The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 256-258.

617

This appears to be the view also of Professor K. von den Steinen (Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, pp. 327 sq.), who is probably right in thinking that the primary intention of the instrument is to make thunder, and that the idea of making rain is secondary.

618

A. W. Howitt, “On Australian Medicine Men,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xvi. (1887) pp. 47 sq.; compare id., Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 596.

619

Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 246 note 1; id., Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), p. 497. According to the classificatory system of relationship, which prevails among all the aborigines of Australia, a man may have, and generally has, a number of women who stand to him in the relation of mother as well as of sister, though there need not be a drop of blood in common between them, as we count kin. This explains the reference in the text to a boy's “mothers.”

620

B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 342 sq., 498.

621

Spencer and Gillen, op. cit. p. 498.

622

Spencer and Gillen, op. cit. pp. 366 sq., 501.

623

Spencer and Gillen, op. cit. pp. 373, 501.

624

A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 554-556. Compare id., “On some Australian Ceremonies of Initiation,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884) pp. 453 sq.

625

B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 523-525; id., Northern Tribes of Central Australia, 480 sq., 484, 485, 487, 488; id., Across Australia (London, 1912), ii. 334 sqq.

626

Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 480 sq.

627

F. J. Gillen, “Notes on some Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the McDonnel Ranges belonging to the Arunta Tribe,” in Report on the Work of the Horn Scientific Expedition to Central Australia, Part iv. Anthropology (London and Melbourne, 1896), pp. 180 sq.; B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 523 sq.; id., Across Australia (London, 1912), ii. 335.

628

B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 487, 488; id., Across Australia, ii. 481 sq.

629

As to the initiatory rites among the Yabim, see K. Vetter, in Nachrichten über Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und den Bismarck-Archipel, 1897, pp. 92 sq.; id., in Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena, xi. (1892) p. 105; id., Komm herüber und hilf uns! ii. (Barmen, 1898) p. 18; id., cited by M. Krieger, Neu-Guinea (Berlin, preface dated 1899), pp. 167-170; O. Schellong, “Das Barlum-fest der Gegend Finschhafens,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, ii. (1889) pp. 145-162; H. Zahn, “Die Jabim,” in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch Neu-Guinea (Berlin, 1911), iii. 296-298. As to the initiatory rites among the Bukaua, see S. Lehner, “Bukaua,” in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii. 402-410; among the Kai, see Ch. Keysser, “Aus dem Kai-Leute,” ibid. pp. 34-40; among the Tami, see G. Bamler, “Tami,” ibid. pp. 493-507. I have described the rites of the various tribes more in detail in The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, i. 250-255, 260 sq., 290 sq., 301 sq. In the Bukaua and Tami tribes the initiation ceremonies are performed not in the forest but in a special house built for the purpose in the village, which the women are obliged to vacate till the rites are over.

630

The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, i. 250, 251, 255, 261, 290 sq., 301. Among the Bukaua not only does the bull-roarer bear the general name for a ghost (balum), but each particular bull-roarer bears in addition the name of a particular dead man, and varies in dignity and importance with the dignity and importance of the deceased person whom it represents. And besides the big bull-roarers with gruff voices there are little bull-roarers with shrill voices, which represent the shrill-voiced wives of the ancient heroes. See S. Lehner, “Bukaua,” in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii. 410-412.

631

R. Pöch, “Vierter Bericht über meine Reise nach Neu-Guinea,” Sitzungsberichte der mathematischen-naturwissenschaftlichen Klasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna), cxv. (1906) Abteilung i. pp. 901, 902.

632

Rev. Lorimer Fison, “The Nanga or Sacred Stone Enclosure of Wainimala, Fiji,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiv. (1885) p. 27. The Nanga or sacred enclosure of stones, with its sacred rites, was known only to certain tribes of Fiji (the Nuyaloa, Vatusila, Mbatiwai, and Mdavutukia), who inhabited a comparatively small area, barely a third, of the island of Viti Levu. As to the institution in general, see Rev. Lorimer Fison, op. cit. pp. 14-31; A. B. Joske, “The Nanga of Viti-levu,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, ii. (1889) pp. 254-266; Basil Thomson, The Fijians (London, 1908), pp. 146-157. Compare The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, i. 427-438.

633

Rev. Lorimer Fison, op. cit. p. 26; Basil Thomson, op. cit. 147.

634

Rev. Lorimer Fison, op. cit. pp. 27 sq. The phrase “the ancestral gods” is used by Mr. Fison, one of our best authorities on Fijian religion. Mr. Basil Thomson (op. cit. p. 157) questions the accuracy of Mr. Fison's account of this vicarious sacrifice on the ground that every youth was regularly circumcised as a matter of course. But there seems to be no inconsistency between the two statements. While custom required that every youth should be circumcised, the exact time for performing the ceremony need not have been rigidly prescribed; and if a saving or atoning virtue was attributed to the sacrifice of foreskins, it might be thought desirable in cases of emergency, such as serious illness, to anticipate it for the benefit of the sufferer.

635

According to Mr. Fison, the enclosure was divided into three compartments; Mr. Basil Thomson describes only two, though by speaking of one of them as the “Middle Nanga” he seems to imply that there were three. The structure was a rough parallelogram lying east and west, about a hundred feet long by fifty feet broad, enclosed by walls or rows of stone slabs embedded endwise in the earth. See Basil Thomson, op. cit. pp. 147 sq.

636

A. B. Joske, “The Nanga of Vitilevu,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, ii. (1889) p. 259; Basil Thomson, The Fijians, pp. 150 sq. According to Mr. Fison (op. cit. p. 19) the initiatory ceremonies were held as a rule only every second year; but he adds: “This period, however, is not necessarily restricted to two years. There are always a number of youths who are growing to the proper age, and the length of the interval depends upon the decision of the elders.” Perhaps the seeming discrepancy between our authorities on this point may be explained by Mr. Joske's statement (p. 259) that the rites are held in alternate years by two different sets of men, the Kai Vesina and the Kai Rukuruku, both of whom claim to be descended from the original founders of the rites. The custom of dating the New Year by observation of the Pleiades was apparently universal among the Polynesians. See The Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i. 312 sq.

637

Rev. Lorimer Fison, op. cit. pp. 20-23; A. B. Joske, op. cit. pp. 264 sq.; Basil Thomson, The Fijians, pp. 150-153. The sacramental character of the meal is recognized by Mr. Fison, who says (p. 23) that after the performance of the rites the novices “are now Vīlavóu, accepted members of the Nanga, qualified to take their place among the men of the community, though still only on probation. As children – their childhood being indicated by their shaven heads – they were presented to the ancestors, and their acceptance was notified by what (looking at the matter from the natives' standpoint) we might, without irreverance, almost call the sacrament of food and water, too sacred even for the elders' hands to touch.”

638

Paul Reina, “Ueber die Bewohner der Insel Rook,” Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde, N.F., iv. (1858) pp. 356 sq.

639

R. Parkinson, Im Bismarck Archipel (Leipsic, 1887), pp. 129-134; id.Dreissig Jahre in der Südsee (Stuttgart, 1907), pp. 567 sqq.; Rev. G. Brown, “Notes on the Duke of York Group, New Britain, and New Ireland,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xlvii. (1878) pp. 148 sq.; H. H. Romilly, “The Islands of the New Britain Group,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, N.S., ix. (1887) pp. 11 sq.; Rev. G. Brown, ibid. p. 17; id., Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), pp. 60 sqq.; W. Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country (London, 1883), pp. 60-66; C. Hager, Kaiser Wilhelm's Land und der Bismarck Archipel (Leipsic, n. d.), pp. 115-128; Hubner, quoted by W. H. Dall, “On masks, labrets, and certain aboriginal customs,” Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1884), p. 100; P. A. Kleintitschen, Die Küstenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel (Hiltrup bei Münster, n. d.), pp. 350 sqq.; H. Schurtz, Altersklassen und Männerbünde (Berlin, 1902), pp. 369-377. The inhabitants of these islands are divided into two exogamous classes, which in the Duke of York Island have two insects for their totems. One of the insects is the mantis religiosus; the other is an insect that mimics the leaf of the horse-chestnut tree very closely. See Rev. B. Danks, “Marriage Customs of the New Britain Group,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. (1889) pp. 281 sq.; Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 118 sqq.

640

J. G. F. Riedel, “Galela und Tobeloresen,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xvii. (1885) pp. 81 sq.

641