§ 77. I need not detail all the phases of coma, having the common trait of an unconsciousness more or less unlike that of sleep. They vary in degree from " a state of slight temporary drowsiness and torpor to one of profound and permanent stupor, with general paralysis of feeling and motion." Prom simple lethargy, contrasted with natural sleep "chiefly in being more prolonged" — ^from the tem- porary inanimateness of asphyxia and the stupor produced by narcotics, we pass to the extreme forms above instanced: aU of them being interpretable in the same primitive way.
But there is one other kind of insensibility, highly sig- nificant in its implications, which remains to be noticed — the insensibility which direct injury produces. This has two varieties: the one following loss of blood, and the other following concussion.
When treating of the familiar insensibility known as 162 THE DATA 07 SOCIOLOGT.
swoon, I purposely refraiiied from including loss of blood among the causes named: this origin not being yisiblj allied to its other origins. Leadings as he does, a life of violence, now in conflict with animals chased and now in conflict with enemies, brute or human, the primitive man often experiences, or witnesses, fainting from anaomia. Not that he connects cause and effect in this definite way. What he now and then sees is, that after a serious wound comes a sudden, collapse, with closed eyes, immobility, speechlessness. For awhile there is no response to a shake or a call. Presently his wounded fellow -warrior " returns to himself "—opens his eyes and speaks. Again the blood gushes from his wound, and after a time he is again absent. Perhaps there is a revival and no subsequent unconscious- ness; or, perhaps, after the next revival, there comes a third quietude — a quietude so prolonged that hope of im- mediate return is given up.
Sometimes the insensibility has a somewhat different antecedent. In battle, a blow from a waddy lays low a companion, or a club brought down with force on the head of an enemy reduces him to a motionless mass. The one or the other may be only stunned; and after a brief inter- val, during which no response is made to words or shakes, there is a "re-animation." Or the stroke may have been violent enough to cause concussion of the brain, or fracture of the skull and consequent pressure on the brain. That is to say, there may result prolonged insensibility, followed by incoherent speech and feeble motion; after which may come a second lapse into unconsciousness — ^perhaps ending after another interval or perhaps indefinitely continued.
§ 79. Joined with the evidence which sleep and dreams furnish, this evidence furnished by abnormal states of in- sensibility, originates a group of notions conceming tem- porary absences of the other self. A swoon, interpreted aa above, is often preceded by feelings of weakness in the patient and signs of it to the spectators. Hence these rouse the suspicion that the other self is about to desert; and there comes anxiety to prevent its desertion. Beviyal of a fainting person has often taken place while he was being called to: seemingly in response to the call. Hence the question — ^will not calling bring back the other self about to desert f Some savages infer that it will. The Fijian, according to Williams, may sometimes be heard to bawl out lustily to his own soul to return to him. Among the Elarens, a man is constantly in fear lest his other self should leave him: sickness or languor being regarded as signs of its absence; and offerings and prayers being made to bring it back. Especially odd is the behaviour, described by Mason, which this belief causes at a funeral.
" On retoniing from the grave, each person provides himself with three little hooks made with branches of trees, and calling his spirit to follow him, at short intervals, as he retnms, he makes a motion as if hooking it, and then thrusts tlie hook into the ground. This is done to prevent the spirit of the living from staying behind with the spirit of the dead.** Similarly with the graver forms of insensibility. Mostly occurring, as apoplexy, trance, and ecstasy do, to persons otherwise unwell, these prolonged absences of the other self become mentally associated with its impending absences at other times; and hence an interpretation of ill-health or disease. Among some Northern Asiatic tribes disease is ascribed to the soul's departure. By the Algonquins, a sick man is regarded as a man whose " shadow '' is " unsettled, or detached from his body.'' And in some cases the Karens suppose one who is taken ill and dying to be one who has had his soul transferred to another by witchcraft.
Various beliefs naturally arise respecting the doings of the other self during these long absences. Among the Pyaks, ''elders and priestesses often assert that in their dreams they have visited the mansion of Tapa (the Supreme Ood), and seen the Creator dwelling in a house like that of A Malay, the interior of which was adorned with guns and l&i THE DATA OP SOCIOLOOT.
gongs and jars innumerable^ Himself being clotlied like a Dyak/' And Hind speaks of a Cree Indian who asserted that he had once been dead and visited the spirit-world: his alleged visits said by Hind to have been during a dream, being probably^ like the alleged visits of the Dyaks, a vision daring abnormal insensibility. For these persistent desertions by the other self are in various places explained as consequent on journeys to the world of spirits. In- stances are given by Mr. Tylor of this interpretation among the Australians, the Elhonds, the Greenlanders, the Tatars; and he names Scandinavian and Greek legends implying the same notion.
I may add, as one of the strangest of these derivative beliefs, that of certain Greenlanders, who, according to Crantz, think that the soul can '' go astray out of the body for a considerable time. Some even pretend, that when going on a long journey they can leave their souls at home, and yet remain sound and healthy.^' Thus what have become with us figurative expressions, remain with men in lower states literal descriptions. The term applied by Southern Australians to one who is uncon- scious, means "without soul''; and we say that such an one is "inanimate.'' Similarly, though our thoughts respecting a debilitated person are no longer like those of the savage, yet the words we use to convey them have the same original implication: we speak of him as having "lost his spirit."
§ 80. The actual beliefs just instanced, like those in- stanced in foregoing chapters, carry us somewhat beyond the mark. Evolution has given to the superstitions we now meet with, more specific characters than had the primitive ideas out of which they grew. I must therefore, as before, ask the reader to ignore the specialities of these inter- pretations, and to recognise only the trait common to them. The fact to be observed is that the abnormal forms of in- sensibility now and then witnessed, are inevitably inter- THB n>SA8 OF SWOON^ APOPLEXY, BTC. 165 preted after the same maiiiier as is the normal form of insensibiHiy daily witnessed: the two interpretations sup* porting one another.
The primitive man sees very varions durations of the in- sensible state and very varions degrees of the insensibility. There is the doze in which the dropping of the head on the breast is followed by instant waking; there is the ordi- nary sleep^ ending in a few minutes or continuing many hours, and varying in profundity from a state broken by a quiet call of the name to a state not broken without shouts and shakes; there is lethargy in which slumber is still longer, and the waking short and imperfect; there is swoon, perhaps lasting a few seconds or perhaps lasting hours, from which the patient now seems brought back to himself by repeated calls, and now obstinately stays away; and there are apoplexy, catalepsy, ecstasy, and other kinds of coma, lasting for long periods and similar in the per- sistence of the insensibility, though dissimilar in the accounts the patient gives on returning to himself. Further, these various comatose states differ as ending, sometimes in revival, and sometimes in a quiescence which becomes com- plete and indefinitely continued: the other self remaining BO long away that the body goes cold.
Most significant of all, however, is the experience that states of insensibility follow deep wounds and violent blows. Though for other losses of consciousness the savage saw no antecedents, yet for each of these the obvious antecedent was the act of an enemy. And this act of an enemy produced variable results. Now, the injured man shortly ''returned to himself,^' and did not go away again; and now, returning to himself only after a long absence, he presently deserted his body for an indefinite time. Lastly, instead of these temporary returns followed by final absence, there now and then occurred cases in which a violent blow caused continuous absence from the first: the other self was not perceived to come b£kck at all.
CHAPTER XII THE IDEAS or DEATH AND RESURREOTIOK.
§ 81. Ws assume without hesitation that death is easily distingaished from life; and we assume without hesitation that the natural ending of life by deaths must hare been always known as it is now known. Each of the assump- tions^ thus undoubtingly made^ is erroneous.
** Nothing is more certain than death; nothing is at times more un- certain than its reality: and nnmerous instances are recorded of persons prematurely buried, or actually at the verge of the grave, before it was discovered that life still remained; and even of some who weris resos- Gitated by the knife of the anatomist" This passage^ which I extract from Forbes and Tweedie^s Oyclopasdia of Practical Medicine, is followed by an exami- nation of the tests commonly trusted: showing that they are all fallacious. If, then, haying the accumulated expe- riences bequeathed by ciyilization, joined to that acquaint- ance with natural death gained through direct observation in every family, we cannot be sure whether revival will or will not take place; what judgments are to be expected from the primitive man, who, lacking all this recorded knowledge, lacks also our many opportunities of seeing natural death f Until facts have proved it, he cannot know that this permanent quiescence is the necessary ter- mination to the state of activity; and his wandering, pre- datory life keeps out of view most of the evidence which establishes this truth.
THB IDEAS or DEATH AND BBSUBBECTIOK. 167 So curcamstcmced^ then, wliat ideas does tlie primitive man form of death? Let ns observe the coarse of his thought, and the resulting oonduct.
§ 82. He witnesses insensibilities varions in their lengths and various in their degrees. After the immense majority of them there come reanimations — daily after sleep, fre- quently after swoon^ occasionally after coma, now and then after wounds or blows. What about this other form of insensibility f — ^will not reanimation follow this also f The inference that it will, is strengthened by the occa- sional experience that revival occurs after immediate ex- pectation of it had ceased. One in course of being buried, or one about to be burned, suddenly comes back to him- self. The savage does not, as we should, take this for a proof that the man supposed to be dead was not dead; bat it helps to convince him that the insensibility of death is like all the other insensibilities — only temporary. Even were he critical, instead of being incapable of criticism, the facts would go far to justify his belief that in these cases reanimation is only longer postponed.
That this confusion, naturally to be expected, actually exists, we have direct evidence. Arbousset and Daumas quote the proverb of the Bushmen — " Death is only a sleep.'' Concerning the Tasmanians, Bonwick writes: — ^' When I asked Mungo the reason of the spear being stuck in the tomb, he replied quietly, ^ To fight with when he is asleep.' " Even of so superior a race as the Dyaks, we are told by St. John that they have great difficulty in distinguishing sleep from death. Perceval says that when a Toda dies, the people ^^ entertain a lingering hope that till putrefaction commences, reanimation may possibly take place." More clearly still is this notion of rfwival implied in the reasons given for their practices by two tribes— one in the Old World and one in the New — ^who, in extreme degrees, unite brutality with stupidity. Galton says that the corpse of a 168 TH8 DATA OT SOOIOLOaT.
ff Damara, having been sewn-up sitting " in an old ox«lude; is buried in a hole^ and ''the spectators jump backwards and forwards over the grave to keep the deceased from rising out of it/' And we learn from Southey that, among the Tupis, " the corpse had all it^s limbs tied fast, that the dead man might not be able to get up, and infest his friends with his visits."
Apart from avowed convictions and assigned reasons, abundant proofs are furnished by the resulting behaviour; as in the inst&nces last given. Let us contemplate the various acts prompted by the belief that the dead return to life.
§ 83. First of all come attempts to revive the corpse — to bring back the other-self. These are sometimes very strenuous, and very horrible. Alexander tells us of the Arawaks, that a man who had lost his two brothers *' cut thorny twigs, and beat the bodies all over, uttering at the same time ' Heia I heia I' as if Ae felt the pain of the flagel- lation. * ♦ ♦ Seeing that it was impossible to reanimate the lifeless clay, he opened their eyes, and beat the thorns into the eyeballs, and all over the face.'' Similarly, we learn from Sparman that the Hottentots reprpach and ill-use the dying, and those just dead, for going away.
This introduces us to the widely-prevalent practice of talking to the corpse: primarily with the view of inducing the wandering duplicate to return, but otherwise for pur- poses of propitiation. The Fijian thinks that calling sometimes brings back the other-self at death; and we read that the Moondes, or Hos, even call back the spirit of a corpse that has been burnt. Cruickshank says that the Fantees addressed the corpse ^' sometimes in accents of re- proach for leaving them; at others beseeching his spirit to watch over and protect them from evil.'' During their lamentations, the Caribs asked " the deceased to declare the cause of his departure from the world." In Loango, a dead i THIS IDEAS 07 DEATH AND BB8TTRBSCTI0N. 169 man's relatiyes question him for two or three hours why he died; and on the Gk>ld Coast, " the dead person is himself interrogated'^ as to the canse of his death: a statement of Beecham confirmed by Winterbottom. So, too, when de- positing food, etc. Among the Todas, the sacrificer ad- dressed the deceased, and, naming the cow killed, " said they had sent her to accompany him/' MofEat tells ns of tiie Bechnanas that, on bringing things to the grave, an old woman addresses to the corpse the words — " There are your articles/' And according to Hall, the Innuits visit the graves, talk to the dead, leave food, furs, etc., saying — " Here, Nukerton, is something to eat, and something to keep you warm/' As implied by the last case, this behaviour, originally adopted towards those just dead, extends to those dead some time. Describing the Bagos, Caill^ states that after he is buried '^ a dead man's relations come and talk to him under the idea that he cares what they say.'' After burning, also, the same thing sometimes happens: among the old Kookies the ashes are '^ addressed by the friends of the deceased, and his good qualities recited." And the Malagasy not only ''address themselves in an impassioned manner to the de- ceased," but, on entering the burial-place, inform the sur- ronnding dead that a relative is come to join them, and bespeak a good reception. Even by such comparatively- advanced peoples as those of ancient America, this practice was continued, and, indeed, highly developed. The Mexi- cans, giving to the deceased certain papers, said: — " By means of this you will pass without danger between the two mountains which fight against each other." With the second, they said: "By means of this you will walk without obstruction along the road which is defended by the great serpent." With the third: " By this you will go securely through the place where there is the crocodile and the ochitonal." So, too, among the Peruvians, the young knights on their initiation, addressed their embalmed an- 170 THE DATA 09 SOdOLOGY.
ceBtors^ beseeching " tliem to make their descendants as fortunate and brave as they had been themselyes/' After recognizing the truth that death is at first re- garded as one kind of temporarily -arrested life^ these pro- ceedings no longer appear so absurd. Beginning with the call^ which is effectual in waking the sleeper and sometimes seems effectual in reviying one who has swooned^ this speaking to the dead develops in various directions; and continues to be a custom even where immediate reanima- tion is not looked for.
§ 84. The belief that death is a long-suspended anima- tion^ has a further effect^ already indicated in some of the foregoing extracts. I refer to the custom of giving the corpse food: in some cases actually feeding it; and in most cases leaving eatables and drinkables for its use.
Occasionally in trance^ the patient^ though insensible, swallows morsels put into his mouth. Whether or not such an experience led to it^ there exists a practice implying the belief that death is an allied state. Earl says of the Assn Islanders^ that several times during the few days after one has died^ these Papuans try to make him eat; ''and when they find that he does not partake of it, the mouth is filled with eatables, siri, and arrack, until it runs down the body, and spreads over the floor/^ Among the Tahitians, " if the deceased was a chief of rank or fame, a priest or other person was appointed to attend the corpse, and present food to its mouth at different periods of the day.'^ So is it with the Malanans of Borneo: when a chief dies, his slaves attend to his imagined wants with the fan, siri, and betel-nut. Harkness tells us of the Badagas, that, " be- tween death and burning they frequently drop a little grain into the mouth of the deceased.'^ Mostly, however, the aim is to give the deceased available supplies whenever he may need them. In some cases he is thus provided for while awaiting burial; as among the THE IDSAS OF DEATH AND BBSUBBSCTION. 171 Fantees^ who place " viands and wine for the use of the departed spirit/^ near the sofa where the corpse is laid; and as among the EfurenSy by whom ^^ meat is set before the body as food^^' before burial and after. Tahitians and Sandwich Islanders, too, who expose their dead on stages, place fruits and water beside them; and the New Zealanders, who similarly furnish provisions, '' avor that at night the spirit comes and feeds from the sacred calabashes/^ Herrera tells us of certain Brazilians, that they put the dead man in ''the net or hammock he used to lie in, and during the first days they bring him meat, thinking he lies in his bed/' And the belief that the unburied required refreshment, was otherwise shown by the Peruvians, who held a funeral feast, ''expecting the soul of the deceased, which, they say, must come to eat and to drink/' So general is the placing of provisions in or upon the grave, that an enumeration of the cases before me would be wearisome: a few must suffice. In Africa may be instanced the Sherbro people, who, Schon says, " are in the habit of carrying rice and other eatables to the graves of their de- parted friends;'' the Loango people, who, Proyart says, deposit food at the tomb; the Inland Negroes, who, according to Allen, put food and wine on the graves; and the sanguinary Dahomans, who, according to Burton, place on the grave an iron asen, on which " water or blood, as a drink for the deceased, is poured." Turning to Asia, we find the practice among the Hill-tribes of India. The Bhils cook rice and leave some where the body was buried, and the rest at the " threshold of his late dwelling, as provision for the spirit;" and kindred oustoms are ob- served by Santals, Kookies, Eiurens. In America, of the uncivilized races, may be named the Garibs; who put the corpse " in a cavern or sepulchre " with water and eatables. But it was by the extinct civilized races that this practice was most elaborated. The Chibchas, shutting up the dead in artificial caves, wrapped them in fine mantles 172 TEC DATA or SOdOLOOT.
and placed ronnd them many maize cakes and mueurcu of chicha [a drink]; and of the PemvianB^ Tschndi tells ns that " in front of the bodies they nsed to place two rows of pots filled with goiana^ maize, potatoes, dried llama-flesh, etc., covered over with smaller pots. On both sides, in a semi-circle, cooking vessels * * * and pots filled with water and ehicha, covered with drinking vessels, were placed/' The like is done even along with cremation. Butler tells ns that among the Kookies, the widow places " rice and vegetables on the ashes of her husband.^' The ancient Central Americans had a kindred habit. Oviedo gives thus the statement of an Indian: — " When we are about to bom the body we put beside it some boiled maize in a cala- bash, and attach it to the body and bum it along with it.'' Though where the corpse is destroyed by fire, we must suppose that the conception of reanimation in its original form has died out; this continued practice of supplying food indicates a past time when reanimation was conceived literally. And, indeed, on finding that the Kookies, some of whom bury their dead while others bum them, supply eatables in either case, we can scarcely doubt this.
§ 85. What in the limit to the time for the return of the other-self 7 Hours have elapsed and the insensible have revived; days have elapsed and the insensible have revived; will they revive after weeks or months, and then want food f The primitive man cannot say. The answer is at least doubtful, and he takes the sate course: he repeats the sup* plies of food.
It is thus with the indigenes of India. Among the Bodo and Dhimals, the food and drink laid on the grave are renewed after some days, " and the dead is addressed "; among the Kookies the corpse being '' deposited upon a stage raised under a shed," food and drink are ''daily brought, and laid before it." By American races this custom is carried much further. Hall tells us of the THE IDEAS OF DEATH AND BESURBEGTIOK. 173 Innnits that " whenever they return to the vicinity of the kindred's grave^ a visit is made to it with the best food'' as a present; and Schoolcraft says of the Dakotahs that ''for one year they visit the place of the dead^ and carry food and make a feast for the dead, to feed the spirit of the departed." Bat in this^ as in other ways, the extinct civilized races of America provided most carefully. Motolinia alleges of the Mexicans that ''after the burial, they returned to the tomb for twenty days, and put on it food and roses; so they did after eighty days, and so on from eighty to eighty." Concerning the Peruvians of the coast valleys, we learn from Cieza that in former times they used to open the tombs, and renew the clothes and food which were placed in them. Still further were such practices carried with the embalmed bodies of the Yncas. They brought provisions to them. Baying — " When you were alive you used to eat and drink of this; may your soul now receive it and feed on it, where- soever you may be.'* And this statement of Molina con- cerning one of the festivals, may be joined with that of P. Pizarro; who says they brought out the bodies every day and seated them in a row, according to their antiquity.
While the servants feasted, they put the food of the dead on a fire, and their chicha vessels before them, and dead and living pledged one another at the banquet.
Here the primitive practice of leaving food with the corpse and repeating the supplies, in doubt how long the revival may be delayed, has developed into a system of observances considerably divergent from the original ones.
§ 86. Other sequences of the belief in reanimation, equally remarkable, may next be named. If the corpse is still in some way alive, like one in a trance, must it not breathe, and does it not require warmth f These ques- tions sundry races practically answer in the affirmative.
Of the Guaranis, Southey writes — ^" They believe that the soul continued with the body in the grave, for which reason 174 THB DATA OF SOCIOLOQT.
they were careful to leave room for if * * * would to- moye ''part of the earthy lest it should lie heavy upon them^' * * * sometimes '' covered the face of the corpse with a concave dish^ that the soul might not be stifled/' It is an Esquimaux belief ''that any weight pressing upon the corpse would give pain to the deceased/' And, writing of the ancient Peruvians, Arriaga states that after the con- quest, the Indians used to disinter people buried in the churches, saying that the bodies were very uneasy when pressed by the soil, and liked better to stay in the open air.
A fire serves both to give warmth and for cooking; and one or other of these conveniences is in some cases pro- vided for the deceased. Morgan writes that by the Iroquois " a fire was built upon the grave at night to enable the spirit to prepare its food.'' Among the Brazilians, according to Burton, it is the habit to " light fires by the side of newly- made graves * * * for the personal comfort of the defunct." In his account of the Sherbro people [Coast Negroes] Schon says that " frequently in cold or wet nights they will light a fire on the graves of their d^arted friendau" By the Western Australians, too, fires are kept burning beside the grave for days; and should the deceased be a person of distinction, these fires are lighted daily for three or four years.
§ 87. Besuscitation as originally conceived, cannot take place unless there remains a body to be resuscitated. How- ever much the belief of the primitive man in a returning other-self, may be joined with a treatment of the corpse calculated to make revival of it impossible; yet expecta- tion of a revival is naturally accompanied by recognition of the need for preserving the corpse from injury. Hence these various observances which provide for the welfare of the inert body while its double is absent, and for the welfare of the reanimated body when its double returns.
THE IDEAS or DEATH AND SESUBBEGTION. 175 are associated with otlier observancos aiming tO prevent destmction of the body.
Note, first, sundry indications of the belief that if the body has been destroyed there can be no revival — that there is then annihilation. When Bmce tells us that among the Abyssinians criminals are seldom bnried; when we learn from Simon that among the Chibchas the bodies of the greatest criminals were left nnbnried in the fields; and when we remember the care usnally taken of the corpse in avowed anticipation of its renewed life; we may infer the belief that renewal of life is prevented when the body is devonred. This belief we elsewhere find ex- pressed. The New Zealanders held that a man who was eaten by them, was destroyed wholly and for ever. Chap- man says the Damaras think that dead men, if buried, '^ can- not rest in the grave. * * * Yon must throw them away, and let the wolves eat them; then they won^t come and bother ns.^' According to Bastian, the Matiamba negresses believe that by throwing their husbands* corpses into the water, they drown the souls: these would otherwise trouble them. And possibly it may be under a similar belief that the Kamtschadales give the corpse ^' for food to their dogs.*' Where, however, the aim is not to insure annihilation of the departed, but to secure his well-being, anxiety is shown that the corpse shall be guarded against ill-treatment. This anxiety prompts devices which vary according to the views taken of the deceased^s state of existence.
In some cases security is sought in secrecy, or inacces- sibihty, or both. Over certain sepulchres the Chibchas planted trees to conceal them. After a time the remains of New Zealand chiefs were " secretly deposited by priests in sepulchres on hill-tops, in forests, or in caves.*' The Muruts of Borneo place the bones of their chiefs in boxes on the ridges of the highest hills, St. John tells us; and Ellis says of the Tahitians that sometimes, to prevent the 17G THS DATA OF 80GI0L0QT.