Chapter VI: Part XI: Religious Rites and Superstitions

CHAP. XXVI.--Religion in savage lands--the mysterious
“still small voice”--its existence indissociable from human
nature--“incomprehensible” synonymous with “evil” in the savage
mind--nothing so incomprehensive as death--nothing so much
feared--death the savage’s poisoned honey-pot--the greegree-man
must be patronized at any price--Samoan mythology--Tangaloa
and his daughter--she descends and plants a creeping plant
on the barren rock--what the plant grew to--the man who
pushed the heavens up--the young men who resolved to visit
the moon--the one was smoked up and the other climbed up--how
the moon came down and took up a scoffing woman--the child of
the sun--that great luminary in danger of being strangled
with a rope--“Oh! have mercy on me and spare my life”--a
Figian version of the flood--toilsome journey of the soul from
earth to heaven--the savage charm--desperate endeavours to
cheat the grim ferrymen--quarrelsome Figian gods--a singular
case of abduction--the lonely Naiogabui and the daring
Ravovonikaugawa--success of the expedition--Rokoua gets scent
of the elopement and goes in pursuit--he disguises himself--all
fair in love and war--failure of Rokoua’s stratagem--he tries
once more--this time disguised as a fishwoman--the wicked
Naiogabui betrays her father, who is knocked on the head--the
Hades of the Samoans--miscellaneous gods of the Samoans--a
deity for every village--Samoan form of oath--the cup of
truth--mourning the destruction of a god’s image--the most
fashionable god in Polynesia--human sacrifices--whole families
set apart for this purpose, to be fetched when wanted--sudden
death to the victim--Tapu--its ancient institution--universal
influence of the tapu--Mr. Ellis’s opinion of the working
of “tapu”--muzzled pigs and blindfolded chickens--tapued
pigs--the ceremony of taking “tapu” off the porkers--the
princes and noblemen exhibit their prowess in carrying pigs
about--presenting his majesty with pig’s fry--a tremendous
feast--The institution of Tapu in New Zealand--inconvenience of
being tapued--a good jacket lost through the superstition--The
terrible tinder box--how to secure a canoe--the chief’s sacred
head--the sacred kumara grounds--the sacred pole and the
missionaries--the chief’s backbone--the difference between _noa_
and tapu--tapuing a river--the Pakeka and the iron pot--one of
the best uses of tapu--its advantages and disadvantages--Tapu
among the Samoans--snake and shark and thunder tapus--Born
tapus--witchcraft in New Zealand--Introduction of an Englishman
to a “retired” witch--how he found her--she declines to act,
having given up the business and become a “praying” woman--she
is persuaded, and sets about humbugging the visitors--the
little beetle in the thatch--the god begging a blanket--the
Englishman not perfectly convinced--Religion among the Dayaks
of the land and sea--the supreme Tewata--extent of their
religious system--“physic” for sacred anointing--the four chief
spirits of the Dayak belief--how man became less than the
spirits--what becomes of the Dayak when he dies--the artful
“Umot Perusong”--“Mino Buau,” or warrior ghosts--alarming
apparition of a headless dog--Dayak methods of propitiating
the gods--lucky days, omens, and warnings--the ceremony of
making brothers--how Singauding became the brother of Mr. St.
John--a sanguinary cigarette--how the Kiniahs enter into the
bands of brotherhood--making brothers in Western Africa--pledged
in blood--Dayak good and evil spirits--what it is to dream of
Singallong Burong the god of war--delicate way of alluding to
small-pox--has “he” left you?--the Karam of Baram and his god
Totadungan--the Dayak who went to heaven--what he saw--the
sacred Bornean bull--Dayak superstitions concerning dogs and
snakes--the legend of the painted dog--the savage of North
America and his “happy hunting ground”--“Kitchi-manitou” and
“Matchi-munedoo”--the North American Indians’ version of the
flood--a savage Noah--how the earth was reformed--the loon, the
beaver, and the musk-rat--a legend of Kitchi-Manitou--he meets
the first man--pitying his disconsolate condition he finds him
a mate, Mami by name--the happy meeting--their garden of Eden
with its “tables and chairs and glass windows”--Kitchi-Manitou
warns them against the fruit of the evil tree--Mami is tempted
and falls--she invites her husband and his weakness is too
strong for him--anger of Kitchi-Manitou--banishment of the
erring pair--they begin their worldly cares--Mami’s husband
finds a book--finding it too big to carry about he declines to
appropriate it--he is furnished with one of convenient size
in which he learns the art of medicine--the Indian who made a
return trip to heaven--how he got there, what he saw, and how
he got back to earth again--the man of the fire-stone--his
great enemy Manabozho--they have a terrible fight and the
fire-stone man is beaten--how Manabozho exerted himself for
the good of mankind--his friend Chibiabos--the Manitous play
Chibiabos a cunning trick--grief of Manabozho--the friends
are united--discovering a “thunder’s nest”--Hans Hansom and
the beaver trapper--“second sight” among the Winnebagos--the
prophecy--its verification--the dream of Little Wasp--Indian
picture-writing--signs of the different tribes--what stands for
“kill”--a narration in pantomime--Crashey Jane’s compliments to
the editor--Mr. Catlin’s Indian experiences--he paints the “old
bear”--the artist is made much of and likes it--the benighted
savages kiss the hem of Mr. Catlin’s swallow-tail--he does
not get on quite so well with the ladies--all difficulties
conquered--Mandan festival of the deluge--“seeking whom
he may devour”--discomfiture and flight of the prince of
darkness--covetousness of the North American Indians--Mr.
Murray’s experience on this head--the old gentleman who coveted
the elastic jacket--how he found it a tight fit--“a good
creature in the ice-month”--the Ojibbeway nations of old--the
Pawnees--the Delawares--the confederate six nations--the
Shawnees--From North America to Abyssinia--religious ceremonies
observed in that country--mothers of small account--purification
of houses and platters--the Kalijas and the Lubas--concerning
Boudas--Bouda exorcists--Mr. Stern makes the acquaintance of
a Bouda--the woman’s tremendous struggles and arrival of the
exorcist--his operations--he interrogates the Bouda and obtains
from it some interesting information--its strange vagaries
before it consents to take its departure--the Zar--Religion
of the Dahoman--the food of the sacred buzzards--fetish
snakes and the punishment for harming them--the Bonny
people and the jewjews--popular superstitions--the king’s
charms against witchcraft--the sacrifice to the bar--the
unconscious victim--his doom--sacred pig’s jaws--“talk and
pray”--devil worship--the “Sukia” of the Mosquito shore--her
unprepossessing appearance--Mr. Bard gives her a piece of
calico on condition she stands in the midst of a blazing
fire--she earns the calico and lives to wear it--the belly
gods of the Tinguians--Madagascar “the country without a
god”--“Sikidy”--the ceremony of touching the bull--King Peppel’s
religious convictions--a palaver unpalatable to his sable
majesty--“Suppose God were here I must kill him”--a modest wish
to live for ever--Mr. Moffat and the African king--startling
news of a universal resurrection--“will all the slain in battle
arise?”--a Namaqua chief’s religious ideas--frying the sun
in a pot--“when we are dead we _are_ dead”--Boles-ki-bo--a
Basutos witch-finder--guessing made easy--end of the farce,
commencement of the tragedy--unclean meats of the Damaras--on
the manufacture of rain--drought at Kuruman--the rain-maker sent
for--the commands of the great benefactor--he churns rain from a
milk sack--goat rain and ox rain--the ceremony of the blighted
tree--the sprinkling of the people with a zebra’s tail dipped in
water--still no rain--he demands a baboon “perfect to a hair”
and is not sorry that it cannot be procured--he must have the
heart of a lion--he must have something else too horrible to
name, and has it--still the heavens are inexorable--the last
appeal, “It is the face of the white man that scares the rain
clouds”--unpleasant predicament for a man with a white face--the
impostor’s end--A fine day for a butcher’s knife--Figian
coming of age--how Mr. Petherick “Barnumized” the natives as
a rain-maker--perpetrates something not many degrees short of
blasphemy--the artful device of the floured flies--a Sabbath
in Equatorial Africa--The worship of Njambai--paying for
peeping--“who bewitched the king?”--the appeal to Ilogo--an
unlucky wizard--appalling end of a witch man--Mfumbo the
all-powerful--what came of felling a “devil-tree”--the business
of a Mganga--how he points out the road the traveller should
travel--King Passol’s dancing fetish--his extraordinary
performance on stilts--“he be de debil”--a bal-masqué--“dance,
oh snake! for this is indeed a happy day”--old King
Kalabar--“Nabikems”--Kalabar fash--A Yoruba man’s opinion of the
chameleon. Pages 204–336.