Itis a commonplace among anthropologists that certain events in a community cause a state of taboo, which affects the members of the community in a greater or less degree, according to their nearness of place or blood to the person principally concerned, or according to the magnitude of the event. Among these events a death is not the least important. In the lower culture the whole village or settlement is often attainted by the occurrence of a death. But it is more particularly the near relatives, and those who have been brought into contact with the corpse, who are affected by the death-taboo (or, as it is often called, the death-pollution), most of all the widow or widower. We call the period of the death-taboo—mourning. The duration of the taboo, as well as its intensity, varies among different peoples, and not only according to the relationship of the mourners to the deceased, but also to his rank, from a few days to many months, and even to years. It is very rare that there is no mourning on a death; but if our reports may be trusted, there are a few cases, which, however, need not detain us.
Mourning garb is an essential part of the observances. Its object has been much debated by anthropologists. There seems little doubt that its first object is to distinguish those who are under the taboo from other persons: it is the sign of the plague. Professor Frazermany years ago laid it down “that mourning costume is usually the reverse of that in ordinary life.” He cited (among others) the practice at Rome for the sons of the deceased to walk at the funeral with their heads covered, the daughters with their heads uncovered, and that in Greece for men and women during the period of mourning to invert their usual habits of wearing the hair, the ordinary practice of men being to cut it short and that of women to wear it long.236.1The accuracy of the generalization might be illustrated from examples all over the world. The Arapaho, who wear their hair long and braided, when in mourning unbraid it and wear it unbound. Sometimes they cut it. They wear old clothing, and do not paint themselves as they are accustomed to do.236.2Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo men sometimes wear women’s dresses instead of their own, and shave half the hair of the head, or shave it in patches, and they rub clay on their bodies. Widows dress in only a few leaves or go stark naked, but with dirt or clay rubbed on the body. For three months after the funeral and a period of retirement in the bush they wear long, untidy-looking grass cloths.236.3When following a corpse to the grave Ainu mourners wear their coats inside out and upside down. An Ainu’s hair is never cut, except on the death of husband or wife; and then cutting is obligatory.236.4Among the Iban of Sarawak a widow’s mourning lasts until the final ceremonies, sometimes two years after the death. During that time she may not wear any ornament, her dress must be plain and old; and she is not allowed to pull out her eyelashes and eyebrows, nor to use soap forwashing. Whatever acquaintance she may have in ordinary life with soap, the prohibition to pull out her eyelashes and eyebrows is a prohibition of the last and most seductive touches of her toilet: no Iban woman would think of wearing eyelashes and eyebrows if she were not a widow in mourning.237.1By reversing the usual costume the mourner is distinguished from others, notice is given to the world of the taboo that binds him.
For this reason many of the aborigines of British Guiana lay their trinkets aside and go entirely naked; and among the Jiraras or Ayricas the wife, brothers and sisters of the deceased paint themselves all over with the juice of a fruit that renders them as black as Negroes, while relatives less near paint only their feet, legs, arms and part of the face: they are not so deeply compromised.237.2So on the Ivory Coast the Ngoulango or Pakhalla mourners put off their ornaments, put on the head a worn-out loin-cloth and wear brown clothing, marking different parts of the body with red earth. If anything more were necessary to exhibit their state of taboo, it would be the practice of widows when they went out of doors to carry a piece of “fetish” wood, endowed with the power of causing death to anyone who approached them and touched it.237.3In Australia the relatives, especially the women, cover their heads with clay, or in some parts of West Australia with red mud.237.4The Warramunga women in the Northern Territory cover themselves from head to foot with pipeclay.237.5Among the Uriyas of India, whose women are particularly fond of gay colours, a widow wears a plain white borderlesssari, or cloth, asthe sign of her bereavement.238.1The Man Cao Lan of Tonkin wear white garments not hemmed; and those of their women who have adopted the Annamite trousers recur to the native petticoat.238.2
The colours of the mourning garb vary widely. Dr Frazer has collected a considerable list, to which it is needless to add. Let it suffice to say that though emblematic colours are often used, the main principle, especially in the lower culture, is that just discussed of reversing, or wearing something quite distinctive from, the ordinary costume.
The condition of taboo occasioned by a death, it should be noted, is by no means limited to the death of a human being. Among the ancient Egyptians the Mendesians observed a great mourning on the death of a goat; and more generally when a cat died by a natural death everyone in the house shaved his eyebrows, while on the death of a dog the whole head and body were shaved. Both these and other animals were also accorded honours of burial in sacred tombs.238.3The native tribes of Manipur lay agenna, or taboo, upon the inmates of a house in which an animal dies or has young, especially a cow; and when a cat dies it is wrapped up in a cloth and buried amid lamentations in a grave dug for it by the old women.238.4To the Ibo-speaking peoples of Nigeria the leopard is a quasi-sacred animal. At Aguku the hunter who has killed it puts eagle-feathers in his hair and does no work for twenty-eight days: that is to say, he is under a taboo for a whole moon. At Ugwoba he may not go tothe Aǰana (the shrine of the earth) for a year; he must sit down without working for twenty-eight days, and may eat only such food as has been put in a pot and hung over the fire; he sleeps in a good house, and people watch lest other leopards come and kill him. On the twenty-eighth day, on taking the skin to market, sacrifices are offered to a certain tree, which is regarded asekwensu, defined as the spirit of a man who has been killed with a rope or a knife, or of a woman who has died in pregnancy.239.1Such a death would be an evil death, and the ghost would be naturally inclined to make others suffer in the same way; but the sacrifices would perhaps conciliate him and induce him to turn his attention to an effectual protection of the sacrificer against the leopards’ vengeance.
Among the Herero of German South-West Africa to shed the blood of a lion is the same as to shed that of a human being; and he who kills a lion can only wash away the sin by the shedding of his own blood. This is done by scoring his breast and arm with a flint and dropping some of the blood upon the earth.239.2The Hidatsa of the North American prairies, after hunting eagles, build a sweat-lodge and purify themselves, singing a mystery-song or incantation.239.3The practice, in fact, is widespread. In some instances it may be explained by totemism or analogous beliefs. In any case there can be no doubt it is dictated by similar motives to those that lead to the taboo and mourning after the death of a human being.
The suggestion has been made that the change ofgarb is intended as a disguise to deceive the spirit of the deceased, and so to shelter the mourner from its attacks. On the one hand, many tribes unquestionably adopt the same costume after killing an enemy as on the death of a friend. Among the Abarambos of Welle in the French Soudan, when a native kills another he blackens his face, girds himself with a grass cord and eats only raw bananas, to hinder the ghost from coming to kill him in his turn. The same rites are observed on the death of a husband or wife, with the addition that the survivor disappears for a time into the woods.240.1
But this is by no means the universal rule. Among the Nandi of East Africa the killing of an enemy entails quite a different garb from the death of a friend. “When a married man dies, his widows and unmarried daughters lay aside all their ornaments, and the eldest son wears his garment inside out”; and more or less shaving, according to their nearness in blood, is done by all the relatives. “On the death of a married woman her youngest daughter wears her garment inside out, whilst her other relations put rope on their ornaments [to hide them, a common practice where they cannot easily be taken off] and shave their heads. In the case of unmarried people the female relations cover their ornaments with rope, and the male relations shave their heads.” The killing of a Nandi, so far as appears, does not entail a change of costume, at least if the homicide belong to a different clan from his victim. It is merely the subject of vengeance, unless bought off by blood-money. Curiously enough, it does not even seem to render the guilty man “unclean,” as the killing of a member of his ownclan does. The latter indeed renders him “unclean for the rest of his life, unless he can succeed in killing two other Nandi of a different clan, and can pay the fine himself.” In the meantime, for aught that appears in Mr Hollis’ careful account of the Nandi, no change of costume is necessary beyond what other members of the clan must undergo on the death of a relation. The killing of a person belonging to another tribe—a person who is not a Nandi,—however, entails a stringent condition of taboo, yet it is a subject, not of blame like the killing of a Nandi, but of praise. The slayer “paints one side of his body, spear and sword red, and the other side white. For four days after the murder he is considered unclean, and may not go home. He has to build a small shelter by a river and live there; he must not associate with his wife or sweetheart, and he may only eat porridge, beef, and goat’s flesh. At the end of the fourth day he must purify himself by drinking a strong purge made from the bark of the segetet-tree, and by drinking goat’s milk mixed with bullock’s blood.”241.1
Other tribes in the east of Africa paint the man-killer. Masai warriors (from whom possibly the Nandi have taken over the custom), after returning victorious, paint the body in the manner just described.241.2Among the Borâna Galla, the conquerors who have slain an enemy, on returning, are washed by the women with a mixture of fat and milk, and their faces are painted red and white. After dirges over those who have fallen, the praises of the surviving heroes are sung, and the young warriors’ trophies are publicly buried outside the village. These trophies are portions of the bodiesof the slaughtered foes which cannot be conveniently preserved.242.1The washing is obviously a ceremonial purification. Apart from this the entire proceeding is one of triumph, and there is no indication of an attempt at concealment. In the Congo basin the Yaka warrior who kills a man in battle incurs the danger of reprisals on the part of the ghost. He can, however, escape by wearing the red tail-feathers of the parrot in his hair and painting his forehead red. Upon this it is to be observed that, as elsewhere, red is a favourite colour among the Bayaka. It is used for body-painting of both living and dead. The corpse is painted before burial; the dandy paints himself to increase his beauty; the widow is painted in mourning. The painting of the forehead can therefore hardly be a disguise. The tail-feathers of the parrot are probably an amulet.242.2
The Lillooet or the Ntlakapamux warrior of British Columbia who has slain a foe paints not merely his forehead but his entire face black. If he did not do so, it was believed that he would become blind; and in the case of the latter tribe we are told that “the spirit ofthe victim would cause him to become blind.” Blindness for some reason is dreaded by these tribes after other deaths. Among the Lillooet a widower cuts his hair very short above his eyes and ears; “for if his hair touched the eyes he would become blind.” The cutting of the hair is, of course, a very common rite either in or at the conclusion of mourning. Among the Ntlakapamux, widows and widowers “rubbed four times across their eyes a small smooth stone taken from beneath running water, and then threw it away, praying that they might not become blind.”243.1Since widows and widowers are specially subject to the persecution of the deceased spouse, we may perhaps infer that the blindness in such cases would be attributable to the departed. A parity of reasoning would lead to the same conclusion in regard to the warrior’s victim. But how the painting of the face black would prevent such a catastrophe we are in the dark. For aught we know, it may have been (for instance) an expression of contrition designed to mollify the injured ghost. Mortuary ceremonies are almost everywhere so complicated that it is difficult to disentangle their motives. In the related tribe of the Skqomic all who follow the corpse in the burial procession must paint the breasts of their garments with red paint, else “a scarcity of fish would be the result at the next salmon run”; and the widow in addition is painted with red streaks on the crown of her head.243.2The fact is that painting oneself is a preparation for the footlights by no means confined to over-civilized peoples. It is so usual in the most varied stages of culture, from the lowest upwards, that we cannot safely pronounce it an attempt at disguise.
A somewhat stronger case might perhaps be made for the garb of a company of Dyak head-hunters, if we could be sure that the ceremonies as described a few years ago by an eyewitness at the settlement of Tandjoeng-Karang, on the river Kapoeas, were intact. But when a rite is in decay, as head-hunting is, all sorts of variations are possible. The British and Dutch governments, now supreme in Borneo, with little regard for the most sacred feelings of their heathen subjects, positively forbid a custom intended to procure blessings for the community by the conversion of ancient foes into guardian spirits. Hence it is often necessary, instead of taking fresh heads, to put up with old ones and to make believe that they are new. For this purpose an expedition is sent forth on a mock-raid, carrying skulls of former victims with them, and bringing them back as if they were just acquired. When the expedition returns, it is received as if it were a successful war-party, and the ceremonies on the arrival of genuine head-hunters are performed. At Tandjoeng-Karang, on the occasion in question, these included dances in which both men and women took part. The men (who had been fasting, and were still under taboo) were clad in war-apparel. Skins of animals hung from their shoulders; feathers adorned their caps; and all wore on their wrists, arms and legs ornaments of withered palm-leaves, such as are distinctive of successful raiders. In addition, some had also shaved the front of the head and decked it with similar wreaths, so that the leaves hung down like fringes over the face. If this were intended as a disguise, it is curious that not all the raiders were thus shaven. Whether there was any reason why all did not share in this treatment of the head, or indeed what the palm-leaf ornament signified, it was not possible to ascertain. The observer was assured, however,that the shaving was necessary in order to bring the fast to an end, and that in former days the shorn hair was thrown into the water with invocations to the spirits. Now it lay neglected where it fell. The day was concluded with feasting and further dances; but the men were not yet entirely relieved from their taboo. This was accomplished early the next morning with a bath in the river; and the slaughter of hogs and another feast brought the solemnity to a close.245.1
On the other hand, all supernatural beings are deceived and tricked with what are to us very transparent devices. The standard of intellect in the other world would seem to be much lower than in this. Even the spirits of Shakespeare and Milton, when conjured up in a spiritualisticséance, are found stripped of all their supreme qualities, and hardly the equals of the silly persons who have flocked to their manifestations. In Borneo it is recorded that “some Madang [a sub-tribe of the Kenyahs], who had crossed over from the Baram to the Rejang on a visit, appeared each with a cross marked in charcoal on his forehead. They supposed that by this means they were disguised beyond all recognition by evil spirits.” And Tama Bulan, a Kenyah chief, when on a visit to Kuching, discarded for the same reason the leopard’s teeth which he habitually wore at home through the upper part of his ears.245.2In the same island also the Kayans protect a child from an evil-disposed Toh, or inferior spirit, by a sooty mark on the forehead, consisting of a vertical median line and a horizontal band above the eyebrows, which is thought to render it difficult for the Toh to recognize his victim.245.3
This facility of deception, it may be observed, extends to other senses than that of sight. It is accountable for the taboo of words and the use of euphemisms in hunting and on other occasions. The poor silly spirits will not be able to penetrate the disguise. In the north-east of Scotland the fishermen when at sea never pronounced the wordsminister,kirk,swine,salmon,trout,dog, and so on, but used other words or phrases instead, such as “bell-hoose” forkirk, or “the man wi’ the black quyte” forminister.246.1The people of Mulera-Ruanda in German East Africa have a definite theory to account for such a practice. They hold that the spirits have indeed ears and can hear what is said, but they have no eyes. Consequently when a householder proposes on some solemn occasion, as a betrothal, to sacrifice an animal, he directs the slave to go to the hill and fetch the thickest sweet potato for a feast, meaning a fat goat from the herd. This goat he then offers to his ancestors, calling it an ox; for the spirits will not be able to detect the cheat.246.2Like Isaac in the Hebrew story, they are blind, and “what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve at,” as our English proverb has it: they can be thus deceived into giving their blessing in return for a trifling gratification.
Yet it may be doubted whether the cases alleged by Professor Frazer in the important paper to which reference has been made, as favouring the opinion that mourning clothes are a disguise, are not susceptible of a different interpretation. So inconclusive did he himself think the evidence that he refrained from definitely committing himself to the opinion in question, though others have since done so. The custom of painting the face and body in mourning is so common that it is at least remarkable that the tribes of Borneo, who disguisethemselves, as we have seen, from hostile spirits with charcoal, do not seem to attempt this defence against the peevish ghost of a newly deceased person. They content themselves with wearing bark-cloth or clothes stained yellow with clay, with allowing the hair to grow where it is usually shaved, or shaving it where it usually grows, and with laying aside personal ornaments or substituting for the metal earrings commonly worn by the women a wooden makeshift.247.1In this way they may be said to conform to the rule already discussed of reversing the ordinary costume.
A Bohemian custom required the mourners to put on masks and to practise strange behaviour on their return from the funeral. It may be conjectured that this was a dance or devil-drive, intended to expel, not to deceive. Such dances are not uncommon, both at periodical purification ceremonies247.2and on the occasion of a death. The use of masks at funeral dances of this kind has been reported, for example, in recent years among the Bantu-speaking peoples of the prairie-land in the interior of the Kamerun. At these dances wooden masks in the likeness of lower animals as well as of human beings are worn; and two of the latter, hideous enough to horrify any respectable ghost, are figured by the German explorer who discovered them.247.3More recently another German explorer has found, on the Upper Aiary in the interior of Brazil, mourning-dances of a similar character, in which masks were used representing various animals and demons, and has given figures from photographs of the dancers, as well as a lively description of one of the dances which he witnessed. This dance began with an attack on theMaloka, or community-house, by a troop of evil spirits, who eventually succeeded in storming it. The mother and widow of the dead man wailed. The attacking party, having forced an entrance, sang. The women were terrified, but the scene ended in weeping and laughter. It was followed by dances and songs by the various animals; and the performance was concluded by a phallic dance—a pantomime of the process of reproduction. The meaning of the masque, the explorer declares, was clear. It was a magic ritual intended to propitiate the angry ghost of the deceased, that he might not return and carry off any of the survivors. The evil demons, to whose charge perhaps the death was laid, and from whose spite mankind is never safe, would by the performance be hindered from further mischief. Mákukö (the forest-demon) and the jaguar, foes of the hunter, the spoilers of the crops (worms, larvæ, and other vermin), and likewise the game itself were meant, by the mimicry of their various proceedings, to be magically influenced and rendered favourable to men, so that rich booty, large harvests, and every sort of fertility and blessing would result.248.1
If it be objected that a mask is by its very nature intended to deceive, we must not forget that that is very often not its primary object. A nurse in play with a child will sometimes put on a mask for an instant. She does so not to deceive the child as to her identity, but to cause a momentary terror. So the horrible distortions of the human countenance, the wild, the grotesque, the impossible mingling of human and bestial features characteristic of many of the masks used in these dances, are often intended rather to terrify than to deceive the supernatural beings against whom the performance is directed.A warrior going to battle decks himself out with paint and feathers, with helmet and grinning crest, in order to strike fear into the heart of his foe. Spirits are as easily frightened as human beings. Indeed, happily for the comfort of mankind, they are possessed of uncommonly weak nerves which fail them, with all their malevolence, at every turn. All that is necessary is for the man who knows how to deal with them to put on a bold front, and they will flee before him.
Professor de Groot, writing of the war against spectres in China, says: “A courageous man while boldly fighting, or trying to terrify by aggressive gestures, easily gets his hair disordered. Therefore flowing hair intimates intrepidity, and cannot fail to inspire the spectral world with fear.… This idea has not only formed the text of old traditions, but as early as the Han dynasty had created the custom of setting up long-haired heads, in order to drive away spectres. No wonder that to this day long-haired exorcists assuming this terrifying aspect, and enhancing it by weapons brandished with vigour, are everyday appearances also in spectre-expelling processions. Accoutrements,” he goes on to say, “have been worn with the same object since early times. Before the Christian era, thefang-siang, while purifying grave-pits, houses, and streets, were dressed with bearskins and masked with grotesque caps; and under the Han dynasty persons masked as animals, feathered, haired and horned, accompanied them in exorcising processions, jumping about and screaming. Probably such exorcists have appeared in all ages at funerals. Even to this day…fang-siangare seen therein in the shape of effigies.”249.1
But masked personages in many mourning-dances represent the ghosts themselves. In the islands of TorresStraits, for example, such representations are an indispensable part of the funeral ceremonies, and the identity of the ghost is “indicated by a pantomimic representation of characteristic traits of the deceased. The idea,” says Dr Haddon, “evidently was to convey to the mourners the assurance that the ghost was alive and that in the person of the dancer he visited his friends; the assurance of his life after death comforted the bereaved ones.”250.1The identification of the performer with the deceased is among some peoples complete. Thirty days after the death of an adult Musquakie Indian the dead man is personated by a friend, who in this character attends a farewell feast preparatory to the final departure of the ghost for the Happy Hunting Grounds. He is called the ghost-carrier. When the sun goes down he departs toward the west, convoyed by a number of the friends of the deceased, all of whom, like himself, are painted but not masked. After nightfall they return and are welcomed as from a long journey. The ghost-carrier is by everyone addressed by the name of the deceased. In a few days he visits the parents of the deceased, if they survive, announcing himself as their dead son, who would care for them in their old age. He is henceforth looked upon as their son, called by that son’s name, and pledged to a son’s duty to them, though his own parents do not necessarily give him up and still call him by his own name. Similar ceremonies are performed for women by women.250.2In fact the performer who represents a supernatural being in a religious dance of any kind is quite commonly regarded not as a representative, but as the supernatural personage himself, so long as he wears the mask and bears his attributes. So an author already quoted, writing of theIndians of North-Western Brazil, says: “The demon is involved in the mask, is incorporated in it; the mask is for the Indian the demon himself.… The demon of the mask passes over into the masquer for the time being.”251.1The masked dances of these Indians are performed especially in honour of the dead. The masks therefore are intended to deceive nobody, not even the recently deceased, who as a new arrival in the other world may be “a babe in these things.” The masquers are the demonsin propriis personiswithout any deceit.
A different case is that of a Myoro woman cited by Dr Frazer from Captain Speke’sJournal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. Her child had died. She smeared herself with butter and ashes and ran frantically about, “while the men abused her in foul language for the express purpose of frightening away the demons” who had carried off her child. And Dr Frazer asks: “If curses are meant to frighten, are not the ashes meant to deceive the demon?”251.2From the description of the scene, however, it seems probable that the demon was conceived as actually in possession of the woman, and that it was intended to drive him out of her. In that event again there would be no deception of the demon—it was open war; while the ashes may be referable to quite another cause, as will be suggested below.
A third possible example is the custom in Calabria, whereby the women cease wailing at night and put off the black veils they donned at the moment of death.251.3Here it may be, as Professor Frazer suggests, a sufficient explanation that disguise is superfluous in the dark. The custom of wearing veils or hoods to conceal the face inmourning is not confined to Europe, though widely spread there. The “weepers” and other crape trappings still in use in France, but for the most part abandoned in this country, are probably relics of it. It is found among nations sundered as far as the Eskimo on the shores of the frozen ocean from the tribes of the Eastern Archipelago and Melanesia. The veil is sometimes worn without intermission. Among the Minuanes of South America the widow carefully covers her face with her hair, notwithstanding she remains for several days in the hut.252.1About Bering Strait the housemates of a deceased Eskimo must remain in their accustomed places in the house during the four days following the death, while the ghost is believed to be still about. During this time all of them must keep their fur hoods drawn over their heads, not to deceive the dead man, but “to prevent the influence of the shade from entering their heads and killing them.”252.2Where the mourners are confined more or less to the house, however, the custom of veiling is often, perhaps usually, more stringent on going out of doors than when they are inside in the dark. In the lower culture the women at least are frequently confined to the house, and only go out in case of necessity at night, or at early morning and evening to weep at the grave. But the Calabrian women would more naturally go out of doors, if at all, by day; hence they would be more closely veiled by day; and at night, when they would not go out, they might wear their ordinary head-dress of a white handkerchief. It is at least curious that they themselves assume that they would be recognized at night through the disguise by “il demonio,” who has doubtless succeeded to the pre-Christian terrors of the other world; and they declare it is lest he should rejoiceover their sorrow—to deceive him as to that, and not as to their identity—that they doff the discomfort of the veil. For the same reason they take the opportunity to suspend their wailing, which to be sure is not as a rule anywhere absolutely continuous: human nature could not endure it.
Taboo is the most contagious of diseases. Mourning garb is its outward and visible sign, and a warning to all who would otherwise come into contact with the mourner. The veil in particular may be compared with the head-coverings and seclusion required of girls arriving at maturity. At that period they also are under taboo. Among the Eskimo, the tribes of British Columbia, many of the South American tribes and the Bantu tribes of Africa, and over a considerable area in the south of Asia, the Indian Ocean and Melanesia, adolescent girls are confined for a longer or shorter time where they cannot be seen, or kept covered if they go out of doors. They are very sensitive to the influence of the sun.253.1But it is not merely that the sun would affect them; their very glance is deleterious. A Thlinkit girl wears a hat with long flaps, that her glance may not pollute the sky. Among the Tsetsaut it is believed that if she were to expose her face to the sun or the sky, rain would fall.253.2So the Hupa grave-digger in California is under a taboo. He has come into contact with death, and is required after the funeral to carry a bough of Douglas spruce over his head, “that he may not by any chance glance at the sky or at any human being, thereby contaminating them.”253.3On the island of Mabuiag, if a maturing girl’s own father see her, he will have bad luck in fishing, and probablysmash his canoe the next time he goes in it.254.1So far as I am aware, there is no intention in veiling a girl at puberty to disguise her so as to delude any spiritual foe. It is true that both she and the mourners at a death (including all who take part in the death-rites) are exposed to special dangers. That is because they are alike in a state of taboo. They are thus also dangerous to others. They must be secluded; or if they venture abroad they must be either covered or so garbed as to keep other persons at a distance.
That the same reasons apply, at all events among some tribes, to the veiling of the faces of widows and widowers appears from the customs of the Lkungen of Vancouver Island. After a burial “the whole tribe go down to the sea, wash their heads, bathe, and cut their hair. The nearer related a person is to the deceased, the shorter he cuts his hair. Those who do not belong to the deceased’s family merely clip the ends of their hair.… Widow and widower, after the death of wife or husband, are forbidden to cut their hair, as they would gain too great power over the souls and the welfare of others. They must remain alone at their fire for a long time, and are forbidden to mingle with other people. When they eat, nobody must see them. They must keep their faces covered for ten days. They fast for two days after burial and are not allowed to speak. After two days they may speak a little; but before addressing anyone they must go into the woods and clean themselves in ponds and with cedar-branches. If they wish to harm an enemy they call his name when taking their first meal after the fast, and bite very hard in eating. It is believed that this will kill him. They must not go near the water, or eat fresh salmon, as the latter might be driven away.They must not eat warm food, else their teeth would fall out.”255.1This account shows that the widow or widower is dangerous to other people, and consequently in a state of taboo. It further shows that the fast and privation of society and comfort that such a mourner undergoes materially increase hisorenda, giving him power to kill his enemy by sympathetic magic, or even rendering him a peril to his own community if he add to the severity of his penance by cutting his hair, as a mourner who is not so nearly related to the deceased does. All this is in accord with the principles underlying the taboo and fast of girls and boys at puberty. There can be very little doubt that it is dictated by similar motives. If so, the covering of the face is, here at least, not intended to disguise the mourner and conceal him from the ghost. It is an integral portion of his taboo. It helps to safeguard the well-being of the surviving members of his community, and to make his ownorendamore powerful.
It is no part of my case to deny that mourning garb is ever intended to deceive the ghost. Customs differ so much in different cultural areas that it is quite possible there may be some instances in which the intention is to disguise the mourner by way of precaution against the deceased. Professor Frazer has brought forward two cases, and only two, so far as I am aware, in which this object is avowed. The first is found in the western districts of the island of Timor. When a man dies and before his body is put into a coffin, his wives stand weeping over it with their village gossips, “all with loosened hair, in order to make themselves unrecognizable by thenitu(spirit) of the dead.”255.2I have not seen the authorityhe cites; therefore I do not know whether we are given any information how a widow in these districts habitually wears her hair. For aught that appears here, the hair is loosened only for this ceremony, which comes to an end with the enclosure of the corpse in the coffin, and may not last for more than an hour or two. If so, whatever be the reason for hindering the ghost from identifying the participants, the loosening of the hair may not be, strictly speaking, part of the mourning garb.
The other case is a practice occasionally in use among the Herero. When a dying man intimates to one of his relatives and friends, who crowd around him at such a time, that he has “decided upon taking him away after his death,” that is to say, that he will kill him (fetch him to the other world), the person so threatened has recourse to anonganga, or witch-doctor. This functionary strips him, washes and greases him afresh, and dresses him in other clothes. “He is now quite at his ease about the threatening of death caused by the deceased; for, says he: ‘Now, our father does not know me.’” The survivors, however, may fulfil the threat.256.1This certainly does appear to be a case of disguise, or at least a change of clothes in order to deceive the deceased; but the substituted clothes do not appear to be mourning garb, and the problem of mourning garb is what we are endeavouring to solve.
That protection is needed against the ghost of the recently dead is clear. All over the world there is fear of ghosts. Protection, however, is not commonly sought in disguise, even in extreme cases. It is frequently sought, as against other supernatural foes, in fire. The custom is so well known that it need not now detain us.256.2The Ewhe widow provides herself with a club, burns pungent powders and takes other precautions from assault, or even approach, by the deceased. A widower does the same. In both cases the event to be dreaded is the attempt by the deceased to renew conjugal relations. This danger assumes recognition by the ghost. So far from seeking to elude it, she goes entirely naked. The lot, whether of widow or widower, is not happy, though here, as elsewhere, the woman gets the worst of it: she must be defended for six weeks, while seven or eight days suffice for him.257.1The Charrua mourner in South America went forth into the wilderness armed with a stick.257.2The Eskimo of Bering Strait indeed wear fur hoods, but, as we have seen, they are a direct defence against the penetrative influence of the ghost, not a disguise. The Koryak, the Timorlaut islanders, the Ngoulango of the Ivory Coast seek refuge in a talisman or amulet.257.3
The amulet preserved by the son of the deceased Timorlaut islander is a piece of his father’s nail. According to the rules of sympathetic magic he preserves in this way his corporal union with the deceased, and thereby ensures his protection. The widow or widower does not take a portion of the body, but wears a piece of the clothing. This obviously is intended to have the same effect. The practice is not unknown elsewhere. In Syria when a man dies his wife puts on one of his garments and sings funeral songs.257.4Dr Junker relates that he witnessed the ceremonies on the death of the ruler of Kabajendi, who had lived almost all his lifeamong the A-sande and was mourned according to their rites. His wives, after wailing beside the coffin, marched through the zeriba and pretended to search in every hole and corner, crying out to him, creeping in and out on hands and knees under the overhanging thatch of the roofs, then gathering and starting again on further explorations, all the while howling, shrieking, and lamenting. The next morning those of them who could manage to possess themselves of any article of his clothing put it on, marching round the village thus attired in a continual procession or dance, while others carried sword, lances, clubs, climbing plants, maize-cobs, and so forth, their heads strewn with ashes. This performance lasted for a fortnight, despite the tropical rain.258.1
Some light on this fantastic promenade may be thrown by the proceedings of the Bangala women. In the Boloki district, “when a man of any position died his wives would throw off their dresses and wear old rags (sometimes they would go absolutely naked), pick up anything belonging to him—his chair, spear, pipe, mug, knife, shield or blanket—anything that came first to hand; and having covered their bodies with a coating of clay, they would parade the town in ones, or twos, or threes, crying bitterly and calling upon him to return to them. They would stop at times in their crying and say: ‘He is gone to So-and-so; we will go and find him’; and away they would start off in a business-like fashion in their pretended search for him. This parading they would keep up for a day or two, and then women of the town would bedeck themselves with climbing plants, vines,leaves, and bunches of twigs; and, forming themselves into a procession, they would march through the town chanting the praises of the deceased. Men would paint and arm themselves as for a fight, and would imitate the daring acts of the departed as a warrior; and if he had been remarkable for fighting on the river, they would arrange a sham canoe-fight in his honour.… It was an amusing and interesting sight, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed both by actors and spectators alike. They called this praising or honouring the dead.”259.1
It has been suggested that the wearing of a portion of the clothing of the dead is intended to delude him into the belief that those who do so are themselves dead, and so to turn aside his attack.259.2No proof, so far as I am aware, has been offered for the suggestion. Whatever the exact intention of the A-sande rite (and its equivalence with the Boloki rite is obvious), it can hardly be tortured into this. The ghost must be stupid indeed who cannot distinguish his own clothing and personal chattels when carried about by his wives. To wear the clothing of the deceased identifies the mourner with him, sometimes for the purpose of protection by means of sympathetic magic, sometimes for the presentation of the dead man in funeral ceremonies like those of the Torres Straits islanders or the Musquakie Indians.259.3Where this is not the object, to put on his coat and to carry his mug or his spear in procession may be due, as it seems to be here, to some vague idea of honouring him, or perhaps of inducing him to return. The supposition that it is intended to deceive the ghost may be safely discarded.
In more general terms it has been conjectured thatmourning rites are intended to express union with the departed by obligatory, if partial, participation of his state, that by virtue of the contagion of death the mourners have become really changed and are for a time as if they were dead, hence they must eat, clothe, and conduct themselves as far as possible like the dead.260.1Lastly, it has been pointed out that many of the observances imposed on mourners are a return to more primitive and savage conditions—such as sitting on the bare earth, going naked or wearing only the roughest and coarsest stuffs, and abstaining from good food in favour of wild berries and roots;—and the question has been put whether this may not be the essence of mourning.260.2There is probably some measure of truth in both these suggestions; but they must not be pressed too far. Many of the rites and usages are intended beyond question to express sympathy for the deceased, and a temporary segregation with him from ordinary life.
But they go further: in all the greater degrees of mourning at least they indicate grief at his loss that is calculated to call down the pity and compassion of every beholder, and to deprecate the wrath or ill-humour of the deceased. It is very striking that while coarse and scanty garments (sackcloth or bark-cloths among peoples who usually wear cotton or wool, and mere loin-cloths or nothing at all among peoples usually clad) are worn in place of more luxurious stuffs, a frequently recurring prescription is old worn-out clothes. In the Tonga Islands the mourners (who are always women) are “habited in large old ragged mats—the more ragged, the more fit for the occasion, as being more emblematical of a spirit broken down, or, as it were, torn to pieces bygrief.”261.1In the hinterland of the Sherbro in West Africa, on the mourning for a chief’s death, the people most closely connected with him “presented an unkempt and slovenly appearance, their bodies draped in the oldest and dirtiest of their cloths.”261.2Among the Baganda on the other side of the continent the mourning garb for an ordinary man is “old bark-cloths and a girdle of dry plantain leaves: the hair is unkempt, the nails are allowed to grow long like birds’ claws, and on the chest is a white patch, a mixture of water and ashes.”261.3The custom of strewing ashes on the person is very widely practised: more than one example has been incidentally given. Among the Hebrews its use was not confined to mourning for the dead; repentance in dust and ashes is a familiar figure in English speech, and is derived from the Bible. The general air of neglect and misery produced by these practices might be paralleled in the mourning customs of most countries. Even in our own island little more than a hundred years ago it was noted that the chief mourner at a funeral in the parish of Llanvetherine, Monmouthshire, and elsewhere wore a dirty cloth about his head.261.4And of many peoples the description by a French writer of the mourning garb among the Agni of Sanwi on the Ivory Coast would hold literally true: “Old black loin-cloths, unwashed for a long time.On ne se peigne pas—on ne fait pas de toilette—on reste modeste.”261.5
This is not all. Mourners fast, abstaining altogether from food or indulging only in restricted diet, and that of an inferior kind. On the island of Aurora all who are in mourning refrain from certain food. The immediate relatives may not eat any cultivated food.They are limited to gigantic caladium, bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, mallow, and other things which must be sought in the bush where they grow.262.1The ancient Hurons were forbidden, even in cold weather, to eat warm food.262.2Among the Charruas of South America the adult sons of a dead man remain for two days entirely naked in their huts and almost without food.262.3In Togoland the Ewhe widow is forbidden beans, flesh, fish, palm-wine and rum; any infringement of these prohibitions would cost her life.262.4
Many nations add to their other rites that of laceration or even mutilation of the body. In Central Australia the Warramunga women fight with one another and cut one another’s scalps, and all who stand in any near relation to the deceased, reckoned according to the classificatory system—which greatly widens the area of relationship—also cut their own scalps open with yam-sticks, the actual widows even searing the wound with red-hot fire-sticks.262.5It was forbidden to the ancient Hebrews, by what was evidently a reform of a pre-existing custom, to make a baldness between the eyes for the dead—in other words, to cut themselves on the brow.262.6Among the Arawaks a drinking-feast is held, at which all the men of the village assemble and scourge one another with whips made of a climbing plant, until the blood runs in streams and strips of skin and muscle hang down. Those who participate in the rite often die of their wounds.262.7As if mere wounding were not enough,finger-joints are frequently cut off. In the Fiji Islands the amputation of a finger-joint is a common sign of mourning. In one case in Tonga when a king died orders were issued that one hundred fingers should be cut off.263.1In Montana, one of the north-western states of America, on the execution of four aborigines for murder in December 1890, they were mourned by two squaws, who scalped their children. One of them gashed her own face, while the other cut off two of her fingers and threw them into the grave.263.2When a Charrua dies his widow and his married daughters and sisters amputate each of them a finger-joint, besides inflicting other wounds on themselves.263.3
The illustration of practices like these might be multiplied indefinitely. The same reason holds good for them all. In the lower culture grief at a death is often intensified by fear—on the one hand, of an accusation of witchcraft—on the other hand, of the ill-will of the deceased himself, who is naturally disgusted to find himself dead. Against the latter danger at any rate the forlorn condition of the survivors, stiff with wounds, thrust like him from the company of their friends and fellow-tribesmen, made to wear a distinctive garb, often in rags or dirt, wailing, watching, fasting, would constitute an appeal that even the ghost of a savage would feel hard to resist. That this is actually the effect intended, in some instances at least, is certain. A widow among the Salivas of South America cuts her hair, and is not allowed to anoint herself as usual, nor to wear any ornament, in order, we are expressly told, not to irritate the departed, but to humble herself before him.263.4Nor must it be overlooked that wailing and lamenting, so usually part of the rites practised especially by the chief mourners, such as widows and near relations, would not favour concealment. On the contrary, they would draw attention to the grief, and help even the simplest and most easily deluded of ghosts to identify the mourner, which they would seem indeed to be meant to do. But they would powerfully deprecate his malice or revenge. In this connection the belief of the Bañarwanda on the east of Lake Kivu, in German East Africa, is interesting. To them thebazimu(plural ofmuzimu) or souls of the departed are by no means always kindly disposed, even the best of them. They must be continually propitiated with offerings, or they will cause calamities, either of themselves directly, or indirectly by setting in motion theimandwa, semi-apotheosized heroes. But themuzimudoes not begin his mischievous activities until the mourning ceremonies are at an end. So long as they last the survivors are quite safe from him, for he will not during that period attack the living.264.1
Many customs, sometimes born of widely differing motives, converge in a similarity of expression. Hence it is impossible in the present state of our knowledge dogmatically to assert a single origin for practices of a like character extending over so wide an area as those we have just passed in review. They are the expression of the psychological reaction caused by the shock of death and the consequent breach of the circle of kinship or other social bonds. The taboo results from the bewilderment and terror caused by the entry of death into the circle. The conduct and garb of the mourners are the outcome of grief and sympathy, but also of fear. That fear has for its object survivors who have it in theirpower to involve the mourners in even a more terrible doom by an accusation of witchcraft. Even more, it has regard to death itself, and to the inimical designs of him whose earthly life has been severed, and who has thereby been converted into an envious, and if not a malicious, at least a peevish and easily angered, being, armed by his death with greater, because more mysterious, powers. Mourning garb is often a device to secure his compassion; it is often a defence against his overt attacks; but on the whole tangible proof is lacking that it is a disguise to deceive him.
Amongthe religious rites of antiquity there was none more alien to modern feeling than the sacrifice of chastity by every Babylonian woman at the temple of Mylitta. It is described first and in most detail by Herodotus, whose denunciation of it shows that to the Greeks of the fifth century B.C. it was as abhorrent as it is to us. According to this account, every woman once in her life was required to sit down in the precincts of the temple of Mylitta wearing a wreath of cord about her head, and there to wait until a stranger should throw a silver coin into her lap and summon her with ritual words in the name of the goddess to follow him. She was not allowed to refuse, but was compelled to follow the first man who threw, and to have sexual intercourse with him outside the temple. She might then depart to her home, her duty to the goddess being fulfilled.266.1The historian lets fall the observation that there was a similar custom in some places in Cyprus. This has been supposed to be referred to by Justin, who wrote probably after the establishment of Christianity, but whose work consists of selections from Trogus Pompeius, a lost writer of the Augustan age. He reports that it was the Cypriote custom to send maidens before their marriage on certain days to seek their dowry by prostitution on the seashore,and to pay the offerings to Venus for their future chastity. Dido on her way to Carthage touched at the island at the very time, and took on board her fleet eighty of these damsels, to be wives to her followers and assist in peopling the city she was going to found.267.1We shall further consider Justin’s statement hereafter. For the moment we pass on to Heliopolis (Baalbec), where, the ecclesiastical historian Socrates affirms, virgins were offered in prostitution to strangers.267.2He does not, any more than Justin, connect this with a temple or a divinity; but from Sozomen we gather that it was a religious observance, inasmuch as the prostitution of virgins prior to their marriage is stated to have been abolished by Constantine when he destroyed the temple of Aphrodite.267.3A similar custom, according to Ælian, was followed by the Lydians. And he expressly says that when once the rite had been performed the woman remained ever afterwards chaste, nor would a repetition be forgiven her on any plea.267.4Herodotus, however, states that the daughters of the common people in Lydia earned their dowries by a life of prostitution.267.5The two writers are obviously referring to two different customs. A third custom distinct from either is mentioned by Strabo as practised by the Armenians, among whom even the highest families of the nation consecrated their virgin daughters to the service of the goddess Anaitis, to remain as prostitutes at her temple before their marriage.267.6
What is the relation of these three customs? They have usually been considered as closely connected. It may be, as Dr Frazer suspects, that the real motive for the custom described as that of earning dowries by prostitution was religious, rather than economical, although my own suspicions point in another direction. But putting that custom aside for further examination, both the others are certainly portrayed as religious. As practised by the nations of Western Asia for a thousand years prior to the fall of paganism they were annexed to the cult of certain divinities. There is, however, a broad distinction to be drawn between a custom requiring every woman once in her lifetime to submit to the embraces of a stranger, and one which consecrated a life of prostitution. Such a life was one of devotion to the goddess as a more or less permanent servant. The other custom demanded a single act which freed the worshipper for the rest of her days. It may be freely conceded that the goddess at whose temple, or on whose feast-day, the act was performed was endowed with similar characteristics to those of the goddess in whose service the life of prostitution was lived. It may even have been that sometimes the same goddess had bands of harlots attached to her shrine, and also required the sacrifice of the virginity of all other women in the manner described. This perhaps, as we shall see, was the case in Lydia. We should still need to investigate separately the two customs. One of the most fertile sources of error in the interpretation of custom is the fatal tendency of rites distinct, or even altogether different in origin and intention, but similar in expression, to converge. This convergence is accelerated by a variety of causes. The natural vagueness of tradition, the forgetfulness of the exact original meaning, the gradual predominance of one idea over another owingto circumstances which, for want of knowledge, we call accidental, the tendency to repeat by way of precaution in one rite acts which essentially belong to another, are all causes of the kind referred to. Moreover, we have so often found in the similarity of rite the real key to a common interpretation, that where convergence does not in fact occur there is a temptation to read identity of meaning into two rites having a superficial likeness. It behoves us, therefore, to be on our guard, and to scrutinize with some scepticism all cases where the identity both of act and intention is not demonstrably complete.
The practices I have enumerated have all been interpreted as expiations for marriage. Marriage, it is said,—the appropriation of one or more women to one man—is an evolution from the primeval condition of promiscuity. Religious prostitution, thejus primæ noctisand other customs are expiations exacted by society from women who are thus appropriated. They witness to the primeval common rights of the male sex, thus asserted for the last time by one or more on behalf of all on abandoning the woman to the exclusive possession of one of their number.
Now, if the interpretation in question be suitable for any of these customs, it is more suitable for the single rite such as that at the temple of Mylitta than for the exercise of prostitution over an extended period; and it is to this rite that I desire more particularly to call attention. I need hardly observe that the explanation of the rite as an expiation for marriage does not by any means follow of necessity from the theory of primitive promiscuity. On the contrary it overlooks one of the peculiar features of the rite. Alike at Babylon, at Heliopolis, and apparently at Cyprus (if Cyprus be a case in point) the act has to be accomplished with a stranger. If it werea forfeit rendered to the general body of men, who might have had a claim to temporary union but for the institution of marriage, or if it were a formal witness of that claim, it would seem,prima facie, more natural that it should be accomplished with some one or more of the claimants, that is to say, with a member or members of the same community. A similar rite of intercourse with a stranger was practised, as Lucian relates, at Byblus. There it was the custom at the mourning for Adonis to perform the well-known mourning rite of cutting off the hair. Any woman who refused to do this was required to exhibit herself on one day of the festival and undergo prostitution to one of the strangers who resorted thither, handing over the price to the goddess called by Lucian the Byblian Aphrodite.270.1The rite as there practised therefore was, at all events in the second century A.D., an alternative to the dedication of hair: it was a redemption for the tresses that should have been sacrificed. Thus the woman would repeat the expiation once a year, whether married or single, so long as she was unwilling to shear her locks, or preferred the alternative sacrifice of her chastity. There is no evidence that it ever had anything to do with marriage; it certainly had not when Lucian wrote.
The rite at Byblus must, however, be distinguished from those we are considering. They were performed by every woman without alternative, but they were performed only once. If they were an expiation for marriage we should expect to find them described as part of the marriage rites. The Balearic islanders, the Nasamonians and the Auziles in antiquity had, as well as many modern savages, such rites, whether or not they can be properly explained as an expiation for marriage. But at the most the rites with which we are now concerned were apreliminary to marriage—a necessary preliminary, perhaps, but one that might have been accomplished at any period before it. Indeed, so far as appears from Herodotus, the victim, if we may call her so, of the Babylonian rite was not necessarily unmarried. But comparison of the accounts of the practice at Heliopolis, in Lydia and in Cyprus renders it fairly certain that it was only unmarried women who were subjected to it, and that it was essentially a sacrifice of maidenhood. A passing reference by Eusebius has been interpreted to imply that at Heliopolis both married women and girls were prostituted in the service of the goddess.271.1But Eusebius says nothing about the goddess. His reference must be construed in the light of Socrates’ statement that women were by the law of the country required to be common, and hence the offspring was doubtful, for there was no distinction between fathers and children.271.2Whatever else those phrases may mean, they entirely negative the theory of expiation for marriage. But they do not refer to the custom of prostituting virgins to strangers, which the historian expressly distinguishes.
It may be objected to this reading of Herodotus that while he uses the generic term women (γυναῖκες) in speaking of the victims, on the other hand, in a previous chapter referring to the Babylonian marriage customs, hereports that once a year in every village the marriageable maidens (παρθένοι) were all put up to auction, the respective purchasers being required to give security that they would marry them; and it was unlawful to give them in marriage in any other way. The objection is of little weight. It is needless to consider whether we are to understand the specific term παρθένοι literally. Even if so, there would doubtless be ample time for the performance of the rite at the temple of Mylitta between the auction and the marriage. It does not appear that marriage followed the auction immediately. Had that been contemplated, security would hardly have been necessary. When the anniversary came round all the maidens who had during the preceding year attained puberty and thus become ripe for marriage (γάμων ὡραῖαι) were probably put up. Those who had not previously undergone the rite would, if my interpretation be correct, be required to submit to it before marriage.
It is superfluous to discuss other and obvious objections to the theory of expiation for marriage. But the appearance of prostitution which the rite presents demands further consideration. At Babylon, although a piece of money passed, the payment seems to have been merelypro forma. It mattered not how small the coin was, it could not be refused. Whatever it was, Strabo tells us it was considered as consecrated to the goddess. Lastly, the rite once performed, no gift, were it ever so great, would be accepted to repeat it. The details of the rite at Heliopolis and among the Lydians have not been preserved to us; but we may with probability infer that they were similar. In Lydia, indeed, if we are to trust both Ælian and Herodotus, two distinct customs are traceable, namely, the sacrifice of virginity and the life of prostitution to earn a dowry. A Greek inscriptionof the second century A.D., found at Tralles and referred to by Dr Frazer, discloses also the existence of religious prostitution by girls expressly chosen by the god and set apart for that end.273.1This is a similar custom to that of the Armenian girls already mentioned, and is not to be confounded with the prostitution mentioned by the Father of History as practised by all the daughters of the common people. Whatever may have been the origin of the latter, the other two in the time of Ælian were connected with religion. On the island of Cyprus we seem to find much the same state of things. If we may believe Justin, the maidens earned their dowry by prostitution. From other sources we learn that there were mysteries of the Cypriote Aphrodite, which were said to have been instituted by Cinyras, king of Paphos and father of Adonis. Into these mysteries there was a regular initiation. Sexual matters no doubt formed their staple teaching; and what classical and especially apologetic writers would call prostitution would be practised. The legend ran that the daughters of Cinyras, through the wrath of Aphrodite, united themselves with strangers.273.2Probably it was believed to be in imitation of them that the maidens of Cyprus sought prostitution on the seashore. In any case the story indicates, as Dr Frazer has pointed out, “that the princesses of Paphos had to conform to the custom as well as the women of humble birth.” But if this be so, the object of the harlotry alleged by Justin falls to the ground, since it would be unnecessary for princesses to earn their dowry. It may be suspected, therefore, that Justin or his authority has confounded two disparate customs, that of earning thedowry by prostitution, and that of a religious sacrifice of virginity in connection with the mysteries of Aphrodite, in which the other party to the rite was a stranger. Only thus can we satisfactorily explain the limitation of the practice to stated days, probably festivals of Aphrodite, and the phrase about paying the offerings to her for future chastity.