The Mafulu Part 15

Concerning the Kambisa (Upper Chirima valley) column, the similarity of many of the words contained in it to those in either the Mafulu or the Korona column is obvious; and it is curious that some of these words appear to resemble the Korona words more than they do those of Mafulu. I also think I may say that the similarity between Kambisa words on the one hand, and those of either Mafulu or Korona on the other, is almost equal to the similarity between Mafulu and Korona; and Mr. Ray cla.s.ses Kambisa along with Mafulu and Korona as dialects of Fuyuge. So the statement in the introductory chapter that the valley of the Upper Chirima river is included in the Fuyuge area has, I think, stood the test of some detailed linguistic comparison.

The note by Dr. Strong upon what he calls the Kovio language and his Kovio vocabulary both relate to a district which is within the Fathers'

Oru-Lopiku linguistic area; and I venture to repeat the suggestion, made in my introductory chapter, that for the present should adopt the term Kovio for the two areas which the Fathers call Oru-Lopiku and Boboi, though eventually we may be able to distinguish between these two areas.

The Afoa or Tauata area is the Fathers' Ambo area. The Afoa column discloses a very few words which resemble the Fuyuge words; but it seems obvious that the Afoa language does not belong to the Fuyuge group, and this is the view taken of it by Mr. Ray.

There are two matters in Mr. Ray's cla.s.sification in the fifth appendix which I wish to mention. It seems to have been already a.s.sumed that the Rev. James Chalmers' Kabana language could not have been collected on Mt. Victoria; and I would point out that this mountain is quite outside what now appears to be the Fuyuge area. As regards the Afoa language the references by Dr. Strong to Mt. Pizoko and Mt. Davidson bring me back to my observations upon the point in my introductory chapter. If the Fathers are right in putting Mt. Pizoko within the Fuyuge area, it is hardly correct to say (see introductory chapter) that the Afoa language is spoken in the villages on Mt. Pizoko; but it might well be, as quoted by Mr. Ray, that a Fuyuge native in a Mt. Pizoko village spoke Afoa fluently, as this mountain is close to the Fathers' Fuyuge-Afoa boundary. Also Mt. Davidson is according to the Fathers in the Boboi area; but Dr. Strong seems to have regarded it as Ambo, and to have treated vocabulary matter collected from a native who came from a village "apparently on the slopes of" that mountain as having been taken from an Ambo native. In this case, however, there seems to be some doubt as to where this native did in fact come from; and the eastern slopes of Mt. Davidson are not far from the Fathers' Afoa boundary.

I think that these linguistic materials, taken as a whole, are, so far as they go, well in accord with the delimitation by the Fathers of the Fuyuge area, except as regards their view concerning Korona, as to which they did not profess actual knowledge, and merely expressed a doubt, and subject to the point that, for linguistic purposes at all events, the Fathers' use of the word "Mafulu" as representing the whole Fuyuge area is perhaps not desirable, and would be better replaced by the term "Fuyuge," with subdivisions of "Mafulu," "Korona,"

and "Kambisa," as given by Mr. Ray; though probably Sikube might be included in either Mafulu or Korona, as geographically it is evidently between these two.

CHAPTER XVII

Illness, Death, and Burial

Ailments and Remedies.

All serious ailments occurring up to certain ages, and except in certain cases, are generally a.s.sumed to be the work of someone acting in connection with a spirit; but, speaking generally, no efforts appear to be made by imprecation or other supernatural method to propitiate or contend against these spirits, except by the use of general charms against illness, and except, so far as the propitiation or driving out of the spirit is involved, by one or other of the specific remedies for specific ailments mentioned below. The natives have, however, for common diseases cures of which some are obviously purely fanciful and superst.i.tious, but some are probably more or less practical.

The chief ailments are colds and complications arising from them, malaria, dysentery, stomach and bowel and similar complaints, toothache and wounds.

Dysentery has recognised and accredited curers, both men and women. The operator chews and crushes with his teeth the root of a vegetable (I do not know what it is) which they grow in their gardens, and then wraps it up into a small bundle in a bunch of gra.s.s, and gives it to the patient to suck. This remedy does not appear to be effective.

There are men who are specially skilled in dealing with stomach and bowel troubles. The operator takes in his hand a stone, and with the other hand he sprinkles that stone over with ashes. He then makes over it an incantation, in which, though his lips are seen to be moving, no sound comes out of them; after which he takes some of the ashes from the stone, which he still holds in his hand, and with these ashes he rubs the stomach of the patient, who, I was told, generally at once feels rather better, or says so.

There are also women who deal with cases believed to be caused by the presence in the stomach of a snake, which has to be got out. Here the operator takes a piece of bark cloth, with which she rubs the front of the patient's body, but without any incantation. Then, as she removes the cloth from the body, she makes a movement as though she were wrapping up in it something, presumably the escaped snake; and afterwards she carries the cloth away with her, and the cure is thus effected.

A man with toothache will say that "a spirit is eating my teeth." The people seem to have a knowledge of something inside the teeth, the nature of which I am not able to state definitely, but which apparently is, in fact, the nerve, and they recognise that it is in this something that the pain arises; but I could not ascertain the connection between this something and the spirit which is supposed to cause the trouble. If the aching tooth can be got at, they adopt a method the native explanation of which was translated to me as being a drawing or driving out of the mysterious something from the tooth. This is done in some way with an ordinary native comb, without extracting the tooth itself; but how it is done I could not ascertain. There is no incantation connected with the operation. Another cure is for the patient to chew the leaf of a certain tree (I do not know what tree), so that the sap of it gets into the hole in the tooth, and thereby, as they think, draws or drives out this nerve, or whatever the something may be. The Fathers of the Mission told me that both these two remedies do really appear to be effective.

Wounds are the speciality of many healers with special knowledge of the curative properties of various plants, and who gather the plant, make an incantation over it, boil it in water, and then with that water wash the wound. There are also men who operate surgically on wounds with knives made of stone or sh.e.l.l or bamboo.

Charms, probably of a poisonous nature, are used generally for the warding off of sickness, these being carried in the little charm bags.

A general and universal cure for all ailments is a piece of bark, tied with a piece of string to the neck or head, all neck ornaments having been first removed.

I regret that as regards all these matters I am only able to indicate shortly and generally the methods of cure, and can give no further explanation concerning them.

Death and Burial.

_(Ordinary People.)_

When a man or woman is regarded as dying, he or she is at once attended by a woman whose permanent office it is to do this, and who has other women and girls with her to a.s.sist her, these others including, but not necessarily being confined to, the females of the dying man's own family and relatives. The house is full of women; but there is no man there. This special woman and the others attend the dying man, [97] nursing him, washing him from time to time, and keeping the flies away from him; but they apparently do not attempt any measures for curing him, their offices only beginning when he is regarded as dying. In the meantime they all wail, and there are also a number of other women wailing outside the house.

The special woman watches the dying person; and when she thinks he is dead she gives him a heavy blow on the side of the head with her fist, and p.r.o.nounces him dead. She apparently does not feel his heart, or do more than watch his face; and I should think it may often be that in point of fact he is not dead when the blow is given, and might perhaps have recovered.

Then the women inside the house say to one another that he is dead, and communicate the news to the people outside; whereupon the men in the village all commence shouting as loudly as they can. The reason given for this shouting is that it frightens away the man's ghost; but if so it is apparently only a partial intimidation of the ghost, who, as will be seen hereafter, is subjected to further alarms at a later stage. The men communicate the news in the ordinary way adopted by these people of shouting it across the valleys; and so it spreads to other villages, and even to other communities. The man being dead, the wailing of the women inside and outside the house is changed into a true funeral wailing song; but this latter only continues for a few minutes. The special woman and some others, probably relatives only, remain in the house; but they do not touch the body at this stage. The other women, probably non-relatives, go out. The relatives of the deceased, both men and women, immediately smear their bodies with mud, but no one else in the village does so.

This is the situation until the first party of women, generally accompanied by men, begin to come in from other villages of the same, and probably of one or more other, communities. These people have been laughing and playing and enjoying themselves on their way to the village, and do so freely until they get close to it. Then they commence wailing (not the funeral song) and shouting, calling the deceased by a relationship term, such as father, brother, etc., though they may never have heard of him before; and, doing this, they enter the village, and go to the house. The incoming women, but not the men, all arrive smeared with mud. The women crowd into and about the house, still wailing as before, but not the funeral song. They all see the body; and each woman, after seeing it, comes out and sits on the platform of the house or on the ground outside. The party of outside village women then cease their first wailing, and commence the funeral song, in which they are joined by the female relatives of the deceased and other women of the village. But again this only lasts for a few minutes, the period being longer or shorter according to the importance of the person who has died.

Other similar parties, coming in from other villages, go through the same performance as they come into the village; and in each case, as the women of each fresh party come out of the house after seeing the corpse, there is a fresh outburst of the funeral song on the part of all the women present, but always only for a few minutes. This goes on till the last batch of visitors has arrived. The people of the village know when this last batch has come, because they have been told by cross-valley shouting which villages are sending parties. The total number of women in the village is then generally very large. After the last batch of visitors has arrived, and until the funeral ceremony, all the women again break out into the funeral song for a few minutes about once an hour in the daytime, but not so often at night.

The funeral takes place probably about twenty-four hours after death. The body is now wrapped up by the special woman attendant, helped by the female relatives of the deceased, in leaves, especially banana leaves, and bark of trees, and remains so wrapped up in the house.

It is placed with the knees bent up to the chin, and the heels to the b.u.t.tocks. In the meantime men of the village dig a grave 2 or 3 feet deep in the village open enclosure. When all is ready the funeral song begins again, the singers this time being the female relatives of the deceased and the women who have come from outside villages, but not the other women of the village of the deceased. Men of the village then carry the corpse, wrapped and doubled up, and place it, lying on its back, in the grave. There is no real procession from the house to the grave, though all the people a.s.semble at the latter; but during the whole of the time, until the body is in the grave, the singing by the women of the funeral song continues. As soon as the body is in the grave, all the men, both villagers and visitors, shout again as before, and for the same purpose. The grave is then filled up, the women in the meantime singing as before; and when this is done the funeral is over.

The relatives of the deceased now go into mourning. The widow or widower or other nearest relative wears the mourning string necklace already described. He or she, and also the other near relatives, smear their faces, and sometimes, but not always, their bodies, with black, to which, as regards the face, but not the body, is added oil or water. Some more distant relatives, instead of blackening themselves, wear the mourning sh.e.l.l necklace. And all this will continue, nominally without break, until the mourning is formally removed, in the way to be explained hereafter. As a matter of fact, the insignia of mourning are not worn without interruption, and the black smearing is by no means so retained; but on any special occasion the person would take care to appear in mourning. There is a custom under which the widow or widower or other nearest relative may, instead of wearing the mourning string necklace, abstain during the period of mourning from eating some particular food, of which deceased was most fond. [98]

In connection with mourning, I should also mention a curious custom, which I understand is common, though not universal, for a woman who has lost a child, and especially a first-born or very clear child, to amputate the top end of one of her fingers, up to the first joint, with an adze. Having done this once for one child, she will possibly do it again for another child; and a woman has been seen with three fingers mutilated in this way. [99]

The family of the deceased invite men and women from some other community, but only one community, to a funeral feast, which is held after an interval of two or three days from the day of the funeral. On the day appointed these guests arrive. They are all well ornamented, but, with one exception, they do not wear their dancing ornaments. One of them, however, usually a chief or the son of a chief of the community invited, comes in his full dancing ornaments. All the guest men bring with them their spears, and perhaps adzes or clubs.

When they arrive the following performances take place, the village enclosure being left by the villagers empty and open:--First two guest women enter the village enclosure at one end, and run in silence round it, brandishing spears in both hands, as at the big feast; but they make no hostile demonstration. When these two women have reached their starting point, they again do the same thing, brandishing their spears as before, and all the guest men, except the specially dressed one, follow them by advancing with a dancing step along the enclosure, they also brandishing their spears, and also being silent. Thus the whole group goes to the other end of the village, pa.s.sing the grave of the deceased as they do so; then they turn round, and come back again in the same way, but on their return they stop before they reach the grave.

Then the specially ornamented guest man enters alone, without his arms, but with his drum, which he beats. He dances up the village enclosure in a zigzag course, going from side to side of the enclosure, and always facing in the direction in which he is at the time moving; and during his advance he beats his drum., but otherwise he and all the other people are silent. When in this way he has reached the grave, the chief of the clan of the village where the funeral takes place, who does not wear any dancing ornaments, approaches him, and removes his heavy head ornament. This ends the first part of the ceremony; and the villagers and guests then chat and conduct themselves in the ordinary way.

Plates 82 and 83 ill.u.s.trate scenes at a funeral feast in the village of Amalala. In the former plate the grave is very clear, and the remains of an older grave are visible behind the post a little to the left. At the upper end of the village enclosure are the visitors, who are about to dance along the enclosure past the grave, and then back again up to it. The figures in the _emone_ behind are Amalala men, watching the performance. In the latter plate the visitor chief is seen dancing along the village enclosure towards the grave.

In the meantime the members of the family of the deceased bring in one or more village pigs and some vegetables. A number of sticks are laid upon the ground over the grave, the sticks crossing each other so as to form a rude ground platform (this is not done by any particular person), and these sticks are covered with banana leaves. [100] The pigs are placed on this platform, and are then killed by the pig-killer and cut up, and the vegetables and pieces of pig are distributed by the chief of the clan, helped perhaps by the family of the deceased, among the male visitors. The one specially dressed visitor, being the only one who has really danced, gets much the largest share. For example, if there be two or more pigs, he will get an entire pig for himself. Then the ceremony is over, and the guests return home. The wood of the platform is not removed from the grave, but is left to rot there. The killing of the pigs at this ceremony is regarded as the act which will, they think, finally propitiate or drive away the ghost of the departed.

It will be noticed that, though representatives from several communities may be invited and come to the funeral, only one community is invited to the subsequent funeral feast, just as only one community is invited to the big feast, which latter we must, I think, a.s.sociate with the general superst.i.tious idea of laying the ghosts of past departed chiefs and notables. I cannot say what is the reason for the confinement of these invitations to one community only, but it must, I think, have had some definite origin [101]; and as to this I am struck by the similarity of the Ma.s.sim idea, referred to by Dr. Seligmann, that an individual's death primarily concerns the dead man's hamlet and one other hamlet of his clan, with which certain death feasts are exchanged, other members of the clan being comparatively little affected. [102]

As soon as possible after the funeral pig-killing, they catch some wild pig or pigs, and kill and eat them, and sweep down the village by way of purification ceremony, very much as they do in the case of the big feast, except that it is on a very much smaller scale, and that the people do not afterwards leave the village.

The ceremony of removal of the mourning may take place after an interval of only a week or two, or of so much as six months, the date often depending upon the occurrence of some other ceremony, at which the removal of the mourning can be carried out without necessitating a ceremony for itself only. Visitors from some other community attend. The ceremony only applies to the nearest relative--the person who wears the string necklace; but, on his or her mourning being ceremoniously removed, the mourning of all others in respect of the same deceased ceases automatically. [103] This nearest relative has to provide a village pig. There is a feast, and dancing and pig-killing and distribution of food and pig, in the usual way, and this may be in the village of the deceased or in some other village of the community. The pig-killing is done by the pig-killer under the platform of a chiefs platform grave, or on the site of it. The pig, specially provided by the nearest relative, is bought and paid for by some person, as in the case of some of the ceremonies already described, and this person, after the killing of the pig, without special ceremony, cuts off the mourner's string necklace, dips it in the blood of the pig, and throws it away; then he takes some coloured paint, usually red, and with it daubs two lines on each side of the face across the cheek of the mourner, who of course at this ceremony will still have his black paint. If the mourner has been refraining from food, instead of wearing the necklace, the ceremony is confined to the paint-daubing. Then the mourner pays this ceremonial pig-buyer for his services, probably in feathers or dog-teeth, and the mourning is at an end.

There will at a later date be a purification ceremony, at which wild pigs will be killed, such as has already been described. [104]

Death and Burial.

_(Chiefs.)_

A dying chief is attended by the special woman and others in the way above described, except that many women of the clan are there, and that this special attendance and its accompanying wailing begin earlier, perhaps two or three days earlier, than in the case of an ordinary person, and that all the women of the clan who are not in the house wail outside it.

In this case, however, there is a special ceremony for ascertaining whether or not the chief is in fact going to die--a ceremony which is usually performed at his own request. Some vegetable food, probably sweet potato, or perhaps sugar-cane or taro, is given him to eat; and this he will do although he may be very ill, and may not have been taking food, though of course, if he were insensible or unable to eat, this special ceremony could not be carried out. The inedible portions of this food, _e.g.,_ the peel of the potato or the hard fibres of the sugar-cane, are then handed to certain magical persons of the community, whose special duty it is to perform the ceremony about to be described, but as to whom I was unable to ascertain who and what they are, and whether they have any other special functions besides those of this ceremony. Some of these portions of food may even be sent to some similar magic person of high reputation in another community, in order that he also may perform the same ceremony. Each of these magic persons also has handed to him a portion of a perineal band belonging to, and recently worn by, the ailing chief.

Each of the magic men then wraps up the portion of food which has been given to him in the piece of band; and this he again wraps up in leaves, and continues doing so until the parcel has become a round ball 4 or 5 inches in diameter. The men then separate, and each of them goes off alone to a spot outside the village, where he collects some very dry firewood, and heaps it up against the trunk of a tree to a height of, say, 6 feet. He then engages in an incantation, after which he puts the ball inside the bottom of the wood pile, and lights the pile at the bottom. Then he lies down by this fire and closes his eyes. After an interval of perhaps two to five minutes he gets up, as though awakening from a bad dream, and hears the wailing in the adjoining village, and asks himself what all this wailing is about; and he then appears to remember for what purpose he is there, goes to the fire, and takes out the ball. If the fire has burnt or scorched the food wrapped up in the ball, it is an indication that the chief is to die. If not, it indicates that he will live. These magic men then return to the village, and report the result. If their report be that the chief is going to live, the people cease their wailing, but if it be that he is to die, the wailing continues.