The dead also demand obedience and are anxious that the rules they laid down while alive should be followed by the survivors. Hence the sacredness which is attached to a will;[35] hence also, in a large measure, the rigidity of ancestral custom. The greatest dread of the natives of South-Eastern Africa “is to offend their ancestors and the only way to avoid this is to do everything according to traditional usage.”[36] Among the Basutos “the anger of the deified generations could not be more directly provoked than by a departure from the precepts and examples they have left behind them.”[37] The Ew̔e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast have a proverb which runs:—“Follow the customs of your father. What he did not do, avoid doing, or you will harm yourself.”[38] Among the Aleuts the old men always impress upon the native youth the great importance of strictly observing the customs of their forefathers in conducting the chase and other matters, as any neglect in this respect would be sure to bring upon them disaster and punishment.[39] The Kamchadales, says Steller, consider it a sin to do anything which is contrary to the precepts of their ancestors.[40] The Papuans of the Motu district, in New Guinea, believe that when men and women are bad—adulterers, thieves, quarrellers, and the like—the spirits of the dead are angry with them.[41] One of the most powerful sentiments in the mind of a Chinese is his reverence for ancestral custom; and in a large sense Japan also is still a country governed by the voices that are hushed.[42] The life of the ancient Roman was beset with a society of departed kinsmen whose displeasure he provoked if he varied from the practice handed down from his fathers. The expression mos majorum, “the custom of the elders,” was used by him as a charm against innovation.[43]
[35] Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. 116 (Tahitians). Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 257. Sarbah, Fanti Customary Laws, p. 82. Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 124 sq.
[36] Macdonald, Light in Africa, p. 192.
[37] Casalis, Basutos, p. 254.
[38] Ellis, Ew̔e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 263.
[39] Elliott, Alaska and the Seal Islands, p. 170. Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, Report on the Population, &c. of Alaska, p. 156.
[40] Steller, Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 274.
[41] Chalmers, Pioneering in New Guinea, p. 169.
[42] Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 308. Hozumi, Ancestor-Worship and Japanese Law, p. 1, &c.
[43] Granger, ‘Moral Life of the Early Romans,’ in Internal. Jour. of Ethics, vii. 287. Idem, Worship of the Romans, pp. 65, 66, 138.