The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3) / The Belief Among the Polynesians

by James George Frazer

§ 7. The Fate of the Human Soul after Death

The home of the departed spirits was believed to be a vast subterranean region called Avaiki. The natives of Mangaia believed that this mysterious region was situated directly under their island. "As the dead were usually thrown down the deepest chasms, it was not unnatural for their friends to imagine the earth to be hollow, and the entrance to this vast nether world to be down one of these pits. No one can wonder at this who knows that the outer portion of Mangaia is a honeycomb, the rock being pierced in every direction with winding caves and frightful chasms. It is asserted that the Mission premises at Oneroa are built over one of these great caverns, which extends so far towards the sea that the beating of the surf can be distinctly heard, whilst the water, purified from its saline particles, continually drips from the stony roof." The inland opening into the infernal regions was believed to be the great cavern of Auraka, in which, as we have just seen, so many of the dead were deposited.[60]

However, Avaiki was not the home of the ghosts alone; it was tenanted also by the gods, both the greater and the lesser, with their dependants. There they married, and multiplied, and quarrelled, just like mortals. There they planted, cooked, fished, and inhabited dwellings of exactly the same sort as exist on earth. Their food was no better than that of mortals. There might be seen birds, fish, and rats, likewise the mantis, centipedes, and beetles. There the coco-nut palm, the pandanus, and the myrtle flourished, and yams grew in abundance. The gods committed murder and adultery; they got drunk; they lied; they stole. The arts and crafts were also practised by the deities, who indeed taught them to mankind. The visible world, in short, was but a gross copy of the spiritual and invisible world. If fire burns, it is because latent flame was hidden in wood by the god Mauike in Hades. If the axe cleaves, it is because the fairy of the axe is present unseen in the blade. If the ironwood club kills its man, it is because a fierce demon from Tonga lives in the weapon.[61]

The old high-road to the spirit-land used to start from a place called Aremauku, on a cliff overhanging the western ocean. By this road a regular communication was formerly kept up with the infernal regions. It was by this route, for example, that the hero Maui descended in ancient days to the home of the fire-god Mauike and brought up fire for the use of men. However, the denizens of spirit-land in time grew very troublesome by constantly coming up and afflicting mankind with disease and death; they also created a dearth by stealing people's food, and they even ravished their wives. To put an end to these perpetual annoyances a brave and beautiful woman, Tiki by name, rolled herself alive down into the gloomy chasm which led to the infernal world. The yawning abyss closed on her, and there has been no thoroughfare ever since. The spirits have not been able to come up from Avaiki by that road, and the souls of the dead have been equally unable to go down by it; they are now obliged to descend by a different route.[62]

After their departure from the body the spirits of the dead wandered disconsolately along the seashore, picking their steps painfully among the sharp spikes of the coral and stumbling over the bindweed and thick vines which caught their feet. The fragrant smell of the heliotrope, which grows luxuriantly among these barren and rugged rocks, afforded them a little relief, and they wore a red creeper, like a turban, round their heads; the rest of their costume was a miscellaneous collection of weeds which they had picked up in the course of their wanderings. Twice a year, at the summer and winter solstices, they mustered to follow the setting sun down into the under world. They gathered at the two points of the island which face towards the rising of the sun at these two seasons of the year. At the summer solstice, in January, he seems to rise out of the sea opposite to Ana-Kura, that is, the Red Cave, so called because it receives the red rays of the morning. It was there that by far the greater number of the ghosts gathered for their last sad journey with the sun: they all belonged to the southern half of the island. The other point of ghostly muster was called Karanga-iti or "the Little Welcome"; it faced towards the rising of the sun at the winter solstice in June, and it was there that the ghosts born in the northern half of the island assembled. Thus many months might elapse between a death and the final departure of the soul from the land of the living. The weary interval was spent by the spirits in dancing and revisiting their old homes. As a rule they were well disposed to their living relatives, but the ghost of a mother would often grow vindictive when she saw her pet child ill-treated by its stepmother. Sometimes, weary of wandering, the poor ghosts huddled together in the Red Cave, waiting for the midsummer sun and listening to the monotonous moan of the great rollers, which break there eternally.[63]

The exact moment of departure was fixed by the leader of the band. As the time drew near, messengers were despatched to call in the stray ghosts who might be lingering near their ancient haunts. Tearfully they gathered at the Red Cave or on a grassy lawn above it, out of reach of the foam and the billows. All kept their eyes on the spot of the horizon where the sun was expected to appear. At the first streak of dawn the whole band took their departure to meet the rising orb of day. That done, they followed in his train as nearly as might be, flitting behind or beneath him across the rolling waters or the rocks and stones of the coast, till towards the close of day they all mustered at Vairo-rongo, "the Sacred Stream of Rongo," facing towards the setting sun. The spot is so named from a little rivulet which there rushes out of the stones at the sacred grove (marae) of Rongo: none but priests and kings might bathe there in days of old. At the moment when the sun sank beneath the horizon, the entire band of ghosts followed him along the golden track of light across the shimmering sea and descended in his train to the nether world, but not like him to reappear on the morrow.[64]

There were three such points of departure for the spirit-land in Mangaia, all facing the setting sun. Each of them was known as a Reinga vaerua or "leaping-place of souls." One of them was at Oneroa, where a rocky bluff stands out by itself like a giant looking towards the west. To it a band of souls from the great cavern of Auraka used to go in mournful procession, and from it they leaped one by one to a second and much smaller block of stone resting on the inner edge of the reef; thence they passed to the outer brink of the reef, on which the surf beats ceaselessly, and from which at sunset they flitted over the ocean to sink with the great luminary into the land of the dead.

Such appears to have been the general notion of the people concerning the departure of human souls at death in Mangaia. Similar ideas prevailed in the other islands of the group, in all of which the "leaping-place of souls" was regularly situated on the western coast of the island.[65]

The teaching of the priests added many particulars to this general account of the journey of the soul to the nether world. According to them the souls of the dying, before life was quite extinct, left their bodies and travelled towards the edge of the cliff at Araia, near the sacred grove (marae) of Rongo, which faced westward. But if on its way to this fatal bourne the soul of the dying chanced to meet a friendly spirit who cried to it, "Go back and live," the departing soul would joyfully return to its forsaken body, and the sick man or woman would revive. This was the native explanation of fainting. But if no friendly spirit intervened to save the passing soul, it pursued its way to the edge of the cliff. On its arrival a great wave of the sea washed the base of the crag, and a gigantic bua tree (Beslaria laurifolia), covered with fragrant blossoms, sprang up from Avaiki to receive the ghost. The tree had as many branches as there were principal gods in Mangaia, and every ghost had to perch on the particular branch allotted to members of his or her tribe; the worshippers of the great gods, such as Motoro and Tane, had separate boughs provided for their accommodation; while the worshippers of the lesser deities huddled together on a single big branch.[66]

No sooner had the ghost perched on the place appointed for him than down plumped the tree with him into the nether world. Looking down to see where he was going, what was the horror of the ghost to perceive a great net spread by Akaanga and his assistants to catch him at the foot of the tree! Into this fatal net the doomed spirit inevitably fell to sink in a lake of fresh water and there to wriggle like a fish for a time. At last the net was pulled up with the ghost in it, who, half-drowned, was now ushered trembling into the presence of the grim hag Miru, generally known as "the Ruddy," because her face reflected the glowing heat of the ever-burning oven in which she cooked her ghostly victims. At first, however, she fed, and perhaps fattened, them on a diet of black beetles, red earth-worms, crabs, and small blackbirds. Thus refreshed, they had next to drain bowls of strong kava brewed by the fair hands of the hag's four lovely daughters. Reduced to a state of insensibility by the intoxicating beverage, the ghosts were then borne off without a struggle to the oven and cooked. On the substance of these hapless victims Miru and her son and her peerless daughters regularly subsisted. The leavings of the meal were thrown to the servants. Such was the fate of all who died what we should call a natural death, and therefore of all cowards, women, and children. They were annihilated.[67]