Note 21 — Chapter III · RELIGIOUS AND MAGICAL BELIEFS

One of the most important points in Mr Man’s statement is that while the souls of good men go to paradise as he puts it, the souls of bad men are condemned to torture in purgatory21. In my own enquiries I did not come across any definite belief of this nature, but I am not prepared to deny its existence. All that I can say is that I did not find any evidence whatever that good men and bad men (in any meanings in which those words could be used by the natives) receive different treatment after death. In talking to men of the Akar-Bale and A-Pučikwar tribes I did not hear of J̌ereg as a distinct place from J̌ereg-l’ar-mugu. The latter name is of course a compound, from ar-mugu = front, and might mean either “the place fronting or facing J̌ereg” or “the place J̌ereg, fronting us.”