terrify the sorcerer, who was the cause of its death. But its threats
are idle; it can really do him very little harm. Yet it keeps its
ghostly eye on its surviving relatives to see that they do not stand on
a friendly footing with the wicked sorcerer. Strictly speaking the Tami
ought to avenge his death, but as a matter of fact they do not. The
truth of it is that the Tami do a very good business with the people on
the mainland, among whom the sorcerer is usually to be found; and the
amicable relations which are essential to the maintenance of commerce
would unquestionably suffer if a merchant were to indulge his resentment
so far as to take his customer's head instead of his sago and bananas.
These considerations reduce the Tami to a painful dilemma. If they
gratify the ghost they lose a customer; if they keep the customer they
must bitterly offend the ghost, who will punish them for their
disrespect to his memory. In this delicate position the Tami endeavour
to make the best of both worlds. On the one hand, by loudly professing
their wrath and indignation against the guilty sorcerer they endeavour
to appease the ghost; and on the other hand, by leaving the villain
unmolested they do nothing to alienate their customers.[472]
[Sidenote: Funeral and mourning customs of the Tami.]
But if they do not gratify the desire for vengeance of the blood-thirsty
ghost, they are at great pains to testify their respect for him in all
other ways. The whole village takes part in the mourning and lamentation
for a death. The women dance death dances, the men lend a hand in the
preparations for the burial. All festivities are stopped: the drums are
silent. As the people believe that when anybody has died, the ghosts of
his dead kinsfolk gather in the village and are joined by other ghosts,
they are careful not to leave the mourners alone, exposed to the too
pressing attentions of the spectral visitors; they keep the bereaved
family company, especially at night; indeed, if the weather be fine, the
whole population of the village will encamp round the temporary hut
which is built on the grave. This watch at the grave lasts about eight
days. The watchers are supported and comforted in the discharge of their
pious duty by a liberal allowance of food and drink. Nor are the wants
of the ghost himself forgotten. Many families offer him taro broth at
this time. The period of mourning lasts two or three years. During the
first year the observances prescribed by custom are strictly followed,
and the nearest relations must avoid publicity. After a year they are
allowed more freedom; for example, the widow may lay aside the heavy
net, which is her costume in full mourning, and may replace it by a
lighter one; moreover, she may quit the house. At the end of the long
period of mourning, dances are danced in honour of the deceased. They
begin in the evening and last all night till daybreak. The mourners on
these occasions smear their heads, necks, and breasts with black earth.
A great quantity of food, particularly of pigs and taro broth, has been
made ready; for the whole village, and perhaps a neighbouring village
also, has been invited to share in the festivity, which may last eight
or ten days, if the provisions suffice. The dances begin with a gravity
and solemnity appropriate to a memorial of the dead; but towards the
close the performers indulge in a lighter vein and act comic pieces,
which so tickle the fancy of the spectators, that many of them roll on
the ground with laughter. Finally, the temporary hut erected on the
grave is taken down and the materials burned. As the other ghosts of the
village are believed to be present in attendance on the one who is the
guest of honour, all the villagers bring offerings and throw them into
the fire. However, persons who are not related to the ghosts may snatch
the offerings from the flames and convert them to their own use.
Precious objects, such as boars' tusks and dogs' teeth, are not
committed to the fire but merely swung over it in a bag, while the name
of the person who offers the valuables in this economical fashion is
proclaimed aloud for the satisfaction of the ghost. With these dances,
pantomimes, and offerings the living have discharged the last duties of
respect and affection to the dead. Yet for a while his ghost is thought
to linger as a domestic or household spirit; but the time comes when he
is wholly forgotten.[473]
[Sidenote: Bones of the dead dug up and kept in the house for a time.]
Many families, however, not content with the observance of these
ordinary ceremonies, dig up the bodies of their dead when the flesh has
mouldered away, redden the bones with ochre, and keep them bundled up in
the house for two or three years, when these relics of mortality are
finally committed to the earth. The intention of thus preserving the
bones for years in the house is not mentioned, but no doubt it is to
maintain a closer intimacy with the departed spirit than seems possible
if his skeleton is left to rot in the grave. When he is at last laid in
the ground, the tomb is enclosed by a strong wooden fence and planted
with ornamental shrubs. Yet in the course of years, as the memory of the
deceased fades away, his grave is neglected, the fence decays, the
shrubs run wild; another generation, which knew him not, will build a
house on the spot, and if in digging the foundations they turn up his
bleached and mouldering bones, it is nothing to them: why should they
trouble themselves about the spirit of a man or woman whose very name is
forgotten?[474]
[Footnote 450: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 142 _sq._]
[Footnote 451: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 143.]
[Footnote 452: Ch. Keysser, _l.c._]
[Footnote 453: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 143 _sq._]
[Footnote 454: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 62 _sq._]
[Footnote 455: Ch. Keysser, pp. 64 _sqq._, 147 _sq._]
[Footnote 456: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 132.]
[Footnote 457: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 148.]
[Footnote 458: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 148 _sq._]
[Footnote 459: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 149.]
[Footnote 460: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 147.]
[Footnote 461: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 145.]
[Footnote 462: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ p. 145.]
[Footnote 463: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 145 _sq._]
[Footnote 464: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 149 _sq._]
[Footnote 465: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 112, 150 _sq._]
[Footnote 466: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 151-154. In this passage the
ghosts are spoken of simply as spirits (_Geister_); but the context
proves that the spirits in question are those of the dead.]
[Footnote 467: Ch. Keysser, _op. cit._ pp. 34-40.]
[Footnote 468: G. Bamler, "Tami," in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_,
iii. (Berlin, 1911) p. 489; compare _ib._ p. vii.]
[Footnote 469: H. Zahn, "Die Jabim," in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch
Neu-Guinea_, iii. 315 _sq._]
[Footnote 470: G. Bamler, _op. cit._ p. 518.]
[Footnote 471: G. Bamler, _l.c._]
[Footnote 472: G. Bamler, _op. cit._ pp. 518 _sq._]
[Footnote 473: G. Bamler, _op. cit._ pp. 519-522.]
[Footnote 474: G. Bamler, _op. cit._ p. 518.]
LECTURE XIV
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF GERMAN AND DUTCH NEW
GUINEA
[Sidenote: The Tami doctrine of souls and gods. The Tago spirits,
represented by masked men.]
At the close of the last lecture I dealt with the Tami, a people of
Melanesian stock who inhabit a group of islands off the mainland of New
Guinea. I explained their theory of the human soul. According to them,
every man has two distinct souls, a long one and a short one, both of
which survive his death, but depart in different directions, one of them
repairing to the lower world, and the other being last sighted off the
coast of New Britain. But the knowledge which these savages possess of
the spiritual world is not limited to the souls of men; they are
acquainted with several deities (_buwun_), who live in the otherwise
uninhabited island of Djan. They are beings of an amorous disposition,
and though their real shape is that of a fish's body with a human head,
they can take on the form of men in order to seduce women. They also
cause epidemics and earthquakes; yet the people shew them no respect,
for they believe them to be dull-witted as well as lecherous. At most,
if a fearful epidemic is raging, they will offer the gods a lean little
pig or a mangy cur; and should an earthquake last longer than usual they
will rap on the ground, saying, "Hullo, you down there! easy a little!
We men are still here." They also profess acquaintance with a god named
Anuto, who created the heaven and the earth together with the first man
and woman. He is a good being; nobody need be afraid of him. At
festivals and meat markets the Tami offer him the first portion in a
little basket, which a lad carries away into the wood and leaves there.
As usual, the deity consumes only the soul of the offering; the bearer
eats the material substance.[475] The Tami further believe in certain
spirits called Tago which are very old, having been created at the same
time as the village. Every family or clan possesses its own familiar
spirits of this class. They are represented by men who disguise their
bodies in dense masses of sago leaves and their faces in grotesque masks
with long hooked noses. In this costume the maskers jig it as well as
the heavy unwieldy disguise allows them to do. But the dance consists in
little more than running round and round in a circle, with an occasional
hop; the orchestra stands in the middle, singing and thumping drums.
Sometimes two or three of the masked men will make a round of the
village, pelting the men with pebbles or hard fruits, while the women
and children scurry out of their way. When they are not in use the masks
are hidden away in a hut in the forest, which women and children may not
approach. Their secret is sternly kept: any betrayal of it is punished
with death. The season for the exhibition of these masked dances recurs
only once in ten or twelve years, but it extends over a year or
thereabout. During the whole of the dancing-season, curiously enough,
coco-nuts are strictly tabooed; no person may eat them, so that the
unused nuts accumulate in thousands. As coco-nuts ordinarily form a
daily article of diet with the Tami, their prohibition for a year is
felt by the people as a privation. The meaning of the prohibition and
also of the masquerades remains obscure.[476]
[Sidenote: The superhuman beings with whom the Tami are chiefly
concerned are the souls of the dead. Offerings to the dead.]
But while the Tami believe in gods and spirits of various sorts, the
superhuman beings with whom they chiefly concern themselves are the
souls of the dead. On this subject Mr. Bamler writes: "All the spirits
whom we have thus far described are of little importance in the life and
thought of the Tami; they are remembered only on special occasions. The
spirits who fill the thoughts and attract the attention of the Tami are
the _kani_, that is, the souls of the departed. The Tami therefore
practise the worship of ancestors. Yet the memory of ancestors does not
reach far back; people occupy themselves only with the souls of those
relatives whom they have personally known. Hence the worship seldom
extends beyond the grandfather, even when a knowledge of more remote
progenitors survives. An offering to the ancestors takes the form of a
little dish of boiled taro, a cigar, betel-nuts, and the like; but the
spirits partake only of the image or soul of the things offered, while
the material substance falls to the share of mankind. There is no fixed
rule as to the manner or time of the offering. It is left to the caprice
or childlike affection of the individual to decide how he will make it.
With most natives it is a simple matter of business, the throwing of a
sprat to catch a salmon; the man brings his offering only when he needs
the help of the spirits. There is very little ceremony about it. The
offerer will say, for example, 'There, I lay a cigar for you; smoke it
and hereafter drive fish towards me'; or, 'Accompany me on the journey,
and see to it that I do good business.' The place where the food is
presented is the shelf for pots and dishes under the roof. Thus they
imagine that the spirits exert a tolerably far-reaching influence over
all created things, and it is their notion that the spirits take
possession of the objects. In like manner the spirits can injure a man
by thwarting his plans, for example, by frightening away the fish,
blighting the fruits of the fields, and so forth. If the native is
forced to conclude that the spirits are against him, he has no
hesitation about deceiving them in the grossest manner. Should the
requisite sacrifices be inconvenient to him, he flatly refuses them, or
gives the shabbiest things he can find. In all this the native displays
the same craft and cunning which he is apt to practise in his dealings
with the whites. He fears the power which the spirit has over him, yet
he tries whether he cannot outwit the spirit like an arrant
block-head."[477]
[Sidenote: Crude motives for sacrifice.]
This account of the crude but quite intelligible motives which lead
these savages to sacrifice to the spirits of their dead may be commended
to the attention of writers on the history of religion who read into
primitive sacrifice certain subtle and complex ideas which it never
entered into the mind of primitive man to conceive and which, even if
they were explained to him, he would in all probability be totally
unable to understand.
[Sidenote: Lamboam, the land of the dead.]
According to the Tami, the souls of the dead live in the nether world.
The spirit-land is called Lamboam; the entrance to it is by a cleft in a
rock. The natives of the mainland also call Hades by the name of
Lamboam; but whereas according to them every village has its own little
Lamboam, the Tami hold that there is only one big Lamboam for everybody,
though it is subdivided into many mansions, of which every village has
one to itself. In Lamboam everything is fairer and more perfect than on
earth. The fruits are so plentiful that the blessed spirits can, if they
choose, give themselves up to the delights of idleness; the villages are
full of ornamental plants. Yet on the other hand we are informed that
life beneath the ground is very like life above it: people work and
marry, they squabble and wrangle, they fall sick and even die, just as
people do on earth. Souls which die the second death in Lamboam are
changed into vermin, such as ants and worms; however, others say that
they turn into wood-spirits, who do men a mischief in the fields. It is
not so easy as is commonly supposed to effect an entrance into the
spirit-land. You must pass a river, and even when you have crossed it
you will be very likely to suffer from the practical jokes which the
merry old ghosts play on a raw newcomer. A very favourite trick of
theirs is to send him up a pandanus tree to look for fruit. If he is
simple enough to comply, they catch him by the legs as he is swarming up
the trunk and drag him down, so that his whole body is fearfully
scratched, if not quite ripped up, by the rough bark. That is why people
put valuable things with the dead in the grave, in order that their
ghosts on arrival in Lamboam may have the wherewithal to purchase the
good graces of the facetious old stagers.[478]
[Sidenote: Return of the ghosts to earth, sometimes in the form of
serpents.]
However, even when the ghosts have succeeded in effecting a lodgment in
Lamboam, they are not strictly confined to it. They can break bounds at
any moment and return to the upper air. This they do particularly when
any of their surviving relations is at the point of death. Ghosts of
deceased kinsfolk and of others gather round the parting soul and attend
it to the far country. Yet sometimes, apparently, the soul sets out
alone, for the anxious relatives will call out to it, "Miss not the
way." But ghosts visit their surviving friends at other times than at
the moment of death. For example, some families possess the power of
calling up spirits in the form of serpents from the vasty deep. The
spirits whom they evoke are usually those of persons who have died quite
lately; for such ghosts cannot return to earth except in the guise of
serpents. In this novel shape they naturally feel shy and hide under a
mat. They come out only in the dusk of the evening or the darkness of
night and sit on the shelf for pots and dishes under the roof. They have
lost the faculty of speech and can express themselves only in whistles.
These whistles the seer, who is generally a woman, understands perfectly
and interprets to his or her less gifted fellows. In this way a
considerable body of information, more or less accurate in detail, is
collected as to life in the other world. More than that, it is even
possible for men, and especially for women, to go down alive into the
nether world and prosecute their enquiries at first hand among the
ghosts. Women who possess this remarkable faculty transmit it to their
daughters, so that the profession is hereditary. When anybody wishes to
ascertain how it fares with one of his dead kinsfolk in Lamboam, he has
nothing to do but to engage the services of one of these professional
mediums, giving her something which belonged to his departed friend. The
medium rubs her forehead with ginger, muttering an incantation, lies
down on the dead man's property, and falls asleep. Her soul then goes
down in a dream to deadland and elicits from the ghosts the required
information, which on waking from sleep she imparts to the anxious
enquirer.[479]
[Sidenote: Sickness caused by a spirit.]
Sickness accompanied by fainting fits is ascribed to the action of a
spirit, it may be the ghost of a near relation, who has carried off the
"long soul" of the sufferer. The truant soul is recalled by a blast
blown on a triton-shell, in which some chewed ginger or _massoi_ bark
has been inserted. The booming sound attracts the attention of the
vagrant spirit, while the smell of the bark or of the ginger drives away
the ghost.[480]
[Sidenote: Tami lads supposed to be swallowed by a monster at
circumcision; the monster and the bull-roarer are both called _kani_.]
The name which the Tami give to the spirits of the dead is _kani_; but
like other tribes in this part of New Guinea they apply the same term to
the bull-roarer and also to the mythical monster who is supposed to
swallow the lads at circumcision. The identity of the name for the three
things seems to prove that in the mind of the Tami the initiatory rites,
of which circumcision is the principal feature, are closely associated
with their conception of the state of the human soul after death, though
what the precise nature of the association may be still remains obscure.
Like their neighbours on the mainland of New Guinea, the Tami give out
that the novices at initiation are swallowed by a monster or dragon, who
only consents to disgorge his prey in consideration of a tribute of
pigs, the rate of the tribute being one novice one pig. In the act of
disgorging the lad the dragon bites him, and the bite is visible to all
in the cut called circumcision. The voice of the monster is heard in the
hum of the bull-roarers, which are swung at the ceremony in such numbers
and with such force that in still weather the booming sound may be heard
across the sea for many miles. To impress women and children with an
idea of the superhuman strength of the dragon deep grooves are cut in
the trunks of trees and afterwards exhibited to the uninitiated as the
marks made by the monster in tugging at the ropes which bound him to the
trees. However, the whole thing is an open secret to the married women,
though they keep their knowledge to themselves, fearing to incur the
penalty of death which is denounced upon all who betray the mystery.
[Sidenote: The rite of circumcision. Seclusion and return of the newly
circumcised lads.]
The initiatory rites are now celebrated only at intervals of many years.
When the time is come for the ceremony, women are banished from the
village and special quarters prepared for them elsewhere; for they are
strictly forbidden to set foot in the village while the monster or
spirit who swallows the lads has his abode in it. A special hut is then
built for the accommodation of the novices during the many months which
they spend in seclusion before and after the operation of circumcision.
The hut represents the monster; it consists of a framework of thin poles
covered with palm-leaf mats and tapering down at one end. Looked at from
a distance it resembles a whale. The backbone is composed of a betel-nut
palm, which has been grubbed up with its roots. The root with its fibres
represents the monster's head and hair, and under it are painted a pair
of eyes and a great mouth in red, white, and black. The passage of the
novices into the monster's belly is represented by causing them to
defile past a row of men who hold bull-roarers aloft over the heads of
the candidates. Before this march past takes place, each of the
candidates is struck by the chief with a bull-roarer on his chin and
brow. The operation of circumcising the lads is afterwards performed
behind a screen set up near the monster-shaped house. It is followed by
a great feast on swine's flesh. After their wounds are healed the
circumcised lads have still to remain in seclusion for three or four
months. Finally, they are brought back to the village with great pomp.
For this solemn ceremony their faces, necks, and breasts are whitened
with a thick layer of chalk, while red stripes, painted round their
mouths and eyes and prolonged to the ears, add to the grotesqueness of
their appearance. Their eyes are closed with a plaster of chalk, and
thus curiously arrayed and blindfolded they are led back to the village
square, where leave is formally given them to open their eyes. At the
entrance to the village they are received by the women, who weep for joy
and strew boiled field-fruits on the way. Next morning the newly
initiated lads wash off the crust of chalk, and have their hair, faces,
necks, and breasts painted bright red. This ends their time of
seclusion, which has lasted five or six months; they now rank as
full-grown men.[481]
[Sidenote: Simulation of death and resurrection.]
In these initiatory rites, as in the similar rites of the neighbouring
tribes on the mainland of New Guinea, we may perhaps detect a simulation
of death and of resurrection to a new and higher life. But why
circumcision should form the central feature of such a drama is a
question to which as yet no certain or even very probable answer can be
given. The bodily mutilations of various sorts, which in many savage
tribes mark the transition from boyhood to manhood, remain one of the
obscurest features in the life of uncultured races. That they are in
most cases connected with the great change which takes place in the
sexes at puberty seems fairly certain; but we are far from understanding
the ideas which primitive man has formed on this mysterious subject.
[Sidenote: The natives of Dutch New Guinea.]
That ends what I have to say as to the notions of death and a life
hereafter which are entertained by the natives of German New Guinea. We
now turn to the natives of Dutch New Guinea, who occupy roughly speaking
the western half of the great island. Our information as to their
customs and beliefs on this subject is much scantier, and accordingly my
account of them will be much briefer.
[Sidenote: Geelvink Bay and Doreh Bay. The Noofoor or Noomfor people.
Their material culture and arts of life.]