neglect of the customary gifts, while the Natchez of Louisiana are said to have even gone so far as to build temples for dead men.[1] Turning to the dark races of the Pacific, we find the Tasmanians laying their sick round a corpse on the funeral pile, that the dead might come in the night and take out the devils that caused the diseases; it is asserted in a general way of the natives, that they believed most implicitly in the return of the spirits of their departed friends or relations to bless or injure them as the case might be.[2] In Tanna, the gods are spirits of departed ancestors, aged chiefs becoming deities after death, presiding over the growth of yams and fruit trees, and receiving from the islanders prayer and offerings of first fruits.[3] Nor are the fairer Polynesians behind in this respect. Below the great mythological gods of Tonga and New Zealand, the souls of chiefs and warriors form a lower but active and powerful order of deities, who in the Tongan paradise intercede for man's benefit with the higher deities, who direct the Maori war parties on the march, hover over them and give them courage in the fight, and, watching jealously their own tribes and families, punish any violation of the sacred laws of tapu.[4] Thence we trace the doctrine into the Malay islands, where the souls of deceased ancestors are looked to for prosperity in life and help in distress.[5] In Madagascar, the worship of the spirits of the dead is remarkably associated with the Vazimbas, the aborigines of the island, who are said still to survive as a distinct race in the interior, and whose peculiar graves testify to their former occupancy of other districts. These graves, small in size, and distinguished by a cairn and an upright stone slab or altar,
- ↑ J. G. Müller, 'Amer. Urrel.' pp. 73, 173, 209, 261; Schoolcraft, 'Indian Tribes,' part i. p. 39, part iii. p. 237; Waitz, 'Anthropologie,' vol. iii. pp. 191, 204.
- ↑ Backhouse, 'Australia,' p. 105; Bonwick, 'Tasmanians,' p. 182.
- ↑ Turner, 'Polynesia,' p. 88.
- ↑ Mariner, 'Tonga Is.' vol. ii. p. 104; S. S. Farmer, p. 126; Shortland, 'Trads. of N. Z.' p. 81; Taylor, 'New Zealand,' p. 108.
- ↑ J. R. Forster, 'Observations,' p. 604; Marsden, 'Sumatra,' p. 258; 'Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. ii. p. 234.
