Chapter VI: Preface: {vii} (6)

[Sidenote: The custom of secluding and purifying homicides is intended to protect them against the angry spirits of the slain, which are thought to madden their slayers.] That the Greek practice of secluding and purifying a homicide was essentially an exorcism, in other words, that its aim was to ban the dangerous ghost of his victim, is rendered practically certain by the similar rites of seclusion and purification which among many savage tribes have to be observed by victorious warriors with the avowed intention of securing them against the spirits of the men whom they have slain in battle. These rites I have illustrated elsewhere,[120.3] but a few cases may be quoted here by way of example. Thus among the Basutos “ablution is especially performed on return from battle. It is absolutely necessary that the warriors should rid themselves, as soon as possible, of the blood they have shed, or the shades of their victims would pursue them incessantly, and disturb their slumbers. They go in a procession, and in full armour, to the nearest stream. At the moment they enter the water a diviner, placed higher up, throws some purifying substances into the current.”[120.4] According to another account of the Basuto custom, “warriors {121} who have killed an enemy are purified. The chief has to wash them, sacrificing an ox in the presence of the whole army. They are also anointed with the gall of the animal, which prevents the ghost of the enemy from pursuing them any farther.”[121.1] Among the Thonga, a Bantu tribe of South Africa, about Delagoa Bay, “to have killed an enemy on the battle-field entails an immense glory for the slayers; but that glory is fraught with great danger. They have killed.… So they are exposed to the mysterious and deadly influence of the _nuru_ and must consequently undergo a medical treatment. What is the _nuru_? _Nuru_, the spirit of the slain which tries to take its revenge on the slayer. It haunts him and may drive him into insanity: his eyes swell, protrude and become inflamed. He will lose his head, be attacked by giddiness (_ndzululwan_) and the thirst for blood may lead him to fall upon members of his own family and to stab them with his assagay. To prevent such misfortunes, a special medication is required: the slayers must _lurulula tiyimpì ta bu_, take away the _nuru_ of their sanguinary expedition.… In what consists this treatment? The slayers must remain for some days at the capital. They are taboo. They put on old clothes, eat with special spoons, because their hands are ‘hot,’ and off special plates (_mireko_) and broken pots. They are forbidden to drink water. Their food must be cold. The chief kills oxen for them; but if the meat were hot it would make them swell internally ‘because they are hot themselves, they are defiled (_ba na nsila_).’ If they eat hot food, the defilement would enter into them. ‘They are black (_ntima_). This black must be removed.’ During all this time sexual relations are absolutely forbidden to them. They must not go home, to their wives. In former times the Ba-Ronga used to tattoo them with special marks from one eyebrow to the other. Dreadful medicines were inoculated in the incisions, and there remained pimples ‘which gave them the appearance of a buffalo when it frowns.’ After some days a medicine-man comes to purify them, ‘to remove their black.’ There seem to be various means of doing it, according to Mankhelu. Seeds of all kinds are put into a {122} broken pot and roasted, together with drugs and _psanyi_[122.1] of a goat. The slayers inhale the smoke which emanates from the pot. They put their hands into the mixture and rub their limbs with it, especially the joints.… Insanity threatening those who shed blood might begin early. So, already on the battle-field, just after their deed, warriors are given a preventive dose of the medicine by those who have killed on previous occasions.… The period of seclusion having been concluded by the final purification, all the implements used by the slayers during these days, and their old garments, are tied together and hung by a string to a tree, at some distance from the capital, where they are left to rot.”[122.2]

[Sidenote: With some savages temporary insanity seems to be really caused by the sight or even thought of blood.] The accounts of the madness which is apt to befall slayers seem too numerous and too consistent to be dismissed as pure fictions of the savage imagination. However we may reject the native explanation of such fits of frenzy, the reports point to a real berserker fury or unbridled thirst for blood which comes over savages when they are excited by combat, and which may prove dangerous to friends as well as to foes. The question is one on which students of mental disease might perhaps throw light. Meantime it deserves to be noticed that even the people who have staid at home and have taken no share in the bloody work are liable to fall into a state of frenzy when they hear the war-whoops which proclaim the approach of the victorious warriors with their ghastly trophies. Thus we are told that among the Bare’e-speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes, when these notes of triumph were heard in the distance the whole population of the village would turn out to meet and welcome the returning braves. At the mere sound some of those who had remained at home, especially women, would be seized with a frenzy, and rushing forth would bite the severed heads of the slain foes, and they were not to be brought to their senses till they had drunk palm wine or water out of the skulls. If the warriors returned empty-handed, these {123} furies would fall upon them and bite their arms. There was a regular expression for this state of temporary insanity excited by the sight or even the thought of human blood; it was called _merata lamoanja_ or _merata raoa_, “the spirit is come over them,” by which was probably meant that the madness was caused by the ghosts of the slaughtered foes. When any of the warriors themselves suffered from this paroxysm of frenzy, they were healed by eating a piece of the brains or licking the blood of the slain.[123.1]

[Sidenote: Means taken by manslayers in Africa to rid themselves of the ghosts of their victims.] Among the Bantu tribes of Kavirondo, in British East Africa, when a man has killed an enemy in warfare he shaves his head on his return home, and his friends rub a medicine, which generally consists of cow’s dung, over his body to prevent the spirit of the slain man from troubling him.[123.2] Here cow’s dung serves these negroes as a detergent of the ghost, just as pig’s blood served the ancient Greeks. Among the Wawanga, about Mount Elgon in British East Africa, “a man returning from a raid, on which he has killed one of the enemy, may not enter his hut until he has taken cow-dung and rubbed it on the cheeks of the women and children of the village and purified himself by the sacrifice of a goat, a strip of skin from the forehead of which he wears round the right wrist during the four following nights.”[123.3] With the Ja-Luo of Kavirondo the custom is somewhat different. Three days after his return from the fight the warrior shaves his head. But before he may enter his village he has to hang a live fowl, head uppermost, round his neck; then the bird is decapitated and its head left hanging round his neck. Soon after his return a feast is made for the slain man, in order that his ghost may not haunt his slayer.[123.4] In some of these cases the slayer shaves his head, precisely as the matricide Orestes is said to have shorn his hair when he came to his senses.[123.5] From this Greek tradition we may infer with some probability that the hair of Greek homicides, {124} like that of these African warriors, was regularly cropped as one way of ridding them of the ghostly infection. Among the Ba-Yaka, a Bantu people of the Congo Free State, “a man who has been killed in battle is supposed to send his soul to avenge his death on the person of the man who killed him; the latter, however, can escape the vengeance of the dead by wearing the red tail-feathers of the parrot in his hair, and painting his forehead red.”[124.1] Perhaps, as I have suggested elsewhere, this costume is intended to disguise the slayer from his victim’s ghost.[124.2] [Sidenote: Precautions taken by the Natchez Indians.] Among the Natchez Indians of North America young braves who had taken their first scalps were obliged to observe certain rules of abstinence for six months. They might not sleep with their wives nor eat flesh; their only food was fish and hasty-pudding. If they broke these rules they believed that the soul of the man they had killed would work their death by magic.[124.3]

[Sidenote: Ghosts of the slain dreaded by the Kai of German New Guinea.] The Kai of German New Guinea stand in great fear of the ghosts of the men whom they have slain in war. On their way back from the field of battle or the scene of massacre they hurry in order to be safe at home or in the shelter of a friendly village before nightfall; for all night long the spirits of the dead are believed to dog the footsteps of their slayers, in the hope of coming up with them and recovering the lost portions of their souls which adhere with the clots of their blood to the spears and clubs that dealt them the death-blow. Only so can these poor restless ghosts find rest and peace. Hence the slayers are careful not to bring back the blood-stained weapons with them into the village; for that would be the first place where the ghosts would look for them. They hide them, therefore, in the forest at a safe distance from the village, where the ghosts can never find them; and when the spirits are weary of the fruitless search, they go away back to their dead bodies lying, it may be, among the blackened ruins of their {125} desolated home. Then the victors come forth, and taking up the weapons from their hiding-places, wash them clean of blood and bring them back to the village.[125.1] But “as more or less of the soul-stuff of their slain foes always sticks to the victors, none of their people may touch them after their return to the village. They are strictly shunned by their friends for several days. People go shyly out of their way. If any one in the village gets a pain in his stomach, it is assumed that he has sat down on the place of one of the warriors. If somebody complains of toothache, he must have eaten a fruit which had been touched by one of the combatants. All the leavings of the men’s food must be most carefully put out of the way, lest a pig should get at them, for that would be the death of the animal. Therefore the remains of their meals are burnt or buried. The warriors themselves cannot suffer much from the soul-stuff of the foes, because they treat themselves with the disinfecting sap of a creeper. But even so they are not secure against all the dangers that threaten them from this quarter.”[125.2]

[Sidenote: Customs observed by manslayers in British New Guinea.] Among the tribes at the mouth of the Wanigela River, in British New Guinea, “a man who has taken life is considered to be impure until he has undergone certain ceremonies: as soon as possible after the deed he cleanses himself and his weapon. This satisfactorily accomplished, he repairs to his village and seats himself on the logs of sacrificial staging. No one approaches him or takes any notice whatever of him. A house is prepared for him which is put in charge of two or three small boys as servants. He may eat only toasted bananas, and only the centre portion of them--the ends being thrown away. On the third day of his seclusion a small feast is prepared by his friends, who also fashion some new perineal bands for him. This is called _ivi poro_. The next day the man dons all his best ornaments and badges for taking life, and sallies forth fully armed and parades the village. The next day a hunt is organised, and a kangaroo selected from the game captured. It is cut open and the spleen and liver rubbed over the back of the man. He then walks solemnly down to the {126} nearest water, and standing straddle-legs in it washes himself. All young untried warriors swim between his legs. This is supposed to impart his courage and strength to them. The following day, at early dawn, he dashes out of his house, fully armed, and calls aloud the name of his victim. Having satisfied himself that he has thoroughly scared the ghost of the dead man, he returns to his house. The beating of flooring boards and the lighting of fires is also a certain method of scaring the ghost. A day later his purification is finished. He can then enter his wife’s house.”[126.1] In this last case the true nature of such so-called purifications is clearly manifest: they are in fact rites of exorcism observed for the purpose of banning a dangerous spirit.

[Sidenote: Customs observed by murderers among the Omaha Indians.] Amongst the Omaha Indians of North America a murderer whose life was spared by the kinsmen of his victim had to observe certain stringent rules for a period which varied from two to four years. He must walk barefoot, and he might eat no warm food, nor raise his voice, nor look around. He had to pull his robe around him and to keep it tied at the neck, even in warm weather; he might not let it hang loose or fly open. He might not move his hands about, but had to keep them close to his body. He might not comb his hair, nor might it be blown about by the wind. No one would eat with him, and only one of his kindred was allowed to remain with him in his tent. When the tribe went hunting, he was obliged to pitch his tent about a quarter of a mile from the rest of the people, “lest the ghost of his victim should raise a high wind which might cause damage.”[126.2] The reason here alleged for banishing the murderer from the camp of the hunters gives the clue to all the other restrictions laid on him: he was haunted by the ghost and therefore dangerous; hence people kept aloof from him, just as they are said to have done from the ghost-ridden Orestes.

Among the Chinook Indians of Oregon and Washington, “when a person has been killed, an old man who has a {127} guardian spirit is asked to work over the murderer. [Sidenote: Ceremonies observed by homicides among the Chinook Indians.] The old man takes coal and mixes it with grease. He puts it on to the face of the murderer. He gives him a head ring of cedar bark. Cedar bark is also tied around his ankles and knees and around his wrists. For five days he does not drink water. He does not sleep, and does not lie down. He always stands. At night he walks about and whistles on bone whistles. He always says ‘_ä ä ä_.’ For five days he does not wash his face. Then on the next morning the old man washes his face. He takes off that coal. He removes the black paint from his face. He puts red paint on his face. A little coal is mixed with the red paint. The old man puts this again on to his face. Sometimes this is done by an old man, sometimes by an old woman. The cedar bark which was tied to his legs and arms is taken off and buckskin straps are tied around his arms and his legs. Now, after five days he is given water. He is given a bucket, out of which he drinks. Now food is roasted for him, until it is burned. When it is burned black it is given to him. He eats standing. He takes five mouthsful, and no more. After thirty days he is painted with new red paint. Good red paint is taken. Now he carries his head ring and his bucket to a spruce tree and hangs it on top of the tree. Then the tree will dry up. People never eat in company of a murderer. He never eats sitting, but always standing. When he sits down to rest he kneels on one leg. The murderer never looks at a child and must not see people while they are eating.”[127.1] All these measures are probably intended to rid the murderer of the clinging ghost of his victim, and to keep him in quarantine till the riddance has been effected.

[Sidenote: Ghosts of slain kinsfolk, fellow-townsmen, and fellow-clansfolk especially dreaded.] While the spirit of a murdered man is thus feared by everybody, it is natural that it should be specially dreaded by those against whom for any reason he may be conceived to bear a grudge. For example, among the Yabim of German New Guinea, when the relations of a murdered man have accepted a bloodwit instead of avenging his death, they must allow the family of the victim to mark them with chalk on the brow. Were this {128} not done, the ghost of their dead kinsman might come and trouble them for not doing their duty by him; he might drive away their pigs or loosen their teeth.[128.1] The ghosts of murdered kinsfolk and neighbours are naturally more formidable than those of foreigners and strangers; for their wrath is hotter and they have more opportunities of wreaking their anger on the hard-hearted friends who either did them to death with their own hands or left their blood unavenged. Indeed some people only fear the wraiths of such persons, and regard with indifference all other ghosts, let them mow and gibber as much as they like. Thus among the Boloki of the Upper Congo “a homicide is not afraid of the spirit of the man he has killed when the slain man belongs to any of the neighbouring towns, as disembodied spirits travel in a very limited area only; but when he kills a man belonging to his own town he is filled with fear lest the spirit shall do him some harm. There are no special rites that he can observe to free himself from these fears, but he mourns for the slain man as though he were a member of his own family. He neglects his personal appearance, shaves his head, fasts for a certain period, and laments with much weeping.”[128.2] Again, a Kikuyu man does not incur ceremonial pollution (_thahu_) by the slaughter of a man of another tribe, nor even of his own tribe, provided his victim belongs to another clan; but if the slain man is a member of the same clan as his slayer, the case is grave indeed. However, it is possible by means of a ceremony to bind over the ghost to keep the peace. For this purpose the murderer and the oldest surviving brother of his victim are seated facing each other on two trunks of banana trees; here they are solemnly fed by two elders with vegetable food of all kinds, which has been provided for the purpose by their mothers and sprinkled with the contents of the stomach of a sacrificed sheep. Next day the elders proceed to the sacred {129} fig-tree (_mugumo_), which plays a great part in the religious rites of the Akikuyu. There they sacrifice a pig and deposit some of the fat, the intestines, and the more important bones at the foot of the tree, while they themselves feast on the more palatable parts of the animal. They think that the ghost of the murdered man will visit the tree that very night in the outward shape of a wild cat and consume the meat, and that this offering will prevent him from returning to the village and troubling the inhabitants.[129.1]

[Sidenote: Ghosts of the slain dreaded by the Toradjas of Central Celebes.] The Bare’e-speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes are greatly concerned about the souls of men who have been slain in battle. They appear to think that men who have been killed in war instead of dying by disease have not exhausted their vital energy and that therefore their departed spirits are more powerful than the common ruck of ghosts; and as on account of the unnatural manner of their death they cannot be admitted into the land of souls they continue to prowl about the earth, furious with the foes who have cut them off untimely in the prime of manhood, and demanding of their friends that they shall wage war on the enemy and send forth an expedition every year to kill some of them. If the survivors pay no heed to this demand of the bloodthirsty ghosts, they themselves are exposed to the vengeance of these angry spirits, who pay out their undutiful friends and relatives by visiting them with sickness and death. Hence with the Toradjas war is a sacred duty in which every member of the community is bound to bear a part; even women and children, who cannot wage real war, must wage mimic warfare at home by hacking with bamboo swords at an old skull of the enemy, while with their shrill voices they utter the war-whoop.[129.2] Thus among these people, as among many more tribes of savages, a belief in the immortality of {130} the soul has been one of the most fruitful causes of bloodshed by keeping up a perpetual state of war between neighbouring communities, who dare not make peace with each other for fear of mortally offending the spirits of the dead.[130.1]

[Sidenote: Ghosts of all who have died violent deaths are dangerous. How the Karens propitiate such ghosts.] But, whether friends or foes, the ghosts of all who have died a violent death are in a sense a public danger; for their temper is naturally soured and they are apt to fall foul of the first person they meet without nicely discriminating between the innocent and the guilty. The Karens of Burma, for example, think that the spirits of all such persons go neither to the upper regions of bliss nor to the nether world of woe, but linger on earth and wander about invisible. They make men sick to death by stealing their souls. Accordingly these vampire-like beings are exceedingly dreaded by the people, who seek to appease their anger and repel their cruel assaults by propitiatory offerings and the most earnest prayers and supplications.[130.2] They put red, yellow, and white rice in a basket and leave it in the forest, saying: “Ghosts of such as died by falling from a tree, ghosts of such as died of hunger or thirst, ghosts of such as died by the tiger’s tooth or the serpent’s fang, ghosts of the murdered dead, ghosts of such as died of small-pox or cholera, ghosts of dead lepers, O ill-treat us not, seize not upon our persons, do us no harm. O stay here in this wood. We will bring hither red rice, yellow rice, and white rice for your subsistence.”[130.3]

[Sidenote: The angry ghosts of the slain are sometimes forcibly driven away with noise and clamour.] However, it is not always by fair words and propitiatory offerings that the community attempts to rid itself of these invisible but dangerous intruders. People sometimes resort to more forcible measures. “Once,” says a traveller among the Indians of North America, “on approaching in the night a village of Ottawas, I found all the inhabitants in confusion: they were all busily engaged in raising noises of the loudest and most inharmonious kind. Upon inquiry, I found that a battle had been lately fought between the Ottawas and the Kickapoos, and that the object of all this noise was to prevent the ghosts of the departed combatants {131} from entering the village.”[131.1] Again, after the North American Indians had burned and tortured a prisoner to death, they used to run through the village, beating the walls, the furniture, and the roofs of the huts with sticks and yelling at the pitch of their voices to drive away the angry ghost of the victim, lest he should seek to avenge the injuries done to his scorched and mutilated body.[131.2] Similarly among the Papuans of Doreh in Dutch New Guinea, when a murder has been committed in the village, the inhabitants assemble for several evenings successively and shriek and shout to frighten away the ghost, in case he should attempt to come back.[131.3] The Yabim, a tribe in German New Guinea, believe that “the dead can both help and harm, but the fear of their harmful influence is predominant. Especially the people are of opinion that the ghost of a slain man haunts his murderer and brings misfortune on him. Hence it is necessary to drive away the ghost with shrieks and the beating of drums. The model of a canoe laden with taro and tobacco is got ready to facilitate his departure.”[131.4] So when the Bukaua of German New Guinea have won a victory over their foes and have returned home, they kindle a fire in the middle of the village and hurl blazing brands in the direction of the battle-field, while at the same time they make an ear-splitting din, to keep at bay the angry spirits of the slain.[131.5] When the cannibal Melanesians of the Bismarck Archipelago have eaten a human body, they shout, blow horns, shake spears, and beat the bushes for the purpose of driving away the ghost of the man or woman whose flesh has just furnished the banquet.[131.6] The Fijians used to bury the sick and aged alive, {132} and having done so they always made a great uproar with bamboos, shell-trumpets, and so forth in order to scare away the spirits of the buried people and prevent them from returning to their homes; and by way of removing any temptation to hover about their former abodes they dismantled the houses of the dead and hung them with everything that in their eyes seemed most repulsive.[132.1] Among the Angoni, a Zulu tribe settled to the north of the Zambesi, warriors who have slain foes on an expedition smear their bodies and faces with ashes, and hang garments of their victims on their persons. This costume they wear for three days after their return, and rising at break of day they run through the village uttering frightful yells to banish the ghosts of the slain, which otherwise might bring sickness and misfortune on the people.[132.2]

[Sidenote: Precautions taken against the ghosts of executed criminals and other dangerous persons.] In Travancore the spirits of men who have died a violent death by drowning, hanging, or other means are supposed to become demons, wandering about to inflict injury in various ways upon mankind. Especially the ghosts of murderers who have been hanged are believed to haunt the place of execution and its neighbourhood. To prevent this it used to be customary to cut off the criminal’s heels with a sword or to hamstring him as he was turned off.[132.3] The intention of thus mutilating the body was no doubt to prevent the ghost from walking. How could he walk if he were hamstrung or had no heels? With precisely the same intention it has been customary with some peoples to maim in various ways the dead bodies not only of executed criminals but of other persons; for all ghosts are more or less dreaded. When any bad man died, the Esquimaux of Bering Strait used in the old days to cut the sinews of his arms and legs “in order to prevent the shade from returning to the body and causing it to walk at night as a ghoul.”[132.4] The Omaha {133} Indians said that when a man was killed by lightning he should be buried face downwards, and that the soles of his feet should be slit; for if this were not done, his ghost would walk.[133.1] The Herero of South Africa think that the ghosts of bad people appear and are just as mischievous as in life; for they rob, steal, and seduce women and girls, sometimes getting them with child. To prevent the dead from playing these pranks the Herero used to cut through the backbone of the corpse, tie it up in a bunch, and sew it into an ox-hide.[133.2] A simple way of disabling a dangerous ghost is to dig up his body and decapitate it. This is done by West African negroes and also by the Armenians; to make assurance doubly sure the Armenians not only cut off the head but smash it or stick a needle into it or into the dead man’s heart.[133.3]

[Sidenote: Precautions taken in India against the ghosts of women who die in pregnancy, childbed, or soon after it.] The Hindoos of the Punjaub believe that if a mother dies within thirteen days of her delivery, she will return in the guise of a malignant spirit to torment her husband and family. To prevent this some people drive nails through her head and eyes, while others also knock nails on either side of the door of the house.[133.4] A gentler way of attaining the same end is to put a nail or a piece of iron in the clothes of the poor dead mother,[133.5] or to knock nails into the earth round the places where she died, and where her dead body was washed and cremated. Some people put pepper in the eyes of the corpse to prevent the ghost from seeing her way back to the house.[133.6] In Bilaspore, if a mother dies leaving very young children, they tie her hands and feet before burial to prevent her from getting up by {134} night and going to see her orphaned little ones.[134.1] The Oraons of Bengal are firmly convinced that any woman who dies in pregnancy or childbirth becomes an evil and dangerous spirit (_bhut_), who, if steps are not taken to keep her off, will come back and tickle to death those whom she loved best in life. “To prevent her, therefore, from coming back, they carry her body as far away as they can, but no woman will accompany her to her last resting-place lest similar misfortune should happen to her. Arrived at the burial-place, they break the feet above the ankle, twist them round, bringing the heels in front, and then drive long thorns into them. They bury her very deep with her face downwards, and with her they bury the bones of a donkey, and pronounce the _anathema_, ‘If you come home may you turn into a donkey’; the roots of a palm-tree are also buried with her; and they say, ‘May you come home only when the leaves of the palm-tree wither,’ and when they retire they spread mustard seeds all along the road saying, ‘When you try to come home pick up all these.’ They then feel pretty safe at home from her nocturnal visits, but woe to the man who passes at night near the place where she has been buried. She will pounce upon him, twist his neck, and leave him senseless on the ground, until brought to by the incantations of a sorcerer.”[134.2] Among the Lushais of Assam, when a woman died in childbed, the relatives offer a sacrifice to her departed soul, “but the rest of that village treat the day as a holiday and put a small green branch on the wall of each house on the outside near the doorpost to keep out the spirit of the dead woman.”[134.3]

[Sidenote: Precautions taken in Burma against the ghosts of women who die in pregnancy or childbed.] Among the Shans of Burma, when a woman dies with an unborn child, it is believed that her spirit turns into a malignant ghost, “who may return to haunt her husband’s home and torment him, unless precautions are taken to keep her away. To begin with, her unborn child is removed by an operation; then mother and child are wrapped in separate mats and buried without coffins. If this be not done, the same {135} misfortune may occur again to the woman, in her future life, and the widower will suffer from the attacks of the ghost. When the bodies are being removed from the house, part of the mat wall in the side of the house is taken down, and the dead woman and her baby are lowered to the ground through the aperture. The hole through which the bodies have passed is immediately filled with new mats, so that the ghost may not know how to return.”[135.1] The Kachins of Burma are so afraid of the ghosts of women dying in childbed that no sooner has such a death taken place than the husband, the children, and almost all the people in the house take to flight lest the ghost should bite them. They bandage the eyes of the dead woman with her own hair to prevent her from seeing anything; they wrap the corpse in a mat and carry it out of the house not by the ordinary door, but by an opening made for the purpose either in the wall or in the floor of the room where she breathed her last. Then they convey the body to a deep ravine where foot of man seldom penetrates, and there, having heaped her clothes, her jewellery, and all her belongings over her, they set fire to the pile and reduce the whole to ashes. “Thus they destroy all the property of the unfortunate woman in order that her soul may not think of coming to fetch it afterwards and to bite the people in the attempt.” When this has been done, the officiating priest scatters some burnt grain of a climbing plant (_shămien_), inserts in the earth the pestle which the dead woman used to husk the rice, and winds up the exorcism by cursing and railing at her ghost, saying: “Wait to come back to us till this grain sprouts and this pestle blossoms, till the fern bears fruit, and the cocks lay eggs.” The house in which the woman died is generally pulled down, and the timber may only be used as firewood or to build small hovels in the fields. Till a new house can be built for them, the widower and the orphans receive the hospitality of their nearest relatives, a father or a brother; their other friends would not dare to receive them from fear of the ghost. {136} Occasionally the dead mother’s jewels are spared from the fire and given away to some poor old crones, who do not trouble their heads about ghosts. If the medicine-man who attended the woman in life and officiated at the funeral is old, he may consent to accept the jewels as the fee for his services; but in that case no sooner has he got home than he puts the jewels in the henhouse. If the hens remain quiet, it is a good omen and he can keep the trinkets with an easy mind; but if the fowl flutter and cackle, it is a sign that the ghost is sticking to the jewels, and in a fright he restores them to the family. The old man or old woman into whose hands the trinkets of the dead woman thus sometimes fall cannot dispose of them to other members of the tribe; for nobody who knows where the things come from would be so rash as to buy them. However, they may find purchasers among the Shans or the Chinese, who do not fear Kachin ghosts.[136.1]

[Sidenote: Precautions taken in the Indian Archipelago against the ghosts of women who die in childbed.] The ghosts of women who die in childbed are much dreaded in the Indian Archipelago; it is supposed that they appear in the form of birds with long claws and are exceedingly dangerous to their husbands and also to pregnant women. A common way of guarding against them is to put an egg under each armpit of the corpse, to press the arms close against the body, and to stick needles in the palms of the hands. The people believe that the ghost of the dead woman will be unable to fly and attack people; for she will not spread out her arms for fear of letting the eggs fall, and she will not clutch anybody for fear of driving the needles deeper into her palms. Sometimes by way of additional precaution another egg is placed under her chin, thorns are thrust into the joints of her fingers and toes, her mouth is stopped with ashes, and her hands, feet, and hair are nailed to the coffin.[136.2] [Sidenote: Attempts to lame and otherwise disable ghosts.] Some Sea Dyaks of Borneo sow the ground {137} near cemeteries with bits of sticks to imitate caltrops, in order that the feet of any ghosts who walk over them may be lamed.[137.1] The Besisi of the Malay Peninsula bury their dead in the ground and let fall knives on the grave to prevent the ghost from getting up out of it.[137.2] The Tunguses of Turukhansk on the contrary put their dead up in trees, and then lop off all the branches to prevent the ghost from scrambling down and giving them chase.[137.3] The Herbert River natives in Queensland used to cut holes in the stomach, shoulders, and lungs of their dead and fill the holes with stones, in order that, weighed down with this ballast, the ghost might not stray far afield; to limit his range still further they commonly broke his legs.[137.4] Other Australian blacks put hot coals in the ears of their departed brother; this keeps the ghost in the body for a time, and allows the relations to get a good start away from him. Also they bark the trees in a circle round the spot, so that when the ghost does get out and makes after them, he wanders round and round in a circle, always returning to the place from which he started.[137.5] The ancient Hindoos put fetters on the feet of their dead that they might not return to the land of the living.[137.6] The Tinneh Indians of Alaska grease the hands of a corpse, so that when his ghost grabs at people’s souls to carry them {138} off with him they slip through his greasy fingers and escape.[138.1]

[Sidenote: The way home barricaded against ghosts.] Some peoples bar the road from the grave to prevent the ghost from following them. The Tunguses make the barrier of snow or trees.[138.2] Amongst the Mangars, one of the fighting tribes of Nepal, “when the mourners return home, one of their party goes ahead and makes a barricade of thorn bushes across the road midway between the grave and the house of the deceased. On the top of the thorns he puts a big stone on which he takes his stand, holding a pot of burning incense in his left hand and some woollen thread in his right. One by one the mourners step on the stone and pass through the smoke of the incense to the other side of the thorny barrier. As they pass, each takes a piece of thread from the man who holds the incense and ties it round his neck. The object of this curious ceremony is to prevent the spirit of the dead man from coming home with the mourners and establishing itself in its old haunts. Conceived of as a miniature man, it is believed to be unable to make its way on foot through the thorns, while the smell of the incense, to which all spirits are highly sensitive, prevents it from surmounting this obstacle on the shoulders of one of the mourners.”[138.3] The Chins of Burma burn their dead and collect the bones in an earthen pot. Afterwards, at a convenient season, the pot containing the bones is carried away to the ancestral burial-place, which is generally situated in the depth of the jungle. “When the people convey the pot of bones to the cemetery, they take with them some cotton-yarn, and whenever they come to any stream or other water, they stretch a thread across, whereby the spirit of the deceased, who accompanies them, may get across it too. When they have duly deposited the bones and food for the spirit in the cemetery they return home, {139} after bidding the spirit to remain there, and not to follow them back to the village. At the same time they block the way by which they return by putting a bamboo across the path.”[139.1] Thus the mourners make the way to the grave as easy as possible for the ghost, but obstruct the way by which he might return from it.

[Sidenote: Devices of the North American Indians to keep ghosts at bay.] The Algonquin Indians, not content with beating the walls of their huts to drive away the ghost, stretched nets round them in order to catch the spirit in the meshes, if he attempted to enter the house. Others made stinks to keep him off.[139.2] The Ojebways also resorted to a number of devices for warding off the spirits of the dead. These have been described as follows by a writer who was himself an Ojebway: “If the deceased was a husband, it is often the custom for the widow, after the burial is over, to spring or leap over the grave, and then run zigzag behind the trees, as if she were fleeing from some one. This is called running away from the spirit of her husband, that it may not haunt her. In the evening of the day on which the burial has taken place, when it begins to grow dark, the men fire off their guns through the hole left at the top of the wigwam. As soon as this firing ceases, the old women commence knocking and making such a rattling at the door as would frighten away any spirit that would dare to hover near. The next ceremony is, to cut into narrow strips, like ribbon, thin birch bark. These they fold into shapes, and hang round inside the wigwam, so that the least puff of wind will move them. With such scarecrows as these, what spirit would venture to disturb their slumbers? Lest this should not prove effectual, they will also frequently take a deer’s tail, and after burning or singeing off all the hair, will rub the necks or faces of the children before they lie down to sleep, thinking that the offensive smell will be another preventive to the spirit’s entrance. I well remember when I used to be daubed over with this disagreeable fumigation, and had great faith in it all. Thinking that the soul lingers about the body a long time before it {140} takes its final departure, they use these means to hasten it away.”[140.1]

[Sidenote: Spirits of the dead greatly feared by the Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco.] The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco in South America live in great fear of the spirits of their dead. They imagine that any one of these disembodied spirits can become incarnate again and take a new lease of life on earth, if only it can contrive to get possession of a living man’s body during the temporary absence of his soul. For like many other savages they imagine that the soul absents itself from the body during sleep to wander far away in the land of dreams. So when night falls, the ghosts of the dead come crowding to the villages and lurk about, hoping to find vacant bodies into which they can enter. Such are to the thinking of the Lengua Indian the perils and dangers of the night. When he awakes in the morning from a dream in which he seemed to be hunting or fishing far away, he concludes that his soul cannot yet have returned from such a far journey, and that the spirit within him must therefore be some ghost or demon, who has taken possession of his corporeal tenement in the absence of its proper owner. And if these Indians dread the spirits of the departed at all times, they dread them doubly at the moment when they have just shuffled off the mortal coil. No sooner has a person died than the whole village is deserted. Even if the death takes place shortly before sunset the place must at all costs be immediately abandoned, lest with the shades of night the ghost should return and do a mischief to the villagers. Not only is the village deserted, but every hut is burned down and the property of the dead man destroyed. For these Indians believe that, however good and kind a man may have been in his lifetime, his ghost is always a source of danger to the peace and prosperity of the living. The night after his death his disembodied spirit comes back to the village, and chilled by the cool night air looks about for a fire at which to warm himself. He rakes in the ashes to find at least a hot coal which he may blow up into a flame. But if they are all cold and dead, he flings a handful of them in the air {141} and departs in dudgeon. Any Indian who treads on such ashes will have ill-luck, if not death, following at his heels. To prevent such mishaps the villagers take the greatest pains to collect and bury all the ash-heaps before they abandon the village. What the fate of a hamlet would be in which the returning ghost found the inhabitants still among their houses, no Indian dares to imagine. Hence it happens that many a village which was full of life at noon is a smoking desert at sunset. And as the Lenguas ascribe all sickness to the machinations of evil spirits and sorcerers, they mutilate the persons of their dying or dead in order to counteract and punish the authors of the disease. For this purpose they cut off the portion of the body in which the evil spirit is supposed to have ensconced himself. A common operation performed on the dying or dead man is this. A gash is made with a knife in his side, the edges of the wound are drawn apart with the fingers, and in the wound are deposited a dog’s bone, a stone, and the claw of an armadillo. It is believed that at the departure of the soul from the body the stone will rise up to the Milky Way and will stay there till the author of the death has been discovered. Then the stone will come shooting down in the shape of a meteor and kill, or at least stun, the guilty party. That is why these Indians stand in terror of falling stars. The claw of the armadillo serves to grub up the earth and, in conjunction with the meteor, to ensure the destruction of the evil spirit or the sorcerer. What the virtue of the dog’s bone is supposed to be has not yet been ascertained by the missionaries.[141.1]

[Sidenote: A scapegoat for ghosts.] The Bhotias, who inhabit the Himalayan district of British India, perform an elaborate ceremony for transferring the spirit of a deceased person to an animal, which is finally beaten by all the villagers and driven away, that it may not come back. Having thus expelled the ghost the {142} people return joyfully to the village with songs and dances. In some places the animal which thus serves as a scapegoat is a yak, the forehead, back, and tail of which must be white. But elsewhere, under the influence of Hindooism, sheep and goats have been substituted for yaks.[142.1]

[Sidenote: Precautions taken by widows in Africa against their husbands’ ghosts.] Widows and widowers are especially obnoxious to the ghosts of their deceased spouses, and accordingly they have to take special precautions against them. For example, among the Ewe negroes of Agome, in German Togoland, a widow is bound to remain for six weeks in the hut where her husband lies buried. She is naked, her hair is shaved off, and she is armed with a stick with which to repel the too pressing familiarities of her husband’s ghost; for were she to submit to them, she would die on the spot. At night she sleeps with the stick under her, lest the wily ghost should attempt to steal it from her in the hours of slumber. Before she eats or drinks she always puts some coals on the food or in the beverage, to prevent her dead husband from eating or drinking with her; for if he did so, she would die. If any one calls to her, she may not answer, for her dead husband would hear her, and she would die. She may not eat beans or flesh or fish, nor drink palm-wine or rum, but she is allowed to smoke tobacco. At night a fire is kept up in the hut, and the widow throws powdered peppermint leaves and red pepper on the flames to make a stink, which helps to keep the ghost from the house.[142.2]