The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Volume Ii Part 7

Some thought that the _mooas_, who ranked next below the _matabooles_ in the social hierarchy, also went after death to Bolotoo; but this was a matter of great doubt. As for the _tooas_ or commoners, who formed the lowest rung in the social ladder, they had either no souls at all or only such as dissolved with the body after death, which consequently ended their sentient existence.

They believed that the human soul during life is not an essence distinct from the body, but only the more ethereal part of the corporeal frame, and that the moment after death it exists in Bolotoo with the form and likeness of the body which it had on earth.

They believed that the primitive G.o.ds and deceased n.o.bles sometimes appear visibly to mankind to warn or to afford comfort and advice; and that the primitive G.o.ds also sometimes come into the living bodies of lizards, porpoises, and a species of water snake, hence these animals are much respected. When the G.o.ds thus entered into the bodies of porpoises, it was for the sake of safeguarding canoes or for other beneficent purposes.

They believed that the two personages in the Tonga islands known by the t.i.tles of Tooitonga and Veachi were descendants in a right line from two chief G.o.ds, and that all respect and veneration are therefore due to them.

They believed that some persons are favoured with the inspiration of the G.o.ds, and that while the inspiration lasts the G.o.d actually exists in the body of the inspired person or priest, who is then capable of prophesying.

They believe that human merit or virtue consists chiefly in paying respect to the G.o.ds, n.o.bles, and aged persons; in defending one's hereditary rights; in honour, justice, patriotism, friends.h.i.+p, meekness, modesty, fidelity of married women, parental and filial love, observance of all religious ceremonies, patience in suffering, forbearance of temper, and so on.

They believed that all rewards for virtue or punishments for vice happen to men in this world only, and come immediately from the G.o.ds.

They believed that several acts which civilised nations regard as crimes are, under certain circ.u.mstances, matters of indifference. Such acts included the taking of revenge on an enemy and the killing of a servant who had given provocation, or indeed the killing of anybody else, always provided that the victim were not a very superior chief or n.o.ble.

Further, among indifferent acts was reckoned rape, unless it were committed on a married woman or on one whom the offender was bound to respect on the score of her superior rank. Finally, the list of venial offences included theft, unless the stolen object were consecrated property; for in that case the action became sacrilege and was, as we shall see presently, a very serious crime.

They believed that omens are the direct intimations of the future vouchsafed by the G.o.ds to men. "Charms or superst.i.tious ceremonies to bring evil upon any one are considered for the most part infallible, as being generally effective means to dispose the G.o.ds to accord with the curse or evil wish of the malevolent invoker; to perform these charms is considered cowardly and unmanly, but does not const.i.tute a crime."[52]

One such charm consisted in hiding on a grave (_fytoca_) some portion of the wearing apparel of an inferior relation of the deceased. The person whose garment was so hidden was believed to sicken and die. An equally effectual way of working the charm and ensuring the death of the victim was to bury the garment in the house consecrated to the tutelary G.o.d of the family. But when a grave was made use of for the malignant purpose, it was thought essential that the deceased should be of a rank superior to that of the person against whom the charm was directed; otherwise it was supposed that the charm would have no effect.[53] In either case the fatal result was clearly held to be brought about by the power of the ghost or of the G.o.d, who used the garment as an instrument for putting the charm in operation. These charms or superst.i.tious ceremonies are what we should now call magical rites, and they were apparently supposed to effect their purpose indirectly by constraining the G.o.ds to carry out the malevolent intention of the magician. If I am right in so interpreting them, we seem driven to conclude that in Tonga magic was supposed to be ineffectual without the co-operation of the G.o.ds, although its power to compel them was deemed for the most part irresistible. Even so its a.s.sumed dependence on the consent, albeit the reluctant consent, of the deities implies a certain decadence of magic and a growing predominance of religion. Moreover, the moral reprehension of such practices for the injury of enemies is another sign that among the Tongans magic was being relegated to that position of a black art which it generally occupies among more civilised peoples. Be that as it may, certain it is that we hear extremely little about the practice of magic among the Tongans.

[52] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 101.

[53] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 424, note *.

-- 4. _The Primary or Non-human G.o.ds_

Such are, or rather used to be, the princ.i.p.al articles of the old Tongan creed. We may now examine some of them a little more at large. But first we may observe that on this showing the Tongans were an eminently religious people. They traced all the good and ill in human affairs to the direct intervention of the G.o.ds, who rewarded or punished mankind for their deeds in this life, bestowing the reward or inflicting the punishment in the present world and not deferring either to a distant and more or less uncertain future in a world beyond the grave. Thus with the Tongans the fear of the G.o.ds was a powerful incentive to lead a virtuous life; morality was placed under the immediate guardians.h.i.+p of the deities. It is true that according to their notions morality consisted largely in the performance of religious ceremonies, but it was by no means limited to a simple observance of the prescribed rites; for we have seen that their conception of a virtuous life included compliance with the dictates of justice, modesty, and friends.h.i.+p, the fidelity of wives to their husbands, the mutual affection of parents and children, patience in suffering, and other modes of conduct which we too should not hesitate to rank among the virtues.

When we consider the nature of the Tongan G.o.ds, we perceive that they are sharply discriminated into two cla.s.ses, namely, the primitive and superior G.o.ds on the one side and the secondary and inferior G.o.ds on the other side. The primitive and superior G.o.ds are those who have always been G.o.ds and whose origin and beginning are unknown; the secondary and inferior G.o.ds are the souls of dead men, who consequently have not always been G.o.ds, because they were human beings before death elevated them to the rank of deities. The distinction between these two cla.s.ses of G.o.ds is highly important, not merely for Tongan religion in particular, but for the history of religion in general. For whatever we may think of Euhemerism as a universal explanation of the G.o.ds, there can be no doubt that in many lands the ranks of the celestial hierarchy have been largely recruited by the ghosts of men of flesh and blood. But there appears to be a general tendency to allow the origin of the human G.o.ds to fall into the background and to confuse them with the true original deities, who from the beginning have always been deities and nothing else. The tendency may sometimes be accentuated by a deliberate desire to cast a veil over the humble birth and modest beginning of these now wors.h.i.+pful beings; but probably the obliteration of the distinction between the two cla.s.ses of divinities is usually a simple result of oblivion and the lapse of time. Once a man is dead, his figure, which bulked so large and so clear to his contemporaries, begins to fade and melt away into something vague and indistinct, until, if he was a person of no importance, he is totally forgotten; or, if he was one whose actions or thoughts deeply influenced his fellows for good or evil, his memory lingers in after generations, growing ever dimmer and it may be looming ever larger through the long vista of the ages, as the evening mist appears to magnify the orb of the descending sun. Thus naturally and insensibly, as time goes on, our mortal nature fades or brightens into the immortal and divine.

As our subject is the belief in immortality and the wors.h.i.+p of the dead, we are not directly concerned with the original Tongan deities who were believed never to have been men. But since their functions and wors.h.i.+p appear to have been in certain respects closely a.n.a.logous to those of the inferior deities, the souls of the dead, some notice of them may not be out of place, if it helps to a fuller understanding of what we may call the human G.o.ds. Besides, we must always bear in mind that some at least of the so-called original G.o.ds may have been men, whose history and humanity had been forgotten. We can hardly doubt that the celestial hierarchy has often been recruited by the souls of the dead.

The original and superior G.o.ds, Mariner tells us, were thought to be rather numerous, perhaps about three hundred all told; but the names of very few of them were known, and even those few were familiar only to some of the chiefs and their ministers, the _matabooles_; "for it may easily be supposed," says Mariner, "that, where no written records are kept, only those (G.o.ds) whose attributes particularly concern the affairs of this world should be much talked of; as to the rest, they are, for the most part, merely tutelar G.o.ds to particular private families, and having nothing in their history at all interesting, are scarcely known to anybody else."[54]

[54] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 104.

Among these original and superior deities was Tali-y-Toobo, the patron G.o.d of the civil king and his family. He was the G.o.d of war and was consequently always invoked in time of war by the king's family; in time of peace prayers were sometimes offered to him for the general good of the nation as well as for the particular interest and welfare of the royal house. He had no priest, unless it was the king himself, who was occasionally inspired by him; but sometimes a whole reign would pa.s.s without the king being once favoured with the divine afflatus.[55]

[55] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 105.

Another G.o.d was Tooi fooa Bolotoo, whose name means "Chief of all Bolotoo." From this it might be supposed that he was the greatest G.o.d in Bolotoo, the home of the G.o.ds and of the deified spirits of men; but in fact he was regarded as inferior to the war G.o.d, and the natives could give no explanation of his high-sounding t.i.tle. He was the G.o.d of rank in society, and as such he was often invoked by the heads of great families on occasion of sickness or other trouble. He had several priests, whom he occasionally inspired.[56]

[56] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 105 _sq._

Another great G.o.d was Toobo Toty, whose name signifies "Toobo the mariner." He was the G.o.d of voyages, and in that capacity was invoked by chiefs or anybody else at sea; for his princ.i.p.al function was to preserve canoes from accidents. Without being himself the G.o.d of wind, he had great influence with that deity, and was thus enabled no doubt to save many who were in peril on the great deep.[57]

[57] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 106 _sq._

Another G.o.d was Alo Alo, whose name means "to fan." He was the G.o.d of wind and weather, rain, harvest, and vegetation in general. When the weather was seasonable, he was usually invoked about once a month to induce him to keep on his good behaviour; but when the weather was unseasonable, or the islands were swept by destructive storms of wind and rain, the prayers to him were repeated daily. But he was not supposed to wield the thunder and lightning, "of which, indeed," says Mariner, "there is no G.o.d acknowledged among them, as this phenomenon is never recollected to have done any mischief of consequence."[58] From this it would appear that where no harm was done, the Tongans found it needless to suppose the existence of a deity; they discovered the hand of a G.o.d only in the working of evil; fear was the mainspring of their religion. In boisterous weather at sea Alo Alo was not invoked; he had then to make room for the superior G.o.d, Toobo Toty, the protector of canoes, who with other sea G.o.ds always received the homage of storm-tossed mariners. However, Alo Alo, the weather G.o.d, came to his own when the yams were approaching maturity in the early part of November. For then offerings of yams, coco-nuts, and other vegetable products were offered to him in particular, as well as to all the other G.o.ds in general, for the purpose of ensuring a continuation of favourable weather and consequent fertility. The offering was accompanied by prayers to Alo Alo and the other G.o.ds, beseeching them to extend their bounty and make the land fruitful. Wrestling and boxing matches formed part of the ceremony, which was repeated eight times at intervals of ten days. The time for the rite was fixed by the priest of Alo Alo, and a curious feature of the ceremony was the presence of a girl of n.o.ble family, some seven or eight years old, who represented the wife of Alo Alo and resided in his consecrated house during the eighty days that the festal season lasted.[59]

[58] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 108.

[59] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 205-208; compare _id._ 7, note *, 108.

Another G.o.d named Moooi was believed to support the earth on his prostrate body. In person he was bigger than any other of the G.o.ds; but he never inspired anybody, and had no house dedicated to his service.

Indeed, it was supposed that this Atlas of the Pacific never budged from his painful and burdensome post beneath the earth. Only when he felt more than usually uneasy, he tried to turn himself about under his heavy load; and the movement was felt as an earthquake by the Tongans, who endeavoured to make him lie still by shouting and beating the ground with sticks.[60] Similar attempts to stop an earthquake are common in many parts of the world.[61]

[60] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 112 _sq._ Compare Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_ (London, 1799), pp. 277 _sq._ Moooi is the Polynesian G.o.d or hero whose name is usually spelled Maui. See Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_, p. 23; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp. 233 _sqq._ _s.v._ "Maui."

[61] _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, i. 197 _sqq._

Tangaloa was the G.o.d of artificers and the arts. He had several priests, who in Mariner's time were all carpenters. It was he who was said to have brought up the Tonga islands from the bottom of the sea at the end of his fis.h.i.+ng line;[62] though in some accounts of Tongan tradition this feat is attributed to Maui.[63] The very hook on which he hauled up the islands was said to be preserved in Tonga down to about thirty years before Mariner's time. It was in the possession of the divine chief Tooitonga; but unfortunately, his house catching fire, the basket in which the precious hook was kept perished with its contents in the flames. When Mariner asked Tooitonga what sort of hook it was, the chief told him that it was made of tortoise-sh.e.l.l, strengthened with a piece of whalebone, and that it measured six or seven inches from the curve to the point where the line was attached, and an inch and a half between the barb and the stem. Mariner objected that such a hook could hardly have been strong enough to support the whole weight of the Tonga islands; but the chief replied that it was a G.o.d's hook and therefore could not break. The hole in the rock in which the divine hook caught on the memorable occasion was shown down to Mariner's time in the island of Hoonga. It was an aperture about two feet square.[64]

[62] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 109, 114 _sq._; Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_, pp. 24 _sq._

[63] Jerome Grange, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xvii. (1845) p. 11; Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_, iii. 23; Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga and the Friendly Islands_, p. 133. According to this last writer it was only the low islands that were fished up by Maui; the high islands were thrown down from the sky by the G.o.d Hikuleo.

[64] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 272, ii. 114 _sq._ The Catholic missionary Jerome Grange was told that the hook in question existed down to his time (1843), but that only the king might see it, since it was certain death to anybody else to look on it. See _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xvii. (1845) p. 11.

-- 5. _The Temples of the G.o.ds_

Some of the primitive G.o.ds had houses dedicated to them. These sacred houses or temples, as we may call them, were built in the style of ordinary dwellings; but generally more than ordinary care was taken both in constructing them and in keeping them in good order, decorating their enclosures with flowers, and so on. About twenty of the G.o.ds had houses thus consecrated to them; some of them had five or six houses, some only one or two. For example, Tali-y-Toobo, the patron G.o.d of the royal family, had four houses dedicated to him in the island of Vavau, two in the island of Lefooga (Lif.u.ka), and two or three others of smaller importance elsewhere.[65] Another patron G.o.d of the royal family, called Alai Valoo, had a large consecrated enclosure in the island of Ofoo; he had also at least one priest and was very frequently consulted in behalf of sick persons.[66]

[65] W. Mariner, _Tonga Island_, ii. 104 _sq._

[66] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii, 107 _sq._

To desecrate any of these holy houses or enclosures was a most serious offence. When Mariner was in the islands it happened that two boys, who had belonged to the crew of his s.h.i.+p, were detected in the act of stealing a bale of bark-cloth from a consecrated house. If they had been natives, they would instantly have been punished with death; but the chiefs, taking into consideration the youth and inexperience of the offenders, who were foreigners and ignorant of native customs, decided that for that time the crime might be overlooked. Nevertheless, to appease the anger of the G.o.d, to whom the house was consecrated, it was deemed necessary to address him humbly on the subject. Accordingly his priest, followed by chiefs and their ministers (_matabooles_), all dressed in mats with leaves of the _ifi_ tree[67] round their necks in token of humility and sorrow, went in solemn procession to the house; they sat down before it, and the priest addressed the divinity to the following purport: "Here you see the chiefs and _matabooles_ that have come to thee, hoping that thou wilt be merciful: the boys are young, and being foreigners, are not so well acquainted with our customs, and did not reflect upon the greatness of the crime: we pray thee, therefore, not to punish the people for the sins of these thoughtless youths: we have spared them, and hope that thou wilt be merciful and spare us." The priest then rose up, and they all retired in the same way they had come.

The chiefs, and particularly the king, severely reprimanded the boys, endeavouring to impress on their minds the enormity of their offence, and a.s.suring them that they owed their lives only to their presumed ignorance of the heinousness of the crime.[68]

[67] The _ifi_ tree, of which the leaves were used by the Tongans in many religious ceremonies, is a species of chestnut (_Inocarpus edulis_) which grows in Indonesia, but is thought to be a native of America. It is supposed that the Polynesians brought the seeds of this tree with them into the Pacific, where it is said to be a cultivated plant. See S. Percy Smith, _Hawaiki, the Original Home of the Maori_ (Christchurch, etc., New Zealand, 1910), p. 146. To wear a wreath of the leaves round the neck, and to sit with the head bowed down, const.i.tuted the strongest possible expression of humility and entreaty. See E.

E. V. Collocot, "Notes on Tongan Religion," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, x.x.x. (1921) p. 159.

[68] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 163 _sq._

Another case of sacrilege, which occurred in Mariner's time, was attended with more tragic consequences. He tells us that consecrated places might not be the scene of war, and that it would be highly sacrilegious to attack an enemy or to spill his blood within their confines. On one occasion, while Mariner was in the islands, four men, pursued by their enemies, fled for refuge to a consecrated enclosure, where they would have been perfectly safe. One of them was in the act of scrambling over the reed fence, and had got a leg over it, when he was overtaken by a foe, who struck him such a furious blow on the head that he fell dead within the hallowed ground. Conscience-stricken, the slayer fled to his canoe, followed by his men; and on arriving at the fortress where the king was stationed he made a clean breast of his crime, alleging in excuse that it had been committed in hot blood when he had lost all self-command. The king immediately ordered kava to be taken to the priest of his own tutelary G.o.d, that the divinity might be consulted as to what atonement was proper to be made for so heinous a sacrilege.

Under the double inspiration of kava and the deity, the priest made answer that it was necessary a child should be strangled to appease the anger of the G.o.ds. The chiefs then held a consultation and determined to sacrifice the child of a high chief named Toobo Toa. The child was about two years old and had been born to him by a female attendant. On such occasions the child of a male chief by a female attendant was always chosen for the victim first, because, as a child of a chief, he was a worthier victim, and second, because, as a child of a female attendant, he was not himself a chief; for n.o.bility being traced in the female line only those children were reckoned chiefs whose mothers were chieftainesses; the rank of the father, whether n.o.ble or not, did not affect the rank of his offspring. On this occasion the father of the child was present at the consultation and consented to the sacrifice.

The mother, fearing the decision, had concealed the child, but it was found by one of the searchers, who took it up in his arms, while it smiled with delight at being noticed. The mother tried to follow but was held back; and on hearing her voice the child began to cry. But on reaching the place of execution it was pleased and delighted with the bandage that was put round its neck to strangle it, and looking up in the face of the executioner it smiled again. "Such a sight," we are told, "inspired pity in the breast of every one: but veneration and fear of the G.o.ds was a sentiment superior to every other, and its destroyer could not help exclaiming, as he put on the fatal bandage, _O iaaoe chi vale!_ (poor little innocent!)." Two men then tightened the cord by pulling at each end, and the struggles of the innocent victim were soon over. The little body was next placed upon a sort of hand-barrow, supported on the shoulders of four men, and carried in a procession of priests, chiefs, and _matabooles_, all clothed as suppliants in mats and with wreaths of green leaves round their necks. In this way it was conveyed to various houses dedicated to different G.o.ds, before each of which it was placed on the ground, all the company sitting behind it, except one priest, who sat beside it and prayed aloud to the G.o.d that he would be pleased to accept of this sacrifice as an atonement for the heinous sacrilege committed, and that punishment might accordingly be withheld from the people. When this had been done before all the consecrated houses in the fortress, the body was given up to its relations, to be buried in the usual manner.[69]

[69] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 216-219. As to the rule that n.o.bility descended only in the female line, through mothers, not through fathers, see _id._ ii. 84, 95 _sq._; J.

Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage_, iv. 239.

The consecration of a house or a piece of ground to a G.o.d was denoted by the native word _taboo_, the general meaning of which was prohibited or forbidden.[70] It was firmly believed by the Tongans in former days that if a man committed sacrilege or broke a taboo, his liver or some other of his internal organs was liable to become enlarged and scirrhous, that is, indurated or knotty; hence they often opened dead bodies out of curiosity, to see whether the deceased had been sacrilegious in their lifetime. As the Tongans are particularly subject to scirrhous tumours, it seems probable that many innocent persons were thus posthumously accused of sacrilege on the strength of a post-mortem examination into the state of their livers.[71] Another disagreeable consequence of breaking a taboo was a peculiar liability to be bitten by sharks, which thus might be said to act as ministers of justice. As theft was included under the general head of breach of taboo, a simple way of bringing the crime home to the thief in case of doubt was to cause the accused to go into the water where sharks were known to swarm; if they bit him, he was guilty; if they did not, he was innocent.[72]

[70] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 220.

[71] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 194, note *; compare 434, note *.