THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOURNING
CLOTHES
It is a commonplace among anthropologists that certain events in a community cause a state of taboo, which affects the members of the community in a greater or less degree, according to their nearness of place or blood to the person principally concerned, or according to the magnitude of the event. Among these events a death is not the least important. In the lower culture the whole village or settlement is often attainted by the occurrence of a death. But it is more particularly the near relatives, and those who have been brought into contact with the corpse, who are affected by the death-taboo (or, as it is often called, the death-pollution), most of all the widow or widower. We call the period of the death-taboo—mourning. The duration of the taboo, as well as its intensity, varies among different peoples, and not only according to the relationship of the mourners to the deceased, but also to his rank, from a few days to many months, and even to years. It is very rare that there is no mourning on a death; but if our reports may be trusted, there are a few cases, which, however, need not detain us.
Mourning garb is an essential part of the observances. Its object has been much debated by anthropologists. There seems little doubt that its first object is to distinguish those who are under the taboo from other persons: it is the sign of the plague. Professor Frazer many years ago laid it down “that mourning costume is usually the reverse of that in ordinary life.” He cited (among others) the practice at Rome for the sons of the deceased to walk at the funeral with their heads covered, the daughters with their heads uncovered, and that in Greece for men and women during the period of mourning to invert their usual habits of wearing the hair, the ordinary practice of men being to cut it short and that of women to wear it long.[236.1] The accuracy of the generalization might be illustrated from examples all over the world. The Arapaho, who wear their hair long and braided, when in mourning unbraid it and wear it unbound. Sometimes they cut it. They wear old clothing, and do not paint themselves as they are accustomed to do.[236.2] Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo men sometimes wear women’s dresses instead of their own, and shave half the hair of the head, or shave it in patches, and they rub clay on their bodies. Widows dress in only a few leaves or go stark naked, but with dirt or clay rubbed on the body. For three months after the funeral and a period of retirement in the bush they wear long, untidy-looking grass cloths.[236.3] When following a corpse to the grave Ainu mourners wear their coats inside out and upside down. An Ainu’s hair is never cut, except on the death of husband or wife; and then cutting is obligatory.[236.4] Among the Iban of Sarawak a widow’s mourning lasts until the final ceremonies, sometimes two years after the death. During that time she may not wear any ornament, her dress must be plain and old; and she is not allowed to pull out her eyelashes and eyebrows, nor to use soap for washing. Whatever acquaintance she may have in ordinary life with soap, the prohibition to pull out her eyelashes and eyebrows is a prohibition of the last and most seductive touches of her toilet: no Iban woman would think of wearing eyelashes and eyebrows if she were not a widow in mourning.[237.1] By reversing the usual costume the mourner is distinguished from others, notice is given to the world of the taboo that binds him.
For this reason many of the aborigines of British Guiana lay their trinkets aside and go entirely naked; and among the Jiraras or Ayricas the wife, brothers and sisters of the deceased paint themselves all over with the juice of a fruit that renders them as black as Negroes, while relatives less near paint only their feet, legs, arms and part of the face: they are not so deeply compromised.[237.2] So on the Ivory Coast the Ngoulango or Pakhalla mourners put off their ornaments, put on the head a worn-out loin-cloth and wear brown clothing, marking different parts of the body with red earth. If anything more were necessary to exhibit their state of taboo, it would be the practice of widows when they went out of doors to carry a piece of “fetish” wood, endowed with the power of causing death to anyone who approached them and touched it.[237.3] In Australia the relatives, especially the women, cover their heads with clay, or in some parts of West Australia with red mud.[237.4] The Warramunga women in the Northern Territory cover themselves from head to foot with pipeclay.[237.5] Among the Uriyas of India, whose women are particularly fond of gay colours, a widow wears a plain white borderless sari, or cloth, as the sign of her bereavement.[238.1] The Man Cao Lan of Tonkin wear white garments not hemmed; and those of their women who have adopted the Annamite trousers recur to the native petticoat.[238.2]
The colours of the mourning garb vary widely. Dr Frazer has collected a considerable list, to which it is needless to add. Let it suffice to say that though emblematic colours are often used, the main principle, especially in the lower culture, is that just discussed of reversing, or wearing something quite distinctive from, the ordinary costume.
The condition of taboo occasioned by a death, it should be noted, is by no means limited to the death of a human being. Among the ancient Egyptians the Mendesians observed a great mourning on the death of a goat; and more generally when a cat died by a natural death everyone in the house shaved his eyebrows, while on the death of a dog the whole head and body were shaved. Both these and other animals were also accorded honours of burial in sacred tombs.[238.3] The native tribes of Manipur lay a genna, or taboo, upon the inmates of a house in which an animal dies or has young, especially a cow; and when a cat dies it is wrapped up in a cloth and buried amid lamentations in a grave dug for it by the old women.[238.4] To the Ibo-speaking peoples of Nigeria the leopard is a quasi-sacred animal. At Aguku the hunter who has killed it puts eagle-feathers in his hair and does no work for twenty-eight days: that is to say, he is under a taboo for a whole moon. At Ugwoba he may not go to the Aǰana (the shrine of the earth) for a year; he must sit down without working for twenty-eight days, and may eat only such food as has been put in a pot and hung over the fire; he sleeps in a good house, and people watch lest other leopards come and kill him. On the twenty-eighth day, on taking the skin to market, sacrifices are offered to a certain tree, which is regarded as ekwensu, defined as the spirit of a man who has been killed with a rope or a knife, or of a woman who has died in pregnancy.[239.1] Such a death would be an evil death, and the ghost would be naturally inclined to make others suffer in the same way; but the sacrifices would perhaps conciliate him and induce him to turn his attention to an effectual protection of the sacrificer against the leopards’ vengeance.
Among the Herero of German South-West Africa to shed the blood of a lion is the same as to shed that of a human being; and he who kills a lion can only wash away the sin by the shedding of his own blood. This is done by scoring his breast and arm with a flint and dropping some of the blood upon the earth.[239.2] The Hidatsa of the North American prairies, after hunting eagles, build a sweat-lodge and purify themselves, singing a mystery-song or incantation.[239.3] The practice, in fact, is widespread. In some instances it may be explained by totemism or analogous beliefs. In any case there can be no doubt it is dictated by similar motives to those that lead to the taboo and mourning after the death of a human being.
The suggestion has been made that the change of garb is intended as a disguise to deceive the spirit of the deceased, and so to shelter the mourner from its attacks. On the one hand, many tribes unquestionably adopt the same costume after killing an enemy as on the death of a friend. Among the Abarambos of Welle in the French Soudan, when a native kills another he blackens his face, girds himself with a grass cord and eats only raw bananas, to hinder the ghost from coming to kill him in his turn. The same rites are observed on the death of a husband or wife, with the addition that the survivor disappears for a time into the woods.[240.1]
But this is by no means the universal rule. Among the Nandi of East Africa the killing of an enemy entails quite a different garb from the death of a friend. “When a married man dies, his widows and unmarried daughters lay aside all their ornaments, and the eldest son wears his garment inside out”; and more or less shaving, according to their nearness in blood, is done by all the relatives. “On the death of a married woman her youngest daughter wears her garment inside out, whilst her other relations put rope on their ornaments [to hide them, a common practice where they cannot easily be taken off] and shave their heads. In the case of unmarried people the female relations cover their ornaments with rope, and the male relations shave their heads.” The killing of a Nandi, so far as appears, does not entail a change of costume, at least if the homicide belong to a different clan from his victim. It is merely the subject of vengeance, unless bought off by blood-money. Curiously enough, it does not even seem to render the guilty man “unclean,” as the killing of a member of his own clan does. The latter indeed renders him “unclean for the rest of his life, unless he can succeed in killing two other Nandi of a different clan, and can pay the fine himself.” In the meantime, for aught that appears in Mr Hollis’ careful account of the Nandi, no change of costume is necessary beyond what other members of the clan must undergo on the death of a relation. The killing of a person belonging to another tribe—a person who is not a Nandi,—however, entails a stringent condition of taboo, yet it is a subject, not of blame like the killing of a Nandi, but of praise. The slayer “paints one side of his body, spear and sword red, and the other side white. For four days after the murder he is considered unclean, and may not go home. He has to build a small shelter by a river and live there; he must not associate with his wife or sweetheart, and he may only eat porridge, beef, and goat’s flesh. At the end of the fourth day he must purify himself by drinking a strong purge made from the bark of the segetet-tree, and by drinking goat’s milk mixed with bullock’s blood.”[241.1]
Other tribes in the east of Africa paint the man-killer. Masai warriors (from whom possibly the Nandi have taken over the custom), after returning victorious, paint the body in the manner just described.[241.2] Among the Borâna Galla, the conquerors who have slain an enemy, on returning, are washed by the women with a mixture of fat and milk, and their faces are painted red and white. After dirges over those who have fallen, the praises of the surviving heroes are sung, and the young warriors’ trophies are publicly buried outside the village. These trophies are portions of the bodies of the slaughtered foes which cannot be conveniently preserved.[242.1] The washing is obviously a ceremonial purification. Apart from this the entire proceeding is one of triumph, and there is no indication of an attempt at concealment. In the Congo basin the Yaka warrior who kills a man in battle incurs the danger of reprisals on the part of the ghost. He can, however, escape by wearing the red tail-feathers of the parrot in his hair and painting his forehead red. Upon this it is to be observed that, as elsewhere, red is a favourite colour among the Bayaka. It is used for body-painting of both living and dead. The corpse is painted before burial; the dandy paints himself to increase his beauty; the widow is painted in mourning. The painting of the forehead can therefore hardly be a disguise. The tail-feathers of the parrot are probably an amulet.[242.2]