The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Volume Ii Part 5

Wilken, _Verspreide Geschriften_ (The Hague, 1912), iv. 125 _sqq._

[126] G. F. Angas, _Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand_, ii. 67.

[127] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 142.

-- 6. _Conclusion_

If now we attempt to sum up the effects which the belief in human immortality exercised on the life of the Maoris we may perhaps conclude that these effects were partly good and partly evil. On the one hand by ascribing to the chiefs the special protection of the powerful spirits of the dead, it invested the governing cla.s.s with a degree of authority to which on merely natural or rational grounds they could have laid no claim; hence it tended to strengthen the respect for government and to ensure the maintenance of law and order. Moreover, by lending a supernatural sanction to the rights of private property among all cla.s.ses it further contributed to abolish one of the most fruitful sources of discord and crime in the community and thereby to foster economic progress, which cannot exist without some measure of peace and security for life and possessions. These were great gains, and so far as the faith in immortality helped to win them for the Maoris, it certainly ameliorated their condition and furthered the cause of civilisation among them. But on the other hand the belief in the essential malignancy of the spirits of the dead and in their great power to harm the living added a host of purely imaginary terrors to the real evils with which man's existence on earth is naturally and inevitably encompa.s.sed: it imposed a regular system of needless and vexatious restrictions on social intercourse and the simplest acts of daily life; and it erected an almost insuperable barrier to the growth of science, and particularly of that beneficent branch of science which has for its object the alleviation of human suffering, since by concentrating the whole attention of the people on a false and absurd theory of supernatural agency it diverted them from that fruitful investigation of natural causes which alone can strengthen and extend man's control over matter.

This was a heavy toll to pay for the advantages incidental to a belief in immortality; and if we were asked to strike a balance between the good and the evil which that belief entailed on the Maoris, we might well hesitate to say to which side the scales of judgment should incline.

CHAPTER II

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE TONGANS

-- 1. _The Tonga or Friendly Islands_

The Tonga or Friendly Islands form an archipelago of about a hundred small islands situated in the South Pacific, between 18 and 22 South lat.i.tude and between 173 and 176 East longitude. The archipelago falls into three groups of islands, which lie roughly north and south of each other. The southern is the Tonga group, the central is the Haabai or Haapai group, and the northern is the Vavau group. In the southern group the princ.i.p.al islands are Tongataboo and Eua; in the central group, Namuka and Lif.u.ka (Lefooga); in the northern group, Vavau. The largest island of the archipelago, Tongataboo, is about twenty-two miles long by eight miles wide; next to it in importance are Vavau and Eua, and there are seven or eight other islands not less than five miles in length. The rest are mere islets. Most of the islands are surrounded by dangerous coral reefs, and though the soil is deep and very fertile, there is a great lack of flowing water; running streams are almost unknown. Most of the islands consist of coral and are very low; the highest point of Tongataboo is only about sixty feet above the level of the sea.[1]

However, some of the islands are lofty and of volcanic formation. When Captain Cook visited the islands in 1773 and 1777 there was apparently only one active volcano in the archipelago; it was situated in the small island of Tufoa, which lies to the west of Namuka. Cook saw the island smoking at the distance of ten leagues, and was told by the natives that it had never ceased smoking in their memory, nor had they any tradition of its inactivity.[2] In the hundred and fifty years which have elapsed since Cook's time volcanic action has greatly increased in the archipelago. A considerable eruption took place at Tufoa in 1885: the small but lofty island of Kao (5000 feet high) has repeatedly been in eruption: the once fertile and populous island of Amargura, or Funua-lai, in about 18 South lat.i.tude, was suddenly devastated in 1846 or 1847 by a terrific eruption, which reduced it to a huge ma.s.s of lava and burnt sand, without a leaf or blade of gra.s.s of any kind. Warned by violent earthquakes, which preceded the explosion, the inhabitants escaped in time to Vavau. The roar of the volcano was heard one hundred and thirty miles off; and an American s.h.i.+p sailed through a shower of ashes, rolling like great volumes of smoke, for forty miles. For months afterwards the glare of the tremendous fires was visible night after night in the island of Vavau, situated forty miles away.[3] Another dreadful eruption occurred on the 24th of June 1853, in Niua Foou, an island about two hundred miles to the north-north-west of Funua-lai. The entire island seems to be the circular ridge of an ancient and vast volcano, of which the crater is occupied by a lake of clear calm water.

On the occasion in question the earth was rent in the centre of a native village; the flames of a new volcano burst forth from the fissure, belching a sea of molten lava, under which ten miles of country, once covered with the richest verdure, have been encased in solid rock, averaging from eight to fifteen feet in thickness. The lake boiled like a cauldron, and long after the more powerful action of the volcano had ceased, the waters of the lake were often rent by tongues of flame, which shot up from them as well as from the clefts in the surrounding precipices.[4] In the island of Late, lying to the west of Vavau, a new volcano broke out with great violence in 1854; the roar of the volcano was heard at Lif.u.ka, fifty miles away; the immense pillar of smoke was visible by day and the fire by night. The central portion of one side of the mountain (about 2500 feet high) was completely blown out by the explosion.[5]

[1] Horatio Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 _sq._; F. H. H.

Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. (London, 1894) pp. 497, 499. As to the scarcity of running water, see Captain James Cook, _Voyages_ (London, 1809), iii. 206, v. 389. He was told that there was a running stream on the high island of Kao. As to the soil of Tongataboo, see Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_ (London, 1899), p. 280, "The soil is everywhere prolific, and consists of a fine rich mould, upon an average about fourteen or fifteen inches deep, free from stones, except near the beach, where coral rocks appear above the surface. Beneath this mould is a red loam four or five inches thick; next is a very strong blue clay in small quant.i.ties; and in some places has been found a black earth, which emits a very fragrant smell resembling bergamot, but it soon evaporates when exposed to the air."

[2] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 277. For descriptions of the volcano see W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, Second Edition (London, 1818), i. 240 _sq._; and especially Thomas West, _Ten Years in South-Eastern Polynesia_ (London, 1865), pp. 89 _sqq._ Both these writers ascended the volcano.

[3] Thomas West, _op. cit._ pp. 79 _sqq._; J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), p. 120; F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii.

p. 497.

[4] T. West, _op. cit._ pp. 82 _sqq._; George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), pp. 4 _sq._

[5] T. West, _op. cit._ pp. 88 _sq._

But not only have new volcanoes appeared or long extinct volcanoes resumed their activity within the last century in the existing islands, new islands have been formed by volcanic action. One such island, emitting volumes of fire, smoke, and steam, issued from the surface of the sea, and was discovered by the missionary s.h.i.+p _John Wesley_ in August 1857; its appearance had been heralded some years before by a strange agitation of the sea and by fire and smoke ascending from the water. This new volcanic island lies about midway between the two other volcanic islands of Tufoa and Late.[6] A third new volcanic island seems to have been formed to the south of Tufoa in 1886.[7] Another new island was thrown up from the sea about the beginning of the twentieth century; it was partly washed away again, but has again materially increased in size.[8] It is noteworthy that the volcanoes, new or old, all occur in a line running roughly north and south at a considerable distance to the west of, but parallel to, the main body of the Tongan archipelago. They clearly indicate the existence of submarine volcanic action on a great scale. Even in the coralline islands traces of volcanic agency have come to light in the shape of pumice-stones, which have been dug out of the solid coral rock at considerable depths.[9] In the lofty island of Eua an extensive d.y.k.e of basalt is found inland underlying the coral formation.[10]

[6] T. West, _op. cit._ pp. 92-93.

[7] I infer this from the entry "Volcanic island, 1886," in Mr.

Guillemard's map of the Pacific Islands. He does not mention it in the text (_Australasia_, ii. p. 497).

[8] George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 6.

[9] T. West, _op. cit._ p. 94.

[10] George Brown, _op. cit._ p. 4.

These facts lend some countenance to the view that the whole archipelago forms the summit or visible ridge of a long chain of submarine volcanoes, and that the islands, even those of coralline formation, have been raised to their present level by volcanic action.[11] That very acute observer, Captain Cook, or one of the naturalists of the expedition, noticed that in the highest parts of Tongataboo, which he estimated roughly at a hundred feet above sea-level, he often met with "the same coral rock, which is found at the sh.o.r.e, projecting above the surface, and perforated and cut into all those inequalities which are usually seen in rocks that lie within the wash of the tide."[12] Again, on ascending the comparatively lofty island of Eua, Captain Cook observes: "We were now about two or three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and yet, even here, the coral was perforated into all the holes and inequalities which usually diversify the surface of this substance within the reach of the tide. Indeed, we found the same coral till we began to approach the summits of the highest hills; and, it was remarkable, that these were chiefly composed of a yellowish, soft, sandy stone."[13] In the island of Vavau it was remarked by Captain Waldegrave that the coral rock rises many feet above the present level of the sea, and he adds: "The action of fire is visible on it, and we saw several instances of its crystallisation."[14]

[11] T. West, _op. cit._ 95.

[12] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 344.

[13] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 381.

[14] Captain the Hon. W. Waldegrave, R.N., "Extracts from a Private Journal," _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, iii. (1833) p. 193.

The view that even the coralline islands of the Tongan archipelago have been elevated by volcanic agency is not necessarily inconsistent with Darwin's theory that coral reefs are formed during periods of subsidence, not of elevation;[15] for it is quite possible that, after being raised ages ago by volcanic forces, these islands may be now slowly subsiding, and that it has been during the period of subsidence that they have become incrusted by coral reefs. Yet the occurrence of coral rocks, bearing all the marks of marine action, at considerable heights above the sea, appears indubitably to prove that such a general subsidence has been in some places varied by at least a temporary elevation.

[15] Charles Darwin, _Journal of Researches, etc., during the Voyage of the "Beagle"_ (London, 1912), pp. 471 _sqq._; Sir Charles Lyell, _Principles of Geology_, Twelfth Edition (London, 1875), ii. 602 _sqq._; T. H. Huxley, _Physiography_ (London, 1881), pp. 256 _sqq._

In thus postulating elevation by volcanic action, as well as subsidence, to explain the formation of the Tongan islands I am glad to have the support of a good observer, the late Rev. Dr. George Brown, who spent the best years of his life in the Pacific, where his experience both of the larger and the smaller islands was varied and extensive. He writes: "I have seen islands composed of true coralline limestone, the cliffs of which rise so perpendicularly from the blue ocean that the natives have to ascend and descend by ladders in going from the ocean to the top, or vice versa. A large steamer can go so close to some of these cliffs that she could be moored alongside of them in calm weather. It is not at all improbable, I think, that in these islands we have the two factors in the formation of islands, viz. subsidence, during which these immense cliffs were formed, and subsequent upheaval. This is the only way, I think, in which we can account for these perpendicular cliffs in the midst of deep blue ocean."[16]

[16] George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), pp. 13 _sq._

I have dwelt at what may seem undue length on the volcanic phenomena of the Tonga islands because the occurrence of such phenomena in savage lands has generally influenced the beliefs and customs of the natives, quite apart from the possibility, which should always be borne in mind, that man first obtained fire from an active volcano. But even if, as has been suggested, the Tonga islands formed the starting-point from which the Polynesian race spread over the islands of the Pacific,[17] it seems very unlikely that the Polynesians first learned the use of fire when they reached the Tongan archipelago. More probably they were acquainted, not only with the use of fire, but with the mode of making it long before they migrated from their original home in Southern Asia.

A people perfectly ignorant of that prime necessity could hardly have made their way across such wide stretches of sea and land. But it is quite possible that the myth which the Tongans, in common with many other Polynesians, tell of the manner in which their ancestors procured their first fire, was suggested to them by the spectacle of a volcano in eruption. They say that the hero Maui Kijikiji, the Polynesian Prometheus, first procured fire for men by descending into the bowels of the earth and stealing it from his father, Maui Atalanga, who had kept it there jealously concealed.[18]

[17] John Crawfurd, _Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language_ (London, 1852), _Preliminary Dissertation_, p. 253, quoted by Thomas West, _Ten Years in South-Central Polynesia_, pp. 248 _sqq._ But the more usual view is that the starting-point of the dispersal of the Polynesian race in the Pacific was Samoa.

[18] Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga and the Friendly Islands_ (London, 1855), pp. 134-137; Le P. Reiter, "Traditions Tonguiennes,"

_Anthropos_, xii.-xiii. (1917-1918), pp. 1026-1040; E. E.

Collcott, "Legends from Tonga," _Folk-lore_, x.x.xii. (1921) pp.

45-48. Miss Farmer probably obtained the story from the Rev.

John Thomas, who was a missionary in the islands for twenty-five years (from 1826 to 1850). She acknowledges her obligations to him for information on the religion of the natives (p. 125). For the period of Mr. Thomas's residence in Tonga, see Miss Farmer's book, p. 161. The story is told in closely similar forms in many other islands of the Pacific. For some of the evidence see my edition of Apollodorus, _The Library_, vol. ii. p. 331 _sqq._

-- 2. _The Tonga Islanders, their Character, Mode of Life, and Government_

Physically the Tonga islanders are fine specimens of the Polynesian race and generally impress travellers very favourably. Captain Cook, the first to observe them closely, describes them as very strong and well made, some of them really handsome, and many of them with truly European features and genuine Roman noses.[19] At a later date Commodore Wilkes, the commander of the United States Exploring Expedition, speaks of them as "some of the finest specimens of the human race that can well be imagined, surpa.s.sing in symmetry and grace those of all the other groups we had visited"; and farther on he says: "A larger proportion of fine-looking people is seldom to be seen, in any portion of the globe; they are a shade lighter than any of the other islanders; their countenances are generally of the European cast; they are tall and well made, and their muscles are well developed."[20] Still later, in his account of the voyage of the _Challenger_, Lord George Campbell expressed himself even more warmly: "There are no people in the world,"

he says, "who strike one at first so much as these Friendly Islanders.

Their clear, light, copper-brown coloured skins, yellow and curly hair, good-humoured, handsome faces, their _tout ensemble_, formed a novel and splendid picture of the genus _h.o.m.o_; and, as far as physique and appearance go, they gave one certainly an impression of being a superior race to ours."[21] A Catholic missionary observes that "the natives of Tonga hardly differ from Europeans in stature, features, and colour; they are a little sallower, which may be set down to the high temperature of the climate. It is difficult to have a very fresh complexion with thirty degrees of heat, Reaumur, as we have it during four or five months of the year."[22] In appearance the Tonga islanders closely resemble the Samoans, their neighbours on the north; some find them a little lighter, but others somewhat darker in colour than the Samoans.[23] According to the French explorer, Dumont d'Urville, who pa.s.sed about a month in Tongataboo in 1827, the Polynesian race in Tonga exhibits less admixture with the swarthy Melanesian race than in Tahiti and New Zealand, there being far fewer individuals of stunted stature, flat noses, and frizzly hair among the Tongans than among the other Polynesians.[24] Even among the Tongans the physical superiority of the chiefs to the common people is said to be conspicuous; they are taller, comelier, and lighter in colour than the lower orders. Some would explain the difference by a difference in upbringing, n.o.blemen being more carefully nursed, better fed, and less exposed to the sun than commoners;[25] but it is possible that they come of a different and better stock.

[19] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 401 _sq._

[20] Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 10, 25.

[21] Quoted by F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. p. 488.

[22] Jerome Grange, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xvii. (1845) p. 8.

[23] Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_, pp. 10 _sq._; Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_, iii. 25; J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_, pp. 116, 155. The naturalist J. R. Forster thought the Tongans darker than the Tahitians. See his _Observations made during a Voyage round the World_ (London, 1778), p. 234.

[24] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage de la corvette Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage_, iv. (Paris, 1832) p. 229.

[25] J. E. Erskine, _op. cit._ pp. 155 _sq._; Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga and the Friendly Islands_, p. 140.