Each of the three stages of thought above discriminated has its appropriate mode of disposing of its dead. The appropriate mode for this earliest stage is Preservation of the Corpse, which eventuates at last in Mummification.
The simplest form of this mode of disposal of the corpse consists in keeping it in the hut or cave where the family dwell, together with the living. A New Guinea woman thus kept her husband’s body in her hut till it dried up of itself, and she kissed it and offered it food every day, as though it were living. Many similar cases are reported from elsewhere. Hut preservation is common in the very lowest races. More frequently, however, owing to the obvious discomfort of living in too close proximity to a dead body, the corpse at this stage of thought is exposed openly in a tree or on a platform or under some other circumstances where no harm can come to it. Among the Australians and Andaman Islanders, who, like the Negritoes of New Guinea, preserve for us a very early type of human customs, the corpse is often exposed on a rough raised scaffold. Some of the Polynesian and Melanesian peoples follow the same practice. The Dyaks and Kyans expose their dead in trees. “But it is in America,” says Mr. Herbert Spencer, “that exposure on raised stages is commonest. The Dakotahs adopt this method; at one time it was the practice of the Iroquois; Catlin, describing the Mandans as having scaffolds on which ‘their dead live as they term it,’ remarks that they are thus kept out of the way of wolves and dogs; and Schoolcraft says the same of the Chippewas.” Generally speaking, at the lowest grades of culture, savages preserve the actual bodies of their dead above ground, either in the home itself, or in close proximity to it. We shall recur later on to this singular practice.
A slight variant on this method, peculiar to a very maritime race, is that described by Mr. H. O. Forbes among the natives of Timurlaut:
“The dead body is placed in a portion of a prau fitted to the length of the individual, or within strips of gaba-gaba, or stems of the sago-palm pinned together. If it is a person of some consequence, such as an Orang Kaya, an ornate and decorated prau-shaped coffin is specially made. This is then enveloped in calico, and placed either on the top of a rock by the margin of the sea at a short distance from the village, or on a high pile-platform erected on the shore about low-tide mark. On the top of the coffin-lid are erected tall flags, and the figures of men playing gongs, shooting guns, and gesticulating wildly to frighten away evil influences from the sleeper. Sometimes the platform is erected on the shore above high-water mark, and near it is stuck in the ground a tall bamboo full of palm-wine; and suspended over a bamboo rail are bunches of sweet potatoes for the use of the dead man’s Nitu. When the body is quite decomposed, his son or one of the family disinters the skull and deposits it on a little platform in his house, in the gable opposite the fireplace, while to ward off evil from himself he carries about with him the atlas and axis bones of its neck in his luon, or siri-holder.”
This interesting account is full of implications whose fuller meaning we will perceive hereafter. The use of the skull and of the talisman bone should especially be noted for their later importance. For skulls are fundamental in the history of religion.
Cases like these readily pass into the practice of Mummifying, more especially in dry or desert climates. Even in so damp a tropical country as New Guinea, however, D’Albertis found in a shed on the banks of the Fly River two mummies, artificially prepared, as he thought, by removal of the flesh, the bones alone being preserved with the skin to cover them. Here we have evidently a clear conception of death as a serious change, of a different character from a mere temporary absence. So, too, Mr. Chalmers says of the Koiari people in the same island, “They treat their dead after this fashion. A fire is kept burning day and night at the head and feet for months. The entire skin is removed by means of the thumb and forefinger, and the juices plastered all over the face and body of the operator (parent, husband, or wife of the deceased). The fire gradually desiccates the flesh, so that little more than the skeleton is left.” But mummification for the most part is confined to drier climates, where it is artificially performed down to a very evolved stage of civilisation, as we know well in Peru and Egypt.
One word must be said in passing as to the frequent habit of specially preserving, and even carrying about the person, the head or hand of a deceased relative. This has been already mentioned in the case of Timurlaut; and it occurs frequently elsewhere. Thus Mr. Chalmers says of a New Guinea baby: “It will be covered with two inches of soil, the friends watching beside the grave; but eventually the skull and smaller bones will be preserved and worn by the mother.” Similarly, in the Andaman Islands, where we touch perhaps the lowest existing stratum of savage feeling, “widows may be seen with the skulls of their deceased partners suspended round their necks.” The special preservation of the head, even when the rest of the body is eaten or buried, will engage our attention at a later period: heads so preserved are usually resorted to as oracles, and are often treated as the home of the spirit. Mr. Herbert Spencer has collected many similar instances, such as that of the Tasmanians who wore a bone from the skull or arm of a dead relation. He rightly notes, too, that throughout the New World “the primitive conception of death as a long-suspended animation seems to have been especially vivid;” and we find accordingly that customs of this character are particularly frequent among American savages. Thus, to draw once more from his great storehouse, the Créés carried bones and hair of dead relations about for three years; while the Caribs and several Guiana tribes distributed the clean bones among the kinsmen of the deceased. In the Sandwich Islands, also, bones of kings and chiefs were carried about by their descendants, under the impression that the dead exercised guardianship over them.
At this stage of thought, it seems to me, it is the actual corpse that is still thought to be alive; the actual corpse that appears in dreams; and the actual corpse that is fed and worshipped and propitiated with presents.
Ceremonial cannibalism, which will be more fully considered hereafter, appears in this stratum, and survives from it into higher levels. The body is eaten entire, and the bones preserved; or the flesh and fat are removed, and the skin left; or a portion only is sacramentally and reverently eaten by the surviving relations. These processes also will be more minutely described in the sequel.
The first stage merges by gradual degrees into the second, which is that of Burial or its equivalent. Cave-burial of mummies or of corpses forms the transitional link. Indeed, inasmuch as many races of primitive men lived habitually in caves, the placing or leaving the corpse in a cave seems much the same thing as the placing or leaving it in a shed, hut, or shelter. The cave-dwelling Veddahs simply left the dead man in the cave where he died, and themselves migrated to some other cavern. Still, cave-burial lingered on late with many tribes or nations which had for ages outlived the habit of cave-dwelling. Among the South American Indians, cave-burial was common; and in Peru it assumed high developments of mummification. The making of an artificial cave or vault for the dead is but a slight variant on this custom; it was frequent in Egypt, the other dry country where the making of mummies was carried to a high pitch of perfection. The Tombs of the Kings at Thebes are splendid instances of such artificial caves, elaborated into stately palaces with painted walls, where the dead monarchs might pass their underground life in state and dignity. Cave-tombs, natural or artificial, are also common in Asia Minor, Italy, and elsewhere.
During the first stage, it may be noted, the attitude of man towards his dead is chiefly one of affectionate regard. The corpse is kept at home, and fed or tended; the skull is carried about as a beloved object. But in the second stage, which induces the practice of burial, a certain Fear of the Dead becomes more obviously apparent. Men dread the return of the corpse or the ghost, and strive to keep it within prescribed limits. In this stage, the belief in the Resurrection of the Body is the appropriate creed; and though at first the actual corpse is regarded as likely to return to plague survivors, that idea gives place a little later, I believe, to the conception of a less material double or spirit.
And here let us begin by discriminating carefully between the Resurrection of the Body and the Immortality of the Soul.
The idea of Resurrection arose from and is closely bound up with the practice of burial, the second and simpler mode of disposing of the remains of the dead. The idea of Immortality arose from and is closely bound up with the practice