The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Volume I Part 17

A widow wore besides a special petticoat made of the inner bark of the fig-tree; the ends of it were pa.s.sed between her legs and tucked up before and behind. She had to leave her hair unshorn during the whole period of her widowhood; and in time it grew into a huge mop of a light yellow colour in consequence of the ashes with which it was smeared.

This coating of ashes, as well as the grey paint on her face and body, she was expected to renew from time to time.[305] It was also on the occasion of this feast, on or about the tenth day after death, that young kinsfolk of the deceased had certain patterns cut in their flesh by a sharp sh.e.l.l. The persons so operated on were young adults of both s.e.xes nearly related to the dead man or woman. Women generally operated on women and men on men. The patients were held down during the operation, which was painful, and they sometimes fainted under it. The patterns were first drawn on the skin in red paint and then cut in with the sh.e.l.l. They varied a good deal in shape. Some consisted of arrangements of lines and scrolls; a favourite one, which was only carved on women, represented a centipede. The blood which flowed from the wounds was allowed to drip on the corpse, thus forming a sacrifice or tribute to the dead.[306]

[Sidenote: The Dance of Death. The nocturnal dance.]

When the body had remained some time, perhaps four or six months, on the scaffold, and the process of mummification was far advanced, a dance of death was held to celebrate the final departure of the spirit for its long home. Several men, seldom exceeding four in number, were chosen to act the part of ghosts, including the ghost of him or her in whose honour the performance was specially held. Further, about a dozen men were selected to form a sort of chorus; their business was to act as intermediaries between the living and the dead, summoning up the shades, serving as their messengers, and informing the people of their presence.

The costume of the ghosts was simple, consisting of nothing but a head-dress and shoulder-band of leaves. The chorus, if we may call them so, wore girdles of leaves round their waists and wreaths of leaves on their heads. When darkness had fallen, the first act of the drama was played. The chorus stood in line opposite the mummy. Beyond them stood or sat the drummers, and beyond them again the audience was crowded on the beach, the women standing furthest from the mummy and nearest to the sea. The drummers now struck up, chanting at the same time to the beat of the drums. This was the overture. Then a shrill whistle in the forest announced the approach of a ghost. The subdued excitement among the spectators, especially among the women, was intense. Meantime the chorus, holding each other's hands, advanced sidelong towards the mummy with strange gestures, the hollow thud of their feet as they stamped on the ground being supposed to be the tread of the ghosts. Thus they advanced to the red-painted mummy with its grinning mouth. Behind it by this time stood one of the ghosts, and between him and the chorus a dialogue ensued. "Whose ghost is there?" called out the chorus; and a strident voice answered from the darkness, "The ghost of so and so is here." At that the chorus retreated in the same order as they had advanced, and again the hollow thud of their feet sounded in the ears of the excited spectators as the tramp of the dead. On reaching the drummers in their retreat the chorus called out some words of uncertain meaning, which have been interpreted, "Spirit of so-and-so, away at sea, loved little." At all events, the name of a dead person was p.r.o.nounced, and at the sound the women, thrilled with excitement, leaped from the ground, holding their hands aloft; then hurled themselves p.r.o.ne on the sand, throwing it over their heads and wailing. The drums now beat faster and a wild weird chant rose into the air, then died away and all was silent, except perhaps for the lapping of the waves on the sand or the m.u.f.fled thunder of the surf afar off on the barrier reef. Thus one ghost after another was summoned from the dusty dead and vanished again into the darkness. When all had come and gone, the leader of the chorus, who kept himself invisible behind the screen save for a moment when he was seen by the chorus to glide behind the mummy on its stage, blew a whistle and informed the spectators in a weird voice that all the ghosts that had been summoned that night would appear before them in broad day light on the morrow. With that the audience dispersed. But the men who had played the parts of the ghosts came forward and sat down with the chorus and the drummers on mats beside the body. There they remained singing to the beat of the drums till the first faint streaks of dawn glimmered in the east.

[Sidenote: The noonday dance. The ghosts represented by masked actors.]

Next morning the men a.s.sembled beside the body to inspect the actors who were to personate the ghosts, in order to make sure that they had learned their parts well and could mimick to the life the figure and gait of the particular dead persons whom they represented. By the time that these preparations were complete, the morning had worn on to noon.

The audience was already a.s.sembled on the beach and on the long stretch of sand left by the ebbing tide; for the hour of the drama was always fixed at low water so as to allow ample s.p.a.ce for the spectators to stand at a distance from the players, lest they should detect the features of the living under the masks of the dead. All being ready, the drummers marched in and took up their position just above the beach, facing the audience. The overture having been concluded, the first ghost was seen to glide from the forest and come dancing towards the beach. If he represented a woman, his costume was more elaborate than it had been under the shades of evening the night before. His whole body was painted red. A petticoat of leaves encircled his waist: a mask of leaves, surmounted by tufts of ca.s.sowary and pigeon feathers, concealed his head; and in his hands he carried brooms of coco-nut palm leaf. If he personated a man, he held a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other, and his costume was the usual dress of a dancer, with the addition of a head-dress of leaves and feathers and a diamond-shaped ornament of bamboo, which he held in his teeth and which entirely concealed his features. He approached dancing and mimicking the gestures of the person whom he represented. At the sight the women wailed, and the widow would cry out, "That's my husband," the mother would cry out, "That's my son."

Then suddenly the drummers would call out, "Ah! Ah! Ai! Ai!" at which the women would fall to the ground, while the dancer retreated into the forest. In this way one ghost after the other would make his appearance, play his part, and vanish. Occasionally two of them would appear and dance together. The women and children, we are told, really believed that the actors were the ghosts of their dead kinsfolk. When the first dancer had thus danced before the people, he advanced with the drummers towards the framework on which the mummy was stretched, and there he repeated his dance before it. But the people were not allowed to witness this mystery; they remained wailing on the beach, for this was the moment at which the ghost of the dead man or woman was supposed to be departing for ever to the land of shades.[307]

[Sidenote: Preservation of the mummy.]

Some days afterwards the mummy was affixed to a new framework of bamboo and carried into the hut. In former times the huts were of a beehive shape, and the framework which supported the mummy was fastened to the central post on which the roof rested. The body thus stood erect within the house. Its dried skin had been painted red. The empty orbits of the eyes had been filled with pieces of pearl-sh.e.l.l of the nautilus to imitate eyes, two round spots of black beeswax standing for the pupils.

The ears were decorated with shreds of the sago-palm or with grey seeds.

A frontlet of pearl-sh.e.l.l nautilus adorned the head, and a crescent of pearl-sh.e.l.l the breast. In the darkness of the old-fas.h.i.+oned huts the body looked like a living person. In course of time it became almost completely mummified and as light as if it were made of paper. Swinging to and fro with every breath of wind, it turned its gleaming eyes at each movement of the head. The hut was now surrounded by posts and ropes to prevent the ghost from making his way into it and taking possession of his old body. Ghosts were supposed to appear only at night, and it was imagined that in the dark they would stumble against the posts and entangle themselves in the ropes, till in despair they desisted from the attempt to penetrate into the hut. In time the mummy mouldered away and fell to pieces. If the deceased was a male, the head was removed and a wax model of it made and given to the brother, whether blood or tribal brother, of the dead man. The head thus prepared or modelled in wax, with eyes of pearl-sh.e.l.l, was used in divination. The decaying remains of the body were taken to the beach and placed on a platform supported by four posts. That was their last resting-place.[308]

[Sidenote: General summary. Dramas of the dead.]

To sum up the foregoing evidence, we may say that if the beliefs and practices of the Torres Straits Islanders which I have described do not amount to a wors.h.i.+p of the dead, they contain the elements out of which such a wors.h.i.+p might easily have been developed. The preservation of the bodies of the dead, or at least their skulls, in the houses, and the consultation of them as oracles, prove that the spirits of the dead are supposed to possess knowledge which may be of great use to the living; and the custom suggests that in other countries the images of the G.o.ds may perhaps have been evolved out of the mummies of the dead. Further, the dramatic representation of the ghosts in a series of striking and impressive performances indicates how a sacred and in time a secular drama may elsewhere have grown out of a purely religious celebration concerned with the souls of the departed. In this connexion we are reminded of Professor Ridgeway's theory that ancient Greek tragedy originated in commemorative songs and dances performed at the tomb for the purpose of pleasing and propitiating the ghost of the mighty dead.[309] Yet the mortuary dramas of the Torres Straits Islanders can hardly be adduced to support that theory by a.n.a.logy so long as we are ignorant of the precise significance which the natives themselves attached to these remarkable performances. There is no clear evidence that the dramas were acted for the amus.e.m.e.nt and gratification of the ghost rather than for the edification of the spectators. One important act certainly represented, and might well be intended to facilitate, the final departure of the spirit of the deceased to the land of souls. But the means taken to effect that departure might be adopted in the interests of the living quite as much as out of a tender regard for the welfare of the dead, since the ghost of the recently departed is commonly regarded with fear and aversion, and his surviving relations resort to many expedients for the purpose of ridding themselves of his unwelcome presence.

[Footnote 274: S. H. Ray, in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, iii. (Cambridge, 1907) pp. 509-511; A. C.

Haddon, "The Religion of the Torres Straits Islanders," _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tyler_ (Oxford, 1907), p. 175.]

[Footnote 275: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, iv. 92 _sqq._, 144 _sqq._, v. 346, vi. 207 _sqq._]

[Footnote 276: A. C. Haddon, in _Anthropological Essays presented to E.

B. Tylor_, p. 186.]

[Footnote 277: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 254 _sq._]

[Footnote 278: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 254 _sqq._]

[Footnote 279: A. C. Haddon, in _Anthropological Essays presented to E.

B. Tylor_, p. 181.]

[Footnote 280: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 355 _sq._, vi. 251; A. C. Haddon, in _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor_, p. 179.]

[Footnote 281: For authorities see the references in the preceding note.]

[Footnote 282: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 253.]

[Footnote 283: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 248, 249.]

[Footnote 284: _Id._, p. 250.]

[Footnote 285: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 253; A. C. Haddon, in _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B.

Tylor_, p. 180.]

[Footnote 286: A. C. Haddon, _l.c._]

[Footnote 287: A. C. Haddon, _op. cit._ pp. 182 _sq._; _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 127.]

[Footnote 288: A. C. Haddon, _op. cit._ p. 183.]

[Footnote 289: T. C. Hodson, _The Naga Tribes of Manipur_ (London, 1911), p. 43.]

[Footnote 290: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 355 _sq._, vi. 252. In the former pa.s.sage Dr. Haddon seems to identify Boigu with the island of that name off the south coast of New Guinea; in the latter he prefers to regard it as mythical.]

[Footnote 291: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 127.]

[Footnote 292: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 248 _sq._]

[Footnote 293: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 250 _sq._]

[Footnote 294: Diodorus Siculus, i. 91.]

[Footnote 295: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 258.]

[Footnote 296: _Id._, p. 362.]

[Footnote 297: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 252-256.]

[Footnote 298: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 256.]

[Footnote 299: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 129-133.]

[Footnote 300: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 133 _sq._]

[Footnote 301: _Id._, pp. 135, 154.]

[Footnote 302: (Sir) George Grey, _Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia_ (London, 1841), ii. 335.]

[Footnote 303: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 135.]

[Footnote 304: _Op. cit._ p. 136.]

[Footnote 305: _Op. cit._ pp. 138, 153, 157 _sq._]

[Footnote 306: _Op. cit._ pp. 154 _sq._]

[Footnote 307: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 139-141.]

[Footnote 308: _Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vi. 148 _sq._ As to divination with skulls or waxen models, see _id._, pp. 266 _sqq._]

[Footnote 309: W. Ridgeway, _The Origin of Tragedy, with special reference to the Greek Tragedians_ (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 26 _sqq._]