The migrations of early culture: A study of the significance of the geographical distribution of the practice of mummification as evidence of the migrations of peoples and the spread of certain customs and beliefsSmith, Grafton Elliot
History
The migrations of early culture: A study of the significance of the geographical distribution of the practice of mummification as evidence of the migrations of peoples and the spread of certain customs and beliefs
Smith, Grafton Elliot
Ethnology; Human beings -- Migrations; Mummies
It will be noticed that this criticism leaves my main arguments from the
mummies quite untouched. Moreover, the fact that originally I made use
of the testimony of the mummies merely in support of evidence of other
kinds (the physical characters of the peoples and the distribution of
megalithic monuments) was completely ignored by my critics.
But, as I have already remarked, it is not merely the remarkable identity
of so many of the peculiar features of Papuan and Egyptian embalming that
affords definite evidence of the derivation of one from the other; but in
addition, many of the ceremonies and practices, as well as the traditions
relating to the people who introduced the custom of mummification,
corroborate the fact that immigrants from the west introduced these
elements of culture. In addition, they also suggest their affinities.
“A hero-cult, with masked performers and elaborate dances, spread from
the mainland of New Guinea to the adjacent islands: part of this movement
seems to have been associated with a funeral ritual that emphasised a
life after death.... Most of the funeral ceremonies and many sacred songs
admittedly came from the west” (Haddon, =25=, p. 45).
“Certain culture-heroes severally established themselves on certain
islands, and they or their followers introduced a new cult which
considerably modified the antecedent totemism,” and taught “improved
methods of cultivation and fishing” (p. 44).
“An interesting parallel to these hero-cults of Torres Straits occurred
also in Fiji. The people of Viti-Levu trace their descent from
[culture-heroes] who drifted across the Big Ocean and taught to the
people the cult associated with the large stone enclosures” (p. 45).
In these islands the people were expert at carving stone idols and they
had legends concerning certain “stones that once were men” (p. 11). It is
also significant that at the bier of a near relative, boys and girls, who
had arrived at the age of puberty, had their ears pierced and their skin
tattooed (p. 154).
Thus Haddon himself supplies so many precise tokens of the “heliolithic”
nature of the culture of the Torres Straits.
These hints of migrations and the coming of strangers bringing from the
west curious practices and beliefs may seem at first sight to add little
to the evidence afforded by the technique of the embalming process;
but the subsequent discussion will make it plain that the association
of these particular procedures with mummification serves to clinch the
demonstration of the source from which that practice was derived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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