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 Institute_, 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.]
[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 Institute_, 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
Institute_, xxxiii. (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_ (Washington, 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'Amérique Russe_ (St. Petersburg, 1862), p. 13.]
[Footnote 265: E. Seler, _Altmexikanische Studien_, ii. (Berlin, 1899)
p. 42 (_Veröffentlichungen aus dem Königlichen Museum für Völkerkunde_,
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 worship of the dead, or rather of the elements out of which such a
worship might have grown, among the aborigines of Australia. To-day we
pass 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 pass 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 destitute 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 fishing.[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 worship 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 worship 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 worship 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 worship of the dead, they certainly have
the germ out of which such a worship 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 assert,"
according to Dr. Haddon, "that the Torres Straits Islanders feared the
ghosts but believed in the general friendly disposition of the spirits
of the departed."[282] Similarly we saw that the Australian aborigines
regard with fear the ghosts of those who have just died, while they are
either indifferent to the spirits of those who have died many years ago
or even look upon them as beings of higher powers than their
descendants, whom they can benefit in various ways. This sharp
distinction between the spirits of the dead, according to the date at
which they died, is widespread, perhaps universal among mankind. However
truly the dead were loved in their lifetime, however bitterly they were
mourned at their death, no sooner have they passed beyond our ken than
the thought of their ghosts seems to inspire the generality of mankind
with an instinctive fear and horror, as if the character of even the
best friends and nearest relations underwent a radical change for the
worse as soon as they had shuffled off the mortal coil. But among
savages this belief in the moral deterioration of ghosts is certainly
much more marked than among civilised races. Ghosts are dreaded both by
the Western and the Eastern tribes of Torres Straits. Thus in Mabuiag,
one of the Western Islands, the corpse was carried out of camp feet
foremost, else it was thought that the ghost would return and trouble
the survivors. Further, when the body had been laid upon a stage or
platform on clear level ground away from the dwelling, the remains of
any food and water of which the deceased might have been partaking in
his last moments were carried out and placed beside the corpse lest the
ghost should come back to fetch them for himself, to the annoyance and
terror of his relations. This is the reason actually alleged by the
natives for what otherwise might have been interpreted as a delicate
mark of affection and thoughtful care for the comfort of the departed.
If next morning the food was found scattered, the people said that the
ghost was angry and had thrown it about.[283] Further, on the day of the
death the mourners went into the gardens, slashed at the taro, knocked
down coco-nuts, pulled up sweet potatoes, and destroyed bananas. We are
told that "the food was destroyed for the sake of the dead man, it was
'like good-bye.'"[284] We may suspect that the real motive for the
destruction was the same as that for laying food and water beside the
corpse, namely, a wish to give the ghost no excuse for returning to
haunt and pester his surviving relatives. How could he have the heart to
return to the desolated garden which in his lifetime it had been his
pride and joy to cultivate?
[Sidenote: Fear of the ghosts of the recently departed among the Murray
Islanders.]
In Murray Island, also, which belongs to the Eastern group, the ghost of
a recently deceased person is much dreaded; it is supposed to haunt the
neighbourhood for two or three months, and the elaborate funeral
ceremonies which these savages perform appear to be based on this belief
and to be intended, in fact, to dismiss the ghost from the land of the
living, where he is a very unwelcome visitor, to his proper place in the
land of the dead.[285] "The Murray Islanders," says Dr. Haddon, "perform
as many as possible of the necessary ceremonies in order that the ghost
of the deceased might not feel slighted, for otherwise it was sure to
bring trouble on the relatives by causing strong winds to destroy their
gardens and break down their houses."[286] These islanders still believe
that a ghost may feel resentment when his children are neglected or
wronged, or when his lands or goods are appropriated by persons who have
no claim to them. And this fear of the wrath of the ghost, Dr. Haddon
tells us, no doubt in past times acted as a wholesome deterrent on
evil-doers and helped to keep the people from crime, though now-a-days
they look rather to the law than to ghosts for the protection of their
rights and the avenging of their wrongs.[287] Yet here, as in so many
places, it would seem that superstition has proved a useful crutch on
which morality can lean until it is strong enough to walk alone. In the
absence of the police the guardianship of law and morality may be
provisionally entrusted to ghosts, who, if they are too fickle and
uncertain in their temper to make ideal constables, are at least better
than nothing. With this exception it does not appear that the moral code
of the Torres Straits Islanders derived any support or sanction from
their religion. No appeal was made by them to totems, ancestors, or
heroes; no punishment was looked for from these quarters for any
infringement of the rules and restraints which hold society
together.[288]
[Sidenote: The island home of the dead.]
The land of the dead to which the ghosts finally depart is, in the
opinion of the Torres Straits Islanders, a mythical island in the far
west or rather north-west. The Western Islanders name it Kibu; the
Eastern Islanders call it Boigu. The name Kibu means "sundown." It is
natural enough that islanders should place the home of the dead in some
far island of the sea to which no canoe of living men has ever sailed,
and it is equally natural that the fabulous island should lie to
westward where the sun goes down; for it seems to be a common thought
that the souls of the dead are attracted by the great luminary, like
moths by a candle, and follow him when he sinks in radiant glory into
the sea. To take a single example, in the Maram district of Assam it is
forbidden to build houses facing westward, because that is the direction
in which the spirits of the dead go to their long home.[289] But the
Torres Straits Islanders have a special reason, as Dr. Haddon has well
pointed out, for thinking that the home of the dead is away in the
north-west; and the reason is that in these latitudes the trade wind
blows steady and strong from the south-east for seven or eight months of
the year; so that for the most part the spirits have only to let
themselves go and the wind will sweep them away on its pinions to their
place of rest. How could the poor fluttering things beat up to windward
in the teeth of the blast?[290]
[Sidenote: Elaborate funeral ceremonies observed by the Torres Straits
Islanders.]
The funeral ceremonies observed by the Torres Straits Islanders were
numerous and elaborate, and they present some features of special
interest. They succeeded each other at intervals, sometimes of months,
and amongst the Eastern Islanders in particular there were so many of
them that, were it not that the bodies of the very young and the very
old were treated less ceremoniously, the living would have been
perpetually occupied in celebrating the obsequies of the dead.[291] The
obsequies differed somewhat from each other in the East and the West,
but they had two characteristics in common: first, the skulls of the
dead were commonly preserved apart from the bodies and were consulted as
oracles; and, second, the ghosts of the recently deceased were
represented in dramatic ceremonies by masked men, who mimicked the gait
and gestures of the departed and were thought by the women and children
to be the very ghosts themselves. But in details there were a good many
variations between the practice of the Eastern and the Western
Islanders. We will begin with the customs of the Western Islanders.
[Sidenote: Funeral ceremonies observed by the Western Islanders. Removal
and preservation of the skull. Skulls used in divination.]