Part 19

For this reason many of the aborigines of British Guiana lay their trinkets aside and go entirely naked; and among the Jiraras or Ayricas the wife, brothers and sisters of the deceased paint themselves all over with the juice of a fruit that renders them as black as Negroes, while relatives less near paint only their feet, legs, arms and part of the face: they are not so deeply compromised.[237.2] So on the Ivory Coast the Ngoulango or Pakhalla mourners put off their ornaments, put on the head a worn-out loin-cloth and wear brown clothing, marking different parts of the body with red earth. If anything more were necessary to exhibit their state of taboo, it would be the practice of widows when they went out of doors to carry a piece of “fetish” wood, endowed with the power of causing death to anyone who approached them and touched it.[237.3] In Australia the relatives, especially the women, cover their heads with clay, or in some parts of West Australia with red mud.[237.4] The Warramunga women in the Northern Territory cover themselves from head to foot with pipeclay.[237.5] Among the Uriyas of India, whose women are particularly fond of gay colours, a widow wears a plain white borderless _sari_, or cloth, as {238} the sign of her bereavement.[238.1] The Man Cao Lan of Tonkin wear white garments not hemmed; and those of their women who have adopted the Annamite trousers recur to the native petticoat.[238.2]

The colours of the mourning garb vary widely. Dr Frazer has collected a considerable list, to which it is needless to add. Let it suffice to say that though emblematic colours are often used, the main principle, especially in the lower culture, is that just discussed of reversing, or wearing something quite distinctive from, the ordinary costume.

The condition of taboo occasioned by a death, it should be noted, is by no means limited to the death of a human being. Among the ancient Egyptians the Mendesians observed a great mourning on the death of a goat; and more generally when a cat died by a natural death everyone in the house shaved his eyebrows, while on the death of a dog the whole head and body were shaved. Both these and other animals were also accorded honours of burial in sacred tombs.[238.3] The native tribes of Manipur lay a _genna_, or taboo, upon the inmates of a house in which an animal dies or has young, especially a cow; and when a cat dies it is wrapped up in a cloth and buried amid lamentations in a grave dug for it by the old women.[238.4] To the Ibo-speaking peoples of Nigeria the leopard is a quasi-sacred animal. At Aguku the hunter who has killed it puts eagle-feathers in his hair and does no work for twenty-eight days: that is to say, he is under a taboo for a whole moon. At Ugwoba he may not go to {239} the Aǰana (the shrine of the earth) for a year; he must sit down without working for twenty-eight days, and may eat only such food as has been put in a pot and hung over the fire; he sleeps in a good house, and people watch lest other leopards come and kill him. On the twenty-eighth day, on taking the skin to market, sacrifices are offered to a certain tree, which is regarded as _ekwensu_, defined as the spirit of a man who has been killed with a rope or a knife, or of a woman who has died in pregnancy.[239.1] Such a death would be an evil death, and the ghost would be naturally inclined to make others suffer in the same way; but the sacrifices would perhaps conciliate him and induce him to turn his attention to an effectual protection of the sacrificer against the leopards’ vengeance.

Among the Herero of German South-West Africa to shed the blood of a lion is the same as to shed that of a human being; and he who kills a lion can only wash away the sin by the shedding of his own blood. This is done by scoring his breast and arm with a flint and dropping some of the blood upon the earth.[239.2] The Hidatsa of the North American prairies, after hunting eagles, build a sweat-lodge and purify themselves, singing a mystery-song or incantation.[239.3] The practice, in fact, is widespread. In some instances it may be explained by totemism or analogous beliefs. In any case there can be no doubt it is dictated by similar motives to those that lead to the taboo and mourning after the death of a human being.

The suggestion has been made that the change of {240} garb is intended as a disguise to deceive the spirit of the deceased, and so to shelter the mourner from its attacks. On the one hand, many tribes unquestionably adopt the same costume after killing an enemy as on the death of a friend. Among the Abarambos of Welle in the French Soudan, when a native kills another he blackens his face, girds himself with a grass cord and eats only raw bananas, to hinder the ghost from coming to kill him in his turn. The same rites are observed on the death of a husband or wife, with the addition that the survivor disappears for a time into the woods.[240.1]

But this is by no means the universal rule. Among the Nandi of East Africa the killing of an enemy entails quite a different garb from the death of a friend. “When a married man dies, his widows and unmarried daughters lay aside all their ornaments, and the eldest son wears his garment inside out”; and more or less shaving, according to their nearness in blood, is done by all the relatives. “On the death of a married woman her youngest daughter wears her garment inside out, whilst her other relations put rope on their ornaments [to hide them, a common practice where they cannot easily be taken off] and shave their heads. In the case of unmarried people the female relations cover their ornaments with rope, and the male relations shave their heads.” The killing of a Nandi, so far as appears, does not entail a change of costume, at least if the homicide belong to a different clan from his victim. It is merely the subject of vengeance, unless bought off by blood-money. Curiously enough, it does not even seem to render the guilty man “unclean,” as the killing of a member of his own {241} clan does. The latter indeed renders him “unclean for the rest of his life, unless he can succeed in killing two other Nandi of a different clan, and can pay the fine himself.” In the meantime, for aught that appears in Mr Hollis’ careful account of the Nandi, no change of costume is necessary beyond what other members of the clan must undergo on the death of a relation. The killing of a person belonging to another tribe--a person who is not a Nandi,--however, entails a stringent condition of taboo, yet it is a subject, not of blame like the killing of a Nandi, but of praise. The slayer “paints one side of his body, spear and sword red, and the other side white. For four days after the murder he is considered unclean, and may not go home. He has to build a small shelter by a river and live there; he must not associate with his wife or sweetheart, and he may only eat porridge, beef, and goat’s flesh. At the end of the fourth day he must purify himself by drinking a strong purge made from the bark of the segetet-tree, and by drinking goat’s milk mixed with bullock’s blood.”[241.1]

Other tribes in the east of Africa paint the man-killer. Masai warriors (from whom possibly the Nandi have taken over the custom), after returning victorious, paint the body in the manner just described.[241.2] Among the Borâna Galla, the conquerors who have slain an enemy, on returning, are washed by the women with a mixture of fat and milk, and their faces are painted red and white. After dirges over those who have fallen, the praises of the surviving heroes are sung, and the young warriors’ trophies are publicly buried outside the village. These trophies are portions of the bodies {242} of the slaughtered foes which cannot be conveniently preserved.[242.1] The washing is obviously a ceremonial purification. Apart from this the entire proceeding is one of triumph, and there is no indication of an attempt at concealment. In the Congo basin the Yaka warrior who kills a man in battle incurs the danger of reprisals on the part of the ghost. He can, however, escape by wearing the red tail-feathers of the parrot in his hair and painting his forehead red. Upon this it is to be observed that, as elsewhere, red is a favourite colour among the Bayaka. It is used for body-painting of both living and dead. The corpse is painted before burial; the dandy paints himself to increase his beauty; the widow is painted in mourning. The painting of the forehead can therefore hardly be a disguise. The tail-feathers of the parrot are probably an amulet.[242.2]

The Lillooet or the Ntlakapamux warrior of British Columbia who has slain a foe paints not merely his forehead but his entire face black. If he did not do so, it was believed that he would become blind; and in the case of the latter tribe we are told that “the spirit of {243} the victim would cause him to become blind.” Blindness for some reason is dreaded by these tribes after other deaths. Among the Lillooet a widower cuts his hair very short above his eyes and ears; “for if his hair touched the eyes he would become blind.” The cutting of the hair is, of course, a very common rite either in or at the conclusion of mourning. Among the Ntlakapamux, widows and widowers “rubbed four times across their eyes a small smooth stone taken from beneath running water, and then threw it away, praying that they might not become blind.”[243.1] Since widows and widowers are specially subject to the persecution of the deceased spouse, we may perhaps infer that the blindness in such cases would be attributable to the departed. A parity of reasoning would lead to the same conclusion in regard to the warrior’s victim. But how the painting of the face black would prevent such a catastrophe we are in the dark. For aught we know, it may have been (for instance) an expression of contrition designed to mollify the injured ghost. Mortuary ceremonies are almost everywhere so complicated that it is difficult to disentangle their motives. In the related tribe of the Skqomic all who follow the corpse in the burial procession must paint the breasts of their garments with red paint, else “a scarcity of fish would be the result at the next salmon run”; and the widow in addition is painted with red streaks on the crown of her head.[243.2] The fact is that painting oneself is a preparation for the footlights by no means confined to over-civilized peoples. It is so usual in the most varied stages of culture, from the lowest upwards, that we cannot safely pronounce it an attempt at disguise.

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A somewhat stronger case might perhaps be made for the garb of a company of Dyak head-hunters, if we could be sure that the ceremonies as described a few years ago by an eyewitness at the settlement of Tandjoeng-Karang, on the river Kapoeas, were intact. But when a rite is in decay, as head-hunting is, all sorts of variations are possible. The British and Dutch governments, now supreme in Borneo, with little regard for the most sacred feelings of their heathen subjects, positively forbid a custom intended to procure blessings for the community by the conversion of ancient foes into guardian spirits. Hence it is often necessary, instead of taking fresh heads, to put up with old ones and to make believe that they are new. For this purpose an expedition is sent forth on a mock-raid, carrying skulls of former victims with them, and bringing them back as if they were just acquired. When the expedition returns, it is received as if it were a successful war-party, and the ceremonies on the arrival of genuine head-hunters are performed. At Tandjoeng-Karang, on the occasion in question, these included dances in which both men and women took part. The men (who had been fasting, and were still under taboo) were clad in war-apparel. Skins of animals hung from their shoulders; feathers adorned their caps; and all wore on their wrists, arms and legs ornaments of withered palm-leaves, such as are distinctive of successful raiders. In addition, some had also shaved the front of the head and decked it with similar wreaths, so that the leaves hung down like fringes over the face. If this were intended as a disguise, it is curious that not all the raiders were thus shaven. Whether there was any reason why all did not share in this treatment of the head, or indeed what the palm-leaf ornament signified, it was not possible to ascertain. The observer was assured, however, {245} that the shaving was necessary in order to bring the fast to an end, and that in former days the shorn hair was thrown into the water with invocations to the spirits. Now it lay neglected where it fell. The day was concluded with feasting and further dances; but the men were not yet entirely relieved from their taboo. This was accomplished early the next morning with a bath in the river; and the slaughter of hogs and another feast brought the solemnity to a close.[245.1]

On the other hand, all supernatural beings are deceived and tricked with what are to us very transparent devices. The standard of intellect in the other world would seem to be much lower than in this. Even the spirits of Shakespeare and Milton, when conjured up in a spiritualistic _séance_, are found stripped of all their supreme qualities, and hardly the equals of the silly persons who have flocked to their manifestations. In Borneo it is recorded that “some Madang [a sub-tribe of the Kenyahs], who had crossed over from the Baram to the Rejang on a visit, appeared each with a cross marked in charcoal on his forehead. They supposed that by this means they were disguised beyond all recognition by evil spirits.” And Tama Bulan, a Kenyah chief, when on a visit to Kuching, discarded for the same reason the leopard’s teeth which he habitually wore at home through the upper part of his ears.[245.2] In the same island also the Kayans protect a child from an evil-disposed Toh, or inferior spirit, by a sooty mark on the forehead, consisting of a vertical median line and a horizontal band above the eyebrows, which is thought to render it difficult for the Toh to recognize his victim.[245.3]

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This facility of deception, it may be observed, extends to other senses than that of sight. It is accountable for the taboo of words and the use of euphemisms in hunting and on other occasions. The poor silly spirits will not be able to penetrate the disguise. In the north-east of Scotland the fishermen when at sea never pronounced the words _minister_, _kirk_, _swine_, _salmon_, _trout_, _dog_, and so on, but used other words or phrases instead, such as “bell-hoose” for _kirk_, or “the man wi’ the black quyte” for _minister_.[246.1] The people of Mulera-Ruanda in German East Africa have a definite theory to account for such a practice. They hold that the spirits have indeed ears and can hear what is said, but they have no eyes. Consequently when a householder proposes on some solemn occasion, as a betrothal, to sacrifice an animal, he directs the slave to go to the hill and fetch the thickest sweet potato for a feast, meaning a fat goat from the herd. This goat he then offers to his ancestors, calling it an ox; for the spirits will not be able to detect the cheat.[246.2] Like Isaac in the Hebrew story, they are blind, and “what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve at,” as our English proverb has it: they can be thus deceived into giving their blessing in return for a trifling gratification.

Yet it may be doubted whether the cases alleged by Professor Frazer in the important paper to which reference has been made, as favouring the opinion that mourning clothes are a disguise, are not susceptible of a different interpretation. So inconclusive did he himself think the evidence that he refrained from definitely committing himself to the opinion in question, though others have since done so. The custom of painting the face and body in mourning is so common that it is at least remarkable that the tribes of Borneo, who disguise {247} themselves, as we have seen, from hostile spirits with charcoal, do not seem to attempt this defence against the peevish ghost of a newly deceased person. They content themselves with wearing bark-cloth or clothes stained yellow with clay, with allowing the hair to grow where it is usually shaved, or shaving it where it usually grows, and with laying aside personal ornaments or substituting for the metal earrings commonly worn by the women a wooden makeshift.[247.1] In this way they may be said to conform to the rule already discussed of reversing the ordinary costume.

A Bohemian custom required the mourners to put on masks and to practise strange behaviour on their return from the funeral. It may be conjectured that this was a dance or devil-drive, intended to expel, not to deceive. Such dances are not uncommon, both at periodical purification ceremonies[247.2] and on the occasion of a death. The use of masks at funeral dances of this kind has been reported, for example, in recent years among the Bantu-speaking peoples of the prairie-land in the interior of the Kamerun. At these dances wooden masks in the likeness of lower animals as well as of human beings are worn; and two of the latter, hideous enough to horrify any respectable ghost, are figured by the German explorer who discovered them.[247.3] More recently another German explorer has found, on the Upper Aiary in the interior of Brazil, mourning-dances of a similar character, in which masks were used representing various animals and demons, and has given figures from photographs of the dancers, as well as a lively description of one of the dances which he witnessed. This dance began with an attack on the {248} Maloka, or community-house, by a troop of evil spirits, who eventually succeeded in storming it. The mother and widow of the dead man wailed. The attacking party, having forced an entrance, sang. The women were terrified, but the scene ended in weeping and laughter. It was followed by dances and songs by the various animals; and the performance was concluded by a phallic dance--a pantomime of the process of reproduction. The meaning of the masque, the explorer declares, was clear. It was a magic ritual intended to propitiate the angry ghost of the deceased, that he might not return and carry off any of the survivors. The evil demons, to whose charge perhaps the death was laid, and from whose spite mankind is never safe, would by the performance be hindered from further mischief. Mákukö (the forest-demon) and the jaguar, foes of the hunter, the spoilers of the crops (worms, larvæ, and other vermin), and likewise the game itself were meant, by the mimicry of their various proceedings, to be magically influenced and rendered favourable to men, so that rich booty, large harvests, and every sort of fertility and blessing would result.[248.1]

If it be objected that a mask is by its very nature intended to deceive, we must not forget that that is very often not its primary object. A nurse in play with a child will sometimes put on a mask for an instant. She does so not to deceive the child as to her identity, but to cause a momentary terror. So the horrible distortions of the human countenance, the wild, the grotesque, the impossible mingling of human and bestial features characteristic of many of the masks used in these dances, are often intended rather to terrify than to deceive the supernatural beings against whom the performance is directed. {249} A warrior going to battle decks himself out with paint and feathers, with helmet and grinning crest, in order to strike fear into the heart of his foe. Spirits are as easily frightened as human beings. Indeed, happily for the comfort of mankind, they are possessed of uncommonly weak nerves which fail them, with all their malevolence, at every turn. All that is necessary is for the man who knows how to deal with them to put on a bold front, and they will flee before him.

Professor de Groot, writing of the war against spectres in China, says: “A courageous man while boldly fighting, or trying to terrify by aggressive gestures, easily gets his hair disordered. Therefore flowing hair intimates intrepidity, and cannot fail to inspire the spectral world with fear.… This idea has not only formed the text of old traditions, but as early as the Han dynasty had created the custom of setting up long-haired heads, in order to drive away spectres. No wonder that to this day long-haired exorcists assuming this terrifying aspect, and enhancing it by weapons brandished with vigour, are everyday appearances also in spectre-expelling processions. Accoutrements,” he goes on to say, “have been worn with the same object since early times. Before the Christian era, the _fang-siang_, while purifying grave-pits, houses, and streets, were dressed with bearskins and masked with grotesque caps; and under the Han dynasty persons masked as animals, feathered, haired and horned, accompanied them in exorcising processions, jumping about and screaming. Probably such exorcists have appeared in all ages at funerals. Even to this day… _fang-siang_ are seen therein in the shape of effigies.”[249.1]

But masked personages in many mourning-dances represent the ghosts themselves. In the islands of Torres {250} Straits, for example, such representations are an indispensable part of the funeral ceremonies, and the identity of the ghost is “indicated by a pantomimic representation of characteristic traits of the deceased. The idea,” says Dr Haddon, “evidently was to convey to the mourners the assurance that the ghost was alive and that in the person of the dancer he visited his friends; the assurance of his life after death comforted the bereaved ones.”[250.1] The identification of the performer with the deceased is among some peoples complete. Thirty days after the death of an adult Musquakie Indian the dead man is personated by a friend, who in this character attends a farewell feast preparatory to the final departure of the ghost for the Happy Hunting Grounds. He is called the ghost-carrier. When the sun goes down he departs toward the west, convoyed by a number of the friends of the deceased, all of whom, like himself, are painted but not masked. After nightfall they return and are welcomed as from a long journey. The ghost-carrier is by everyone addressed by the name of the deceased. In a few days he visits the parents of the deceased, if they survive, announcing himself as their dead son, who would care for them in their old age. He is henceforth looked upon as their son, called by that son’s name, and pledged to a son’s duty to them, though his own parents do not necessarily give him up and still call him by his own name. Similar ceremonies are performed for women by women.[250.2] In fact the performer who represents a supernatural being in a religious dance of any kind is quite commonly regarded not as a representative, but as the supernatural personage himself, so long as he wears the mask and bears his attributes. So an author already quoted, writing of the {251} Indians of North-Western Brazil, says: “The demon is involved in the mask, is incorporated in it; the mask is for the Indian the demon himself.… The demon of the mask passes over into the masquer for the time being.”[251.1] The masked dances of these Indians are performed especially in honour of the dead. The masks therefore are intended to deceive nobody, not even the recently deceased, who as a new arrival in the other world may be “a babe in these things.” The masquers are the demons _in propriis personis_ without any deceit.