Rivers claims that “the practice of incision arose in Oceania as a modification of circumcision” ([69], p. 436): but I think the possibility of it having been introduced from the west along with or before the practice of circumcision needs to be considered.
Another remarkable practice which probably formed part of the equipment of the heliolithic wanderers was massage. It was employed by the Egyptians as early as the Sixth Dynasty, as we know from the representations of the operations in a Sakkara mastaba (Capart, [11]). Piorry ([57]) has given an account of the wide range of the practice of massage, from Egypt to India, China and Tahiti, and the high state of efficiency attained in its use in ancient times in India and China. The Chinese manuscript Kong-Fau contained detailed accounts of the operation. Piorry remarks, “it is clear that for us its development did not originate from the practices described in the books of Cong-tzée or the compilation of Susrata.”
From Rivers’ interesting account of massage in Melanesia ([67]) it is evident that the method must have an origin common to it and the modern European practice, and that it could not have arisen amongst a barbarous people like the Melanesians, who have the most extraordinary conceptions as to why and how it serves a therapeutic purpose. Although we have no evidence to prove that massage spread along with the heliolithic culture, the fact that it has a similar geographical distribution, and certainly was extensively practised in Egypt long before the great migration began, suggests that it may represent another Egyptian element of that remarkable culture-complex.
In his masterly analysis of the cultures of Oceania ([69]) Rivers has given a useful summary of the evidence relating to the practice of preserving the body, and has drawn certain inferences from these and other burial practices, which I propose to examine. “In some cases, as in Tikopia, interment takes place either in the house or within a structure representing a house, while in Tonga and Samoa the bodies of chiefs are interred in vaults built of stone. Often the body is buried in a canoe or in a hollowed log of wood, which represents a canoe” ([69], p. 269). From the evidence to which reference has been made in the course of the present memoir it is unnecessary to insist at any length on the importance and obvious significance of these facts. But I question the inference Rivers draws (p. 270) from the burial in boats. He says “the practice can be regarded as a result of the fact of migration, and does not show that the use of a canoe was the practice of the immigrants in their original home.” The practice is so widespread, however, and in Egypt and elsewhere had such a deep-rooted significance that it is difficult to believe this custom was not brought by the immigrants with them. I am willing to admit that the special circumstances of the people of Oceania naturally emphasized what may be called the “boat-element” in the funerary ritual; but the association of the use of boats with burial is so curious and constant a feature of the “heliolithic” culture where-ever it manifests itself (vide supra) as hardly to have arisen independently in different parts of the area of distribution.
“A second mode of treatment is preservation of the body, either in the house or on a stage often covered with a roof. Some kind of mummification is usually practised in these cases, by continual rubbing with oil, drying by means of a fire, and puncture of the body to hasten the disappearance of the products of decomposition.”
“In some parts of Samoa there is a definite process of embalming in which the viscera are removed and buried. A body thus treated lies on a platform resting upon a double canoe, and in many other places a canoe is used as a receptacle for the body while it is undergoing the process of mummification” (p. 269). This association of the use of a canoe with a method of preservation obviously Egyptian in origin naturally provokes comparison with the use of boats in the Egyptian funeral ceremonies. An instance is the boat found in the tomb of Amenophis II. ([81]). The platform is probably a type of bed found elsewhere in the region under consideration (see, for instance, Roth’s account of the Queensland sleeping-platform) and represents the bier found so often elsewhere (vide supra). This is in no way inconsistent with Rivers’ view that “exposure of the dead on platforms is only a survival of preservation in a house” (p. 273).
Earlier in this memoir I have explained why the Egyptians came to attach special importance to the head, and how the less cultured people of Africa, when faced with the difficulties of preserving the body, saved the skull (or in some cases the jaw). When it is recalled how widespread this custom is in other parts of the “heliolithic area,” and how deep-rooted were the ideas which prompted so curious a procedure, Rivers’ independent inference in regard to this matter is fully confirmed. “Many practices become intelligible as elements of a single culture if we suppose that a people imbued with the necessity for the preservation of the body after death acquired ... the further idea that the skull is the representative of the body as a whole; if they came to believe that the purpose for which they had hitherto preserved the body could be fulfilled as well if the head only were kept” (p. 273). This is unquestionably true: but I dissent from Rivers’ qualification that this modification happened “perhaps in the course of their wanderings towards Oceania,” because it has already been seen that it had occurred before the wanderers set out from the East African coast. There is, of course, the possibility that Africa may have been influenced by a cultural reflux from Indonesia, such as has been demonstrated in the case of Madagascar; but there are reasons for believing that the facts under consideration cannot be explained in this way.
In thus venturing upon criticisms of Rivers’ great monograph I should like especially to emphasize the fact that these comments do not refer in any way to his attack on the “orthodox” ethnological position. On the contrary, the views that I am setting forth in this communication represent a further extension of Rivers’ own attitude that the Oceanic cultures have been derived mainly from contacts with other peoples. A series of practices which he has hesitated to recognise as having been introduced, but inclined to regard as local developments, I hold to be part of the immigrant culture. The use of boats for burial, the custom of regarding the head as an efficient representative of the whole body and the practice of “incision” as well as circumcision ([69], p. 432) are examples of customs, which he regards as local developments in the Pacific: but all three are equally distinctive of Ancient Egypt and occur at widely separated localities along the great “heliolithic” track. The linking-up of sun-worship with all the other elements of the “heliolithic cult” also compels me to question his limitation of such worship to certain regions only in Oceania ([69], p. 549); even though I fully admit that the data used by Rivers are not sufficient to justify any further inference than he has drawn from them.
My aim is then, not an attempt to weaken Rivers’ general attitude, but enormously to strengthen it, by demonstrating that each culture-complex was brought into the Pacific in an even more complete form than he had postulated. Nor does my criticism affect his hypothesis of a series of cultural waves into Oceania. Here, again, I am prepared to go not only the whole way with him, but even further, and to seek for additional cultural influences which he has not yet defined.
Most modern writers who refer in any way to the preserved bodies which have been found in vast numbers in Peru and in other parts of America assume that these bodies have been preserved not by embalming or any other artificial method or mode of treatment, but simply as the result of desiccation by the unaided forces of nature. Although in the great majority of cases there are no obvious signs of any artificial means having been employed to preserve the bodies, yet a not inconsiderable number of examples have come to light to demonstrate the reality of the practice of mummification in America ([3]; [37]; [58]; [63]; and [106]). Yarrow’s classical monograph ([106]) established the reality of the practice of embalming in America quite conclusively. Moreover the fact that practically every item of the multitude of curiously distinctive practices found widespread in other parts of the world, in the most intimate association with methods of embalming certainly inspired by Egypt, puts it beyond all reasonable doubt that the variety of American practices for preserving the body is also to be attributed to the same source.