Primitive folk think that life is indestructible; what is called death is but a change of condition to them; even mites and mosquitos are immortal.[45]
The Tasmanian, when he suffers from a gnawing disease, believes that he has unwittingly pronounced the name of a dead man, who, thus summoned, has crept into his body, and is consuming his liver. The sick Zulu believes that some dead ancestor he sees in a dream has caused his ailment, wanting to be propitiated with the sacrifice of an ox. The Samoan thinks that the ancestral souls can get into the heads and stomachs of living men, and cause their illness and death. These are examples of human ghosts having become demons.[46]
In the Samoan group people thought that if a man died bearing ill-will towards any one, he would be likely to return to trouble him, and cause sickness and death, taking up his abode in the sufferer’s head, chest, or stomach. If he died suddenly, they said he had been eaten by the spirit that took him. In the Georgian and Society Islands evil demons cause convulsions and hysterics, or twist the bowels till the sufferers die writhing in agony. Madmen are thought to be entered by a god, so they are treated with great respect; idiots are considered to be divinely inspired.[47] Many other races believe in the inspiration of mentally feeble or insane persons. Amongst the Dacotas spirits of animals, trees, stones, or deceased persons are believed to enter the patient and cause his disease. The medicine-man recites charms over him, and making a symbolic representation of the intruding spirit in bark, shoots it ceremonially; he sucks over the seat of the pain to draw the spirit out, and fires guns at it as it escapes.
This is just what happened in the West Indies in the time of Columbus. Friar Roman Paul tells of a native sorcerer who pretended to pull the disease from the legs of his patients, blowing it away, and telling it to begone to the mountain or the sea. He would then pretend to extract by sucking some stone or bit of flesh, which he declared had been put into the patient to cause the disease by a deity in punishment for some religious neglect.[48] The Patagonians believed that sickness was caused by spirits entering the patient’s body; they considered that an evil demon held possession of the sick man’s body, and their doctors always carried a drum which they struck at the bedside to frighten away the demons which caused the disorder.[49] The Zulus and Basutos in Africa teach that ghosts of dead persons are the causes of all diseases. Congo tribes believe also that the souls of the dead cause disease and death amongst men.
The art of medicine in these lands therefore is, for the most part, merely an affair of propitiating some offended and disease-causing spirit. In several parts of Africa mentally deranged persons are worshipped. Madness and idiocy are explained by the phrase, “he has fiends.” The Bodo and Dhimal people of North-east India ascribe all diseases to a deity who torments the patient, and who must be appeased by the sacrifice of a hog. With these people naturally the doctor is a sort of priest. As Mr. Tylor says, “Where the world-wide doctrine of disease-demons has held sway, men’s minds, full of spells and ceremonies, have scarce had room for thought of drugs and regimen.”[50]
A forest tribe of the Malay Peninsula, called the Original People, are said to have no religion, no idea of any Supreme Being, and no priests; yet their Puyung, who is a sort of general adviser to the tribe, instructs them in sorcery and the doctrine of ghosts and evil spirits. In sickness they use the roots and leaves of trees as medicines. Amongst the Tarawan group of the Coral Islands, Pickering says: “Divination or sorcery was also known, and the natives paid worship to the manes or spirits of their departed ancestors.”[51] Probably on careful investigation we should find that in these cases the doctrine of ghosts and the worship of spirits has some connection with the causation of disease.
The Malagasy profess a religion which is chiefly fetishism. They believe in the life of the spirit, which they call “the essential part of me,” apart from the body; and they believe that this spirit exists when the body dies. Such “ghosts” they consider can do harm in various ways, especially by causing diseases; consequently they endeavour, as the chief means of cure, to appease the offended ghost. Witchcraft and belief in charms naturally flourish amongst these people.[52]
Mr. A. W. Howitt says that the Kŭrnai of Gippsland, Australia, believe that a man’s spirit (Yambo) can leave the body during sleep, and hold converse with other disembodied spirits. Another tribe, the Woi-worŭng, call this spirit Mūrŭp, and they suppose it leaves the body in a similar manner, the exact moment of its departure being indicated by the “snoring” of the sleeper. As a theory of the soul, Mr. Howitt says: “It may be said of the aborigines I am now concerned with, and probably of all others, that their dreams are to them as much realities in one sense, as are the actual events of their waking life. It may be said that in this respect they fail to distinguish between the subjective and objective impressions of the brain, and regard both as real events.”[53]
They believe that these ghosts live upon plants, that they can revisit their old haunts at will, and communicate with the wizards or medicine-men on being summoned by them. A celebrated wizard amongst the Woi-worŭng caught the spirit of a dying man, and brought it back under his ’possum rug, and restored it to the still breathing body just in time to save his life. The ghosts can kill game with spiritually poisoned spears. Even the tomahawk has a spirit, and this belief explains many burial customs. One of the Woi-worŭng people told Mr. Howitt that they buried the weapon with the dead man, “so that he might have it handy.” Other tribes bury with the corpse the amulets and charms used by the deceased during life, in case they may be required in the spirit-world. The Woi-worŭng believe that their wizards could send their deadly magical yark, or rock crystal, against a person they desired to kill, in the form of a small whirlwind. They believe that their wizards “go up” at night to the sky, and obtain such information as they require in their profession. They can also bring away the magical apparatus by which some one of another tribe might be injuring the health of a member of his own tribe. It is highly probable that in these Australian beliefs we have the counterparts of those which were everywhere held by primitive man. Good spirits are very little worshipped by savages; they are already well disposed, and need no invocation; it is the bad ones who must be propitiated by an infinite variety of rites and sacrifices. “Thus,” as Professor Keane says, “has demonology everywhere preceded theology.”[54]
Mr. Edward Palmer, in Notes on Some Australian Tribes, says that the Gulf tribes believe in spirits which live inside the bark of trees, and which come out at night to hold intercourse with the doctors, or “mediums.” These spirits work evil at times. The Kombinegherry tribe are much afraid of an evil-working spirit called Tharragarry, but they are protected by a good spirit, Coomboorah. The Mycoolon people believe in an invisible spear which enters the body, leaving no outward sign of its entry. The victim does not even know that he is hurt; he goes on hunting, and returns home as usual; in the night he becomes ill, delirious, or mad, and dies in the morning. Thimmool is a pointed leg-bone of a man, which, being held over a blackfellow when asleep, causes sickness or death. The Marro is the pinion-bone of a hawk, in which hair of an enemy has been fixed with wax. To work a charm on him a fire circle is made round it. With this charm they can make their enemy sick, or, by prolonging their magic, kill him. When they think they have done harm enough, they place the Marro in water, which removes the charm.[55]