Chapter 126

124Wilken,op. cit.p. 194sq.(peoples in the Malay Archipelago). Abercromby,op. cit.i. 178 (Mordvins). Jessen,op. cit.p. 27; Friis,op. cit.p. 116sq.(Laplanders).

125Rowley,Religion of the Africans, p. 90.

126Halevy,op. cit.p. 368.

127Rig-Veda, x. 15. 6.

128Yasts, xiii. 31, 42, 51, 70, &c.

129Ovid,Fasti, ii. 549sqq.

130Ralston,op. cit.p. 335.

Moreover, we must not conclude that wherever the spirits of deceased ancestors are invoked as guardians they are necessarily looked upon as essentially benevolent to their descendants.131Concerning the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians Professor Jastrow writes:—“In general the dead were not favorably disposed towards the living, and they were inclined to use what power they had to work evil rather than for good. In this respect they resembled the demons, and it is noticeable that an important class of demons was known by the nameekimmu, which is one of the common terms for the shades of the dead.”132The Greeks were much afraid of their dead, and regarded their “heroes” as extremely irritable, in later times as exclusively malicious.133It appears from Ovid’s ‘Fasti’ that fear was the predominant feeling of the Romans with reference to the spirits of the departed, who were supposedto wander about by night, causing men to pine away or bewitching them into madness.134Even in China, where the souls of the dead are supposed effectually to control the destiny of the living,135malevolent rather than benevolent inclinations are ascribed to them by the popular belief, as appears from the fact that the words for “ghost” and “devil” are the same and form a portion of the objectionable epithets applied to foreigners.136Generally speaking, my collection of facts has led me to the conclusion that the dead are more commonly regarded as enemies than friends,137and that Professor Jevons138and Mr. Grant Allen139are mistaken in their assertion that, according to early beliefs, the malevolence of the dead is for the most part directed against strangers only, whereas they exercise a fatherly care over the lives and fortunes of their descendants and fellow clansmen.

131Cf.Karsten,Origin of Worship, p. 122sqq.

132Jastrow,op. cit.p. 581.

133Rohde,op. cit.pp. 177sqq., 225 n. 4. Schmidt,Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 130.

134Ovid,Fasti, v. 429sqq.Granger,Worship of the Romans, p. 67.

135de Groot,op. cit.(vol. v. book) ii. 464.

136Dennys,Folk-Lore of China, p. 73. See also Legge,Religions of China, pp. 13, 201.

137Dr. Steinmetz (Ethnol. Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe, i. 283) has arrived at the same conclusion. See also Meiners,Geschichte der Religionen, i. 301sqq.; Karsten,op. cit.p. 115sqq.

138Jevons,Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 53sq.

139Grant Allen,Evolution of the Idea of God, p. 347sq.

Thus the Bondeis in East Africa apparently make little difference between a devil and a departed ancestor.140Among the Fjort of Loango the good people who have left this life “are generally considered the enemies of mankind.”141Other Africans maintain that the spirits of the dead hover in the air, “watching the destiny of friends, haunting houses, killing children, injuring cattle, and causing disease and destruction,” all being malevolent to the living.142Of the Savage Islanders in Polynesia we are told that “no effort of the missionary can avail to break them of their belief in the malevolence of ghosts, even of those who loved them best in life; the spirits of the dead seem compelled to work ill to the living without their own volition.”143In Tahiti the spirits of parents and children, sisters and brothers, “seemed to have been regarded as a sort ofdemons.”144Among the Maoris “the nearest and most beloved relatives were supposed to have their natures changed by death, and to become malignant, even towards those they formerly loved.”145The natives of Erromanga, in the New Hebrides, maintained that all the spirits of their departed ancestors were evil, and roamed the earth doing harm to men.146In the tribes inhabiting the mouth of the Wanigela River, in New Guinea, all dead ancestors are supposed to be constantly on the watch to deal out sickness or death to anyone who may displease them; hence the natives are most particular to do nothing that should raise their anger.147Australian natives believe that a deceased person is malevolent for a long time after death, and the more nearly related the more he is feared.148Theanitosor ghosts, of the Tagales in the Philippine Islands are likewise perpetually anxious to do harm to their descendants, trying to kill people, especially shortly after death, and being the causes of nearly all diseases.149The Saora of the Madras Presidency only know the existence of the departed souls by the mischief they do, and think that all ills are occasioned either by ancestral spirits or gods.150In the North-Western Provinces of India thedíwárs, orgenii loci, are oftentimes “the spirits of good men, Brahmans, or village heroes, who manage, when they become objects of worship, to be generally considered very malicious devils”;151and the ghosts of all low caste natives are notoriously malignant.152The Tibetans are of opinion that a ghost is always malicious, and that it returns and gives troubles either on account of its malevolence or its desire to see how its former property is being disposed of.153The Finns and other peoples of the same stock believed that the souls of the dead were generally intent to do harm to the living, their nearest relatives included.154Thus, according to Votyak ideas, even a mother may becomethe enemy of her own child from the moment of her death.155Among the Ainu of Japan, “if a man is at a loss for the authorship of any particular calamity, which has befallen him, he is very apt to refer it to the ghost of a dead wife, mother, grandmother, or, still more certainly, to that of a dead mother-in-law”;156an Ainu who accompanied Mr. Batchelor would on no account come within twenty-five or thirty yards of the spot where his own mother was burned.157The Koniagas believe that after death every man becomes a devil.158According to ideas prevalent among the Central Eskimo, the dead are at first malevolent spirits who frequently roam around the villages, causing sickness and mischief and killing men by their touch; but subsequently they are supposed to attain to rest and are no longer feared.159The Tarahumares of Mexico are afraid of their dead; a mother asks her deceased infant to go away and not to come back, and the weeping widow implores her husband not to carry off, or do harm to, his own sons or daughters.160Mr. Bridges informs us that the Fuegian word for a ghost,cúshpich, is also an adjective signifying “frightful, dreadful, awful.”161

140Dale, ‘Natives inhabiting the Bondei Country,’ inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxv. 233.

141Dennett,Folklore of the Fjort, p. 11sq.

142Burton,Lake Regions of Central Africa, ii. 344.

143Thomson,Savage Island, p. 94.

144Ellis,Polynesian Researches, i. 334sq.

145Taylor,Te Ika a Maui, p. 18. See alsoibid.pp. 137, 221; Polack,op. cit.i. 242.

146Robertson,Erromanga, p. 389.

147Guise, ‘Tribes inhabiting the Mouth of the Wanigela River,’ inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxviii. 216.

148Fraser,Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 80. Curr,The Australian Race, i. 87.

149Blumentritt, inMittheil. d. kais. u. kön. Geograph. Gesellsch. in Wien, p. 166sqq.de Mas,Informe sobre el estado de las Islas Filipinas en1842, ‘Orijen de los habitantes de la Oceania,’ p. 15; ‘Poblacion,’ p. 29.Cf.ibid.‘Poblacion,’ p. 17; Blumentritt, p. 168 (Igorrotes).

150Fawcett,Saoras, pp. 43, 51.

151Elliot,Races of the North Western Provinces of India, p. 243.

152Crooke,Popular Religion of Northern India, i. 269.

153Waddell,Buddhism of Tibet, p. 498.

154Castrén,Nordiska resor och forskningar, iii. 121sqq.Waronen,Vainajainpalvelus muinaisilla Suomalaisilla, p. 23.

155Buch, ‘Die Wotjäken,’ inActa Soc. Scient. Fennicæ, xii. 607.

156Howard,Life with Trans-Siberian Savages, p. 196.

157Batchelor,Ainu of Japan, p. 220sq.

158Holmberg, inActa Soc. Scient. Fennicæ, iv. 402.

159Boas, inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.vi. 591.

160Lumholtz,Unknown Mexico, i. 380, 382.

161Bridges, ‘Manners and Customs of the Firelanders,’ inA Voice for South America, xiii. 211.

The belief in the irritable or malevolent character of the dead is easily explained. As Bishop Butler observed, we presume that a thing will remain as it is except when we have some reason to think that it will be altered.162And in the case of the souls of departed friends men may have reason to suppose that they undergo a change. Death is commonly regarded as the gravest of all misfortunes; hence the dead are believed to be exceedingly dissatisfied with their fate. According to primitive ideas a person only dies if he is killed—by magic if not by force,—and such a death naturally tends to make the soul revengeful and ill-tempered. It is envious of the living and is longing for the company of its old friends; no wonder, then, that it sends them diseases to cause theirdeath. The Basutos maintain that their dead ancestors are continually endeavouring to draw them to themselves, and therefore attribute to them every disease;163and the Tarahumares in Mexico suppose that the dead make their relatives ill from a feeling of loneliness, that they, too, may die and join the departed.164But the notion that the disembodied soul is on the whole a malicious being constantly watching for an opportunity to do harm to the living is also, no doubt, intimately connected with the instinctive fear of the dead, which is in its turn the outcome of the fear of death.

162Butler,Analogy of Religion, i. 1, p. 82.

163Casalis,op. cit.p. 249.

164Lumholtz,Unknown Mexico, i. 380.

We are told, it is true, that many savages meet death with much indifference, or regard it as no great evil, but merely as a change to a life very similar to this.165But it is a fact often noticed among ourselves, that a person on the verge of death may resign himself to his fate with the greatest calmness, although he has been afraid to die throughout his life. Moreover, the fear of death may be disguised by thoughtlessness, checked by excitement, or mitigated by dying in company. There are peoples who are conspicuous for their bravery, and yet have a great dread of death.166Nobody is entirely free from this feeling, though it varies greatly in strength among different races and in different individuals. In many savages it is so strongly developed, that they cannot bear to hear death mentioned.167And inseparably mingled withthis fear of death is the fear of the dead. The place in which a death occurs is abandoned,168or the hut is destroyed,169or the corpse is carried out from it as speedily as possible.170The survivors endeavour to frighten away the ghost by firing off guns,171or shooting into the grave,172or throwing sticks and stones behind themselves after they have interred the corpse.173To prevent the return of the ghost the body is buried face downwards,174or its limbs are firmly tied,175or, in extreme cases, it is fixed in the ground with a stake driven through it.176We may assume that these and many other funeral ceremonies are very closely connected with the fear of the pollution of death; for even when their immediate object is to keep the ghost ata distance, it is likely that they are largely due to dread of its presence for the reason that it is conceived as a seat of deadly contagion.177It seems to me that certain anthropologists, in their explanations of funeral ceremonies, have too much accentuated the volitional activity of ghosts. To take an instance. The common custom of carrying the dead body away through some aperture other than the door,178has generally been interpreted as a means of preventing the ghost from finding its way back to the old home; but various facts indicate that it also may have sprung from a desire to keep the ordinary exit free from pollution. According to the Vendîdâd a spirit of death is breathing all along the way which a corpse has passed; hence no man, no flock, no being whatever that belongs to the world of Ahura Mazda is allowed to go that way until the deadly breath has been blown away to hell.179In the capital of Corea there is a small gate in the city-wall known as the “Gate of the Dead,” through which alone a dead body can be carried out, and no one is ever allowed to enter through that passage-way.180In China even a messenger who delivers tidings of death strictly abstains from passing the threshold of the houses at which he knocks, unless urgently requested by the inmates to walk in.181Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia a mourner, who is regarded as unclean, “must not use the house door, but a separate door is cut for his use”; girls at puberty, whilst in a state of uncleanness, may leaveand enter their room only through a hole made in the floor;182and men who have polluted themselves by partaking of human flesh are for four months allowed to go out only by the secret door in the rear of the house.183Even the water and fire ceremonies performed in connection with a death have been represented as methods of preventing the ghost from attacking the living by placing a physical barrier of water or fire between them.184But I see no reason whatever to assume, with Sir J. G. Frazer, that “the conceptions of pollution and purification are merely the fictions of a later age, invented to explain the purpose of a ceremony of which the original intention was forgotten.”185

165Turner, ‘Ethnology of the Ungava District,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xi. 192 (Hudson Bay Eskimo), 269sq.(Hudson Bay Indians). de Brebeuf, ‘Relation de ce qui s’est passé dans le pays des Hurons,’ inRelations des Jésuites, i. 1636, p. 129. Roth,North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines, p. 161. Tregear, ‘Niue,’ inJour. Polynesian Soc.ii. 14 (Savage Islanders). Williams and Calvert,Fiji, p. 204sq.Romilly,From my Verandah in New Guinea, p. 45 (Solomon Islanders). Georgi,op. cit.iii. 266 (Siberian shamans). Monrad,op. cit.p. 23 (Negroes of Accra). Brinton,Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 72.

166E.g., the Kalmucks (Bergmann,Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken, ii. 318sqq.) and the ancient Caribs (Müller,Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 215).

167Dunbar, ‘Pawnee Indians,’ inMagazine of American History, viii. 742. Batchelor,Ainu of Japan, p. 203. Bergmann,op. cit.ii. 318. Bosman,Description of the Coast of Guinea, p. 327 (Negroes of Fida). Du Chaillu,Explorations in Equatorial Africa, p. 338. Kropf,Das Volk der Xosa-Kaffern, p. 155. For other instances of savages’ great fear of death, see Bridges, inA Voice for South America, xiii. 211 (Fuegians); Müller,Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 215 (Caribs); Dunbar, inMagazine of American History, v. 334 (various North American tribes); Brinton,Myths of the New World, p. 238; Georgi,op. cit.ii. 400 (Jakuts); Bosman,op. cit.p. 130 (Gold Coast natives).

168Dorman,op. cit.p. 22 (North American Indians). von den Steinen,Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 502 (Bororó). Hyades and Deniker,Mission scientifique du Cap Horn, vii. 379 (Fuegians). Curr,The Australian Race, i. 44. Fraser,Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 82. Spencer and Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 498. Worcester,Philippine Islands, p. 496 (Tagbanuas of Busuanga). Bailey, ‘Veddahs of Ceylon,’ inTrans. Ethn. Soc.N. S. ii. 296; Deschamps,Carnet d’un voyageur, p. 383 (Veddahs). Decle,op. cit.p. 79 (Barotse). von Düben,Lappland, pp. 241, 249.

169Hyades and Deniker,op. cit.vii. 379 (Fuegians). Batchelor,Ainu of Japan, p. 222sq.Worcester,op. cit.p. 108sq.(Tagbanuas of Palawan). Butler,Travels in Assam, p. 228. Fawcett,Saoras, p. 50sq.Cunningham,Uganda, p. 130 (Bavuma).

170Howard,op. cit.p. 197 (Ainu). Selenka,Sonnige Welten, p. 89 (Dyaks). The rapid pace of the funeral procession among the Bataks (von Brenner,Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras, p. 235) probably belongs to the same class of facts.

171von Brenner,op. cit.p. 235 (Bataks). Fawcett,Saoras, p. 46sq.

172von Brenner,op. cit.p. 235 (Bataks). von Wlislocki,Volksglaube der Magyaren, p. 134.

173Crooke,Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces, i. 45 (Aheriya, in Duâb), 287 (Bhangi, the sweeper tribe of Hindustan). Ralston,op. cit.p. 320 (ancient Bohemians).

174Dorsey, inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xi. 420 (Omahas). Crooke,op. cit.i. 44 (Aheriya, in Duâb).

175Zimmer,Altindisches Leben, p. 402 (Vedic people). Turner, inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xi. 191 (Hudson Bay Eskimo). Yarrow,ibid.i. 98 (Pimas of Arizona). Southey,History of Brazil, i. 248 (Tupinambas). Of the trussing and tying of the dead body which is practised in various Australian tribes the blacks themselves say that it is done “to prevent the spirit of the deceased from wandering in the night from its bed, and disturbing the living and doing them harm” (Fraser,Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 79sq.; see also Curr,The Australian Race, i. 44, 87).

176Supra,ii. 256. Hyltén-Cavallius,Wärend och Wirdarne, i. 472 (Middle Ages).

177Cf.supra,ii. 303. For the contagion of death see also Crawley,The Mystic Rose, p. 95sqq.

178Tylor,Primitive Culture, ii. 26sq.Frazer, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xv. 69sq.Trumbull,Threshold Covenant, p. 23sqq.Liebrecht,Zur Volkskunde, pp. 372, 373, 414sq.Lippert,Christenthum, Volksglaube und Volksbrauch, p. 391sq.Egede,Description of Greenland, p. 152sq.; Nansen,Eskimo Life, p. 245sq.(Greenlanders). Turner, inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xi. 191 (Hudson Bay Eskimo). McNair Wright,Among the Alaskans, p. 313. Jochelson, ‘Koryak Religion’, inJesup North Pacific Expedition, vi. 110sq.Georgi,op. cit.iii. 26sq.; Jackson, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxiv. 406 (Samoyedes). Ramseyer and Kühne,Four Years in Ashantee, p. 50. Kålund, ‘Skandinavische Verhältnisse,’ in Paul,Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, ii. pt. ii. 227 (ancient Scandinavians).

179Vendîdâd, viii. 14sqq.Darmesteter, inSacred Books of the East, iv. p. lxxiv.sq.

180Trumbull,op. cit.p. 24.

181de Groot,op. cit.(vol. ii. book) i. 644.

182Boas, inFifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 42sqq.

183Idem, quoted by Frazer,Golden Bough, i. 341sq.Among the Bhuiyâr, a Dravidian tribe in South Mirzapur, each house has two doors, one of which is only used by menstruous women; and when such a woman has to quit the house “she is obliged to creep out on her hands and knees so as to avoid polluting the house thatch by her touch” (Crooke,Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces, ii. 87). Among the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia meat was only taken into the hunting lodge through a hole in the back of the structure, because the common door was used by women and women were regarded as unclean (Teit, ‘Thompson Indians,’ inMemoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, ‘Anthropology,’ i. 347). In other instances ordinary people are prohibited from using a door through which a sacred person has passed, obviously because contact with his sanctity is looked upon as dangerous. In some of the South Sea Islands, where the first-born, whether male or female, was especially sacred, no one else was allowed to pass by the door through which he or she entered the paternal dwelling (Gill,Life in the Southern Isles, p. 46). “In some parts of the Pacific, the door through which the king or queen passed in opening a temple was shut up, and ever after made sacred” (Turner,Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 328). Ezekiel (xliv. 2sq.) represents the Lord as saying:—“This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; … he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.” Among the Arabs in olden days those who returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca entered their houses not by the door but by a hole made in the back wall (Palmer, inSacred Books of the East, vi. 27, n. 1). This practice was forbidden by Muhammed (Koran, ii. 185).

184Frazer, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xv. 76sqq.

185It should be added, however, that. Sir J. G. Frazer’s important essay on ‘Burial Customs’ was published many years ago and therefore perhaps does not exactly represent the author’s present views on the subject.

It is obvious that the beliefs held as regards the character, activity, and polluting influence of the dead greatly affect the conduct of the survivors. They arenaturally anxious to gain the favour of the disembodied soul, to avert its ill-will, to keep it at a distance, and to avoid the defilement of death. Self-interest is often a conspicuous motive for acts and omissions which are regarded as duties to the dead, and prudence also has a very large share in their being enjoined as obligatory. This is obviously true of the offerings made to the dead. The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia threw some food on the ground near the grave of the deceased, “that he might not visit the house in search of food, causing sickness to the people.”186Among the Iroquois, “on the death of a nursing child two pieces of cloth are saturated with the mother’s milk and placed in the hands of the dead child so that its spirit may not return to haunt the bereaved mother.”187The Negroes of Accra, when asked why they slaughtered animals at the tombs of their departed friends, answered that they did so in order to prevent the ghosts from walking.188The Monbuttu place some oil and other victuals in the little hut which is erected for the dead in the forest, so that his spirit shall not return to his old home in search of food.189For the same reason the Bataks of Sumatra put various things into the graves of their deceased friends, ask the dead to be quiet and not to long for the company of the living, and finish their address with the words, “Here you have still somesirihand tobacco, and every year, at harvest time, we shall give you some rice.”190Among the Chuvashes the son says to his departed father, “We remember you with a feast, here are bread and different kinds of food for you, everything you have before you, do not come to us.”191It is considered particularly dangerous to keep back and make use of articles which belonged to the dead. The Gypsies burn on the grave all those chattels which the deceased was in the habit of using during his lifetime, “because his soul would otherwisereturn to torment his relatives and claim back his property.”192A Saora gave the following reason for the custom of burning all the belongings of a dead person:—“If we do not burn these things with the body, the Kulba (soul) will come and ask us for them and trouble us.”193The Kafirs believe that, after his death, “a man’s personality haunts his possessions.”194Among the Brazilian Tupinambas “whoever happened to have any thing which had belonged to the dead produced it, that it might be buried with him, lest he should come and claim it.”195When a Navaho Indian dies within a house the rafters are pulled down over the remains and the place is usually set on fire; after that nothing would induce a Navaho to touch a piece of the wood or even approach the immediate vicinity of the place, the shades of the dead being regarded “as inclined to resent any intrusion or the taking of any liberties with them or their belongings.”196The Greenlanders, as soon as a man is dead, “throw out every thing which has belonged to him; otherwise they would be polluted, and their lives rendered unfortunate. The house is cleared of all its movables till evening, when the smell of the corpse has passed away.”197

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