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 nature of
experience, 12 _sq._; two kinds of experience, an inward and an outward,
13 _sq._; the conception of God reached historically through both kinds
of experience, 14; inward experience or inspiration, 14 _sq._;
deification of living men, 16 _sq._; outward experience as a source of
the idea of God, 17; the tendency to seek for causes, 17 _sq._; the
meaning of cause, 18 _sq._; the savage explains natural processes by the
hypothesis of spirits or gods, 19 _sq._; natural processes afterwards
explained by hypothetical forces and atoms instead of by hypothetical
spirits and gods, 20 _sq._; nature in general still commonly explained
by the hypothesis of a deity, 21 _sq._; God an inferential or
hypothetical cause, 22 _sq._; the deification of dead men, 23-25; such a
deification presupposes the immortality of the human soul or rather its
survival for a longer or shorter time after death, 25 _sq._; the
conception of human immortality suggested both by inward experience,
such as dreams, and by outward experience, such as the resemblances of
the living to the dead, 26-29; the lectures intended to collect evidence
as to the belief in immortality among certain savage races, 29 _sq._;
the method to be descriptive rather than comparative or philosophical,
30.

Lecture II.--The Savage Conception of Death

The subject of the lectures the belief in immortality and the worship of
the dead among certain of the lower races, p. 31; question of the nature
and origin of death, 31 _sq._; universal interest of the question, 32
_sq._; the belief in immortality general among mankind, 33; belief of
many savages that death is not natural and that they would never die if
their lives were not cut prematurely short by sorcery, 33 _sq._;
examples of this belief among the South American Indians, 34 _sqq._;
death sometimes attributed to sorcery and sometimes to demons, practical
consequence of this distinction, 37; belief in sorcery as the cause of
death among the Indians of Guiana, 38 _sq._, among the Tinneh Indians of
North America, 39 _sq._, among the aborigines of Australia, 40-47, among
the natives of the Torres Straits Islands and New Guinea, 47, among the
Melanesians, 48, among the Malagasy, 48 _sq._, and among African tribes,
49-51; effect of such beliefs in thinning the population by causing
multitudes to die for the imaginary crime of sorcery, 51-53; some
savages attribute certain deaths to other causes than sorcery, 53;
corpse dissected to ascertain cause of death, 53 _sq._; the possibility
of natural death admitted by the Melanesians and the Caffres of South
Africa, 54-56; the admission marks an intellectual advance, 56 _sq._;
the recognition of ghosts or spirits, apart from sorcery, as a cause of
disease and death also marks a step in moral and social progress, 57
_sq._

Lecture III.--Myths of the Origin of Death

Belief of savages in man's natural immortality, p. 59; savage stories of
the origin of death, 59 _sq._; four types of such stories:--

(1) _The Story of the Two Messengers_.--Zulu story of the chameleon and
the lizard, 60 _sq._; Akamba story of the chameleon and the thrush, 61
_sq._; Togo story of the dog and the frog, 62 _sq._; Ashantee story of
the goat and the sheep, 63 _sq._

(2) _The Story of the Waxing and Waning Moon_.--Hottentot story of the
moon, the hare, and death, 65; Masai story of the moon and death, 65
_sq._; Nandi story of the moon, the dog, and death, 66; Fijian story of
the moon, the rat, and death, 67; Caroline, Wotjobaluk, and Cham stories
of the moon, death, and resurrection, 67; death and resurrection after
three days suggested by the reappearance of the new moon after three
days, 67 _sq._

(3) _The Story of the Serpent and his Cast Skin_.--New Britain and
Annamite story of immortality, the serpent, and death, 69 _sq._; Vuatom
story of immortality, the lizard, the serpent, and death, 70; Nias story
of immortality, the crab, and death, 70; Arawak and Tamanchier stories
of immortality, the serpent, the lizard, the beetle, and death, 70
_sq._; Melanesian story of the old woman and her cast skin, 71 _sq._;
Samoan story of the shellfish, two torches, and death, 72.

(4) _The Story of the Banana_.--Poso story of immortality, the stone,
the banana, and death, 72 _sq._; Mentra story of immortality, the
banana, and death, 73.

Primitive philosophy in the stories of the origin of death, 73 _sq._;
Bahnar story of immortality, the tree, and death, 74; rivalry for the
boon of immortality between men and animals that cast their skins, such
as serpents and lizards, 74 _sq._; stories of the origin of death told
by Chingpaws, Australians, Fijians, and Admiralty Islanders, 75-77;
African and American stories of the fatal bundle or the fatal box, 77
_sq._; Baganda story how death originated through the imprudence of a
woman, 78-81; West African story of Death and the spider, 81-83;
Melanesian story of Death and the Fool, 83 _sq._

Thus according to savages death is not a natural necessity, 84; similar
view held by some modern biologists, as A. Weismann and A. R. Wallace,
84-86.

Lecture IV.--The Belief in Immortality among the Aborigines of Central
Australia

In tracing the evolution of religious beliefs we must begin with those
of the lowest savages, p. 87; the aborigines of Australia the lowest
savages about whom we possess accurate information, 88; savagery a case
of retarded development, 88 _sq._; causes which have retarded progress
in Australia, 89 _sq._; the natives of Central Australia on the whole
more primitive than those of the coasts, 90 _sq._; little that can be
called religion among them, 91 _sq._; their theory that the souls of the
dead survive and are reborn in their descendants, 92 _sq._; places where
the souls of the dead await rebirth, and the mode in which they enter
into women, 93 _sq._; local totem centres, 94 _sq._; totemism defined,
95; traditionary origin of the local totem centres (_oknanikilla_) where
the souls of the dead assemble, 96; sacred birth-stones or birth-sticks
(_churinga_) which the souls of ancestors are thought to have dropped at
these places, 96-102; elements of a worship of the dead, 102 _sq._;
marvellous powers attributed to the remote ancestors of the _alcheringa_
or dream times, 103 _sq._; the Wollunqua, a mythical water-snake,
ancestor of a totemic clan of the Warramunga tribe, 104-106; religious
character of the belief in the Wollunqua, 106.

Lecture V.--The Belief in Immortality among the Aborigines of Central
Australia (_continued_)

Beliefs of the Central Australian aborigines concerning the
reincarnation of the dead, p. 107; possibility of the development of
ancestor worship, 107 _sq._; ceremonies performed by the Warramunga in
honour of the Wollunqua, the mythical ancestor of one of their totem
clans, 108 _sqq._; union of magic and religion in these ceremonies, 111
_sq._; ground drawings of the Wollunqua, 112 _sq._; importance of the
Wollunqua in the evolution of religion and art, 113 _sq._; how totemism
might develop into polytheism through an intermediate stage of ancestor
worship, 114 _sq._; all the conspicuous features of the country
associated by the Central Australians with the spirits of their
ancestors, 115-118; dramatic ceremonies performed by them to commemorate
the deeds of their ancestors, 118 _sq._; examples of these ceremonies,
119-122; these ceremonies were probably in origin not merely
commemorative or historical but magical, being intended to procure a
supply of food and other necessaries, 122 _sq._; magical virtue actually
attributed to these dramatic ceremonies by the Warramunga, who think
that by performing them they increase the food supply of the tribe, 123
_sq._; hence the great importance ascribed by these savages to the due
performance of the ancestral dramas, 124; general attitude of the
Central Australian aborigines to their dead, and the lines on which, if
left to themselves, they might have developed a regular worship of the
dead, 124-126.

Lecture VI.--The Belief in Immortality among the other Aborigines of
Australia

Evidence for the belief in reincarnation among the natives of other
parts of Australia than the centre, p. 127; beliefs of the Queensland
aborigines