In certain versions of origin myths the existence of humanity underground is compared to the existence of human spirits after death in the present-day spirit-world. Thus a mythological rapprochement is made between the primeval past and the immediate destiny of each man, another of those links with life which we find so important in the understanding of the psychology and the cultural value of myth.
The parallel between primeval and spiritual existence can be drawn even further. The ghosts of the deceased move after death to the island of Tuma. There they enter the earth through a special hole—a sort of reversed proceeding to the original emergence. Even more important is the fact that after a span of spiritual existence in Tuma, the nether world, an individual grows old, grey, and wrinkled; and that then he has to rejuvenate by sloughing his skin. Even so did human beings in the old primeval times, when they lived underground. When they first came out on the surface they had not yet lost this ability; men and women could live eternally young.
They lost the faculty, however, by an apparently trivial, yet important and fateful event. Once upon a time there lived in the village of Bwadela an old woman who dwelt with her daughter and grand-daughter; three generations of genuine matrilineal descent. The grandmother and grand-daughter went out one day to bathe in the tidal creek. The girl remained on the shore, while the old woman went away some distance out of sight. She took off her skin, which, carried by the tidal current, floated along the creek until it stuck on a bush. Transformed into a young girl, she came back to her grand-daughter. The latter did not recognize her; she was afraid of her, and bade her begone. The old woman, mortified and angry, went back to her bathing place, searched for her old skin, put it on again, and returned to her grand-daughter. This time she was recognized and thus greeted: “A young girl came here; I was afraid; I chased her away.” Said the grandmother: “No, you didn’t want to recognize me. Well, you will become old—I shall die.” They went home to where the daughter was preparing the meal. The old woman spoke to her daughter: “I went to bathe; the tide carried my skin away; your daughter did not recognise me; she chased me away. I shall not slough my skin. We shall all become old. We shall all die.”
After that men lost the power of changing their skin and of remaining youthful. The only animals who have retained the power of changing the skin are the ‘animals of the below’—snakes, crabs, iguanas, and lizards: this is because men also once lived under the ground. These animals come out of the ground and they still can change their skin. Had men lived above, the ‘animals of the above’—birds, flying-foxes, and insects—would also be able to change their skins and renew their youth.
Here ends the myth as it is usually told. Sometimes the natives will add other comments drawing parallels between spirits and primitive humanity; sometimes they will emphasize the regeneration motive of the reptiles; sometimes tell only the bare incident of the lost skin. The story is, in itself, trivial and unimportant; and it would appear so to anyone who did not study it against the background of the various ideas, customs, and rites associated with death and future life. The myth is obviously but a developed and dramatized belief in the previous human power of rejuvenation and in its subsequent loss.
Thus, through the conflict between grand-daughter and grandmother, human beings, one and all, had to submit to the process of decay and debility brought on by old age. This, however, did not yet involve the full incidence of the inexorable fate which is the present lot of man; for old age, bodily decay, and debility do not spell death to the natives. In order to understand the full cycle of their beliefs it is necessary to study the factors of illness, decay, and death. The native of the Trobriands is definitely an optimist in his attitude to health and illness. Strength, vigour, and bodily perfection are to him the natural status which can only be affected or upset by an accident or by a supernatural cause. Small accidents such as excessive fatigue, sunstroke, over-eating, or exposure may cause minor and temporary ailments. By a spear in battle, by poison, by a fall from a rock or a tree a man may be maimed or killed. Whether these accidents and others, such as drowning and the attack of a crocodile or a shark, are entirely free from sorcery is ever a debatable question to a native. But there is no doubt whatever to him that all serious and especially all fatal illnesses are due to various forms and agencies of witchcraft. The most prevalent of these is the ordinary sorcery practised by wizards, who can produce by their spells and rites a number of ailments covering well nigh the whole domain of ordinary pathology, with the exception of very rapid fulminating diseases and epidemics.
The source of witchcraft is always sought in some influence coming from the south. There are two points in the Trobriand Archipelago at which sorcery is said to have originated, or rather to have been brought over from the D’Entrecasteaux Archipelago. One of these is the grove of Lawaywo between the villages of Ba’u and Bwoytalu, and the other is the southern island of Vakuta. Both these districts are still considered the most redoubtable centres of witchcraft.
The district of Bwoytalu occupies a specially low social position in the island, inhabited as it is by the best wood-carvers, the most expert fibreplaiters, and the eaters of such abominations as stingaree and bush-pig. These natives have been endogamous for a long time, and they probably represent the oldest layer of indigenous culture in the island. To them sorcery was brought from the southern archipelago by a crab. This animal is either depicted as emerging out of a hole in the Lawaywo grove, or else as travelling by the air and dropping from above at the same place. About the time of its arrival a man and a dog went out. The crab was red, for it had the sorcery within it. The dog saw it and tried to bite it. Then the crab killed the dog, and having done this, proceeded to kill the man. But looking at him the crab became sorry, ‘its belly was moved’, and it brought him back to life. The man then offered his murderer and saviour a large payment, a pokala, and asked the crustacean to give him the magic. This was done. The man immediately made use of his sorcery to kill his benefactor, the crab. He then proceeded to kill, according to a rule observed or believed to be observed until now, a near maternal relative. After that he was in full possession of witchcraft. The crabs at present are black, for sorcery has left them; they are, however, slow to die for once they were the masters of life and of death.
A similar type of myth is told in the southern island of Vakuta. They tell how a malicious being of human shape, but not of human nature, went into a piece of bamboo somewhere on the northern shore of Normanby Island. The piece of bamboo drifted northwards till it was washed ashore near the promontory of Yayvau or Vakuta. A man from the neighbouring village of Kwadagila heard a voice in the bamboo and he opened it. The demon came out and taught him sorcery. This, according to the informants in the south, is the real starting point of black magic. It went to the district of Ba’u in Bwoytalu from Vakuta and not directly from the southern archipelagoes. Another version of the Vakuta tradition maintains that the tauva’u came to Vakuta not in a bamboo but by a grander arrangement. At Sewatupa on the northern shore of Normanby Island there stood a big tree in which many of the malignant beings used to reside. It was felled, and it tumbled right across the sea, so that while its base remained on Normanby Island the trunk and the branches came across the sea and the top touched Vakuta. Hence sorcery is most rampant in the southern archipelago; the intervening sea is full of fish who live in the branches and boughs of the tree; and the place whence sorcery came to the Trobriands is the southern beach of Vakuta. For in the top of the tree there were three malignant beings, two males and a female, and they gave some magic to the inhabitants of the island.
In these mythical stories we have but one link in the chain of beliefs which surround the final destiny of human beings. The mythical incidents can be understood and their importance realized only in connection with the full beliefs in the power and nature of witchcraft, and with the feelings and apprehensions regarding it. The explicit stories about the advent of sorcery do not quite exhaust or account for all the supernatural dangers. Rapid and sudden disease and death are, in native belief, brought about, not by the male sorcerers, but by flying witches who act differently and possess altogether a more supernatural character. I was unable to find any initial myth about the origin of this type of witchcraft. On the other hand, the nature and the whole proceedings of these witches are surrounded by a cycle of beliefs which form what might be called a standing or current myth. I shall not repeat them with detail, for I have given a full account in my book, the Argonauts of the Western Pacific.1 But it is important to realize that the halo of supernatural powers surrounding individuals who are believed to be witches gives rise to a continuous flow of stories. Such stories can be regarded as minor myths generated by the strong belief in the supernatural powers. Similar stories are also told told about the male sorcerers, the bwaga’u.
Epidemics, finally, are ascribed to the direct action of the malignant spirits, the tauva’u, who, as we saw, are mythologically often regarded as the source of all witchcraft. These malignant beings have a permanent abode in the south. Occasionally they will move to the Trobriand Archipelago, and, invisible to ordinary human beings, they walk at night through the villages rattling their lime-gourds and clanking their wooden sword clubs. Wherever this is heard fear falls upon the inhabitants, for those whom the tauva’u strike with their wooden weapons die, and such an invasion is always associated with death in masses. Leria, epidemic disease, obtains then in the villages. The malignant spirits can sometimes change into reptiles and then become visible to human eyes. It is not easy to distinguish such a reptile from an ordinary one, but it is very important to do so, for a tauva’u, injured or ill-treated, revenges himself by death.
Here, again, around this standing myth, around this domestic tale of a happening which is not placed in the past but still occurs, there cluster innumerable concrete stories. Some of them even occurred while I was in the Trobriands; there was a severe dysentery once, and the first outbreak of what probably was Spanish influenza in 1918. Many natives reported having heard the tauva’u. A giant lizard was seen in Wawela; the man who killed it died soon after, and the epidemic broke out in the village. While I was in Oburaku, and sickness was rife in the village, a real tauva’u was seen by the crew of the boat in which I was being paddled; a large multi-coloured snake appeared on a mangrove, but vanished mysteriously as we came near. It was only through my short-sightedness, and perhaps also my ignorance of how to look for a tauva’u, that I failed to observe this miracle myself. Such and similar stories can be obtained by the score from natives in all localities. A reptile of this type should be put on a high platform and valuables placed in front of it; and I have been assured by natives who have actually witnessed it that this is not infrequently done, though I never have seen this myself. Again, a number of women witches are said to have had intercourse with tauva’u, and of one living at present this is positively affirmed.
In the case of this belief we see how minor myths are constantly generated by the big schematic story. Thus with regard to all the agencies of disease and death the belief, and the explicit narratives which cover part of it, the small concrete supernatural events constantly registered by the natives, form one organic whole. These beliefs are obviously not a theory or explanation. On the one hand, they are the whole complex of cultural practices, for sorcery is not only believed to be practised, but actually is practised, at least in its male form. On the other hand, the complex under discussion covers the whole pragmatic reaction of man towards disease and death; it expresses his emotions, his forebodings; it influences his behaviour. The nature of myth again appears to us as something very far removed from a mere intellectual explanation.
We are now in full possession of the native ideas about the factors which in the past cut short man’s power of rejuvenation, and which at present cut short his very existence. The connection, by the way, between the two losses is only indirect. The natives believe that although any form of sorcery can reach the child, the youth, or the man in the prime of life, as well as the aged, yet old people are more easily stricken. Thus the loss of rejuvenation at least prepared the ground for sorcery.
But although there was a time when people grew old and died, and thus became spirits, they yet remained in the villages with the survivors—even as now they stay around the dwellings when they return to their village during the annual feast of the milamala. But one day an old woman-spirit who was living with her people in the house crouched on the floor under one of the bedstead platforms. Her daughter, who was distributing food to the members of the family, spilled some broth out of the coconut cup and burnt the spirit, who expostulated and reprimanded her daughter. The latter replied: “I thought you had gone away; I thought you were only coming back at one time in the year during the milamala.” The spirit’s feelings were hurt. She replied: “I shall go to Tuma and live underneath.” She then took up a coconut, cut it in half, kept the half with the three eyes, and gave her daughter the other. “I am giving you the half which is blind, and therefore you will not see me. I am taking the half with the eyes, and I shall see you when I come back with other spirits.” This is the reason why the spirits are invisible, though they themselves can see human beings.
This myth contains a reference to the seasonal feast of milamala, the period at which the spirits return to their villages while festive celebrations take place. A more explicit myth gives an account of how the milamala was instituted. A woman of Kitava died leaving a pregnant daughter behind her. A son was born, but his mother had not enough milk to feed him. As a man of a neighbouring island was dying, she asked him to take a message to her own mother in the land of spirits, to the effect that the departed one should bring food to her grandson. The spirit-woman filled her basket with spirit-food and came back wailing as follows: “Whose food am I carrying? That of my grandson to whom I am going to give it; I am going to give him his food.” She arrived on Bomagema beach in the island of Kitava and put down the food. She spoke to her daughter: “I bring the food; the man told me I should bring it. But I am weak; I fear that people may take me for a witch.” She then roasted one of the yams and gave it to her grandson. She went into the bush and made a garden for her daughter. When she came back, however, her daughter received a fright for the spirit looked like a sorceress. She ordered her to go away saying: “Return to Tuma, to the spirit-land; people will say that you are a witch.” The spirit-mother complained: “Why do you chase me away? I thought I would stay with you and make gardens for my grandchild.” The daughter only replied: “Go away, return to Tuma!” The old woman then took up a coconut, split it in half, gave the blind half to her daughter, and kept the half with eyes. She told her that once a year, she and other spirits would come back during the milamala and look at the people in the villages, but remain invisible to them. And this is how the annual feast came to be what it is.
In order to understand these mythological stories, it is indispensable to collate them with native beliefs about the spirit-world, with the practices during the milamala season, and with the relations between the world of the living and the world of the dead, such as exist in native forms of spiritism.1 After death every spirit goes to the nether world in Tuma. He has to pass at the entrance Topileta, the guardian of the spirit world. The new-comer offers some valuable gift, the spiritual part of the valuables with which he had been bedecked at the time of dying. When he arrives among the spirits he is received by his friends and relatives who have previously died, and he brings the news from the upper world. He then settles down to spirit-life, which is similar to earthly existence, though sometimes its description is coloured by hopes and desires and made into a sort of real Paradise. But even those natives who describe it thus never show any eagerness to reach it.
Communication between spirits and the living is carried out in several ways. Many people have seen spirits of their deceased relatives or friends, especially in or near the island of Tuma. Again, there are now, and seem to have been from time immemorial, men and women who in trances, or sometimes in sleep, go on long expeditions to the nether world. They take part in the life of the spirits, and carry back and forth news, items of information, and important messages. Above all they are always ready to convey gifts of food and valuables from the living to the spirits. These people bring home to other men and women the reality of the spirit world. They also give a great deal of comfort to the survivors who are ever eager to receive news from their dear departed.
During the annual feast of the milamala, the spirits return from Tuma to their villages. A special high platform is erected for them to sit upon, from which they can look down upon the doings and amusements of their brethren. Food is displayed in big quantities to gladden their hearts, as well as those of the living citizens of the community. During the day valuables are placed on mats in front of the headman’s hut and the huts of important and wealthy people. A number of taboos are observed in the village to safeguard the invisible spirits from injury. Hot fluids must not be spilled, as the spirits might be burned like the old woman in the myth. No native may sit, cut wood within the village, play about with spears or sticks, or throw missiles, for fear of injuring a Baloma, a spirit. The spirits, moreover, manifest their presence by pleasant and unpleasant signs, and express their satisfaction or the reverse. Slight annoyance is sometimes shown by unpleasant smells, more serious ill-humour is displayed in bad weather, accidents, and damage to property. On such occasions—as well as when an important medium goes into a trance, or someone is near to death—the spirit-world seems very near and real to the natives. It is clear that myth fits into these beliefs as an integral part of them. There is a close and direct parallel between, on the one hand, the relations of man to spirit, as expressed in present-day religious beliefs and experiences, and, on the other hand, the various incidents of the myth. Here again the myth can be regarded as constituting the furthest background of a continuous perspective which ranges from an individual’s personal concerns, fears, and sorrows at the one end, through the customary setting of belief, through the many concrete cases told from personal experience and memory of past generations, right back into the epoch where a similar fact is imagined to have occurred for the first time.
I have presented the facts and told the myths in a manner which implies the existence of an extensive and coherent scheme of beliefs. This scheme does not exist, of course, in any explicit form in the native folk-lore. But it does correspond to a definite cultural reality, for all the concrete manifestations of the natives’ beliefs, feelings, and forebodings with reference to death and after-life hang together and form a great organic unit. The various stories and ideas just summarized shade into one another, and the natives spontaneously point out the parallels and bring out the connections between them. Myths, religious beliefs, and experiences in connection with spirits and the supernatural are really all parts of the same subject; the corresponding pragmatic attitude is expressed in conduct by the attempts to commune with the nether world. The myths are but a part of the organic whole; they are an explicit development into narrative of certain crucial points in native belief. When we examine the subjects which are thus spun into stories we find that they all refer to what might be called the specially unpleasant or negative truths: the loss of rejuvenation, the onset of disease, the loss of life by sorcery, the withdrawal of the spirits from permanent contact with men, and finally the partial communication re-established with them. We see also that the myths of this cycle are more dramatic, they also form a more consecutive, yet complex, account than was the case with the myths of origins. Without labouring the point, I think that this is due to a deeper metaphysical reference, in other words, to a stronger emotional appeal in stories which deal with human destiny, as compared with sociological statements or charters.
In any case we see that the point where myth enters in these subjects is not to be explained by any greater amount of curiosity or any more problematic character, but rather by emotional colouring and pragmatic importance. We have found that the ideas elaborated by myth and spun out into narrative are especially painful. In one of the stories, that of the institution of the milamala and the periodical return of the spirits, it is the ceremonial behaviour of man, and the taboos observed with regard to the spirits, which are in question. The subjects developed in these myths are clear enough in themselves; there is no need to ‘explain’ them, and the myth does not even partially perform this function. What it actually does is to transform an emotionally overwhelming foreboding, behind which, even for a native, there lurks the idea of an inevitable and ruthless fatality. Myth presents, first of all, a clear realization of this idea. In the second place, it brings down a vague but great apprehension to the compass of a trivial, domestic reality. The longed-for power of eternal youth and the faculty of rejuvenation which gives immunity from decay and age, have been lost by a small accident which it would have been in the power of a child and a woman to prevent. The separation from the beloved ones after death is conceived as due to the careless handling of a coconut cup and to a small altercation. Disease, again, is conceived as something which came out of a small animal, and originated through an accidental meeting of a man, a dog, and a crab. Elements of human error, of guilt, and of mischance assume great proportions. Elements of fate, of destiny, and of the inevitable are, on the other hand, brought down to the dimension of human mistakes.
In order to understand this, it is perhaps well to realize that in his actual emotional attitude towards death, whether his own or that of his loved ones, the native is not completely guided by his belief and his mythological ideas. His intense fear of death, his strong desire to postpone it, and his deep sorrow at the departure of beloved relatives belie the optimistic creed and the easy reach of the beyond which is inherent in native customs, ideas, and ritual. After death has occurred, or at a time when death is threatening, there is no mistaking the dim division of shaking faith. In long conversations with several seriously ill natives, and especially with my consumptive friend Bagido’u, I felt, half-expressed and roughly formulated, but still unmistakable in them all, the same melancholy sorrow at the transience of life and all its good things, the same dread of the inevitable end, and the same questioning as to whether it could be staved off indefinitely or at least postponed for some little time. But again, the same people would clutch at the hope given to them by their beliefs. They would screen, with the vivid texture of their myths, stories, and beliefs about the spirit world, the vast emotional void gaping beyond them.
1 Chap. X, passim: especially pp. 236-248, also pp. 320, 321, 393.
1 An account of these facts has been already given in an article on “Baloma; Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands” in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1916.