DEATH AND BURIAL.
Whenever the eye was fixed in death the house became a scene of
indescribable lamentation and wailing. "Oh, my father, why did you not
let me die, and you live here still?" "Oh, my brother, why have you
run away and left your only brother to be trampled upon?" "Oh, my
child, had I known you were going to die! Of what use is it for me to
survive you; would that I had died for you!" These and other doleful
cries might have been heard two hundred yards from the house; and they
were accompanied by the most frantic expressions of grief, such as
rending garments, tearing the hair, thumping the face and eyes,
burning the body with small piercing firebrands, beating the head with
stones till the blood ran, and this they called an "offering of blood"
for the dead.
After an hour or so the more boisterous wailing subsided, and, as in
such a climate the corpse must be buried in a few hours, preparations
were made without delay. The body was laid out on a mat, oiled with
scented oil, and, to modify the cadaverous look, they tinged the oil
for the face with a little turmeric. The body was then wound up with
several folds of native cloth, the chin propped up with a little
bundle of the same material, and the face and head left uncovered,
while, for some hours longer, the body was surrounded by weeping
relatives. If the person had died of a complaint which carried off
some other members of the family, they would probably open the body to
"search for the disease." Any inflamed substance they happened to find
they took away and burned, thinking that this would prevent any other
members of the family being affected with the same disease. This was
done when the body was laid in the grave.
While a dead body was in the house no food was eaten under the same
roof; the family had their meals outside, or in another house. Those
who attended the deceased were most careful not to handle food, and
for days were fed by others as if they were helpless infants. Baldness
and the loss of teeth were supposed to be the punishment inflicted by
the household god if they violated the rule. Fasting was common at
such times, and they who did so ate nothing during the day, but had a
meal in the evening. The fifth day was a day of "purification." They
bathed the face and hands with hot water, and then they were "clean,"
and resumed the usual time and mode of eating.
The death of a chief of high rank was attended with great excitement
and display; all work was suspended in the settlement; no stranger
dared to pass through the place. For days they kept the body unburied,
until all the different parties connected with that particular clan
assembled from various parts of the islands, and until each party had,
in turn, paraded the body, shoulder high, through the village, singing
at the same time some mournful dirge. The body, too, was wrapped up in
the most valuable fine mat clothing which the deceased possessed.
_The burial_ generally took place the day after death. As many of the
friends as could be present in time attended. Every one brought a
present, and the day after the funeral these presents were all so
distributed again as that every one went away with something in return
for what he brought. The body was buried without a coffin, except in
the case of chiefs, when a log of wood was hollowed out for the
purpose. The body being put into this rude encasement, all was done up
again in some other folds of native cloth, and carried on the
shoulders of four or five men to the grave. The friends followed, but
in no particular order; and at the grave again there was often further
wailing and exclamations, such as, "Alas! I looked to you for
protection, but you have gone away; why did you die? would that I had
died for you!"
_The grave_ was called "the fast resting-place," and in the case of
chiefs, "the house thatched with the leaves of the sandal wood,"
alluding to the custom of planting some tree with pretty foliage near
the grave. There was no village burying-ground all preferred laying
their dead among the ashes of their ancestors on their own particular
ground. They carried the skulls of their dead from a land where they
had been residing during war back to the graves of their fathers as
soon as possible after peace was proclaimed. The grave was often dug
close by the house. They made it about four feet deep, and after
spreading it with mats, like a comfortable bed, there they placed the
body with the head to the rising of the sun, and the feet to the west.
With the body they deposited several things which may have been used
during the person's illness, such as his clothing, his drinking-cup,
and his bamboo pillow. The sticks used to answer the purpose of a
pick-axe in digging the grave were also carefully buried with the
body. Not that they thought these things of use to the dead; but it
was supposed that if they were left and handled by others further
disease and death would be the consequence. Other mats were spread
over the body, on these a layer of white sand from the beach, and then
they filled up the grave. The spot was marked by a little heap of
stones a foot or two high. The grave of a chief was neatly built up in
an oblong slanting form, about three feet high at the foot and four
at the head. White stones or shells were intermixed with the top
layer, and if it had been a noted warrior his grave might be
surrounded with spears, or his club laid loosely on the top.
_Embalming_ was known and practised with surprising skill in one
particular family of chiefs. Unlike the Egyptian method, as described
by Herodotus, it was performed in Samoa exclusively by women. The
viscera being removed and buried, they, day after day, anointed the
body with a mixture of oil and aromatic juices. To let the fluids
escape, they continued to puncture the body all over with fine
needles. In about two months the process of desiccation was completed.
The hair, which had been cut and laid aside at the commencement of the
operation, was now glued carefully on to the scalp by a resin from the
bush. The abdomen was filled up with folds of native cloth; the body
was wrapped up with the same material, and laid out on a mat, leaving
the hands, face, and head exposed. A house was built for the purpose,
and there the body was placed with a sheet of native cloth loosely
thrown over it. Now and then the face was oiled with a mixture of
scented oil and turmeric, and passing strangers were freely admitted
to see the remains of the departed. Until about twenty years ago there
were four bodies laid out in this way in a house belonging to the
family to which we refer, viz. a chief, his wife, and two sons. They
were laid on a platform raised on a double canoe. They must have been
embalmed upwards of thirty years, and although thus exposed, they were
in a remarkable state of preservation. They assigned no particular
reason for this embalming, further than that it was the expression of
their affection to keep the bodies of the departed still with them as
if they were alive. None were allowed to dress them but a particular
family of old ladies, who all died off; and, as there was a
superstitious fear on the part of some, and an unwillingness on the
part of others, to handle them, it was resolved at last to lay them
underground.
_Burnings for the dead._--On the evening after the burial of any
important chief his friends kindled a number of fires at distances of
some twenty feet from each other, near the grave; and there they sat
and kept them burning till morning light. This was continued sometimes
for ten days after the funeral; it was also done before burial. In the
house where the body lay, or out in front of it, fires were kept
burning all night by the immediate relatives of the departed. The
common people had a similar custom. After burial they kept a fire
blazing in the house all night, and had the space between the house
and the grave so cleared as that a stream of light went forth all
night from the fire to the grave. The account the Samoans give of it
is, that it was merely a light burning in honour of the departed, and
a mark of tender regard.
_The unburied_ occasioned great concern. No Roman was ever more
grieved at the thought of his unburied friend wandering a hundred
years along the banks of the Styx than were the Samoans while they
thought of the spirit of one who had been drowned, or of another who
had fallen in war, wandering about neglected and comfortless. They
supposed the spirit haunted them everywhere, night and day, and
imagined they heard it calling upon them in a most pitiful tone, and
saying, "Oh, how cold! oh, how cold!" Nor were the Samoans, like the
ancient Romans, satisfied with a mere "_tumulus inanis_" at which to
observe the usual solemnities; they thought it was possible to obtain
the soul of the departed in some tangible transmigrated form. On the
beach, near where a person had been drowned, and whose body was
supposed to have become a porpoise, or on the battlefield, where
another fell, might have been seen, sitting in silence, a group of
five or six, and one a few yards before them with a sheet of native
cloth spread out on the ground in front of him. Addressing some god of
the family he said, "Oh, be kind to us; let us obtain without
difficulty the spirit of the young man!" The first thing that happened
to light upon the sheet was supposed to be the spirit. If nothing came
it was supposed that the spirit had some ill-will to the person
praying. That person after a time retired, and another stepped
forward, addressed some other god, and waited the result. By-and-by
something came; grasshopper, butterfly, ant, or whatever else it
might be, it was carefully wrapped up, taken to the family, the
friends assembled, and the bundle buried with all due ceremony, as if
it contained the real spirit of the departed. The grave, however, was
not the hades of the Samoans, as we have already seen in Chapter III.
Prayers at the grave of a parent or brother or _chief_ were common.
Some, for example, would pray for health in sickness and might or
might not recover. A woman prayed for the death of her brother, he
died, but soon after she died also. A chief promised to give a woman
some fine mats, he deceived her, and off she went and prayed at the
grave of his predecessor in the title. The man took ill and died. She
confessed what she had done, but said she did not pray for death, but
only _pain_ to make him smart for his deceit. And so the custom was
carried on, but with fluctuating belief in its efficacy.