The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)

When death had taken place, the body was washed, neatly dressed in garments of new cloth, and laid on a bier constructed of bamboos or of spears and other warlike weapons, fastened together with wicker-work and spread with mats.973 If the deceased was a chief and a warrior, his body would be arrayed in his finest ornaments, and his club, plumed helmet, necklaces of whale's teeth, and skulls of the enemies he had killed, would be laid beside him. Thus exposed, the corpse might be kept for weeks in the house, where, in spite of the stench, the family continued to eat, drink, and sleep beside it. Sometimes, however, and perhaps more usually, the body was transferred to a small house or shed adjoining the dwelling of the deceased, where it received the necessary attentions. Finally, it was removed to a little hut or shed, where the bier was supported on posts under a thatched roof. To be buried in the earth was a mark of ignominy reserved at most for a young girl of the lowest rank who had died childless. Beside the corpse food was hung for the use of the ghost, it might be fish, roast pork, or coco-nuts, and there it was allowed to remain till it rotted and fell to the ground; none but children would be greedy or impious enough to partake of the sacred victuals, and that only in the greatest secrecy. Often the house in which the death had taken place was tabooed and abandoned after the remains had been deposited in their last home.974

The bodies of the dead were regularly subjected to a kind of embalmment, which had the effect of preserving them for a longer or shorter time. As soon as decomposition appeared imminent, the corpse was stripped of its ornaments and placed in the usual canoe-shaped coffin, the trunk being propped up so as to facilitate the work of the embalmers. The task of embalming was entrusted to women, relations of the deceased, who rubbed the body daily with coco-nut oil and perfumes. They had no intercourse with the rest of the family, and took their meals apart without ever washing their hands. According to one account, the anointment was performed by night, while during the day the body was exposed to the sun on the stone platform of the house. The products of decomposition were carefully received in vessels and carried away to the place of sepulture; and the corpse was gradually eviscerated through the rectum. The friction was continued until the desiccated body was reduced to the state of a mummy, though sometimes, in spite of all precautions, it crumbled into dust. If the operation was successful, the mummy, wrapt in many bandages, was covered by a second canoe attached to the first, and was then placed on a scaffold in a morai or sanctuary specially consecrated to it. But sometimes the mummy was fastened up to the roof or wall of the house wherein the person had died; and it might be kept there even for years. When it was deposited in a morai, no woman was allowed to approach it under pain of death.975 Sometimes the head was detached from the body and kept in the house, where it was treated with respect. Sometimes it was carried away and hidden in some almost inaccessible cave in the mountains or beside the sea. This was done as a precaution to save the skulls from falling into the hands of enemies, who were eager to bear them off as trophies.976

Each family had its own morai or burial-place, where the mouldering bones or mummies were finally deposited and left to decay.977 Such family cemeteries were scattered about the valleys; the choice of a site seems to have been determined by no special rule.978 The morai or burial-place of ordinary people was near their houses, and not far from it was a taboo-house, where the men feasted on the flesh of pigs.979 But the cemeteries of chiefs were situated in the interior of the valleys, often so deeply imbedded in dense foliage that it was not easy to find them without the guidance of a native.980 Similarly we are told that the cemeteries (morais) of priests lay quite apart from all dwellings.981

The ordinary form of a Marquesan morai or burial-place seems to have been a thatched shed erected on a square or oblong platform of stones, exactly resembling the stone platforms on which the Marquesan houses were regularly built. Thus Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz say that "the morais, funeral monuments where the bodies are deposited, are erected on a stone platform, the base of all Nukahivan edifices."982 Again, describing what he calls "a picturesque morai," Radiguet observes, "Four posts, erected on a platform, supported a small plank covered with a roof of leaves. Under this roof could be seen the remains of a skeleton, perhaps that of the daughter-in-law of the neighbouring house… At the two ends of the platform two upright stones, about ten feet high, and resembling the Breton menhirs, formed an exceptional ornament to this morai, which the bushes were in course of invading and the storms of demolishing."983 Again, Stewart describes as follows what he calls "a depository of the dead": "It stands in the midst of a beautiful clump of trees, and consists of a platform of heavy stone work, twenty feet or more square and four or five high, surmounted in the centre by eight or ten posts arranged in the shape of a grave, and supporting at a height of six or seven feet a long and narrow roof of thatch. Close beneath this was the body enclosed in a coffin."984 Again, in the island of Tahuata (Santa Christina), Bennett describes a chief's burial-place as follows: "A low but extensive stone platform, beneath the shade of a venerable fau-tree, marks the more consecrated ground; and on this is erected a wooden hut, containing an elevated trough, shaped as a canoe, and holding the perfect skeleton of the late chief. In front of the sepulchre are two hideous wooden idols, and several bundles of coco-nut leaves."985 The shed, which was erected on the stone platform, and under which the body rested on a bier, seems to have consisted for the most part simply of a thatched roof supported on wooden posts.986 Sometimes, however, instead of a simple shed, open on all sides, a small house resembling the ordinary houses of the natives appears to have been erected for the reception of the corpse or mummy. Thus in the island of Tahuata (Santa Christina) Bennett describes a burial-place as follows: "The most picturesque mausoleum we noticed was that which contained the corpse of one of Eutiti's children. It was placed on the summit of an isolated hill, rising from the bosom of a well-wooded savannah, and was covered entirely with the leaves of the fan-palm. The posterior, or tallest wall, was twelve feet high, the anterior was low, closed by a mat, and decorated with six wooden pillars, covered with stained cinnet and white cloth. Strips of tapa [bark-cloth], fixed to a wand, fluttered on the roof, to denote that the spot was tabooed; and for the same purpose, a row of globular stones, each the size of a football, and whitened with coral lime, occupied the top of a low but broad stone wall which encircled the building. The interior contained nothing but the bier on which the corpse was laid."987 From the sketch which Bennett gives of this particular mausoleum, as he calls it, we gather that the sepulchral hut containing the body was not raised on a stone platform, but built on the flat.

There seems to be no evidence that the stone platforms on which the sepulchral sheds or huts of the Marquesans were erected ever took the shape of stepped or terraced pyramids like the massive stone pyramids of Tahiti and Tonga. So far as the mortuary platforms of the Marquesans are described, they appear to have been quadrangular piles of stone, with upright sides, not stepped or terraced. Megalithic monuments in the form of stepped or terraced pyramids seem to have been very rare in the Marquesas Islands; indeed, it is doubtful whether they existed at all. With regard to the island of Tahuata (Santa Christina), it is positively affirmed by Bennett that none of the valleys contain "any morais or other buildings devoted to religious purposes, nor any public idols";988 and by morais he probably means stepped pyramids like those of Tahiti and Tonga. However, in the valley of Taipii (Typee), in Nukahiva, a megalithic monument, built in terraces, was seen by Melville in 1842. He describes it as follows:

"One day in returning from this spring by a circuitous path, I came upon a scene which reminded me of Stonehenge and the architectural labours of the Druids. At the base of one of the mountains, and surrounded on all sides by dense groves, a series of vast terraces of stone rises, step by step, for a considerable distance up the hillside. These terraces cannot be less than one hundred yards in length and twenty in width. Their magnitude, however, is less striking than the immense size of the blocks composing them. Some of the stones, of an oblong shape, are from ten to fifteen feet in length, and five or six feet thick. Their sides are quite smooth, but though square, and of pretty regular formation, they bear no mark of the chisel. They are laid together without cement, and here and there show gaps between. The topmost terrace and the lower one are somewhat peculiar in their construction. They have both a quadrangular depression in the centre, leaving the rest of the terrace elevated several feet above it. In the intervals of the stones immense trees have taken root, and their broad boughs, stretching far over and interlacing together, support a canopy almost impenetrable to the sun. Overgrowing the greater part of them, and climbing from one to another, is a wilderness of vines, in whose sinewy embrace many of the stones lie half-hidden, while in some places a thick growth of bushes entirely covers them. There is a wild pathway which obliquely crosses two of these terraces, and so profound is the shade, so dense the vegetation, that a stranger to the place might pass along it without being aware of their existence.

"These structures bear every indication of a very high antiquity, and Kory-Kory, who was my authority in all matters of scientific research, gave me to understand that they were coeval with the creation of the world; that the great gods themselves were the builders; and that they would endure until time shall be no more. Kory-Kory's prompt explanation, and his attributing the work to a divine origin, at once convinced me that neither he nor the rest of his countrymen knew anything about them."989 Melville was accordingly disposed to attribute the erection of these remarkable terraces to an extinct and forgotten race.990 The hypothesis is all the more probable because the monument appears to have been entirely abandoned and unused by the natives during the time when they have been known to Europeans. But it is doubtful whether the edifice was a pyramid; all that Melville's somewhat vague description implies is that it consisted of a series of terraces built one above the other on the hillside.

According to some accounts the remains of the dead, instead of being deposited in sheds or huts erected on stone platforms, were buried in the platforms themselves. Thus, according to William Crook, the first missionary to the Marquesans, "they have a morai in each district, where the dead are buried beneath a pavement of large stones."991 Similarly, in Nukahiva two or three large quadrangular platforms (pi-pis), heavily flagged, enclosed with regular stone walls and almost hidden by the interlacing branches of enormous trees, were pointed out as burial-places to Melville, and he was told that the bodies "were deposited in rude vaults beneath the flagging, and were suffered to remain there without being disinterred. Although nothing could be more strange and gloomy than the aspect of these places, where the lofty trees threw their dark shadows over rude blocks of stone, a stranger looking at them would have discerned none of the ordinary evidences of a place of sepulture."992 To the same effect, perhaps, Porter observes that, "when the flesh is mouldered from the bones, they are, as I have been informed, carefully cleansed: some are kept for relics, and some are deposited in the morais."993 Again, Krusenstern says that twelve months after the death "the corpse is broken into pieces, and the bones are packed in a small box made of the wood of the bread-fruit tree, and carried to the morai or burial place, where no woman is allowed to approach under pain of death."994 However, these statements do not necessarily imply that the bones were buried under the stones of the platform at the morai.

But whether deposited on biers or buried under the pavement, the remains of the dead were liable to be carried off in time of war by foes, who regarded such an exploit as a great deed of heroism. Hence when an invasion of the enemy in force was expected, the custom was to remove the bodies from the morai and bury them elsewhere.995 The heads of enemies killed in battle were invariably kept and hung up as trophies of victory in the house of the conqueror. They seem to have been smoked in order to preserve them better.996 It is said that they were used as cups to drink kava out of.997

After ten months or a year the obsequies were concluded by another funeral feast, which might last from eight to thirty days according to the rank of the deceased and the opulence of his family. At the same time offerings of food were presented afresh at the tomb, and the decorations were renewed, consisting of branches and leaves and strips of white bark-cloth, which waved like flags at the end of little white wands. At these anniversary feasts, to which, if the deceased was a man of quality, only chiefs were in many cases admitted, great quantities of pigs were consumed.998 The intention of the feast is said to have been to thank the gods for having permitted the dead person to arrive safely in the other world.999

§ 9. Fate of the Soul after Death

The souls of the dead were supposed to depart either to an upper or to a lower world, either to heaven or to a subterranean region called Havaiki. The particular destination of a soul after death was determined, not by moral considerations, not by the virtue or vice of the deceased, but by the rank he had occupied in this life: people of quality went to the upper world, and common people went to the lower, to Havaiki.1000 According to a more precise account, heaven was inhabited by deities of the highest order, by women who had died in childbed, by warriors who had fallen on the field of battle, by suicides, and especially by the aristocratic class of the chiefs. This celestial region was supposed to be a happy land, abounding in bread-fruit paste (popoi), pork, and fish, and offering the companionship of the most beautiful women imaginable. There the bread-fruit trees dropped their ripe fruit every moment to the ground, and the supply of coco-nuts and bananas never failed. There the souls reposed on mats much finer than those of Nukahiva; and every day they bathed in rivers of coco-nut oil. In that happy land there were plenty of plumes and feathers, and boars'-tusks, and sperm-whale teeth far better than even white men can boast of. The nether world, on the other hand, was peopled with deities of the second class and by ordinary human beings, who had no pretensions to gentility. But it was not a place of misery much less of punishment or torture; on the contrary, we are told that both the upper and the lower regions were happier than the earth which the living inhabit.1001 The approach to the lower world, curiously enough, was by sea. The soul sailed away in a coffin shaped like a canoe (pahaa). When it came near the channel which divides the island Tahuata from the island Hivaoa, it was met by two deities or two opposing influences, one of which tried to push the soul into a narrow strait between Tahuata and a certain rock in the sea, while the other deity or influence endeavoured to contrive that the soul should keep the broad channel between the rock and Hivaoa. The souls that were thrust into the narrow strait were killed; whereas such as kept the open channel were conducted safe by a merciful god to their destination.1002

Sometimes the land of the dead was identified with a happy island or islands called Tiburones lying somewhere in the ocean to the west of Nukahiva. Not uncommonly natives of the Marquesas sailed away in great double canoes to seek and find these happy isles, but were never heard of again. On one occasion, for example, forty men in the island of Ua-pu, who had revolted against their chief and been defeated, embarked secretly by night and put to sea, hoping to discover the Fortunate Islands, where they would be beyond the reach of their offended lord, and where they might pass the remainder of their days in liberty and bliss. What became of them is unknown, for they were seen and heard of no more in their native island.1003

But even the souls that went to heaven were supposed to stand in need of a canoe in order to reach the place of bliss. On this point Porter writes: "I endeavoured to ascertain whether they had an idea of a future state of rewards and punishments, and the nature of their heaven. As respects the latter article, they believed it to be an island, somewhere in the sky, abounding with everything desirable; that those killed in war and carried off by their friends, go there, provided they are furnished with a canoe and provisions; but that those who are carried off by the enemy, never reach it, unless a sufficient number of the enemy can be obtained to paddle his canoe there. For this reason they were so anxious to procure a crew for their priest, who was killed and carried off by the Happahs. They have neither rewards nor punishments in this world, and I could not learn that they expected any in the next."1004

In the valley of Taipii (Typee), in the island of Nukahiva, Captain Porter visited "the chief place of religious ceremony." It was a platform of the usual sort situated in a fine grove at the foot of a steep mountain. On the platform was an idol of hard stone, rudely representing a deity in human shape of about life size and in a squatting posture. Arranged on either side of this idol, as well as in front and rear, were several other images of about the same size and of the same model, but better carved out of bread-fruit wood. The place was decorated with streamers of white cloth. A few paces from the grave were four fine war canoes, furnished with outriggers, and decorated with human hair, coral shells, and many white streamers. In the stern of each canoe was the effigy of a man with a paddle, steering, in full dress, decked with plumes, ear-rings, and all the usual ornaments. On enquiring of the natives, Captain Porter was informed that the dignified effigy seated in the stern of the most splendid canoe represented a priest who had been killed not long before by their enemies the Happahs. In the bottom of the priest's canoe Captain Porter found the putrefying bodies of two Taipiis (Typees) whom he and his men had recently killed in battle; and lying about the canoe he saw many other human carcasses, with the flesh still on them. The other canoes, he was told, belonged to different warriors who had been killed or had died not long since. "I asked them," continues Captain Porter, "why they had placed their effigies in the canoes, and also why they put the bodies of the dead Typees in that of the priest? They told me (as Wilson interpreted) that they were going to heaven, and that it was impossible to get there without canoes. The canoe of the priest being large, he was unable to manage it himself, nor was it right that he should, he being now a god. They had, therefore, placed in it the bodies of the Happas and Typees, which had been killed since his death, to paddle him to the place of his destination; but he had not been able yet to start, for the want of a full crew, as it would require ten to paddle her, and as yet they had only procured eight. They told me also that the taboo, laid in consequence of his death, would continue until he had started on his voyage, which he would not be able to do until they had killed two more of their enemies, and by this means completed the crew. I inquired if he took any sea stock with him. They told me he did, and pointing to some red hogs in an enclosure, said that they were intended for him, as well as a quantity of bread-fruit, coco-nuts, etc., which would be collected from the trees in the grove. I inquired if he had far to go; they replied, no: and pointing to a small square stone enclosure, informed me that was their heaven, that he was to go there. This place was tabooed, they told me, for every one except their priests."1005

But it was deemed necessary to provide a dead priest or chief with human victims for other purposes than to paddle his canoe to heaven. When a great chief died, two commoners were sometimes sacrificed for the purpose of escorting him to the abode of bliss; one of them carried the chief's girdle, and the other bore the head of the pig that had been slaughtered for the funeral feast. The head was intended as a present to the warden of the infernal regions, who, if he did not get this perquisite, would revile and stone the ghost, and shut the door in his face.1006 The number of human victims sacrificed at the death of a priest varied with the respect and fear which he had inspired in his lifetime;1007 a common number seems to have been three.1008

The runaway English sailor, Roberts, who had long resided in the islands, assured the Russian explorer Lisiansky "that, on the death of a priest, three men must be sacrificed; two of whom are hung up in the burying-ground, while the third is cut to pieces, and eaten by visitors; all but the head, which is placed upon one of the idols. When the flesh of the first two are wasted away, the bones that remain are burnt. The custom of the country requires, that the men destined for sacrifice should belong to some neighbouring nation, and accordingly they are generally stolen. This occasions a war of six, and sometimes of twelve, months: its duration, however, depends upon the nearest relation of the deceased priest; who, as soon as he is acquainted with his death, retires to a place of taboo; and till he chooses to come out, the blood of the two parties does not cease to flow. During his retirement, he is furnished with everything he may require, human flesh not excepted."1009

A curious mode of preparing a dead man to appear to advantage before the gods in the other world was to flay his corpse. A Catholic missionary tells us that when a dead body began to swell up, in consequence of internal putrefaction, it was customary to flay it and to preserve the skin as a precious relic in the family treasury, where the eye of a profane stranger could never fall on it.1010 The reason for observing the custom is not mentioned by this missionary, but it is explained by another missionary, Father Amable. It happened that the king or head chief of the island of Tahuata died, and that his body was brought to the house of the queen on the bay where Father Amable resided. For thirty days she kept the corpse in the house and occupied herself with skinning it with her fingers. Questioned by the missionary as to her reasons for this strange procedure, she answered that her husband's body must be without spot or stain, in order that the great goddess Upu might give him leave to dwell in her land and to bathe in her lake. For this deity rules over a sort of submarine Eden, planted with all sorts of excellent fruits and beautified by the calm waters of an azure lake. The natives of Tahuata believe that the souls of all who die in the archipelago assemble on the top of a high mountain called Kiukiu. When a great multitude of souls is there gathered together, the sea opens and the souls fall plump down into the paradise of the goddess Upu. However, not all of them are permitted to enter the happy land and to enjoy the pleasures which it offers. Only such are admitted as have owned in their lifetime many servants and many pigs and have not been wicked. Further, none may enter in who bear on their body any marks of tattooing.1011 Hence the reason for flaying dead bodies seems to have been to efface, by removing the skin, the tattooed marks which would have acted as a fatal bar to the entrance of the ghost into paradise. As to the souls of slaves and the poor, in the opinion of the natives of Tahuata they go to a gloomy land, which is never illumined by the sun, and where there is nothing but muddy water to drink.1012 Nevertheless the people would seem to have believed that the souls of the dead lingered for a time beside their mouldering bodies before they took their departure for the far country. In this belief they sacrificed to them pigs, some baked, and some alive. The baked pigs they put in a hollow log and hung from the roof of the hut, and they said that a god named Mapuhanui, who in the beginning had bestowed pigs on men, used to come and feast on the carcasses in company with the ghost. But when they offered live pigs, they tethered the animals to the hut in which the dead body lay, and they fed them till the flesh dropped from the skeleton; after that they allowed the pigs to die of hunger.1013 Perhaps, like some other peoples, they imagined that the ghost hovered about his remains so long as the flesh adhered to the bones, but that when even that faint semblance of life had vanished he went away and had no further occasion for pigs, whether alive or dead.