“When any person died they preserved the body in this manner; first, they
carried it to a cave and stretched it on a flat stone, opened it and took
out the bowels; then twice a day they washed the porous parts of the body
with salt and water; afterwards they anointed it with a composition of
sheep’s butter mixed with a powder made from the dust of decayed pine
trees, and a sort of brushwood called “Bressos,” together with powdered
pumice stone, and then dried it in the sun for fifteen days....
“When the body was thoroughly dried, and had become very light, it was
wrapped in sheep skins or goat skins, girded tight with long leather
thongs, and carried to one of the sepulchral grottoes, usually situated
in the most inaccessible parts of the island.
“The bodies were either upright against the sides of the cavern, or side
by side upon a kind of scaffolding made of branches of juniper, mocan,
or other incorruptible wood.
“The knives for opening the body were made of sharp pieces of obsidian.
“In the grotto of Tacoronté was the mummy of an old woman dried in the
sitting posture like that of the Peruvian corpses.”
The mummies were wrapped in reddish goat skin, just as the shroud of
Egyptian mummies was often of red linen.
From the same article, in which, as the above quotation states, the body
was placed upon a stone for the purpose of the embalmer’s operations, I
should like to call attention to the following statement of a curious
custom which is found in the most diverse parts of the world, in most
cases in association with the practice of mummification.
Tradition says that at his installation the new Mencey (or chief of
a principality) is required to seat himself on a stone, cut in the
form of a chair and covered with skins: one of his nearest relatives
presents him with a sacred relic—the bone of the right arm of the chief
of the reigning family (p. 107). I have already (_supra_) indicated the
significance of this characteristic feature of the “heliolithic” culture.
Reutter (=63=) gives some additional information in reference to Guanche
embalming. The incision was made in the lower part of the abdomen (in the
flank). After the body had been treated with a saturated salt solution,
the viscera were returned to the body. The orifices of the nose, mouth
and eyes were “stopped with bitumen as was the Egyptian practice.” After
packing the cavities of the body with aromatic plants the body was
exposed either to the sun, or in a stove, to desiccate it.
During this operation, other embalmers repeatedly smeared the body with
a kind of ointment, prepared by mixing certain fats, with powdered
odoriferous plants, resin, pumice stone and absorbent substances (p. 139).
As in Egypt, according to Herodotus and Diodorus,—and my own observations
have verified their account, at any rate so far as its chief feature is
concerned—there was another method of embalming in which no abdominal
incision was made, unless it was per rectum.
When this cheaper method was employed the corpse was dried in the sun
and some corrosive liquid, called “cedria” in the case of the Egyptians,
but in that of the Guanches supposed by Dr. Parcelly to be Euphorbia
juice, was injected for the purpose of dissolving the intestines and thus
facilitating the process of preservation by removing the chief seat of
decomposition.
[It is important to recall the fact, to which I have already referred in
this account, that in the islands of the Torres Straits also the same two
alternative methods of evisceration, either through a flank incision or
per rectum were in use.]
Most mummies, wrapped in goat skins, were buried in caves. But those of
kings and princes were placed in coffins cut out of a solid log, and
buried (head north) in the open, a monument of pyramidal form being
erected above them.
It is important to bear in mind that both in East and West Africa and
in the Canary Islands the technical procedures in the practice of
mummification are those which were not adopted in Egypt until the time
of the XXIst Dynasty. I have already called attention to this fact in
my references to the Torres Straits mummies (_vide supra_), and to the
inference that these extensive migrations of Egyptian influence could not
have begun before the ninth century B.C.
(For more complete bibliographical references, see Pettigrew, (=56=), p.
233.)
The large series of identical procedures makes it absolutely certain that
the method of embalming practised in the Canary Islands was derived from
Egypt, and not earlier than 900 B.C.
Reutter states (=63=, p. 137) that “the Carthaginians, as the result
of long-continued commercial intercourse with Egypt, assimilated its
civilization even to the extent of worshipping certain of the Egyptian
gods and of accepting many of her ideas and beliefs as to a future life.”
“These reasons impelled them to practise the art of embalming and to
represent the features of the dead upon their sarcophagi to enable the
soul to refind its double.”
“Their burial chambers, for the most part not built up, but carved out of
the rock, communicated with the exterior by a staircase. Above them were
built mastabas or monuments to be utilised, as amongst the Egyptians, as
offering-places” (p. 138).
“Even the inscriptions in the mortuary chambers were written in
hieroglyphics, and their sarcophagi contained scarabs inscribed with
invocations to the Egyptian gods, Ptah, Bes and Ra, &c.”
This reference is sufficient to indicate how the later (certainly not
earlier than 900 B.C. and probably some centuries later) Egyptian
practices spread around the Mediterranean.
I do not propose (in the present communication) to discuss the influence
and the manner of spread of the practice of mummification in Europe.
Reutter gives certain information in reference to this subject. It will
suffice to say that there is no evidence to show that mummification was
widely adopted until comparatively late times (New Empire and later)
in the Mediterranean area, although certain effects of the Egyptian
practice, such for example as “extended burial,” spread abroad many
centuries earlier, appearing in most regions during the Eneolithic phase.
The procedures revealed in the Canary Islands bear no trace of the
influence of Negro Africa to which I have called attention (_supra_) in
the Soudan, Uganda, the Congo and the Niger. The details of the technique
suggests the method employed in the XXIst Dynasty; and other features
seem to point to the conclusion that the practice must have reached the
Canary Islands from the Western Mediterranean through the Straits of
Gibraltar, not improbably through Phœnician channels.
[For a full critical discussion of all the literature relating to
Egyptian influence in West Africa see Dahse, “Ein zweites Goldland
Salomos,” _Zeitsch. f. Ethn._, 1911, p. 1. The mass of evidence collected
in this memoir is entirely corroborative of the conclusions at which I
have arrived from the study of mummification.]
With reference to Babylonia Langdon (=32=) states:—“Traces of embalming
have not been found, but Herodotus says that the Babylonians preserved in
honey. But a text has been discovered which mentions embalming with cedar
oil (cited by Meissner, _Wiener Zeitsch. f. Kunde des Morgenlandes_, xii,
1898, p. 61). At any rate embalming is not characteristic of Babylonian
burials and the custom may be due to Egyptian influence.”
There can, I think, be no doubt whatever as to the Egyptian origin of
these instances of embalming in Babylonia. The mere fact of its sporadic
occurrence in a country of which it is not characteristic clearly points
to this conclusion, which is confirmed by the emphasis laid upon the
use of oil of cedar—a definite indication of the Egyptian practice.
The reference of Herodotus to the use of honey in Babylonia is also of
peculiar interest, for it provides us with a connecting link between the
Mediterranean area and India and Burma.
The extensive use of honey for the preservation of the body among the
Greeks, Romans, Jews, and possibly also the Egyptians, is indicated by
the frequent references to the practice in the classics, which have been
summarised, with numerous quotations, by Pettigrew (=56=, pp. 85-87).
The employment of honey suggests the spread of Egyptian influence to
Babylonia _viâ_ the Mediterranean and Syria, seeing that, so far as is
known, such a method was used only on the Mediterranean littoral of
Egypt, in Phœnicia and the Ægean.
Concerning the use of wax in the process of embalming, of which ancient
Egyptian mummies, especially of the new Empire (=86=), afford numerous
instances, Pettigrew (p. 87) remarks:—“The body of King Agesilaus was
enveloped in wax and thus conveyed to Lacedæmon. This is confirmed by
Cornelius Nepos, and also by Plutarch, who ascribe the adoption of wax to
the want of honey for this purpose. Cicero reports the use of it by the
Persians.”
In his account of the methods employed by the Scythians (living north
of Thrace) for mummifying their kings, Herodotus tells us that the body
was coated with wax, the abdomen opened, cleaned out and then filled
with pounded stems, with perfumes, aniseed and wild celery seed and then
stitched up. The important bearing of the practices described in the
Black Sea littoral upon Indian and Burmese customs (_vide infra_) I must
reserve for discussion at some later time.
It will be seen in the subsequent account that honey was in use for
embalming in modern times in Burma.
In an article on Persian burial customs (=32=, p. 505) Dr. Louis H.
Gray says: “Unfortunately our sole information on this subject [Ancient
Persian rites] must thus far be gleaned from the meagre statements of
the classics. If we may judge from the tombs of the Achæmenians, their
bodies were not exposed as Zoroastrianism dictated; but it is by no means
impossible that they were coated with wax, or even, as Jackson[13] also
suggests (“Persia, Past and Present,” p. 235), ‘perhaps embalmed after
the manner of the Egyptians.’”
In later times the Persians seem to have been influenced by the practices
in vogue in Early Christian times in Egypt, before the coming of Islâm.
Thus in Moll’s History (=46=, p. 545), the statement is made in reference
to the Moslem burial customs in Persia; “if it [the corpse] is to be
buried a great way off, it is put into a wooden coffin filled up with
salt, lime and perfumes to preserve it; for they embalm their dead bodies
no otherwise in Persia, nor do they ever embowel them, as with us.”
That this is merely a degraded form of the Egyptian embalmer’s practice
is shown by the fact that it is identical with the method used by the
Copts in Egypt until the seventh, or perhaps even as late as the ninth
century A.D., and in their case we know that it is a development from, or
degradation of, the ancient practice.
This method seems also to have spread to India: for Mr. Crooke tells me
that even at the present day several of the ascetic orders bury their
dead in salt.
In Moll’s book the following curious statement also occurs, p.
474:—“_Mummy_, which is human flesh embalm’d that has lain in dry
earth several ages, and become hard as horn, is frequently found in
the sands of Chorassan, or the ancient Bactria, and some of the bodies
are so little alter’d, ’tis said, that the features may be plainly
distinguish’d.”
In studying the easterly migration of the custom of mummification it
is quite certain that the main stream of the wanderers who carried the
knowledge to the east must have set out from the East African coast,
because a whole series of modifications of the Egyptian method which were
introduced in the Soudan and further south are also found in Indonesia,
Polynesia and America. A curious feature of Egyptian embalming in the
XIXth and especially the XXIst Dynasties (=78= and =86=) was the use of
butter for packing the mummy. Among the Baganda, according to Roscoe,
special importance came to be attached to this practice. Mr. Crooke has
given me references from Indian literature (see especially _Journ. Anthr.
Soc. Bombay_, Vol. I., 1886, p. 39) to bodies being “skilfully embalmed
with heavenly drugs and _ghee_” [clarified butter].
The ancient Aryans used to disembowel the corpse and fill the cavity with
_ghee_ (Mitra, “Indo-Aryans,” London, 1881, Vol. I., p. 135), as was done
in the case of the mummy of the famous Pharaoh Meneptah (=86=).
The peculiarly Mediterranean modifications also spread east and it seems
most likely that in this case the route from Syria down the Euphrates to
the Persian Gulf was taken.
[Since this has been in print further investigation has elucidated with
remarkable precision the ways and means of, as well as the impelling
motives for, the great migration to the East. This calls for some
modification of the foregoing (as well as many of the subsequent)
paragraphs. It has been seen that the great wave of culture carried
east and west from Egypt the distinctive method of embalming that came
into full use somewhere about 900 B.C.; hence it is probable the eighth
century B.C. witnessed the commencement of the series of expeditions,
which probably extended over many centuries. It can be no mere chance
that the period indicated coincides with the time when the Phœnicians
were embarking upon maritime enterprises on a much greater and more
daring scale than the world had known until then, in the Mediterranean
and Atlantic, in the Red Sea and beyond. In the course of their trading
expeditions to the Bab-el-Mandeb these Levantine mariners brought to that
region a fuller knowledge of the customs and practices of Egypt and of
the whole Phœnician world in the Mediterranean. It was probably in this
way and not by the Euphrates route that the culture of the Levant reached
the Persian Gulf and India.
The easterly migration of culture which set out from the region of the
Bab-el-Mandeb conveyed not only the Ethiopian modifications of Egyptian
practices, but also the Egyptian and Mediterranean contributions which
the Phœnicians had brought to Ethiopia. On some future occasion I shall
discuss the important part played by the Phœnicians in these expeditions
to the Far East.]
It is unfortunate that practically nothing is known of the practice
of mummification on the Southern coast of Arabia. Bent tells us that
the Southern Arabians preserved their dead. Moreover, as the Egyptians
obtained from Sabæa much of the materials used for embalming, it is
not unlikely that the Arabs may also have learned the use of these
preservatives.
In support of this suggestion I might refer to the evidence from
Madagascar. It is well known that this island was colonised in ancient
times by people from the neighbourhood of the Bab-el-Mandeb, probably
Galla-people from the Somali coast as well as Sabæans from the Arabian
coast, possibly ferried along the African shore by expert mariners from
Oman and the Persian Gulf, either the Phœnicians themselves or their
kinsmen. A more numerous element came from the distant Malay Archipelago.
Either or both of these racial elements may have introduced the practice
of mummification into Madagascar.
In his “History on Madagascar” (1838, Vol. I, p, 243) Ellis says there
“was no regular embalming,” but the “body was preserved for a time by the
use of large quantities of gum benzoin, or other powdered aromatic gums.”
This method is strongly suggestive of South Arabian influence.
Hartland says “the Betsileo [and other Madagascar tribes] dry the corpse
in the air, the fluids being assisted to escape” (=32=, p. 418).
Grandidier, however, gives us more precise information on this subject
(“La Mort et les Funerailles à Madagascar,” _L’Anthropologie_, T. 23,
1912, p. 329). According to him the Betsileo open the body of the dead
and remove all the viscera, which they throw into a lake: among the
Merina the entrails are removed only in the cases of their sovereigns or
members of the royal family.
The practice of mummification amongst the Betsileo is of peculiar
interest because the embalmed bodies are buried in stone tombs obviously
inspired by Egyptian models. The subterranean megalithic burial chamber
in association with an oblong _mastaba_-like superstructure at once
recalls the distinctive features of the Egyptian tomb. But there is a
curious feature suggestive of Babylonian influence, namely, the situation
of the temple of offerings on the top of the _mastaba_. In some respects
this type of grave recalls those found in the Bahrein Islands by Bent
(=4=), which he compares with the Early Phœnician tombs at Arvad (=55=).
There can be no question that the latter were copied from Theban tombs of
the New Empire (_vide supra_).
This seems to point quite clearly to the fact that the Betsileo burial
practices were inspired by Egyptian models, possibly modified by Southern
Arabian influences.
In Hall’s “Great Zimbabwe” (1905, pp. 94 and 95), it is stated that “the
Baduma, who live in Gutu’s country, and also the Barotse, still embalm,
or, rather, dry the bodies of their chiefs, and also the dead of certain
families, though generally the bodies are buried lengthways on their
right side, facing the sun. The body is placed in the hut on a bier made
of poles near a large fire, and continually turned until the body is dry.
Then it is wrapped up in a blanket and hung from the roof” [as is done in
the Doré Bay region in New Guinea].
There has been considerable controversy as to the origin of the vast
stone monuments in this region. The writer from whom I have just quoted,
with many others, believed the Zimbabwe ruins to be the work of Early
Sabæan or Phœnician immigrants, who were attracted by the Rhodesian
gold-fields. Randall-MacIver believed that he found Chinese and Persian
relics (no earlier than the 14th or at earliest 13th century) under the
foundations; and recklessly jumped to the conclusion that the local
Negroes had conceived and built these vast monuments! The idea of any
savage people, and especially Negroes, planning such structures and
undertaking the enormous labour of their construction is surely too
ludicrous to be considered seriously. Even if these monuments were built
no earlier than five or six centuries ago, that does not invalidate
the hypothesis that they were inspired by the models of some old
civilization. Is it necessary to expound the whole theory of survivals
to make this point clear? The whole of this memoir is concerned with the
persistence in outlying corners of the world of strange practices whose
inventors passed away twenty-eight centuries and more ago, and whose
country has forgotten them and their works for more than a thousand
years. [My friend, W. J. Perry, is collecting other evidence which proves
quite definitely that the Zimbabwe culture was “heliolithic.”]
In Moll’s History (=46=) the following passage occurs in an account of
the customs of Ceylon, p. 430, “when a person of condition dies his
corps is laid out and wash’d, and being cover’d with a linnen-cloath, is
carried out upon a bier to some high place and burnt: but if he was an
officer who belong’d to the court, the corps is not burnt till the king
gives orders for it, which is sometimes a great while after. In this case
his friends hollow the body of a tree, and having bowell’d and embalm’d
the corps, they put it in, filling the hollow up with pepper, and having
made it as close as possible, they bury the corpse in some room of the
house till the king orders it to be burnt.”
“As for the poorer people, they usually wrap them up in mats and bury
them.”
This traveller’s tale would not call for serious attention if it were not
confirmed by modern accounts of an analogous practice in Burma and the
neighbourhood.
In his “Himalayan Journal” Sir Joseph Hooker described how the Khasias
temporarily embalm their dead in honey before cremating them.
Pettigrew (=56=, p. 245) quotes Captain Coke’s account of the embalming
of a Burman priest. The body, as witnessed by him, was lying exposed to
public view upon a stage constructed of bamboos. This is the bier which
is so invariably associated with mummification.
“The entrails of the deceased (who had been dead upwards of a month) had
been taken out a few hours after death by means of an incision in the
stomach, and the vacuum being filled with honey and spices the opening
was sewed up. The whole body was then covered over with a slight coating
of resinous substance called _dhamma_, and wax, to preserve it from the
air, after which it was richly overlaid with gold leaf, thus giving the
body the appearance of one of the finely moulded images so common in the
temples of the worshippers of BOODH.”
Then it was cremated.
This is a curious instance of the blending of the custom of mummification
with the later practice of cremation, which was inspired by entirely
different ideals. Throughout the whole area in which Egyptian methods
of embalming were adopted there are found numerous instances of such
syncretism with a variety of burial customs.
“Another method which I have known to be practised, but not as common as
the one above detailed, of embalming bodies in the Burman country, is by
forcing two hollow bamboos through the soles of the feet, up the legs and
into the body of the deceased; then by dint of pressing and squeezing the
fluid is carried off through the bamboos into the ground.”
This practice is an important link between the Egyptian and the
Indonesian methods.
In his article on Thibetan burial customs (=32=, p. 511), Waddell
informs us that preservation of the entire body by embalming seems to
be restricted to the sovereign Grand Lamas of Lhāsa and Tāshilhumpo.
“The body is embalmed by salting, and, clad in the robes of the deceased
and surrounded by his personal implements of worship, is placed, in the
attitude of a seated Buddha, within a gilded copper sarcophagus in one of
the rooms of the palace: it is then worshipped as a divinity.”
There are many points of interest in this practice, which, considered in
conjunction with the methods practised in Burma, Ceylon and Persia just
mentioned, clearly indicate not only the sources and the routes taken by
this knowledge of embalming in its spread from Egypt, but also how the
burial rites of a variety of peoples can become intimately blended and
intermingled one with another.
In Captain T. H. Lewins’ book on “The Wild Tribes of South-Eastern India”
(London, 1870, p. 274) I find the following statement:—“Among the Dhun
and Khorn clans the body is placed in a coffin made of a hollow tree
trunk, with holes in the bottom. This is placed on a lofty platform and
left to dry in the sun. The dried body is afterwards rammed into an
earthern vase and buried; the head is cut off and preserved. Another clan
sheathe their dead in pith; the corpse is then placed on a platform,
under which a slow fire is kept up until the body is dried. The corpse
is then kept for six months ... it is then buried. The Howlong clan hang
the body up to the house-beams for seven days, during which time the dead
man’s wife has to sit underneath spinning.”
These interesting records are of considerable value in establishing
connexions between East Africa and regions further east, which will be
discussed in the following pages.
[In my search for information concerning the practice of embalming in
India, where by inference I was convinced it must have had some vogue
in ancient times, I completely overlooked the important memoir by Mr.
W. Crooke on “Primitive Rites of Disposal of the Dead, with Special
Reference to India” (_Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, Vol. XXIX, 1899, p. 272).
Since the rest of this article has been in print Mr. Crooke has kindly
called my attention to his memoir and given me a lot of other valuable
information. Fortunately all this evidence supports and substantiates
the opinions I had previously arrived at inductively. For it provides
a complete series of connecting links between the western and eastern
portions of the chain I am reconstructing. It is too bulky to insert here
and too important merely to summarise, so that I must postpone fuller
discussion of this Indian evidence until some future time.]
If it is admitted that the custom of mummification as it is practised,
for example, in the islands of the Torres Straits was derived from Egypt,
however remotely and indirectly, it is clear that, as the technique
includes a number of curious features which were not introduced in Egypt
before the XVIIIth, XXth and XXIst Dynasties (respectively in the case
of different procedures), the migration of people carrying the methods
east could not have left Egypt before the time of the XXIst Dynasty,
say 900 B.C. as the earliest possible date. At this time Egypt was in
very close relationship with the Soudan and Western Asia; and it is
obvious that the Egyptian practices may have reached the Persian Gulf
by three routes:—(1) _viâ_ the Soudan, the head-waters of the Nile and
the Somali Coast, (2) by the Red Sea route, and (3) from the Phœnician
Coast down the Euphrates. No doubt all three routes served as avenues for
communication and for the transmission of cultural influences; and it is
not essential for our immediate purposes to enquire which channel served
to transmit each element of Egyptian culture that made its influence
felt in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf at this period. For it was
a period of active maritime enterprise, especially on the part of the
Phœnicians, both in the Mediterranean and the Southern Seas, and a time
when the fluctuating political fortunes of Egypt, Western Asia and the
Soudan produced a more intimate intermingling of the peoples, so that
they mutually influenced one another most profoundly.
It is important to remember that many of the features of the embalmer’s
art as it is practiced in the far East are modifications of the Egyptian
method which were first introduced in the region of the Upper Nile,
so that the East African Coast must have been the point of departure
for such methods. Other features, not only of the method of embalming,
but also of the associated megalithic architecture, were equally
distinctive of the Phœnician region and may have been transmitted by the
Euphrates.[14] Other features again were distinctively Babylonian. Of the
former, the African influence, I might refer to the use of the frame-like
support for the mummy, the custom of removing the head some months after
burial, and the sacrifice of wives and servants. As to the Phœnician
and Babylonian influences, the use of honey might be cited, and the
emphasis laid upon “cedar” wood and “cedar” oil in mummification; and the
Phœnician adaptation of the New Empire type of Theban tomb seen at Arvad
and the analogous sepulchres found in the Bahrein Islands (=4=) The
Betsileo tombs in Madagascar probably represent the same type transferred
_viâ_ Sabæa down the East African coast.
As to the means by which the customs of the dwellers around the Persian
Gulf were communicated to the peoples of India and Ceylon there is a
considerable mass of evidence. The fact that mummification, the building
of megalithic monuments of the recognised Mediterranean types, sun-
and serpent-worship and all the other impedimenta of the “heliolithic”
culture made their appearance in India in pre-Aryan times affords
positive evidence of the reality of the intercourse. I have already
referred to the adoption in India of the curiously eccentric method
of steering river-boats found in Middle Kingdom Egyptian tombs; and
the custom of representing eyes on the prow of the boat are further
illustrations of the spread of distinctive practices. According to Rhys
Davids (=14=, p. 116) “it may now be accepted as a working hypothesis
that sea-going merchants [mostly Dravidians, not Aryans], availing
themselves of the monsoons, were in the habit, at the beginning of
the seventh (and perhaps at the end of the eighth) century B.C., of
trading from ports on the South-West of India to Babylon, then a great
mercantile emporium.” He adduces evidence which clearly demonstrates
that the written scripts of India, Ceylon and Burma were in this way
derived from “the pre-Semitic race now called Akkadians.” “It seems
almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that [the] curious buildings
[at Anurādhapura in Ceylon] were not entirely without connection with
the seven-storied Ziggarats which were so striking a feature among
the buildings of Chaldæa.... it would seem that in this case also the
Indians were borrowers of an idea” (p. 70). The more precise and definite
influence of Babylonian models further east removes any doubt as to the
part it played. Crooke speaks of the Southern Dravidians as a maritime
people, who placed in their burial mounds “bronze articles which were
probably imported in the course of trade with Babylonia” (=12=, p. 29).
“They were probably the builders of the remarkable series of rude stone
monuments which crown the hills in the Nilgiri range and the plateau of
the Deccan” (p. 28). The most ancient stone monuments in Southern India
contain objects which go to prove that they were built at the earliest
just before the introduction of iron-working. Thus, if the knowledge of
iron-working came from Europe, these monuments could not have been built
much before 800 B.C. As a matter of fact it is known that many of them
cannot be older than 600 B.C. (Crooke, =13=, p. 129). All of these facts
agree in supporting the view that the influence of Egypt, which, so far
as the matters under consideration are concerned, came into operation
not earlier than the eighth century B.C., spread to India partly _viâ_
Babylonia and partly by way of East Africa, somewhere between the close
of the eighth and the commencement of the sixth century B.C.
The monuments to which I have just been referring were not, in my
opinion, directly inspired by Egypt, but indirectly. The North Syrian
and the adjoining territories adopted the Egyptian burial customs at
an earlier period and the finished type of holed dolmen was probably
developed and survived in that region long after its Egyptian prototype
had become a thing of the past. The real types that have come down to our
times are found in the Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian.
The Indian dolmens were certainly imitations of these models. But in
respect of other buildings the Indians directly adopted Babylonian and
Egyptian types. I have already referred to the former. Many of the
Dravidian temples are so precisely modelled on the plan of the Theban
temples of the New Empire that to question the source of the inspiration
of the former is impossible.
“Fergusson first called attention to the striking similarity in general
arrangement and conception between the great South Indian temples and
those of ancient Egypt.... The gopurams or gate-towers, which in the
later more ornate examples are decorated from the base to the summit with
sculptures of the Hindu Pantheon, increase in size with the size of the
walled quadrangles, the outer ones becoming imposing landmarks, which
are visible for miles around, and are strikingly similar to the pylons
of Egyptian temples” (Thurston, =101=, pp. 158 and 161). Thus in the
matter of its early buildings India has clearly been influenced by Egypt,
Phœnicia and Chaldea; and this great cultural wave impinged upon the
Indian peninsula not before the close of the eighth century B.C.
It is important also to remember that it reached India just (perhaps not
more than a century) before another wave of a very different culture
poured down from the north, and introduced, among other things, the
practice of cremation.
For our immediate purpose this is unfortunate, because that practice
is inspired by ideas utterly opposed to those underlying the custom of
embalming, and naturally destroyed most, though by no means all, traces
of the latter. That the practice of embalming did actually reach India
from the west is known not merely because evidence of unmistakably
Egyptian technique is found further east, but also because in India and
Ceylon there are definite traces of the custom, to which reference has
already been made in the foregoing pages. Cases from Persia, Ceylon,
India, Burma and Thibet were cited in proof of the survival of elements
of the embalming process or ritual, even when the Brahmanical and
Buddhist burial practices had been adopted.
From the foregoing account there can be no doubt that the people of
India did at one time practice mummification, at any rate in the case of
their chiefs. They also acquired a knowledge of the arts and crafts, as
the result of the influence exerted by the rich stream of culture which
brought the attainments of the great western civilizations to India
before the Ayran immigration. The bringers of this new culture mingled
their blood with the aboriginal pre-Dravidian population and the result
was the Dravidians. It is not at all improbable that the resultant
Dravidian civilization had reached a higher plane than that of the Aryas,
who entered the country after them.
In Oldham’s interesting and suggestive brochure (=51=, pp. 53-55), which,
in spite of Crooke’s drastic criticism, seems to me to be a valuable
contribution to a knowledge of the questions under discussion, the
following passages occur:—
“The Asuras, Dasyus, or Nagas, with whom the Aryas came into contact, on
approaching the borders of India, were no savage aboriginal tribes, but
a civilized people who had cities and castles. Some of these are said in
the Veda to have been built of stone.
“It would seem, indeed, as if the Asuras had reached a higher degree of
civilization than their Aryan rivals. Some of their cities were places of
considerable importance. And, in addition to this, wealth and luxury, the
use of magic, superior architectural skill, and ability to restore the
dead to life, were ascribed to the Asuras by Brahmanical writers.”
The “ability to restore the dead to life” is probably a reference to the
Egyptian ritual of “the opening of the mouth,” which of course is an
integral part of the funerary procedure incidental to the practice of
mummification.
“The Nagas occupy a very prominent position in connection with Indian
astronomy, and this is not likely to have been assigned to them, by their
Brahmanical rivals, without good reason. Probably this and other branches
of science were brought, by the Asuras, from their ancient home in the
countries between the Kaspian and the Persian Gulf.
“The close relationship between the Indian and the Chaldean astronomical
systems has been frequently noticed.
“The sun-worship of the Asuras; their holding sacred the Naga or hooded
serpent, sometimes represented with many heads; their deification of
kings and ancestors; their veneration of the cedar; their religious
dances; their sacrificial rights; their communication with the deities
through the medium of inspired prophets; their occasional tendency
towards democratic institutions; their use of tribal emblems or
totems—and many of their social customs; seem to connect them with that
very early civilization—Turanian or otherwise—which we find amongst so
many of the peoples of extreme antiquity. They had, in fact, much in
common with the early inhabitants of Babylonia; and, perhaps, even more
with those of Elam and the neighbouring countries.
“We shall see later that the Asuras and the Dravidians were, apparently,
the same people.”
“Not only were the Asuras or Nagas a civilized people, but they were a
maritime power. Holding both banks of the great river Indus, they must
have had access to the sea from a very early period. Their kinship,
too, with the serpent-worshipping people of ancient Media, and the
neighbouring countries, which has already been referred to, must have led
to a very early development of trade with the Persian Gulf.
“The Asuras were actively engaged in ‘The Churning of the Ocean’
(_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xviii.), which is but an allegorical
description of sea-borne commerce in its early days” (_op. cit._, p. 58).
“In the _Mahabharata_, the ocean is described as the habitation of the
Nagas and the residence of the Asuras; it is also said to be the refuge
of the defeated Asuras (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xxii.).
This was no doubt because marauding bands of this people retreated to
their ships after an unsuccessful raid. Thus we find that on the death
of Vrita, his followers took refuge in the sea (_Mahabharata_, _Vana_,
_Tirthayatra_, p. ciii.). So also did the Asura Panchajana, who lived in
Patala, when he was pursued by Krishna (_Vishnu Parana_, v., xxi., 526).
And so did the Danavas when defeated by the Devas at the churning of the
ocean (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xix.).”
“An ancient legend, given in the _Mahabharata_, relates how Kadru, mother
of the serpents, compelled Garuda to convey her sons across the sea into
a beautiful country in a distant region, which was inhabited by Nagas.
After encountering a violent storm and great heat, the sons of Karur were
landed in the country of Ramaniaka, on the Malabar coast.”
“This territory had been occupied previously by a fierce Asura named
Lavana (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xxvii.). So there had been a
still earlier colonization by the same race.”
“Naga chiefs are frequently mentioned as ruling countries in or under the
sea” (p. 61).
“The civilization of Burmah, and other Indo-Chinese countries, is
ascribed by legend and by the native historians to invaders from India.
And these are connected with the Naga People of Magadha, and of the
north and west of India. The ancient navigators, too, who carried the
Brahmanical and Buddhist religions, the worship of the Naga, and the
Sanscrit or Pali language to Java, Sumatra, and even to distant Celebes,
were Indian people. And they were, doubtless, descendants of those Asura
dwellers in the ocean, which are mentioned in the _Mahabharata_, and have
already been referred to” (p. 166).
“Another proof of the ancient connection of these islands with India
is that the Javan era is the Saka-kala, which is so well known, and is
still in use in parts of Western India and in the Himalaya. According
to a Javan tradition an expedition from India, led by a son of the king
of Kujrat (Gujrat), arrived on the west coast of the island about A.D.
603. A settlement was founded, and the town of Mendan Kamalan was built.
Other Hindus followed, and a great trade was established with the ports
of India and other countries (Raffles, Hist. Java, ii., 83). There is
however no reason to suppose that this was the first arrival of Indian
voyagers in the Archipelago.
“Traditions still remain in Western India of expeditions to Java. A
Guzerati proverb runs thus: ‘He who goes to Java never comes back; but
if he does return, his descendants, for seven generations, live at ease’
(_Bombay Gazetter_, i., 402). The bards in Marwar have a legend that
Bhoj raja, the great puar chief of Ujaini, in anger drove away his son
Chandrabhan, who sailed to Java (_Ib._, i., 448).
“Evidence brought forward by Mr. Kennedy (_J. R. A. S._, April, 1898)
shows that a great sea-borne trade was carried on from Indian ports by
Dravidian merchants as early as the seventh century B.C. The beginnings
of Dravidian navigation, however, were probably much earlier than this.
“We have seen that the sea-borne commerce of the Solar or Naga tribes
of Western India had become important at a very early period. Of this
the legend of ‘the churning of the ocean’ already referred to is an
allegorical description, but we have no detailed account of ocean voyages
until a much later period. Sakya Buddha himself, however, refers to such
voyages. He says: ‘Long ago ocean going merchants were wont to plunge
forth upon the sea, taking with them a shore-sighting bird. When the ship
was out of sight of land they would set the shore-sighting bird free.
And it would go to the east and to the south and to the west and to the
north and to the intermediate points and rise aloft. If on the horizon it
caught sight of land, thither it would go. But if not then it would come
back to the ship again’ (Rhys Davids, _J. R. A. S._, April, 1899, 432).
“It will be observed that this mode of finding the position of the ship
at sea, which recalls the sending out of the birds from the Ark, is said
to have been the custom ‘long ago.’ It would seem therefore, that in the
fifth century B.C. other and probably more scientific methods were in
use. It would also appear that the navigation of the ocean was even then
an ancient institution.
“In the time of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fah Hian (about 406 A.D.)
there was a regular and evidently old-established trade between India and
China and with the islands of the Archipelago.
“Fah Hian sailed from Tamalitti, or Tamralipti, at the mouth of the
Ganges, in a great merchant ship, and in fourteen days reached Ceylon
(Fo-Kwo-ki, Beal., I, lxxi, lxxii.). From thence he sailed in a great
ship which carried about two hundred men, and which was navigated by
observing the sun, moon and stars. In this ship Fah Hian reached Ye-po-ti
(probably Java) in which country heretics and Brahmans flourished, but
the law of Buddha was not much known (_Ib._, I, lxxx.). Here the pilgrim
embarked for China on board another ship carrying two hundred men,
amongst whom were Brahmans. These proposed to treat the sramana as Jonah
was treated, and for the same reason, but some of those on board took his
part. At length when their provisions were nearly exhausted, they reached
China (_Ib._, I, lxxxi., lxxxii.). All these ships appear to have been
Indian and not Chinese.
“Fah Hian mentions that pirates were numerous in those seas (_Ib._, I,
lxxx.), which shows that the commerce must have been considerable” (p.
171).
“It seems in the highest degree improbable that this close connection
between the Sun and the serpent could have originated, independently,
in countries so far apart as China and the West of Africa, or India
and Peru. And it seems scarcely possible that, in addition to this,
the same forms of worship of these deities, and the same ritual, could
have arisen, spontaneously, amongst each of these far distant peoples.
The alternative appears to be that the combined worship of the Sun and
serpent-gods must have spread from a common centre, by the migration of,
or communication with, the people who claimed Solar descent.
“So universally was the Naga held sacred, that it would seem to have been
the earliest totem of the people who claimed descent from the Sun-god”
(p. 183).
I have quoted so extensively from Oldham’s fascinating work because the
conclusions at which he arrived from a study of the ancient literature of
India is confirmed by evidence derived from utterly different sources,
not only from India itself but also from other countries. For, scattered
throughout the length and breadth of India, are to be found thousands of
indications (in traditions, beliefs, customs, social organisation and
material relics) that the complete “heliolithic” culture had reached
India not later than the beginning of the seventh century B.C.
Moreover the evidence which I have culled from Oldham bears out
the conclusions my own investigations lead up to, namely, that the
“heliolithic” culture spread from India to Malaysia soon after it reached
India itself. It is surely something more than a mere coincidence that
the period of the greatest maritime exploits of the Phœnicians, in the
course of which, according to many authorities, they reached India or
even further east, should coincide with that of the great pre-Aryan
maritime race of India, whose great expeditions, as the above quotations
indicate, were primarily for purposes of commerce between the Persian
Gulf and the West Coast of India. There is gradually accumulating a
considerable mass of evidence to suggest that, if the Asuras were not
themselves Phœnicians, they acquired their maritime skill from these
famous sailors and traders. The same hardy mariners who brought the new
knowledge and practices from the Persian Gulf to India and Ceylon also
carried it further, to Burma and Indonesia.
That this is so is clearly shown by the fact that these customs spread to
Indonesia and the Pacific _before_ cremation was introduced; and it has
been indicated above that the introduction of the practice of cremation
into India may have taken place within a century of the arrival of the
“heliolithic” civilization there. Hence it is obvious that the latter
must have spread to the far east soon after it reached India; and the
completeness of the transmission of the distinctive culture-complex can
be explained only by supposing that the same people who brought it to
India also carried it further east.
All the other evidence at our disposal is in full harmony with this view.
The advancing wave of western culture swept past India into Indonesia,
carrying into the isles of the Pacific and on to the American littoral
the products of the older civilizations at first almost, but not
altogether, untainted by Indian influence; but for centuries afterwards,
as this same ferment gradually leavened the vast bulk of India, the
stream of western culture continued to percolate eastwards and carried
with it in succession the influence of the Brahmanical, Buddhist and,
within in a more restricted area, Mahometan cults.
It is an interesting confirmation of the general accuracy of the scheme
that has now been sketched out that the dates at which the influence
of Egypt began to be exerted in the east, that to which Rhys Davids
assigns the definite influencing of India by Babylonia, that at which
India influenced Malaysia, and finally that assigned by students of
the Polynesian problem to the inauguration of the great Indonesian
migration into the Pacific (=60= and =98=), all fit into one consecutive
series, though each was determined from different kinds of evidence and
independently of the rest.
It is not my intention to discuss the evidence for the coming of the
“heliolithic” culture to Indonesia, for the complex problems of this
region have been analysed and interpreted in a masterly fashion by W.
J. Perry in a book which is shortly to be published. The form which my
present communication has assumed is largely the outcome of the reading
of Perry’s manuscript and of discussions with him of the new lines of
investigation which it suggested; and I am satisfied to leave this
region for him to elucidate in detail. It will suffice to say here that
the traditions of the inhabitants of the various islands of Malaysia,
no less than their heterogeneous customs and beliefs, provided him with
very precise evidence in demonstration of the complex constitution of the
“heliolithic” culture, and of the fact that it was brought to the islands
by an immigration from the west.
There is less need for me to analyse the vast literature relating to
the burial practices in the islands of the Malay Archipelago since this
useful service has already been accomplished by Hertz (=33=). Although I
dissent from the main contention in his interpretation of the facts, his
accurate record is none the less valuable on that account—perhaps indeed
it is more useful, as it certainly cannot be accused of bias in favour of
the views I am expounding.
A great variety of burial customs, in most respects closely
analogous to the practices of the Naga tribes of India, is found in
Indonesia;—exposing the dead on trees or platforms, burial in hollow
trees, smoking and other methods of preservation, temporary burial, and
cremation.
Apart from the definite evidence of preservation of the dead found in
scattered islands from one end of the Archipelago to the other, there are
much more generally diffused practices which are unquestionably derived
from the former custom of mummification.
In the account of mummification as practised in the more savage African
tribes, it was seen that the practice was restricted in most cases to
the bodies of kings; and even then the failure to preserve the body in a
permanent manner compelled these peoples to modify the Egyptian methods.
Realising that the corpse, even when preserved as efficiently as they
were able to perform the work of embalming, would undergo a process of
disintegration within a few months, it became the practice to rescue the
skull, to which special importance was attached (for the definite reasons
explained by the early Egyptian evidence).
In his survey Hertz (=33=, p. 66) calls attention to the widespread
custom of temporary burial throughout Indonesia, but, instead of
recognising that such procedures have come into vogue as a degradation
of the full rites incidental to mummification, he regards it as part of
a widespread “notion que les derniers rites funéraires ne peuvent pas
être célébrés de suite après la mort, mais seulement à l’expiration d’une
période plus on moins longue” (p. 66); and regards mummification simply
as a specialised form of this rite which is almost universal (p. 67):—“il
paraît légitime de considérer la momification comme un cas particulier
et dérivé de la sépulture provisoire.” (p. 69). This is a remarkable
inversion of the true explanation. For the enormous mass of evidence
which is now available makes it quite certain that the practice of
temporary burial was adopted only when failure (or the risk of failure)
to preserve the body compelled less cultured people to desist from the
complete process.
I am in full agreement with Hertz when he says:—“L’homologie entre la
préservation artificielle du cadavre et la simple exposition temporaire
paraîtra moins difficile à admettre si l’on tient compte du fait qui sera
mis en lumière plus bas: les ossements secs, résidu de la décomposition,
constituent pour le mort un corps incorruptible, absolument comme la
momie.” (p. 69). But does not this entirely bear out my contention? It is
quite inconceivable that the practice of mummification could have been
derived from the custom of preparing the skeleton; but the reverse is
quite a natural transition, for even in the hands of skilled embalmers
(see especially =39=), not to mention untutored savage peoples, the
measures taken for preserving the body may fail and the skeleton alone
may be spared. If this contention be conceded, the demonstration given by
Hertz of the remarkable geographical distribution of customs of temporary
burial affords a most valuable confirmation of the general scheme of
the present communication. “Au point de vue où, nous sommes placés, il
y a homologie rigoureuse entre l’exposition du cadavre sur les branches
d’un arbre, telle que la pratiquent les tribus du centre de l’Australie,
ou à l’intèrieur de la maison des vivants, comme cela se rencontre chez
certains Papous et chez quelques peuples Bantous, ou sur une plateforme
élevée à dessein, ainsi que le font en général les Polynésiens et de
nombreuses tribus indiennes de l’Amérique du Nord, ou enfin l’enterrement
provisoire, observé en particulier par la plupart des Indiens de
l’Amérique du Sud” (p. 67). There can be no doubt whatever of the justice
of this “homology,” for in every one of the areas mentioned these
customs exist side by side with the practice of mummification; and in
many cases there is definite evidence to show that the other methods of
treatment have been derived from it by a process of degradation. In his
excellent bibliography, and especially the illuminating footnotes, Hertz
gives a number of references to the practice of desiccation by smoking
or simple forms of embalming, which had escaped me in my search for
information on these matters. He refers especially to further instances
of such practices in Australia, New Guinea, various parts of West Africa,
Madagascar and America (p. 68).
An interesting reference in the same note (p. 68, footnote 5) is to
the practice of simple embalming among the Ainos of Sakhalin (Preuss,
_Begräbnisarten der Amerikaner_, p. 190). This seems to supply an
important link between the Eastern Asiatic littoral and the Aleutian
Islands, where mummification is practised. In Saghalien, according to St.
John (“The Ainos,” _Journ. Anthropol. Inst._, Vol. II., 1873, p. 253),
“when the chief of a tribe or village died, his body was laid out on a
table close to the door of his hut; his entrails were then removed, and
daily for twelve months his wife and daughters wash him thoroughly. He is
allowed ... to dry in the sun.”
In a recent article on the customs of the people of Laos (G. Maupetit,
“Moeurs laotiennes,” _Bull. et Mem. de la Soc. d’ Anthropol. de Paris_,
1913), an account is given of the practice of mummification in this far
south-eastern corner of the Asiatic mainland. Cremation is the regular
means adopted for disposal of the dead: but it is also “the Laotian’s
ideal to be able to preserve the corpse in his house, for as long a
time as possible, before incinerating it: in the same way the Siamese
and Chinese keep their dead in the house for several months, often for
several years” (p. 549).
According to Maupetit the method of preservation is a most remarkable
one. They pour from 75 to 300 grammes of mercury into the mouth! “It
passes along the alimentary canal and suffices to produce mummification,
the rapid desiccation of the organic tissues.” Then the body was
stretched upon a thick bed of melted wax, wood ashes, cloth and cushions.
The great stream of “heliolithic” culture exerted a profound influence
upon and played a large part in shaping the peculiar civilizations of
China, Corea, and Japan. As the practice of embalming does not play an
obtrusive part[15] in this influence, I do not propose (in the present
communication) to enter upon the discussion of these matters, except to
note in passing that the influence exerted by the “heliolithic” culture
upon the Pacific coast of America may have been exerted partly by the
East Asiatic-Aleutian route (see _Map II._).
The disgusting practice of collecting the fluids which drip from the
putrefying corpse and mixing them with the food for the living occurs
in Indonesia, in New Guinea and the neighbouring islands, in Melanesia,
Polynesia and in Madagascar (for the bibliographical references see
Hertz, p. 83, footnote 3).
The Indonesian methods of preserving the dead are found in Seram (W. J.
Perry), and the report recently published by Lorenz[16] (=43=, p. 22)
records a similar practice in the neighbourhood of Doré Bay in North-West
New Guinea. The corpse was tied to the rafter of the dwelling-house; and
the practice of mixing the juices of decomposition with the food is in
vogue also. The accounts given by D’Albertis (=1=) and other travellers
show that analogous customs are found at other places in New Guinea.
There can be no doubt that the practice spread along the north coast of
the island and then around its eastern extremity to reach the islands of
the Torres Straits, where the practice is seen in its fully developed
form, as Flower (=19=), Haddon and Myers (=25=), and Hamlyn-Harris (=27=)
have described.
As I have already referred to Papuan mummies earlier in this
communication and at some future time intend to devote a special memoir
to the full discussion of the methods of the Torres Straits embalmers, I
shall not go into the matter in detail here. I should like, however, to
call special attention to the admirable account given by Haddon and Myers
(=25=) of the associated funeral rites.
In his memoir Flower described two interesting mummies, then in the
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, one “brought in 1872
from Darnley Island in Torres Strait by Mr. Charles Lemaistre, Captain
of the French barque ‘Victorine,’ and the other, an Australian mummy,
obtained in 1845 near Adelaide, by Sir George Grey.” By a curious and
utterly incomprehensible act of vandalism these extremely rare and
priceless ethnological specimens were deliberately destroyed by Sir
William Flower, who naively explains his extraordinary action by the
statement “as the skeleton will form a more instructive specimen when the
dried and decaying integuments are removed I have had it cleaned” (p.
393)! He treated in the same manner the second mummy, the only example
of its kind, so far as I am aware, in this country! His photographs
show that these two specimens, so far from being “decaying,” were in
a remarkably good state of preservation at the time he doomed them to
destruction.
Captain Lemaistre found the Torres Strait mummy “in its grave, which
consisted of a high straw and bamboo hut of round form: it was not lying
down, but standing up on the stretcher” (=19=, p. 389). This is a close
parallel to the African customs—mummification, burial in a house of round
form, and fixing the corpse to a rough form of funeral bier, which is
stood up in the house.
The skin was painted red, the scalp black. “The sockets of the eyes were
filled with a dark brown substance, apparently a vegetable gum.... In
this was imbedded a narrow oval piece of mother of pearl, pointed at each
end, in the centre of the anterior surface of which is fixed a round mass
of the same resinous substance, representing the pupil of the eye” (p.
301).
“Both nostrils had been distended.”
“In the right flank was a longitudinal incision, 3½ inches in length,
extending between the last rib and the crest of the ilium. This had
been very neatly closed by what is called in surgery the interrupted
suture.... The whole of the pelvic, abdominal and thoracic viscera had
been removed, and their place was occupied by four pieces of very soft
wood.... Except the wound in the flank, there was no other opening or
injury to the skin” (p. 391).
“Heads and bodies prepared in a similar way” are found in many museums,
and afford an interesting illustration of the old Egyptian practice of
paying special attention to the head. This is all the more instructive
in view of the fact that it was common in certain regions, especially
Mallicolo in the New Hebrides, to restore the features by means of clay
and resinous paste, usually making use of the skull as a basis, but
occasionally modelling the whole body,[17] the model including parts
of the deceased’s skeleton (see Henry Balfour’s article, “Memorial
Heads in the Pitt Rivers Museum,” _Man_, Vol. I., 1901, p. 65). These
modelling-practices and especially the fact that they usually deal with
the head (or even face) only afford an interesting confirmation of the
Egyptian origin of these customs (_vide supra_, etc., =40=).
In the 6th volume of the reports of the Cambridge Anthropological
Expedition to Torres Straits, C. S. Myers and Haddon (=25=, pp. 129 and
135) give a detailed account of the funeral ceremonies from which I quote
certain points. “As soon as death had occurred the women of the village
started wailing. The corpse was placed on the ground on a mat in front of
the house; the arms were placed close to the side; the great toes were
tied together by a string; the hair of the head and face was cut off
and thrown away; the length of the nose was then measured with a piece
of wax, which was preserved by a female relative for subsequent use in
making a wax mask for the prepared skull. The dead man’s bow and arrow
and his stone-headed club were laid beside him” (p. 129). The Egyptian
analogies in all of these procedures is quite obvious.
“Five men wearing masks performed a series of manœuvres ending up with
flexion of the arms and a bending of the head. This movement was said to
indicate the rising and setting of the sun and to be symbolic of the life
and death of man.
“Mourners then took the body and placed it upon a wooden framework, which
stood upon four wooden supports at a little distance from the house of
the deceased. The relatives then took large yams and placed them beside
the body on the framework; they also hung large bunches of bananas upon
the bamboos around. This was regarded as nourishment for the ghost, which
was supposed to eat it at night-time (p. 135).
“In two or three days when the skin of the body had become loose the
framework was taken up to the reef in a small canoe; the epidermis was
then rubbed off and by means of a sharp shell a small incision was made
in the side of the abdomen (in the right side, at least, in the case of
women), whence the viscera were extracted.
“The perineum was incised in the males.”
From a study of all the literature regarding this custom, as well as
the actual specimens now in Sydney and Brisbane, it is clear that
the incision may be made either in the left or right flank or in the
perineum, and that sex does not determine the site.
“The abdominal cavity was then filled up with pieces of Nipa palm; the
viscera were thrown into the sea and the incision closed by means of fine
fish line. An arrow was used to remove the brain, partly by way of the
foramen magnum and partly through a small slit which was made in the back
of the neck. The ‘strong skin’ of the brain (the dura mater) was first
cut and then the ‘soft skin’ was pulled out.
“The body was then brought back to the island and was placed in a sitting
position upon a stone; the entire body was then painted with a mixture
of red earth and sea water. The head, body and limbs were then lashed to
the framework with string and a small stick was affixed to the lower jaw
to keep it from drooping. The framework, with its burden, was fastened
vertically to two posts set up in the rear of the house, and it was
protected from public view by a screen of coconut leaves. The body was
then gently rubbed down and holes were made with the point of an arrow so
that the juices might escape. A fire was always kept alight beneath the
body, ‘by-n-by meat swell up’ (p. 136).