The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 1 (of 3) / The Belief Among the Aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea and Melanesia

by James George Frazer

Melanesia and the Melanesians.

In the last lecture I concluded our survey of the beliefs and practices concerning death and the dead which are reported to prevail among the natives of New Guinea. We now pass to the natives of Melanesia, the great archipelago or rather chain of archipelagoes, which stretches round the north-eastern and eastern ends of New Guinea and southward, parallel to the coast of Queensland, till it almost touches the tropic of Capricorn. Thus the islands lie wholly within the tropics and are for the most part characterised by tropical heat and tropical luxuriance of vegetation. Only New Caledonia, the most southerly of the larger islands, differs somewhat from the rest in its comparatively cool climate and scanty flora.[⁵¹⁷] The natives of the islands belong to the Melanesian race. They are dark-skinned and woolly-haired and speak a language which is akin to the Polynesian language. In material culture they stand roughly on the same level as the natives of New Guinea, a considerable part of whom in the south-eastern part of the island, as I pointed out before, are either pure Melanesians or at all events exhibit a strong infusion of Melanesian blood. They cultivate the ground, live in settled villages, build substantial houses, construct outrigger-canoes, display some aptitude for art, possess strong commercial instincts, and even employ various mediums of exchange, of which shell-money is the most notable.[⁵¹⁸]

The New Caledonians.

We shall begin our survey of these islands with New Caledonia in the south, and from it shall pass northwards through the New Hebrides and Solomon Islands to the Bismarck Archipelago, which consists chiefly of the two great islands of New Britain and New Ireland with the group of the Admiralty Islands terminating it to the westward. For our knowledge of the customs and religion of the New Caledonians we depend chiefly on the evidence of a Catholic missionary, Father Lambert, who has worked among them since 1856 and has published a valuable book on the subject.[⁵¹⁹] To be exact, his information applies not to the natives of New Caledonia itself, but to the inhabitants of a group of small islands, which lie immediately off the northern extremity of the island and are known as the Belep group. Father Lambert began to labour among the Belep at a time when no white man had as yet resided among them. At a later time circumstances led him to transfer his ministry to the Isle of Pines, which lies off the opposite or southern end of New Caledonia. A comparative study of the natives at the two extremities of New Caledonia revealed to him an essential similarity in their beliefs and customs; so that it is not perhaps very rash to assume that similar customs prevail among the aborigines of New Caledonia itself, which lies intermediate between the two points observed by Father Lambert.[⁵²⁰] The assumption is confirmed by evidence which was collected by Dr. George Turner from the mainland of New Caledonia so long ago as 1845.[⁵²¹] Accordingly in what follows I shall commonly speak of the New Caledonians in general, though the statements for the most part apply in particular to the Belep tribe.

Beliefs of the New Calendonians as to the land of the dead.

The souls of the New Caledonians, like those of most savages, are supposed to be immortal, at least to survive death for an indefinite period. They all go, good and bad alike, to dwell in a very rich and beautiful country situated at the bottom of the sea, to the north-east of the island of Pott. The name of the land of souls is Tsiabiloum. But before they reach this happy land they must run the gauntlet of a grim spirit called Kiemoua, who has his abode on a rock in the island of Pott. He is a fisherman of souls; for he catches them as they pass in a net and after venting his fury on them he releases them, and they pursue their journey to Tsiabiloum, the land of the dead. It is a country more fair and fertile than tongue can tell. Yams, taros, sugar-canes, bananas all grow there in profusion and without cultivation. There are forests of wild orange-trees, also, and the golden fruits serve the blessed spirits as playthings. You can tell roughly how long it is since a spirit quitted the upper world by the colour of the orange which he plays with; for the oranges of those who have just arrived are green; the oranges of those who have been longer dead are ripe; and the oranges of those who died long ago are dry and wizened. There is no night in that blessed land, and no sleep; for the eyes of the spirits are never weighed down with slumber. Sorrow and sickness, decrepitude and death never enter; even boredom is unknown. But it is only the nights, or rather the hours corresponding to nights on earth, which the spirits pass in these realms of bliss. At daybreak they revisit their old home on earth and take up their posts in the cemeteries where they are honoured; then at nightfall they flit away back to the spirit-land beneath the sea, there to resume their sport with oranges, green, golden, or withered, till dawn of day. On these repeated journeys to and fro they have nothing to fear from the grim fisherman and his net; it is only on their first passage to the nether world that he catches and trounces them.[⁵²²]

Burial customs of the New Calendonians.

The bodies of the dead are buried in shallow graves, which are dug in a sacred grove. The corpse is placed in a crouching attitude with the head at or above the surface of the ground, in order to allow of the skull being easily detached from the trunk, at a subsequent time. In token of sorrow the nearest relations of the deceased tear the lobes of their ears and inflict large burns on their arms and breasts. The houses, nets, and other implements of the dead are burnt; his plantations are ravaged, his coco-nut palms felled with the axe. The motive for this destruction of the property of the deceased is not mentioned, but the custom points to a fear of the ghost; the people probably make his old home as unattractive as possible in order to offer him no temptation to return and haunt them. The same fear of the ghost, or at all events of the infection of death, is revealed by the stringent seclusion and ceremonial pollution of the grave-diggers. They are two in number; no other persons may handle the corpse. After they have discharged their office they must remain near the corpse for four or five days, observing a rigorous fast and keeping apart from their wives. They may not shave or cut their hair, and they are obliged to wear a tall pyramidal and very cumbersome head-dress. They may not touch food with their hands. If they help themselves to it, they must pick it up with their mouths alone or with a stick, not with their fingers. Oftener they are fed by an attendant, who puts the victuals into their mouths as he might do if they were palsied. On the other hand they are treated by the people with great respect; common folk will not pass near them without stooping.[⁵²³]

Sham fight as a mourning ceremony.