The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 03 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
(M105) Among the Monumbos of German New Guinea any one who has slain a foe
in war becomes thereby “unclean” (_bolobolo_), and they apply the same
term “unclean” to menstruous and lying-in women and also to everything
that has come into contact with a corpse, which shews that all these
classes of persons and things are closely associated in their minds. The
“unclean” man who has killed an enemy in battle must remain a long time in
the men’s clubhouse, while the villagers gather round him and celebrate
his victory with dance and song. He may touch nobody, not even his own
wife and children; if he were to touch them it is believed that they would
be covered with sores. He becomes clean again by washing and using other
modes of purification.(574) In Windessi, Dutch New Guinea, when a party of
head-hunters has been successful, and they are nearing home, they announce
their approach and success by blowing on triton shells. Their canoes are
also decked with branches. The faces of the men who have taken a head are
blackened with charcoal. If several have taken part in killing the same
victim, his head is divided among them. They always time their arrival so
as to reach home in the early morning. They come rowing to the village
with a great noise, and the women stand ready to dance in the verandahs of
the houses. The canoes row past the _room sram_ or house where the young
men live; and as they pass, the murderers throw as many pointed sticks or
bamboos at the wall or the roof as there were enemies killed. The day is
spent very quietly. Now and then they drum or blow on the conch; at other
times they beat the walls of the houses with loud shouts to drive away the
ghosts of the slain.(575) Similarly in the Doreh district of Dutch New
Guinea, if a murder has taken place in the village, the inhabitants
assemble for several evenings in succession and utter frightful yells to
drive away the ghost of the victim in case he should be minded to hang
about the village.(576) So the Yabim of German New Guinea believe that the
spirit of a murdered man pursues his murderer and seeks to do him a
mischief. Hence they drive away the spirit with shouts and the beating of
drums.(577) When the Fijians had buried a man alive, as they often did,
they used at nightfall to make a great uproar by means of bamboos,
trumpet-shells, and so forth, for the purpose of frightening away his
ghost, lest he should attempt to return to his old home. And to render his
house unattractive to him they dismantled it and clothed it with
everything that to their ideas seemed most repulsive.(578) On the evening
of the day on which they had tortured a prisoner to death, the American
Indians were wont to run through the village with hideous yells, beating
with sticks on the furniture, the walls, and the roofs of the huts to
prevent the angry ghost of their victim from settling there and taking
vengeance for the torments that his body had endured at their hands.(579)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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