FEAR OF THE DEAD

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 November 1934, Page 11

FEAR OF THE DEAD

HOODWINKING THE SPIRITS Primitive man, says Sir James Fraz. er, author of “The Golden Bough,” has two methods of getting rid of the dangerous spirits of the dead; failmeans and foul. He writes: — In the opinion of many primitive peoples, there are obdurate and obstreperous spirits who, turning a deaf ear to blandishments and a blind eye to the accommodations obligingly offered them for the journey, obstinately persist in haunting their old home and persecuting their surviving kinsfolk in a great variety of ways. For these incorrigible spirits force is the only thing; and it is with the ingenious, if not always humane, methods adopted in primitive tribes that Sir James Frazer gives examples from all over the world; from Australia, from Tibet, Siberia, Ceylon, Madagascar, New Zealand, New Guinea, the Hebrides, Japan, America, India, Africa and even Western Europe. Some are comparatively harmless: — In San Cristobal, one of the Solomon Islands, when a burial is taking place, a man goes to the hut of the deceased and, standing at the door, fishes for the soul of the dead man with a fishingrod baited with betel nut, and when he has caught it, puts the ghost with the bait into a little bag. Water, of course, is an almost infallible barrier for spirits, and so is fire. Chinese mandarins who have been at an inquest “step over a small fire before they enter their palaquins to be carried home.”'Mutilation is also believed to be efficacious; and one sees over and over again how primitive tribes think they can hurt or keep away a disembodied spirit by material means. A split bamboo will keep away a ghost; so will feathers; a dead man with his head cut off cannot see to get back, and a dead man with his thumbs cut off cannot come and throw spears.

CHEATING THE GHOST Turning to lightei* topics, we are told of y'arious attempts Ito cheat the ghost: In Siam . . . for the purpose of rendering his return to the old home still more difficult, the coffin is carried out of the house not by the door but through an opening specially made in the wall. As if this were not enough to baffle the ghost, the coffin is carried by’ the bearers at a run several times round the house, till the ghost may be presumed to be giddy and quite unable to retrace his steps to the familiar dwelling. . Again, on the island of Halmahera, when anyone dies all the members of the household change their names so that the dead man cannot call them. On all the examples collected, grim or otherwise, Sir James Frazer himself has made the best possible comment:' — . .

“They display on the part of primitive man an ingenuity and resourcefulness which might, perhaps, have been turned to better account in a better cause; at least they serve to set in a strong light that obsessing fear of the spirits of the dead which has played an enormous part in the history of humanity.”