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: It has also been suggested by the resemblance of the living
to the dead, which is a case of outward experience.]

This explanation of the savage faith in immortality is neither novel nor
original: on the contrary it is perhaps the commonest and most familiar
that has yet been propounded. If it does not account for all the facts,
it probably accounts for many of them. At the same time I do not doubt
that many other inferences drawn from experiences of different kinds
have confirmed, even if they did not originally suggest, man's confident
belief in his own immortality. To take a single example of outward
experience, the resemblances which children often bear to deceased
kinsfolk appear to have prompted in the minds of many savages the notion
that the souls of these dead kinsfolk have been born again in their
descendants.[5] From a few cases of resemblances so explained it would
be easy to arrive at a general theory that all living persons are
animated by the souls of the dead; in other words, that the human spirit
survives death for an indefinite period, if not for eternity, during
which it undergoes a series of rebirths or reincarnations. However it
has been arrived at, this doctrine of the transmigration or
reincarnation of the soul is found among many tribes of savages; and
from what we know on the subject we seem to be justified in conjecturing
that at certain stages of mental and social evolution the belief in
metempsychosis has been far commoner and has exercised a far deeper
influence on the life and institutions of primitive man than the actual
evidence before us at present allows us positively to affirm.

[Sidenote: The aim of these lectures is to collect a number of facts
illustrative of the belief in immortality and of the customs based on it
among some of the lower races.]

Be that as it may--and I have no wish to dogmatise on so obscure a
topic--it is certain that a belief in the survival of the human
personality after death and the practice of a propitiation or worship of
the dead have prevailed very widely among mankind and have played a very
important part in the development of natural religion. While many
writers have duly recognised the high importance both of the belief and
of the worship, no one, so far as I know, has attempted systematically
to collect and arrange the facts which illustrate the prevalence of this
particular type of religion among the various races of mankind. A large
body of evidence lies to hand in the voluminous and rapidly increasing
literature of ethnology; but it is dispersed over an enormous number of
printed books and papers, to say nothing of the materials which still
remain buried either in manuscript or in the minds of men who possess
the requisite knowledge but have not yet committed it to writing. To
draw all those stores of information together and digest them into a
single treatise would be a herculean labour, from which even the most
industrious researcher into the dusty annals of the human past might
shrink dismayed. Certainly I shall make no attempt to perform such a
feat within the narrow compass of these lectures. But it seems to me
that I may make a useful, if a humble, contribution to the history of
religion by selecting a portion of the evidence and submitting it to my
hearers. For that purpose, instead of accumulating a mass of facts from
all the various races of mankind and then comparing them together, I
prefer to limit myself to a few races and to deal with each of them
separately, beginning with the lowest savages, about whom we possess
accurate information, and gradually ascending to peoples who stand
higher in the scale of culture. In short the method of treatment which I
shall adopt will be the descriptive rather than the comparative. I shall
not absolutely refrain from instituting comparisons between the customs
and beliefs of different races, but for the most part I shall content
myself with describing the customs and beliefs of each race separately
without reference to those of others. Each of the two methods, the
comparative and the descriptive, has its peculiar advantages and
disadvantages, and in my published writings I have followed now the one
method and now the other. The comparative method is unquestionably the
more attractive and stimulating, but it cannot be adopted without a good
deal of more or less conscious theorising, since every comparison
implicitly involves a theory. If we desire to exclude theories and
merely accumulate facts for the use of science, the descriptive method
is undoubtedly the better adapted for the arrangement of our materials:
it may not stimulate enquiry so powerfully, but it lays a more solid
foundation on which future enquirers may build. It is as a collection of
facts illustrative of the belief in immortality and of all the momentous
consequences which have flowed from that belief, that I desire the
following lectures to be regarded. They are intended to serve simply as
a document of religious history; they make no pretence to discuss
philosophically the truth of the beliefs and the morality of the
practices which will be passed under review. If any inferences can
indeed be drawn from the facts to the truth or falsehood of the beliefs
and to the moral worth or worthlessness of the practices, I prefer to
leave it to others more competent than myself to draw them. My sight is
not keen enough, my hand is not steady enough to load the scales and
hold the balance in so difficult and delicate an enquiry.

[Footnote 1: Matthew Arnold, _Literature and Dogma_, ch. i., p. 31
(Popular Edition, London, 1893).]

[Footnote 2: For a single instance see L. Sternberg, "Die Religion der
Giljaken," _Archiv fuer Religionswissenschaft_, viii. (1905) pp. 462
_sqq._, where the writer tells us that the Gilyaks have boundless faith
in the supernatural power of their shamans, and that the shamans are
nearly always persons who suffer from hysteria in one form or another.]

[Footnote 3: As to the widespread belief that flint weapons are
thunderbolts see Sir E. B. Tylor, _Researches into the Early History of
Mankind_, Third Edition (London, 1878), pp. 223-227; Chr. Blinkenberg,
_The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore_ (Cambridge, 1911); W. W.
Skeat "Snakestones and Thunderbolts," _Folk-lore_, xxiii. (1912) pp. 60
_sqq._; and the references in _The Magic Art and the Evolution of
Kings_, ii. 374.]

[Footnote 4: Wordsworth, who argues strongly, almost passionately, for
"the consciousness of a principle of Immortality in the human soul,"
admits that "the sense of Immortality, if not a coexistent and twin
birth with Reason, is among the earliest of her offspring." See his
_Essay upon Epitaphs_, appended to _The Excursion_ (_Poetical Works_,
London, 1832, vol. iv. pp. 336, 338). This somewhat hesitating admission
of the inferential nature of the belief in immortality carries all the
more weight because it is made by so warm an advocate of human
immortality.]

[Footnote 5: For instance, the Kagoro of Northern Nigeria believe that
"a spirit may transmigrate into the body of a descendant born
afterwards, male or female; in fact, this is common, as is proved by the
likeness of children to their parents or grand-parents, and it is lucky,
for the ghost has returned, and has no longer any power to frighten the
relatives until the new body dies, and it is free again" (Major A. J. N.
Tremearne, "Notes on some Nigerian Head-hunters," _Journal of the R.
Anthropological Institute_, xlii. (1912) p. 159). Compare _Taboo and the
Perils of the Soul_, pp. 88 _sq._; _The Dying God_, p. 287 (p. 288,
Second Impression).]

LECTURE II

THE SAVAGE CONCEPTION OF DEATH

[Sidenote: The subject of these lectures is the belief in immortality
and the worship of the dead.]

Last day I explained the subject of which I propose to treat and the
method which I intend to follow in these lectures. I shall describe the
belief in immortality, or rather in the continued existence of the human
soul after death, as that belief is found among certain of the lower
races, and I shall give some account of the religion which has been
based upon it. That religion is in brief a propitiation or worship of
the human dead, who according to the degree of power ascribed to them by
the living are supposed to vary in dignity from the humble rank of a
mere common ghost up to the proud position of deity. The elements of
such a worship appear to exist among all races of men, though in some
they have been much more highly developed than in others.

[Sidenote: Preliminary account of savage beliefs concerning the nature
and origin of death.]

But before I address myself to the description of particular races, I
wish in this and the following lecture to give you some general account
of the beliefs of savages concerning the nature and origin of death. The
problem of death has very naturally exercised the minds of men in all
ages. Unlike so many problems which interest only a few solitary
thinkers this one concerns us all alike, since simpletons as well as
sages must die, and even the most heedless and feather-brained can
hardly help sometimes asking themselves what comes after death. The
question is therefore thrust in a practical, indeed importunate form on
our attention; and we need not wonder that in the long history of human
speculation some of the highest intellects should have occupied
themselves with it and sought to find an answer to the riddle. Some of
their solutions of the problem, though dressed out in all the beauty of
exquisite language and poetic imagery, singularly resemble the rude
guesses of savages. So little, it would seem, do the natural powers even
of the greatest minds avail to pierce the thick veil that hides the end
of life.

[Sidenote: The problem of death is one of universal interest.]

In saying that the problem is thrust home upon us all, I do not mean to
imply that all men are constantly or even often engaged in meditating on
the nature and origin of death. Far from it. Few people trouble
themselves about that or any other purely abstract question: the common
man would probably not give a straw for an answer to it. What he wants
to know, what we all want to know, is whether death is the end of all
things for the individual, whether our conscious personality perishes
with the body or survives it for a time or for eternity. That is the
enigma propounded to every human being who has been born into the world:
that is the door at which so many enquirers have knocked in vain. Stated
in this limited form the problem has indeed been of universal interest:
there is no race of men known to us which has not pondered the mystery
and arrived at some conclusions to which it more or less confidently
adheres. Not that all races have paid an equal attention to it. On some
it has weighed much more heavily than on others. While some races, like
some individuals, take death almost lightly, and are too busy with the
certainties of the present world to pay much heed to the uncertainties
of a world to come, the minds of others have dwelt on the prospect of a
life beyond the grave till the thought of it has risen with them to a
passion, almost to an obsession, and has begotten a contempt for the
fleeting joys of this ephemeral existence by comparison with the
hoped-for bliss of an eternal existence hereafter. To the sceptic,
examining the evidence for immortality by the cold light of reason, such
peoples and such individuals may seem to sacrifice the substance for the
shadow: to adopt a homely comparison, they are like the dog in the fable
who dropped the real leg of mutton, from his mouth in order to snap at
its reflection in the water. Be that as it may, where such beliefs and
hopes are entertained in full force, the whole activity of the mind and
the whole energy of the body are apt to be devoted to a preparation for
a blissful or at all events an untroubled eternity, and life becomes, in
the language of Plato, a meditation or practising of death. This
excessive preoccupation with a problematic future has been a fruitful
source of the most fatal aberrations both for nations and individuals.
In pursuit of these visionary aims the few short years of life have been
frittered away: wealth has been squandered: blood has been poured out in
torrents: the natural affections have been stifled; and the cheerful
serenity of reason has been exchanged for the melancholy gloom of
madness.

"Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain--_This_ Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies."

[Sidenote: The belief in immortality general among mankind.]

The question whether our conscious personality survives after death has
been answered by almost all races of men in the affirmative. On this
point sceptical or agnostic peoples are nearly, if not wholly, unknown.
Accordingly if abstract truth could be determined, like the gravest
issues of national policy, by a show of hands or a counting of heads,
the doctrine of human immortality, or at least of a life after death,
would deserve to rank among the most firmly established of truths; for
were the question put to the vote of the whole of mankind, there can be
no doubt that the ayes would have it by an overwhelming majority. The
few dissenters would be overborne; their voices would be drowned in the
general roar. For dissenters there have been even among savages. The
Tongans, for example, thought that only the souls of noblemen are saved,
the rest perish with their bodies.[6] However, this aristocratic view
has never been popular, and is not likely to find favour in our
democratic age.

[Sidenote: Belief of many savages that they would never die if their
lives were not cut short by sorcery. Belief of the Abipones.]

But many savage races not only believe in a life after death; they are
even of opinion that they would never die at all if it were not for the
maleficent arts of sorcerers who cut the vital thread prematurely short.
In other words, they disbelieve in what we call a natural death; they
think that all men are naturally immortal in this life, and that every
death which takes place is in fact a violent death inflicted by the hand
of a human enemy, though in many cases the foe is invisible and works
his fell purpose not by a sword or a spear but by magic. Thus the
Abipones, a now extinct tribe of horse Indians in Paraguay, used to
allege that they would be immortal and that none of them would ever die
if only the Spaniards and the sorcerers could be banished from America;
for they were in the habit of attributing every death, whatever its
cause, either to the baleful arts of sorcerers or to the firearms of the
Spaniards. Even if a man died riddled with wounds, with his bones
smashed, or through the exhaustion of old age, these Indians would all
deny that the wounds or old age was the cause of his death; they firmly
believed that the death was brought about by magic, and they would make
careful enquiries to discover the sorcerer who had cast the fatal spell
on their comrade. The relations of the deceased would move every stone
to detect and punish the culprit; and they imagined that they could do
this by cutting out the heart and tongue of the dead man and throwing
them to a dog to be devoured. They thought that this in some way killed
the wicked magician who had killed their friend. For example, it
happened that in a squabble between two men about a horse a third man
who tried to make peace between the disputants was mortally wounded by
their spears and died in a few days. To us it might seem obvious that
the peacemaker was killed by the spear-wounds which he had received, but
none of the Abipones would admit such a thing for a moment. They stoutly
affirmed that their comrade had been done to death by the magical arts
of some person unknown, and their suspicions fell on a certain old
woman, known to be a witch, to whom the deceased had lately refused to
give a water-melon, and who out of spite had killed him by her spells,
though he appeared to the European eye to have died of a spear-wound.[7]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Araucanians.]

Similarly the warlike Araucanians of Chili are said to disbelieve in
natural death. Even if a man dies peaceably at the age of a hundred,
they still think that he has been bewitched by an enemy. A diviner or
medicine-man is consulted in order to discover the culprit. Some of
these wizards enjoy a great reputation and the Indians will send a
hundred miles or more to get the opinion of an eminent member of the
profession. In such cases they submit to him some of the remains of the
dead man, for example, his eyebrows, his nails, his tongue, or the soles
of his feet, and from an examination of these relics the man of skill
pronounces on the author of the death. The person whom he accuses is
hunted down and killed, sometimes by fire, amid the yells of an enraged
crowd.[8]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Bakairi.]

When the eminent German anthropologist was questioning a Bakairi Indian
of Brazil as to the language of his tribe, he gave the sentence, "Every
man must die" to be translated into the Bakairi language. To his
astonishment, the Indian remained long silent. The same long pause
always occurred when an abstract proposition, with which he was
unfamiliar, was put before the Indian for translation into his native
tongue. On the present occasion the enquirer learned that the Indian has
no idea of necessity in the abstract, and in particular he has no
conception at all of the necessity of death. The cause of death, in his
opinion, is invariably an ill turn done by somebody to the deceased. If
there were only good men in the world, he thinks that there would be
neither sickness nor death. He knows nothing about a natural end of the
vital process; he believes that all sickness and disease are the effects
of witchcraft.[9]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Indians of Guiana in sorcery as the cause of
sickness and death.]

Speaking of the Indians of Guiana, an English missionary, who knew them
well, says that the worst feature in their character is their proneness
to blood revenge, "by which a succession of retaliatory murders may be
kept up for a long time. It is closely connected with their system of
sorcery, which we shall presently consider. A person dies,--and it is
supposed that an enemy has secured the agency of an evil spirit to
compass his death. Some sorcerer, employed by the friends of the
deceased for that purpose, pretends by his incantations to discover the
guilty individual or family, or at any rate to indicate the quarter
where they dwell. A near relative of the deceased is then charged with
the work of vengeance. He becomes a _kanaima_, or is supposed to be
possessed by the destroying spirit so called, and has to live apart,
according to strict rule, and submit to many privations, until the deed
of blood be accomplished. If the supposed offender cannot be slain, some
innocent member of his family--man, woman, or little child--must suffer
instead."[10] The same writer tells us that these Indians of Guiana
attribute sickness and death directly to the agency of certain evil
spirits called _yauhahu_, who delight in inflicting miseries upon
mankind. Pain, in the language of the Arawaks (one of the best-known
tribes of Guiana), is called _yauhahu simaira_ or "the evil spirit's
arrow."[11] It is these evil spirits whom wicked sorcerers employ to
accomplish their fell purpose. Thus while the demon is the direct cause
of sickness and death, the sorcerer who uses him as his tool is the
indirect cause. The demon is thought to do his work by inserting some
alien substance into the body of the sufferer, and a medicine-man is
employed to extract it by chanting an invocation to the maleficent
spirit, shaking his rattle, and sucking the part of the patient's frame
in which the cause of the malady is imagined to reside. "After many
ceremonies he will produce from his mouth some strange substance, such
as a thorn or gravel-stone, a fish-bone or bird's claw, a snake's tooth,
or a piece of wire, which some malicious _yauhahu_ is supposed to have
inserted in the affected part. As soon as the patient fancies himself
rid of this cause of his illness his recovery is generally rapid, and
the fame of the sorcerer greatly increased. Should death, however,
ensue, the blame is laid upon the evil spirit whose power and malignity
have prevailed over the counteracting charms. Some rival sorcerer will
at times come in for a share of the blame, whom the sufferer has
unhappily made his enemy, and who is supposed to have employed the
_yauhahu_ in destroying him. The sorcerers being supposed to have the
power of causing, as well as of curing diseases, are much dreaded by the
common people, who never wilfully offend them. So deeply rooted in the
Indian's bosom is this belief concerning the origin of diseases, that
they have little idea of sickness arising from other causes. Death may
arise from a wound or a contusion, or be brought on by want of food, but
in other cases it is the work of the _yauhahu_"[12] or evil spirit.

[Sidenote: Some deaths attributed to sorcery and others to evil spirits:
practical consequence of this distinction.]

In this account it is to be observed that while all natural deaths from
sickness and disease are attributed to the direct action of evil
spirits, only some of them are attributed to the indirect action of
sorcerers. The practical consequences of this theoretical distinction
are very important. For whereas death by sorcery must, in the opinion of
savages, be avenged by killing the supposed sorcerer, death by the
action of a demon cannot be so avenged; for how are you to get at the
demon? Hence, while every death by sorcery involves, theoretically at
least, another death by violence, death by a demon involves no such
practical consequence. So far, therefore, the faith in sorcery is far
more murderous than the faith in demons. This practical distinction is
clearly recognised by these Indians of Guiana; for another writer, who
laboured among them as a missionary, tells us that when a person dies a
natural death, the medicine-man is called upon to decide whether he
perished through the agency of a demon or the agency of a sorcerer. If
he decides that the deceased died through the malice of an evil spirit,
the body is quietly buried, and no more is thought of the matter. But if
the wizard declares that the cause of death was sorcery, the corpse is
closely inspected, and if a blue mark is discovered, it is pointed out
as the spot where the invisible poisoned arrow, discharged by the
sorcerer, entered the man. The next thing is to detect the culprit. For
this purpose a pot containing a decoction of leaves is set to boil on a
fire. When it begins to boil over, the side on which the scum first
falls is the quarter in which the supposed murderer is to be sought. A
consultation is then held: the guilt is laid on some individual, and one
of the nearest relations of the deceased is charged with the duty of
finding and killing him. If the imaginary culprit cannot be found, any
other member of his family may be slain in his stead. "It is not
difficult to conceive," adds the writer, "how, under such circumstances,
no man's life is secure; whilst these by no means unfrequent murders
must greatly tend to diminish the number of the natives."[13]

[Sidenote: Among the Indians of Guiana death is oftener attributed to
sorcery than to demons.]

However, it would seem that among the Indians of Guiana sickness and
death are oftener ascribed to the agency of sorcerers than to the agency
of demons acting alone. For another high authority on these Indians, Sir
Everard F. im Thurn, tells us that "every death, every illness, is
regarded not as the result of natural law, but as the work of a
_kenaima_" or sorcerer. "Often indeed," he adds, "the survivors or the
relatives of the invalid do not know to whom to attribute the deed,
which therefore perforce remains unpunished; but often, again, there is
real or fancied reason to fix on some one as the _kenaima_, and then the
nearest relative of the injured individual devotes himself to retaliate.
Strange ceremonies are sometimes observed in order to discover the
secret _kenaima_. Richard Schomburgk describes a striking instance of
this. A Macusi boy had died a natural death, and his relatives
endeavoured to discover the quarter to which the _kenaima_ who was
supposed to have slain him belonged. Raising a terrible and monotonous
dirge, they carried the body to an open piece of ground, and there
formed a circle round it, while the father, cutting from the corpse both
the thumbs and little fingers, both the great and the little toes, and a
piece of each heel, threw these pieces into a new pot, which had been
filled with water. A fire was kindled, and on this the pot was placed.
When the water began to boil, according to the side on which one of the
pieces was first thrown out from the pot by the bubbling of the water,
in that direction would the _kenaima_ be. In thus looking round to see
who did the deed, the Indian thinks it by no means necessary to fix on
anyone who has been with or near the injured man. The _kenaima_ is
supposed to have done the deed, not necessarily in person, but probably
in spirit."[14] For these Indians believe that each individual man has a
body and a spirit within it, and that sorcerers can despatch their
spirits out of their bodies to harm people at a distance. It is not
always in an invisible form that these spirits of sorcerers are supposed
to roam on their errands of mischief. The wizard can put his spirit into
the shape of an animal, such as a jaguar, a serpent, a sting-ray, a
bird, an insect, or anything else he pleases. Hence when an Indian is
attacked by a wild beast, he thinks that his real foe is not the animal,
but the sorcerer who has transformed himself into it. Curiously enough
they look upon some small harmless birds in the same light. One little
bird, in particular, which flits across the savannahs with a peculiar
shrill whistle at morning and evening, is regarded by the Indians with
especial fear as a transformed sorcerer. They think that for every one
of these birds that they shoot they have an enemy the less, and they
burn its little body, taking great care that not even a single feather
escapes to be blown about by the wind. On a windy day a dozen men and
women have been seen chasing the floating feathers of these birds about
the savannah in order utterly to extinguish the imaginary wizard. Even
the foreign substance, the stick, bone, or whatever it is, which the
good medicine-man pretends to suck from the body of the sufferer "is
often, if not always, regarded not simply as a natural body, but as the
materialised form of a hostile spirit."[15]