Knocking out of teeth in Australia perhaps practised for the same purpose.
Extraction of teeth associated with rain.
Perhaps the same theory may serve to explain another initiatory rite practised by some of the Australian aborigines, namely, the knocking out of teeth. This is the principal ceremony of initiation amongst the tribes of eastern and south-eastern Australia; and it is often practised, though not as an initiatory rite, by the Central tribes, with whom the essential rites of initiation are circumcision and subincision.[329] On the hypothesis here suggested, we should expect to find the tooth regarded as a vital part of the man which was sacrificed to ensure another life for him after death. The durability of the teeth, compared to the corruptible nature of the greater part of the body, might be a sufficient reason with a savage philosopher for choosing this portion of the corporeal frame on which to pin his hope of immortality. The evidence at our disposal certainly does not suffice to establish this explanation of the rite; but there are some facts which seem to point in that direction. In the first {p98} place, the extracted tooth is supposed to remain in sympathetic connexion with the man from whom it has been removed; and if proper care is not taken of it, he may fall ill.[330] With some Victorian tribes the practice was for the mother of the lad to choose a young gum-tree and to insert her son’s teeth in the bark, at the fork of two of the topmost boughs. Ever afterwards the tree was held in a sense sacred. It was made known only to certain persons of the tribe, and the youth himself was never allowed to learn where his teeth had been deposited. When he died, the tree was killed by fire.[331] Thus in a fashion the tree might be said to be bound up with the life of the man whose teeth it contained, since when he died it was destroyed. Further, among some of the Central tribes the extracted tooth is thrown away as far as possible in the direction of the spot where the man’s mother is supposed to have had her camp in the far-off legendary time which is known as the alcheringa.[332] May not this be done to secure the rebirth of the man’s spirit in that place? In the Gnanji tribe the extracted tooth is buried by the man’s or woman’s mother beside a pool, for the purpose of stopping the rain and increasing the number of water-lilies that grow in the pool.[333] Thus the same fertilising virtue is ascribed to the tooth which is attributed to the foreskin severed at circumcision and to the blood drawn at subincision. Why the drawing of teeth should be supposed to stop rain, I cannot guess. Curiously enough, among the Central tribes generally, the extraction of teeth has a special association with rain and water. Thus among the Arunta it is practised chiefly by the members of the rain or water totem; and it is nearly if not quite obligatory on all the men and women of that totem, whereas it is merely optional with members of the other clans. Further, the ceremony is always performed among the {p99} Arunta immediately after the magical ceremony for the making of rain.[334] In the Warramunga tribe the knocking out of the teeth generally takes place towards the end of the wet season, when the water-holes are full, and the natives do not wish any more rain to fall. Moreover, it is always performed on the banks of a water-hole. The persons to be operated on enter the pool, fill their mouths with water, spit it out in all directions, and splash the water over themselves, taking care to wet thoroughly the crown of the head. Immediately afterwards the tooth is knocked out. The Chingilli also knock out teeth towards the close of the wet season, when they think they have had enough of rain. The extracted tooth is thrown into a water-hole, in the belief that it will drive rain and clouds away.[335] I merely note, without attempting to account for, this association between the extraction of teeth and the stopping of rain.
Extraction of tooth used to determine a man’s country and totem.
Belief in reincarnation among the natives of the Pennefather River in Queensland.
The natives of the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland use the extraction of the tooth to determine both a man’s totem and the country to which he belongs. While the tooth is being knocked out, they mention the various districts owned or frequented by the lad’s mother, her father, or other of her relatives. The one which happens to be mentioned at the moment when the tooth breaks away is the country to which the lad belongs in future, that is, the country where he will have the right to hunt and to gather roots and fruits. Further, the bloody spittle which he ejects after the extraction of the tooth is examined by the old men, who trace some likeness between it and a natural object, such as an animal, a plant, or a stone. Henceforth that object will be the young man’s ari or totem.[336] Some light is thrown on this ceremony by a parallel custom which the natives of the Pennefather River in Queensland observe at the birth of a child. They believe that every person’s spirit undergoes a series of reincarnations, and that during the interval between two {p100} successive reincarnations the spirit stays in one or other of the haunts of Anjea, the being who causes conception in women by putting mud babies into their wombs. Hence, in order to determine where the new baby’s spirit resided since it was last in the flesh, they mention Anjea’s haunts one after the other while the grandmother is cutting the child’s navel-string; and the place which happens to be mentioned when the navel-string breaks is the spot where the spirit lodged since its last incarnation. That is the country to which the child belongs; there he will have the right of hunting when he grows up. Hence, according to the home from which its spirit came to dwell among men, a child may be known as a baby obtained from a tree, a rock, or a pool of fresh water. Anjea, with whom the souls of the dead live till their time comes to be born again, is never seen; but you may hear him laughing in the depths of the woods, among the rocks, down in the lagoons, and along the mangrove swamps.[337] Hence we may fairly infer that the country assigned to a man of the Cape York Peninsula at the extraction of his tooth is the one where his spirit tarried during the interval which elapsed since its last incarnation. His totem, which is determined at the same time, may possibly be the animal, plant, or other natural object in which his spirit resided since its last embodiment in human form, or perhaps rather in which a part of his spirit may be supposed to lodge outside of his body during life. The latter view is favoured by the belief of the tribe of the Pennefather River, whose practice at childbirth so closely resembles that of the Cape York natives at puberty; for the Pennefather people hold that during a man’s life a portion of his spirit lodges outside of his body in his afterbirth.[338] However that may be, it seems probable that among the Cape York natives the custom of knocking out the tooth is closely associated with a theory of {p101} reincarnation. Perhaps the same theory explains a privilege enjoyed by the Kamilaroi tribe of New South Wales. They claimed a superiority over the surrounding tribes, and enforced their claim by exacting from them the teeth knocked out at puberty. The exaction of this tribute might have passed for a mere assertion of suzerainty, were it not that the Kamilaroi knocked out their own teeth also.[339] Perhaps the extracted teeth were believed to secure to their present possessors a magical control over their former owners, not only during life but after death, so that armed with them the Kamilaroi could help or hinder the rebirth of their departed friends or enemies.[340]
Australian initiatory rites meant to secure rebirth.
Certain funeral rites also intended to ensure reincarnation.
Australian funeral ceremonies intended to ensure the reincarnation of the dead.
Thus, if I am right, the essential feature in all the three great initiatory rites of the Australians is the removal of a vital part of the person which shall serve as a link between two successive incarnations by preparing for the novice a new body to house his spirit when its present tabernacle shall have been worn out. Now, if there is any truth in this suggestion, we should expect to find that measures to ensure reincarnation are also taken at death and burial. This seems in fact to be done. For, in the first place, the practice of pouring the blood of kinsmen and kinswomen into the grave is obviously susceptible of this explanation, since, in accordance with the Australian usages which I have cited, the blood might well be thought {p102} to strengthen the feeble ghost for a new birth. The same may be said of the Australian custom of depositing hair with the dead,[341] for it is a common notion that the hair is the seat of strength.[342] Again, it has been a rule with some Australian tribes to bury their dead on the spot where they were born.[343] This was very natural if they desired the dead man to be born again. Further, the common Australian practice of depositing the dead in trees[344] may, in some cases at least, have been designed to facilitate rebirth; for trees are often the places in which the souls of the dead reside, and from which they come forth to be born again in human shape. Thus the Unmatjera and Kaitish tribes bury very aged women and decrepit old men in the ground; but the bodies of children, young women, and men in the prime of life are laid on platforms among the boughs of trees; and in regard to children we are definitely told that this is done in the hope that “before very long its spirit may come back again and enter the body of a woman—in all probability that of its former mother.”[345] Further, the Arunta, who bury their dead, are careful to leave a low depression on one side of the mound, in order that the spirit may pass out and in; and this depression always faces towards the dead man’s or woman’s camping-ground in the alcheringa or remote past, that is, the spot which he or she inhabited in spirit form.[346] Is not this done to let the spirit rid itself of its decaying tabernacle and repair to the place where in due time it will find a new and better body? In this connexion the final burial rites in the Binbinga, Anula, and Mara tribes are worthy of remark. Among these people the bones of the dead are, after a series of ceremonies, deposited in a hollow log, on which the dead man’s totem is painted. This log is then placed, with the {p103} bones, in the boughs of a tree beside a pool, so that if possible it overhangs the water. For about three wet seasons the father and son of the deceased, who placed the log there, are alone allowed to eat water-lilies out of that pool, and no woman is permitted to go near the spot. There the bones of the dead man remain till the log rots and they fall into the water or are carried away by a flood. When the burial rites are all over, the spirit of the deceased returns to its mungai spot, that is, to the place where it dwells in the interval between two successive incarnations. Sooner or later it will be born again.[347] These rites seem, therefore, clearly to be a preparation for the new birth.