The migrations of early culture / A study of the significance of the geographical distribution of the practice of mummification as evidence of the migrations of peoples and the spread of certain customs and beliefs

by Grafton Elliot Smith

“It seems in the highest degree improbable that this close connection between the Sun and the serpent could have originated, independently, in countries so far apart as China and the West of Africa, or India and Peru. And it seems scarcely possible that, in addition to this, the same forms of worship of these deities, and the same ritual, could have arisen, spontaneously, amongst each of these far distant peoples. The alternative appears to be that the combined worship of the Sun and serpent-gods must have spread from a common centre, by the migration of, or communication with, the people who claimed Solar descent.

“So universally was the Naga held sacred, that it would seem to have been the earliest totem of the people who claimed descent from the Sun-god” (p. 183).

I have quoted so extensively from Oldham’s fascinating work because the conclusions at which he arrived from a study of the ancient literature of India is confirmed by evidence derived from utterly different sources, not only from India itself but also from other countries. For, scattered throughout the length and breadth of India, are to be found thousands of indications (in traditions, beliefs, customs, social organisation and material relics) that the complete “heliolithic” culture had reached India not later than the beginning of the seventh century B.C.

Moreover the evidence which I have culled from Oldham bears out the conclusions my own investigations lead up to, namely, that the “heliolithic” culture spread from India to Malaysia soon after it reached India itself. It is surely something more than a mere coincidence that the period of the greatest maritime exploits of the Phœnicians, in the course of which, according to many authorities, they reached India or even further east, should coincide with that of the great pre-Aryan maritime race of India, whose great expeditions, as the above quotations indicate, were primarily for purposes of commerce between the Persian Gulf and the West Coast of India. There is gradually accumulating a considerable mass of evidence to suggest that, if the Asuras were not themselves Phœnicians, they acquired their maritime skill from these famous sailors and traders. The same hardy mariners who brought the new knowledge and practices from the Persian Gulf to India and Ceylon also carried it further, to Burma and Indonesia.

That this is so is clearly shown by the fact that these customs spread to Indonesia and the Pacific before cremation was introduced; and it has been indicated above that the introduction of the practice of cremation into India may have taken place within a century of the arrival of the “heliolithic” civilization there. Hence it is obvious that the latter must have spread to the far east soon after it reached India; and the completeness of the transmission of the distinctive culture-complex can be explained only by supposing that the same people who brought it to India also carried it further east.

All the other evidence at our disposal is in full harmony with this view. The advancing wave of western culture swept past India into Indonesia, carrying into the isles of the Pacific and on to the American littoral the products of the older civilizations at first almost, but not altogether, untainted by Indian influence; but for centuries afterwards, as this same ferment gradually leavened the vast bulk of India, the stream of western culture continued to percolate eastwards and carried with it in succession the influence of the Brahmanical, Buddhist and, within in a more restricted area, Mahometan cults.

It is an interesting confirmation of the general accuracy of the scheme that has now been sketched out that the dates at which the influence of Egypt began to be exerted in the east, that to which Rhys Davids assigns the definite influencing of India by Babylonia, that at which India influenced Malaysia, and finally that assigned by students of the Polynesian problem to the inauguration of the great Indonesian migration into the Pacific ([60] and [98]), all fit into one consecutive series, though each was determined from different kinds of evidence and independently of the rest.

It is not my intention to discuss the evidence for the coming of the “heliolithic” culture to Indonesia, for the complex problems of this region have been analysed and interpreted in a masterly fashion by W. J. Perry in a book which is shortly to be published. The form which my present communication has assumed is largely the outcome of the reading of Perry’s manuscript and of discussions with him of the new lines of investigation which it suggested; and I am satisfied to leave this region for him to elucidate in detail. It will suffice to say here that the traditions of the inhabitants of the various islands of Malaysia, no less than their heterogeneous customs and beliefs, provided him with very precise evidence in demonstration of the complex constitution of the “heliolithic” culture, and of the fact that it was brought to the islands by an immigration from the west.

There is less need for me to analyse the vast literature relating to the burial practices in the islands of the Malay Archipelago since this useful service has already been accomplished by Hertz ([33]). Although I dissent from the main contention in his interpretation of the facts, his accurate record is none the less valuable on that account—perhaps indeed it is more useful, as it certainly cannot be accused of bias in favour of the views I am expounding.

A great variety of burial customs, in most respects closely analogous to the practices of the Naga tribes of India, is found in Indonesia;—exposing the dead on trees or platforms, burial in hollow trees, smoking and other methods of preservation, temporary burial, and cremation.