LECTURE IX
Reading edition
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE NATIVES OF BRITISH NEW GUINEA
The two races of New Guinea, the Papuan and the Melanesian.
Scantiness of our information as to the natives of New Guinea.
But although the natives of New Guinea have now been under the rule of European powers, Britain, Germany, and Holland, for many years, we unfortunately possess little detailed information as to their mental and social condition. It is true that the members of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits visited some parts of the southern coasts of British New Guinea, and several years later, in 1904, Dr. Seligmann was able to devote somewhat more time to the investigation of the same region and has given us the results of his enquiries in a valuable book. But the time at his disposal did not suffice for a thorough investigation of this large region; and accordingly his information, eked out though it is by that of Protestant and Catholic missionaries, still leaves us in the dark as to much which we should wish to know. Among the natives of British New Guinea our information is especially defective in regard to the Papuans, who occupy the greater part of the possession, including the whole of the western region; for Dr. Seligmann's book, which is the most detailed and systematic work yet published on the ethnology of British New Guinea, deals almost exclusively with the Melanesian portion of the population. Accordingly I shall begin what I have to say on this subject with the Melanesian or rather Papuo-Melanesian tribes of south-eastern New Guinea.
The Motu, their beliefs and customs concerning the dead.
The Koita or Koitapu.
Beliefs of the Koita concerning the human soul.
Beliefs of the Koita concerning the state of the dead. Alleged communications with the dead by means of mediums.
Fear of the dead.
Ghost of dead wife feared by widower.
Beliefs of the Mafulu concerning the dead.
Burial customs of the Mafulu.
Use made of the skulls and bones at a great festival.
Trace of ancestor worship among the Mafulu.
Worship of the dead among the natives of the Aroma district.
The Hood Peninsula. The town of Kalo.
Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the natives of the Hood Peninsula. Seclusion of the widow or widower.
Application of the juices of the dead to the persons of the living.
Precautions taken by man-slayers against the ghosts of their victims.
Beliefs and customs concerning the dead among the Massim of south-eastern New Guinea. Hiyoyoa, the land of the dead. Mourners bathe and shave their heads. Food deposited in the grave. Dietary restrictions imposed on mourners.
Funeral customs at Tubetube. The fire on the grave. The happy land.
The names of the dead not mentioned.
Beliefs and customs concerning the dead in the island of Kiwai.
Adiri, the land of the dead, and Sido, the first man who went thither. The fear of ghosts.
The path of the ghosts to Adiri. Adiri, the land of the dead.
Appearance of the dead to the living in dreams.
Offerings to the dead.
Dreams as a source of the belief in immortality.
That concludes what I have to say as to the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead among the natives of British New Guinea. In the following lectures I shall deal with the same rudimentary aspect of religion as it is reported to exist among the aborigines of the vast regions of German and Dutch New Guinea.