Return of the ghosts.
But even when the ghosts have departed to their island home, they are by no means strictly confined to it. They can return, especially at night, to roam about the woods and the villages, and the living are very much afraid of them, for the ghosts delight in doing mischief. It is especially in the first few days after a death that the ghost is an object of terror, for he is then still loitering about the village. During these days everybody is afraid to go alone into the forest for fear of meeting him, and if a dog or a pig strays in the wood and is lost, the people make sure that the ghost has made off with the animal, and the aggrieved owners roundly abuse the sorrowing family, telling them that their old father or mother, as the case may be, is no better than a thief. They are also very unwilling to mention the names of dead persons, imagining that were the ghost to hear his name pronounced he might fancy he was being called for and might accordingly suspend his habitual occupation of munching sour fruits in the forest to come and trouble the living.
Offerings to ghosts.
Hence in order to keep the short-tempered ghost in good humour by satisfying his wants, lest he should think himself neglected and wreak his vexation on the survivors, the people go a-fishing after a death, or they kill a pig or a dog; sometimes also they cut down a fruit-tree. But it is only the souls of the animals which are destined for the consumption of the ghost; their bodies are roasted and eaten by the living. On a grave you may sometimes see a small basket suspended from a stick; but if you look into it you will find nothing but a little soot and some fish scales, which is all that remains of the fried fish.
Ghosts provided with fire.
The Yabim also imagine that the ghost has need of fire to guide him to the door of the man who has done him to death by sorcery. Accordingly they provide the spirit with this necessary as follows. On the evening of the day on which the body has been buried, they kindle a fire on a potsherd and heap dry leaves on it. As they do so they mention the names of all the sorcerers they can think of, and he at whose name the smouldering leaves burst into a bright flame is the one who has done the deed. Having thus ascertained the true cause of death, beyond reach of cavil, they proceed to light up the ghost to the door of his murderer. For this purpose a procession is formed. A man, holding the smouldering fire in the potsherd with one hand and a bundle of straw with the other, leads the way. He is followed by another who draws droning notes from a water-bottle of the deceased, which he finally smashes. After these two march a number of young fellows who make a plumping sound by smacking their thighs with the hollow of their hands. This solemn procession wends its way to a path in the neighbouring forest. By this time the shades of night have fallen. The firebearer now sets the fire on the ground and calls on the ghost to come and take it. They firmly believe that he does so and that having got it he hies away to cast the glowing embers down at the door of the man who has done him to death. They even fancy they see the flickering light carried by the invisible hand retreating through the shadows into the depth of the forest; and in order to follow it with their eyes they will sometimes climb tall trees or launch a canoe and put out to sea, gazing intently at the glimmering ray till it vanishes from their sight in the darkness. Perhaps the gleam of fire-flies, which abound in these tropical forests, or the flashing of a meteor, as it silently drops from the starry heaven into the sea, may serve to feed this superstitious fancy.406
Ghosts thought to help in the cultivation of the land.
But the spirits of the dead are supposed to be able to help as well as harm the living. Good crops and a successful hunt are attributed to their influence. It is especially the spirits of the ancient owners of the land who are credited with the power of promoting the growth of the crops. Hence when a clearing has been made in the forest and planted with taro, and the plants are shewing a good head of leaves, preparations are made to feast the ghosts of the people to whom the land belonged in days gone by. For this purpose a sago-palm is cut down, sago-porridge made, and a wild boar killed. Then the men arrayed in all their finery march out in solemn procession by day to the taro field; and the leader invites the spirits in a loud voice to come to the village and partake of the sago-porridge and pork that have been made ready for them. But the invisible guests content themselves as usual with snuffing up the fragrant smell of the roast pork and the steam of the porridge; the substance of these dainties is consumed by the living. Yet the help which the ghosts give in the cultivation of the land would seem to be conceived as a purely negative one; the offerings are made to them for the purpose of inducing them to keep away and not injure the growing crops. It is also believed that the ghosts of the dead make communications to the living in dreams or by whistling, and even that they can bring things to their friends and relations. But on the whole, Mr. Vetter tells us, the dominant attitude of the living to the dead is one of fear; the power of the ghosts is oftener exerted for evil than for good.407 The ghost of a murdered man in particular is dreaded, because he is believed to haunt his murderer and to do him a mischief. Hence they drive away such a dangerous ghost with shouts and the beating of drums; and by way of facilitating his departure they launch a model of a canoe, laden with taro and tobacco, in order to transport him with all comfort to the land of souls.408
Burial and mourning customs among the Yabim.
Among the Yabim the dead are usually buried in shallow graves close to the houses where they died. Some trifles are laid with the body in the grave, in order that the dead man or woman may have the use of them in the other world. But any valuables that may be deposited with the corpse are afterwards dug up and appropriated by the survivors. If the deceased was the householder himself or his wife, the house is almost always deserted, however solidly it may be built. The reason for thus abandoning so valuable a piece of property is not mentioned; but we may assume that the motive is a fear of the ghost, who is supposed to haunt his old home. A temporary hut is built on the grave, and in it the family of the deceased take up their abode for six weeks or more; here they cook, eat, and sleep. A widower sits in a secluded corner by himself, invisible to all and unwashed; during the period of full mourning he may not shew himself in the village. When he does come forth again, he wears a mourning hat made of bark in the shape of a cylinder without crown or brim; a widow wears a great ugly net, which wraps her up almost completely from the head to the knees. Sometimes in memory of the deceased they wear a lock of his hair or a bracelet. Other relations wear cords round their necks in sign of mourning. The period of mourning varies greatly; it may last for months or even years. Sometimes the bodies of beloved children or persons who have been much respected are not buried but tied up in bundles and set up in a house until the flesh has quite mouldered away; then the skull and the bones of the arms and legs are anointed, painted red, and preserved for a time. Mr. Vetter records the case of a chief whose corpse was thus preserved in the assembly-house of the village, after it had been dried over a fire. When it had been reduced to a mummy, the skull and the arm-bones and leg-bones were detached, oiled, and reddened, and then kept for some years in the house of the chief's eldest son, till finally they were deposited in the grave of a kinsman. In some of the inland villages of this part of New Guinea the widow is sometimes throttled by her relations at the death of her husband, in order that she may accompany him to the other world.409
Deaths attributed by the Yabim to sorcery.
The Yabim believe that except in the case of very old people every death is caused by sorcery; hence when anybody has departed this life, his relations make haste to discover the wicked sorcerer who has killed their kinsman. For that purpose they have recourse to various forms of divination. One of them has been already described, but they have others. For example, they put a powder like sulphur in a piece of bamboo tube and kindle a fire under it. Then an old man takes a bull-roarer and taps with it on the bamboo tube, naming all the sorcerers in the neighbouring villages. He at the mention of whose name the fire catches the powder and blazes up is the guilty man. Another way of detecting the culprit is to attach the feather of a bird of paradise to a staff and give the staff to two men to hold upright between the palms of their right hands. Then somebody names the sorcerers, and he at whose name the staff turns round and the feather points downwards is the one who caused the death. When the avengers of blood, wrought up to a high pitch of fury, fall in with the family of the imaginary criminal, they may put the whole of them to death lest the sons should afterwards avenge their father's murder by the black art. Sometimes a dangerous and dreaded sorcerer will be put out of the way with the connivance of the chief of his own village; and after a few days the murderers will boldly shew themselves in the village where the crime was perpetrated and will reassure the rest of the people, saying, "Be still. The wicked man has been taken off. No harm will befall you."410
Bull-roarers (balum). Initiation of young men.
It is very significant that the word balum, which means a ghost, is applied by the Yabim to the instrument now generally known among anthropologists as a bull-roarer. It is a small fish-shaped piece of wood which, being tied to a string and whirled rapidly round, produces a humming or booming sound like the roaring of a bull or the muttering of distant thunder. Instruments of this sort are employed by savages in many parts of the world at their mysteries; the weird sound which the implement makes when swung is supposed by the ignorant and uninitiated to be the voice of a spirit and serves to impress them with a sense of awe and mystery. So it is with the Papuans about Finsch Harbour, with whom we are at present concerned. At least one such bull-roarer is kept in the lum or bachelors' clubhouse of every village, and the women and uninitiated boys are forbidden to see it under pain of death. The instrument plays a great part in the initiation of young men, which takes place at intervals of several years, when there are a number of youths ready to be initiated, and enough pigs can be procured to furnish forth the feasts which form an indispensable part of the ceremony. The principal initiatory rite consists of circumcision, which is performed on all youths before they are admitted to the rank of full-grown men. The age of the candidates varies considerably, from four years up to twenty. Many are married before they are initiated. The operation is performed in the forest, and the procession of the youths to the place appointed is attended by a number of men swinging bull-roarers. As the procession sets out, the women look on from a distance, weeping and howling, for they are taught to believe that the lads, their sons and brothers, are about to be swallowed up by a monster called a balum or ghost, who will only release them from his belly on condition of receiving a sufficient number of roast pigs. How, then, can the poor women be sure that they will ever see their dear ones again? So amid the noise of weeping and wailing the procession passes into the forest, and the booming sound of the bull-roarers dies away in the distance.
The rite of circumcision; the lads supposed to be swallowed by a monster (balum). The sacred flutes.
The place where the operation is performed on the lads is a long hut, about a hundred feet in length, which diminishes in height towards the rear. This represents the belly of the monster which is to swallow up the candidates. To keep up the delusion a pair of great eyes are painted over the entrance, and above them the projecting roots of a betel-palm represent the monster's hair, while the trunk of the tree passes for his backbone. As the awe-struck lads approach this imposing creature, he is heard from time to time to utter a growl. The growl is in fact no other than the humming note of bull-roarers swung by men, who are concealed within the edifice. When the procession has come to a halt in front of the artificial monster, a loud defiant blast blown on shell-trumpets summons him to stand forth. The reply follows in the shape of another muffled roar of the bull-roarers from within the building. At the sound the men say that "Balum is coming up," and they raise a shrill song like a scream and sacrifice pigs to the monster in order to induce him to spare the lives of the candidates. When the operation has been performed on the lads, they must remain in strict seclusion for three or four months, avoiding all contact with women and even the sight of them. They live in the long hut, which represents the monster's belly, and their food is brought them by elder men. Their leisure time is spent in weaving baskets and playing on certain sacred flutes, which are never used except at such seasons. The instruments are of two patterns. One is called the male and the other the female, and they are supposed to be married to each other. No woman may see these mysterious flutes; if she did she would die. Even if she hears their shrill note in the distance, she will hasten to hide herself in a thicket. When the initiatory ceremonies are over, the flutes are carefully kept in the men's clubhouse of the village till the next time they are wanted for a similar occasion. On the other hand, if the women are obliged to go near the place where the lads are living in seclusion, they beat on certain bamboo drums in order to warn them to keep out of the way. Sometimes, though perhaps rarely, one of the lads dies under the operation; in that case the men explain his disappearance to the women by saying that the monster has a pig's stomach as well as a human stomach, and that unfortunately the deceased young man slipped by mistake into the wrong stomach and so perished miserably. But as a rule the candidates pass into the right stomach and after a sufficient period has been allowed for digestion, they come forth safe and sound, the monster having kindly consented to let them go free in consideration of the roast pigs which have been offered to him by the men. Indeed he is not very exacting, for he contents himself with devouring the souls of the pigs, while he leaves their bodies to be consumed by his worshippers. This is a kindly and considerate way of dealing with sacrifice, which our New Guinea ghost or monster shares with many deities of much higher social pretensions. However, lest he should prove refractory and perhaps run away with the poor young men in his inside, or possibly make a dart at any women or children who might be passing, the men take the precaution of tying him down tight with ropes. When the time of seclusion is up, one of the last acts in the long series of ceremonies is to cast off the ropes and let the monster go free. He avails himself of his liberty to return to his subterranean abode, and the young men are brought back to the village with much solemnity.
The return of the novices to the village.
An eye-witness has described the ceremony. The lads, now ranking as full-grown men, were first bathed in the sea and then elaborately decorated with paint and so forth. In marching back to the village they had to keep their eyes tightly shut, and each of them was led by a man who acted as a kind of god-father. As the procession moved on, an old bald-headed man touched each boy solemnly on the chin and brow with a bull-roarer. In the village preparations for a banquet had meanwhile been made, and the women and girls were waiting in festal attire. The women were much moved at the return of the lads; they sobbed and tears of joy ran down their cheeks. Arrived in the village the newly-initiated lads were drawn up in a row and fresh palm leaves were spread in front of them. Here they stood with closed eyes, motionless as statues. Then a man passed behind them, touching each of them in the hams with the handle of an axe and saying, "O circumcised one, sit down." But still the lads remained standing, stiff and motionless. Not till another man had knocked repeatedly on the ground with the stalk of a palm-leaf, crying, "O circumcised ones, open your eyes!" did the youths, one after another, open their eyes as if awaking from a profound stupor. Then they sat down on the mats and partook of the food brought them by the men. Young and old now ate in the open air. Next morning the circumcised lads were bathed in the sea and painted red instead of white. After that they might talk to women. This was the end of the ceremony.411
The essence of the initiatory rites seems to be a simulation of death and resurrection; the novice is supposed to be killed and to come to life or be born again. The new birth among the Akikuyu of British East Africa.
The meaning of these curious ceremonies observed on the return of the lads to the village is not explained by the writer who describes them; but the analogy of similar ceremonies observed at initiation by many other races allows us to divine it with a fair degree of probability. As I have already observed in a former lecture, the ceremony of initiation at puberty is very often regarded as a process of death and resurrection; the candidate is supposed to die or to be killed and to come to life again or be born again; and the pretence of a new birth is not uncommonly kept up by the novices feigning to have forgotten all the most common actions of life and having accordingly to learn them all over again like newborn babes. We may conjecture that this is why the young circumcised Papuans, with whom we are at present concerned, march back to their village with closed eyes; this is why, when bidden to sit down, they remain standing stiffly, as if they understood neither the command nor the action; and this, too, we may surmise, is why their mothers and sisters receive them with a burst of emotion, as if their dead had come back to them from the grave. This interpretation of the ceremony is confirmed by a curious rite which is observed by the Akikuyu of British East Africa. Amongst them every boy or girl at or about the age of ten years has solemnly to pretend to be born again, not in a moral or religious, but in a physical sense. The mother of the child, or, if she is dead, some other woman, goes through an actual pantomime of bringing forth the boy or girl. I will spare you the details of the pantomime, which is very graphic, and will merely mention that the bouncing infant squalls like a newborn babe. Now this ceremony of the new birth was formerly enacted among the Akikuyu at the rite of circumcision, though the two ceremonies are now kept distinct.412 Hence it is not very rash to conjecture that the ceremony performed by the young Papuans of Finsch Harbour on their return to the village after undergoing circumcision is merely a way of keeping up the pretence of being born again and of being therefore as ignorant and helpless as babes.
The mock death of the novices as a preliminary to the mock birth.
But if the end of the initiation is a mock resurrection, or rather new birth, as it certainly seems to be, we may infer with some confidence that the first part of it, namely the act of circumcision, is a mock death. This is borne out by the explicit statement of a very good authority, Mr. Vetter, that "the circumcision is designated as a process of being swallowed by the spirit, out of whose stomach (represented by a long hut) the release must take place by means of a sacrifice of pigs."413 And it is further confirmed by the observation that both the spirit which is supposed to operate on the lads, and the bull-roarer, which apparently represents his voice, are known by the name of balum, which means the ghost or spirit of a dead person. Similarly, among the Tugeri or Kaya-Kaya, a large Papuan tribe on the south coast of Dutch New Guinea, the name of the bull-roarer, which they call sosom, is given to a mythical giant, who is supposed to appear every year with the south-east monsoon. When he comes, a festival is held in his honour and bull-roarers are swung. Boys are presented to the giant, and he kills them, but brings them to life again.414 Thus the initiatory rite of circumcision, to which all lads have to submit among the Yabim, seems to be closely bound up with their conception of death and with their belief in a life after death; since the whole ceremony apparently consists in a simulation of dying and coming to life again. That is why I have touched upon these initiatory rites, which at first sight might appear to have no connexion with our immediate subject, the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead.
General summary as to the Yabim.
On the whole we may say that the Yabim have a very firm and practical belief in a life after death, and that while their attitude to the spirits of the departed is generally one of fear, they nevertheless look to these spirits also for information and help on various occasions. Thus their beliefs and practices contain at least in germ the elements of a worship of the dead.
Footnote 394: (return)Stolz, "Die Umgebung von Kap König Wilhelm," in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch New-Guinea (Berlin, 1911), iii. 243-286.
Footnote 401: (return)K. Vetter, in Komm herüber und hilf uns! oder die Arbeit der Neuen-Dettelsauer Mission, Nos. 1-4 (Barmen, 1898); id., in Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land, 1897, pp. 86-102; id., in Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena, xi. (Jena, 1892) pp. 102-106; id., in Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena, xii. (Jena, 1893) pp. 95-97; H. Zahn, "Die Jabim," in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii (Berlin, 1911) pp. 287-394.
Footnote 403: (return)K. Vetter, op. cit. ii. 8; H. Zahn, "Die Jabim," in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii. 291, 308, 311.
Footnote 405: (return)K. Vetter, Komm herüber und hilf uns! iii. 21 sq. According to Mr. H. Zahn (op. cit. p. 324) every village has its own entrance into the spirit-land.
Footnote 406: (return)K. Vetter, Komm herüber und hilf uns! iii. 19-24; id., in Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena, xii. (1893) pp. 96 sq.
Footnote 407: (return)K. Vetter, Komm herüber und hilf uns! ii. 7, iii. 24; id., in Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und den Bismarck-Archipel, 1897, p. 94.
Footnote 409: (return)K. Vetter, in Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land, 1897, pp. 94 sq.; id., Komm herüber und hilf uns! iii. 15-19. Compare H. Zahn, "Die Jabim," in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii. 320 sq.
Footnote 411: (return)K. Vetter, in Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und den Bismarck-Archipel, 1897, pp. 92 sq.; id., in Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena, xi. (1892) p. 105; id., Komm herüber und hilf uns! ii. (1898) p. 18; id., cited by M. Krieger, Neu-Guinea, pp. 167-170; O. Schellong, "Das Barlum (sic)-fest der Gegend Finsch-hafens (Kaiserwilhelmsland), ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Beschneidung der Melanesier," Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, ii. (1889) pp. 145-162; H. Zahn, "Die Jabim," in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii. 296-298.
Footnote 412: (return)W. S. Routledge and K. Routledge, With a Prehistoric People, the Akikuyu of British East Africa (London, 1910), pp. 151 sq. Compare Totemism and Exogamy, iv. 228; C. W. Hobley, "Kikuyu Customs and Beliefs," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xl. (1910) pp. 440 sq.
Footnote 413: (return)K. Vetter, in Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelmsland und den Bismarck-Archipel, 1897, p. 93.
Footnote 414: (return)R. Pöch, "Vierter Bericht über meine Reise nach Neu-Guinea," Sitzungsberichte der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Klasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna), cxv. (1906) Abteilung 1, pp. 901, 902.
The Bukaua of German New Guinea.
In the last lecture I described the beliefs and practices concerning the dead as they are to be found among the Yabim of German New Guinea. To-day we begin with the Bukaua, a kindred and neighbouring tribe, which occupies the coast lands of the northern portion of Huon Gulf from Schollenbruch Point to Samoa Harbour. The language which the Bukaua speak belongs, like the language of the Yabim, to the Melanesian, not to the Papuan family. Their customs and beliefs have been reported by a German missionary, Mr. Stefan Lehner, whose account I follow.415 In many respects they closely resemble those of their neighbours the Yabim.
Means of subsistence of the Bukaua. Men's clubhouses.
The Bukaua are an agricultural people who subsist mainly on the crops of taro which they raise. But they also cultivate many kinds of bananas and vegetables, together with sugar-cane, sago, and tobacco. From time to time they cut down and burn the forest in order to obtain fresh fields for cultivation. The land is not held in common. Each family has its own fields and patches of forest, and would resent the intrusion of others on their hereditary domain. Hunting and fishing supply them with animal food to eke out the vegetable nourishment which they draw from their fields and plantations.416 Every village contains one or more of the men's clubhouses which are a common feature in the social life of the tribes on this coast. In these clubhouses the young men are obliged to sleep, and on the platforms in front of them the older men hold their councils. Such a clubhouse is called a lum.417
Beliefs of the Bukaua concerning the souls of the dead. Sickness and disease attributed to ghostly agency.
The Bukaua have a firm belief in the existence of the human soul after death. They think that a man's soul can even quit his body temporarily in his lifetime during sleep or a swoon, and that in its disembodied state it can appear to people at a distance; but such apparitions are regarded as omens of approaching death, when the soul will depart for good and all. The soul of a dead man is called a balum. The spirits of the departed are believed to be generally mischievous and spiteful to the living, but they can be appeased by sacrifice, and other measures can be taken to avert their dangerous influence.418 They are very touchy, and if they imagine that they are not honoured enough by their kinsfolk, and that the offerings made to them are insufficient, they will avenge the slight by visiting their disrespectful and stingy relatives with sickness and disease. Among the maladies which the natives ascribe to the anger of ghosts are epilepsy, fainting fits, and wasting decline.419 When a man suffers from a sore which he believes to have been inflicted on him by a ghost, he will take a stone from the fence of the grave and heat it in the fire, saying: "Father, see, thou hast gone, I am left, I must till the land in thy stead and care for my brothers and sisters. Do me good again." Then he dips the hot stone in a puddle on the grave, and holds his sore in the steam which rises from it. His pain is eased thereby and he explains the alleviation which he feels by saying, "The spirit of the dead man has eaten up the wound."420
Sickness and death often ascribed by the Bukaua to sorcery.
But like most savages the Bukaua attribute many illnesses and many deaths not to the wrath of ghosts but to the malignant arts of sorcerers; and in such cases they usually endeavour by means of divination to ascertain the culprit and to avenge the death of their friend by taking the life of his imaginary murderer.421 If they fail to exact vengeance, the ghost is believed to be very angry, and they must be on their guard against him. He may meet them anywhere, but is especially apt to dog the footsteps of the sorcerer who killed him. Hence when on the occasion of a great feast the sorcerer comes to the village of his victim, the surviving relatives of the dead man are at particular pains to protect themselves and their property against the insidious attacks of the prowling ghost. For this purpose they bury a creeper with white blossoms in the path leading to the village; the ghost is thought to be filled with fear at the sight of it and to turn back, leaving his kinsfolk, their dogs, and pigs in peace.422
Fear of the ghosts of the slain.
Another class of ghosts who are much dreaded are the spirits of slain foes. They are believed to pursue their slayers to the village and to blind them so that sooner or later they fall an easy prey to their enemies. Hence when a party of warriors has returned home from a successful attack on a village, in which they have butchered all on whom they could lay their hands, they kindle a great fire, dance wildly about it, and hurl burning brands in the direction of the battlefield in order to keep the ghosts of their slaughtered foes at bay. Phosphorescent lights seen under the houses throw the inmates into great alarm, for they are thought to be the souls of the slain. Sometimes the vanquished in battle resort to a curious ruse for the purpose of avenging themselves on the victors by means of a ghost. They take the sleeping-mat of one of the slain, roll it up in a bundle along with his loin-cloth, apron, netted bag, or head-rest, and give the bundle to two cripples to carry. Then they steal quietly to the landing-place of their foes, peering warily about lest they should be observed. The bundle represents the dead man, and the cripples who carry it reel to and fro, and finally sink to the ground with their burden. In this way the ghost of the victim, whose things are carried in the bundle, is supposed to make their enemies weak and tottery. Strong young men are not given the bundle to carry, lest the ghost should spoil their manly figures; whereas if he should wound or maim a couple of poor cripples, no great harm is done.423
Ghosts of ancestors appealed to for help, especially in the cultivation of the ground. First-fruits offered to the spirits of the dead.
However, the Bukaua also look on the ghosts of their ancestors in a more amiable light as beings who, if properly appealed to, can and will help them in the affairs of life, especially by procuring for them good crops. Hence when they are planting their fields, which are formed in clearings of the forest, they take particular care to insert shoots of all their crops in the ground near the tree stumps which remain standing, because the souls of their dead grandfathers and great-grandfathers are believed to be sitting on the stumps watching their descendants at their work. Accordingly in the act of planting they call out the names of these forefathers and pray them to guard the field in order that their living children may have food and not suffer from hunger. And at harvest, when the first-fruits of the taro, bananas, sugar-cane, and so forth have been brought back from the fields, a portion of them is offered in a bowl to the spirits of the forefathers in the house of the landowner, and the spirits are addressed in prayer as follows: "O ye who have guarded our field as we prayed you to do, there is something for you; now and henceforth behold us with favour." While the family are feasting on the rest of the first-fruits, the householder will surreptitiously stir the offerings in the bowl with his finger, and will then shew the bowl to the others as a proof that the souls of the dead have really partaken of the good things provided for them.424 A hunter will also pray to his dead father to drive the wild pigs into his net.425
Burial and mourning customs of the Bukaua.
The Bukaua bury their dead in shallow graves, which are sometimes dug under the houses but more usually in front of or beside them. Along with the corpses are deposited bags of taro, nuts, drinking-vessels, and other articles of daily use. Only the stone axes are too valuable to be thus sacrificed. Over the grave is erected a rude hut in which the widower, if the deceased was a married woman, remains for a time in seclusion. A widow on the death of her husband remains in the house. Widow and widower may not shew themselves in public until they have prepared their mourning costume. The widower wears a black hat made of bark, cords round his neck, wicker work on his arms and feet, and a torn old bracelet of his wife in a bag on his breast. A widow is completely swathed in nets, one over the other, and she carries about with her the loincloth of her deceased husband. The souls of the dead dwell in a subterranean region called lamboam, and their life there seems to resemble life here on earth; but the ideas of the people on the subject are very vague.426
Initiation of young men among the Bukaua. Lads at circumcision supposed to be swallowed by a monster.
The customs and beliefs of the Bukaua in regard to the initiation of young men are practically identical with those of their neighbours the Yabim. Indeed the initiatory ceremonies are performed by the tribes jointly, now in the territory of the Bukaua, now in the territory of the Yabim, or in the land of the Kai, a tribe of mountaineers, or again in the neighbouring Tami islands. The intervals between the ceremonies vary from ten to eighteen years.427 The central feature of the initiatory rites is the circumcision of the novices. It is given out that the lads are swallowed by a ferocious monster called a balum, who, however, is induced by the sacrifice of many pigs to vomit them up again. In spewing them out of his maw he bites or scratches them, and the wound so inflicted is circumcision. This explanation of the rite is fobbed off on the women, who more or less believe it and weep accordingly when their sons are led away to be committed to the monster's jaws. And when the time for the ceremony is approaching, the fond mothers busy themselves with rearing and fattening young pigs, so that they may be able with them to redeem their loved ones from the belly of the ravenous beast; for he must have a pig for every boy. When a lad bleeds to death from the effect of the operation, he is secretly buried, and his sorrowful mother is told that the monster swallowed him and refused to bring him up again. What really happens is that the youths are shut up for several months in a house specially built for the purpose in the village. During their seclusion they are under the charge of guardians, usually two young men, and must observe strictly a rule of fasting and chastity. When they are judged to be ready to undergo the rite, they are led forth and circumcised in front of the house amid a prodigious uproar made by the swinging of bull-roarers. The noise is supposed to be the voice of the monster who swallows and vomits up the novice at circumcision. The bull-roarer as well as the monster bears the name of balum, and the building in which the novices are lodged before and after the operation is called the monster's house (balumslum). After they have been circumcised the lads remain in the house for several months till their wounds are healed; then, painted and bedizened with all the ornaments that can be collected, they are brought back and restored to their joyful mothers. Women must vacate the village for a long time while the initiatory ceremonies are being performed.428
Novices at circumcision supposed to be killed and then restored to a new and higher life.
The meaning of the whole rite, as I pointed out in dealing with the similar initiatory rite of the Yabim, appears to be that the novices are killed and then restored to a new and better life; for after their initiation they rank no longer as boys but as full-grown men, entitled to all the privileges of manhood and citizenship, if we can speak of such a thing as citizenship among the savages of New Guinea. This interpretation of the rite is supported by the notable fact that the Bukaua, like the Yabim, give the name of balum to the souls of the dead as well as to the mythical monster and to the bull-roarer; this shews how intimately the three things are associated in their minds. Indeed not only is the bull-roarer in general associated with the souls of the dead by a community of name, but among the Bukaua each particular bull-roarer bears in addition the name of a particular dead man and varies in dignity and importance with the dignity and importance of the deceased person whom it represents. The most venerated of all are curiously carved and have been handed down for generations; they bear the names of famous warriors or magicians of old and are supposed to reproduce the personal peculiarities of the celebrated originals in their shape and tones. And there are smaller bull-roarers which emit shriller notes and are thought to represent the shrill-voiced wives of the ancient heroes.429
The Kai tribe of Saddle Mountain in German New Guinea. The land of the Kai. Their mode of cultivation. Their villages.
The Bukaua and the Yabim, the two tribes with which I have been dealing in this and the last lecture, inhabit, as I have said, the coast about Finsch Harbour and speak a Melanesian language. We now pass from them to the consideration of another people, belonging to a different stock and speaking a different language, who inhabit the rugged and densely wooded mountains inland from Finsch Harbour. Their neighbours on the coast call these mountaineers by the name of Kai, a word which signifies forest or inland in opposition to the seashore; and this name of the tribe we may adopt, following the example of a German missionary, Mr. Ch. Keysser, who has laboured among them for more than eleven years and has given us an excellent description of their customs and beliefs. His account applies particularly to the natives of what is called Saddle Mountain, the part of the range which advances nearest to the coast and rises to the height of about three thousand feet. It is a rough, broken country, cleft by many ravines and covered with forest, bush, or bamboo thickets; though here and there at rare intervals some brown patches mark the clearings which the sparse inhabitants have made for the purpose of cultivation. Water is plentiful. Springs gush forth everywhere in the glens and valleys, and rushing streams of crystal-clear water pour down the mountain sides, and in the clefts of the hills are lonely tarns, the undisturbed haunts of wild ducks and other water fowl. During the wet season, which extends from June to August, the rain descends in sheets and the mountains are sometimes covered for weeks together with so thick a mist that all prospect is cut off at the distance of a hundred yards. The natives are then loth to leave their huts and will spend the day crouching over a fire. They are a shorter and sturdier race than the tribes on the coast; the expression of their face is less frank and agreeable, and their persons are very much dirtier. They belong to the aboriginal Papuan stock, whereas the Yabim and Bukaua on the coast are probably immigrants from beyond the sea, who have driven the indigenous population back into the mountains.430 Their staple foods are taro and yams, which they grow in their fields. A field is cultivated for only one year at a time; it is then allowed to lie fallow and is soon overgrown with rank underwood. Six or eight years may elapse before it is again cleared and brought under cultivation. Game and fish abound in the woods and waters, and the Kai make free use of these natural resources. They keep pigs and dogs, and eat the flesh of both. Pork is indeed a favourite viand, figuring largely in the banquets which are held at the circumcision festivals.431 The people live in small villages, each village comprising from two to six houses. The houses are raised on piles and the walls are usually constructed of pandanus leaves, though many natives now make them of boards. After eighteen months or two years the houses are so rotten and tumble-down that the village is deserted and a new one built on another site. Assembly-houses are erected only for the circumcision ceremonies, and the bull-roarers used on these occasions are kept in them. Husband and wife live together, often two couples in one hut; but each family has its own side of the house and its own fireplace. In times of insecurity the Kai used to build their huts for safety among the spreading boughs of great trees. A whole village, consisting of three or four huts, might thus be quartered on a single tree. Of late years, with the peace and protection for life introduced by German rule, these tree-houses have gone out of fashion.432
Observations of a German missionary on the animistic beliefs of the Kai.
After describing the manners and customs of the Kai people at some length, the German missionary, who knows them intimately, proceeds to give us a very valuable account of their old native religion or superstition. He prefaces his account with some observations, the fruit of long experience, which deserve to be laid to heart by all who attempt to penetrate into the inner life, the thoughts, the feelings, the motives of savages. As his remarks are very germane to the subject of these lectures, I will translate them. He says: "In the preceding chapters I have sketched the daily life of the Kai people. But I have not attempted to set forth the reasons for their conduct, which is often very peculiar and unintelligible. The explanation of that conduct lies in the animistic view which the Papuan takes of the world. It must be most emphatically affirmed that nobody can judge the native aright who has not gained an insight into what we may call his religious opinions. The native must be described as very religious, although his ideas do not coincide with ours. His feelings, thoughts, and will are most intimately connected with his belief in souls. With that belief he is born, he has sucked it in with his mother's milk, and from the standpoint of that belief he regards the things and occurrences that meet him in life; by that belief he regulates his behaviour. An objective way of looking at events is unknown to him; everything is brought by him into relation to his belief, and by it he seeks to explain everything that to him seems strange and rare."433 "The labyrinth of animistic customs at first sight presents an appearance of wild confusion to him who seeks to penetrate into them and reduce them to order; but on closer inspection he will soon recognise certain guiding lines. These guiding lines are the laws of animism, which have passed into the flesh and blood of the Papuan and influence his thought and speech, his acts and his omissions, his love and hate, in short his whole life and death. When once we have discovered these laws, the whole of the superstitious nonsense falls into an orderly system which compels us to regard it with a certain respect that increases in proportion to the contempt in which we had previously held the people. We need not wonder, moreover, that the laws of animism partially correspond to general laws of nature."434
The essential rationality of the savage.
Thus according to Mr. Keysser, who has no theory to maintain and merely gives us in this passage the result of long personal observation, the Kai savages are thinking, reasoning men, whose conduct, however strange and at first sight unintelligible it may appear to us, is really based on a definite religious or if you please superstitious view of the world. It is true that their theory as well as their practice differs widely from ours; but it would be false and unjust to deny that they have a theory and that on the whole their practice squares with it. Similar testimony is borne to other savage races by men who have lived long among them and observed them closely;435 and on the strength of such testimony I think we may lay it down as a well-established truth that savages in general, so far as they are known to us, have certain more or less definite theories, whether we call them religious or philosophical, by which they regulate their conduct, and judged by which their acts, however absurd they may seem to the civilised man, are really both rational and intelligible. Hence it is, in my opinion, a profound mistake hastily to conclude that because the behaviour of the savage does not agree with our notions of what is reasonable, natural, and proper, it must therefore necessarily be illogical, the result of blind impulse rather than of deliberate thought and calculation. No doubt the savage like the civilised man does often act purely on impulse; his passions overmaster his reason, and sweep it away before them. He is probably indeed much more impulsive, much more liable to be whirled about by gusts of emotion than we are; yet it would be unfair to judge his life as a whole by these occasional outbursts rather than by its general tenour, which to those who know him from long observation reveals a groundwork of logic and reason resembling our own in its operations, though differing from ours in the premises from which it sets out. I think it desirable to emphasise the rational basis of savage life because it has been the fashion of late years with some writers to question or rather deny it. According to them, if I understand them aright, the savage acts first and invents his reasons, generally very absurd reasons, for so doing afterwards. Significantly enough, the writers who argue in favour of the essential irrationality of savage conduct have none of them, I believe, any personal acquaintance with savages. Their conclusions are based not on observation but on purely theoretical deductions, a most precarious foundation on which to erect a science of man or indeed of anything. As such, they cannot be weighed in the balance against the positive testimony of many witnesses who have lived for years with the savage and affirm emphatically the logical basis which underlies and explains his seeming vagaries. At all events I for one have no hesitation in accepting the evidence of such men to matters of fact with which they are acquainted, and I unhesitatingly reject all theories which directly contradict that evidence. If there ever has been any race of men who invariably acted first and thought afterwards, I can only say that in the course of my reading and observation I have never met with any trace of them, and I am apt to suppose that, if they ever existed anywhere but in the imagination of bookish dreamers, their career must have been an exceedingly short one, since in the struggle for existence they would surely succumb to adversaries who tempered and directed the blind fury of combat with at least a modicum of reason and sense. The myth of the illogical or prelogical savage may safely be relegated to that museum of learned absurdities and abortions which speculative anthropology is constantly enriching with fresh specimens of misapplied ingenuity and wasted industry. But enough of these fantasies. Let us return to facts.