§ 8 Origin and Destiny of Souls
Beliefs as to the origin of souls sometimes bear the character of fanciful explanation myths. The Semang say that souls grow upon a soul-tree in the world of Kari (their chief god); whence they are brought by birds, which are killed and eaten by an expectant mother: souls of fishes and animals are also obtained by the mothers’ eating certain fungi and grasses.231 Here the analogy of the growth of fruits is adopted: being so familiar as to need no further explanation. Leibnitz’s suggestion that monads are fulgurations continuelles de la Divinité,232 is at about the same level of thought. In other cases, we see the struggling to birth of ideas that still seem plausible: such is the widespread tenet that every present human soul is the reincarnation of an ancestor, which we find in Australia, Melanesia, Borneo, Manipur, on the Congo, in North America and elsewhere. The Bakongo seem to base their belief in reincarnation partly on personal resemblance; upon which ground a child may be thought to have the soul even of a living man; so that to point out such a resemblance is displeasing, since it implies that, the child having his soul, he must soon die.233 Another reason they give for their belief is that the child speaks early of things its mother has not taught it, and that this must be due to an old soul talking in a new body. But Bakongo albinos are incarnations of water-spirits, and greatly feared. Possibly in some cases people began by naming children after their ancestors, and later inferred that those who bore the same name must be the same persons. Plato thought that, by a sort of law of psychic conservation, there must always be the same number of souls in the world:234 there must, therefore, be reincarnation. That nothing absolutely begins to be, or perishes, though first explicit in the Ionian philosophy, is generally assumed in savage thinking; so why should it not be true of souls?
As to the destiny of souls there seems to exist amongst the tribes of men even greater variety of belief than as to their origin. They may pass through more than one stage of development: as in the western isles of Torres Straits one becomes at death, first a mari, and later a markai with a more definite status;235 or as with the Veddas, one is at first called, without much confidence, “the living one,” and only a few days later becomes, after trial of one’s virtue, a yaka,236 or authentic ghost. Often the dead will be reincarnated, but the interval between death and rebirth may be passed in an underworld, or in a city in the forest, or indefinitely in a land of ancestors. They may turn into plants; as among the Mafulu old people’s ghosts become large funguses growing in the mountains:237 but more frequently into animals; perhaps their Totems, or (with seeming caprice) into such things as termites or wild pigs; or (because wings seem to suit the spirit) into a butterfly or bee; or into owls or bats that haunt the night and dwell in caves that may be tombs; or into deer or bear-cats, because these are seen in the clearings near tombs; or into snakes, because these are seen to come out of tombs, and often come into huts as if returning to their homes, and, moreover, cast their skins and so typify the renewal of life. They may also become stars, or shooting stars, or mere naked demons, or white men.
It is only after ages of thought concerning the fate of our souls that there arises in any systematic form the doctrine of metempsychosis, which now prevails over great part of southern and eastern Asia, and was formerly known in Egypt and even in Greece. But in the widely diffused doctrines of reincarnation in men or in animals, or even in plants, and in the general belief that a soul may wander and possess any kind of body, we see the sources from which this vast flood of superstition collected its waters. The Buddhist belief that not the soul wanders, but its karma (or character) creates a new body, may be considered as a retrogression from Animism to Magic; for what is it but a law of the action of an occult force or virtue?
Though the ghost survive the body, and it may be said (as by the Ekoi) that it cannot perish, and the reason may even be given (as in the Bismarck Archipelago), that it is of different nature from the body,238 it is by no means always immortal. It may die, as it were a natural death, by oblivion; or, the next world being just like this, ghosts may fight together and kill one another;239 according to the Tongans a ghost may be killed with a club; amongst the Bakongo it may be destroyed by burning its corpse.240 It has been thought that to suppress the ghost was the original motive of cremation; but the western Tasmanians cremated their dead, and can hardly have done so to be rid of such mild Animism as seems to have been entertained by the eastern tribes, who buried their dead or abandoned them.241 However, they seem to have been rid of it; whereas, in general, ghosts survive cremation, because this process cannot put an end to dreams; and it may then come to be believed that burning is necessary in order to set the soul free from its body; and, therefore, the wife of Periander, tyrant of Corinth, complained to him of being cold in the ghost world, because her clothes had been only buried in her tomb and not burnt.242 According to the Egyptians, the ghost participated in every mutilation of the body, and perished with its dissolution. It may be held that even the gods die if neglected, and depend for their immortality upon the perpetuation of their rites and sacrifices.243
Whilst the ghost’s life endures, its dwelling may be in the earth or sky, sea or forest, or in the land of the setting sun, or in the land of ancestors whence the tribe remembers to have migrated. Before departing to that undiscovered country, it may haunt the grave or the old home, till burial, or till the flesh decays, or till the funeral feast, or till death has been avenged; or it may roam the country, a resentful demon, if its funeral rites be not duly celebrated. There may be one place for all ghosts, or two, or more, according to their age, or rank, or qualities (as sociable or unsociable), or whether or not their noses were bored; or according to the manner of their death, by violence, or suicide, or sorcery. It is late before our posthumous destiny is thought to depend on moral character (as it does in metempsychosis); and even then varies with the local conception of the good man, as observing custom or religious rites or, finally, the dictates of conscience.244 I remember how puzzling it was in childhood to make out from sermons how far “going to heaven” depended on being good (conscientious) or on faith. Both seemed very desirable; yet there was a shadow of opposition between them, and to be good was a little dangerous. But faith was indispensable, and apparently the more difficult of the two, needing more elucidation, exhortation and reiteration.
The journey of ghosts to their own world may be short or long, an unadorned migration or rich in details of adventure. They may begin the new life exactly as they finished this one, or the old may be rejuvenated. As to their manner of life there, oftenest it is a repetition of their earthly state, perhaps better, or even much better, perhaps worse. And this conception is historically of the utmost importance: for (1) it seems to give the greatest confidence in a hereafter. Hume ascribes what seemed to him the incredulity of men with regard to a future life “to the faint idea we form of our future condition, derived from its want of resemblance to the present life.”245 And (2) from this conception proceeds the development of ghostly polities: presided over, according to tribes that have no chiefs, by a headman, such as Damarulum, or by the greatest known hunt-leader, like Kande Yaka of the Veddas; under advancing political structures, by chieftains, amongst whom one may be paramount, and so become a king or lord of all. These ghostly politics support the earthly ones they imitate. It is everywhere an edifice built by hope and fear, under the guidance of analogy, and sometimes decorated by caprice, if this find acceptance with the tribe.