Note 129.2 — PSYCHE’S TASK

Ghosts of the slain dreaded by the Toradjas of Central Celebes. The Bare’e-speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes are greatly concerned about the souls of men who have been slain in battle. They appear to think that men who have been killed in war instead of dying by disease have not exhausted their vital energy and that therefore their departed spirits are more powerful than the common ruck of ghosts; and as on account of the unnatural manner of their death they cannot be admitted into the land of souls they continue to prowl about the earth, furious with the foes who have cut them off untimely in the prime of manhood, and demanding of their friends that they shall wage war on the enemy and send forth an expedition every year to kill some of them. If the survivors pay no heed to this demand of the bloodthirsty ghosts, they themselves are exposed to the vengeance of these angry spirits, who pay out their undutiful friends and relatives by visiting them with sickness and death. Hence with the Toradjas war is a sacred duty in which every member of the community is bound to bear a part; even women and children, who cannot wage real war, must wage mimic warfare at home by hacking with bamboo swords at an old skull of the enemy, while with their shrill voices they utter the war-whoop.129.2 Thus among these people, as among many more tribes of savages, a belief in the immortality of the soul has been one of the most fruitful causes of bloodshed by keeping up a perpetual state of war between neighbouring communities, who dare not make peace with each other for fear of mortally offending the spirits of the dead.130.1