Carrying out consistently this conception of the second life as a repetition of the life temporarily suspended at death, uncivilized peoples infer that, not only his inanimate possessions, but also his animate possessions, will be needed by the deceased. Hence the slaughter of his live stock. With the Kirghiz chief are deposited ''his favourite horses,'' as also with the Yakut, the Comanche, the Pata- gonian; with the Borghoo, his horse and dog; with the Bedouin, his camel; with the Damara, his cattle; with the Toda, ''his entire herd;" and the Vatean, when about to die, has his pigs first tied to his wrist by a cord and then killed. Obviously the skulls of animals in so many cases placed round the grave, show the number which the deceased has taken with him to serve him in his second life. Where the life led here, instead of being predatory or pastoral, is agri- cultural, the same idea prompts a kindred practice. Tschudi tells us that in Peru "a small bag with cocoa, maize, quinua, etc., is laid beside the dead, that they might have where- withal to sow the fields in the other world."
§ 104. Logically developed, the primitive belief implies something more — ^it implies that the deceased will need not only his weapons and implements, his clothing, ornaments, and other movables, together with his domestic animals; but also that he will want human companionship and 204 THE DATA OF BOOIOLOOTa services. The attendance he had before deaths mnst be re* newed after death.
Hence the immolations^ more or less extensive, which have prevailed, and still prevail, so widely — ^the sacrificings of wives, of slaves, of friends. Too familiar a truth to re- quire illustration, I will here advert only to the further truth that this practice develops as society advances through its earlier stages, and the theory of another life becomes more definite. Among the Fuegians, the Andamanese, the Australians, the Tasmanians, with their rudi- mentary social organizations, the sacrifice of wives to accom- pany dead husbands, if it occurs at all, is not general enough to be specified in the accounts given of them. But it is a practice shown us by more advanced peoples: in Polynesia, by the New Caledonians, by the Fijians, and occa- sionally by the less barbarous Tongans — ^in America, by the Chinooks, the Caribs, the Dakotahs — ^in Africa, by the Congo people, the Inland Negroes, the Coast Negroes, and most ex- tensively by the Dahomans. To attend the dead in the other world, captives taken in war are sacrificed by the Caribs, the Dakotahs, the Chinooks; and without enume- rating the savage and semi-savage peoples who do the like, I will only further instance the survival of the practice among the Homeric Greeks, when slaying (though with another assigned motive) twelve Trojans at the funeral pyre of Patroclus. Similarly with domestics: a dead man^s slaves are slain by the Kyans, and by the Milanans of Borneo; the Zulus kill a king's valets 5 the Inland Negroes kill his eunuchs to accompany his wives; the Coast Negroes poison or decapitate his confidential servants. Further, there is in some cases an im- molation of friends. In Fiji, a leading man^s chief friend is sacrificed to accompany him; and in the sanguinary societies of tropical Africa, a like usage is found.
It was, however, in the considerably-advanced societies of ancient America that arrangements for the future conveniaa THl IDBAS OF ANOTHIBB LIIV. 205 ence of the dead were carried out with the greatest care. In Mexico, every great man^s chaplain was slain to per- form for him the religions ceremonies in the next life as in this. Ximenea tells us, concerning the Indians of Vera Paz, that '^ when a lord was dying, they immediately killed as many slaves as he had, that they might precede him and pre- pare the house for their master.'^ Besides other attendants, the Mexicans, according to Clavigero, '^ sacrificed some of the irregularly-formed men, whom the king had collected in his palaces for his entertainment, in order that they might give him the same pleasure in the other world/^ Of course, such ^borate precautions that the deceased should not lack here- after any advantages he had enjoyed here, entailed enormous hloodshed. By the Mexicans " the number of the victims was proportioned to the grandeur of the funer9.1, and amouiited sometimes, as several historians affirm, to 200/' and in Peru, when an Tnca died, " his attendants and favourite concubines, amounting sometimes, it is said, to a thousand, were immolated on his tomb/' The intensity of the faith prompting such customs, we shall the better conceive on finding proof that the victims are often willing, and occasionally anxious, to die. Among the Guaranis, in old times, some faithful followers '^ sacrificed themselves at the grave of a chief.'' Garcilasso says that a dead Ynca's wives '^volunteered to be killed, and their number was often such that the officers were obliged to interfere, saying that enough had gone at present;" and according to Cieza, " some of the women, in order that their faithful service might be hold in more esteem, finding that there was delay in completing the tomb, would hang them- selves up by their own hair, and so kill themselves." Similarly of the Chibchas, Simon tells us that with a corpse "they interred the wives and slaves who most wished it." In Africa it is the same. Among the Yoru- bans, at the funeral of a great man, not only are slaves slain, but " many of his friends swallow poison/' and are entombed 206 THE DATA OF 800I0L00T.
with him. Formerly in CongOj ''when the king was buried a dozen young maids leapt into the g^ve * * * and were buried alive to serve him in the other world. These maids were then so eager for this service to their deceased prince, that, in striving who should be firsts they killed one another.^' And in Dahomey, ''immediately the king dies, his wives begin to destroy all his furniture and things of value, §s well as their own; and to murder one another. On one occasion 285 of the women were thus killed before the new king could stop it."* Bespecting these immolations, it should be added that they sometimes follow the deaths of the young. E[ane says a Chinook chief wished to kill his wife, that she might ac- company his dead son to the other world; and in Aneiteum, on the death of a beloved child, the mother, aunt, or g^nd- mother, is strangled to accompany it to the world of spirits.
As further qualifying the interpretation to be put on san- guinary customs of this kind, we must bear in mind that not only are inferiors and dependents sacrificed at a funeral, with or without their assent, but that superiors themselves in some cases decide to die. Fiji is not the only place where people advancing in years are buried alive by their dutiful children: the like practice holds in Yate, where an old chief requests his children to destroy him in this way.
§ 105. Conceived as like the first in its needs, and occu- pations, and pleasures, the second life is conceived as like the first in its social arrangements. Subordination, both domestic and public, is expected to be the same hereafter as here. A few specific statements to this effect may be added to the foregoing implications.
Cook states that the Tahitians divided the departed into * We have here a clue to the anomalous fiict that, in sundry of these African kingdoms, eyerythingis given oyer to plunder and mnrder after a king's death. The case of Ashantee, where the relatiyes of the king commit the destruction, shows us that it is all a sequence of the supposed duty to go and serve the king in another life.
THB IDEAS OF ANOTHBB LIFE. 207 classes similar to those existing among themselves; or^ as Ellis re-states it^ '' those who were kings or Areois in this world were the same there for ever." The creed o£ the Tongans, too^ represents deceased persons as organized after the system of ranks existing in Tonga. The same holds in Fiji; where it "is most repugnant to the native mind'' that a chief should appear in the other world unattended. In the future lif e^ the Chibchas thought they would " be attended to by their servants, as in the present.'' So, too, is it among the Hill-tribes of India: the heaven of the Karens " has its rulers and its subjects;" and in the Kookie heaven, the ghost of every enemy a man has slain becomes his slave. With the African races the like holds. Forbes tells us that in the creed of the Dahomans, classes are the same in the second life as in the first. Describing the Kaffir-beliefs, Shooter says, the political and social relations after death are supposed to remain as before. And a kindred conception is implied among the Akkra Negroes, by their assertion that in the rainy season, their guardian gods go on a visit to the court of the supreme god.
That this analogy persists in the conceptions of higher races, scarcely needs saying. The legend of the descent of Ishtar, the Assyrian Venus, shows us that the residence of the Assyrian dead had, like Assyria, its despotic ruler, with officers levying tribute. So, too, in the underworld of the Greeks. We have the dread Aides, with his wife Persephone, as rulers; we have Minos " giving laws to the dead, sitting down, but the others around him, the king, pleaded their causes "; and to Achilles, described as honoured "when aUve equally with the gods," it is said, " now again, when thou art here, thou hast great power amongst the deceased." And while departed men are thus under political and social relations like those of living men, so are the celestials. Zeus stands to the rest " exactly in the same relation that an absolute monarch does to the aristocracy of which he is the head." Nor did the 208 THK DATA OP SOCIOLOaY.
Hebrew ideas of another life fail to yield like analogies.* Originally appearing to mean simply the grave, or in a vague way, the place or state of the dead, Sheol, when ac- quiring the more definite meaning of a miserable place for the dead — a Hebrew Hades — and afterwards developing into a place of torture, Gehenna, introduces us to a form of dia- bolical government having gradations. And though, as the conception of life in the Hebrew heaven elaborated along with the elaboration of Hebrew life on earth, the ascribed arrangements did not, like those of the Greeks, parallel terrestrial arrangements domestically, they did poli- tically. As some commentators express it, there is implied a " court '^ of celestial beings — ^a hierarchy of angels and others, having ranks and functions. Sometimes, as in the case of Ahab, God is represented as taking council with his attendants and accepting a suggestion. There is a heavenly army, spoken of as divided into legions. An apportioning of powers is described. There are archangels set over diffe- rent elements and over different peoples: these deputy- gods being, in so far, analogous to the minor gods of the Greek Pantheon. The chief difference, beyond that of origin, is that the powers are more distinctly deputed, and the subordination greater. Though here, too, the subordina- tion is incomplete: we read of wars in heaven, and of re- bellious angels cast down to Tartarus. That this parallelism continued down into late Christian times, is abundantly shown. In 1407, Petit, professor of theology in the University of Paris, represented God as a feudal sovereign. Heaven as a feudal kingdom, and Lucifer as a rebellious vassal. ''He deceived numbers of angels, and brought them over to his party, so that they were to do him * The primitive Hebrew ideas about the state after death, were probably like those found to exist among many uncivilized peoples; who, though with* out avowed beliefs in a future life, yet stand in great fear of the spirits of the dead. That the Hebrews believed in ghosts is clear; and out of this belief in ghosts, at first regarded as temporarily existing, there was eventually developed among them, as among other peoples, the belief In a permanent future life.
THB IDEAS OF ANOTHBB LITB. 209 Komage and obediencei as to their soyereign lord, and be no way subject to God; and Lucifer was to bold his govern- ment in like manner to God, and independent of all subjec- tion to him. * * * St. Michael, on discovering his inten- tions^ came to him, and said that he was acting very wrong/' etc. ''A battle ensued between them, and many of the angels took part on either side, but the greater number were for St. Michael.'^ (See Monstrelet, bk. i., ch. 89.) That a kindred view was held by our Protestant Milton, is obvious.
§ 106. Along with this parallelism between the social sys- terns of the two lives, may fitly be named the closeness of communion between them. The second life is originally allied to the first by frequency and directness of intercourse. Thus, in Dahomey, the constant immolations are due to the &cts that " they periodically supply the departed monarch with fresh attendants in the shadowy world,'' and that, ''whatever action, however trivial, is performed by the King, it must dutifully be reported to his sire in the shadowy realm.^' Among the Kaffirs, again, the system of appeal from subordinates to superiors, is so extended as to include those who have passed into the other-life: '' the departed spirit of a chief being sometimes invoked to com- pel a man's ancestors to bless him." And along with this may be named the still stranger instance — the extension of trading transactions from the one life into the other: money being borrowed ''in this life, to be repaid with heavy interest in the next."
In this respect, as in other respects, the conceptions of civilized races have but slowly diverged from those of savage races. On reading that when tribes of the Amazulu are at enmity, the ancestral spirits of the one tribe go to fight those of the other, we are reminded of the supernatural beings who, siding some with Greeks and some with Trojans, joined in the combat; and we are also reminded that the Jews thought " the angels of the nations fought in heaven 210 THB DATA OF SOCIOLOGT.
when their allotted peoples made war on earth." Further, we are reminded that the creed of Christendom^ under its more widely diffused form, implies a considerable com- munion between those in the one life and those in the other. The living pray for the welfare of the dead; and the canonized dead are asked to intercede on behalf of the living.
§ 107. The second life, being originallj conceived as repeating the first in other respects, is originally conceived as repeating it in conduct, sentiments, and ethical code.
According to the Thibetan cosmogony, the gods fought among themselves. The Fijian gods "are proud and revengeful, and make war, and kill and eat each other, and are, in fact, savages like themselves.'' They glory in the names of "the adulterer," "the woman-stealer," "the brain-eater," " the murderer." And the ghost of a Fijian chief, on arriving in the other world, recommends himself by the boast — " I have destroyed many towns, and slain many in war." This parallelism between the standards of con- duct in the two lives, typical as it is of parallelisms every- where repeated in lower stages of progress' reminds us of like parallelisms in the standards of those early races whose literatures have come down to us.
Of the after-life of the departed Greeks, under its ethical aspect, the traits are but indistinct. Such as we may perceive, however, conform to those of Gbeek daily life. In Hades, AchUles thinks of vengeance, and rejoices in the account of his son's success in battle, and the slaughter of his enemies; Ajax is still angry because Ulysses defeated him; and the image of Hercules is described as going about threateningly, frightening the ghosts around him. In the upper world it is the same: " the struggle on earth is only the counterpart of the struggle in heaven." Mars is represented as honoured by the titles of " man-slayer," and " blood-stainer." Jealousy and revenge are ruling motives.
THX IDEAS OF ANOTHBB JUFE. 211 Tricking each* other, the immortals also delude men by false appearanoes — even combine, as Zeus and Athene did, to prompt the breaking of treaties solemnly sworn to. Easily offended and implacable, they are feared just as his demons are feared by the primitive man. And the one act sore to be resented, is disregard of observances that express subordination. As among the Amazulu at the present time, the anger of ancestral spirits is to be feared only when they have not been duly lauded, or have been neglected when oxen were killed; as among the Tahitians ''the only crimes that wer& visited by the displeasure of their deities were the neglect of some rite or ceremony, or the failing to furnish required offerings; '' so the ascribed character of the Olympians is such that the one unforgive- able offence is failure in acts of propitiation. Nevertheless, it is to be noted that the unredeemed brutality implied by the stories of the earlier gods, is, in the stories of the later, considerably mitigated. Displaying the alleged congruity between the ethical code of this life, and that attributed to beings in another life (whether regarded as departed spirits or not) the conduct of the Greek deities nari*ated in the niad, exhibits a play of higher motives proportionate to the play of higher motives shown in the conduct of the Homeric Greeks themselves.
Nor in the ascribed moral standard of the Hebrew other- life, so far as we can infer it from the conduct which is re* presented as having divine approval, do we fail to see a kin- dred similarity, if a less complete one. Subordination is still the supreme virtue. H this is displayed, wrong acts are condoned, or are not supposed to be wrong. The obedient Abraham is applauded for his readiness to sacrifice Isaac: there is no sign of blame for so readily accepting the murderous suggestion of his dream as a dictate from heaven. The massacre of the Amalekites by divine com- mand, is completed without check by the merciless Samuel; and there is tacit condemnation of the more merciful Saul.
212 THS DATA OF 80GI0L0GT.
But thougli the God of the Hebrews is represented as hardening Pharaoh's heart, and as sending a lying spirit to deceive Ahab through his prophets; it is to be noted that the implied ethical codes of heaven and paradise, while reflect- ing the code of a people in some respects barbarous, reflect the code of a people in other respects morally superior. Justice and mercy enter into the moral standards of both lives (as expressed by the prophets, at least), in a degree not shown us in the moral standards of lower peoples.
§ 108. And here we are introduced to the fact remaining to be noted — ^the divergence of the civilized idea from the savage idea. Of course, the primitive conception of the second life as a resumption of the first, becomes less ac- ceptable as accumulating knowledge and clearer thought render its incongruities more appreciable; and hence result modifications. Let us glance at the chief contrasts.
The complete materiality of the second life as originally conceived, following necessarily from the conception of the other-self as quite substantial, the foregoing evidence clearly shows us. Somehow keeping himself out of sight, the de- ceased eats, drinks, hunts, and fights as before. How material his life is supposed to be, we see in such &cts as that, among the Kaffirs, a deceased's weapons are '^broken or bent lest the ghost, during some midnight return to air, should do injury with them,^' and that an Australian cuts off the right thumb of his slain enemy, that his ghost may be unable to throw a spear. But the destruction of the body by burning or otherwise, tending to produce a qualified notion of the revived other-self, tends to produce a qualified notion of the other-life, physically con- sidered— strengthens that idea of a less substantial other- self, which certain dream-experiences suggest, and generates the idea of a less substantial other-life. The rise of this qualified idea we may see in the practice of burning or otherwise destroying the things intended for the dead man's THS n>KA8 OF ANOTHSfi UVIS. 213 use. Wo have already noted cases (§ 84) in which food placed with the corpse is bnmt along with it; and else- where^ in pursuance of the same idea^ the property is burnt. In Africa this is common: among the Koosas the widows of chiefs " bum all the household utensils ''; the Bagos (Coast Negroes) do the like^ and include all their stores of food: " even their rice is not saved from the flames." It is a custom of the Comanches to bum the deceased^s weapons. In other cases the dead man's implements and movables are broken. Franklin says of the Chippewayans, '' no article is spared by these unhappy men when a near relative dies; their clothes and tents are cut to pieces, their guns broken, and every other weapon rendered useless/' Obviously the implication is that the ghosts of these possessions go with the deceased; and the accompanying belief that the second life is physically unlike the first, is in some cases ex- pressed: it is said that the essences of the offerings made are consumed by departed souls and not the substances of them. More decided still seems to be the conceived contrast indicated by the strange practice of destroy- ing models of the deC'Oased's possessions. This practice, prevailing among the Chinese^ was lately afresh witnessed by Mr. J. Thomson; who, in his Straits of Malacca^ etc,^ de- scribes two lamenting widows of a deceased mandarin whom he saw giving to the flames " huge paper-models of houses and furniture, boats and sedans^ ladies-in-waiting and gentlemen-pages.'' Clearly another life in which the burnt semblances of things are supposed to be useful, must be figured as of a very shadowy kind.
The activities and gratifications of the second life, origi- nally conceived as identical with those of the first, come in course of time to be conceived as more or less unlike them. Besides seeing that at first the predatory races look forward to predatory occupations carried on more success- fully, and that races living by agriculture expect to plant and reap as before; we see that even where there is reached 214 TAB DATA OF SOCmOLOGT.
the adranced social state implied by the nse of moiiey^ the burial of money with the body shows the belief that there will be buying and selling in the second life; and where sham coins made of tinsel are bamt^ there remains the same implication. Bat parallelism passes into divergence. With- out trying to trace the changes, it will suffice if we turn at once to the current description of a hereafter, in which the daily occupations and amusements find no place, and in which there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Still, being conceiyed as a life in which all the days are Sundays, passed '* where congregatioxis ne'er break up/' it is con- ceived as akin to a part of the present life, though not to the average of it.
Again, the supposed form of social order becomes par- tially unlike the known form. Type of government, caste distinctions, servile institutions, are originally transferred from the experiences here to the imaginations of the here- after. But though in the conceptions entertained by the most civilized, the analogy between the social orders of the first and the second lives does not wholly disappear, the last deviates a good deal from the first. Though the gra- dations implied by a hierarchy of arch^oigels, angels, etc., bear some relation to the gradations seen around us; yet they are thought of as otherwise based: such inequalities as are imagined have a different origin.
Similarly respecting the ethical conceptions and the im- plied sentiments. Along with the emotional modifications that have taken place during civilization, there have gone great modifications in the beliefs respecting the code of conduct and measure of goodness in the life to come. The religion of enmity, which makes international revenge a duty and successful retaliation a glory, is to be wholly abandoned; and the religion of amity to be unqualified. Still, in certain respects the feelings and motives now dominant are to remain dominant. The desire for approbation, which is a ruling passion here, is represented as beihg a ruling passion THX IDBAS OF ANOTHER LIFE. 215 hereafter. The giving of praise and receiving of approval are figured as the chief sources of happiness.
Lastly^ we observe that the two lives become more widely disconnected. At first perpetual intercourse between those in the one and those in the other^ is believed to be going on. The savage daily propitiates the dead; and the dead are supposed daily to aid or hinder the acts of the living. This close communion, persisting throughout the earlier stages of civilization, gradually becomes less close. Though by paying priests to say masses for departed souls, and by invocations of saints for help, this exchange of services has been, and still continues to be, generally shown; yet the cessation of such practices among the most advanced, implies a complete sundering of the two lives in their thoughts.
Thus, then, as the idea of death gets gradually marked ofi from the idea of suspended animation; and as the antici- pated resurrection comes to be thought of as more and more remote; so the distinction between the second life and the first life, grows, little by little, decided. It diverges by becoming less material; by becoming more unlike in its occupations; by having another kin^ of social order; by presenting gpratifications more remote from those of the senses; and by the higher standard of conduct it assumes. And while thus differentiating in nature, the second life separates more widely from the first: communion decreases, and there is an increasing interval between the ending of the one and the beginning of the other.
CHAPTER XY.
THE IDEAS OF ANOTHER WORLD.
§ 109. Whhjb describing in tlie last cHapter^ the ideas of another life, I have quoted passages which imply ideas of another world. The two sets of ideas are so closely con- nected, that the one cannot be treated without occasional reference to the other. I have, however, intentionally re- served the second for separate treatment; both because the question of the locality in which another life is sup- posed to be passed, is a separate question, and because men's conceptions of that locality undergo modifications which it will be instructive to tfttce in their order and their causes.
We shall find that by a process akin to the processes lately contemplated, the place of residence for the dead diverges slowly from the place of residence for the living.
§ 110. Originally the two coincide. The primitive doc- trine of souls, obliges the savage to think of his dead relatives as close at hand. If he renews the supplies of food at their graves, and otherwise propitiates them, the implication is that they are not far away, or that they will presently be back. This implication he accepts.