practices of the Torres Straits Islanders which I have described do not
amount to a worship of the dead, they contain the elements out of which
such a worship 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 gods
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 analogy 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 amusement 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 passage 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._]
LECTURE IX
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF BRITISH NEW GUINEA
[Sidenote: The two races of New Guinea, the Papuan and the Melanesian.]
In my last lecture I dealt with the islanders of Torres Straits, and
shewed that these savages firmly believe in the existence of the human
soul after death, and that if their beliefs and customs in this respect
do not always amount to an actual worship of the departed, they contain
at least the elements out of which such a worship might easily be
developed. To-day we pass from the small islands of Torres Straits to
the vast neighbouring island, almost continent, of New Guinea, the
greater part of which is inhabited by a race related by physical type
and language to the Torres Straits Islanders, and exhibiting
approximately the same level of social and intellectual culture. New
Guinea, roughly speaking, appears to be occupied by two different races,
to which the names of Papuan and Melanesian are now given; and it is to
the Papuan race, not to the Melanesian, that the Torres Straits
Islanders are akin. The Papuans, a tall, dark-skinned, frizzly-haired
race, inhabit apparently the greater part of New Guinea, including the
whole of the western and central portions of the island. The
Melanesians, a smaller, lighter-coloured, frizzly-haired race, inhabit
the long eastern peninsula, including the southern coast from about Cape
Possession eastward,[310] and tribes speaking a Melanesian language are
also settled about Finsch Harbour and Huon Gulf in German New
Guinea.[311] These Melanesians are most probably immigrants who have
settled in New Guinea from the north and east, where the great chain of
islands known as Melanesia stretches in an immense semicircle from New
Ireland on the north to New Caledonia on the south-east. The natives of
this chain of islands or series of archipelagoes are the true
Melanesians; their kinsmen in New Guinea have undergone admixture with
the Papuan aborigines, and accordingly should rather be called
Papuo-Melanesians than Melanesians simply. Their country appears to be
wholly comprised within the limits of British and German New Guinea; so
far as I am aware, the vast area of Dutch New Guinea is inhabited solely
by tribes of the Papuan race. In respect of material culture both races
stand approximately on the same level: they live in settled villages,
they practise agriculture, they engage in commerce, and they have a
fairly developed barbaric art. Thus they have made some progress in the
direction of civilisation; certainly they have far outstripped the
wandering savages of Australia, who subsist entirely on the products of
the chase and on the natural fruits of the earth.
[Sidenote: Scantiness of our information as to the natives of New
Guinea.]
But although the natives of New Guinea have now been under the rule of
European powers, Britain, Germany, and Holland, for many years, we
unfortunately possess little detailed information as to their mental and
social condition. It is true that the members of the Cambridge
Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits visited some parts of the
southern coasts of British New Guinea, and several years later, in 1904,
Dr. Seligmann was able to devote somewhat more time to the investigation
of the same region and has given us the results of his enquiries in a
valuable book. But the time at his disposal did not suffice for a
thorough investigation of this large region; and accordingly his
information, eked out though it is by that of Protestant and Catholic
missionaries, still leaves us in the dark as to much which we should
wish to know. Among the natives of British New Guinea our information is
especially defective in regard to the Papuans, who occupy the greater
part of the possession, including the whole of the western region; for
Dr. Seligmann's book, which is the most detailed and systematic work yet
published on the ethnology of British New Guinea, deals almost
exclusively with the Melanesian portion of the population. Accordingly I
shall begin what I have to say on this subject with the Melanesian or
rather Papuo-Melanesian tribes of south-eastern New Guinea.
[Sidenote: The Motu, their beliefs and customs concerning the dead.]
Amongst these people the best known are the Motu, a tribe of fishermen
and potters, who live in and about Port Moresby in the Central District
of British New Guinea. Their language conforms to the Melanesian type.
They are immigrants, but the country from which they came is
unknown.[312] In their opinion the spirits of the dead dwell in a happy
land where parted friends meet again and never suffer hunger. They fish,
hunt, and plant, and are just like living men, except that they have no
noses. When they first arrive in the mansions of the blest, they are
laid out to dry on a sort of gridiron over a slow fire in order to purge
away the grossness of the body and make them ethereal and light, as
spirits should be. Yet, oddly enough, though they have no noses they
cannot enter the realms of bliss unless their noses were pierced in
their lifetime. For these savages bore holes in their noses and insert
ornaments, or what they regard as such, in the holes. The operation is
performed on children about the age of six years; and if children die
before it has been performed on them, the parents will bore a hole in
the nose of the corpse in order that the spirit of the child may go to
the happy land. For if they omitted to do so, the poor ghost would have
to herd with other whole-nosed ghosts in a bad place called Tageani,
where there is little food to eat and no betelnuts to chew. The spirits
of the dead are very powerful and visit bad people with their
displeasure. Famine and scarcity of fish and game are attributed to the
anger of the spirits. But they hearken to prayer and appear to their
friends in dreams, sometimes condescending to give them directions for
their guidance in time of trouble.[313]
[Sidenote: The Koita or Koitapu.]
Side by side with the Motu live the Koita or Koitapu, who appear to be
the aboriginal inhabitants of the country and to belong to the Papuan
stock. Their villages lie scattered for a distance of about forty miles
along the coast, from a point about seven miles south-east of Port
Moresby to a point on Redscar Bay to the north-west of that settlement.
They live on friendly terms with the Motu and have intermarried with
them for generations. The villages of the two tribes are usually built
near to or even in direct continuity with each other. But while the Motu
are mainly fishers and potters, the Koita are mainly tillers of the
soil, though they have learned some arts or adopted some customs from
their neighbours. They say to the Motu, "Yours is the sea, the canoes,
the nets; ours the land and the wallaby. Give us fish for our flesh, and
pottery for our yams and bananas." The Motu look down upon the Koita,
but fear their power of sorcery, and apply to them for help in sickness
and for the weather they happen to require; for they imagine that the
Koita rule the elements and can make rain or sunshine, wind or calm by
their magic. Thus, as in so many cases, the members of the immigrant
race confess their inability to understand and manage the gods or
spirits of the land, and have recourse in time of need to the magic of
the aboriginal inhabitants. While the Koita belong to the Papuan stock
and speak a Papuan language, most of the men understand the Motu tongue,
which is one of the Melanesian family. Altogether these two tribes, the
Koita and the Motu, may be regarded as typical representatives of the
mixed race to which the name of Papuo-Melanesian is now given.[314]
[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Koita concerning the human soul.]
The Koita believe that the human spirit or ghost, which they call _sua_,
leaves the body at death and goes away to live with other ghosts on a
mountain called Idu. But they think that the spirit can quit the body
and return to it during life; it goes away, for example, in dreams, and
if a sleeper should unfortunately waken before his soul has had time to
return, he will probably fall sick. Sneezing is a sign that the soul has
returned to the body, and if a man does not sneeze for many weeks
together, his friends look on it as a grave symptom; his soul, they
imagine, must be a very long way off.[315] Moreover, a man's soul may be
enticed from his body and detained by a demon or _tabu_, as the Koita
call it. Thus, when a man who has been out in the forest returns home
and shakes with fever, it is assumed that he has fallen down and been
robbed of his soul by a demon. In order to recover that priceless
possession, the sufferer and his friends repair to the exact spot in the
forest where the supposed robbery was perpetrated. They take with them a
long bamboo with some valuable ornaments tied to it, and two men support
it horizontally over a pot which is filled with grass. A light is put to
the grass, and as it crackles and blazes a number of men standing round
the pot strike it with stones till it breaks, whereat they all groan.
Then the company returns to the village, and the sick man lies down in
his house with the bamboo and its ornaments hung over him. This is
supposed to be all that is needed to effect a perfect cure; for the
demon has kindly accepted the soul of the ornaments and released the
soul of the sufferer, who ought to recover accordingly.[316]
[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Koita concerning the state of the dead.
Alleged communications with the dead by means of mediums.]
However, at death the soul goes away for good and all; at least there
appears to be no idea that it will ever return to life in the form of an
infant, as the souls of the Central Australian aborigines are supposed
to do. All Koita ghosts live together on Mount Idu, and their life is
very like the one they led here on earth. There is no distinction
between the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked, the strong
and the weak, the young and the old; they all fare alike in the
spirit-land, with one exception. Like the Motu, the Koita are in the
habit of boring holes in their noses and inserting ornaments in the
holes; and they think that if any person were so unfortunate as to be
buried with his nose whole and entire, his ghost would have to go about
in the other world with a creature like a slow-worm depending from his
nostrils on either side. Hence, when anybody dies before the operation
of nose-boring has been performed on him or her, the friends take care
to bore a hole in the nose of the corpse in order that the ghost may not
appear disfigured among his fellows in dead man's land. There the ghosts
dwell in houses, cultivate gardens, marry wives, and amuse themselves
just as they did here on earth. They live a long time, but not for ever;
for they grow weaker and weaker and at last die the second death, never
to revive again, not even as ghosts. The exact length of time they live
in the spirit-land has not been accurately ascertained; but there seems
to be a notion that they survive only so long as their names and their
memories survive among the living. When these are utterly forgotten, the
poor ghosts cease to exist. If that is so, it is obvious that the dead
depend for their continued existence upon the recollection of the
living; their names are in a sense their souls, so that oblivion of the
name involves extinction of the soul.[317] But though the spirits of the
dead go away to live for a time on Mount Idu, they often return to their
native villages and haunt the place of their death. On these visits they
shew little benevolence or lovingkindness to their descendants. They
punish any neglect in the performance of the funeral rites and any
infringement of tribal customs, and the punishment takes the form of
sickness or of bad luck in hunting or fishing. This dread of the ghost
commonly leads the Koita to desert a house after a death and to let it
fall into decay; but sometimes the widow, or in rare cases a brother or
sister, will continue to inhabit the house of the deceased. Children who
play near dwellings which have been deserted on account of death may
fall sick; and if people who are not members of the family partake of
food which has been hung up in such houses, they also may sicken. It is
in dreams that the ghosts usually appear to the survivors; but
occasionally they may be seen or at least felt by people in the waking
state. Some years ago four Motuan girls persuaded many natives of Port
Moresby that they could evoke the spirit of a youth named Tamasi, who
had died three years before. The mother and other sorrowing relatives of
the deceased paid a high price to the principal medium, a young woman
named Mea, for an interview with the ghost. The meeting took place in a
house by night. The relations and friends squatted on the ground in
expectation; and sure enough the ghost presented himself in the darkness
and went round shaking hands most affably with the assembled company.
However, a sceptic who happened to assist at this spiritual sitting, had
the temerity to hold on tight to the proffered hand of the ghost, while
another infidel assisted him to obtain a sight as well as a touch of the
vanished hand by striking a light. It then turned out that the supposed
apparition was no spirit but the medium Mea herself. She was brought
before a magistrate, who sentenced her to a short term of imprisonment
and relieved her of the property which she had amassed by the exercise
of her spiritual talents.[318] It is hardly for us, or at least for some
of us, to cast stones at the efforts of ignorant savages to communicate
by means of such intermediaries with their departed friends. Similar
attempts have been made in our own country within our lifetime, and I
believe that they are still being made, in perfect good faith, by
educated ladies and gentlemen, who like their black brethren and sisters
in the faith are sometimes made the dupes of designing knaves. If New
Guinea has its Meas, Europe has its Eusapias. Human credulity and vulgar
imposture are much the same all the world over.
[Sidenote: Fear of the dead.]
The fear of the dead is strongly marked in some funeral customs which
are observed by the Roro-speaking tribes who occupy a territory at the
mouth of the St. Joseph river in British New Guinea.[319] When a death
takes place, the female relations of the deceased lacerate their skulls,
faces, breasts, bellies, arms, and legs with sharp shells, till they
stream with blood and fall down exhausted. Moreover, a fire is kindled
on the grave and kept up almost continually for months for the purpose,
we are told, of warming the ghost.[320] These attentions might be
interpreted as marks of affection rather than of fear; but in other
customs of these people the dread of the ghost is unmistakable. For when
the corpse has been placed in the grave a near kinsman strokes it twice
with a branch from head to foot in order to drive away the dead man's
spirit; and in Yule Island, when the ghost has thus been brushed away
from the body, he is pursued by two men brandishing sticks and torches
from the village to the edge of the forest, where with a last curse they
hurl the sticks and torches after him.[321]
[Sidenote: Ghost of dead wife feared by widower.]
Among these people the visits of ghosts, though frequent, are far from
welcome, for all ghosts are supposed to be mischievous and to take no
delight but in injuring the living. Hence, for example, a widower in
mourning goes about everywhere armed with an axe to defend himself
against the spirit of his dead wife, who might play him many an ill turn
if she caught him defenceless and off his guard. And he is subject to
many curious restrictions and has to lead the life of an outcast from
society, apparently because people fear to come into contact with a man
whose steps are dogged by so dangerous a spirit.[322] This account of
the terrors of ghosts we owe to a Catholic missionary. But according to
the information collected by Dr. Seligmann among these people the dread
inspired by the souls of the dead is not so absolute. He tells us,
indeed, that ghosts are thought to make people ill by stealing their
souls; that the natives fear to go alone outside the village in the dark
lest they should encounter a spectre; and that if too many quarrels
occur among the women, the spirits of the dead may manifest their
displeasure by visiting hunters and fishers with bad luck, so that it
may be necessary to conjure their souls out of the village. On the other
hand, it is said that if the ghosts abandoned a village altogether, the
luck of the villagers would be gone, and if such a thing is supposed to
have happened, measures are taken to bring back the spirits of the
departed to the old home.[323]
[Sidenote: Beliefs of the Mafulu concerning the dead.]
Inland from the Roro-speaking tribes, among the mountains at the head of
the St. Joseph River, there is a tribe known to their neighbours as the
Mafulu, though they call themselves Mambule. They speak a Papuan
language, but their physical characteristics are believed to indicate a
strain of Negrito blood.[324] The Mafulu hold that at death the human
spirit leaves the body and becomes a malevolent ghost. Accordingly they
drive it away with shouts. It is supposed to go away to the tops of the
mountains there to become, according to its age, either a shimmering
light on the ground or a large sort of fungus, which is found only on
the mountains. Hence natives who come across such a shimmering light or
such a fungus are careful not to tread on it; much less would they eat
the fungus. However, in spite of their transformation into these things,
the ghosts come down from the mountains and prowl about the villages and
gardens seeking what they may devour, and as their intentions are always
evil their visits are dreaded by the people, who fill up the crevices
and openings, except the doors, of their houses at night in order to
prevent the incursions of these unquiet spirits. When a mission station
was founded in their country, the Mafulu were amazed that the
missionaries should sleep alone in rooms with open doors and windows,
through which the ghosts might enter.[325]
[Sidenote: Burial customs of the Mafulu.]