Amongst the Takilis or Carrier Indians of North-West America, when a corpse was burned the priest pretended to catch the soul of the deceased in his hands, which he closed with many gesticulations. He then communicated the captured soul to the dead man's successor by throwing his hands towards and blowing upon him. The person to whom the soul was thus communicated took the name and rank of the deceased. On the death of a chief the priest thus filled a responsible and influential position, for he might transmit the soul to whom he would, though doubtless he generally followed the regular line of succession.[540] In Guatemala, when a great man lay at the point of death, they put a precious stone between his lips to receive the parting soul, and this was afterwards kept as a memorial by his nearest kinsman or most intimate friend.[541] Algonquin women who wished to become mothers flocked to the side of a dying person in the hope of receiving and being impregnated by the passing soul. Amongst the Seminoles of Florida when a woman died in childbed the infant was held over her face to receive her parting spirit.[542] When infants died within a month or two of birth, the Huron Indians did not lay them in bark coffins on poles, as they did with other corpses, but buried them beside the paths, in order that they might secretly enter into the wombs of passing women and be born [pg 200] again.[543] The Tonquinese cover the face of a dying person with a handkerchief, and at the moment when he breathes his last, they fold up the handkerchief carefully, thinking that they have caught the soul in it.[544] The Romans caught the breath of dying friends in their mouths, and so received into themselves the soul of the departed.[545] The same custom is said to be still practised in Lancashire.[546]
Succession to the soul in Africa. Inspired representatives of dead kings in Africa.
On the seventh day after the death of a king of Gingiro the sorcerers bring to his successor, wrapt in a piece of silk, a worm which they say comes from the nose of the dead king; and they make the new king kill the worm by squeezing its head between his teeth.[547] The ceremony seems to be intended to convey the spirit of the deceased monarch to his successor. The Danakil or Afars of eastern Africa believe that the soul of a magician will be born again in the first male descendant of the man who was most active in attending on the dying magician in his last hours. Hence when a magician is ill he receives many attentions.[548] In Uganda the spirit of the king who had been the last to die manifested itself from time to time in the person of a priest, who was prepared for the discharge of this exalted function by a peculiar ceremony. When the body of the king had been embalmed and had lain for five months in the tomb, which was a house built specially for it, the head was severed from the body and laid in an ant-hill. Having been stript of flesh by the insects, the skull was washed in a particular river (the Ndyabuworu) and filled with native beer. One of the late king's priests then drank the beer out of the skull and thus became himself a vessel meet to receive the spirit of the deceased monarch. The skull was afterwards replaced in the tomb, but the lower jaw was separated from it and deposited in a jar; and this jar, being swathed in bark-cloth and decorated with beads [pg 201] so as to look like a man, henceforth represented the late king. A house was built for its reception in the shape of a beehive and divided into two rooms, an inner and an outer. Any person might enter the outer room, but in the inner room the spirit of the dead king was supposed to dwell. In front of the partition was set a throne covered with lion and leopard skins, and fenced off from the rest of the chamber by a rail of spears, shields, and knives, most of them made of copper and brass, and beautifully worked. When the priest, who had fitted himself to receive the king's spirit, desired to converse with the people in the king's name, he went to the throne and addressing the spirit in the inner room informed him of the business in hand. Then he smoked one or two pipes of tobacco, and in a few minutes began to rave, which was a sign that the spirit had entered into him. In this condition he spoke with the voice and made known the wishes of the late king. When he had done so, the spirit left him and returned into the inner room, and he himself departed a mere man as before.[549] Every year at the new moon of September the king of Sofala in eastern Africa used to perform obsequies for the kings, his predecessors, on the top of a high mountain, where they were buried. In the course of the lamentations for the dead, the soul of the king who had died last used to enter into a man who imitated the deceased monarch, both in voice and gesture. The living king conversed with this man as with his dead father, consulting him in regard to the affairs of the kingdom and receiving his oracular replies.[550] These examples shew that provision is often made for the ghostly succession of kings and chiefs. In the Hausa kingdom of Daura, in Northern Nigeria, where the kings used regularly to be put to death on the first symptoms of failing health, the new king had to step over the corpse of his predecessor and to be bathed in the blood of a black ox, the skin of which then served as a shroud for the body of the late king.[551] The ceremony [pg 202] may well have been intended to convey the spirit of the dead king to his successor. Certainly we know that many primitive peoples attribute a magical virtue to the act of stepping over a person.[552]
Right of succession to the kingdom conferred by possession of personal relics of dead kings. Sometimes a king has to eat a portion of his predecessor.
Sometimes it would appear that the spiritual link between a king and the souls of his predecessors is formed by the possession of some part of their persons. In southern Celebes, as we have seen, the regalia often consist of corporeal portions of deceased rajahs, which are treasured as sacred relics and confer the right to the throne.[553] Similarly among the Sakalavas of southern Madagascar a vertebra of the neck, a nail, and a lock of hair of a deceased king are placed in a crocodile's tooth and carefully kept along with the similar relics of his predecessors in a house set apart for the purpose. The possession of these relics constitutes the right to the throne. A legitimate heir who should be deprived of them would lose all his authority over the people, and on the contrary a usurper who should make himself master of the relics would be acknowledged king without dispute. It has sometimes happened that a relation of the reigning monarch has stolen the crocodile teeth with their precious contents, and then had himself proclaimed king. Accordingly, when the Hovas invaded the country, knowing the superstition of the natives, they paid less attention to the living king than to the relics of the dead, which they publicly exhibited under a strong guard on pretext of paying them the honours that were their due.[554] In antiquity, when a king of the Panebian Libyans died, his people buried the body but cut off the head, and having covered it with gold they dedicated it in a sanctuary.[555] Among the Masai of East Africa, when an important chief has been dead and buried for a year, his eldest son or other [pg 203] successor removes the skull of the deceased, while he at the same time offers a sacrifice and a libation with goat's blood, milk, and honey. He then carefully secrets the skull, the possession of which is understood to confirm him in power and to impart to him some of the wisdom of his predecessor.[556] When the Alake or king of Abeokuta in West Africa dies, the principal men decapitate his body, and placing the head in a large earthen vessel deliver it to the new sovereign; it becomes his fetish and he is bound to pay it honours.[557] Similarly, when the Jaga or King of Cassange, in Angola, has departed this life, an official extracts a tooth from the deceased monarch and presents it to his successor, who deposits it along with the teeth of former kings in a box, which is the sole property of the crown and without which no Jaga can legitimately exercise the regal power.[558] Sometimes, in order apparently that the new sovereign may inherit more surely the magical and other virtues of the royal line, he is required to eat a piece of his dead predecessor. Thus at Abeokuta not only was the head of the late king presented to his successor, but the tongue was cut out and given him to eat. Hence, when the natives wish to signify that the sovereign reigns, they say, “He has eaten the king.”[559] A custom of the same sort is still practised at Ibadan, a large town in the interior of Lagos, West Africa. When the king dies his head is cut off and sent to his nominal suzerain, the Alafin of Oyo, the paramount king of Yoruba land; but his heart is eaten by his successor. This ceremony was performed a few years ago at the accession of a new king of Ibadan.[560]
Succession to the soul of the slain king or priest.
Taking the whole of the preceding evidence into account, we may fairly suppose that when the divine king or priest is put to death his spirit is believed to pass into his successor. In point of fact we have seen that among the Shilluk of the White Nile, who regularly kill their divine kings, every king on his accession has to perform a ceremony which appears designed to convey to him the same sacred and worshipful spirit which animated all his predecessors, one after the other, on the throne.[561]