and set on a staging supported by four forked posts and covered by a
roof of mats. The office of attending to the body devolved properly on
the brothers-in-law (_imi_) of the deceased, who, while they were
engaged in the duties of the office, bore the special title of _mariget_
or "ghost-hand." It deserves to be noticed that these men were always of
a different totem from the deceased; for if the dead person was a man,
the _mariget_ were his wife's brothers and therefore had the same totem
as the dead man's wife, which, on account of the law of exogamy, always
differed from the totem of her husband. And if the dead person was a
woman, the _mariget_ were her husband's brothers and therefore had his
totem, which necessarily differed from hers. When they had discharged
the preliminary duties to the corpse, the brothers-in-law went and
informed the relations and friends. This they did not in words but by a
prescribed pantomime. For example, if the deceased had had the crocodile
for his totem, they imitated the ungainly gait of crocodiles waddling
and resting, if the deceased had the snake for his totem, they in like
manner mimicked the crawling of a snake. The relations then painted
their bodies with white coral mud, cut their hair, plastered mud over
their heads, and cut off their ear ornaments or severed the distended
lobe of the ear as a sign of mourning. Then, armed with bows and arrows,
they came out to the stage where the corpse was lying and let fly arrows
at the men who were in attendance on it, that is, at the brothers-in-law
of the deceased, who warded off the shafts as best they could.[292] The
meaning of this sham attack on the men who were discharging the last
offices of respect to the dead comes out clearly in another ceremony
which was performed some time afterwards, as we shall see presently. For
five or six days the corpse remained on the platform or bier watched by
the brothers-in-law, who had to prevent certain large lizards from
devouring it and to frighten away any prowling ghosts that might be
lured to the spot by the stench. After the lapse of several days the
relations returned to the body, mourned, and beat the roof of the bier,
while they raised a shout to drive off any part of the dead man's spirit
that might be lingering about his mouldering remains. The reason for
doing so was, that the time had now arrived for cutting off the head of
the corpse, and they thought that the head would not come off easily if
the man's spirit were still in the body; he might reasonably be expected
to hold on tight to it and not to resign, without a struggle, so
valuable a part of his person. When the poor ghost had thus been chased
away with shouts and blows, the principal brother-in-law came forward
and performed the amputation by sawing off the head. Having done so, he
usually placed it in a nest of termites or white ants in order that the
insects might pick it clean; but sometimes for the same purpose he
deposited it in a creek. When it was thoroughly clean, the grinning
white skull was painted red all over and placed in a decorated basket.
Then followed the ceremony of formally handing over this relic of the
dead to the relations. The brothers-in-law, who had been in attendance
on the body, painted themselves black all over, covered their heads with
leaves, and walked in solemn procession, headed by the chief
brother-in-law, who carried the skull in the basket. Meantime the male
relatives were awaiting them, seated on a large mat in the ceremonial
ground, while the women grouped themselves in the background. As the
procession of men approached bearing the skull, the mourners shot arrows
over their heads as a sign of anger at them for having decapitated their
relation. But this was a mere pretence, probably intended to soothe and
flatter the angry ghost: the arrows flew over the men without hurting
them.[293] Similarly in ancient Egypt the man who cut open a corpse for
embalmment had no sooner done his office than he fled precipitately,
pursued by the relations with stones and curses, because he had wounded
and mangled the body of their kinsman.[294] Sometimes the skull was made
up to resemble the head of a living man: an artificial nose of wood and
beeswax supplied the place of a nose of flesh; pearl-shells were
inserted in the empty eye-balls; and any teeth that might be missing
were represented by pieces of wood, while the lower jaw was lashed
firmly to the cranium.[295] Whether thus decorated or not, the skulls of
the dead were preserved and used in divination. Whenever a skull was to
be thus consulted, it was first cleaned, repainted, and either anointed
with certain plants or placed upon them. Then the enquirer enjoined the
skull to speak the truth, and placing it on his pillow at night went to
sleep. The dream which he dreamed that night was the answer of the
skull, which spoke with a clappering noise like that of teeth chattering
together. When people went on voyages, they used to take a divining
skull with them in the stern of the canoe.[296]
[Sidenote: Great death-dance of the Western Islanders. The dead
personated by masked actors.]
The great funeral ceremony, or rather death-dance, of the Western
Islanders took place in the island of Pulu. When the time came for it, a
few men would meet and make the necessary preparations. The ceremony was
always performed on the sacred or ceremonial ground (_kwod_), and the
first thing to do was to enclose this ground, for the sake of privacy,
with a screen of mats hung on a framework of wood and bamboos. When the
screen had been erected, the drums which were to be used by the
orchestra were placed in position beside it. Then the relations were
summoned to attend the performance. The ceremony might be performed for
a number of recently deceased people at once, and it varied in
importance and elaboration according to the importance and the number of
the deceased whose obsequies were being celebrated. The chief
differences were in the number of the performers and the greater or less
display of scenic apparatus. The head-dresses or leafy masks worn by the
actors in the sacred drama were made secretly in the bush; no woman or
uninitiated man might witness the operation. When all was ready, and the
people were assembled, the men being stationed in front and the women
and children in the background, the disguised actors appeared on the
scene and played the part of the dead, each one of them mimicking the
gait and actions of the particular man or woman whom he personated; for
all the parts were played by men, no woman might act in these
ceremonies. The order in which the various ghosts were to appear on the
scene was arranged beforehand; so that when the actors came forward from
behind the screen, the spectators knew which of the dead they were
supposed to have before them. The performers usually danced in pairs,
and vanished behind the screen when their dance was finished. Thus one
pair would follow another till the play was over. Besides the actors who
played the serious and solemn part of the dead, there was usually a
clown who skipped about and cut capers, tumbling down and getting up
again, to make the spectators laugh and so to relieve the strain on
their emotions, which were deeply stirred by this dance of death. The
beat of the drums proclaimed that the sacred drama was at an end. Then
followed a great feast, at which special portions of food were assigned
by the relatives of the deceased to the actors who had personated
them.[297]
[Sidenote: Intention of the ceremonies.]
As to the intention of these curious dramatic performances we have no
very definite information. Dr. Haddon says: "The idea evidently was to
convey to the mourners the assurance that the ghost was alive and that
in the person of the dancer he visited his friends; the assurance of his
life after death comforted the bereaved ones."[298]
[Sidenote: Funeral ceremonies observed by the Eastern Islanders. The
soul of the dead carried away by a masked actor.]
In the Eastern Islands of Torres Straits the funeral ceremonies seem to
have been even more numerous and elaborate. The body was at first laid
on the ground on a mat outside the house, if the weather were fine.
There friends wept and wailed over it, the nearest relations, such as
the wife and mother, sitting at the head of the corpse. About an hour
after the sun had set, the drummers and singers arrived. All night the
drums beat and the people sang, but just as the dawn was breaking the
wild music died away into silence. The wants of the living were now
attended to: the assembled people breakfasted on green coco-nuts; and
then, about an hour after sunrise, they withdrew from the body and took
up a position a little further off to witness the next act of the drama
of death. The drums now struck up again in quicker time to herald the
approach of an actor, who could be heard, but not seen, shaking his
rattle in the adjoining forest. Faster and faster beat the drums, louder
and louder rose the singing, till the spectators were wound up to a
pitch of excitement bordering on frenzy. Then at last a strange figure
burst from the forest and came skipping and posturing towards the
corpse. It was Terer, a spirit or mythical being who had come to fetch
the soul of the departed and to bear it far away to its place of rest in
the island beyond the sea. On his head he wore a wreath of leaves: a
mask made of the mid-ribs of coco-nut leaves or of croton leaves hid his
face: a long feather of the white tern nodded on his brow; and a mantle
of green coco-nut leaves concealed his body from the shoulders to the
knees. His arms were painted red: round his neck he wore a crescent of
pearl-shell: in his left hand he carried a bow and arrows, and in his
mouth a piece of wood, to which were affixed two rings of green coco-nut
leaf. Thus attired he skipt forwards, rattling a bunch of nuts in his
right hand, bending his head now to one side and now to another, swaying
his body backwards and forwards, but always keeping time to the measured
beat of the drums. At last, after a series of rapid jumps from one foot
to the other, he ended his dance, and turning round fled away westward
along the beach. He had taken the soul of the dead and was carrying it
away to the spirit-land. The excitement of the women now rose to the
highest pitch. They screamed and jumped from the ground raising their
arms in air high above their heads. Shrieking and wailing all pursued
the retreating figure along the beach, the mother or widow of the dead
man casting herself again and again prostrate on the sand and throwing
it in handfuls over her head. Among the pursuers was another masked man,
who represented Aukem, the mother of Terer. She, or rather he, was
dressed in dried banana leaves: long tufts of grass hung from her head
over her face and shoulders; and in her mouth she carried a lighted
bundle of dry coco-nut fibre, which emitted clouds of smoke. With an
unsteady rickety gait the beldame hobbled after her rapidly retreating
son, who turned round from time to time, skipping and posturing
derisively as if to taunt her, and then hurrying away again westward.
Thus the two quaint figures retreated further and further, he in front
and she behind, till they were lost to view. But still the drums
continued to beat and the singers to chant their wild song, when nothing
was to be seen but the deserted beach with the sky and the drifting
clouds above and the white waves breaking on the strand. Meantime the
two actors in the sacred drama made their way westward till their
progress was arrested by the sea. They plunged into it and swimming
westward unloosed their leafy envelopes and let them float away to the
spirit-land in the far island beyond the rolling waters. But the men
themselves swam back to the beach, resumed the dress of ordinary
mortals, and quietly mingled with the assembly of mourners.[299]
[Sidenote: Personation of ghosts by masked men.]
Such was the first act of the drama. The second followed immediately
about ten o'clock in the morning. The actors in it were twenty or thirty
men disguised as ghosts or spirits of the dead (_zera markai_). Their
bodies were blackened from the neck to the ankles, but the lower part of
their faces and their feet were dyed bright red, and a red triangle was
painted on the front of their bodies. They wore head-dresses of grass
with long projecting ribs of coco-nut leaves, and a long tail of grass
behind reaching down to the level of the knees. In their hands they held
long ribs of coco-nut leaf. They were preceded by a curious figure
called _pager_, a man covered from head to foot with dry grass and dead
banana leaves, who sidled along with an unsteady rolling gait in a
zigzag course, keeping his head bowed, his red-painted hands clasped in
front of his face, and his elbows sticking out from both sides of his
body. In spite of his erratic course and curious mode of progression he
drew away from the troop of ghosts behind him and came on towards the
spectators, jerking his head from side to side, his hands shaking, and
wailing as he went. Behind him marched the ghosts, with their hands
crossed behind their backs and their faces looking out to sea. When they
drew near to the orchestra, who were singing and drumming away, they
halted and formed in two lines facing the spectators. They now all
assumed the familiar attitude of a fencer on guard, one foot and arm
advanced, the other foot and arm drawn back, and lunged to right and
left as if they were stabbing something with the long ribs of the
coco-nut leaves which they held in their hands. This manoeuvre they
repeated several times, the orchestra playing all the time. Then they
retreated into the forest, but only to march out again, form in line,
stand on guard, and lunge again and again at the invisible foe. This
appears to have been the whole of the second act of the drama. No
explanation of it is given. We can only conjecture that the band of men,
who seem from their name (_zera markai_) to have represented the ghosts
or spirits of the dead, came to inform the living that the departed
brother or sister had joined the majority, and that any attempt to
rescue him or her would be vain. That perhaps was the meaning of the
solemn pantomime of the lines of actors standing on guard and lunging
again and again towards the spectators. But I must acknowledge that this
is a mere conjecture of my own.[300]
[Sidenote: Blood and hair offered to the dead.]
Be that as it may, when this act of the drama was over, the mourners
took up the body and with weeping and wailing laid it on a wooden
framework resting on four posts at a little distance from the house of
the deceased. Youths who had lately been initiated, and girls who had
attained to puberty, now had the lobes of their ears cut. The blood
streamed down over their faces and bodies and was allowed to drip on the
feet of the corpse as a mark of pity or sorrow.[301] The other relatives
cut their hair and left the shorn locks in a heap under the body. Blood
and hair were probably regarded as offerings made to the departed
kinsman or kinswoman. We saw that the Australian aborigines in like
manner cut themselves and allow the blood to drip on the corpse; and
they also offer their hair to the dead, cutting off parts of their
beards, singeing them, and throwing them on the corpse.[302] Having
placed the body on the stage and deposited their offerings of hair under
it, the relatives took some large yams, cut them in pieces, and laid the
pieces beside the body in order to serve as food for the ghost, who was
supposed to eat it at night.[303] This notion seems inconsistent with
the belief that the soul of the departed had already been carried off to
Boigu, the island of the dead; but consistency in such matters is as
little to be looked for among savages as among ourselves.
[Sidenote: Mummification of the corpse.]
When the body had remained a few days on the stage in the open air,
steps were taken to convert it into a mummy. For this purpose it was
laid in a small canoe manned by some young people of the same sex as the
deceased. They paddled it across the lagoon to the reef and there rubbed
off the skin, extracted the bowels from the abdomen and the brain from
the skull, and having sewed up the hole in the abdomen and thrown the
bowels into the sea, they brought the remains back to land and lashed
them to the wooden framework with string, while they fixed a small stick
to the lower jaw to keep it from drooping. The framework with its
ghastly burden was fastened vertically to two posts behind the house,
where it was concealed from public view by a screen of coco-nut leaves.
Holes were pricked with an arrow between the fingers and toes to allow
the juices of decomposition to escape, and a fire was kindled and kept
burning under the stage to dry up the body.[304]
[Sidenote: Garb of mourners. Cuttings for the dead.]
About ten days after the death a feast of bananas, yams, and germinating
coco-nuts was partaken of by the relations and friends, and portions
were distributed to the assembled company, who carried them home in
baskets. It was on this occasion that kinsfolk and friends assumed the
garb of mourners. Their faces and bodies were smeared with a mixture of
greyish earth and water: the ashes of a wood fire were strewn on their
heads; and fringes of sago leaves were fastened on their arms and legs.
A widow wore besides a special petticoat made of the inner bark of the
fig-tree; the ends of it were passed 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 shell. The persons so operated on were young adults of both
sexes 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 shell. 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 pronounced,
and at the sound the women, thrilled with excitement, leaped from the
ground, holding their hands aloft; then hurled themselves prone 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 muffled 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 assembled 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 assembled 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 space 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 cassowary 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-shell 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-shell nautilus adorned the head, and a crescent of
pearl-shell the breast. In the darkness of the old-fashioned 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-shell, 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.]