Loe raamatut: «The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)», lehekülg 16
CHAPTER IV
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE HERVEY ISLANDERS
§ 1. The Hervey or Cook Islands
The Hervey or Cook Archipelago is a scattered group of nine small islands situated in the South Pacific about seven hundred miles south-east of Samoa. The islands are either volcanic or coralline, and approach to them is impeded by dangerous reefs and the absence of harbours.547 The two principal islands are Rarotonga and Mangaia, the most southerly of the group. Of these the larger, Rarotonga, has a circumference of about thirty miles. It is a vast mass of volcanic mountains, rising peak above peak, to a height of between four and five thousand feet above the sea; but from the foot of the mountains a stretch of flat land, covered with rich alluvial soil, extends for one or two miles to the coast, which is formed by a fringing reef of live coral. The whole island is mantled in luxuriant tropical verdure. It is difficult, we are told, to exaggerate the strange forms of beauty which everywhere meet the eye in this lovely island: gigantic and fantastic columns of rock draped with vines; deep valleys lying in the shadow of overhanging mountains; primaeval forest with its many shades of green; immense chestnut trees, laden with fragrant blossoms; miles of bread-fruit groves, intermingled with coco-nut palms; and nearer the beach plantains, bananas, sweet potatoes, and lastly, growing to the water's edge, graceful iron-wood trees with hair-like leaves drooping like tresses, all contribute to the variety and charm of the scenery.548
Very different is the aspect of Mangaia. It is a complete coral island rising from deep water as a ring of live coral; there is no lagoon. A few hundred yards inland from the rugged beach there rises gradually a second or inner ring of dead coral, which towards the interior falls away perpendicularly, thus surrounding the island like a cyclopean wall. This belt or bulwark of dead coral is from one to two miles wide. To cross it is like walking on spear-points: to slip and fall on it may entail ghastly wounds. The streams of water from the interior find their way through it to the sea by subterranean channels. Imbedded in the highest parts of this inland reef of coral are many sea-shells of existing species, and it is honeycombed with many extensive caves, which were formerly used as dwellings, cemeteries, places of refuge, or storehouses. Scores of them are filled with desiccated human bodies. So vast are they that it is dangerous to venture alone into their recesses; the forlorn wanderer might never emerge from them again. Some of them are said to penetrate far under the bed of the ocean. In these caverns stalactite and stalagmite abound, forming thick and fast-growing layers of limestone rock. The largest and most famous of the caves is known as the Labyrinth (Tuatini). The interior of the island is formed of dark volcanic rock and red clay, descending in low hills from a flat-topped centre, called the Crown of Mangaia. The summit is not more than six hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea.549
§ 2. The Islanders and their Mode of Life
Though the natives speak a Polynesian language closely akin to the Samoan and have legends of their migration from Samoa, they appear not to be pure Polynesians. They say that they found black people on Rarotonga; and their more pronounced features, more wavy hair, darker complexion, and more energetic character seem to indicate an admixture of Melanesian blood. In Mangaia, indeed, this type is said to predominate, the natives of that island being characterised by dusky brown skin, wavy or frizzly hair, and ample beards: their features, too, are more prominent than those of the Rarotongans, and their manners are wilder.550 Cannibalism prevailed in most of the islands of the group down to the conversion of the natives to Christianity, which took place between 1823 and 1834, when, with the exception of a few pagans in Mangaia, there did not remain a single idolater, or vestige of idolatry, in any one of the islands. However, many years afterwards old men, who had partaken of cannibal feasts, assured a missionary that human flesh was far superior to pork.551
In the larger islands the natives cultivated the soil diligently even before their contact with Europeans. The missionary John Williams, who discovered Rarotonga in 1823, found the island in a high state of cultivation. Rows of superb chestnut trees (inocarpus), planted at equal distances, stretched from the base of the mountains to the sea, while the spaces between the rows, some half a mile wide, were divided into taro patches, each about half an acre in extent, carefully banked up and capable of being irrigated at pleasure. On the tops of the banks grew fine bread-fruit trees placed at equal intervals, their stately foliage presenting a pleasing contrast to the pea-green leaves of the ordinary taro and the dark colour of the giant taro (kape) in the beds and on the sloping banks beneath.552 In Rarotonga bread-fruit and plantains are the staple food; in Mangaia it is taro. On the atolls the coco-nut palm flourishes, but no planting can be done, as the soil consists of sand and gravel thrown up by the sea on the ever-growing coral. The inhabitants of the atolls live contentedly on coco-nuts and fish; they are expert fishermen, having little else to do. But fresh fish are also eaten in large quantities on most of the islands.553 In some of the islands the planting was done by the women, but in others, including Rarotonga, the taro was both planted and brought home by the men. Women cooked the food in ovens of hot stones sunk in holes, and they made cloth from the bark of the paper-mulberry, which they stripped from the tree, steeped in water, and beat out with square mallets of iron-wood. But garments were made also from the inner bark of the banyan and bread-fruit trees.554 In the old days the native houses were flimsy quadrangular huts constructed of reeds and thatched with plaited leaflets of the coco-nut palm, which were very pervious to rain; but the temples and large houses of chiefs were thatched with pandanus leaves. The doors were always sliding; the threshold was made of a single block of timber, tastefully carved. There was a sacred and a common entrance.555 Like all the Polynesians, the Hervey Islanders before their discovery were ignorant of the metals. When in a wrecked vessel they found a bag of Californian gold, they thought it was something good to eat and proceeded to cook the nuggets in order to make them juicy and tender.556
§ 3. Social Life: the Sacred Kings
The people were divided into tribes or clans, each tracing descent in the male line from a common ancestor, and each possessing its own lands, which were inalienable. Exogamy, we are told, was the universal rule in the olden time; but when a tribe was split up in war, the defeated portion was treated as an alien tribe. Polygamy was very common, and was not restricted to chiefs. A man often had two or three sisters to wife at the same time. Distant cousins sometimes, though rarely, married each other; but in such cases they had to belong to the same generation; that is, they must be descended in the same degree, fourth, fifth, or even more remote, from the common ancestor. If misfortune or disease overtook couples linked even by so distant a relationship, the elders would declare that it was brought upon them by the anger of the clan-god. It was the duty of parents to teach their growing children whom they might lawfully marry, but their choice was extremely limited. Children as a rule belonged to the tribe or clan of their father, unless they were adopted into another. However, parents had it at their option to assign a child at birth either to the tribe of its father or to the tribe of its mother; this they did by pronouncing over the infant the name either of the father's or of the mother's god. Commonly the father had the preference; but occasionally, when the father's tribe was one from which human victims for sacrifice were regularly drawn, the mother would seek to save the child's life by having the name of her tribal god pronounced over it and so adopting it into her own tribe.557 Circumcision in an imperfect form was practised in the Hervey Islands from time immemorial. It was usually performed on a youth about the age of sixteen. The operation was indispensable to marriage. No woman would knowingly marry an uncircumcised husband. The greatest insult that could be offered to a man was to accuse him of being uncircumcised. The rite is said to have been invented by the god Rongo in order to seduce the beautiful wife of his brother Tangaroa, and he enjoined the observance of circumcision upon his worshippers.558 In Rarotonga it was customary to mould a child's head into a high shape by pressing the forehead and the back of the head between slabs of soft wood. This practice did not obtain on Mangaia nor, apparently, on any other island of the Hervey Group.559
In Rarotonga four ranks of society were recognised. These were the ariki, or king; the mataiapo, or governors of districts; the rangatira, or landowners; and the unga, or tenants. A man was accounted great according to the number of his kaingas or farms, which contained from one to five acres. These were let to tenants, who, like vassals under the feudal system, obeyed the orders of their superior, assisted him in erecting his house, in building his canoe, in making fishing-nets, and in other occupations, besides bringing him a certain portion of the produce of his lands.560
The kings were sacred men, being regarded as priests and mouthpieces of the great tutelary divinities.561 In Mangaia they were the priests or mouthpieces of the great god Rongo. So sacred were their royal persons that no part of their body might be tattooed: they might not take part in dances or in actual warfare. Peace could not be proclaimed nor blood spilt lawfully without the consent of the king speaking in the name of the god Rongo. Quite distinct from, and subordinate to, the sacred king was the "lord of Mangaia," a warrior chief who gained his lordship by a decisive victory. He represented the civil power, while the king represented the spiritual power; but while the office of the king was hereditary, the office of the civil lord was not. It sometimes happened that the civil lord was at enmity with the king of his day. In that case the king would refuse to complete the ceremonies necessary for his formal investiture; life would remain unsafe; the soil could not be cultivated, and famine soon ensued. This state of turbulence and misery might last for years, till the obnoxious chief had been in his turn despatched, and a more agreeable successor appointed.562 Thus the sacred king and the civil lord corresponded to the Tooitonga or sacred chief and the civil king of Tonga.563
§ 4. Religion, the Gods, Traces of Totemism
Yet though the king of Mangaia ranked above the civil or temporal lord, it devolved on that lord to install a new king in office by formally seating him on "the sacred sandstone" (te kea inamoa) in the sanctuary or sacred grove (marae)564 of Rongo on the sea-shore facing the setting sun. The ceremony took place in presence of the leading under-chiefs. The special duty of the king was by offering rhythmical and very ancient prayers to Great Rongo to keep away evil-minded spirits who might otherwise injure the island. For this end the principal king (te ariki pa uta) lived in the interior of the island in the sacred and fertile district of Keia. His prayers were thought to avert evil spirits coming from the east. On the barren sea-shore at O-rongo (the seat of the temple or grove of Rongo) lived the secondary king (te ariki pa tai), who warded off bad spirits coming from the west. Besides this primary ghostly function, many other important duties devolved upon these royal personages. The secondary or shore king was not infrequently a natural son of the great inland king. By virtue of their office all kings were high priests of Rongo, the tutelary god of Mangaia.565
But Rongo was not peculiar to the Hervey Islands. He was a great Polynesian deity worshipped in almost every part of the Pacific, and though his attributes differed greatly in different places, a universal reverence was paid to him. In the Hervey Islands, he and his twin brother Tangaroa were deemed the children of Vatea, the eldest of the primary gods, a being half man and half fish, whose eyes are the sun and the moon. The wife of this monstrous deity and mother of the divine twins was Papa, whose name signifies Foundation and who was supposed to be a daughter of Timatekore or "Nothing-more." The twin Tangaroa, another great Polynesian deity, was specially honoured in Rarotonga and Aitutaki, another of the Hervey Islands.566 The famous Polynesian hero Maui was also well known in the Hervey Islands, where people told how he had brought up the first fire to men from the under world, having there wrested it from the fire-god Mauike;567 how he raised the sky – a solid vault of blue stone – to its present height, for of old the sky almost touched the earth, so that people could not walk upright;568 and finally how he caught the great sun-god Ra himself in six nooses made of strong coco-nut fibre, so that the motions of the orb of day, which before had been extremely irregular, have been most orderly ever since.569
But besides the divine or heroic figures of more or less anthropomorphic type, which the Hervey Islanders recognised in common with the rest of the Polynesians, we may distinguish in their mythology traces of that other and probably older stage of thought in which the objects of religious reverence are rather animals than men or beings modelled in the image of man. We have seen that this early stage of religion was well preserved in Samoa down to the time when the islands fell under the observation of Europeans, and that it was probably a relic of totemism,570 which at an earlier period may perhaps have prevailed generally among the ancestors of the Polynesians. In the Hervey Islands there was a god called Tonga-iti, who appeared visibly in the form of black and white spotted lizards.571 Another deity named Tiaio took possession of the body of the large white shark, the terror of these islanders, and he had a small sacred grove (marae) set apart for his worship. It is said that this shark-god was a former king of Mangaia, who in the pride of his heart had defiled the sacred district of Keia, the favourite haunt of the gods, by wearing some beautiful scarlet hibiscus flowers in his ears. Now anything red was forbidden in that part of the island as being offensive to the gods; and even the beating of bark-cloth was prohibited there, lest the repose of the gods should be disturbed by the noise. Hence an angry priest knocked the proud and impious king on the head, and the blood of the slain monarch flowed into a neighbouring stream, where it was drunk by a great fresh-water eel. So the spirit of the dead king entered into the eel, but subsequently, pursuing its way to the sea, the spirit forsook the eel and took possession of the shark.572 Nevertheless he continued occasionally to appear to his worshippers in the form of an eel; for we are told that in the old heathen days, if a huge eel were caught in a net, it would have been regarded as the god Tiaio himself come on a visit, and that it would accordingly have been allowed to return to the water unmolested.573 It is quite possible that this derivation of the eel-god or shark-god from a former king of Mangaia may be historically correct; for we are told that "many of the deities worshipped in the Hervey Group and other islands of the eastern Pacific were canonised priests, kings, and warriors, whose spirits were supposed to enter into various birds, fish, reptiles, insects, etc., etc. Strangely enough, they were regarded as being, in no respect, inferior to the original deities."574 Among the creatures in which gods, and especially the spirits of deified men, were believed permanently to reside or to be incarnate were reckoned sharks, sword-fish, eels, the octopus, yellow and black spotted lizards, as well as several kinds of birds and insects.575 In Rarotonga the cuttle-fish was the special deity of the reigning family down to the subversion of paganism.576 In Mangaia the tribe of Teipe, whose members were liable to serve as victims in human sacrifices, worshipped the centipede: there was a shrine of the centipede god at Vaiau on the eastern side of Mangaia.577 Again, two gods, Tekuraaki and Utakea, were supposed to be incarnate in the woodpecker.578 A comprehensive designation for divinities of all kinds was "the heavenly family" (te anau tuarangi); and this celestial race included rats, lizards, beetles, eels, sharks, and several kinds of birds. It was supposed that "the heavenly family" had taken up their abode in these creatures.579 Nay, even inanimate objects, such as the triton-shell, sandstone, bits of basalt, cinnet, and trees were believed to be thus tenanted by gods.580 The god Tane-kio, for example, was thought to be enshrined in the planets Venus and Jupiter, and also, curiously enough, in cinnet work.581 Again, each tribe had its own sacred bird, which was supposed to be sent by a god to warn the people of impending danger.582 In these superstitions it is possible that we have relics of totemism.
Originally, it is said, the gods spoke to men through the small land birds, but the utterances of these creatures proved too indistinct to guide the actions of mankind. Hence to meet this emergency an order of priests was set apart, the gods actually taking up their abode, for the time being, in their sacred persons. Hence priests were significantly named "god-boxes" (pia-atua) a title which was generally abbreviated to "gods," because they were believed to be living embodiments of the divinities. When a priest was consulted, he drank a bowl of kava (Piper methysticum), and falling into convulsions gave the oracular response in language intelligible only to the initiated. The oracle so delivered, from which there was no appeal, was thought to have been inspired by the god, who had entered into the priest for the purpose.583
§ 5. The Doctrine of the Human Soul
Like other Polynesians, the Hervey Islanders believed that human beings are animated by a vital principle or soul, which survives the death of the body for a longer or shorter time. Indeed, they held that nobody dies a strictly natural death except as an effect of extreme old age. Nineteen out of twenty deaths were believed to be caused either by the anger of the gods or by the incantations of "the praying people" or sorcerers.584 Hence, when a person fell ill, it was customary to consult a priest in order to discover the nature of the sin which had drawn down on the sufferer the wrath of the deity or the enmity of the sorcerer.585 But besides its final departure at death, the soul was thought to quit the body temporarily on other occasions. In sleep it was supposed to leave the sleeper and travel over the island, holding converse with the dead, and even visiting the spirit-world. It was thus that the islanders, like so many other savages, explained the phenomena of dreams. We are told that some of the most important events in their national history were determined by dreams.586 Again, they explained sneezing as the return of the soul to the body after a temporary absence. Hence in Rarotonga, when a person sneezes, the bystanders exclaim, as though addressing his spirit, "Ha! you have come back!"587
How exactly the Hervey Islanders pictured to themselves the nature of the human soul, appears not to be recorded. Probably their notions on this obscure subject did not differ greatly from those of the natives of Pukapuka or Danger Island, a lonely island situated some hundreds of miles to the north-west of the Hervey Group. These savages apparently conceived the soul as a small material substance that varied in size with the dimensions of the body which it inhabited. For the sacred men or sorcerers of that island used to set traps to catch the souls of people, and the traps consisted of loops of coco-nut fibre, which differed in size according as the soul to be caught in one of them was fat or thin, or perhaps according as it was the soul of a child or that of an adult. Two of these soul-traps were presented to Mr. W. W. Gill, the first white missionary to land in Danger Island. The loops or rings were arranged in pairs on each side of two cords, one of which was twenty-eight feet long and the other fourteen. The mode of setting the traps was this. If a person was very sick or had given offence to a sorcerer, the offended wizard or priest would hang a soul-trap by night from a branch of a tree overhanging the house of the sufferer or of the person against whom he bore a grudge; then sitting down beside the snare he would pretend to watch for the flight of the victim's spirit. If the family enquired the sin for which the soul-trap had been set, the holy man would probably allege some ceremonial fault committed by the sick man against the gods. If an insect or small bird chanced to fly through one of the loops, the priest would allege that the man's soul was caught in the mesh, and that there was no hope for it but that the wretch must die. In that case the demon Vaerua, who presided over the spirit-world, was believed to hurry off the poor soul to the nether world, there to feast upon it. The news that So-and-so had lost his soul would then spread through the island, and great would be the lamentation. The friends of the unhappy man would seek to propitiate the sorcerer by large presents of food, begging him to intercede with the dread Vaerua for the restoration of the lost soul. Sometimes the intercessions were successful, and the patient recovered; but at other times the priest reported that his prayers were of no avail, and that Vaerua could not be induced to send back the soul to re-inhabit the body. The melancholy tidings acted like a sentence of death. The patient gave up all hope and soon pined away through sheer distress at the thought of his soul caught in the trap.588
