Part 7

The “ability to restore the dead to life” is probably a reference to the Egyptian ritual of “the opening of the mouth,” which of course is an integral part of the funerary procedure incidental to the practice of mummification.

“The Nagas occupy a very prominent position in connection with Indian astronomy, and this is not likely to have been assigned to them, by their Brahmanical rivals, without good reason. Probably this and other branches of science were brought, by the Asuras, from their ancient home in the countries between the Kaspian and the Persian Gulf.

“The close relationship between the Indian and the Chaldean astronomical systems has been frequently noticed.

“The sun-worship of the Asuras; their holding sacred the Naga or hooded serpent, sometimes represented with many heads; their deification of kings and ancestors; their veneration of the cedar; their religious dances; their sacrificial rights; their communication with the deities through the medium of inspired prophets; their occasional tendency towards democratic institutions; their use of tribal emblems or totems—and many of their social customs; seem to connect them with that very early civilization—Turanian or otherwise—which we find amongst so many of the peoples of extreme antiquity. They had, in fact, much in common with the early inhabitants of Babylonia; and, perhaps, even more with those of Elam and the neighbouring countries.

“We shall see later that the Asuras and the Dravidians were, apparently, the same people.”

“Not only were the Asuras or Nagas a civilized people, but they were a maritime power. Holding both banks of the great river Indus, they must have had access to the sea from a very early period. Their kinship, too, with the serpent-worshipping people of ancient Media, and the neighbouring countries, which has already been referred to, must have led to a very early development of trade with the Persian Gulf.

“The Asuras were actively engaged in ‘The Churning of the Ocean’ (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xviii.), which is but an allegorical description of sea-borne commerce in its early days” (_op. cit._, p. 58).

“In the _Mahabharata_, the ocean is described as the habitation of the Nagas and the residence of the Asuras; it is also said to be the refuge of the defeated Asuras (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xxii.). This was no doubt because marauding bands of this people retreated to their ships after an unsuccessful raid. Thus we find that on the death of Vrita, his followers took refuge in the sea (_Mahabharata_, _Vana_, _Tirthayatra_, p. ciii.). So also did the Asura Panchajana, who lived in Patala, when he was pursued by Krishna (_Vishnu Parana_, v., xxi., 526). And so did the Danavas when defeated by the Devas at the churning of the ocean (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xix.).”

“An ancient legend, given in the _Mahabharata_, relates how Kadru, mother of the serpents, compelled Garuda to convey her sons across the sea into a beautiful country in a distant region, which was inhabited by Nagas. After encountering a violent storm and great heat, the sons of Karur were landed in the country of Ramaniaka, on the Malabar coast.”

“This territory had been occupied previously by a fierce Asura named Lavana (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xxvii.). So there had been a still earlier colonization by the same race.”

“Naga chiefs are frequently mentioned as ruling countries in or under the sea” (p. 61).

“The civilization of Burmah, and other Indo-Chinese countries, is ascribed by legend and by the native historians to invaders from India. And these are connected with the Naga People of Magadha, and of the north and west of India. The ancient navigators, too, who carried the Brahmanical and Buddhist religions, the worship of the Naga, and the Sanscrit or Pali language to Java, Sumatra, and even to distant Celebes, were Indian people. And they were, doubtless, descendants of those Asura dwellers in the ocean, which are mentioned in the _Mahabharata_, and have already been referred to” (p. 166).

“Another proof of the ancient connection of these islands with India is that the Javan era is the Saka-kala, which is so well known, and is still in use in parts of Western India and in the Himalaya. According to a Javan tradition an expedition from India, led by a son of the king of Kujrat (Gujrat), arrived on the west coast of the island about A.D. 603. A settlement was founded, and the town of Mendan Kamalan was built. Other Hindus followed, and a great trade was established with the ports of India and other countries (Raffles, Hist. Java, ii., 83). There is however no reason to suppose that this was the first arrival of Indian voyagers in the Archipelago.

“Traditions still remain in Western India of expeditions to Java. A Guzerati proverb runs thus: ‘He who goes to Java never comes back; but if he does return, his descendants, for seven generations, live at ease’ (_Bombay Gazetter_, i., 402). The bards in Marwar have a legend that Bhoj raja, the great puar chief of Ujaini, in anger drove away his son Chandrabhan, who sailed to Java (_Ib._, i., 448).

“Evidence brought forward by Mr. Kennedy (_J. R. A. S._, April, 1898) shows that a great sea-borne trade was carried on from Indian ports by Dravidian merchants as early as the seventh century B.C. The beginnings of Dravidian navigation, however, were probably much earlier than this.

“We have seen that the sea-borne commerce of the Solar or Naga tribes of Western India had become important at a very early period. Of this the legend of ‘the churning of the ocean’ already referred to is an allegorical description, but we have no detailed account of ocean voyages until a much later period. Sakya Buddha himself, however, refers to such voyages. He says: ‘Long ago ocean going merchants were wont to plunge forth upon the sea, taking with them a shore-sighting bird. When the ship was out of sight of land they would set the shore-sighting bird free. And it would go to the east and to the south and to the west and to the north and to the intermediate points and rise aloft. If on the horizon it caught sight of land, thither it would go. But if not then it would come back to the ship again’ (Rhys Davids, _J. R. A. S._, April, 1899, 432).

“It will be observed that this mode of finding the position of the ship at sea, which recalls the sending out of the birds from the Ark, is said to have been the custom ‘long ago.’ It would seem therefore, that in the fifth century B.C. other and probably more scientific methods were in use. It would also appear that the navigation of the ocean was even then an ancient institution.

“In the time of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fah Hian (about 406 A.D.) there was a regular and evidently old-established trade between India and China and with the islands of the Archipelago.

“Fah Hian sailed from Tamalitti, or Tamralipti, at the mouth of the Ganges, in a great merchant ship, and in fourteen days reached Ceylon (Fo-Kwo-ki, Beal., I, lxxi, lxxii.). From thence he sailed in a great ship which carried about two hundred men, and which was navigated by observing the sun, moon and stars. In this ship Fah Hian reached Ye-po-ti (probably Java) in which country heretics and Brahmans flourished, but the law of Buddha was not much known (_Ib._, I, lxxx.). Here the pilgrim embarked for China on board another ship carrying two hundred men, amongst whom were Brahmans. These proposed to treat the sramana as Jonah was treated, and for the same reason, but some of those on board took his part. At length when their provisions were nearly exhausted, they reached China (_Ib._, I, lxxxi., lxxxii.). All these ships appear to have been Indian and not Chinese.

“Fah Hian mentions that pirates were numerous in those seas (_Ib._, I, lxxx.), which shows that the commerce must have been considerable” (p. 171).

“It seems in the highest degree improbable that this close connection between the Sun and the serpent could have originated, independently, in countries so far apart as China and the West of Africa, or India and Peru. And it seems scarcely possible that, in addition to this, the same forms of worship of these deities, and the same ritual, could have arisen, spontaneously, amongst each of these far distant peoples. The alternative appears to be that the combined worship of the Sun and serpent-gods must have spread from a common centre, by the migration of, or communication with, the people who claimed Solar descent.

“So universally was the Naga held sacred, that it would seem to have been the earliest totem of the people who claimed descent from the Sun-god” (p. 183).

I have quoted so extensively from Oldham’s fascinating work because the conclusions at which he arrived from a study of the ancient literature of India is confirmed by evidence derived from utterly different sources, not only from India itself but also from other countries. For, scattered throughout the length and breadth of India, are to be found thousands of indications (in traditions, beliefs, customs, social organisation and material relics) that the complete “heliolithic” culture had reached India not later than the beginning of the seventh century B.C.

Moreover the evidence which I have culled from Oldham bears out the conclusions my own investigations lead up to, namely, that the “heliolithic” culture spread from India to Malaysia soon after it reached India itself. It is surely something more than a mere coincidence that the period of the greatest maritime exploits of the Phœnicians, in the course of which, according to many authorities, they reached India or even further east, should coincide with that of the great pre-Aryan maritime race of India, whose great expeditions, as the above quotations indicate, were primarily for purposes of commerce between the Persian Gulf and the West Coast of India. There is gradually accumulating a considerable mass of evidence to suggest that, if the Asuras were not themselves Phœnicians, they acquired their maritime skill from these famous sailors and traders. The same hardy mariners who brought the new knowledge and practices from the Persian Gulf to India and Ceylon also carried it further, to Burma and Indonesia.

That this is so is clearly shown by the fact that these customs spread to Indonesia and the Pacific _before_ cremation was introduced; and it has been indicated above that the introduction of the practice of cremation into India may have taken place within a century of the arrival of the “heliolithic” civilization there. Hence it is obvious that the latter must have spread to the far east soon after it reached India; and the completeness of the transmission of the distinctive culture-complex can be explained only by supposing that the same people who brought it to India also carried it further east.

All the other evidence at our disposal is in full harmony with this view. The advancing wave of western culture swept past India into Indonesia, carrying into the isles of the Pacific and on to the American littoral the products of the older civilizations at first almost, but not altogether, untainted by Indian influence; but for centuries afterwards, as this same ferment gradually leavened the vast bulk of India, the stream of western culture continued to percolate eastwards and carried with it in succession the influence of the Brahmanical, Buddhist and, within in a more restricted area, Mahometan cults.

It is an interesting confirmation of the general accuracy of the scheme that has now been sketched out that the dates at which the influence of Egypt began to be exerted in the east, that to which Rhys Davids assigns the definite influencing of India by Babylonia, that at which India influenced Malaysia, and finally that assigned by students of the Polynesian problem to the inauguration of the great Indonesian migration into the Pacific (=60= and =98=), all fit into one consecutive series, though each was determined from different kinds of evidence and independently of the rest.

It is not my intention to discuss the evidence for the coming of the “heliolithic” culture to Indonesia, for the complex problems of this region have been analysed and interpreted in a masterly fashion by W. J. Perry in a book which is shortly to be published. The form which my present communication has assumed is largely the outcome of the reading of Perry’s manuscript and of discussions with him of the new lines of investigation which it suggested; and I am satisfied to leave this region for him to elucidate in detail. It will suffice to say here that the traditions of the inhabitants of the various islands of Malaysia, no less than their heterogeneous customs and beliefs, provided him with very precise evidence in demonstration of the complex constitution of the “heliolithic” culture, and of the fact that it was brought to the islands by an immigration from the west.

There is less need for me to analyse the vast literature relating to the burial practices in the islands of the Malay Archipelago since this useful service has already been accomplished by Hertz (=33=). Although I dissent from the main contention in his interpretation of the facts, his accurate record is none the less valuable on that account—perhaps indeed it is more useful, as it certainly cannot be accused of bias in favour of the views I am expounding.

A great variety of burial customs, in most respects closely analogous to the practices of the Naga tribes of India, is found in Indonesia;—exposing the dead on trees or platforms, burial in hollow trees, smoking and other methods of preservation, temporary burial, and cremation.

Apart from the definite evidence of preservation of the dead found in scattered islands from one end of the Archipelago to the other, there are much more generally diffused practices which are unquestionably derived from the former custom of mummification.

In the account of mummification as practised in the more savage African tribes, it was seen that the practice was restricted in most cases to the bodies of kings; and even then the failure to preserve the body in a permanent manner compelled these peoples to modify the Egyptian methods. Realising that the corpse, even when preserved as efficiently as they were able to perform the work of embalming, would undergo a process of disintegration within a few months, it became the practice to rescue the skull, to which special importance was attached (for the definite reasons explained by the early Egyptian evidence).

In his survey Hertz (=33=, p. 66) calls attention to the widespread custom of temporary burial throughout Indonesia, but, instead of recognising that such procedures have come into vogue as a degradation of the full rites incidental to mummification, he regards it as part of a widespread “notion que les derniers rites funéraires ne peuvent pas être célébrés de suite après la mort, mais seulement à l’expiration d’une période plus on moins longue” (p. 66); and regards mummification simply as a specialised form of this rite which is almost universal (p. 67):—“il paraît légitime de considérer la momification comme un cas particulier et dérivé de la sépulture provisoire.” (p. 69). This is a remarkable inversion of the true explanation. For the enormous mass of evidence which is now available makes it quite certain that the practice of temporary burial was adopted only when failure (or the risk of failure) to preserve the body compelled less cultured people to desist from the complete process.

I am in full agreement with Hertz when he says:—“L’homologie entre la préservation artificielle du cadavre et la simple exposition temporaire paraîtra moins difficile à admettre si l’on tient compte du fait qui sera mis en lumière plus bas: les ossements secs, résidu de la décomposition, constituent pour le mort un corps incorruptible, absolument comme la momie.” (p. 69). But does not this entirely bear out my contention? It is quite inconceivable that the practice of mummification could have been derived from the custom of preparing the skeleton; but the reverse is quite a natural transition, for even in the hands of skilled embalmers (see especially =39=), not to mention untutored savage peoples, the measures taken for preserving the body may fail and the skeleton alone may be spared. If this contention be conceded, the demonstration given by Hertz of the remarkable geographical distribution of customs of temporary burial affords a most valuable confirmation of the general scheme of the present communication. “Au point de vue où, nous sommes placés, il y a homologie rigoureuse entre l’exposition du cadavre sur les branches d’un arbre, telle que la pratiquent les tribus du centre de l’Australie, ou à l’intèrieur de la maison des vivants, comme cela se rencontre chez certains Papous et chez quelques peuples Bantous, ou sur une plateforme élevée à dessein, ainsi que le font en général les Polynésiens et de nombreuses tribus indiennes de l’Amérique du Nord, ou enfin l’enterrement provisoire, observé en particulier par la plupart des Indiens de l’Amérique du Sud” (p. 67). There can be no doubt whatever of the justice of this “homology,” for in every one of the areas mentioned these customs exist side by side with the practice of mummification; and in many cases there is definite evidence to show that the other methods of treatment have been derived from it by a process of degradation. In his excellent bibliography, and especially the illuminating footnotes, Hertz gives a number of references to the practice of desiccation by smoking or simple forms of embalming, which had escaped me in my search for information on these matters. He refers especially to further instances of such practices in Australia, New Guinea, various parts of West Africa, Madagascar and America (p. 68).

An interesting reference in the same note (p. 68, footnote 5) is to the practice of simple embalming among the Ainos of Sakhalin (Preuss, _Begräbnisarten der Amerikaner_, p. 190). This seems to supply an important link between the Eastern Asiatic littoral and the Aleutian Islands, where mummification is practised. In Saghalien, according to St. John (“The Ainos,” _Journ. Anthropol. Inst._, Vol. II., 1873, p. 253), “when the chief of a tribe or village died, his body was laid out on a table close to the door of his hut; his entrails were then removed, and daily for twelve months his wife and daughters wash him thoroughly. He is allowed ... to dry in the sun.”

In a recent article on the customs of the people of Laos (G. Maupetit, “Moeurs laotiennes,” _Bull. et Mem. de la Soc. d’ Anthropol. de Paris_, 1913), an account is given of the practice of mummification in this far south-eastern corner of the Asiatic mainland. Cremation is the regular means adopted for disposal of the dead: but it is also “the Laotian’s ideal to be able to preserve the corpse in his house, for as long a time as possible, before incinerating it: in the same way the Siamese and Chinese keep their dead in the house for several months, often for several years” (p. 549).

According to Maupetit the method of preservation is a most remarkable one. They pour from 75 to 300 grammes of mercury into the mouth! “It passes along the alimentary canal and suffices to produce mummification, the rapid desiccation of the organic tissues.” Then the body was stretched upon a thick bed of melted wax, wood ashes, cloth and cushions.

The great stream of “heliolithic” culture exerted a profound influence upon and played a large part in shaping the peculiar civilizations of China, Corea, and Japan. As the practice of embalming does not play an obtrusive part[15] in this influence, I do not propose (in the present communication) to enter upon the discussion of these matters, except to note in passing that the influence exerted by the “heliolithic” culture upon the Pacific coast of America may have been exerted partly by the East Asiatic-Aleutian route (see _Map II._).

The disgusting practice of collecting the fluids which drip from the putrefying corpse and mixing them with the food for the living occurs in Indonesia, in New Guinea and the neighbouring islands, in Melanesia, Polynesia and in Madagascar (for the bibliographical references see Hertz, p. 83, footnote 3).

The Indonesian methods of preserving the dead are found in Seram (W. J. Perry), and the report recently published by Lorenz[16] (=43=, p. 22) records a similar practice in the neighbourhood of Doré Bay in North-West New Guinea. The corpse was tied to the rafter of the dwelling-house; and the practice of mixing the juices of decomposition with the food is in vogue also. The accounts given by D’Albertis (=1=) and other travellers show that analogous customs are found at other places in New Guinea. There can be no doubt that the practice spread along the north coast of the island and then around its eastern extremity to reach the islands of the Torres Straits, where the practice is seen in its fully developed form, as Flower (=19=), Haddon and Myers (=25=), and Hamlyn-Harris (=27=) have described.

As I have already referred to Papuan mummies earlier in this communication and at some future time intend to devote a special memoir to the full discussion of the methods of the Torres Straits embalmers, I shall not go into the matter in detail here. I should like, however, to call special attention to the admirable account given by Haddon and Myers (=25=) of the associated funeral rites.

In his memoir Flower described two interesting mummies, then in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, one “brought in 1872 from Darnley Island in Torres Strait by Mr. Charles Lemaistre, Captain of the French barque ‘Victorine,’ and the other, an Australian mummy, obtained in 1845 near Adelaide, by Sir George Grey.” By a curious and utterly incomprehensible act of vandalism these extremely rare and priceless ethnological specimens were deliberately destroyed by Sir William Flower, who naively explains his extraordinary action by the statement “as the skeleton will form a more instructive specimen when the dried and decaying integuments are removed I have had it cleaned” (p. 393)! He treated in the same manner the second mummy, the only example of its kind, so far as I am aware, in this country! His photographs show that these two specimens, so far from being “decaying,” were in a remarkably good state of preservation at the time he doomed them to destruction.

Captain Lemaistre found the Torres Strait mummy “in its grave, which consisted of a high straw and bamboo hut of round form: it was not lying down, but standing up on the stretcher” (=19=, p. 389). This is a close parallel to the African customs—mummification, burial in a house of round form, and fixing the corpse to a rough form of funeral bier, which is stood up in the house.

The skin was painted red, the scalp black. “The sockets of the eyes were filled with a dark brown substance, apparently a vegetable gum.... In this was imbedded a narrow oval piece of mother of pearl, pointed at each end, in the centre of the anterior surface of which is fixed a round mass of the same resinous substance, representing the pupil of the eye” (p. 301).

“Both nostrils had been distended.”

“In the right flank was a longitudinal incision, 3½ inches in length, extending between the last rib and the crest of the ilium. This had been very neatly closed by what is called in surgery the interrupted suture.... The whole of the pelvic, abdominal and thoracic viscera had been removed, and their place was occupied by four pieces of very soft wood.... Except the wound in the flank, there was no other opening or injury to the skin” (p. 391).