WORSHIP OF THE DEAD, VOLUME I (OF 3)***


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THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AND THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD

by

J. G. FRAZER, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.

Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool.

VOL. I

The Belief Among the Aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits
Islands, New Guinea and Melanesia

The Gifford Lectures, St. Andrews 1911-1912







MacMillan and Co., Limited
St. Martin's Street, London
1913


    _Itaque unum illud erat insitum priscis illis, quos cascos
    appellat Ennius, esse in morte sensum neque excessu vitae sic
    deleri hominem, ut funditus interiret; idque cum multis aliis
    rebus; tum e pontificio jure et e caerimoniis sepulchrorum
    intellegi licet, quas maxumis ingeniis praediti nec tanta cura
    coluissent nec violatas tam inexpiabili religione sanxissent,
    nisi haereret in corum mentibus mortem non interitum esse omnia
    tollentem atque delentem, sed quandam quasi migrationem
    commutationemque vitae._

    Cicero, _Tuscul. Disput._ i. 12.




TO
MY OLD FRIEND

JOHN SUTHERLAND BLACK, LL.D.

I DEDICATE AFFECTIONATELY

A WORK

WHICH OWES MUCH TO HIS ENCOURAGEMENT




PREFACE


The following lectures were delivered on Lord Gifford's Foundation
before the University of St. Andrews in the early winters of 1911 and
1912. They are printed nearly as they were spoken, except that a few
passages, omitted for the sake of brevity in the oral delivery, have
been here restored and a few more added. Further, I have compressed the
two introductory lectures into one, striking out some passages which on
reflection I judged to be irrelevant or superfluous. The volume
incorporates twelve lectures on "The Fear and Worship of the Dead" which
I delivered in the Lent and Easter terms of 1911 at Trinity College,
Cambridge, and repeated, with large additions, in my course at St.
Andrews.

The theme here broached is a vast one, and I hope to pursue it hereafter
by describing the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead, as
these have been found among the other principal races of the world both
in ancient and modern times. Of all the many forms which natural
religion has assumed none probably has exerted so deep and far-reaching
an influence on human life as the belief in immortality and the worship
of the dead; hence an historical survey of this most momentous creed and
of the practical consequences which have been deduced from it can hardly
fail to be at once instructive and impressive, whether we regard the
record with complacency as a noble testimony to the aspiring genius of
man, who claims to outlive the sun and the stars, or whether we view it
with pity as a melancholy monument of fruitless labour and barren
ingenuity expended in prying into that great mystery of which fools
profess their knowledge and wise men confess their ignorance.

J. G. FRAZER.
Cambridge,
_9th February 1913._




CONTENTS


Dedication

Preface

Table of Contents

Lecture I.--Introduction

Natural theology, three modes of handling it, the dogmatic, the
philosophical, and the historical, pp. 1 _sq._; the historical method
followed in these lectures, 2 _sq._; questions of the truth and moral
value of religious beliefs irrelevant in an historical enquiry, 3 _sq._;
need of studying the religion of primitive man and possibility of doing
so by means of the comparative method, 5 _sq._; urgent need of
investigating the native religion of savages before it disappears, 6
_sq._; a portion of savage religion the theme of these lectures, 7
_sq._; the question of a supernatural revelation dismissed, 8 _sq._;
theology and religion, their relations, 9; the term God defined, 9
_sqq._; monotheism and polytheism, 11; a natural knowledge of God, if it
exists, only possible through experience, 11 _sq._; the