[161] Bridges, ‘Manners and Customs of the Firelanders,’ in A Voice for South America, xiii. 211.
The belief in the irritable or malevolent character of the dead is easily explained. As Bishop Butler observed, we presume that a thing will remain as it is except when we have some reason to think that it will be altered.[162] And in the case of the souls of departed friends men may have reason to suppose that they undergo a change. Death is commonly regarded as the gravest of all misfortunes; hence the dead are believed to be exceedingly dissatisfied with their fate. According to primitive ideas a person only dies if he is killed—by magic if not by force,—and such a death naturally tends to make the soul revengeful and ill-tempered. It is envious of the living and is longing for the company of its old friends; no wonder, then, that it sends them diseases to cause their death. The Basutos maintain that their dead ancestors are continually endeavouring to draw them to themselves, and therefore attribute to them every disease;[163] and the Tarahumares in Mexico suppose that the dead make their relatives ill from a feeling of loneliness, that they, too, may die and join the departed.[164] But the notion that the disembodied soul is on the whole a malicious being constantly watching for an opportunity to do harm to the living is also, no doubt, intimately connected with the instinctive fear of the dead, which is in its turn the outcome of the fear of death.
[162] Butler, Analogy of Religion, i. 1, p. 82.
[163] Casalis, op. cit. p. 249.
[164] Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, i. 380.
We are told, it is true, that many savages meet death with much indifference, or regard it as no great evil, but merely as a change to a life very similar to this.[165] But it is a fact often noticed among ourselves, that a person on the verge of death may resign himself to his fate with the greatest calmness, although he has been afraid to die throughout his life. Moreover, the fear of death may be disguised by thoughtlessness, checked by excitement, or mitigated by dying in company. There are peoples who are conspicuous for their bravery, and yet have a great dread of death.[166] Nobody is entirely free from this feeling, though it varies greatly in strength among different races and in different individuals. In many savages it is so strongly developed, that they cannot bear to hear death mentioned.[167] And inseparably mingled with this fear of death is the fear of the dead. The place in which a death occurs is abandoned,[168] or the hut is destroyed,[169] or the corpse is carried out from it as speedily as possible.[170] The survivors endeavour to frighten away the ghost by firing off guns,[171] or shooting into the grave,[172] or throwing sticks and stones behind themselves after they have interred the corpse.[173] To prevent the return of the ghost the body is buried face downwards,[174] or its limbs are firmly tied,[175] or, in extreme cases, it is fixed in the ground with a stake driven through it.[176] We may assume that these and many other funeral ceremonies are very closely connected with the fear of the pollution of death; for even when their immediate object is to keep the ghost at a distance, it is likely that they are largely due to dread of its presence for the reason that it is conceived as a seat of deadly contagion.[177] It seems to me that certain anthropologists, in their explanations of funeral ceremonies, have too much accentuated the volitional activity of ghosts. To take an instance. The common custom of carrying the dead body away through some aperture other than the door,[178] has generally been interpreted as a means of preventing the ghost from finding its way back to the old home; but various facts indicate that it also may have sprung from a desire to keep the ordinary exit free from pollution. According to the Vendîdâd a spirit of death is breathing all along the way which a corpse has passed; hence no man, no flock, no being whatever that belongs to the world of Ahura Mazda is allowed to go that way until the deadly breath has been blown away to hell.[179] In the capital of Corea there is a small gate in the city-wall known as the “Gate of the Dead,” through which alone a dead body can be carried out, and no one is ever allowed to enter through that passage-way.[180] In China even a messenger who delivers tidings of death strictly abstains from passing the threshold of the houses at which he knocks, unless urgently requested by the inmates to walk in.[181] Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia a mourner, who is regarded as unclean, “must not use the house door, but a separate door is cut for his use”; girls at puberty, whilst in a state of uncleanness, may leave and enter their room only through a hole made in the floor;[182] and men who have polluted themselves by partaking of human flesh are for four months allowed to go out only by the secret door in the rear of the house.[183] Even the water and fire ceremonies performed in connection with a death have been represented as methods of preventing the ghost from attacking the living by placing a physical barrier of water or fire between them.[184] But I see no reason whatever to assume, with Sir J. G. Frazer, that “the conceptions of pollution and purification are merely the fictions of a later age, invented to explain the purpose of a ceremony of which the original intention was forgotten.”[185]
[165] Turner, ‘Ethnology of the Ungava District,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 192 (Hudson Bay Eskimo), 269 sq. (Hudson Bay Indians). de Brebeuf, ‘Relation de ce qui s’est passé dans le pays des Hurons,’ in Relations des Jésuites, i. 1636, p. 129. Roth, North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines, p. 161. Tregear, ‘Niue,’ in Jour. Polynesian Soc. ii. 14 (Savage Islanders). Williams and Calvert, Fiji, p. 204 sq. Romilly, From my Verandah in New Guinea, p. 45 (Solomon Islanders). Georgi, op. cit. iii. 266 (Siberian shamans). Monrad, op. cit. p. 23 (Negroes of Accra). Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 72.
[166] E.g., the Kalmucks (Bergmann, Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken, ii. 318 sqq.) and the ancient Caribs (Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 215).
[167] Dunbar, ‘Pawnee Indians,’ in Magazine of American History, viii. 742. Batchelor, Ainu of Japan, p. 203. Bergmann, op. cit. ii. 318. Bosman, Description of the Coast of Guinea, p. 327 (Negroes of Fida). Du Chaillu, Explorations in Equatorial Africa, p. 338. Kropf, Das Volk der Xosa-Kaffern, p. 155. For other instances of savages’ great fear of death, see Bridges, in A Voice for South America, xiii. 211 (Fuegians); Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 215 (Caribs); Dunbar, in Magazine of American History, v. 334 (various North American tribes); Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 238; Georgi, op. cit. ii. 400 (Jakuts); Bosman, op. cit. p. 130 (Gold Coast natives).
[168] Dorman, op. cit. p. 22 (North American Indians). von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 502 (Bororó). Hyades and Deniker, Mission scientifique du Cap Horn, vii. 379 (Fuegians). Curr, The Australian Race, i. 44. Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 82. Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 498. Worcester, Philippine Islands, p. 496 (Tagbanuas of Busuanga). Bailey, ‘Veddahs of Ceylon,’ in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N. S. ii. 296; Deschamps, Carnet d’un voyageur, p. 383 (Veddahs). Decle, op. cit. p. 79 (Barotse). von Düben, Lappland, pp. 241, 249.