on either at natural or violent deaths."[680]

[Sidenote: The readiness of the Fijians to die seems to have been partly
a consequence of their belief in immortality.]

The readiness with which the Fijians submitted to or even sought death
appears to have been to some extent a direct consequence of their belief
in immortality and of their notions as to the state of the soul
hereafter. Thus we are informed by an early observer of this people that
"self-immolation is by no means rare, and they believe that as they
leave this life, so will they remain ever after. This forms a powerful
motive to escape from decrepitude, or from a crippled condition, by a
voluntary death."[681] Or, as another equally early observer puts it
more fully, "the custom of voluntary suicide on the part of the old men,
which is among their most extraordinary usages, is also connected with
their superstitions respecting a future life. They believe that persons
enter upon the delights of their elysium with the same faculties, mental
and physical, that they possess at the hour of death, in short, that the
spiritual life commences where the corporeal existence terminates. With
these views, it is natural that they should desire to pass through this
change before their mental and bodily powers are so enfeebled by age as
to deprive them of their capacity for enjoyment. To this motive must be
added the contempt which attaches to physical weakness among a nation of
warriors, and the wrongs and insults which await those who are no longer
able to protect themselves. When therefore a man finds his strength
declining with the advance of age, and feels that he will soon be
unequal to discharge the duties of this life, and to partake in the
pleasures of that which is to come, he calls together his relations, and
tells them that he is now worn out and useless, that he sees they are
all ashamed of him, and that he has determined to be buried." So on a
day appointed they met and buried him alive.[682]