Note 263.4 — RITUAL AND BELIEF (continued 2)

The illustration of practices like these might be multiplied indefinitely. The same reason holds good for them all. In the lower culture grief at a death is often intensified by fear—on the one hand, of an accusation of witchcraft—on the other hand, of the ill-will of the deceased himself, who is naturally disgusted to find himself dead. Against the latter danger at any rate the forlorn condition of the survivors, stiff with wounds, thrust like him from the company of their friends and fellow-tribesmen, made to wear a distinctive garb, often in rags or dirt, wailing, watching, fasting, would constitute an appeal that even the ghost of a savage would feel hard to resist. That this is actually the effect intended, in some instances at least, is certain. A widow among the Salivas of South America cuts her hair, and is not allowed to anoint herself as usual, nor to wear any ornament, in order, we are expressly told, not to irritate the departed, but to humble herself before him.263.4 Nor must it be overlooked that wailing and lamenting, so usually part of the rites practised especially by the chief mourners, such as widows and near relations, would not favour concealment. On the contrary, they would draw attention to the grief, and help even the simplest and most easily deluded of ghosts to identify the mourner, which they would seem indeed to be meant to do. But they would powerfully deprecate his malice or revenge. In this connection the belief of the Bañarwanda on the east of Lake Kivu, in German East Africa, is interesting. To them the bazimu (plural of muzimu) or souls of the departed are by no means always kindly disposed, even the best of them. They must be continually propitiated with offerings, or they will cause calamities, either of themselves directly, or indirectly by setting in motion the imandwa, semi-apotheosized heroes. But the muzimu does not begin his mischievous activities until the mourning ceremonies are at an end. So long as they last the survivors are quite safe from him, for he will not during that period attack the living.264.1