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.