CHAPTER XV

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP

A DESCRIPTION has already been given, in Chapter V., of the spontaneous outbursts of sorrow, "the indescribable scenes of lamentation and wailing," as Mr. Turner calls them, which take place amongst savages on the occasion of a death; and of the uncertainty whether death has really supervened, the reluctance to believe that it has, the endeavours to detain the soul of the dying man by offering him his favourite dishes, displaying his most cherished possessions, praising his noble deeds; the attempts to recall the soul, when the man is dead, to induce it to abide with the survivors; in fine, the desire to dwell on the memory and to seek communion with the spirits of those who have been loved and lost. The object of that chapter was to suggest that the avenue of communication thus opened between the savage and the spirits of his dead may have served to suggest to him a way of approaching other beings, who like the dead were spirits, but unlike them possessed supernatural powers; for the dead do not seem, in any of the ceremonies described, to appear as supernatural beings. The being with whom the savage seeks communion in these rites is "the father whom he knew," not a dæmon of any kind. At death, as in sleep, the spirit deserts the body, but does not in either case necessarily thereby gain supernatural powers. After death, indeed, the ghost's relation to the living is rather one of dependence, for food, comfort, and even continuance of existence. In fine, these spontaneous demonstrations of affection, grief, and desire for reunion with the departed do not amount to worship. We have therefore now to trace the process by which they developed into ancestor-worship.

The first condition of any such development is that the demonstrations, at first spontaneous, should become conventional and harden into custom. This is not the same thing as saying that grief ceases to be genuine when the manner of its expression becomes conventional. On the contrary, in the first place, beneath "the outward trappings and the signs of woe" there may be "that which passes show "; and, in the next place, the existence of a conventional mode of expressing the mourner's woe shows that public opinion considers grief in these circumstances right and proper; such demonstrations, in fact, are not the isolated expression of unusual susceptibility, but an indication of the habitual affection even of a savage for those nearest and dearest to him. When, then, it has become the tribal custom for relatives to perform certain acts, on the occasion of a death, which were originally spontaneous and now are the conventional expressions of grief, it becomes possible for fear to operate in support of this as of other tribal customs, though it was not in fear that either it or they originated. Custom is one of the earliest shapes in which duty presents itself to the consciousness of the savage: it is what is expected of him, both by the community and, in his better moments, by himself as a good member of the community. Now, the savage regards all sickness as the work of spirits not necessarily of evil spirits, as is commonly and carelessly said. When, therefore, he falls ill, he casts about in his mind for the spirit who may be the cause of his sickness; and if, like the African chief mentioned by Lippert, he has been negligent of the rites which it is customary to perform to a deceased parent, he naturally interprets his headache as a reminder from the neglected ghost. In a word, fear of punishment is an indispensable instrument in the education of man, be he savage or be he civilised; but fear of punishment is not the same thing as fear of evil spirits. The latter is irrational, and is sterile both morally and intellectually, while the former implies a standard of duty (or custom), and opens out the possibility of moral and intellectual'

progress.

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That the ceremonies out of which ancestor-worship was 1 Lippert, Kulturgeschichte, iii. 75.

to develop did not originate in fear, and that the spirit of a deceased kinsman was not a mere evil spirit, is a contention in support of which some arguments have been already adduced in Chapter V.; and which is also supported by the examination of some other customs not mentioned in that chapter for instance, that of blood-letting at the grave. Thus, in Australia, "members of the tribe stand or kneel over the body in turns, and with a large boomerang they strike each other on the head till a quantity of blood flows over the body "1 In Central Australia," they beat their heads until the blood flows, and weep bitterly, if a near relation." "2 In the Northern Territory of South Australia, "the women score their heads and thighs till the blood flows freely... the men score their thighs only." Elsewhere in South Australia, "besides weeping and howling, the female relatives make numerous superficial incisions upon the thigh from 6 to 12 inches long." In the New World, at a funeral, the Dacotahs "gash their legs and arms,' and as for the Crows," blood was streaming from every conceivable part of the bodies of all.” 6 In the semi-civilisation of Central America, the Aztecs" mangled their flesh as if it had been insensible, and let their blood run in profusion." In South America, Brazilian aborigines cut off fingers, and the same mutilation appears in Fiji: "his little finger had been cut off in token of affection for his deceased father."8 The Scyths wounded the lobes of their ears at their king's death." In the New Hebrides, the wounding took a less severe form : "they scratched their faces till they streamed with blood." 10 In Rome, the women scratched their faces till the blood ran.1 In Tahiti, it sufficed to smear some blood on a rag and drop the rag in the grave.12 In Tanna, it was enough if the face of the corpse, instead of being smeared with the relatives'

"4

1 Journal of Anthropological Institute, xxiv. 187. 2 Ibid. 183.

3 Ibid. 178. 5 Dorman, Primitive Superstitions, 217. 8 Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, i. 177. Bastian, Der Mensch, ii. 328.

4 Ibid. 185.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid. 218.

10 Turner, Samoa, 335.

11

11 Cic. de Leg. 2, 23, 59; 25, 64; Festus, s.v. radere; Plin. N. H. 11, 37, 157; Propert. 3. 136. 11; Serv. ad Aen. iii. 67, v. 78, xii. 606; Roscher's Lexikon, ii. 238.

12 Bastian, loc. cit.

blood, was painted red.1 In West Africa, it was the relatives (wives) who were painted on this occasion.2

To interpret this ceremony as due to fear and as an indication that the spirit of the deceased is regarded as an evil spirit, would be unreasonable on two accounts. First, the ceremony is always associated with demonstrations of grief, and therefore probably adds volume to the flow of that emotion, whereas fear would check it. Next, death is not the only occasion on which the blood of the tribe is applied to the body of a clansman: at birth,3 at the dawn of manhood,* and at marriage,5 the same ceremony is observed, and it is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that it has the same intention. On those occasions the object is to communicate the blood which is the life of the clan to the

clansman when he has especial need of it. I would suggest, therefore, that originally the blood-letting rite at the grave was one of the various devices, described in Chapter V., for retaining or recalling the life which was on the point of leaving, or had left, perhaps not beyond recall, its earthly tenement; and that the blood was intended to strengthen the bond between the clansman and his clan at a time when it was obviously tending to snap.

But as the outward acts which constitute the ceremony tend by a natural process to become less revolting and less cruel until eventually the actual effusion of blood is dispensed with, and some other colouring matter takes its place; so the feeling and the ideas of which the outward act was the expression, tend to change with changing circumstances. When this demonstration of grief and of affection has become conventional, the neglect of it inevitably comes to be regarded as a want of respect to the deceased, and the performance of it is regarded no longer as a crude attempt to give fresh life to the deceased, but as something done to please him. Hence, in the Tonga Islands, they "wound the head and cut the flesh in various parts with knives, shells, clubs, spears, etc., in honour of the deceased"; and in Samoa the blood is regarded as an offering to the dead. Doleful cries are

accompanied by the most frantic expressions of grief, such as rending garments, tearing the hair, thumping the face and eyes, burning the body with small piercing firebrands, beating the head with stones till the blood runs; and this they called an offering of blood' for the dead. Everyone acquainted with the historical parts of the Bible will here observe remarkable coincidences." 1 But offerings of the worshipper's blood are, as we have seen,2 made to gods, and the scars which the operation leaves, or the tattooing to which it leads, are interpreted as marks showing that the worshipper is under the protection of the god to whom the offering has been made. When, therefore, as in Australia, " widows as a rule have a number of cuts made on their back as a sign of mourning," and the blood shed by the relatives comes to be regarded as an offering "to" the deceased, there is an obvious danger of the ceremony coming to be considered as worship of the deceased, by those who practise it as a matter of custom, and explain it by obvious, and incorrect, analogies. Hence it was forbidden to the Hebrews: "Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord," whereas the cuttings and marks would imply that the dead man was as Jehovah to those who made the cuttings in their flesh. Where, however, the tendency was not thus checked, i.e. everywhere else, ancestorworship was free to develop; but its development required the co-operation of other causes, which we shall shortly set forth. But first it is necessary to consider the very interesting question of the hair-offering.

The fact that mourners all over the world do cut off their hair and shave their heads, is well established. The reason for their doing so is disputed. Mr. Frazer regards the proceeding as a means of disinfecting the mourners from the taboo contagion, analogous to the breaking of the vessels used by a taboo person. The late Professor Robertson Smith" regarded it as an offering of the hair, in which, as in the blood, the life of the individual is commonly believed to

1 The Rev. G. Turner, Polynesia, i. 227.