The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Volume Ii Part 32

A dangerous pollution was supposed to be contracted by all who had handled a corpse. Hence the persons employed in embalming a body were carefully shunned by every one else so long as the process lasted, because the guilt of the crime for which the deceased had died was supposed to attach in some degree to such as touched his mortal remains.

The embalmers did not feed themselves, lest the food, defiled by the touch of their polluted hands, should cause their death; so they were fed by others.[211] This state of uncleanness lasted for a month, during which the tabooed persons were forbidden to handle food as well as to put it into their own mouths.[212]

[211] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 403.

[212] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 363.

Again, when the ceremony of depositing the sins of the deceased in a hole[213] was over, all who had touched the body or the garments of the deceased, which were buried or destroyed, fled precipitately into the sea to cleanse themselves from the pollution which they had incurred by contact with the corpse; and they cast into the sea the garments they had worn while they were engaged in the work. Having bathed, they gathered a few pieces of coral from the bottom of the sea, and returning with them to the house, addressed the dead body, saying, "With you may the pollution be." With these words they threw down the pieces of coral on the top of the hole that had been dug to receive all the objects defiled by their connexion with the deceased.[214]

[213] See above, p. 305.

[214] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 403.

When a person had died of an infectious disorder, the priests entreated him to bury the disease with him in the grave and not to inflict it upon other people, when he revisited them as a ghost. They also threw a plantain into the grave, and either buried with him or burned all his utensils, that n.o.body might be infected by them.[215]

[215] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 364.

-- 9. _The Fate of the Soul after Death_

The natives of the Society Islands believed in the immortality of the human soul, or at all events in its separate existence after death[216]; they thought that no person perishes or becomes extinct.[217] On its departure from the body the spirit, now called a _tee_, _teehee_, or _tii_, was supposed to linger near its old habitation, whether the mouldering remains exposed on the bier, or the bones buried in the earth, or the skull kept in its box. In this state the spirits were believed to lodge in small wooden images, seldom more than eighteen inches high, which were placed round about the burial-ground.[218] These images are variously said to have borne the same name (_tee_, _teehee_) as the spirits which inhabited them,[219] or to have been called by a different name (_unus_)[220]. Specimens of these images were seen by George Forster in Tahiti. He says that round about the _marai_ (_morai_) of Aheatua, at that time King of Tiarroboo, "were placed perpendicularly, or nearly so, fifteen slender pieces of wood, some about eighteen feet long, in which six or eight diminutive human figures of a rude unnatural shape were carved, standing above each other, male or female promiscuously, yet so that the uppermost was always a male.

All these figures faced the sea, and perfectly resembled some which are carved on the sterns of their canoes, and which they call _e-tee_."[221]

To the same effect George Forster's father, J. R. Forster, observes that "near the _marais_ are twenty or thirty single pieces of wood fixed into the ground, carved all over on one side with figures about eighteen inches long, rudely representing a man and a woman alternately, so that often more than fifteen or twenty figures may be counted on one piece of wood, called by them _Teehee_."[222] But the souls of the dead, though they inhabited chiefly the wooden figures erected at the temples or burial-grounds (_marais_, _morais_), were by no means confined to them, and were dreaded by the natives, who believed that during the night these unquiet spirits crept into people's houses and ate the heart and entrails of the sleepers, thus causing their death.[223]

[216] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 222, vi. 150.

[217] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 345.

[218] J. R. Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage round the World_, pp. 552, 553; G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_, ii. 151 _sq._

[219] J. R. Forster and G. Forster, _ll.cc._

[220] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 348, "the _unus_, or curiously carved pieces of wood marking the sacred places of interment, and emblematical of _tiis_ or spirits."

[221] G. Forster, _op. cit._ i. 267. Compare J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 461, "_Les images des Tiis etaient placees aux extremites des marais et gardaient l'enceinte des terres sacrees_."

[222] J. R. Forster, _op. cit._ pp. 544 _sq._ In the southern peninsula of Tahiti, both on the coast and inland, Captain Cook saw many sepulchral buildings, and he described them as "decorated with many carved boards, which were set upright, and on the top of which were various figures of birds and men: on one in particular there was the representation of a c.o.c.k, which was painted red and yellow, to imitate the feathers of that animal, and rude images of men were, in some of them, placed one upon the head of another." See J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 150 _sq._ These "carved boards" were no doubt of the same sort as the _tees_ or _teehees_ described by the two Forsters. No other writer seems to mention the figures of birds carved on them.

[223] J. R. Forster, _op. cit._ p. 543.

However, the Society Islanders appear to have been by no means consistent in the views which they held concerning the fate of the soul after death. Like many other people, they seem to have wavered between a belief that the souls of the dead lingered invisible near their old homes and the belief that the disembodied spirits went away to a distant land, where all human souls, which have departed this life, met and dwelt together. Or perhaps it might be more correct to say, that instead of wavering between these two inconsistent beliefs, they held them both firmly without perceiving their inconsistency. At all events these islanders believed that either at death or at some time after it their souls departed to a distant place called _po_ or Night, the common abode of G.o.ds and of departed spirits.[224] Thither the soul was conducted by other spirits, and on its arrival it was eaten by the G.o.ds, not all at once, but by degrees. They imagined that the souls of ancestors or relatives, who ranked among the G.o.ds, sc.r.a.ped the different parts of the newly arrived spirit with a kind of serrated sh.e.l.l at different times, after which they ate and digested it. If the soul underwent this process of being eaten and digested three separate times, it became a deified or imperishable spirit and might visit the world and inspire living folk.[225] According to one account, the soul was cooked whole in an earth-oven, as pigs are baked on earth, and was then placed in a basket of coco-nut leaves before being served up to the G.o.d whom the deceased had wors.h.i.+pped in life. "By this cannibal divinity he was now eaten up; after which, through some inexplicable process, the dead and devoured man emanated from the body of the G.o.d, and became immortal."[226] In the island of Raiatea the great G.o.d Oro was supposed to use a scallop-sh.e.l.l "to sc.r.a.pe the flesh from the bones of newly deceased bodies, previous to their being converted into pure spirits by being devoured by him, and afterwards transformed by pa.s.sing through the laboratory of his cannibal stomach."[227] This process of being devoured by a G.o.d was not conceived of as a punishment inflicted on wicked people after death; for good and bad souls had alike to submit to it. Rather, Captain Cook tells us, the natives considered "this coalition with the deity as a kind of purification necessary to be undergone before they enter a state of bliss. For, according to their doctrine, if a man refrain from all connexion with women some months before death, he pa.s.ses immediately into his eternal mansion, without such a previous union; as if already, by this abstinence, he were pure enough to be exempted from the general lot."[228] A slightly different account of this process of spiritual purification is given by the first missionaries to Tahiti. They say that "when the spirit departs from the body, they have a notion it is swallowed by the _eat[=o]oa_ (_atua_) bird, who frequents their burying-places and _morais_, and pa.s.ses through him in order to be purified, and be united to the deity. And such are afterwards employed by him to attend other human beings and to inflict punishment, or remove sickness, as shall be deemed requisite."[229]

[224] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 396. Compare J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 346; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 431; D. Tyerman and G.

Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 330.

[225] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 396 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op.

cit._ i. 433.

[226] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and Travels_, i. 273; compare _ib._ pp. 330 _sq._

[227] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 521 _sq._

[228] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 150.

[229] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 345 _sq._

In spite of the purification which the souls of the dead underwent by pa.s.sing through the body of a G.o.d or of a divine bird, they were believed to be not wholly divested of the pa.s.sions which had actuated them in life on earth. If the souls of former enemies met in the world beyond the grave, they renewed their battles, but apparently to no purpose, since they were accounted invulnerable in this invisible state.

Again, when the soul of a dead wife arrived in the spirit land, it was known to the soul of her dead husband, if he had gone before, and the two renewed their acquaintance in a s.p.a.cious house, called _tourooa_, where the souls of the deceased a.s.sembled to recreate themselves with the G.o.ds. After that the pair retired to the separate abode of the husband, where they remained for ever and had offspring, which, however, was entirely spiritual; for they were neither married nor were their embraces supposed to be like those of corporeal beings.[230]

[230] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 150 _sq._

In general the situation of _po_ or the land of the dead seems to have been left vague and indefinite by the Society Islanders; apparently they did not, like the Western Polynesians, imagine it to be in some far western isle, to reach which the souls of the departed had to cross a wide expanse of sea.[231] However, the natives of Raiatea had very definite ideas on this mysterious subject. They thought that _po_ was situated in a mysterious and unexplored cavern at the top of the highest mountain in the island. This cavern, perhaps the crater of a volcano, was said to communicate, by subterranean pa.s.sages, with a cave on the coast, the opening of which is so small that a child of two years could hardly creep into it. Here an evil spirit (_varu iino_) was said to lurk and, pouncing out on careless pa.s.sers-by, to drag them into the darkest recesses of his den and devour them. After the conversion of the natives to Christianity the missionaries were shown the spot. Near it were the ruins of a temple of the war G.o.d, where mult.i.tudes of the corpses of warriors slain in battle had been either buried or left to rot on the ground. The missionaries saw many mouldering fragments of skeletons. Not far off a cape jutted into the sea, up the lofty and precipitous face of which the souls of the dead were said to climb on their way to their long home in the cavern at the top of the mountain. A native informant a.s.sured the missionaries that he had often seen them scaling the dizzy crag, both men and women.[232]

[231] See above, pp. 87 _sq._, 214 _sqq._, 238 _sqq._

[232] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 537 _sq._

In the island of Borabora the fate even of kings after death was believed to be a melancholy one. Their souls were converted into a piece of furniture resembling an English hat-stand; only in Borabora the corresponding utensil was the branch of a tree with the lateral forks cut short, on which bonnets, garments, baskets, and so forth were suspended. The natives very naturally concluded that in the other world a similar stand was wanted for the convenience of the ghosts, to hang their hats and coats on. Kings who shrank from the prospect of being converted into a hat-stand after death made interest with the priest to save them from such a degradation. So when a king who had been great and powerful in life saw his end approaching, he would send to the priests the most costly presents, such as four or five of the largest and fattest hogs, as many of the best canoes, and any rare and valuable European article which he happened to possess. In return the priests prayed for him daily at the temples till he died; and afterwards his dead body was brought to one of these sacred edifices and kept upright there for several days and nights, during which yet larger gifts were sent by his relatives, and the most expensive sacrifices offered to the idols. The decaying corpse was then removed, placed on a canoe, and rowed out on the lagoon as far as an opening in the reef, only to be brought back again in like manner; while all the time the priests recited their prayers and performed their lugubrious ceremonies over it on the water as well as on the land. Finally, the mouldering remains were laid out to rot on a platform in one of the usual charnel-houses.[233]

[233] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 331 _sq._

Conversion into a hat-stand was not, perhaps, the worst that could happen to the soul of a Society Islander after death. In the island of Raiatea there is a lake surrounded by trees, the tops of which appear curiously flat. On this verdant platform the spirits of the newly departed were said to dance and feast together until, at a subsequent stage of their existence, they were converted into c.o.c.kroaches.[234] The souls of infants killed at birth were supposed to return in the bodies of gra.s.shoppers.[235]

[234] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 522.

[235] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 455.

But the Society Islanders were far from thinking that the souls of the dead herded together indiscriminately in the other world. They imagined that the spirits were discriminated and a.s.signed to abodes of different degrees of happiness or misery, not according to their virtues or vices in this life, but according to the rank which they had occupied in society, one receptacle of superior attractions being occupied by the souls of chiefs and other princ.i.p.al people, while another of an inferior sort sufficed to lodge the souls of the lower orders. For they did not suppose that their good or bad actions in this life affected in the least their lot in the life hereafter, or that the deities took account of any such distinction. Thus their religion exerted no influence on their morality.[236] Happiness and misery in the world beyond the grave, we are told, "were the destiny of individuals, altogether irrespective of their moral character and virtuous conduct. The only crimes that were visited by the displeasure of their deities were the neglect of some rite or ceremony, or the failing to furnish required offerings."[237]

[236] J. Cook, i. 222. Compare _id._, vi. 150; J. R. Forster, _Observations made on a Voyage round the World_, pp. 553 _sqq._

[237] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 397. Compare J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 433.

The Society Islanders, especially the natives of the Leeward Islands, believed that some of the souls of the dead were destined to enjoy a kind of heaven or paradise, which they called _Rohutu noanoa_, "sweet-scented Rohutu." This blissful region was supposed to be near a lofty and stupendous mountain in the island of Raiatea, not far from the harbour Hamaniino. The mountain went by the name of _Temehani unauna_, "splendid or glorious Temehani." It was probably the same with the lofty mountain on whose summit popular fancy placed the _po_ or common abode of the dead.[238] But the paradise was invisible to mortal eyes, being situated in the regions of the air (_reva_). The country was described as most lovely and enchanting in appearance, adorned with flowers of every shape and hue, and perfumed with odours of every fragrance. The air was pure and salubrious. Every sort of delight was to be enjoyed there; while rich viands and delicious fruits were supplied in abundance for the celebration of sumptuous festivals. Handsome youths and women thronged the place. But these honours and pleasures were only for the privileged orders--the chiefs and the members of the society of the Areois--for only they could afford to pay the heavy charges which the priests exacted for a pa.s.sport to paradise; common folk seldom or never dreamed of attempting to procure for their relatives admission to the abode of bliss. Even apart from the expense of getting to heaven, it is probable that the sharp distinction kept up between chiefs and commoners here on earth would be expected to be maintained hereafter, and to exclude every person of the humbler sort from the society of his betters in the future life.[239] The other less exclusive, and no doubt less expensive, place for departed spirits, in contrast to "sweet-scented Rohutu," went by the significant name of "foul-scented Rohutu"; but over the nature of the substances which earned for it this unsavoury appellation our missionary authority preferred to draw a veil.[240]

[238] See above, p. 317.

[239] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 245 _sq._, 397; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 434 _sq._

[240] J. Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_, p. 476.

According to one account, the souls of the dead were supposed to gather in the sun, where they feasted with the G.o.d Maouwe or O-Mauwee (Maui) on bread-fruit and the flesh of pigs or dogs, and drank never-ending draughts of kava.[241]

[241] J. R. Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage round the World_, p. 553; G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_, ii.

151.

But wherever the souls of the dead were imagined to dwell, we may infer that they were credited with the power of returning to earth for a longer or shorter time to benefit or injure the living. For we have seen that sickness and death were commonly ascribed to the action of these spirits,[242] which seems to imply that they revisited this sublunary world on their errands of mischief. Accordingly, whenever the natives approached by night one of the charnel-houses in which dead bodies were exposed, they were startled "in the same manner that many of our ignorant and superst.i.tious people are with the apprehension of ghosts, and at the sight of a churchyard." Again, the souls of the departed were sometimes thought to communicate with their friends in dreams and to announce to them things that should afterwards come to pa.s.s, thus enabling the dreamer to foretell the future. Foreknowledge thus acquired, however, was confined to particular persons, and such favoured dreamers enjoyed a reputation little inferior to that of the inspired priests. One of them prophesied to Captain Cook on the strength of a communication vouchsafed to him by the soul of his deceased father in a dream; but the event proved that the ghost was out in his reckoning by five days.[243]

[242] See above, pp. 299 _sqq._