The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Part 30

Again, the natives have a stone in the shape of a canoe, which they employ in ceremonies for the purpose of favouring or hindering navigation. If the sorcerer desires to make a voyage prosperous, he places the canoe-shaped stone before the ancestral skulls with the right side up; but if he wishes to cause his enemy to perish at sea, he places the canoe-shaped stone bottom upwards before the skulls, which, on the principles of h.o.m.oeopathic or imitative magic, must clearly make his enemy's canoe to capsize and precipitate its owner into the sea.

Whichever of these ceremonies he performs, the wizard accompanies the magical rite, as usual, with prayers and offerings of food to the ancestral spirits who are represented by the skulls.[541]

[Sidenote: Stones to help fishermen.]

The natives of the Isle of Pines subsist mainly by fis.h.i.+ng; hence they naturally have a large number of sacred stones which they use for the purpose of securing the blessing of the ancestral spirits on the business of the fisherman. Indeed each species of fish has its own special sacred stone. These stones are kept in large sh.e.l.ls in a cemetery. A wizard who desires to make use of one of them paints the stone with a variety of colours, chews certain leaves, and then breathes on the stone and moistens it with his spittle. After that he sets up the stone before the ancestral skulls, saying, "Help us, that we may be successful in fis.h.i.+ng." The sacrifices to the spirits consist of bananas, sugar-cane, and fish, never of taros or yams. After the fis.h.i.+ng and the sacrificial meal, the stone is put back in its place, and covered up respectfully.[542]

[Sidenote: Stones to make yams grow.]

Lastly, the natives of the Isle of Pines cultivate many different kinds of yams, and they have a correspondingly large number of sacred stones destined to aid them in the cultivation by ensuring the blessing of the dead upon the work. In shape and colour these stones differ from each other, each of them bearing a resemblance, real or fanciful, to the particular species of yam which it is supposed to quicken. But the method of operating with them is much the same for all. The stone is placed before the skulls, wetted with water, and wiped with certain leaves. Yams and fish, cooked on the spot, are offered in sacrifice to the dead, the priest or magician saying, "This is your offering in order that the crop of yams may be good." So saying he presents the food to the dead and himself eats a little of it. After that the stone is taken away and buried in the yam field which it is designed to fertilise.[543]

Here, again, the prayer and sacrifice to the dead are purely religious rites intended to propitiate the spirits and secure their help; while the burying of the yam-shaped stone in the yam-field to make the yams grow is a simple piece of h.o.m.oeopathic or imitative magic. Similarly in order to cultivate taros and bananas, stones resembling taros and bananas are buried in the taro field or the banana grove, and their magical virtue is reinforced by prayers and offerings to the dead.[544]

[Sidenote: The religion of the New Caledonians is mainly a wors.h.i.+p of the dead tinctured with magic.]

On the whole we may conclude that among the natives of New Caledonia there exists a real wors.h.i.+p of the dead, and that this wors.h.i.+p is indeed the princ.i.p.al element in their religion. The spirits of the dead, though they are supposed to spend part of their time in a happy land far away under the sea, are nevertheless believed to be near at hand, hovering about in the burial-grounds or charnel-houses and embodied apparently in their skulls. To these spirits the native turns for help in all the important seasons and emergencies of life; he appeals to them in prayer and seeks to propitiate them by sacrifice. Thus in his att.i.tude towards his dead ancestors we perceive the elements of a real religion. But, as I have just pointed out, many rites of this wors.h.i.+p of ancestors are accompanied by magical ceremonies. The religion of these islanders is in fact deeply tinged with magic; it marks a transition from an age of pure magic in the past to an age of more or less pure religion in the future.

[Sidenote: Evidence as to the religion of the New Caledonians furnished by Dr. G. Turner.]

Thus far I have based my account of the beliefs and customs of the New Caledonians concerning the dead on the valuable information which we owe to the Catholic missionary Father Lambert. But, as I pointed out, his evidence refers not so much to the natives of the mainland as to the inhabitants of certain small islands at the two extremities of the great island. It may be well, therefore, to supplement his description by some notes which a distinguished Protestant missionary, the Rev. Dr. George Turner, obtained in the year 1845 from two native teachers, one a Samoan and the other a Rarotongan, who lived in the south-south-eastern part of New Caledonia for three years.[545] Their evidence, it will be observed, goes to confirm Father Lambert's view as to the general similarity of the religious beliefs and customs prevailing throughout the island.

[Sidenote: Material culture of the New Caledonians.]

The natives of this part of New Caledonia were divided into separate districts, each with its own name, and war, perpetual war, was the rule between the neighbouring communities. They cultivated taro, yams, coco-nuts, and sugar-cane; but they had no intoxicating _kava_ and kept no pigs. They cooked their food in earthenware pots manufactured by the women. In former days their only edge-tools were made of stone, and they felled trees by a slow fire smouldering close to the ground. Similarly they hollowed out the fallen trees by means of a slow fire to make their canoes. Their villages were not permanent. They migrated within certain bounds, as they planted. A village might comprise as many as fifty or sixty round houses. The chiefs had absolute power of life and death.

Priests did not meddle in political affairs.[546]

[Sidenote: Burial customs; preservation of the skulls and teeth.]

At death they dressed the corpse with a belt and sh.e.l.l armlets, cut off the nails of the fingers and toes, and kept them as relics. They spread the grave with a mat, and buried all the body but the head. After ten days the friends twisted off the head, extracted the teeth to be kept as relics, and preserved the skull also. In cases of sickness and other calamities they presented offerings of food to the skulls of the dead.

The teeth of the old women were taken to the yam plantations and were supposed to fertilise them; and their skulls were set up on poles in the plantations for the same purpose. When they buried a chief, they erected spears at his head, fastened a spear-thrower to his forefinger, and laid a club on the top of his grave,[547] no doubt for the convenience of the ghost.

[Sidenote: Prayers to ancestors.]

"Their G.o.ds," we are told, "were their ancestors, whose relics they kept up and idolised. At one place they had wooden idols before the chiefs'

houses. The office of the priest was hereditary. Almost every family had its priest. To make sure of favours and prosperity they prayed not only to their own G.o.ds, but also, in a general way, to the G.o.ds of other lands. Fis.h.i.+ng, planting, house-building, and everything of importance was preceded by prayers to their guardian spirits for success. This was especially the case before going to battle. They prayed to one for the eye, that they might see the spear as it flew towards them. To another for the ear, that they might hear the approach of the enemy. Thus, too, they prayed for the feet, that they might be swift in pursuing the enemy; for the heart, that they might be courageous; for the body, that they might not be speared; for the head, that it might not be clubbed; and for sleep, that it might be undisturbed by an attack of the enemy.

Prayers over, arms ready, and equipped with their relic charms, they went off to battle."[548]

[Sidenote: "Grand concert of spirits."]

The spirits of the dead were believed to go away into the forest. Every fifth month they had a "spirit night" or "grand concert of spirits."

Heaps of food were prepared for the occasion. The people a.s.sembled in the afternoon round a certain cave. At sundown they feasted, and then one stood up and addressed the spirits in the cave, saying, "You spirits within, may it please you to sing a song, that all the women and men out here may listen to your sweet voices." Thereupon a strange unearthly concert of voices burst on their ears from the cave, the nasal squeak of old men and women forming the dominant note. But the hearers outside listened with delight to the melody, praised the sweet voices of the singers, and then got up and danced to the music. The singing swelled louder and louder as the dance grew faster and more furious, till the concert closed in a nocturnal orgy of unbridled license, which, but for the absence of intoxicants, might compare with the worst of the ancient baccha.n.a.lia. The singers in the cave were the old men and women who had ensconced themselves in it secretly during the day; but the hoax was not suspected by the children and young people, who firmly believed that the spirits of the dead really a.s.sembled that night in the cavern and a.s.sisted at the sports and diversions of the living.[549]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of the bones of the dead.]

The souls of the departed also kindly bore a hand in the making of rain.

In order to secure their co-operation for this beneficent purpose the human rain-maker proceeded as follows. He blackened himself all over, exhumed a dead body, carried the bones to a cave, jointed them, and suspended the skeleton over some taro leaves. After that he poured water on the skeleton so that it ran down and fell on the leaves underneath.

They imagined that the soul of the deceased took up the water, converted it into rain, and then caused it to descend in refres.h.i.+ng showers. But the rain-maker had to stay in the cavern fasting till his efforts were crowned with success, and when the ghost was tardy in executing his commission, the rain-maker sometimes died of hunger. As a rule, however, they chose the showery months of March and April for the operation of rain-making, so that the wizard ran little risk of peris.h.i.+ng a martyr to the cause of science. When there was too much rain, and they wanted fine weather, the magician procured it by a similar process, except that instead of drenching the skeleton with water he lit a fire under it and burned it up,[550] which naturally induced or compelled the ghost to burn up the clouds and let the sun s.h.i.+ne out.

[Sidenote: Execution of maleficent sorcerers. Reincarnation of the dead in white people.]

Another cla.s.s of magicians were the maleficent sorcerers who caused people to fall ill and die by burning their personal rubbish. When one of these rascals was convicted of repeated offences of that sort, he was formally tried and condemned. The people a.s.sembled and a great festival was held. The condemned man was decked with a garland of red flowers; his arms and legs were covered with flowers and sh.e.l.ls, and his face and body painted black. Thus arrayed he came das.h.i.+ng forward, rushed through the people, plunged from the rocks into the sea, and was seen no more.

The natives also ascribed sickness to the arts of white men, whom they identified with the spirits of the dead; and a.s.signed this belief as a reason for their wish to kill the strangers.[551]

[Footnote 517: F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, II. _Malaysia and the Pacific Archipelagoes_ (London, 1894), p. 458.]

[Footnote 518: J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_ (London, 1900), pp. 498 _sq._ As to the mediums of exchange, particularly the sh.e.l.l-money, see R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_ (Oxford, 1891), pp. 323 _sqq._; R.

Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Sudsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 82 _sqq._]

[Footnote 519: Le Pere Lambert, _Moeurs et Superst.i.tions des Neo-Caledoniens_ (Noumea, 1900). This work originally appeared as a series of articles in the Catholic missionary journal _Les Missions Catholiques_.]

[Footnote 520: Lambert, _Moeurs et Superst.i.tions des Neo-Caledoniens_, pp. ii., iv. _sq._; 255.]

[Footnote 521: George Turner, LL.D., _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago and long before_ (London, 1884), pp. 340 _sqq._]

[Footnote 522: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 13-16.]

[Footnote 523: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 235-239.]

[Footnote 524: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 238, 239 _sq._]

[Footnote 525: Above, pp. 136 _sq._, 235 _sq._]

[Footnote 526: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 24, 240.]

[Footnote 527: Lambert, _op. cit._ p. 274.]

[Footnote 528: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 24, 26.]

[Footnote 529: Lambert, _op. cit._ p. 211.]

[Footnote 530: Lambert, _op. cit._ p. 218.]

[Footnote 531: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 224 _sq._]

[Footnote 532: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 275 _sqq._]

[Footnote 533: Lambert, _op. cit._ p. 276.]

[Footnote 534: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 288 _sq._]

[Footnote 535: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 290, 292.]

[Footnote 536: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 292 _sq._]

[Footnote 537: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 293 _sq._]

[Footnote 538: Lambert, _op. cit._ p. 294.]

[Footnote 539: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 296 _sq._]

[Footnote 540: Lambert, _op. cit._ pp. 297 _sq._]