village, and pigs are killed at the funeral for the purpose of appeasing
the ghost. Mourners wear necklaces of string and smear their faces,
sometimes also their bodies, with black, which they renew from time to
time. Instead of wearing a necklace, a widow, widower, or other near
relative may abstain during the period of mourning from eating a
favourite food of the deceased. A woman who has lost a child, especially
a first-born or dearly loved child, will often amputate the first joint
of one of her fingers with an adze; and she may repeat the amputation if
she suffers another bereavement. A woman has been seen with three of her
fingers mutilated in this fashion.[326] The corpses of chiefs, their
wives, and other members of their families are not buried in graves but
laid in rude coffins, which are then deposited either on rough platforms
in the village or in the fork of a species of fig-tree. This sort of
tree, called by the natives _gabi_, is specially used for such burials;
one of them has been seen supporting no less than six coffins, one above
the other. The Mafulu never cut down these trees, and in seeking a new
site for a village they will often choose a place where one of them is
growing. So long as the corpse of a chief is rotting and stinking on the
platform or the tree, the village is deserted by the inhabitants; only
two men, relatives of the deceased, remain behind exposed to the stench
of the decaying body and the blood of the pigs which were slaughtered at
the funeral feast. When decomposition is complete, the people return to
the village. Should the coffin fall to the ground through the decay of
the platform or the tree on which it rests, the people throw away all
the bones except the skull and the larger bones of the arms and legs;
these they bury in a shallow grave under the platform, or put in a box
on a burial tree, or hang up in the chief's house.[327]
[Sidenote: Use made of the skulls and bones at a great festival.]
The skulls and leg and arm bones of chiefs, their wives, and other
members of their families, which have thus been preserved, play a
prominent part in the great feasts which the inhabitants of a Mafulu
village celebrate at intervals of perhaps fifteen or twenty years. Great
preparations are made for such a celebration. A series of tall posts,
one for each household, is erected in the open space which intervenes
between the two rows of the village houses. Yams and taro are fastened
to the upper parts of the posts; and below them are hung in circles the
skulls and arm and leg bones of dead chiefs, their wives, and kinsfolk,
which have been preserved in the manner described. Any skulls and bones
that remain over when all the posts have been thus decorated are placed
on a platform, which has either served for the ordinary exposure of a
chief's corpse or has been specially erected for the purpose of the
festival. At a given moment of the ceremony the chief of the clan cuts
down the props which support the platform, so that the skulls and bones
roll on the ground. These are picked up and afterwards distributed,
along with some of the skulls and bones from the posts, by the chief of
the clan to the more important of the invited guests, who wear them as
ornaments on their arms in a great dance. None but certain of the male
guests take part in the dance; the villagers themselves merely look on.
All the dancers are arrayed in full dancing costume, including heavy
head-dresses of feathers, and they carry drums and spears, sometimes
also clubs or adzes. The dance lasts the whole night. When it is over,
the skulls and bones are hung up again on the tall posts. Afterwards the
fruits and vegetables which have been collected in large quantities are
divided among the guests. On a subsequent morning a large number of pigs
are killed, and certain of the hosts take some of the human bones from
the posts and dip them in the blood which flows from the mouths of the
slaughtered pigs. With these blood-stained bones they next touch the
skulls and all the other bones on the posts, which include all the
skulls and arm and leg bones of all the chiefs and members of their
families and other prominent persons who have been buried in the village
or in any other village of the community since the last great feast was
held. These relics of mortality may afterwards be kept in the chief's
house, or hung on a tree, or simply thrown away in the forest; but in no
case are they ever again used for purposes of ceremony. The slaughtered
pigs are cut up and the portions distributed among the guests, who carry
them away for consumption in their own villages.[328]
[Sidenote: Trace of ancestor worship among the Mafulu.]
This preservation of the skulls and bones of chiefs and other notables
for years, and the dipping of them in the blood of pigs at a great
festival, must apparently be designed to propitiate or influence in some
way the ghosts of the persons to whom the skulls and bones belonged in
their lifetime. But Mr. R. W. Williamson, to whom we are indebted for
the description of this interesting ceremony, was not able to detect any
other clear indications of ancestor worship among the people.[329]
[Sidenote: Worship of the dead among the natives of the Aroma district.]
However, a real worship of the dead, or something approaching to it, is
reported to exist among some of the natives of the Aroma district in
British New Guinea. Each family is said to have a sacred place, whither
they carry offerings for the spirits of dead ancestors, whom they
terribly fear. Sickness in the family, death, famine, scarcity of fish,
and so forth, are all set down to the anger of these dreadful beings,
who must accordingly be propitiated. On certain occasions the help of
the spirits is especially invoked and their favour wooed by means of
offerings. Thus, when a house is being built and the central post has
been erected, sacrifices of wallaby, fish, and bananas are presented to
the souls of the dead, and a prayer is put up that they will be pleased
to keep the house always full of food and to prevent it from falling
down in stormy weather. Again, when the natives begin to plant their
gardens, they first take a bunch of bananas and sugar-cane and standing
in the middle of the garden call over the names of dead members of the
family, adding, "There is your food, your bananas and sugar-cane; let
our food grow well, and let it be plentiful. If it does not grow well
and plentifully, you all will be full of shame, and so shall we." Again,
before the people set out on a trading expedition, they present food to
the spirits at the central post of the house and pray them to go before
the traders and prepare the people, so that the trade may be good. Once
more, when there is sickness in the family, a pig is killed and its
carcase carried to the sacred place, where the spirits are asked to
accept it. Sins, also, are confessed, such as that people have gathered
bananas or coco-nuts without offering any of them to their dead
ancestors. In presenting the pig they say, "There is a pig; accept it,
and remove the sickness." But if prayers and sacrifices are vain, and
the patient dies, then, while the relatives all stand round the open
grave, the chief's sister or cousin calls out in a loud voice: "You have
been angry with us for the bananas or the coco-nuts which we have
gathered, and in your anger you have taken away this child. Now let it
suffice, and bury your anger." So saying they lower the body into the
grave and shovel in the earth on the top of it. The spirits of the
departed, on quitting their bodies, paddle in canoes across the lagoon
and go away to the mountains, where they live in perfect bliss, with no
work to do and no trouble to vex them, chewing betel, dancing all night
and resting all day.[330]
[Sidenote: The Hood Peninsula. The town of Kalo.]
Between the Aroma District in the south-east and Port Moresby on the
north-west is situated the Hood Peninsula in the Central District of
British New Guinea. It is inhabited by the Bulaa, Babaka, Kamali, and
Kalo tribes, which all speak dialects of one language.[331] The village
or town of Kalo, built at the base of the peninsula, close to the mouth
of the Vanigela or Kemp Welch River, is said to be the wealthiest
village in British New Guinea. It includes some magnificent native
houses, all built over the water on piles, some of which are thirty feet
high. The sight of these great houses perched on such lofty and massive
props is very impressive. In front of each house is a series of large
platforms like gigantic steps. Some of the posts and under-surfaces of
the houses are carved with figures of crocodiles and so forth. The
labour of cutting the huge planks for the flooring of the houses and the
platforms must be immense, and must have been still greater in the old
days, when the natives had only stone tools to work with. Many of the
planks are cut out of the slab-like buttresses of tall forest trees
which grow inland. So hard is the wood that the boards are handed down
as heirlooms from father to son, and the piles on which the houses are
built last for generations. The inhabitants of Kalo possess gardens,
where the rich alluvial soil produces a superabundance of coco-nuts,
bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, and taro. Areca palms also flourish and
produce the betel nuts, which are in great demand for chewing with
quick-lime and so constitute a source of wealth. Commanding the mouth of
the Vanigela River, the people of Kalo absorb the trade with the
interior; and their material prosperity is said to have rendered them
conceited and troublesome.[332]
[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the natives of
the Hood Peninsula. Seclusion of the widow or widower.]
The tribes inhabiting the Hood Peninsula are reported to have no belief
in any good spirit but an unlimited faith in bad spirits, amongst whom
they include the souls of their dead ancestors. At death the ghosts join
their forefathers in a subterranean region, where they have splendid
gardens, houses, and so forth. Yet not content with their life in the
underworld, they are always on the watch to deal out sickness and death
to their surviving friends and relations, who may have the misfortune to
incur their displeasure. So the natives are most careful to do nothing
that might offend these touchy and dangerous spirits. Like many other
savages, they do not believe that anybody dies a natural death; they
think that all the deaths which we should call natural are brought about
either by an ancestral ghost (_palagu_) or by a sorcerer or witch
(_wara_). Even when a man dies of snake-bite, they detect in the
discoloration of the body the wounds inflicted upon him by the fell art
of the magician.[333] On the approach of death the house of the sick man
is filled by anxious relatives and friends, who sit around watching for
the end. When it comes, there is a tremendous outburst of grief. The men
beat their faces with their clenched fists; the women tear their cheeks
with their nails till the blood streams down. They usually bury their
dead in graves, which among the inland tribes are commonly dug near the
houses of the deceased. The maritime tribes, who live in houses built on
piles over the water, sometimes inter the corpse in the forest. But at
other times they place it in a canoe, which they anchor off the village.
Then, when the body has dried up, they lay it on a platform in a tree.
Finally, they collect and clean the bones, tie them in a bundle, and
place them on the roof of the house. When the corpse is buried, a
temporary hut is erected over the grave, and in it the widow or widower
lives in seclusion for two or three months. During her seclusion the
widow employs herself in fashioning her widow's weeds, which consist of
a long grass petticoat reaching to the ankles. She wears a large
head-dress made of shells; her head is shaved, and her body blackened.
Further, she wears round her neck the waistband of her deceased husband
with his lower jaw-bone attached to it. The costume of a widower is
somewhat similar, though he does not wear a long grass petticoat.
Instead of it he has a graceful fringe, which hangs from his waist half
way to the knees. On his head he wears an elaborate head-dress made of
shells, and on his arms he has armlets of the same material. His hair is
cut off and his whole skin blackened. Round his neck is a string, from
which depends his dead wife's petticoat. It is sewn up into small bulk
and hangs under his right arm. While the widow or widower is living in
seclusion on the grave, he or she is supplied with food by relations. At
sundown on the day of the burial, a curious ceremony is performed. An
old woman or man, supposed to be gifted with second-sight, is sent for.
Seating herself at the foot of the grave she peers into the deepening
shadows under the coco-nut palms. At first she remains perfectly still,
while the relations of the deceased watch her with painful anxiety. Soon
her look becomes more piercing, and lowering her head, while she still
gazes into the depth of the forest, she says in low and solemn tones, "I
see coming hither So-and-So's grandfather" (mentioning the name of the
dead person). "He says he is glad to welcome his grandson to his abode.
I see now his father and his own little son also, who died in infancy."
Gradually, she grows more and more excited, waving her arms and swaying
her body from side to side. "Now they come," she cries, "I can see all
our forefathers in a fast-gathering crowd. They are coming closer and
yet closer. Make room, make room for the spirits of our departed
ancestors." By this time she has worked herself up into a frenzy. She
throws herself on the ground, beating her head with her clenched fists.
Foam flies from her lips, her eyes become fixed, and she rolls over
insensible. But the fit lasts only a short time. She soon comes to
herself; the vision is past, and the visionary is restored to common
life.[334]
[Sidenote: Application of the juices of the dead to the persons of the
living.]
Some of the inland tribes of this district have a peculiar way of
disposing of their dead. A double platform about ten feet high is
erected near the village. On the upper platform the corpse is placed,
and immediately below it the widow or widower sleeps on the lower
platform, allowing juices of the decaying body to stream down on her or
him. This application of the decomposing juices of a corpse to the
persons of the living is not uncommon among savages; it appears to be a
form of communion with the dead, the survivors thus in a manner
identifying themselves with their departed kinsfolk by absorbing a
portion of their bodily substance. Among the tribes in question a
widower marks his affection for his dead wife by never washing himself
during the period of mourning; he would not rid himself of those
products of decomposition which link him, however sadly, with her whom
he has lost. Every day, too, reeking with these relics of mortality, he
solemnly stalks through the village.[335]
[Sidenote: Precautions taken by man-slayers against the ghosts of their
victims.]
But there is a distinction between ghosts. If all of them are feared,
some are more dreadful than others, and amongst the latter may naturally
be reckoned the ghosts of slain enemies. Accordingly the slayer has to
observe special precautions to guard against the angry and vengeful
spirit of his victim. Amongst these people, we are told, a man who has
taken life is held to be impure until he has undergone certain
ceremonies. As soon as possible after the deed is done, he cleanses
himself and his weapon. Then he repairs to his village and seats himself
on the logs of sacrificial staging. No one approaches him or takes any
notice whatever of him. Meantime a house is made ready, in which he must
live by himself for several days, waited on only by two or three small
boys. He may eat nothing but toasted bananas, and only the central parts
of them; the ends are thrown away. On the third day a small feast is
prepared for him by his friends, who also provide him with some new
waistbands. Next day, arrayed in all his finery and wearing the badges
which mark him as a homicide, he sallies forth fully armed and parades
the village. Next day a hunt takes place, and from the game captured a
kangaroo is selected. It is cut open, and with its spleen and liver the
back of the homicide is rubbed. Then he walks solemnly down to the
nearest water and standing straddle-legs in it washes himself. All young
untried warriors then swim between his legs, which is supposed to impart
his courage and strength to them. Next day at early dawn he dashes out
of his house fully armed and calls aloud the name of his victim. Having
satisfied himself that he has thoroughly scared the ghost of the dead
man, he returns to his house. Further, floors are beaten and fires
kindled for the sake of driving away the ghost, lest he should still be
lingering in the neighbourhood. A day later the purification of the
homicide is complete and he is free to enter his wife's house, which he
might not do before.[336] This account of the purification of a homicide
suggests that the purificatory rites, which have been observed in
similar cases by many peoples, including the ancient Greeks, are
primarily intended to free the slayer from the dangerous ghost of his
victim, which haunts him and seeks to take his life. Such rites in fact
appear designed, not to restore the homicide to a state of moral
innocence, but merely to guard him against a physical danger; they are
protective, not reformatory, in character; they are exorcisms, not
purifications in the sense which we attach to the word. This
interpretation of the ceremonies observed by manslayers among many
peoples might be supported by a large array of evidence; but to go into
the matter fully would lead me into a long digression. I have collected
some of the evidence elsewhere.[337]
[Sidenote: Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the Massim of
south-eastern New Guinea. Hiyoyoa, the land of the dead. Mourners bathe
and shave their heads. Food deposited in the grave. Dietary restrictions
imposed on mourners.]
We now pass to that branch of the Papuo-Melanesian race which occupies
the extreme south-eastern part of British New Guinea, and to which Dr.
Seligmann gives the name of Massim. These people have been observed more
especially at three places, namely Bartle Bay, Wagawaga, and Tubetube, a
small island of the Engineer group lying off the south-eastern extremity
of New Guinea. Among them the old custom was to bury the dead on the
outskirts of the hamlet and sometimes within a few yards of the houses,
and apparently the remains were afterwards as a rule left undisturbed;
there was no general practice of exhuming the bones and depositing them
elsewhere.[338] At Wagawaga the name for the spirit or soul of a dead
person is _arugo_, which also signifies a man's shadow or reflection in
a glass or in water; and though animals and trees are not supposed to
have spirits, their reflections bear the same name _arugo_.[339] The
souls of the dead are believed to depart to the land of Hiyoyoa, which
is under the sea, near Maivara, at the head of Milne Bay. The land of
the dead, as usual, resembles in all respects the land of the living,
except that it is day there when it is night at Wagawaga, and the dead
speak of the upper world in the language of Milne Bay instead of in that
of Wagawaga. A certain being called Tumudurere receives the ghosts on
their arrival and directs them where to make their gardens. The souls of
living men and women can journey to the land of the dead and return to
earth; indeed this happens not unfrequently. There is a man at Wagawaga
who has often gone thither and come back; whenever he wishes to make the
journey, he has nothing to do but to smear himself with a magical stuff
and to fall asleep, after which he soon wakes up in Hiyoyoa. At first
the ghosts whom he met in the other world did not invite him to partake
of their food, because they knew that if he did so he could not return
to the land of the living; but apparently practice has rendered him
immune to the usually fatal effects of the food of the dead.[340] Though
Hiyoyoa, at the head of Milne Bay, lies to the west of Wagawaga, the
dead are buried in a squatting posture with their faces turned to the
east, in order that their souls may depart to the other world.[341]
Immediately after the funeral the relations who have taken part in the
burial go down to the sea and bathe, and so do the widow and children of
the deceased because they supported the dying husband and father in his
extremity. After bathing in the sea the widow and children shave their
heads.[342] Both the bathing and the shaving are doubtless forms of
ceremonial purification; in other words, they are designed to rid the
survivors of the taint of death, or perhaps more definitely to remove
the ghost from their persons, to which he may be supposed to cling like
a burr. At Bartle Bay the dead are buried on their sides with their
heads pointing in the direction from which the totem clan of the
deceased is said to have come originally; and various kinds of food, of
which the dead man had partaken in his last illness, are deposited,
along with some paltry personal ornaments, in the grave. Apparently the
food is intended to serve as provision for the ghost on his journey to
the other world. Curiously enough, the widow is forbidden to eat of the
same kinds of food of which her husband ate during his last illness, and
the prohibition is strictly observed until after the last of the funeral
feasts.[343] The motive of the prohibition is not obvious; perhaps it
may be a fear of attracting the ghost back to earth through the savoury
food which he loved in the body. At Wagawaga, after the relatives who
took part in the burial have bathed in the sea, they cut down several of
the coco-nut trees which belonged to the deceased, leaving both nuts and
trees to rot on the ground. During the first two or three weeks after
the funeral these same relatives may not eat boiled food, but only
roast; they may not drink water, but only the milk of young coco-nuts
made hot, and although they may eat yams they must abstain from bananas
and sugar-cane.[344] A man may not eat coco-nuts grown in his dead
father's hamlet, nor pigs and areca-nuts from it during the whole
remainder of his life.[345] The reasons for these dietary restrictions
are not mentioned, but no doubt the abstinences are based on a fear of
the ghost, or at all events on a dread of the contagion of death, to
which all who had a share in the burial are especially exposed.
[Sidenote: Funeral customs at Tubetube. The fire on the grave. The happy
land.]
At Tubetube, in like manner, immediately after a funeral a brother of
the deceased cuts down two or three of the dead man's coco-nut trees.
There, also, the children of the deceased may not eat any coco-nuts from
their father's trees nor even from any trees grown in his hamlet; nay,
they may not partake of any garden produce grown in the vicinity of the
hamlet; and similarly they must abstain from the pork of all pigs
fattened in their dead father's village. But these prohibitions do not
apply to the brothers, sisters, and other relatives of the departed. The
relations who have assisted at the burial remain at the grave for five
or six days, being fed by the brothers or other near kinsfolk of the
deceased. They may not quit the spot even at night, and if it rains they
huddle into a shelter built over the grave. During their vigil at the
tomb they may not drink water, but are allowed a little heated coco-nut
milk; they are supposed to eat only a little yam and other vegetable
food.[346] On the day when the body is buried a fire is kindled at the
grave and kept burning night and day until the feast of the dead has
been held. "The reason for having the fire is that the spirit may be
able to get warm when it rises from the grave. The natives regard the
spirit as being very cold, even as the body is when the life has
departed from it, and without this external warmth provided by the fire
it would be unable to undertake the journey to its final home. The feast
for the dead is celebrated when the flesh has decayed, and in some
places the skull is taken from the grave, washed and placed in the
house, being buried again when the feast is over. At Tubetube this
custom of taking the skull from the grave is not regularly followed, in
some instances it is, but the feast is always held, and on the night of
the day on which the feast takes place, the fire, which has been in some
cases kept burning for over a month, is allowed to burn out, as the
spirit, being now safe and happy in the spirit-land, has no further need
of it."[347] "In this spirit-land eternal youth prevails, there are no
old men nor old women, but all are in the full vigour of the prime of
life, or are attaining thereto, and having reached that stage never grow
older. Old men and old women, who die as such on Tubetube, renew their
youth in this happy place, where there are no more sickness, no evil
spirits, and no death. Marriage, and giving in marriage, continue; if a
man dies, his widow, though she may have married again, is at her death
re-united to her first husband in the spirit-land, and the second
husband when he arrives has to take one of the women already there who
may be without a mate, unless he marries again before his death, in
which case he would have to wait until his wife joins him. Children are
born, and on arriving at maturity do not grow older. Houses are built,
canoes are made but they are never launched, and gardens are planted and
yield abundantly. The spirits of their animals, dogs, pigs, etc., which
have died on Tubetube, precede and follow them to the spirit-land.
Fighting and stealing are unknown, and all are united in a common
brotherhood."[348]
[Sidenote: The names of the dead not mentioned.]