Note 128.1 — PSYCHE’S TASK

Ghosts of slain kinsfolk, fellow-townsmen, and fellow-clansfolk especially dreaded. While the spirit of a murdered man is thus feared by everybody, it is natural that it should be specially dreaded by those against whom for any reason he may be conceived to bear a grudge. For example, among the Yabim of German New Guinea, when the relations of a murdered man have accepted a bloodwit instead of avenging his death, they must allow the family of the victim to mark them with chalk on the brow. Were this not done, the ghost of their dead kinsman might come and trouble them for not doing their duty by him; he might drive away their pigs or loosen their teeth.128.1 The ghosts of murdered kinsfolk and neighbours are naturally more formidable than those of foreigners and strangers; for their wrath is hotter and they have more opportunities of wreaking their anger on the hard-hearted friends who either did them to death with their own hands or left their blood unavenged. Indeed some people only fear the wraiths of such persons, and regard with indifference all other ghosts, let them mow and gibber as much as they like. Thus among the Boloki of the Upper Congo “a homicide is not afraid of the spirit of the man he has killed when the slain man belongs to any of the neighbouring towns, as disembodied spirits travel in a very limited area only; but when he kills a man belonging to his own town he is filled with fear lest the spirit shall do him some harm. There are no special rites that he can observe to free himself from these fears, but he mourns for the slain man as though he were a member of his own family. He neglects his personal appearance, shaves his head, fasts for a certain period, and laments with much weeping.”128.2 Again, a Kikuyu man does not incur ceremonial pollution (thahu) by the slaughter of a man of another tribe, nor even of his own tribe, provided his victim belongs to another clan; but if the slain man is a member of the same clan as his slayer, the case is grave indeed. However, it is possible by means of a ceremony to bind over the ghost to keep the peace. For this purpose the murderer and the oldest surviving brother of his victim are seated facing each other on two trunks of banana trees; here they are solemnly fed by two elders with vegetable food of all kinds, which has been provided for the purpose by their mothers and sprinkled with the contents of the stomach of a sacrificed sheep. Next day the elders proceed to the sacred fig-tree (mugumo), which plays a great part in the religious rites of the Akikuyu. There they sacrifice a pig and deposit some of the fat, the intestines, and the more important bones at the foot of the tree, while they themselves feast on the more palatable parts of the animal. They think that the ghost of the murdered man will visit the tree that very night in the outward shape of a wild cat and consume the meat, and that this offering will prevent him from returning to the village and troubling the inhabitants.129.1