A FACT that has been before us incidentally, though not the subject of specific remark, is the age-long belief in the continued existence of the soul. We have noted that the soul is "the separable factor" in man's duality, "with a life all its own." It would be normal then next to examine this continuance of life beyond death, to determine its character. But before discussing primitive conceptions concerning the dead, their state and powers, it is important to note that there are hints from widely separated regions which suggest that once there was a belief nearly or quite universal that death is not inevitable. It is likely that in the youth of the race, death was practically always the result of violence--from man or beast--or of accident. And it follows from what we have just noticed of the parity of being and the attribution of life to insensate objects, that even accidents would not be recognized as such but would be interpreted as the result of purposive activities. Moreover, evidence is abundant that, in a somewhat advanced stage of human history, man was a contemporary of huge and ferocious animals which have become extinct. While cave deposits reveal that he knew how to master some of these, on the other hand it must be conceded that cave men must often have succumbed, if all did not eventually lose their lives, to the attacks or have come off second best in the encounters which they themselves brought on. The increase in the numbers of human beings is always attended by the mastery and extinction of beasts of prey. In the days when men were few and beasts were present in numbers now hardly conceivable, the number of casualties to men either in the bunt or when themselves hunted must have been great. We have to take into account also feuds among men in the undisciplined state. When the stage of culture was low, feuds between tribes and clans, which, be it remembered, were small in those days, were often waged to extinction. Within the memory of man the sparseness of population in Australia has been with high probability of correctness ascribed to the feuds which for a single reason raged between different tribes. The mortality from this cause must have been great. And how complete may have been the slaughter in such cases is seen when we remember that so late as the time of Samuel a numerous people was devoted to extinction in the name of religion--in this case religion being the mask for human animosities.[1] Under circumstances perhaps more numerous than we can imagine, men, women, and children were slaughtered to the last individual.
From what has preceded in the way of showing early man's conceptions of the potency of things about him, what would now be regarded as accident was by him regarded as the result of purposive action by the objects which seemed to work disaster. If a limb fell from a tree in a storm and killed a man, the explanation was that the tree had cast its weapon in anger, or the wind had, with intent, flung this missile with deadly aim. Stories have passed in recent times of African tribes that hewed down and chopped to bits a tree, a limb from which had caused the death of one
[1. 1 Sam. 15.]
of their number. Similarly, if a man were drowned by river or ocean, it was the angry flood or the offended sea which bad removed from this life the deceased human.
Recalling once more the steadfastness with which man holds to convictions once entertained, remembering that the new has always had to fight, and fight hard, for entrance into his mind, we may regard the instances to be adduced in which the belief that death is always an ab extra event, to be accounted for by causes other than "natural," as illustrative of and probably presumptive of the existence of the same belief in much wider circles than those in which it now obtains. It is best accounted for as a "superstition," i.e., as "something left over from earlier times." To be sure, in some cases, perhaps in all, the belief has taken on the complexion of a more advanced culture, it explains the death by "spiritual" means instead of by mere brute or physical force. This is a way that superstitions have. They fit themselves to the environment, mental or physical, which has wrapped itself about them.
From Australia quite concordant testimony from competent observers is accessible. Thus R. B. Smyth cites the statement of Mr. Daniel Bunce (curator of the Botanical Gardens at Geelong), a man well acquainted with the blacks, to the effect that "no tribe be has ever met with believe in the possibility of a man's dying a natural death. If a man is taken ill, it is at once assumed that some member of a hostile tribe has stolen some of his hair. This is quite enough to cause serious illness. If the man continues sick and gets worse, it is assumed that the hair has been burned by his enemy. Such an ad, they say, is sufficient to imperil his life. If the man dies, it is assumed that the thief has choked his victim and taken away his kidney fat."
Mr. Smyth continues: "Mr. John Green says that the men of the Yarrow tribe firmly believe that no one ever dies a natural death. A man or a woman dies because of the wicked arts practised by some member of a hostile tribe."[2]
In Appendix 3 to the same work (ii. 289-290) Albert A. C. Le Souef accounts for the paucity of population in part by the fad that a death by disease involves the death of others, because the first case was believed to be
[2. Aborigines of Victoria, i. 110.]
caused by sorcery, and a murdering expedition is at once carried out for vengeance. (This in turn starts a blood feud, and so on.)
Taplin remarks of the Narrinyeri: "When a man dies they conclude at once that sorcery has been the cause of the mournful event, and that either ngadhungi or millin [two methods of sorcery] have been practised against him."[3]
Spencer and Gillen testify that "no such thing as natural death is realized by the native; a man who dies has of necessity been killed by some other man, or perhaps even by a woman."[4]
Dawson's affirmation is quite concordant: "Natural deaths are generally--but not always--attributed to the malevolence and the spells of an enemy belonging to another tribe."[5]
In New Guinea the same belief holds, as witnessed by Newton.
"About Wedau and Wamira the spirits of the dead go eventually to some place to the eastward of Cape Frere, in a valley in the mountains called Iola, the approach to the
[1. Narrinyeri, in Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 19.
2. Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 48.
3. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 63.]
abode of the spirits being through a hole in the ground. When the spirit arrives it is questioned at once, 'Where have you come from?' 'What have you come for?' just as every time you go into a village every one who meets you asks you (these questions). The newly arrived one says, 'I have come from Wedau' or 'Wamira,' as the case may be, or the answer may state more explicitly the section of the village, and 'Where else should I go except to my own people?' Then the question is asked, 'Who sent you?' and for answer the name of some sorcerer or witch is given, the one responsible for the death."[6]
Indirect testimony is furnished by Neuhass to the same effect for German New Guinea, whose people separate souls with reference to post mortem continuance according as they died by the sword or by magic--the two methods which they recognize of passing from this life. The Mafulu of this island regard a death otherwise unaccounted for as due to spirits acting under sorcerers. An exception is conceived, however, in the case of very old persons, which seems to show the transition
[6. In Far New Guinea, p. 219.]
to a more advanced knowledge.[7] And in Hood Peninsula, British New Guinea, death is the result of the activities of spirits or magicians.[8] Gomes asserts that in Borneo all sickness (and therefore death not otherwise accounted for) by external means is caused by spirit possession.[9] Among Melanesians: "It must . . . be remembered that . . . death is not admitted to occur without some obvious cause such as a spear thrust. Therefore when vigorous and active members of the community die, it becomes necessary to explain their fate, and such deaths are firmly believed to be produced by sorcery."[10] In far away Africa "nearly all diseases, bad luck, misfortune, sorrow, and death are caused by witchcraft, i.e., by some one using a fetish to curse a person."[11]
Among the Indians of Guiana, "Every death, every illness, is regarded not as the result of natural law, but as the work of a kenaima (i.e., a man possessed by a spirit for the purpose of blood revenge, and able to
[7. Williamson, Ways of South Sea Savage, p. 286.
8. JAI, xxviii (1899), 216 ff.
9. Sea Dyaks of Borneo, p. 183.
10. Seligmann, Melanesians, p. 779.
11. Weeks, Primitive Bakongo, p. 219.]
send his spirit forth to inflict evil). Such a kenaima is . . . the real or supposed cause of almost every evil, and especially of every death."[12]
Concordant testimony is given by Brett:[13] "A person dies--and it is supposed that an enemy has secured the agency of an evil spirit to compass his death." A sorcerer is employed to discover the guilty individual, and a relative of the deceased is charged with the work of vengeance. He is a kenaima, possessed by the spirit of destruction.
It is the "left-overs" that often reveal to the discriminating observer the conditions which are implied, which surrounded the full bloom of what have become survivals. It is not difficult to imagine, and it is in accord with primitive psychology to presume, that the few cases here brought together, which might conceivably be much extended by definite research, suppose a much larger area over which such ideas were regnant.
[12. Im Thum, Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 329.
13. Indian Tribes of Guiana, pp. 357 ff.]
WHILE according to the facts adduced in the last chapter it is clear that a belief has existed that man might, were it not for accident or the like, continue to live on as a duality in this present life, the fact of death stared men in the face, and with equal intensity the belief was held that in death man did not cease to exist, but that the soul lived on. That the appearance of the deceased in dreams had no small part in the foundation of this belief seems almost certain. We have already seen I that dreams were regarded not as phantasies but as realities, and so the dead who were seen in the dream state were regarded as souls of the deceased appearing to the living. And other lines of evidence no doubt seemed to open to primitive man. At any rate, the fact of this belief, at least as far back as neolithic times, is evinced by the
[1. Above, pp. 23 ff.]
burial with the dead of utensils evidently meant for the service of the deceased in the land where he found himself after death. This faith is shown also by the acts of devotion or worship to the departed spirit, and by material provision of food and other comforts for the soul either at the grave or elsewhere.[2] Similarly evidential are the means taken to facilitate the soul's exit by door, window, or roof, even through holes made in the wall of house or tent; and the same value attaches to the evident effort to prevent the soul's return by carrying the corpse, to which it is supposed fondly to cling, by devious ways to its last resting place. Like conclusions are forced by the feasts and celebrations on anniversaries of death or burial, which attest not only affectionate remembrance, but first and principally belief in the soul's continuance. This belief in the soul's continuance is perhaps
[1. Graves of Greeks and Romans have been found where permanent conduits in the grave mounds permitted the passage of liquids and viands to the corpse--cf. Frazer's Pausanias, X. 4:7, and the editor's comment on the passage; and the same is true of graves in Mongolia, though in this case the evident purpose was not the entry of food but the exit of the ghost, as the openings are at the side of the tomb--cf. Geographical Magazine, May, 1913, p. 651.]
the most momentous and the choicest, as well as the oldest, that animistic races have left to us. The clear beginning of the doctrine so prized in all religions save Gautama's, viz., that concerning the immortality of the soul, is here in its embryonic stage. We have already noted that one means, perhaps the chief one, to the acquisition of this idea was the appearance of the dead in dreams. The deceased, so the conclusion ran, was not dead, he still existed, and in his own form. It may be remarked, en passant, that if religion inheres at all in this belief, then religion is everywhere existent; for no race has yet been discovered which bad not faith in the continuance of life beyond the grave. Once more, if religion inheres not in belief but in the practices to which belief gives rise, then in the care for the well-being of the soul of one that has passed, so widely prevalent, religion is no less shown to be universal.
To suppose, however, that the content of the primitive idea is that of full-fledged immortality or unending existence would be a serious misunderstanding. The conception of deathlessness in its absolute sense is probably never present among savages. Primitive philosophy does not sound so profound depths. Hence, because "immortality" says more than is contained in the savage's concepts of future life, the word "continuance" has been employed to express the notion found among the uncivilized. On the other hand, one must be on his guard when it is affirmed that savages have no idea of immortality. In the strict sense this is true, but only in so far as uncultured peoples have not reached any conception which at all approaches that of endlessness. They have no enduring records. Oral tradition, which may easily become confused and dim, carries them back only a few generations--four or five, say. So the notion of the soul life may be either indefinite--or rather, undefined--or may be regarded as limited to a certain number, greater or less, of lives like that already passed. Indeed, the life may have degrees, so to speak. Thus the African Etoi and Bakongo believe that "though ghosts have died once, they can die a second time, and so become more dead than before."' Among the Haida a war party is always accompanied by a shaman, among
[1. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, pp. 8, 24, etc.; Weeks, Primitive Bakongo, pp. 223-224, 243-244.]
whose duties is to kill the souls of the enemy.[4] In Fiji the natives believe that there is a certain Samu Yalo ("killer of souls") who haunts the path to the realm of the dead, and when a ghost comes along rushes out to kill it with an ax unless it succeeds in escaping. Another Fijian monster lies in wait and kills the souls of bachelors, so that they never reach heaven. In the same islands a ghost that is troublesome to the living may have his case settled by his unconditional demise.[5] That mortals may die again seems reasonable if only it be remembered that even gods grow old and die, according to "the cultured Egyptians." "Very aged was Ra, and the saliva ran down from his mouth and fell upon the earth"--a perfect picture of senility.[6] Heiti-eibib, a Hottentot hero-god, had the habit of dying.[7] In Polynesia Maui's wife used also to kill the gods.[8]
[4. Swanton, Jesup North Pacific Expedition, i. 40-51, cited by Halliday, Greek Divination, p. 95.
5. Williams, Fiji, i. 244 ff.; Wilkes, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 85.
6. Murray, Ancient Egyptian Legends, p. 81; cf. Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 54 ff.
7. Hahn, Tsuni-Goam, pp. 56 ff.
8 Westervelt, Legends of Maui, p. 127.]
THE continuance of the human soul's life is conditioned in various ways in different regions and stages of culture. Some tribes assign to souls a definite number of Post-mortem lives, which number may, however, have stood for indefinite continuance, being the tradition remaining from an earlier stage when ability to count above a small aggregate was uncommon. Thus Dyaks allot to the soul seven lives, after which it is annihilated.[1]Or continuance may be not the common fate, only that of a select few. The basis of selection then naturally varies.[2] It may be that of descent or station in life. Thus only chiefs survive in Fiji, and among the Tongans of the South Sea Islands.[3] Or the
[1. Gomes, Sea Dyaks of Borneo, p. 208.
2. Carpenter, Comparative Religion, p. 232.
3 Mariner, Natives of Tonga Islands, ii. 29 ff.]
mode of death may have something to do with it, as when New Guineans separate souls according as they died by sword or by magic--the two causes of death allowed to exist by this people.[4] Or (and this state of affairs exists, almost certainly, only in a somewhat advanced stage of culture) ethical standards may be established, and future life may be conditioned on compliance with such standards in this life. Such an idea may be found in a comparatively small area, neighboring regions showing no knowledge of such a test.' On the other hand, it has happened that while such standards ostensibly exist, magical practices in effect reduce the test to its lowest terms or even to the vanishing point. So with the "Negative Confession" of Egypt. This is clear from its evident use by practically every or any person, independent of character, who was by the formula of the Book of the Dead primed to override or evade obstacles to the passing of the soul to the happy abode. In parts of Melanesia the ultimate death of the soul is maintained, its
[4. Neuhass, Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii. 149 ff.
6. Codrington, Melanesians, pp. 274 ff.
6. HR, March, 1914.]
survival seeming to depend on survival in the memory of posterity.[7]
A different twist is given to the idea of continuance when the notion takes either of two somewhat closely related forms of expression, transformation or human reincarnation. Transformation, or change of mode of existence on earth, we have seen to be a natural consequence of that "parity of being" which is the prime characteristic of the animistic manner of thought. Is there any reason, a priori, why this should not operate when the soul is discarnate, unfleshed? As a matter of fact, the continuance of the soul in other forms of existence than the human is a widely diffused notion. Transmigration is not limited to philosophic developments like Buddhism, with its Jataka Tales of the 500 births of the Buddha. Indeed, it is practically certain that the transmigration of philosophic India is one of the noblest and most fruitful borrowings of the Aryans from the Kolarian and Dravidian aborigines. When these post-mortem transformations take place, the continuance may be indefinite or definitely limited. The Kai of German New Guinea hold that ghosts are
[7. Seligmann, Melanesians, p. 192.]
changed first into some sort of game animals, then into insects, and then comes "the last death." [8] This suggests the idea of a progressive diminution of vitality or fading away into nothingness, and may be a result of observation of the fading memory of survivors. In Melanesia, where ethical ideas condition future life, after doing penance, the soul takes the form of various animals, such as the flying fox.[9] Transformation into an owl is a frequent notion, as among the Arabs, and in Madagascar among the Haida.[10] One Cingalese woman (who has been murdered) becomes successively a turtle, a mango tree, a creeper, and a blue lotus. Another changes into a cobra.[11] In the Solomon Islands ghosts are incarnated in various animals, while among the Melanesians men at death became sharks, alligators, lizards, birds (the frigate bird par excellence), snakes, and the like.[12] The reincarnation or appearance of the dead in the
[8. Neuhass, Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii. 150 ff.
9. Brown, Melanesians, pp. 192 ff.
10. Doutte, L'Afrique du Nord, p. 361; Folk-lore, ii. 341; Swanton, North Pacific Expedition, p. 27.
11. Parker, Village Folk Tales of Ceylon, pp. 113 ff., 132.
12. Williamson, South Sea Savage, p. 65; Codrington, Melanesians, pp. 179 ff.]
form of snakes is both common and ancient; it is, of course, easily accounted for by the frequency of the animal among graves, the looseness of the earth and the crevices therein making easy the formation of their burrows. The reader of Homer and Vergil will recall the pertinent cases there narrated, while the vases and other monuments of art abundantly illustrate the belief--although sometimes the idea is modified by regarding the reptile as the "genius" of the departed. The naturalness of the idea is attested by its occurrence in regions as widely separated as New Guinea and Colombia.[13] Among the Mafulu of New Guinea the ghost may be transformed into a fungus living on the mountain.[14] And among the Narrinyeri of Australia rocks may be the form taken by deceased ancestors.[15]
Belief that the soul is reincarnated in human posterity is so natural, once the idea
[13. Miss Harrison, Prolegomena and Themis, passim; Neuhass, Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii. 515 ff.; Joyce, South American Archeology, p. 11.
14 Williamson, South Sea Savage, p. 281.
15 Wood, Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 202. Other cases in other parts of the world may be found in Declè, Three Years in Africa, p. 74; Das, Journey to Lhasa, pp. 56, 131 ff., 138, etc.; Keller, Madagascar, p. 85; Folk-lore, ii. 437; Arctander, Apostle of Alaska, p. 108.]
of transmigration is entertained, that it can not surprise us to find it widespread. When we remember how feature and gesture of infant or child may recall those of some deceased member of the family, one fruitful source of this idea may perhaps be disclosed. For the notion is not the exclusive possession of the philosophical, though we have stories from Greece, where it was incorporated in philosophical creeds, of men who recognized votive offerings dedicated in a former existence, or find poets like Vergil recounting the method of return and telling of the antecedent draught from the waters of Lethe. So well known is the belief that only a few typical cases need be adduced from primitive examples. Baganda women fear to pass places where executions have taken place or spots alleged to be haunted by dangerous ghosts, lest the ghosts enter them to begin another earthly life.[16] Similarly the Bakongo of the Congo region hold firmly to the reincarnation of the human spirit in human form.[17] So usual a happening is this among the Ibo of Nigeria
[16. Roscoe, The Baganda, pp. 20) 461 124, et passim; cf pp. 47, 289.
17. Weeks, Primitive Bakongo, p. 115.]
that, when a birth takes place, the doctor is called in to decide which ancestor has come back to earth. Indeed, an ancestor may there scissate and become incarnate in more than one descendant in any given generation.[18] The Kayans of Borneo also hold firmly to the doctrine, as do various tribes of Australian Bushmen.[19]
The same principle of parity of being permits interchange and transformation, to which we have become now so accustomed, to take place in another direction. The ghost may be changed into an evil spirit or demon or equally repulsive form. A Cingalese spirit which had temporarily left its body returned to find that body untenantable and addressed his wife in a dream. She supposed that he had become a Yaka (evil spirit) and was correspondingly terrified. Of course the wife's explanation to herself of the dream is excellent evidence of belief in the possibility and actuality of such transformations.[20] The Melanesian ghosts may assume the form of compositely-shaped
[18. Thomas, Anthropological Report, pp. 30-31.
19 Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes, ii. 47; Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes, pp. I19 ff., 335 ff., and Northern Tribes, pp. 145 ff., 330 ff., 448 ff.
20. Parker, Village Folk Tales of Ceylon, p. 170.]
demons.[21] The souls of the dead may in some cases become vampires and feed horribly on the living--indeed this terrible habit may have been formed before death.[22] See also below (Chap. XII) for other transformations.
[21. Codrington, Melanesians, pp. 258 ff.
22. Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush, pp. 192-193.]
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