Note (return) — LECTURE VIII

In Murray Island, also, which belongs to the Eastern group, the ghost of a recently deceased person is much dreaded; it is supposed to haunt the neighbourhood for two or three months, and the elaborate funeral ceremonies which these savages perform appear to be based on this belief and to be intended, in fact, to dismiss the ghost from the land of the living, where he is a very unwelcome visitor, to his proper place in the land of the dead.285 "The Murray Islanders," says Dr. Haddon, "perform as many as possible of the necessary ceremonies in order that the ghost of the deceased might not feel slighted, for otherwise it was sure to bring trouble on the relatives by causing strong winds to destroy their gardens and break down their houses."286 These islanders still believe that a ghost may feel resentment when his children are neglected or wronged, or when his lands or goods are appropriated by persons who have no claim to them. And this fear of the wrath of the ghost, Dr. Haddon tells us, no doubt in past times acted as a wholesome deterrent on evil-doers and helped to keep the people from crime, though now-a-days they look rather to the law than to ghosts for the protection of their rights and the avenging of their wrongs.287 Yet here, as in so many places, it would seem that superstition has proved a useful crutch on which morality can lean until it is strong enough to walk alone. In the absence of the police the guardianship of law and morality may be provisionally entrusted to ghosts, who, if they are too fickle and uncertain in their temper to make ideal constables, are at least better than nothing. With this exception it does not appear that the moral code of the Torres Straits Islanders derived any support or sanction from their religion. No appeal was made by them to totems, ancestors, or heroes; no punishment was looked for from these quarters for any infringement of the rules and restraints which hold society together.288