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: Primitive philosophy in the stories of the origin of death.]

Thus the three stories of the origin of death which I have called the
Moon type, the Serpent type, and the Banana type appear to be products
of a primitive philosophy which sees a cheerful emblem of immortality in
the waxing and waning moon and in the cast skins of serpents, but a sad
emblem of mortality in the banana-tree, which perishes as soon as it has
produced its fruit. But, as I have already said, these types of stories
do not exhaust the theories or fancies of primitive man on the question
how death came into the world. I will conclude this part of my subject
with some myths which do not fall under any of the preceding heads.

[Sidenote: Bahnar story of immortality, the tree, and death. Rivalry for
the boon of immortality between men and animals that cast their skins,
such as serpents and lizards.]

The Bahnars of eastern Cochinchina say that in the beginning when people
died they used to be buried at the foot of a tree called Long Blo, and
that after a time they always rose from the dead, not as infants but as
full-grown men and women. So the earth was peopled very fast, and all
the inhabitants formed but one great town under the presidency of our
first parents. In time men multiplied to such an extent that a certain
lizard could not take his walks abroad without somebody treading on his
tail. This vexed him, and the wily creature gave an insidious hint to
the gravediggers. "Why bury the dead at the foot of the Long Blo tree?"
said he; "bury them at the foot of Long Khung, and they will not come to
life again. Let them die outright and be done with it." The hint was
taken, and from that day the dead have not come to life again.[94] In
this story there are several points to be noticed. In the first place
the tree Long Blo would seem to have been a tree of life, since all the
dead who were buried at its foot came to life again. In the second place
the lizard is here, as in so many African tales, the instrument of
bringing death among men. Why was that so? We may conjecture that the
reason is that the lizard like the serpent casts its skin periodically,
from which primitive man might infer, as he infers with regard to
serpents, that the creature renews its youth and lives for ever. Thus
all the myths which relate how a lizard or a serpent became the
maleficent agent of human mortality may perhaps be referred to an old
idea of a certain jealousy and rivalry between men and all creatures
which cast their skin, notably serpents and lizards; we may suppose that
in all such cases a story was told of a contest between man and his
animal rivals for the possession of immortality, a contest in which,
whether by mistake or by guile, the victory always remained with the
animals, who thus became immortal, while mankind was doomed to
mortality.

[Sidenote: Chingpaw story of the origin of death. Australian story of
the tree, the bat, and death. Fijian story of the origin of death.]

The Chingpaws of Upper Burma say that death originated in a practical
joke played by an old man who pretended to be dead in the ancient days
when nobody really died. But the Lord of the Sun, who held the threads
of all human lives in his hand, detected the fraud and in anger cut
short the thread of life of the practical joker. Since then everybody
else has died; the door for death to enter into the world was opened by
the folly of that silly, though humorous, old man.[95] The natives about
the Murray River in Australia used to relate how the first man and woman
were forbidden to go near a tree in which a bat lived, lest they should
disturb the creature. One day, however, the woman was gathering firewood
and she went near the tree. The bat flew away, and after that death came
into the world.[96] Some of the Fijians accounted for human mortality as
follows. When the first man, the father of the human race, was being
buried, a god passed by the grave and asked what it meant, for he had
never seen a grave before. On learning from the bystanders that they had
just buried their father, "Do not bury him," said he, "dig the body up
again." "No," said they, "we cannot do that. He has been dead four days
and stinks." "Not so," pleaded the god; "dig him up, and I promise you
that he will live again." Heedless of the divine promise, these
primitive sextons persisted in leaving their dead father in the grave.
Then said the god to these wicked men, "By disobeying me you have sealed
your own fate. Had you dug up your ancestor, you would have found him
alive, and you yourselves, when you passed from this world, should have
been buried, as bananas are, for the space of four days, after which you
should have been dug up, not rotten, but ripe. But now, as a punishment
for your disobedience, you shall die and rot." And still, when they hear
this sad tale told, the Fijians say, "O that those children had dug up
that body!"[97]

[Sidenote: Admiralty Islanders' stories of the origin of death.]

The Admiralty Islanders tell various stories to explain why man is
mortal. One of them has already been related. Here is another. A Souh
man went once to catch fish. A devil tried to devour him, but he fled
into the forest and took refuge in a tree. The tree kindly closed on him
so that the devil could not see him. When the devil was gone, the tree
opened up and the man clambered down to the ground. Then said the tree
to him, "Go to Souh and bring me two white pigs." He went and found two
pigs, one was white and one was black. He took chalk and chalked the
black pig so that it was white. Then he brought them to the tree, but on
the way the chalk fell off the black pig. And when the tree saw the
white pig and the black pig, he chid the man and said, "You are
thankless. I was good to you. An evil will overtake you; you will die.
The devil will fall upon you, and you will die." So it has been with us
as it was with the man of Souh. An evil overtakes us or a spirit falls
upon us, and we die. If it had been as the tree said, we should not have
died.[98] Another story told by the Admiralty Islanders to account for
the melancholy truth of man's mortality runs thus. Kosi, the chief of
Moakareng, was in his house. He was hungry. He said to his two sons, "Go
and climb the breadfruit trees and bring the fruit, that we may eat them
together and not die." But they would not. So he went himself and
climbed the breadfruit tree. But the north-west wind blew a storm, it
blew and threw him down. He fell and his body died, but his ghost went
home. He went and sat in his house. He tied up his hair and he painted
his face with red ochre. Now his wife and his two sons had gone after
him into the wood. They went to fetch home the breadfruits. They came
and saw Kosi, and he was dead. The three returned home, and there they
saw the ghost of Kosi sitting in his house. They said, "You there! Who's
that dead at the foot of the breadfruit tree? Kosi, he is dead at the
foot of the breadfruit tree." Kosi, he said, "Here am I. I did not fall.
Perhaps somebody else fell down. I did not. Here I am." "You're a liar,"
said they. "I ain't," said he. "Come," said they, "we'll go and see."
They went. Kosi, he jumped into his body. He died. They buried him. If
his wife had behaved well, we should not die. Our body would die, but
our ghost would go about always in the old home.[99]

[Sidenote: Stories of the origin of death: the fatal bundle or the fatal
box.]

The Wemba of Northern Rhodesia relate how God in the beginning created a
man and a woman and gave them two bundles; in one of them was life and
in the other death. Most unfortunately the man chose "the little bundle
of death."[100] The Cherokee Indians of North America say that a number
of beings were engaged in the work of creation. The Sun was made first.
Now the creators intended that men should live for ever. But when the
Sun passed over them in the sky, he told the people that there was not
room enough for them all and that they had better die. At last the Sun's
own daughter, who was with the people on earth, was bitten by a snake
and died. Then the Sun repented him and said that men might live always;
and he bade them take a box and go fetch his daughter's spirit in the
box and bring it to her body, that she might live. But he charged them
straitly not to open the box until they arrived at the dead body.
However, moved by curiosity, they unhappily opened the box too soon;
away flew the spirit, and all men have died ever since.[101] Some of the
North American Indians informed the early Jesuit missionaries that a
certain man had received the gift of immortality in a small packet from
a famous magician named Messou, who repaired the world after it had been
seriously damaged by a great flood. In bestowing on the man this
valuable gift the magician strictly enjoined him on no account to open
the packet. The man obeyed, and so long as the packet was unopened he
remained immortal. But his wife was both curious and incredulous; she
opened the packet to see what was in it, the precious contents flew
away, and mankind has been subject to death ever since.[102]

[Sidenote: Baganda story how death came into the world through the
forgetfulness and imprudence of a woman.]

As these American Indians tell how death came through the curiosity and
incredulity of one woman, the Baganda of Central Africa relate how it
came through the forgetfulness and imprudence of another. According to
the Baganda the first man who came to earth in Uganda was named Kintu.
He brought with him one cow and lived on its milk, for he had no other
food. But in time a woman named Nambi, a daughter of Gulu, the king of
heaven, came down to earth with her brother or sister, and seeing Kintu
she fell in love with him and wished to have him for her husband. But
her proud father doubted whether Kintu was worthy of his daughter's
hand, and accordingly he insisted on testing his future son-in-law
before he would consent to the marriage. So he carried off Kintu's cow
and put it among his own herds in heaven. When Kintu found that the cow
was stolen, he was in a great rage, but hunger getting the better of
anger, he made shift to live by peeling the bark of trees and gathering
herbs and leaves, which he cooked and ate. In time his future wife Nambi
happened to spy the stolen cow among her father's herds and she told
Kintu, who came to heaven to seek and recover the lost animal. His
future father-in-law Gulu, Lord of Heaven, obliged him to submit to many
tests designed to prove his fitness for marriage with the daughter of so
exalted a being as the Lord of Heaven. All these tests Kintu
successfully passed through. At last Gulu was satisfied, gave him his
daughter Nambi to wife, and allowed him to return to earth with her.

[Sidenote: The coming of Death.]

But Nambi had a brother and his name was Death (_Walumbe_). So before
the Lord of Heaven sent her away with her husband he called them both to
him and said, "You must hurry away before Death comes, or he will wish
to go with you. You must not let him do so, for he would only cause you
trouble and unhappiness." To this his daughter agreed, and she went to
pack up her things. She and her husband then took leave of the Lord of
Heaven, who gave them at parting a piece of advice. "Be sure," said he,
"if you have forgotten anything, not to come back for it; because, if
you do, Death will wish to go with you, and you must go without him." So
off they set, the man and his wife, taking with them his cow and its
calves, also a sheep, a goat, a fowl, and a banana tree. But on the way
the woman remembered that she had forgotten the grain to feed the fowl,
so she said to her husband, "I must go back for the grain to feed the
fowl, or it will die." Her husband tried to dissuade her, but in vain.
She said, "I will hurry back and get it without any one seeing me." So
back she went in an evil hour and said to her father the Lord of Heaven,
"I have forgotten the grain for the fowl and I am come back to fetch it
from the doorway where I put it." Her father said sadly, "Did I not tell
you that you were not to return if you had forgotten anything, because
your brother Death would wish to go with you? Now he will accompany
you." The woman fled, but Death saw her and followed hard after her.
When she rejoined her husband, he was angry, for he saw Death and said,
"Why have you brought your brother with you? Who can live with him?"

[Sidenote: The importunity of Death.]

When they reached the earth, Nambi planted her garden, and the bananas
sprang up quickly and formed a grove. They lived happily for a time till
one day Death came and asked for one of their daughters, that she might
go away with him and be his cook. But the father said, "If the Lord of
Heaven comes and asks me for one of my children, what am I to say? Shall
I tell him that I have given her to you to be your cook?" Death was
silent and went away. But he came back another day and asked again for a
child to be his cook. When the father again refused, Death said, "I will
kill your children." The father did not know what that meant, so he
asked Death, "What is that you will do?" However, in a short time one of
the children fell ill and died, and then another and another. So the man
went to the Lord of Heaven and complained that Death was taking away his
children one by one. The Lord of Heaven said, "Did I not tell you, when
you were going away, to go at once with your wife and not to return if
you had forgotten anything, but you let your wife return to fetch the
grain? Now you have Death living with you. If you had obeyed me, you
would have been free from him and not lost any of your children."

[Sidenote: The hunt for Death.]

However, the man pleaded with him, and the Lord Heaven at last consented
to send Death's brother Kaikuzi to help the woman and to prevent Death
from killing her children. So down came Kaikuzi to earth, and when he
met his brother Death they greeted each other lovingly. Then Kaikuzi
told Death that he had come to fetch him away from earth to heaven.
Death was willing to go, but he said, "Let us take our sister too."
"Nay," said his brother, "that cannot be, for she is a wife and must
stay with her husband." The dispute waxed warm, Death insisting on
carrying off his sister, and his brother refusing to allow him to do so.
At last the brother angrily ordered Death to do as he was bid, and so
saying he made as though he would seize him. But Death slipped from
between his hands and fled into the earth. For a long time after that
there was enmity between the two brothers. Kaikuzi tried in every way to
catch Death, but Death always escaped. At last Kaikuzi told the people
that he would have one final hunt for Death, and while the hunt was
going on they must all stay in their houses; not a man, a woman, a
child, nor even an animal was to be allowed to pass the threshold; and
if they saw Death passing the window, they were not to utter a cry of
terror but to keep still. Well, for some days his orders were obeyed.
Not a living soul, not an animal, stirred abroad. All without was
solitude, all within was silence. Encouraged by the universal stillness
Death emerged from his lair, and his brother was just about to catch
him, when some children, who had ventured out to herd their goats, saw
Death and cried out. Death's good brother rushed to the spot and asked
them why they had cried out. They said, "Because we saw Death." So his
brother was angry because Death had again made good his escape into the
earth, and he went to the first man and told him that he was weary of
hunting Death and wished to return home to heaven. The first man thanked
him kindly for all he had done, and said, "I fear there is nothing more
to be done. We must only hope that Death will not kill all the people."
It was a vain hope. Since then Death has lived on earth and killed
everybody who is born into the world; and always, after the deed of
murder is done, he escapes into the earth at Tanda in Singo.[103]

[Sidenote: In the preceding story Death is distinctly personified. Death
personified in a West African story of the origin of death. Death and
the spider and the spider's daughter.]

If this curious tale of the origin of death reveals no very deep
philosophy, it is at least interesting for the distinctness with which
Death is conceived as a personal being, the son of the Lord of Heaven,
the brother of the first man's wife. In this personification of Death
the story differs from all the others which we have examined and marks
an intellectual advance upon them; since the power of picturing abstract
ideas to the mind with all the sharpness of outline and vividness of
colour which are implied by personification is a faculty above the reach
of very low intelligences. It is not surprising that the Baganda should
have attained to this power, for they are probably the most highly
cultured and intellectual of all the many Bantu tribes of Africa. The
same conception of Death as a person occurs in a story of the origin of
death which is told by the Hos, a negro tribe in Togoland, a district of
West Africa. These Hos belong to the Ewe-speaking family of the true
negroes, who have reached a comparatively high level of barbarism in the
notorious kingdom of Dahomey. The story which the Hos tell as to the
origin of death is as follows. Once upon a time there was a great famine
in which even the hunters could find no flesh to eat. Then Death went
and made a road as broad as from here to Sokode, and there he set many
snares. Every animal that tried to pass that way fell into a snare. So
Death had much flesh to eat. One day the Spider came to Death and said
to him, "You have so much meat!" and she asked if she might have some to
take home with her. Death gave her leave. So the Spider made a basket as
long as from Ho to Akoviewe (a distance of about five miles), crammed it
full of meat, and dragged it home. In return for this bounty the Spider
gave Death her daughter Yiyisa to wife. So when Death had her for his
wife, he gave her a hint. He said, "Don't walk on the broad road which I
have made. Walk on the footpath which I have not made. When you go to
the water, be sure to take none but the narrow way through the wood."
Well, some time afterwards it had rained a little; the grass was wet,
and Yiyisa wished to go to the watering-place. When she tried to walk on
the narrow path through the forest, the tall damp grass wet her through
and through, so she thought to herself, "In future I will only go on the
broad road." But scarce had she set foot on the beautiful broad road
when she fell into a snare and died on the spot. When Death came to the
snare and saw his wife in it dead, he cut her up into bits and toasted
them on the fire. One day the Spider paid a visit to her son-in-law
Death, and he set a good meal before her. When she had eaten and drunk
her fill and had got up to go home, she asked Death after her daughter.
"If you take that meat from the fire," said Death, "you will see her."
So the Spider took the flesh from the fire and there, sure enough, she
found her dead daughter. Then she went home in great wrath and whetted
her knife till it was so sharp that a fly lighting on the edge was cut
in two. With that knife she came back to attack Death. But Death shot an
arrow at her. She dodged it, and the arrow whizzed past her and set all
the forest on fire. Then the Spider flung her sharp knife at Death, but
it missed him and only sliced off the tops of the palms and all the
other trees of the wood. Seeing that her stroke had failed, the Spider
fled away home and shut herself up in her house. But Death waited for
her on the edge of the town to kill her as soon as she ventured out.
Next morning some women came out of the town to draw water at the
watering-place, and as they went they talked with one another. But Death
shot an arrow among them and killed several. The rest ran away home
and said, "So and so is dead." Then Death came and looked at the bodies
and said, "That is my game. I need go no more into the wood to hunt."
That is how Death came into the world. If the Spider had not done what
she did, nobody would ever have died.[104]

[Sidenote: Death personified in a Melanesian story of the origin of
death.]

Again, the Melanesians of the Banks Islands tell a story of the origin
of Death, in which that grim power is personified. They say that Death
(_Mate_) used to live underground in a shadowy realm called Panoi, while
men on earth changed their skins like serpents and so renewing their
youth lived for ever. But a practical inconvenience of immortality was
that property never changed hands; newcomers had no chance, everything
was monopolised by the old, old stagers. To remedy this state of things
and secure a more equitable distribution of property Death was induced
to emerge from the lower world and to appear on earth among men; he came
relying on an assurance that no harm would be done him. Well, when they
had him, they laid him out on a board, covered him with a pall as if he
were a corpse, and then proceeded with great gusto to divide his
property and eat the funeral feast. On the fifth day they blew the conch
shell to drive away the ghost, as usual, and lifted the pall to see what
had become of Death. But there was no Death there; he had absconded
leaving only his skeleton behind. They naturally feared that he had made
off with an intention to return to his home underground, which would
have been a great calamity; for if there were no Death on earth, how
could men die and how could other people inherit their property? The
idea was intolerable; so to cut off the retreat of the fugitive, the
Fool was set to do sentinel duty at the parting of the ways, where one
road leads down to the underworld, Death's home, and the other leads up
to the upper world, the abode of the living. Here accordingly the Fool
was stationed with strict orders to keep his eye on Death if he should
attempt to sneak past him and return to the nether world. However, the
Fool, like a fool as he was, sat watching the road to the upper world,
and Death slipped behind him and so made good his retreat. Since then
all men have followed Death down that fatal path.[105]

[Sidenote: Thus according to savages death is not a necessary part of
the order of nature. A similar view is held by some eminent modern
biologists.]

So much for savage stories of the origin of death. They all imply a
belief that death is not a necessary part of the order of nature, but
that it originated in a pure mistake or misdeed of some sort on
somebody's part, and that we should all have lived happy and immortal if
it had not been for that disastrous blunder or crime. Thus the tales
reflect the same frame of mind which I illustrated in the last lecture,
when I shewed that many savages still to this day believe all men to be
naturally immortal and death to be nothing but an effect of sorcery. In
short, whether we regard the savage's attitude to death at the present
day or his ideas as to its origin in the remote past, we must conclude
that primitive man cannot reconcile himself to the notion of death as a
natural and necessary event; he persists in regarding it as an
accidental and unnecessary disturbance of the proper order of nature. To
a certain extent, perhaps, in these crude speculations he has
anticipated certain views of modern biology. Thus it has been maintained
by Professor August Weissmann that death is not a natural necessity,
that many of the lowest species of living animals do in fact live for
ever; and that in the higher animals the custom of dying has been
introduced in the course of evolution for the purpose of thinning the
population and preventing the degeneration of the species, which would
otherwise follow through the gradual and necessary deterioration of the
immortal individuals, who, though they could not die, might yet sustain
much bodily damage through hard knocks in the hurly-burly of eternal
existence on earth.

[Sidenote: Weissmann's view that death is not a natural necessity but an
adaptation acquired in the course of evolution for the advantage of the
race.]

On this subject I will quote some sentences from Professor Weissmann's
essay on the duration of life. He says, "The necessity of death has been
hitherto explained as due to causes which are inherent in organic
nature, and not to the fact that it may be advantageous. I do not
however believe in the validity of this explanation; I consider that
death is not a primary necessity, but that it has been secondarily
acquired as an adaptation. I believe that life is endowed with a fixed
duration, not because it is contrary to its nature to be unlimited, but
because the unlimited existence of individuals would be a luxury without
any corresponding advantage. The above-mentioned hypothesis upon the
origin and necessity of death leads me to believe that the organism did
not finally cease to renew the worn-out cell material because the nature
of the cells did not permit them to multiply indefinitely, but because
the power of multiplying indefinitely was lost when it ceased to be of
use.... John Hunter, supported by his experiments on _anabiosis_, hoped
to prolong the life of man indefinitely by alternate freezing and
thawing; and the Veronese Colonel Aless. Guaguino made his
contemporaries believe that a race of men existed in Russia, of which
the individuals died regularly every year on the 27th of November, and
returned to life on the 24th of the following April. There cannot
however be the least doubt, that the higher organisms, as they are now
constructed, contain within themselves the germs of death. The question
however arises as to how this has come to pass; and I reply that death
is to be looked upon as an occurrence which is advantageous to the
species as a concession to the outer conditions of life, and not as an
absolute necessity, essentially inherent in life itself. Death, that is
the end of life, is by no means, as is usually assumed, an attribute of
all organisms. An immense number of low organisms do not die, although
they are easily destroyed, being killed by heat, poisons, etc. As long,
however, as those conditions which are necessary for their life are
fulfilled, they continue to live, and they thus carry the potentiality
of unending life in themselves. I am speaking not only of the Amoebae
and the low unicellular Algae, but also of far more highly organized
unicellular animals, such as the Infusoria."[106]