The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Part 13

We naturally ask, What motive have these savages for inflicting all this voluntary and, as it seems to us, wholly superfluous suffering on themselves? It can hardly be that these wounds and burns are merely a natural and unfeigned expression of grief. We have seen that by experienced observers such extravagant demonstrations of sorrow are set down rather to fear than to affection. Similarly Messrs. Spencer and Gillen suggest that at least one motive is a fear entertained by the native lest, if he does not make a sufficient display of grief, the ghost of the dead man will be offended and do him a mischief.[240] In the Kaitish tribe of Central Australia it is believed that if a woman does not keep her body covered with ashes from the camp fire during the whole time of mourning, the spirit of her deceased husband, who constantly follows her about, will kill her and strip all the flesh from her bones.[241] Again, in the Arunta tribe mourners smear themselves with white pipeclay, and the motive for this custom is said to be to render themselves more conspicuous, so that the ghost may see and be satisfied that he is being properly mourned for.[242] Thus the fear of the ghost, who, at least among the Australian aborigines, is commonly of a jealous temper and stands very firmly on his supposed rights, may suffice to explain the practice of self-mutilation at mourning.

[Sidenote: Custom of allowing the blood of mourners to drip on the corpse or into the grave.]

But it is possible that another motive underlies the drawing of blood on these occasions. For it is to be observed that the blood of the mourners is often allowed to drop directly either on the dead body or into the grave. Thus, for example, among the tribes on the River Darling several men used to stand by the open grave and cut each other's heads with a boomerang; then they held their bleeding heads over the grave so that the blood dripped on the corpse lying in it. If the deceased was highly esteemed, the bleeding was repeated after some earth had been thrown on the body.[243] Among the Arunta it is customary for the women kinsfolk of the dead to cut their own and each other's heads so severely with clubs and digging-sticks that blood streams from them on the grave.[244]

Again, at a burial on the Va.s.se River, in Western Australia, a writer describes how, when the grave was dug, the natives placed the corpse beside it, then "gashed their thighs, and at the flowing of the blood they all said, 'I have brought blood,' and they stamped the foot forcibly on the ground, sprinkling the blood around them; then wiping the wounds with a wisp of leaves, they threw it, b.l.o.o.d.y as it was, on the dead man."[245] With these Australian practices we may compare a custom observed by the civilised Greeks of antiquity. Every year the Peloponnesian lads lashed themselves on the grave of Pelops at Olympia, till the blood ran down their backs as a libation in honour of the dead man.[246]

[Sidenote: The blood intended to strengthen the dead.]

Now what is the intention of thus applying the blood of the living to the dead or pouring it into the grave? So far as the ancient Greeks are concerned the answer is not doubtful. We know from Homer that the ghosts of the dead were supposed to drink the blood that was offered to them and to be strengthened by the draught.[247] Similarly with the Australian savages, their object can hardly be any other than that of strengthening the spirit of the dead; for these aborigines are in the habit of giving human blood to the sick and the aged to drink for the purpose of restoring them to health and strength;[248] hence it would be natural for them to imagine that they could refresh and fortify the feeble ghost in like manner. Perhaps the blood was intended specially to strengthen the spirits of the dead for the new birth or reincarnation, to which so many of these savages look forward.

[Sidenote: Custom of burying people in the place where they were born.

The custom perhaps intended to facilitate the rebirth of the soul.]

The same motive may possibly explain the custom observed by some Australian tribes of burying people, as far as possible, at the place where they were born. Thus in regard to the tribes of Western Victoria we are informed that "dying persons, especially those dying from old age, generally express an earnest desire to be taken to their birthplace, that they may die and be buried there. If possible, these wishes are always complied with by the relatives and friends. Parents will point out the spot where they were born, so that when they become old and infirm, their children may know where they wish their bodies to be disposed of."[249] Again, some tribes in the north and north-east of Victoria "are said to be more than ordinarily scrupulous in interring the dead. If practicable, they will bury the corpse near the spot where, as a child, it first drew breath. A mother will carry a dead infant for weeks, in the hope of being able to bury it near the place where it was born; and a dead man will be conveyed a long distance, in order that the last rites may be performed in a manner satisfactory to the tribe."[250]

Another writer, speaking of the Australian aborigines in general, says: "By what I could learn, it is considered proper by many tribes that a black should be buried at or near the spot where he or she was born, and for this reason, when a black becomes seriously ill, the invalid is carried a long distance to these certain spots to die, as in this case.

They apparently object to place a body in strange ground." The same writer mentions the case of a blackfellow, who began digging a grave close beside the kitchen door of a Mr. Campbell. When Mr. Campbell remonstrated with him, the native replied that he had no choice, for the dead man had been born on that very spot. With much difficulty Mr.

Campbell persuaded him to bury his deceased friend a little further off from the kitchen door.[251] A practice of this sort would be intelligible on the theory of the Central Australians, who imagine that the spirits of all the dead return to the very spots where they entered into their mothers' wombs, and that they wait there until another opportunity presents itself to them of being born again into the world.

For if people really believe, as do many Australian tribes, that when they die they will afterwards come to life again as infants, it is perfectly natural that they should take steps to ensure and facilitate the new birth. The Unmatjera and Kaitish tribes of Central Australia do this in the case of dead children. These savages draw a sharp distinction between young children and very old men and women. When very old people die, their bodies are at once buried in the ground, but the bodies of children are placed in wooden troughs and deposited on platforms of boughs in the branches of trees, and the motive for treating a dead child thus is, we are informed, the hope "that before very long its spirit may come back again and enter into the body of a woman--in all probability that of its former mother."[252] The reason for drawing this distinction between the young and the old by disposing of their bodies in different fas.h.i.+ons, is explained with great probability by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen as follows: "In the Unmatjera and Kaitish tribes, while every old man has certain privileges denied to the younger men, yet if he be decidedly infirm and unable to take his part in the performance of ceremonies which are often closely concerned--or so at least the natives believe them to be--with the general welfare of the tribe, then the feeling undoubtedly is that there is no need to pay any very special respect to his remains. This feeling is probably vaguely a.s.sociated with the idea that, as his body is infirm, so to a corresponding extent will his spirit part be, and therefore they have no special need to consider or propitiate this, as it can do them no harm. On the other hand they are decidedly afraid of hurting the feelings of any strong man who might be capable of doing them some mischief unless he saw that he was properly mourned for.

Acting under much the same feeling they pay respect to the bodies of dead children and young women, in the hope that the spirit will soon return and undergo reincarnation. It is also worth noticing that they do not bury in trees any young man who has violated tribal law by taking as wife a woman who is forbidden to him; such an individual is always buried directly in the ground."[253] Apparently these law-abiding savages are not anxious that members of the criminal cla.s.ses should be born again and should have the opportunity of troubling society once more.

[Sidenote: Different modes of disposing of the dead adopted in the same tribe.]

I would call your attention particularly to the different modes of burial thus accorded by these two tribes to different cla.s.ses of persons. It is too commonly a.s.sumed that each tribe has one uniform way of disposing of all its dead, say either by burning or by burying, and on that a.s.sumption certain general theories have been built as to the different views taken of the state of the dead by different tribes. But in point of fact the a.s.sumption is incorrect. Not infrequently the same tribe disposes of different cla.s.ses of dead people in quite different ways; for instance, it will bury some and burn others. Thus amongst the Angoni of British Central Africa the corpses of chiefs are burned with all their household belongings, but the bodies of commoners are buried with all their belongings in caves.[254] In various castes or tribes of India it is the custom to burn the bodies of married people but to bury the bodies of the unmarried.[255] With some peoples of India the distinction is made, not between the married and the unmarried, but between adults and children, especially children under two years old; in such cases the invariable practice appears to be to burn the old and bury the young. Thus among the Malayalis of Malabar the bodies of men and women are burned, but the bodies of children under two years are buried, and so are the bodies of all persons who have died of cholera or small-pox.[256] The same distinctions are observed by the Nayars, Kadupattans, and other castes or tribes of Cochin.[257] The old rule laid down in the ancient Hindoo law-book _The Grihya-Sutras_ was that children who died under the age of two should be buried, not burnt.[258]

The Bhotias of the Himalayas bury all children who have not yet obtained their permanent teeth, but they burn all other people.[259] Among the Komars the young are buried, and the old cremated.[260] The Coorgs bury the bodies of women and of boys under sixteen years of age, but they burn the bodies of men.[261] The Chukchansi Indians of California are said to have burned only those who died a violent death or were bitten by snakes, but to have buried all others.[262] The Minnetaree Indians disposed of their dead differently according to their moral character.

Bad and quarrelsome men they buried in the earth that the Master of Life might not see them; but the bodies of good men they laid on scaffolds, that the Master of Life might behold them.[263] The Kolosh or Tlingit Indians of Alaska burn their ordinary dead on a pyre, but deposit the bodies of shamans in large coffins, which are supported on four posts.[264] The ancient Mexicans thought that all persons who died of infectious diseases were killed by the rain-G.o.d Tlaloc; so they painted their bodies blue, which was the rain-G.o.d's colour, and buried instead of burning them.[265]

[Sidenote: Special modes of burial adopted to prevent or facilitate the return of the spirit.]

These examples may suffice to ill.u.s.trate the different ways in which the same people may dispose of their dead according to the age, s.e.x, social rank, or moral character of the deceased, or the manner of his death. In some cases the special mode of burial adopted seems clearly intended to guard against the return of the dead, whether in the form of ghosts or of children born again into the world. Such, for instance, was obviously the intention of the old English custom of burying a suicide at a cross-road with a stake driven through his body. And if some burial customs are plainly intended to pin down the dead in the earth, or at least to disable him from revisiting the survivors, so others appear to be planned with the opposite intention of facilitating the departure of the spirit from the grave, in order that he may repair to a more commodious lodging or be born again into the tribe. For example, the Arunta of Central Australia always bury their dead in the earth and raise a low mound over the grave; but they leave a depression in the mound on the side which faces towards the spot where the spirit of the deceased is supposed to have dwelt in the intervals between his successive reincarnations; and we are expressly told that the purpose of leaving this depression is to allow the spirit to go out and in easily; for until the final ceremony of mourning has been performed at the grave, the ghost is believed to spend his time partly in watching over his near relations and partly in the company of its _arumburinga_ or spiritual double, who lives at the old _nanja_ spot, that is, at the place where the disembodied soul tarries waiting to be born again.[266]

Thus the Arunta imagine that for some time after death the spirit of the deceased is in a sort of intermediate state, partly hovering about the abode of the living, partly visiting his own proper spiritual home, to which on the completion of the mourning ceremonies he will retire to await the new birth. The final mourning ceremony, which marks the close of this intermediate state, takes place some twelve or eighteen months after the death. It consists mainly in nothing more or less than a ghost hunt; men armed with s.h.i.+elds and spear-throwers a.s.semble and with loud shouts beat the air, driving the invisible ghost before them from the spot where he died, while the women join in the shouts and buffet the air with the palms of their hands to chase away the dead man from the old camp which he loves to haunt. In this way the beaters gradually advance towards the grave till they have penned the ghost into it, when they immediately dance on the top of it, beating the air downwards as if to drive the spirit down, and stamping on the ground as if to trample him into the earth. After that, the women gather round the grave and cut each other's heads with clubs till the blood streams down on it. This brings the period of mourning to an end; and if the deceased was a man, his widow is now free to marry again. In token that the days of her sorrow are over, she wears at this final ceremony the gay feathers of the ring-neck parrot in her hair. The spirit of her dead husband, lying in the grave, is believed to know the sign and to bid her a last farewell. Even after he has thus been hunted into the grave and trampled down in it, his spirit may still watch over his friends, guard them from harm, and visit them in dreams.[267]

[Sidenote: Departure of the ghost supposed to coincide with the disappearance of the flesh from his bones.]

We may naturally ask, Why should the spirit of the dead be supposed at first to dwell more or less intermittently near the spot where he died, and afterwards to take up his abode permanently at his _nanja_ spot till the time comes for him to be born again? A good many years ago I conjectured[268] that this idea of a change in the abode of the ghost may be suggested by a corresponding change which takes place, or is supposed to take place, about the same time in the state of the body; in fact, that so long as the flesh adheres to the bones, so long the soul of the dead man may be thought to be detained in the neighbourhood of the body, but that when the flesh has quite decayed, the soul is completely liberated from its old tabernacle and is free to repair to its true spiritual home. In confirmation of this conjecture I pointed to the following facts. Some of the Indians of Guiana bring food and drink to their dead so long as the flesh remains on the bones; but when it has mouldered away, they conclude that the man himself has departed.[269]

The Matacos Indians of the Gran Chaco in Argentina believe that the soul of a dead man does not pa.s.s down into the nether world until his body is decomposed or burnt. Further, the Alfoors of Central Celebes suppose that the spirits of the departed cannot enter the spirit-land until all the flesh has been removed from their bones; for until that has been done, the G.o.ds (_lamoa_) in the other world could not bear the stench of the corpse. Accordingly at a great festival the bodies of all who have died within a certain time are dug up and the decaying flesh sc.r.a.ped from the bones. Comparing these ideas, I suggested that they may explain the widespread custom of a second burial, that is, the practice of disinterring the dead after a certain time and disposing of their bones otherwise.

[Sidenote: Second burial of the bones among the tribes of Central Australia. Final burial ceremony among the Warramunga.]

Now so far as the tribes of Central Australia are concerned, my conjecture has been confirmed by the subsequent researches of Messrs.

Spencer and Gillen in that region. For they have found that the tribes to the north of the Arunta regularly give their dead a second burial, that a change in the state of the ghosts is believed to coincide with the second burial, and apparently also, though this is not so definitely stated, that the time for the second burial is determined by the disappearance of the flesh from the bones. Amongst the tribes which practise a second burial the custom is first to deposit the dead on platforms among the branches of trees, till the flesh has quite mouldered away, and then to bury the bones in the earth: in short, they practise tree-burial first and earth-burial afterwards.[270] For example, in the Unmatjera and Kaitish tribes, when a man dies, his body is carried by his relations to a tree distant a mile or two from the camp. There it is laid on a platform by itself for some months. When the flesh has disappeared from the bones, a kinsman of the deceased, in strictness a younger brother (_itia_), climbs up into the tree, dislocates the bones, places them in a wooden vessel, and hands them down to a female relative. Then the bones are laid in the grave with the head facing in the direction in which his mother's brother is supposed to have camped in days of old. After the bones have been thus interred, the spirit of the dead man is believed to go away and to remain in his old _alcheringa_ home until such time as he once more undergoes reincarnation.[271] But in these tribes, as we saw, very old men and women receive only one burial, being at once laid in an earthy grave and never set up on a platform in a tree; and we have seen reason to think that this difference in the treatment of the aged springs from the indifference or contempt in which their ghosts are held by comparison with the ghosts of the young and vigorous. In the Warramunga tribe, who regularly deposit their dead in trees first and in the earth afterwards, so long as the corpse remains in the tree and the flesh has not completely disappeared from the bones, the mother of the deceased and the women who stand to him or her in the relation of tribal motherhood are obliged from time to time to go to the tree, and sitting under the platform to allow its putrid juices to drip down on their bodies, into which they rub them as a token of sorrow. This, no doubt, is intended to please the jealous ghost; for we are told that he is believed to haunt the tree and even to visit the camp, in order, if he was a man, to see for himself that his widows are mourning properly. The time during which the mouldering remains are left in the tree is at least a year and may be more.[272] The final ceremony which brings the period of mourning to an end is curious and entirely different from the one observed by the Arunta on the same occasion. When the bones have been taken down from the tree, an arm-bone is put carefully apart from the rest. Then the skull is smashed, and the fragments together with all the rest of the bones except the arm-bone, are buried in a hollow ant-hill near the tree. Afterwards the arm-bone is wrapt up in paper-bark and wound round with fur-string, so as to make a torpedo-shaped parcel, which is kept by a tribal mother of the deceased in her rude hovel of branches, till, after the lapse of some days or weeks, the time comes for the last ceremony of all. On that day a design emblematic of the totem of the deceased is drawn on the ground, and beside it a shallow trench is dug about a foot deep and fifteen feet long. Over this trench a number of men, elaborately decorated with down of various colours, stand straddle-legged, while a line of women, decorated with red and yellow ochre, crawl along the trench under the long bridge made by the straddling legs of the men. The last woman carries the arm-bone of the dead in its parcel, and as soon as she emerges from the trench, the bone is s.n.a.t.c.hed from her by a kinsman of the deceased, who carries it to a man standing ready with an uplifted axe beside the totemic drawing. On receiving the bone, the man at once smashes it, hastily buries it in a small pit beside the totemic emblem of the departed, and closes the opening with a large flat stone, signifying thereby that the season of mourning is over and that the dead man or woman has been gathered to his or her totem. The totemic design, beside which the arm-bone is buried, represents the spot at which the totemic ancestor of the deceased finally went down into the earth. When once the arm-bone has thus been broken and laid in its last resting-place, the soul of the dead person, which they describe as being of about the size of a grain of sand, is supposed to go back to the place where it camped long ago in a previous incarnation, there to remain with the souls of other men and women of the same totem until the time comes for it to be born again.[273]

[Sidenote: General conclusion as to the belief in immortality and the wors.h.i.+p of the dead among the Australian aborigines.]

This must conclude what I have to say as to the belief in immortality and the wors.h.i.+p of the dead among the aborigines of Australia. The evidence I have adduced is sufficient to prove that these savages firmly believe both in the existence of the human soul after death and in the power which it can exert for good or evil over the survivors. On the whole the dominant motive in their treatment of the dead appears to be fear rather than affection. Yet the attention which many tribes pay to the comfort of the departed by providing them with huts, food, water, fire, clothing, implements and weapons, may not be dictated by purely selfish motives; in any case they are clearly intended to please and propitiate the ghosts, and therefore contain the germs of a regular wors.h.i.+p of the dead.

[Footnote 216: E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 349.]

[Footnote 217: A. Oldfield, "The Aborigines of Victoria," _Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London_, N.S. iii. (1865) p. 245.]

[Footnote 218: P. Beveridge, in _Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales_, xvii. (1883) pp. 29 _sq._ Compare R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 100 note.]

[Footnote 219: (Sir) G. Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery_, ii. 332 _sq._]

[Footnote 220: Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 109 _sqq._]

[Footnote 221: E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_ (Melbourne and London, 1886-1887), i. 87.]

[Footnote 222: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p.

463.]

[Footnote 223: A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 461.]

[Footnote 224: A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 473.]

[Footnote 225: A. W. Howitt, _op. cit._ p. 474.]

[Footnote 226: F. C. Urquhart, "Legends of the Australian Aborigines,"

_Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, xiv. (1885) p. 88.]

[Footnote 227: E. M. Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 87.]

[Footnote 228: Leviticus xix. 28; Deuteronomy xiv. 1.]

[Footnote 229: W. Stanbridge, "Tribes in the Central Part of Victoria,"

_Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London_, N.S. i. (1861) p.

298.]

[Footnote 230: R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 105.]

[Footnote 231: A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p.

459.]

[Footnote 232: A. W. Howitt, _op. cit_. p. 453.]

[Footnote 233: P. Beveridge, in _Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales_, xvii. (1883) pp. 28, 29.]

[Footnote 234: A. W. Howitt, _op. cit_. p. 466.]

[Footnote 235: E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 347.]

[Footnote 236: W. E. Roth, _Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines_ (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 164; compare p.

165.]

[Footnote 237: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 500.]

[Footnote 238: Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ p. 510.]

[Footnote 239: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 516-552.]