(M154) To the view that in early times, and among barbarous races, kings
have frequently been put to death at the end of a short reign, it may be
objected that such a custom would tend to the extinction of the royal
family. The objection may be met by observing, first, that the kingship is
often not confined to one family, but may be shared in turn by
several;(527) second, that the office is frequently not hereditary, but is
open to men of any family, even to foreigners, who may fulfil the
requisite conditions, such as marrying a princess or vanquishing the king
in battle;(528) and, third, that even if the custom did tend to the
extinction of a dynasty, that is not a consideration which would prevent
its observance among people less provident of the future and less heedful
of human life than ourselves. Many races, like many individuals have
indulged in practices which must in the end destroy them. Not to mention
such customs as collective suicide and the prohibition of marriage,(529)
both of which may be set down to religious mania, we have seen that the
Polynesians killed two-thirds of their children.(530) In some parts of
East Africa the proportion of infants massacred at birth is said to be the
same. Only children born in certain presentations are allowed to
live.(531) The Jagas, a conquering tribe in Angola, are reported to have
put to death all their children, without exception, in order that the
women might not be cumbered with babies on the march. They recruited their
numbers by adopting boys and girls of thirteen or fourteen years of age,
whose parents they had killed and eaten.(532) Among the Mbaya Indians of
South America the women used to murder all their children except the last,
or the one they believed to be the last. If one of them had another child
afterwards, she killed it.(533) We need not wonder that this practice
entirely destroyed a branch of the Mbaya nation, who had been for many
years the most formidable enemies of the Spaniards.(534) Among the Lengua
Indians of the Gran Chaco the missionaries discovered what they describe
as “a carefully planned system of racial suicide, by the practice of
infanticide by abortion, and other methods.”(535) Nor is infanticide the
only mode in which a savage tribe commits suicide. A lavish use of the
poison ordeal may be equally effective. Some time ago a small tribe named
Uwet came down from the hill country, and settled on the left branch of
the Calabar river in West Africa. When the missionaries first visited the
place, they found the population considerable, distributed into three
villages. Since then the constant use of the poison ordeal has almost
extinguished the tribe. On one occasion the whole population took poison
to prove their innocence. About half perished on the spot, and the
remnant, we are told, still continuing their superstitious practice, must
soon become extinct.(536) With such examples before us we need not
hesitate to believe that many tribes have felt no scruple or delicacy in
observing a custom which tends to wipe out a single family. To attribute
such scruples to them is to commit the common, the perpetually repeated
mistake of judging the savage by the standard of European civilisation. If
any of my readers set out with the notion that all races of men think and
act much in the same way as educated Englishmen, the evidence of
superstitious belief and custom collected in the volumes of this work
should suffice to disabuse him of so erroneous a prepossession.
(M155) The explanation here given of the custom of killing divine persons
assumes, or at least is readily combined with, the idea that the soul of
the slain divinity is transmitted to his successor. Of this transmission I
have no direct proof except in the case of the Shilluk, among whom the
practice of killing the divine king prevails in a typical form, and with
whom it is a fundamental article of faith that the soul of the divine
founder of the dynasty is immanent in every one of his slain
successors.(537) But if this is the only actual example of such a belief
which I can adduce, analogy seems to render it probable that a similar
succession to the soul of the slain god has been supposed to take place in
other instances, though direct evidence of it is wanting. For it has been
already shewn that the soul of the incarnate deity is often supposed to
transmigrate at death into another incarnation;(538) and if this takes
place when the death is a natural one, there seems no reason why it should
not take place when the death has been brought about by violence.
Certainly the idea that the soul of a dying person may be transmitted to
his successor is perfectly familiar to primitive peoples. In Nias the
eldest son usually succeeds his father in the chieftainship. But if from
any bodily or mental defect the eldest son is disqualified for ruling, the
father determines in his lifetime which of his sons shall succeed him. In
order, however, to establish his right of succession, it is necessary that
the son upon whom his father’s choice falls shall catch in his mouth or in
a bag the last breath, and with it the soul, of the dying chief. For
whoever catches his last breath is chief equally with the appointed
successor. Hence the other brothers, and sometimes also strangers, crowd
round the dying man to catch his soul as it passes. The houses in Nias are
raised above the ground on posts, and it has happened that when the dying
man lay with his face on the floor, one of the candidates has bored a hole
in the floor and sucked in the chief’s last breath through a bamboo tube.
When the chief has no son, his soul is caught in a bag, which is fastened
to an image made to represent the deceased; the soul is then believed to
pass into the image.(539)
(M156) Amongst the Takilis or Carrier Indians of North-West America, when
a corpse was burned the priest pretended to catch the soul of the deceased
in his hands, which he closed with many gesticulations. He then
communicated the captured soul to the dead man’s successor by throwing his
hands towards and blowing upon him. The person to whom the soul was thus
communicated took the name and rank of the deceased. On the death of a
chief the priest thus filled a responsible and influential position, for
he might transmit the soul to whom he would, though doubtless he generally
followed the regular line of succession.(540) In Guatemala, when a great
man lay at the point of death, they put a precious stone between his lips
to receive the parting soul, and this was afterwards kept as a memorial by
his nearest kinsman or most intimate friend.(541) Algonquin women who
wished to become mothers flocked to the side of a dying person in the hope
of receiving and being impregnated by the passing soul. Amongst the
Seminoles of Florida when a woman died in childbed the infant was held
over her face to receive her parting spirit.(542) When infants died within
a month or two of birth, the Huron Indians did not lay them in bark
coffins on poles, as they did with other corpses, but buried them beside
the paths, in order that they might secretly enter into the wombs of
passing women and be born again.(543) The Tonquinese cover the face of a
dying person with a handkerchief, and at the moment when he breathes his
last, they fold up the handkerchief carefully, thinking that they have
caught the soul in it.(544) The Romans caught the breath of dying friends
in their mouths, and so received into themselves the soul of the
departed.(545) The same custom is said to be still practised in
Lancashire.(546)
(M157) On the seventh day after the death of a king of Gingiro the
sorcerers bring to his successor, wrapt in a piece of silk, a worm which
they say comes from the nose of the dead king; and they make the new king
kill the worm by squeezing its head between his teeth.(547) The ceremony
seems to be intended to convey the spirit of the deceased monarch to his
successor. The Danakil or Afars of eastern Africa believe that the soul of
a magician will be born again in the first male descendant of the man who
was most active in attending on the dying magician in his last hours.
Hence when a magician is ill he receives many attentions.(548) In Uganda
the spirit of the king who had been the last to die manifested itself from
time to time in the person of a priest, who was prepared for the discharge
of this exalted function by a peculiar ceremony. When the body of the king
had been embalmed and had lain for five months in the tomb, which was a
house built specially for it, the head was severed from the body and laid
in an ant-hill. Having been stript of flesh by the insects, the skull was
washed in a particular river (the Ndyabuworu) and filled with native beer.
One of the late king’s priests then drank the beer out of the skull and
thus became himself a vessel meet to receive the spirit of the deceased
monarch. The skull was afterwards replaced in the tomb, but the lower jaw
was separated from it and deposited in a jar; and this jar, being swathed
in bark-cloth and decorated with beads so as to look like a man,
henceforth represented the late king. A house was built for its reception
in the shape of a beehive and divided into two rooms, an inner and an
outer. Any person might enter the outer room, but in the inner room the
spirit of the dead king was supposed to dwell. In front of the partition
was set a throne covered with lion and leopard skins, and fenced off from
the rest of the chamber by a rail of spears, shields, and knives, most of
them made of copper and brass, and beautifully worked. When the priest,
who had fitted himself to receive the king’s spirit, desired to converse
with the people in the king’s name, he went to the throne and addressing
the spirit in the inner room informed him of the business in hand. Then he
smoked one or two pipes of tobacco, and in a few minutes began to rave,
which was a sign that the spirit had entered into him. In this condition
he spoke with the voice and made known the wishes of the late king. When
he had done so, the spirit left him and returned into the inner room, and
he himself departed a mere man as before.(549) Every year at the new moon
of September the king of Sofala in eastern Africa used to perform
obsequies for the kings, his predecessors, on the top of a high mountain,
where they were buried. In the course of the lamentations for the dead,
the soul of the king who had died last used to enter into a man who
imitated the deceased monarch, both in voice and gesture. The living king
conversed with this man as with his dead father, consulting him in regard
to the affairs of the kingdom and receiving his oracular replies.(550)
These examples shew that provision is often made for the ghostly
succession of kings and chiefs. In the Hausa kingdom of Daura, in Northern
Nigeria, where the kings used regularly to be put to death on the first
symptoms of failing health, the new king had to step over the corpse of
his predecessor and to be bathed in the blood of a black ox, the skin of
which then served as a shroud for the body of the late king.(551) The
ceremony may well have been intended to convey the spirit of the dead king
to his successor. Certainly we know that many primitive peoples attribute
a magical virtue to the act of stepping over a person.(552)
(M158) Sometimes it would appear that the spiritual link between a king
and the souls of his predecessors is formed by the possession of some part
of their persons. In southern Celebes, as we have seen, the regalia often
consist of corporeal portions of deceased rajahs, which are treasured as
sacred relics and confer the right to the throne.(553) Similarly among the
Sakalavas of southern Madagascar a vertebra of the neck, a nail, and a
lock of hair of a deceased king are placed in a crocodile’s tooth and
carefully kept along with the similar relics of his predecessors in a
house set apart for the purpose. The possession of these relics
constitutes the right to the throne. A legitimate heir who should be
deprived of them would lose all his authority over the people, and on the
contrary a usurper who should make himself master of the relics would be
acknowledged king without dispute. It has sometimes happened that a
relation of the reigning monarch has stolen the crocodile teeth with their
precious contents, and then had himself proclaimed king. Accordingly, when
the Hovas invaded the country, knowing the superstition of the natives,
they paid less attention to the living king than to the relics of the
dead, which they publicly exhibited under a strong guard on pretext of
paying them the honours that were their due.(554) In antiquity, when a
king of the Panebian Libyans died, his people buried the body but cut off
the head, and having covered it with gold they dedicated it in a
sanctuary.(555) Among the Masai of East Africa, when an important chief
has been dead and buried for a year, his eldest son or other successor
removes the skull of the deceased, while he at the same time offers a
sacrifice and a libation with goat’s blood, milk, and honey. He then
carefully secrets the skull, the possession of which is understood to
confirm him in power and to impart to him some of the wisdom of his
predecessor.(556) When the Alake or king of Abeokuta in West Africa dies,
the principal men decapitate his body, and placing the head in a large
earthen vessel deliver it to the new sovereign; it becomes his fetish and
he is bound to pay it honours.(557) Similarly, when the Jaga or King of
Cassange, in Angola, has departed this life, an official extracts a tooth
from the deceased monarch and presents it to his successor, who deposits
it along with the teeth of former kings in a box, which is the sole
property of the crown and without which no Jaga can legitimately exercise
the regal power.(558) Sometimes, in order apparently that the new
sovereign may inherit more surely the magical and other virtues of the
royal line, he is required to eat a piece of his dead predecessor. Thus at
Abeokuta not only was the head of the late king presented to his
successor, but the tongue was cut out and given him to eat. Hence, when
the natives wish to signify that the sovereign reigns, they say, “He has
eaten the king.”(559) A custom of the same sort is still practised at
Ibadan, a large town in the interior of Lagos, West Africa. When the king
dies his head is cut off and sent to his nominal suzerain, the Alafin of
Oyo, the paramount king of Yoruba land; but his heart is eaten by his
successor. This ceremony was performed a few years ago at the accession of
a new king of Ibadan.(560)
(M159) Taking the whole of the preceding evidence into account, we may
fairly suppose that when the divine king or priest is put to death his
spirit is believed to pass into his successor. In point of fact we have
seen that among the Shilluk of the White Nile, who regularly kill their
divine kings, every king on his accession has to perform a ceremony which
appears designed to convey to him the same sacred and worshipful spirit
which animated all his predecessors, one after the other, on the
throne.(561)