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 general licence associated with the ritual of the _Nanga_
may be a temporary revival of primitive communism.]

A very remarkable feature in the _Nanga_ ritual consists in the
temporary licence accorded to the sexes and the suspension of
proprietary rites in general. What is the meaning of this curious and to
the civilised mind revolting custom? Here again the most probable,
though merely conjectural, answer is furnished by Mr. Fison. "We cannot
for a moment believe," he says, "that it is a mere licentious outbreak,
without an underlying meaning and purpose. It is part of a religious
rite, and is supposed to be acceptable to the ancestors. But why should
it be acceptable to them unless it were in accordance with their own
practice in the far-away past? There may be another solution of this
difficult problem, but I confess myself unable to find any other which
will cover all the corroborating facts."[696] In other words, Mr. Fison
supposes that in the sexual licence and suspension of the rights of
private property which characterise these festivals we have a
reminiscence of a time when women and property were held in common by
the community, and the motive for temporarily resuscitating these
obsolete customs was a wish to propitiate the ancestral spirits, who
were thought to be gratified by witnessing a revival of that primitive
communism which they themselves had practised in the flesh so long ago.
Truly a religious revival of a remarkable kind!

[Sidenote: Description of the _Nanga_ or sacred enclosure of stones.]

To conclude this part of my subject I will briefly describe the
construction of a _Nanga_ or sacred stone enclosure, as it used to exist
in Fiji. At the present day only ruins of these structures are to be
seen, but by an observation of the ruins and a comparison of the
traditions which still survive among the natives on the subject it is
possible to reconstruct one of them with a fair degree of exactness. A
_Nanga_ has been described as an open-air temple, and the description is
just. It consisted of a rough parallelogram enclosed by flat stones set
upright and embedded endwise in the earth. The length of the enclosure
thus formed was about one hundred feet and its breadth about fifty feet.
The upright stones which form the outer walls are from eighteen inches
to three feet high, but as they do not always touch they may be
described as alignments rather than walls. The long walls or alignments
run east and west, the short ones north and south; but the orientation
is not very exact. At the eastern end are two pyramidal heaps of stones,
about five feet high, with square sloping sides and flat tops. The
narrow passage between them is the main entrance into the sacred
enclosure. Internally the structure was divided into three separate
enclosures or compartments by two cross-walls of stone running north and
south. These compartments, taking them from east to west, were called
respectively the Little Nanga, the Great Nanga, and the Sacred Nanga or
Holy of Holies (_Nanga tambu-tambu_). The partition walls between them
were built solid of stones, with battering sides, to a height of five
feet, and in the middle of each there was an opening to allow the
worshippers to pass from one compartment to another. Trees, such as the
candlenut and the red-leaved dracaena, and odoriferous shrubs were
planted round the enclosure; and outside of it, to the west of the Holy
of Holies, was a bell-roofed hut called _Vale tambu_, the Sacred House
or Temple. The sacred _kava_ bowl stood in the Holy of Holies.[697] It
is said that when the two traditionary founders of the _Nanga_ in Fiji
were about to erect the first structure of that name in their new home,
the chief priest poured a libation of _kava_ to the ancestral gods,
"and, calling upon those who died long, long ago by name, he prayed that
the people of the tribe, both old and young, might live before
them."[698]

[Sidenote: Comparison of the _Nanga_ with the cromlechs and other
megalithic monuments of Europe.]

The sacred enclosures of stones which I have described have been
compared to the alignments of stones at Carnac in Brittany and Merivale
on Dartmoor, and it has been suggested that in the olden time these
ancient European monuments may have witnessed religious rites like those
which were till lately performed in the rude open-air temples of
Fiji.[699] If there is any truth in the suggestion, which I mention for
what it is worth, it would furnish another argument in favour of the
view that our European cromlechs and other megalithic monuments were
erected specially for the worship of the dead. The mortuary character of
Stonehenge, for example, is at least suggested by the burial mounds
which cluster thick around and within sight of it; about three hundred
such tombs have been counted within a radius of three miles, while the
rest of the country in the neighbourhood is comparatively free from
them.[700]

[Footnote 678: Th. Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, Second Edition
(London, 1860), i. 242 _sq._]

[Footnote 679: Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 86.]

[Footnote 680: John Jackson's Narrative, in Capt. J. E. Erskine's
_Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London,
1853), pp. 475-477. The narrator, John Jackson, was an English seaman
who resided alone among the Fijians for nearly two years and learned
their language.]

[Footnote 681: Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 96.]

[Footnote 682: _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnology and
Philology_, by H. Hale (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 65. Compare Capt. J. E.
Erskine, _op. cit._ p. 248: "It would also seem that a belief in the
resurrection of the body, in the exact condition in which it leaves the
world, is one of the causes that induce, in many instances, a desire for
death in the vigour of manhood, rather than in the decrepitude of old
age"; Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 183: "The heathen notion is, that, as
they die, such will their condition be in another world; hence their
desire to escape extreme infirmity."]

[Footnote 683: Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 94 _sq._ Compare Th.
Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. 183-186; Lorimer Fison, _Tales from
Old Fiji_ (London, 1904), pp. xxv. _sq._]

[Footnote 684: Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 96. Compare Th. Williams,
_op. cit._ i. 188 _sq._, 193 _sqq._, 200-202; Lorimer Fison, _op. cit._
pp. xxv. _sq._]

[Footnote 685: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 200.]

[Footnote 686: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 189; Lorimer Fison, _op.
cit._ p. xvi.]

[Footnote 687: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 189.]

[Footnote 688: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 197.]

[Footnote 689: Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 100. Williams also says (_op.
cit._ i. 167) that the proper time for performing the rite of
circumcision was after the death of a chief, and he tells us that "many
rude games attend it. Blindfolded youths strike at thin vessels of water
hung from the branch of a tree. At Lakemba, the men arm themselves with
branches of the cocoa-nut, and carry on a sham fight. At Ono, they
wrestle. At Mbau, they fillip small stones from the end of a bamboo with
sufficient force to make the person hit wince again. On Vanua Levu,
there is a mock siege."]

[Footnote 690: Th. Williams, _op. cit._ i. 198.]

[Footnote 691: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred Stone
Enclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji," _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xiv. (1885) pp. 27 _sq._ On the other hand Mr. Basil
Thomson's enquiries, made at a later date, did not confirm Mr. Fison's
statement that the rite of circumcision was practised as a propitiation
to recover a chief from sickness. "I was assured," he says, "on the
contrary, that while offerings were certainly made in the _Nanga_ for
the recovery of the sick, every youth was circumcised as a matter of
routine, and that the rite was in no way connected with sacrifice for
the sick" (Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp. 156 _sq._). However, Mr.
Fison was a very careful and accurate enquirer, and his testimony is not
to be lightly set aside.]

[Footnote 692: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred Stone
Enclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji," _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xiv. (1885) p. 26. Compare Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, p.
147: "The _Nanga_ was the 'bed' of the Ancestors, that is, the spot
where their descendants might hold communion with them; the _Mbaki_ were
the rites celebrated in the _Nanga_, whether of initiating the youths,
or of presenting the first-fruits, or of recovering the sick, or of
winning charms against wounds in battle."]

[Footnote 693: Rev. Lorimer Fison, _op. cit._ p. 27.]

[Footnote 694: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred Stone
Enclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji," _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xiv. (1885) pp. 14-26. The _Nanga_ and its rites have also
been described by Mr. A. B. Joske ("The Nanga of Viti-levu,"
_Internationales Archiv fuer Ethnographie_, ii. (1889) pp. 254-266), and
Mr. Basil Thomson (_The Fijians_, pp. 146-156). As to the interval
between the initiatory ceremonies Mr. Fison tells us that it was
normally two years, but he adds: "This period, however, is not
necessarily restricted to two years. There are always a number of youths
who are growing to the proper age, and the length of the interval
depends upon the decision of the elders. Whenever they judge that there
is a sufficient number of youths ready for admission, a _Nanga_ is
appointed to be held; and thus the interval may be longer or shorter,
according to the supply of novices" (_op. cit._ p. 19). According to Mr.
Basil Thomson the rites were celebrated annually. Mr. Fison's evidence
as to the gross license which prevailed between the sexes after the
admission of the women to the sacred enclosure is confirmed by Mr. Basil
Thomson, who says, amongst other things, that "a native of Mbau, who
lived for some years near the _Nanga_, assured me that the visit of the
women to the _Nanga_ resulted in temporary promiscuity; all tabus were
defied, and relations who could not speak to one another by customary
law committed incest" (_op. cit._ p. 154).]

[Footnote 695: Rev. Lorimer Fison, "The Nanga, or Sacred Stone
Enclosure, of Wainimala, Fiji," _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xiv. (1885) pp. 14 _sqq._; Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp.
147, 149.]

[Footnote 696: Rev. Lorimer Fison, _op. cit._ p. 30.]

[Footnote 697: Rev. Lorimer Fison, _op. cit._ pp. 15, 17, with Plate I.;
Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, pp. 147 _sq._ Mr. Fison had not seen a
_Nanga_; his description is based on information received from natives.
Mr. Basil Thomson visited several of these structures and found them so
alike that one description would serve for all. He speaks of only two
inner compartments, which he calls the Holy of Holies (_Nanga
tambu-tambu_) and the Middle Nanga (_Loma ni Nanga_), but the latter
name appears to imply a third compartment, which is explicitly mentioned
and named by Mr. Fison. The bell-shaped hut or temple to the west of the
sacred enclosure is not noticed by Mr. Thomson.]

[Footnote 698: Rev. Lorimer Fison, _op. cit._ p. 17.]

[Footnote 699: Basil Thomson, _The Fijians_, p. 147.]

[Footnote 700: As to these monuments see Sir John Lubbock (Lord
Avebury), _Prehistoric Times_, Fifth Edition (London, 1890), p. 127.]

LECTURE XX

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

[Sidenote: Worship of ancestors in Fiji.]

In the last lecture I described the rites of ancestor worship which in
certain parts of Fiji used to be celebrated at the sacred enclosures of
stones known as _Nangas_. But the worship of ancestral spirits was by no
means confined to the comparatively small area in Fiji where such sacred
enclosures were erected, nor were these open-air temples the only
structures where the homage of the living was paid to the dead. On the
contrary we are told by one who knew the Fijians in the old heathen days
that among them "as soon as beloved parents expire, they take their
place amongst the family gods. _Bures_, or temples, are erected to their
memory, and offerings deposited either on their graves or on rudely
constructed altars--mere stages, in the form of tables, the legs of
which are driven into the ground, and the top of which is covered with
pieces of native cloth. The construction of these altars is identical
with that observed by Turner in Tanna, and only differs in its inferior
finish from the altars formerly erected in Tahiti and the adjacent
islands. The offerings, consisting of the choicest articles of food, are
left exposed to wind and weather, and firmly believed by the mass of
Fijians to be consumed by the spirits of departed friends and relations;
but, if not eaten by animals, they are often stolen by the more
enlightened class of their countrymen, and even some of the foreigners
do not disdain occasionally to help themselves freely to them. However,
it is not only on tombs or on altars that offerings are made; often,
when the natives eat or drink anything, they throw portions of it away,
stating them to be for their departed ancestors. I remember ordering a
young chief to empty a bowl containing _kava_, which he did, muttering
to himself, 'There, father, is some _kava_ for you. Protect me from
illness or breaking any of my limbs whilst in the mountains.'"[701]

[Sidenote: Fijian notion of divinity. Two classes of gods, namely, gods
strictly so called, and deified men.]

"The native word expressive of divinity is _kalou_, which, while used to
denote the people's highest notion of a god, is also constantly heard as
a qualificative of any thing great or marvellous, or, according to
Hazlewood's Dictionary, 'anything superlative, whether good or bad.'...
Often the word sinks into a mere exclamation, or becomes an expression
of flattery. 'You are a _kalou_!' or, 'Your countrymen are gods!' is
often uttered by the natives, when hearing of the triumphs of art among
civilized nations."[702] The Fijians distinguished two classes of gods:
first, _kalou vu_, literally "Root-gods," that is, gods strictly so
called, and second, _kalou yalo_, literally, "Soul-gods," that is,
deified mortals. Gods of the first class were supposed to be absolutely
eternal; gods of the second class, though raised far above mere
humanity, were thought nevertheless to be subject to human passions and
wants, to accidents, and even to death. These latter were the spirits of
departed chiefs, heroes, and friends; admission into their number was
easy, and any one might secure his own apotheosis who could ensure the
services of some one to act as his representative and priest after his
death.[703] However, though the Fijians admitted the distinction between
the two classes of gods in theory, they would seem to have confused them
in practice. Thus we are informed by an early authority that "they have
superior and inferior gods and goddesses, more general and local
deities, and, were it not an obvious contradiction, we should say they
have gods _human_, and gods _divine_; for they have some gods who were
gods originally, and some who were originally men. It is impossible to
ascertain with any degree of probability how many gods the Fijians have,
as any man who can distinguish himself in murdering his fellow-men may
certainly secure to himself deification after death. Their friends are
also sometimes deified and invoked. I have heard them invoke their
friends who have been drowned at sea. I need not advert to the absurdity
of praying to those who could not save themselves from a watery grave.
Tuikilakila, the chief of Somosomo, offered Mr. Hunt a preferment of
this sort. 'If you die first,' said he, 'I shall make you my god.' In
fact, there appears to be no certain line of demarcation between
departed spirits and gods, nor between gods and living men, for many of
the priests and old chiefs are considered as sacred persons, and not a
few of them will also claim to themselves the right of divinity. 'I am a
god,' Tuikilakila would sometimes say; and he believed it too. They were
not merely the words of his lips; he believed he was something above a
mere man."[704]

Writers on Fiji have given us lists of some of the principal gods of the
first class,[705] who were supposed never to have been men; but in their
account of the religious ritual they do not distinguish between the
worship which was paid to such deities and that which was paid to
deified men. Accordingly we may infer that the ritual was practically
the same, and in the sequel I shall assume that what is told us of the
worship of gods in general holds good of the worship of deified men in
particular.

[Sidenote: The Fijian temple (_bure_).]

Every Fijian town had at least one _bure_ or temple, many of them had
several. Significantly enough the spot where a chief had been killed was
sometimes chosen for the site of a temple. The structure of these
edifices was somewhat peculiar. Each of them was built on the top of a
mound, which was raised to the height of from three to twenty feet above
the ground and faced on its sloping sides with dry rubble-work of stone.
The ascent to the temple was by a thick plank, the upper surface of
which was cut into notched steps. The proportions of the sacred edifice
itself were inelegant, if not uncouth, its height being nearly twice as
great as its breadth at the base. The roof was high-pitched; the
ridge-pole was covered with white shells (_Ovula cypraea_) and projected
three or four feet at each end. For the most part each temple had two
doors and a fire-place in the centre. From some temples it was not
lawful to throw out the ashes, however much they might accumulate, until
the end of the year, which fell in November. The furniture consisted of
a few boxes, mats, several large clay jars, and many drinking vessels. A
temple might also contain images, which, though highly esteemed as
ornaments and held sacred, were not worshipped as idols. From the roof
depended a long piece of white bark-cloth; it was carried down the angle
so as to hang before the corner-post and lie on the floor. This cloth
formed the path down which the god was believed to pass in order to
enter and inspire his priest. It marked the holy place which few but he
dared to approach. However, the temples were by no means dedicated
exclusively to the use of religion. Each of them served also as a
council-chamber and town-hall; there the chiefs lounged for hours
together; there strangers were entertained; and there the head persons
of the village might even sleep.[706] In some parts of Viti Levu the
dead were sometimes buried in the temples, "that the wind might not
disturb, nor the rain fall upon them," and in order that the living
might have the satisfaction of lying near their departed friends. A
child of high rank having died under the charge of the queen of
Somosomo, the little body was placed in a box and hung from the tie-beam
of the principal temple. For some months afterwards the daintiest food
was brought daily to the dead child, the bearers approaching with the
utmost respect and clapping their hands when the ghost was thought to
have finished his meal just as a chiefs retainers used to do when he had
done eating.[707]

[Sidenote: Worship at the temples.]

Temples were often unoccupied for months and allowed to fall into ruins,
until the chief had some request to make to the god, when the necessary
repairs were first carried out. No regular worship was maintained, no
habitual reverence was displayed at the shrines. The principle of fear,
we are told, seemed to be the only motive of religious observances, and
it was artfully fomented by the priests, through whom alone the people
had access to the gods when they desired to supplicate the favour of the
divine beings. The prayers were naturally accompanied by offerings,
which in matters of importance comprised large quantities of food,
together with whales' teeth; in lesser affairs a tooth, club, mat, or
spear sufficed. Of the food brought by the worshippers part was
dedicated to the god, but as usual he only ate the soul of it, the
substance being consumed by the priest and old men; the remainder
furnished a feast of which all might partake.[708]

[Sidenote: The priests.]

The office of priest (_mbete_, _bete_) was usually hereditary, but when
a priest died without male heirs a cunning fellow, ambitious of enjoying
the sacred character and of living in idleness, would sometimes simulate
the convulsive frenzy, which passed for a symptom of inspiration, and if
he succeeded in the imposture would be inducted into the vacant
benefice. Every chief had his priest, with whom he usually lived on a
very good footing, the two playing into each other's hands and working
the oracle for their mutual benefit. The people were grossly
superstitious, and there were few of their affairs in which the priest
had not a hand. His influence over them was great. In his own district
he passed for the representative of the deity; indeed, according to an
early missionary, the natives seldom distinguished the idea of the god
from that of his minister, who was viewed by them with a reverence that
almost amounted to deification.[709]

[Sidenote: Oracles given by the priest under the inspiration of the god.
Paroxysm of inspiration.]

The principal duty of the priest was to reveal to men the will of the
god, and this he always did through the direct inspiration of the deity.
The revelation was usually made in response to an enquiry or a prayer;
the supplicant asked, it might be, for a good crop of yams or taro, for
showers of rain, for protection in battle, for a safe voyage, or for a
storm to drive canoes ashore, so that the supplicant might rob, murder,
and eat the castaways. To lend force to one or other of these pious
prayers the worshipper brought a whale's tooth to the temple and
presented it to the priest. The man of god might have had word of his
coming and time to throw himself into an appropriate attitude. He might,
for example, be seen lying on the floor near the sacred corner, plunged
in a profound meditation. On the entrance of the enquirer the priest
would rouse himself so far as to get up and then seat himself with his
back to the white cloth, down which the deity was expected to slide into
the medium's body. Having received the whale's tooth he would abstract
his mind from all worldly matters and contemplate the tooth for some
time with rapt attention. Presently he began to tremble, his limbs
twitched, his features were distorted. These symptoms, the visible
manifestation of the entrance of the spirit into him, gradually
increased in violence till his whole frame was convulsed and shook as
with a strong fit of ague: his veins swelled: the circulation of the
blood was quickened. The man was now possessed and inspired by the god:
his own human personality was for a time in abeyance: all that he said
and did in the paroxysm passed for the words and acts of the indwelling
deity. Shrill cries of "_Koi au! Koi au!_" "It is I! It is I!" filled
the air, proclaiming the actual presence of the powerful spirit in the
vessel of flesh and blood. In giving the oracular response the priest's
eyes protruded from their sockets and rolled as in a frenzy: his voice
rose into a squeak: his face was pallid, his lips livid, his breathing
depressed, his whole appearance that of a furious madman. At last sweat
burst from every pore, tears gushed from his eyes: the strain on the
organism was visibly relieved; and the symptoms gradually abated. Then
he would look round with a vacant stare: the god within him would cry,
"I depart!" and the man would announce the departure of the spirit by
throwing himself on his mat or striking the ground with his club, while
blasts on a shell-trumpet conveyed to those at a distance the tidings
that the deity had withdrawn from mortal sight into the world
invisible.[710] "I have seen," says Mr. Lorimer Fison, "this possession,
and a horrible sight it is. In one case, after the fit was over, for
some time the man's muscles and nerves twitched and quivered in an
extraordinary way. He was naked except for his breech-clout, and on his
naked breast little snakes seemed to be wriggling for a moment or two
beneath his skin, disappearing and then suddenly reappearing in another
part of his chest. When the _mbete_ (which we may translate 'priest' for
want of a better word) is seized by the possession, the god within him
calls out his own name in a stridulous tone, 'It is I! Katouviere!' or
some other name. At the next possession some other ancestor may declare
himself."[711]

[Sidenote: Specimens of the oracular utterances of Fijian gods.]

From this last description of an eye-witness we learn that the spirit
which possessed a priest and spoke through him was often believed to be
that of a dead ancestor. Some of the inspired utterances of these
prophets have been recorded. Here are specimens of Fijian inspiration.
Speaking in the name of the great god Ndengei, who was worshipped in the
form of a serpent, the priest said: "Great Fiji is my small club.
Muaimbila is the head; Kamba is the handle. If I step on Muaimbila, I
shall sink it into the sea, whilst Kamba shall rise to the sky. If I
step on Kamba, it will be lost in the sea, whilst Muaimbila would rise
into the skies. Yes, Viti Levu is my small war-club. I can turn it as I
please. I can turn it upside down." Again, speaking by the mouth of a
priest, the god Tanggirianima once made the following observations: "I
and Kumbunavannua only are gods. I preside over wars, and do as I please
with sickness. But it is difficult for me to come here, as the foreign
god fills the place. If I attempt to descend by that pillar, I find it
pre-occupied by the foreign god. If I try another pillar, I find it the
same. However, we two are fighting the foreign god; and if we are
victorious, we will save the woman. I _will_ save the woman. She will
eat food to-day. Had I been sent for yesterday, she would have eaten
then," and so on. The woman, about whose case the deity was consulted
and whom he announced his fixed intention of saving, died a few hours
afterwards.[712]