The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Volume Ii Part 1

The Belief in Immortality and the Wors.h.i.+p of the Dead.

by James George Frazer.

Vol. II

PREFACE

The first volume of this work, which comprised the Gifford Lectures given by me at St. Andrews in the years 1911 and 1912, dealt with the belief in immortality and the wors.h.i.+p of the dead, as these are found among the aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea, and Melanesia. In the present volume I take up the subject at the point at which I broke off, and describe the corresponding belief and wors.h.i.+p among the Polynesians, a people related to their neighbours the Melanesians by language, if not by blood. The first chapter formed the theme of two lectures delivered at the Royal Inst.i.tution in 1916; the other chapters have been written for lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1921 and 1922. But in the book the lecture form has been discarded, and the treatment of the subject is somewhat fuller than comports with the limits imposed by oral delivery.

Should circ.u.mstances allow me to continue the work, I propose in the next volume to treat of the belief in immortality and the wors.h.i.+p of the dead among the Micronesians and Indonesians.

J. G. FRAZER.

NO. 1 BRICK COURT, TEMPLE, LONDON, _19th July 1922_.

CHAPTER I

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE MAORIS

-- 1. _The Polynesians_

The Polynesians are the tall brown race of men who inhabit the widely scattered islands of the Pacific, from Hawaii on the north to New Zealand on the south, and from Tonga on the west to Easter Island on the east.[1] Down to the eighteenth century they remained practically unknown to Europe; the first navigator to bring back comparatively full and accurate information concerning them was our great English explorer, Captain James Cook. Thus at the date of their discovery the natives were quite unaffected by European influence: of our civilisation they knew nothing: of Christianity, though it had existed in the world for nearly eighteen hundred years, they had never heard: they were totally ignorant of the metals, and had made so little progress in the arts of life that in most of the islands pottery was unknown,[2] and even so simple an invention as that of bows and arrows for use in war had not been thought of.[3] Hence their condition was of great interest to students of the early history of man, since it presented to their observation the spectacle of a barbaric culture evolved from an immemorial past in complete independence of those material, intellectual, and moral forces which have moulded the character of modern European nations. The lateness of their discovery may also be reckoned a fortunate circ.u.mstance for us as well as for them, since it fell at a time when scientific curiosity was fully awakened among us, and when scientific methods were sufficiently understood to allow us to study with profit a state of society which differed so widely from our own, and which in an earlier and less enlightened age might have been contemplated only with aversion and disgust.

[1] Horatio Hale, _The United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 _sqq_., 9 _sqq._; J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_ (London, 1900), pp. 500 _sqq._

[2] J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_ (London, 1900), pp. 154, 501; _British Museum, Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections_ (1910), p. 147.

[3] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_ (London, 1809), v. 416; W.

Mariner, _Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands_, Second Edition (London, 1818), i. 67; W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 220; E.

Shortland, _Traditions and Superst.i.tions of the New Zealanders_, Second Edition (London, 1856), p. 212; J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_, p. 501. In Polynesia "the bow was not a serious weapon; it was found in some islands, _e.g._ in Tahiti and Tonga, but was princ.i.p.ally used for killing rats or in shooting matches"

(_British Museum, Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections_, p. 153). As to the limited use of bows and arrows in Polynesia, see further E. Tregear, "The Polynesian Bow," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol. i. no. 1 (April 1892), pp. 56-59; W.

H. R. Rivers, _The History of Melanesian Society_ (Cambridge, 1914), ii. 446 _sqq._

The question of the origin of the Polynesian race is still unsettled, but the balance both of evidence and of probability seems to incline in favour of the view that the people are descended from one of the yellow Mongoloid races of South-Eastern Asia, who gradually spread eastward over the Indian Archipelago and intermingling to some extent with the black aboriginal inhabitants of the islands formed the lighter-tinted brown race which we call the Polynesian.[4] A strong argument in favour of this theory is drawn from the Polynesian language, which belongs essentially to the same family of speech as the Melanesian and Malay languages spoken by the peoples who occupy the islands that intervene between Polynesia and the south-eastern extremity of the Asiatic continent.[5] The black Melanesian race occupies the south-eastern portion of New Guinea and the chain of islands which stretches in a great curve round the north-eastern coasts of New Guinea and Australia.

The brown Malays, with the kindred Indonesians and a small admixture of negritoes, inhabit the islands westward from New Guinea to the Malay Peninsula.[6] Of the two kindred languages, the Polynesian and the Melanesian, the older in point of structure appears unquestionably to be the Melanesian; for it is richer both in sounds and in grammatical forms than the Polynesian, which may accordingly be regarded as its later and simplified descendant.[7]

[4] Compare (Sir) E. B. Tylor, _Anthropology_ (London, 1881), p.

102; R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_ (Oxford, 1885), pp. 33 _sqq._; S. Percy Smith, _Hawaiki, the Original Home of the Maori_ (Christchurch, etc., New Zealand, 1910), pp.

85 _sqq._; A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_ (Cambridge, 1919), pp. 34 _sqq._; A. H. Keane, _Man Past and Present_, revised by A. Hingston-Quiggin and A. C. Haddon (Cambridge, 1920), p. 552.

[5] On the affinity of the Polynesian, Melanesian, and Malay languages, see R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_ (Oxford, 1885), pp. 10 _sqq._; S. H. Ray, "The Polynesian Language in Melanesia," _Anthropos_, xiv.-xv. (1919-1920), pp.

46 _sqq._

[6] J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_, pp. 482 _sqq._

[7] _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. iii. _Linguistics_, by Sydney H. Ray (Cambridge, 1907), p. 528 (as to the relation of the Polynesian to the Melanesian language). As to the poverty of the Polynesian language in sounds and grammatical forms by comparison with the Melanesian, see R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_, p.

11.

But whereas the three peoples, the Polynesians, the Melanesians, and the Malays speak languages belonging to the same family, their physical types are so different that it seems impossible to look on the brown straight-haired Polynesians and Malays as pure descendants of the swarthy frizzly-haired Melanesians. Accordingly in the present state of our knowledge, or rather ignorance, the most reasonable hypothesis would appear to be that the Melanesians, who occupy a central position in the great ocean, between the Polynesians on the east and the Malays on the west, represent the original inhabitants of the islands, while the Polynesians and Malays represent successive swarms of emigrants, who hived off from the Asiatic continent, and making their way eastward over the islands partially displaced and partially blent with the aborigines, modifying their own physical type in the process and exchanging their original language for that of the islanders, which, through their inability to a.s.similate it, they acquired only in corrupt or degenerate forms.[8] Yet a serious difficulty meets us on this hypothesis. For both the Polynesians and the Malays, as we know them, stand at a decidedly higher level of culture, socially and intellectually, than the Melanesians, and it is hard to understand why with this advantage they should have fallen into a position of linguistic subordination to them, for as a rule it is the higher race which imposes its language on its inferiors, not the lower race which succeeds in foisting its speech on its superiors.

[8] This seems to be the hypothesis favoured by Dr. R. H.

Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_, pp. 33 _sqq._ Compare J.

Deniker, _The Races of Man_, p. 505. On the other hand Sir E. B.

Tylor says (_Anthropology_, pp. 163 _sq._), "The parent language of this family may have belonged to Asia, for in the Malay region the grammar is more complex, and words are found like _tasik_ = sea and _langit_ = sky, while in the distant islands of New Zealand and Hawaii these have come down to _tai_ and _lai_, as though the language became shrunk and formless as the race migrated further from home, and sank into the barbaric life of ocean islanders." Dr. W. H. R. Rivers suggests that the Polynesian language "arose out of a pidgin Indonesian" (_The History of Melanesian Society_, ii. 584).

But these are intricate questions which await future investigation. I cannot enter into them now, but must confine myself to my immediate subject, the beliefs of the Polynesians concerning the human soul and the life after death.

In spite of their diffusion over a mult.i.tude of islands separated from each other by hundreds and even thousands of miles of ocean, the Polynesians are on the whole a remarkably h.o.m.ogeneous race in physical type, language, and forms of society and religion. The differences of language between them are inconsiderable, amounting to little more than some well-marked dialectical variations: all dwell in settled homes and subsist partly by fis.h.i.+ng partly by the fruits of the earth, tilling the soil and gathering coconuts and bread-fruit from the trees:[9] all are bold and expert mariners, making long voyages in large well-built canoes: all possess a copious and comparatively well developed mythology; and all at the time of their discovery enjoyed, or perhaps we should rather say suffered from, a singular inst.i.tution, half social, half religious, which may be summed up in the single Polynesian word taboo. Hence it would no doubt be possible to give a general account of the belief in human immortality which would hold good in outline for all the different branches of the Polynesian race; but such an account would necessarily be somewhat meagre, inexact in detail, and liable to many exceptions. Accordingly I shall not attempt it, but shall describe the creed of each group of islanders separately. As the beliefs of the various islanders on this momentous topic are characterised by a general similarity, the method I have adopted will no doubt involve a certain sameness and repet.i.tion, but for the serious student of comparative religion I hope that these disadvantages may be more than outweighed by the greater accuracy and fulness of detail which this mode of treating the subject renders possible.

[9] J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_, p. 501. On the apparent h.o.m.ogeneity of the Polynesian race see W. H. R. Rivers, _The History of Melanesian Society_ (Cambridge, 1914), ii. 280, who, however, argues (ii. 280 _sqq._) that the race has been formed by the fusion of two distinct peoples.

The princ.i.p.al groups of islands included in Polynesia are New Zealand, the Friendly or Tonga Islands, the Samoan or Navigators Islands, the Hervey or Cook Islands, the Society Islands, including Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, and Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands.[10] All of them, except New Zealand, are within the tropics; and all of them, except Hawaii, lie to the south of the equator. I shall deal with them in the order I have mentioned, beginning with New Zealand.

[10] Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 _sqq._

-- 2. _The Maoris of New Zealand_

The Maoris of New Zealand are not aborigines of the islands which they inhabit: they possess long and apparently in the main trustworthy traditions of their migration to New Zealand many generations ago. The circ.u.mstances which led to the migration, the names of the canoes in which it was accomplished, the names and genealogies of the chiefs who conducted it, are all recorded, having been handed on by word of mouth from generation to generation, till they were finally written down from the lips of the natives by English enquirers.[11] The place from which the Maoris came is unanimously designated as Hawaiki, an island or group of islands lying far to the north or north-east of New Zealand.

Among English scholars there is some difference of opinion whether Hawaiki is to be identified with Hawaii, that is, the Sandwich Islands, or with Savaii, one of the Samoan or Navigators Islands, since Hawaii and Savaii are both dialectical variations of the New Zealander's p.r.o.nunciation of Hawaiki.[12] Though Hawaii is more than twice as far as Savaii from New Zealand, being separated from it by almost the whole breadth of the tropics and a great stretch of ocean besides, some good authorities have inclined to regard it as the original home of the Maoris, but the balance of opinion appears now to preponderate in favour of the view that Savaii was the centre from which the Polynesians dispersed all over the Pacific.[13] However, the question is one that hardly admits of a positive answer.

[11] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_ (London, 1843), ii. 85 _sqq._; Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp.

146 _sqq._; Sir George Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_ (London, 1855), pp. 123 _sqq._, 136 _sqq._, 162 _sqq._, 202 _sqq._; E.

Shortland, _Traditions and Superst.i.tions of the New Zealanders_, Second Edition (London, 1856), pp. 1 _sqq._; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants_, Second Edition (London, 1870), pp. 26, 27, 289 _sqq._; John White, _The Ancient History of the Maori, his Mythology and Traditions_ (London, 1887-1889), ii. 176 _sqq._; Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," _Man_, xiv. (1914) pp. 73-76. The number of generations which have elapsed since the migration to New Zealand is variously estimated. Writing about the middle of the nineteenth century Shortland reckoned the number at about eighteen; Mr. Elsdon Best, writing in 1914, variously calculated it at about twenty-eight or twenty-nine (on p. 73) and from eighteen to twenty-eight (on p. 74).

[12] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superst.i.tions of the New Zealanders_, p. 33.

[13] H. Hale, _Ethnography and Philology of the U.S. Exploring Expedition_, pp. 119 _sq._; E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_ (London, 1843), ii. 85 _sqq._; E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superst.i.tions of the New Zealanders_, pp. 33 _sqq._; A. S. Thomson, _The Story of New Zealand_ (London, 1859), i. 57 _sqq._; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 26; E.

Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_ (Wellington, N.Z., 1891), pp. 56 _sqq._, _s.v._ "Hawaiki"; A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_ (Cambridge, 1919), p. 36. Of these writers, Dieffenbach, Shortland, and Taylor decide in favour of Hawaii; Thomson, Hale, and Haddon prefer Savaii; Tregear seems to leave the question open, pointing out that "the inhabitants of those islands themselves believe in another Hawaiki, neither in Samoa nor Hawaii."

The Maoris are not a pure-blooded Polynesian race. Among them even at the present day two distinct racial types may be distinguished, one of them the comparatively fair Polynesian type with straight nose and good features, the other the swarthy, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, frizzly-haired Melanesian type. They have a tradition that on their arrival in New Zealand they found the country in the possession of a dark-skinned folk of repulsive appearance, tall, spare, and spindle-shanked, with flat faces, overhanging brows, and noses of which little but the upturned nostrils could in some cases be discerned. These savages wore little clothing and built no good houses, nothing but rude shelters against the inclemency of the weather. They were ignorant and treacherous, and the Maoris regarded them with dislike and contempt; but their women looked with favour on the handsome Maori men, and a mixture of the two races was the result. This tradition both explains and is confirmed by the two different racial types which still exist side by side or blent together among the Maoris. It seems, therefore, highly probable that before the advent of the Maoris the North Island of New Zealand was occupied by a people of inferior culture belonging to the Melanesian stock, who may themselves have had a strain of Polynesian blood in their veins and some Polynesian words in their language. This at least is suggested by some features in the Maori traditions about them. For these savages told the Maoris that they were the descendants of the crews of three fis.h.i.+ng canoes which had been driven to sea from their own land in past times, and that their original home was a much warmer country than New Zealand. All these various indications may perhaps be reconciled by supposing that the dark predecessors of the Maoris in New Zealand were a Melanesian people, who had accidentally drifted from Fiji, the inhabitants of which have long been in contact with their Polynesian neighbours on the east, the Tongans.[14] They received from the Maoris the name of Maruiwi,[15] and were perhaps of the same stock as the Moriori of the Chatham Islands; for two skulls of the Moriori type have been found in an old deposit at w.a.n.ganui, near the south end of the North Island of New Zealand.[16]

[14] Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," _Man_, xiv.

(1914) pp. 73-76. The Melanesian strain in the Maoris was recognised by previous writers. See J. S. Polack, _Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders_ (London, 1840), i. 6, "The nation consists of two aboriginal and distinct races, differing, at an earlier period, as much from each other as both are similarly removed in similitude from Europeans. A series of intermarriages for centuries has not even yet obliterated the marked difference that originally stamped the descendant of the now amalgamated races. The first may be known by a dark-brown complexion, well formed and prominent features, erect muscular proportions, and lank hair, with a boldness in the gait of a warrior, wholly differing from that of the second and inferior race, who have a complexion brown-black, hair inclining to the wool, like the Eastern African, stature short, and skin exceeding soft." The writer rightly connects the latter people with the stock which we now call Melanesian. Compare also R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 13 _sqq._, who says (p. 13), "The Melanesian preceded the Polynesian.... The remains of this race are to be seen in every part of New Zealand, especially among the Nga-ti-ka-hunu, to which the derisive name of Pokerekahu--Black k.u.mara--is applied.

The Maori traditions preserve both the names of the canoes which brought them to New Zealand, as well as of the chiefs who commanded them; several of these records make mention of their having found this black race in occupation of the country on their arrival." The blending of two distinct races, a light-brown and a dark race, among the Maoris is clearly recognised by E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii.

8-11. The dark race, he says (pp. 9 _sq._), "has undoubtedly a different origin. This is proved by their less regularly shaped cranium, which is rather more compressed from the sides, by their full and large features, prominent cheek-bones, full lips, small ears, curly and coa.r.s.e, although not woolly, hair, a much deeper colour of the skin, and a short and rather ill-proportioned figure. This race, which is mixed in insensible gradations with the former, is far less numerous; it does not predominate in any one part of the island, nor does it occupy any particular station in a tribe, and there is no difference made between the two races amongst themselves; but I must observe that I never met any man of consequence belonging to this race, and that, although free men, they occupy the lower grades; from this we may perhaps infer the relation in which they stood to the earliest native immigrants into the country, although their traditions and legends are silent on the subject."

[15] Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," _Man_, xiv.

(1914) pp. 73 _sq._

[16] (Sir) Arthur Keith, "Moriori in New Zealand," _Man_, xiii.