The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Part 14

[Footnote 240: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes_, p. 510.]

[Footnote 241: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, p. 507.]

[Footnote 242: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes_, p. 511.]

[Footnote 243: F. Bonney, "On some Customs of the Aborigines of the River Darling," _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, xiii. (1884) pp. 134 _sq._]

[Footnote 244: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 507, 509 _sq._]

[Footnote 245: (Sir) G. Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery_, ii. 332, quoting Mr. Bussel.]

[Footnote 246: Scholiast on Pindar, _Olymp._ i. 146.]

[Footnote 247: Homer, _Odyssey_, xi. 23 _sqq._]

[Footnote 248: _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 91 _sq._]

[Footnote 249: J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 62.]

[Footnote 250: R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 108.]

[Footnote 251: J. F. Mann, "Notes on the Aborigines of Australia,"

_Proceedings of the Geographical Society of Australasia_, i. (Sydney, 1885) p. 48.]

[Footnote 252: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 506.]

[Footnote 253: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, p. 512.]

[Footnote 254: R. Sutherland Rattray, _Some Folk-lore Stories and Songs in Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), pp. 99-101, 182.]

[Footnote 255: F. Fawcett, "The Kondayamkottai Maravars, a Dravidian Tribe of Tinnevelly, Southern India," _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, x.x.xiii. (1903) p. 64; Captain Wolsley Haig, "Notes on the Rangari Caste in Barar," _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, lxx. Part iii. (1901) p. 8; E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_ (Madras, 1909), iv. 226 (as to the Lambadis), vi. 244 (as to the Raniyavas); compare _id._, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_ (Madras, 1906), p. 155.]

[Footnote 256: E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p.

207.]

[Footnote 257: L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, _The Cochin Tribes and Castes_ (Madras, 1909-1912), ii. 91, 112, 157, 360, 378.]

[Footnote 258: _The Grihya Sutras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part i.

p. 355 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxix.). Compare W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896), i. 245.]

[Footnote 259: Ch. A. Sherring, _Western Tibet and the British Borderland_ (London, 1906), pp. 123 _sq._]

[Footnote 260: P. N. Bose, "Chhattisgar," _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, lix., Part i. (1891) p. 290.]

[Footnote 261: E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p.

205.]

[Footnote 262: S. Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1877), p.

383.]

[Footnote 263: Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, _Reise in das Innere Nord-America_ (Coblenz, 1839-1841), ii. 235.]

[Footnote 264: T. de Pauly, _Description Ethnographique des Peuples de la Russie, Peuples de l'Amerique Russe_ (St. Petersburg, 1862), p. 13.]

[Footnote 265: E. Seler, _Altmexikanische Studien_, ii. (Berlin, 1899) p. 42 (_Veroffentlichungen aus dem Koniglichen Museum fur Volkerkunde_, vi. 2/4).]

[Footnote 266: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 497; _id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 506.]

[Footnote 267: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 503-508. The name of the final mourning ceremony among the Arunta is _urpmilchima_.]

[Footnote 268: _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition (London, 1900), i. 434 _sq._]

[Footnote 269: A. Biet, _Voyage de la France Equinoxiale en l'Isle de Cayenne_ (Paris, 1664), p. 392.]

[Footnote 270: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 505 _sqq._]

[Footnote 271: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 506-508.]

[Footnote 272: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 530.]

[Footnote 273: Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 530-543.]

LECTURE VIII

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF THE TORRES STRAITS ISLANDS

[Sidenote: The Islanders of Torres Straits. The Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits.]

In the last lecture I concluded my account of the belief in immortality and wors.h.i.+p of the dead, or rather of the elements out of which such a wors.h.i.+p might have grown, among the aborigines of Australia. To-day we pa.s.s to the consideration of a different people, the islanders of Torres Straits. As you may know, Torres Straits are the broad channel which divides Australia on the south from the great island of New Guinea on the north. The small islands which are scattered over the strait fall roughly into two groups, a Western and an Eastern, of which the eastern is at once the more isolated and the more fertile. In appearance, character, and customs the inhabitants of all these islands belong to the Papuan family, which inhabits the western half of New Guinea, but in respect of language there is a marked difference between the natives of the two groups; for while the speech of the Western Islanders is akin to that of the Australians, the speech of the Eastern Islanders is akin to that of the Papuans of New Guinea. The conclusion to be drawn from these facts appears to be that the Western Islands of Torres Straits were formerly inhabited by aborigines of the Australian family, and that at a later time they were occupied by immigrants from New Guinea, who adopted the language of the aboriginal inhabitants, but gradually extinguished the aboriginal type and character either by peaceful absorption or by conquest and extermination.[274] Hence the Western Islanders of Torres Straits form a transition both geographically and ethnographically between the aborigines of Australia on the one side and the aborigines of New Guinea on the other side. Accordingly in our survey of the belief in immortality among the lower races we may appropriately consider the Islanders of Torres Straits immediately after the aborigines of Australia and before we pa.s.s onward to other and more distant races.

These Islanders have a special claim on the attention of a Cambridge lecturer, since almost all the exact knowledge we possess of them we owe to the exertions of Cambridge anthropologists and especially to Dr. A.

C. Haddon, who on his first visit to the islands in 1888 perceived the urgent importance of procuring an accurate record of the old beliefs and customs of the natives before it was too late, and who never rested till that record was obtained, as it happily has been, first by his own unaided researches in the islands, and afterwards by the united researches of a band of competent enquirers. In the history of anthropology the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits in 1898 will always hold an honourable place, to the credit of the University which promoted it and especially to that of the zealous and devoted investigator who planned, organised, and carried it to a successful conclusion. Practically all that I shall have to tell you as to the beliefs and practices of the Torres Straits Islanders is derived from the accurate and laborious researches of Dr. Haddon and his colleagues.

[Sidenote: Social culture of the Torres Straits Islanders.]

While the natives of Torres Straits are, or were at the time of their discovery, in the condition which we call savagery, they stand on a far higher level of social and intellectual culture than the rude aborigines of Australia. To indicate roughly the degree of advance we need only say that, whereas the Australians are nomadic hunters and fishers, entirely ignorant of agriculture, and dest.i.tute to a great extent not only of houses but even of clothes, the natives of Torres Straits live in settled villages and diligently till the soil, raising a variety of crops, such as yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, sugar-cane, and tobacco.[275] Of the two groups of islands the eastern is the more fertile and the inhabitants are more addicted to agriculture than are the natives of the western islands, who, as a consequence of the greater barrenness of the soil, have to eke out their subsistence to a considerable extent by fis.h.i.+ng.[276] And there is other evidence to shew that the Eastern Islanders have attained to a somewhat higher stage of social evolution than their Western brethren;[277] the more favourable natural conditions under which they live may possibly have contributed to raise the general level of culture. One of the most marked distinctions in this respect between the inhabitants of the two groups is that, whereas a regular system of totemism with its characteristic features prevails among the Western Islanders, no such system nor even any very clear evidence of its former existence is to be found among the Eastern Islanders, whether it be that they never had it or, what is more likely, that they once had but have lost it.[278]

[Sidenote: Belief of the Torres Straits Islanders in the existence of the human spirit after death.]

On the other hand, so far as regards our immediate subject, the belief in immortality and the wors.h.i.+p of the dead, a general resemblance may be traced between the creed and customs of the Eastern and Western tribes.

Both of them, like the Australian aborigines, firmly believe in the existence of the human spirit after death, but unlike the Australians they seem to have no idea that the souls of the departed are ever born again into the world; the doctrine of reincarnation, so widespread among the natives of Australia, appears to have no place in the creed of their near neighbours the Torres Straits Islanders, whose dead, like our own, though they may haunt the living for a time, are thought to depart at last to a distant spirit-land and to return no more. At the same time neither in the one group nor in the other is there any clear evidence of what may be called a wors.h.i.+p of the dead in the strict sense of the word, unless we except the cults of certain more or less mythical heroes. On this point the testimony of Dr. Haddon is definite as to the Western Islanders. He says: "In no case have I obtained in the Western Islands an indication of anything approaching a wors.h.i.+p of deceased persons ancestral or otherwise, with the exception of the heroes shortly to be mentioned; neither is there any suggestion that their own ancestors have been in any way apotheosized."[279]

[Sidenote: Fear of the ghosts of the recently departed.]

But if these savages have not, with the possible exception of the cult of certain heroes, any regular wors.h.i.+p of the dead, they certainly have the germ out of which such a wors.h.i.+p might be developed, and that is a firm belief in ghosts and in the mischief which they may do to the living. The word for a ghost is _mari_ in the West and _mar_ in the East: it means also a shadow or reflection,[280] which seems to shew that these savages, like many others, have derived their notion of the human soul from the observation of shadows and reflections cast by the body on the earth or on water. Further, the Western Islanders appear to distinguish the ghosts of the recently departed (_mari_) from the spirits of those who have been longer dead, which they call _markai_;[281] and if we accept this distinction "we may a.s.sert,"