§ 10. The Samoan Belief concerning the Human Soul: Funeral Customs

Whether the Samoans practised the worship of the dead in a developed form or not, they certainly possessed the elements out of which the worship might under favourable circumstances be evolved. These elements are a belief in the survival of the human soul after death, and a fear of disembodied spirits or ghosts.

The Samoans believed that every man is animated by a soul, which departs from the body temporarily in faints and dreams and permanently at death. The soul of the dreamer, they thought, really visited the places which he saw in his dream. At death it departed to the subterranean world of the dead which the Samoans called Pulotu, a name which clearly differs only dialectically from the Tongan Bolotoo or Bulotu. Some people professed to see the parting soul when it had quitted its mortal body and was about to take flight to the nether region. It was always of the same shape as the body. Such apparitions at the moment of death were much dreaded, and people tried to drive them away by shouting and firing guns. The word for soul is anganga, which is a reduplicated form of anga, a verb meaning "to go" or "to come." Thus apparently the Samoans did not, like many people, identify the soul with the shadow; for in Samoan the word for shadow is ata.[149]

However, they seem to have in a dim way associated a man's soul with his shadow. This appears from a remarkable custom which they observed in the case of the unburied dead. The Samoans were much concerned for the lot of these unfortunates and stood in great dread of their ghosts. They believed that the spirits of those who had not received the rites of burial wandered about wretched and forlorn and haunted their relatives everywhere by day and night, crying in doleful tones, "Oh, how cold! oh, how cold!" Hence when the body of a dead kinsman was lost because he had been drowned at sea or slain on a battlefield, some of his relatives would go down to the seashore or away to the battlefield where their friend had perished; and there spreading out a cloth on the ground they would pray to some god of the family, saying, "Oh, be kind to us; let us obtain without difficulty the spirit of the young man!" After that the first thing that lighted on the cloth was supposed to be the spirit of the dead. It might be a butterfly, a grasshopper, an ant, a spider, or a lizard; whatever it might be, it was carefully wrapt up and taken to the family, who buried the bundle with all due ceremony, as if it contained the body of their departed friend. Thus the unquiet spirit was believed to find rest. Now the insect, or whatever it happened to be, which thus acted as proxy at the burial was supposed to be the ata or shadow of the deceased. The same word ata served to express likeness; a photographer, for example, is called pue-ata, "shadow-catcher." The Samoans do not appear to have associated the soul with the breath.[150]

They attributed disease and death to the anger of a god, to the agency of an evil spirit, or to the ghost of a dead relative who had entered into the body of the sufferer. Epilepsy, delirium, and mania were always thus explained by the entrance into the patient of a god or demon. The Samoan remedy for all such ailments was not medicine but exorcism. Sometimes a near relative of the sick person would go round the house brandishing a spear and striking the walls to drive away the spirit that was causing the sickness.[151] Hence when a member of a family fell seriously ill, his friends did not send for a doctor, but repaired to the high priest of the village to enquire of him the cause of the sickness, to learn why the family god (aitu) was angry with them, and to implore his mercy and forgiveness. Often the priest took advantage of their anxiety to demand a valuable piece of property, such as a canoe or a parcel of ground, as the best means of propitiating the angry deity and so ensuring the recovery of the patient. With all these demands the anxious and unsuspecting relatives readily complied. But if the priest happened not to want anything in particular at the time, he would probably tell the messengers to gather the family about the bed of the sufferer and there confess their sins. The command was implicitly obeyed, and every member of the family assembled and made a clean breast of his or her misdeeds, especially of any curse which he or she might have called down either on the family generally or on the invalid in particular. Curiously enough, the curse of a sister was peculiarly dreaded; hence in such cases the sister of the sick man was closely questioned as to whether she had cursed him and thus caused his illness; if so, she was entreated to remove the curse, that he might recover. Moved by these pleadings, she might take some coco-nut water in her mouth and spurt it out towards or upon the body of the sufferer. By this action she either removed the curse or declared her innocence; a similar ceremony might be performed by any other member of the family who was suspected of having cursed the sick man.[152]

When an illness seemed likely to prove fatal, messengers were despatched to friends at a distance that they might come and bid farewell to the dying man. Every one who came to visit the sufferer in his last moments brought a present of a fine mat or other valuable piece of property as a token of regard, and to defray the cost of the illness and funeral. The best of the mats would be laid on the body of the dying man that he might have the comfort of seeing them before he closed his eyes for ever. Dr. George Brown thought that the spirits of the mats thus laid on the body of the dying chief were supposed to accompany his soul to the other world. It is possible that their spirits did so, but it is certain that their material substance did not; for after the funeral all the mats and other valuables so presented were distributed among the mourners and friends assembled on the occasion, so that every one who had brought a gift took away something in return on his departure.[153]

If the dying man happened to be a chief, numbers crowded round him to receive a parting look or word, while in front of the house might be seen men and women wildly beating their heads and bodies with great stones, thus inflicting on themselves ghastly wounds, from which the blood poured as an offering of affection and sympathy to their departing friend or lord. It was hoped that, pleased and propitiated by the sight of their devotion, the angry god might yet stay his hand and spare the chief to his people. Above all the tumult and uproar would rise the voice of one who prayed aloud for the life then trembling in the balance. But if the prayer seemed likely to prove ineffectual, it was exchanged for threats and upbraiding. "O thou shameless spirit," the voice would now be heard exclaiming, "could I but grasp you, I would smash your skull to pieces! Come here and let us fight together. Don't conceal yourself, but show yourself like a man, and let us fight, if you are angry."[154]

Immediately after death, all the mats on the floor of the house were thrown outside, and the thatched sides of the house were either torn down or knocked in with clubs; while the relatives and assembled crowds wrought themselves up to frenzy, uttering loud shrieks, rending their garments, tearing out their hair by handfuls, burning their bodies with firebrands, beating their faces and heads with clubs and stones, or gashing themselves with shells and shark's teeth, till the blood ran freely down. This they called an offering of blood for the dead. In their fury some of the mourners fell on the canoes and houses, breaking them up and tearing them down, felling the bread-fruit trees, and devastating the plantations of yams and taro.[155]

As decomposition is rapid in the hot moist climate of Samoa, it was customary to bury commoners a few hours after death. The body was laid out on a mat, anointed with scented oil, and the face tinged with turmeric, to soften the cadaverous look. It was then wound up in several folds of native cloth and the chin propped up, the head and face being left uncovered, while for some hours longer the body was surrounded by weeping relatives, who kept constant watch over it, so long as it remained in the house. These watchers were always women, and none of them might quit her post under any pretext till she was relieved by another. A fire was kept burning brightly in the house all the time. If the deceased had died of a complaint which had previously carried off other members of the family, they would probably open the body to "search for the disease." Any inflamed substance which they happened to find they would take away and burn, thinking thus to prevent any other member of the family from being similarly afflicted. Such a custom betrays an incipient sense of death from natural, instead of supernatural, causes, and must have contributed to diffuse a knowledge of human anatomy.[156]

So long as a corpse remained in the house no food might be eaten under the roof; the family had their meals outside or in another house. Those who had attended to the deceased or handled the corpse were taboo: they might not feed themselves or touch food with their hands. For days they were fed by others as if they were helpless infants. Baldness and the loss of teeth were supposed to be the punishment inflicted by the household god for a breach of the rule. Many people fasted at such times, eating nothing during the day, but taking a meal in the evening. The fifth day was a day of purification. The tabooed persons then washed their faces and hands with hot water and were clean; after that they were free to eat at the usual time and in the usual manner.[157]

The ordinary mode of disposing of the dead was by interment either in a stone vault or in a shallow grave. But occasionally other modes were adopted, such as embalming, putting the corpse in a canoe and setting it adrift on the sea, or exposing it on a stage erected in the forest, where it was left to decay, the bones being afterwards collected and buried. Upon the death of a chief his body was generally deposited in a family vault, the sides and bottom of which were lined with large slabs of sandstone or basalt, while another large slab of the same material formed the roof. Such vaults were sometimes large and massive. The stones used in their construction were found in various parts of the islands. Commoners were buried in shallow graves.[158]

Ordinary people were usually buried the day after they died. As many friends as could be present attended the funeral. Every one brought a present, but on the day after the funeral all these presents, like those which had previously been made to the dying man, were distributed again, so that none went empty-handed away. The corpse was generally buried without a coffin; but chiefs were laid in hollow logs or canoes. However, even the bodies of common people were sometimes interred in rude coffins similarly constructed. There were no common burying-grounds; all preferred to bury their dead on their own land. Often the grave was dug close to the house. The body was laid in it with the head to the east and the feet to the west. When it had been thus committed to its last resting-place, a near relative of the deceased, a sister, if one survived, seated herself at the grave, and waving a white cloth over the corpse, began an address to the dead. "Compassion to you," she said, "go with goodwill, and without bearing malice towards us. Take with you all our diseases, and leave us life." Then pointing to the west, she exclaimed, "Misery there!" Next pointing to the east, she cried, "Prosperity there!" Lastly, pointing to the grave, she said, "Misery there; but leave happiness with us!" With the body they deposited in the grave several things which had been used by the deceased during his illness, such as his clothing, his drinking-cup, and his bamboo pillow. The wooden pickaxes and coco-nut shells employed as shovels in digging the grave were also carefully buried with the corpse. It was not, we are told, because the people believed these things to be of use to the dead; but because it was supposed that, if they were left and handled by others, further disease and death would be the consequence. Valuable mats and other articles of property were sometimes buried with the corpse, and the grave of a warrior was surrounded with spears stuck upright in the ground. Graves were sometimes enclosed with stones and strewn with sand or crumbled coral.[159]

The obsequies of a chief of high rank were more elaborate. The body was kept unburied for days until his clansfolk had assembled from various parts of the islands and paraded the body, shoulder high, through the village, chanting a melancholy dirge.[160] The mourning and ceremonies lasted from ten to fifteen days. All that time the house of death was watched night and day by men appointed for the purpose. After the burial, and until the days of mourning were ended, the daytime was generally spent in boxing and wrestling matches, and sham-fights, while the nights were occupied with dancing and practising a kind of buffoonery, which was customary at these seasons of mourning for the dead. The performance was called O le tau-pinga. The performers amused themselves by making a variety of ludicrous faces and grimaces at each other, to see who could excite the other to laugh first. Thus they whiled away the hours of night till the days of mourning were expired.[161] So long as the funeral ceremonies and feasts lasted no work might be done in the village, and no strangers might approach it. The neighbouring lagoon and reefs were taboo: no canoe might pass over the lagoon anywhere near the village, and no man might fish in it or on the reef.[162] For a chief or man of distinction fires were kept burning day and night in a line from the house to the grave; these fires were maintained for ten days after the funeral. The reason assigned for this custom, according to Ella, was to keep away evil spirits. Even common people observed a similar custom. After burial they kept a fire blazing in the house all night, and they were careful to clear the intervening ground so that a stream of light went forth from the house to the grave. The account which the Samoans gave of the custom, according to Turner, was that it was merely a light burning in honour of the departed, and a mark of their tender regard for him. Dr. George Brown believed that the original motive for the custom was to warm the ghost, and probably at the same time to protect the mourners against dangerous spirits.[163]

The head was deemed a very sacred part, and in olden days the bodies of chiefs were often buried near their houses until decomposition had set in, when the head was cut off and interred in some family burying-place inland, to save it from insult in time of war. This interment of the head was accompanied with feasts, dances, and sham-fights. The skull was borne to the appointed place on a kind of stage, attended by a troop of armed men. With these sham-fights Dr. George Brown, who records the custom, compares the sham-fights which used to take place among the Melanesians of the Duke of York Island when the body of a chief was laid on a high platform in front of his house, one company of warriors striving to deposit the corpse on the platform, while their adversaries attempted to prevent them from doing so.[164] The meaning of these curious sham-fights is obscure. Perhaps the attacking party represented a band of evil spirits, who endeavoured to snatch away the chief's body, but were defeated in the nefarious attempt.

One or two families of chiefs in the island of Upolu used to practise a rude kind of embalming. The work was done exclusively by women. The viscera having been removed and buried, the women anointed the body daily with a mixture of oil and aromatic juices. To let the fluids escape, they punctured the body all over with fine needles. Finally, wads of native cloth, saturated with oil or resinous gums, were inserted in the abdomen, the apertures were closed up, and the body wrapt in native cloth. The face, hands, and feet were left exposed, and were repeatedly anointed with oil, mixed with turmeric powder, to give a fresh and life-like appearance to the mummy. The whole process lasted about two months. On its completion the mummy was placed in a house built specially for the purpose, where, loosely covered with a sheet of native cloth, it rested on a raised platform. Strangers were freely admitted to see it. Four of these mummies, laid out in a house, were to be seen down to about the year 1864. They were the bodies of a chief, his wife, and two sons. Dr. George Turner judged that they must have been embalmed upwards of thirty years, and although they had been exposed all that time, they were in a remarkably good state of preservation. The people assigned no particular reason for the practice, further than that it sprang from an affectionate desire to keep the bodies of their departed friends with them, as if they were still alive.[165]