§ 6. The Doctrine of the Human Soul
Of the Society Islanders we are informed that "they believe every man to have a separate being within him, named tee, which acts in consequence of the impression of the senses, and combines ideas into thoughts. This being, which we would call the soul, exists after death, and lodges in the wooden images which are placed round the burying-places, and which are called by the same name, tee."[165] When they were asked in what part of the body the soul resides, they always answered that it was seated in the belly or in the bowels (I roto té obou). They would not admit that the brain could be the seat of thought or the heart of the affections; and in support of their opinion they alleged the agitation of the bowels in strong emotion, such as fear and desire.[166] Hence, too, they called thoughts by a phrase which signifies "words in the belly" (parou no te oboo).[167]
But the Society Islanders did not regard the possession of a soul as a privilege peculiar to humanity. According to Captain Cook, "they maintain that not only all other animals, but trees, fruit, and even stones, have souls, which at death, or upon being consumed or broken, ascend to the divinity, with whom they first mix, and afterwards pass into the mansion allotted to each."[168] Their word for soul was varoua, according to Moerenhout, who adds that, "It appears that they accorded this varoua (spirit, soul) not only to man, but even in addition to the animals, to plants, to everything that vegetates, grows or moves on the earth."[169]
They thought that the soul of man could be separated for a time from the body during life without causing immediate death. Thus, like many other peoples, they explained dreams by the supposed absence of the soul during slumber. We are told that "they put great confidence in dreams, and suppose in sleep the soul leaves the body under the care of the guardian angel, and moves at large through the regions of spirits. Thus they say, My soul was such a night in such a place, and saw such a spirit. When a person dies, they say his soul is fled away, hārre pō, gone to night."[170] But they also believed that a man's soul or spirit could be conjured out of his body by magic art or demoniacal agency. Thus, when people had been robbed, they would sometimes call in the help of a priest to ascertain the thief. In such a case the priest, after offering prayers to his demon, would direct them to dig a hole in the floor of the house and to fill it with water; then, taking a young plantain in his hand, he would stand over the hole and pray to the god, whom he invoked, and who, if he were propitious, was supposed to conduct the spirit of the thief to the house and to place it over the water. The image of the spirit, which they believed to resemble the person of the man, was, according to their account, reflected in the water and perceived by the priest, who was thus able to identify the thief, alleging that the god had shown him the reflection of the culprit in the water.[171] From this it appears that in the opinion of the Society Islanders, as of many other peoples, a man's soul or spirit is a faithful image of his body.[172]
They believed that in the pangs of death the soul keeps fluttering about the lips, and that, when all is over, it ascends and mixes with or, as they expressed it, is eaten by the deity.[173] When one of their sacred recorders (harepo), who had been famous in his life for his knowledge of the ancient traditions, was at the point of death, it was customary for his son and successor to place his mouth over the mouth of the dying man, as if to inhale the parting soul at the moment of quitting the body; for in this way he was supposed to inherit the lore of his father. The natives, it is said, were convinced that these sages owed their learning to this expedient, though none the less they studied day and night to perfect themselves in their profession.[174]
§ 7. Disease, Death, and Mourning
Every disease was supposed to be the result of direct supernatural agency, and to be inflicted by the gods for some crime committed against the law of taboo of which the sufferer had been guilty; or it might have been brought upon him by an enemy, who had compassed his destruction by means of an offering. They explained death in like manner: according to them, it was invariably caused by the direct influence of the gods.[175] They acknowledged, indeed, that they possessed poisons which, taken with food, produced convulsions and death, but these effects they traced to the anger of the gods, who employed the drugs as their material agents or secondary causes. Even when a man was killed in battle, they still saw in his death the hand of a god, who had actually entered into the weapon that inflicted the fatal blow.[176]
The gods who were thus supposed to afflict human life with sickness and disease and to bring it to an untimely termination in death were not always nor perhaps usually the high primaeval deities; often they were the souls of the dead, who ranked among the domestic divinities (oromatuas). And, like the Maoris,[177] the natives of the Society Islands are said to have stood in particular fear of the souls of dead infants, who, angered at their mother for their too early death, took their revenge by sending sickness on the surviving members of the family. Hence when a woman was ill-treated by her husband, she would often threaten to insult the ghost of a dead baby; and this threat, with the deplorable consequences which it was calculated to entail, seldom failed to bring the husband to a better frame of mind; or if he happened to prove recalcitrant, the other members of the family, who might be involved in the calamity, would intercede and restore peace in the household. Thus we are told that among these islanders the fear of the dead supplied in some measure the place of natural affection and tenderness in softening and humanising the general manners.[178]
Disease and death were also attributed to the malignant charms of sorcerers, who, hired by an enemy of the sufferer, procured for the purpose the clipped hair or the spittle of their intended victim, the flowers or garment he had worn, or any object which had touched his person. But the real agents who were thought to give effect to the charms were the minor deities, whom the sorcerer employed to accomplish his nefarious ends. For this purpose he put the hair or other personal refuse of the victim in a bag along with the images and symbols of the petty divinities, and buried the bag and its contents in a hole which he had dug in the ground. There he left it until, applying his ear to the hole, he could hear the soul of the sufferer whimpering down below, which proved that the charm was taking effect. If the intended victim got wind of these machinations, it was always in his power to render them abortive, either by sacrificing to the gods or by sending a present to the sorcerer, who thus was feed by both sides at the same time.[179]
However, most cases of sickness apparently were set down not to the wiles of sorcerers, but to the displeasure of the deified spirits of the dead.[180] On this point the evidence of the early missionaries is explicit. Speaking of the Society Islanders, they say that "they regard the spirits of their ancestors, male and female, as exalted into eatooas [atuas, deities], and their favour to be secured by prayers and offerings. Every sickness and untoward accident they esteem as the hand of judgment for some offence committed; and therefore, if they have injured any person, they send their peace-offering, and make the matter up: and if sick, send for the priest to offer up prayers and sacrifices to pacify the offended eatooa; giving anything the priests ask, as being very reluctant to die."[181] "As it is their fixed opinion, that no disease affects them but as a punishment inflicted by their eatooa [atua] for some offence, and never brought on themselves by intemperance or imprudence, they trust more to the prayers of their priests than to any medicine."[182]