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Title: The migrations of early culture - A study of the significance of the geographical distribution - of the practice of mummification as evidence of the - migrations of peoples and the spread of certain customs - and beliefs
Author: Smith, Grafton Elliot
Language: English
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PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER.
The Migrations of Early Culture.
Published by the University of Manchester at
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS (H. M. MCKECHNIE, Secretary)
12, LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD, MANCHESTER
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON: 39, Paternoster Row
NEW YORK: 443-449, Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street
BOMBAY: 8, Hornby Road
CALCUTTA: 303, Bowbazar Street
MADRAS: 167, Mount Road
The
Migrations of Early Culture
A study of the Significance of the Geographical
Distribution of the Practice of Mummification
as Evidence of the Migrations of Peoples and
the Spread of certain Customs and Beliefs
BY
GRAFTON ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D., F.R.S.,
_Professor of Anatomy in the University_
MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
12, LIME GROVE, OXFORD ROAD
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
London, New York, Bombay, etc.
1915
UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER PUBLICATIONS
No. CII.
PREFACE.
When these pages were crudely flung together no fate was contemplated for
them other than that of publication in the proceedings of a scientific
society, as an appeal to ethnologists to recognise the error of their
ways and repent. They were intended merely as a mass of evidence to force
scientific men to recognise and admit that in former ages knowledge and
culture spread in much the same way as they are known to be diffused
to-day. The only difference is that the pace of migration has become
accelerated.
The re-publication in book form was suggested by the Secretary of the
Manchester University Press, who thought that the matters discussed in
these pages would appeal to a much wider circle of readers than those who
are given to reading scientific journals.
The argument is compounded largely of extracts from the writings of
recognised authorities, and the author does not agree with all the
statements in the various extracts he has quoted: this mode of presenting
the case has been adopted deliberately, with the object of demonstrating
that the generally admitted facts are capable of a more natural and
convincing explanation than that put forth _ex cathedra_ by the majority
of modern anthropologists, one in fact more in accord with all that our
own experience and the facts of history teach us of the effects of the
contact of peoples and the spread of knowledge.
Such a method of stating the argument necessarily involves a considerable
amount of repetition of statements and phrases, which is apt to irritate
the reader and offend his sense of literary style. In extenuation of this
admitted defect it must be remembered that the brochure was intended as
a protest against the accusation of artificiality and improbability so
often launched against the explanation suggested here: the cumulative
effect of corroboration was deliberately aimed at, by showing that many
investigators employing the most varied kinds of data had independently
arrived at identical conclusions and often expressed them in similar
phrases.
Only a very small fraction of the evidence is set forth in the present
work. Much of the most illuminating information has only come to the
author’s knowledge since this memoir was in the press; and a vast amount
of the data, especially that relating to Europe, India and China, is too
intimately intertwined with the effects of other cultures to be discussed
and dissociated from them in so limited a space as this.
Nor has any attempt been made to discuss the times of the journeys,
the duration of the intercourse, or the details of the goings and the
comings of the ancient mariners who distributed so curious an assortment
of varied cargoes to the coast-lines of the whole world—literally
“from China to Peru.” They exerted an influence upon the history of
civilization and achieved marvels of maritime daring that must be
reckoned of greater account, as they were so many ages earlier, than
those of the more notorious mediæval European adventurers and buccaneers
who, impelled by similar motives, raided the Spanish Main and the East
Indies.
As the pages show, this book is reprinted from volume 59, part 2, of the
“Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical
Society,” session 1914-15; and I am indebted to the Council of that body
for their kind permission to re-issue it in its present form.
G. ELLIOT SMITH.
THE UNIVERSITY, MANCHESTER, _July, 1915_.
_LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS._
Map 1. A rough chart of the geographical distribution of certain customs,
practices and traditions
Map 2. An attempt to represent roughly the areas more directly affected
by the “heliolithic” culture-complex, with arrows to indicate the
hypothetical routes taken in the migration of the culture-bearers who
were responsible for its diffusion
_Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (1915), No. =10=._
X. On the Significance of the Geographical Distribution of the Practice
of Mummification.—A Study of the Migrations of Peoples and the Spread of
certain Customs and Beliefs.
By Professor G. ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D., F.R.S.
(_Read February 23rd, 1915. Received for publication April 6th, 1915._)
In entering upon the discussion of the geographical distribution
of the practice of mummification I am concerned not so much with
the origin and technical procedures of this remarkable custom. This
aspect of the problem I have already considered in a series of memoirs
(=75= to =89=[1]). I have chosen mummification rather as the most
peculiar, and therefore the most distinctive and obtrusive, element of
a very intimately interwoven series of strange customs, which became
fortuitously linked one with the other to form a definite culture-complex
nearly thirty centuries ago, and spread along the coast-lines of a
great part of the world, stirring into new and distinctive activity the
sluggish uncultured peoples which in turn were subjected to this exotic
leaven.
If one looks into the journals of anthropology and ethnology, there will
be found amongst the vast collections of information relating to man’s
activities a most suggestive series of facts concerning the migrations of
past ages and the spread of peculiar customs and beliefs.
[Illustration: _Map 1._—A rough chart of the geographical distribution
of certain customs, practices and traditions. [None of these areas of
distribution is complete. The map shows merely the data referred to in
this memoir or in the literature quoted in it.]]
If a map of the world is taken and one plots out (_Map I._) the
geographical distribution of such remarkable customs as the building
of megalithic monuments (see for example Lane Fox’s [Pitt Rivers’]
map, =20=), the worship of the sun and the serpent (=51=; =103=), the
custom of piercing the ears (see Park Harrison, =29=), tattooing (see
Miss Buckland, =10=), the practice of circumcision, the curious custom
known as couvade, the practice of massage, the complex story of the
creation, the deluge, the petrifaction of human beings, the divine origin
of kings and a chosen people sprung from an incestuous union (W. J.
Perry), the use of the swastika-symbol (see Wilson’s map, =105=), the
practice of cranial deformation, to mention only a few of the many that
might be enumerated, it will be found that in most respects the areas
in which this extraordinary assortment of bizarre customs and beliefs
is found coincide one with the other. In some of the series gaps occur,
which probably are more often due to lack of information on our part
than to real absence of the practice; in other places one or other of
the elements of this complex culture-mixture has overflowed the common
channel and broken into new territory. But considered in conjunction
these data enable us definitely and precisely to map out the route taken
by this peculiarly distinctive group of eccentricities of the human
mind. If each of them is considered alone there are many breaks in the
chain and many uncertainties as to the precise course: but when taken
together all of these gaps are bridged. Moreover, in most areas there are
traditions of culture-heroes, who brought in some or all of these customs
at one and the same time and also introduced a knowledge of agriculture
and weaving.
So far as I am aware no one hitherto has called attention to the fact
that the practice of mummification has a geographical distribution
exactly corresponding to the area occupied by the curious assortment of
other practices just enumerated. Not only so, but in addition it is
abundantly clear that the coincidence is not merely accidental. It is
due to the fact that in most regions the people who introduced the habit
of megalithic building and sun-worship (a combination for which it is
convenient to use Professor Brockwell’s distinctive term “heliolithic
culture”) also brought with them the practice of mummification at the
same time.
The custom of embalming the dead is in fact an integral part of the
“heliolithic culture,” and perhaps, as I shall endeavour to demonstrate,
its most important component. For this practice and the beliefs which
grew up in association with it were responsible for the development of
some of the chief elements of this culture-complex, and incidentally of
the bond of union with other factors not so intimately connected, in the
genetic sense, with it.
Before plunging into the discussion of the evidence provided by the
practice of mummification, it will be useful to consider for a moment the
geographical distribution of the other components of the “heliolithic
culture.” I need not say much about megalithic monuments, for I have
already considered their significance elsewhere (=90= to =96=); but I
should like once more specifically to call the attention of those who
are obsessed by theories of the independent evolution of such monuments,
and who scoff at Fergusson (=17=), to the memoirs of Lane Fox (=20=) and
Meadows Taylor (=100=). The latter emphasises in a striking manner the
remarkable identity of structure, not only as concerns the variety and
the general conception of such monuments, but also as regards trivial and
apparently unessential details. With reference to “the opinion of many,”
which has “been advanced as an hypothesis, that the common instincts of
humanity have suggested common methods of sepulture,” he justly remarks,
“I own this kind of vague generalisation does not satisfy me, in the face
of such exact points of similitude.... Such can hardly have been the
result of accident, or any common human instinct” (p. 173).
But it is not merely the identity of structure and the geographical
distribution (in most cases along continuous coast-lines or related
islands) that proves the common origin of megalithic monuments. It
is further strongly corroborated by a remarkable series of beliefs,
traditions and practices, many of them quite meaningless and
unintelligible to us, which are associated with such structures wherever
they are found. Stories of dwarfs and giants (=13=), the belief in
the indwelling of gods or great men in the stones, the use of these
structures in a particular manner for certain special councils (=20=, pp.
64 and 65), and the curious, and, to us, meaningless, practice of hanging
rags on trees in association with such monuments (=20=, pp. 63 and 64).
In reference to the last of these associated practices, Lane Fox remarks,
“it is impossible to believe that so singular a custom as this could have
arisen independently in all these countries.”
In an important article on “Facts suggestive of prehistoric intercourse
between East and West” (_Journ. Anthr. Inst._, Vol. 14, 1884, p. 227),
Miss Buckland calls attention to a remarkable series of identities of
customs and beliefs, and amongst them certain legends concerning the
petrification of _dance maidens_ associated with stone circles as far
apart as Cornwall and Peru.
Taking all of these facts into consideration, it is to me altogether
inconceivable how any serious enquirer who familiarises himself with the
evidence can honestly refuse to admit that the case for the spread of
the inspiration to erect megalithic monuments from one centre has been
proved by an overwhelming mass of precise and irrefutable data. But this
evidence does not stand alone. It is linked with scores of other peculiar
customs and beliefs, the testimony of each of which, however imperfect
and unconvincing some scholars may consider it individually, strengthens
the whole case by cumulation; and when due consideration is given to
the enormous complexity and artificiality of the cultural structure
compounded of such fantastic elements, these are bound to compel assent
to their significance, as soon as the present generation of ethnologists
can learn to forget the meaningless fetish to which at present it bends
the knee.
But suppose, for the sake of argument, we shut our ears to the voice of
common sense, and allow ourselves to be hypnotised into the belief that
some complex and highly specialised instinct (_i.e._ precisely the type
of instinct which real psychologists—not the ethnological variety—deny
to mankind) impelled groups of men scattered as far apart as Ireland,
India and Peru independently the one of the other to build mausolea of
the same type, to acquire similar beliefs regarding the petrifaction of
human beings, and many other extraordinary things connected with such
monuments, how is this “psychological explanation” going to help us to
explain why the wives of the builders of these monuments, whether in
Africa, Asia or America, should have their chins pricked and rubbed with
charcoal, or why they should circumcise their boys, or why they should
have a tradition of the deluge? Does any theory of evolution help in
explaining these associations? They are clearly fortuitous associations
of customs and beliefs, which have no inherent relationship one to the
other. They became connected purely by chance in one definite locality,
and the fact that such incongruous customs reappear in association in
distant parts of the globe is proof of the most positive kind that the
wanderings of peoples must have brought this peculiar combination of
freakish practices from the centre where chance linked them together.
Because it was the fashion among a particular group of megalith-builders
to tattoo the chins of their womenkind, the wanderers who carried abroad
the one custom also took the other: but there is no genetic or inherent
connection between megalith-building and chin-tattooing.
Such evidence is infinitely stronger and more convincing than that
afforded by one custom considered by itself, because in the former case
we are dealing with an association which is definitely and obviously
due to pure chance, such as the so-called psychological method, however
casuistical, is impotent to explain.
But the study of such a custom as tattooing, even when considered alone,
affords evidence that ought to convince most reasonable people of the
impossibility of it having independently arisen in different, widely
scattered, localities. The data have been carefully collected and
discussed with clear insight and common sense by Miss Buckland (=10=)
in an admirable memoir, which I should like to commend to all who still
hold to the meaningless dogma “of the similarity of the working of the
human mind” as an explanation of the identity of customs. Tattooing
is practised throughout the great “heliolithic” track. [Striking as
Miss Buckland’s map of distribution is as a demonstration of this, if
completed in the light of our present information, it would be even more
convincing, for she has omitted Libya, which so far as we know at present
may possibly have been the centre of origin of the curious practice.]
Tattooing of the chin in women is practised in localities as far apart as
Egypt, India, Japan, New Guinea, New Zealand, Easter Island and North
and South America.
Miss Buckland rightly draws the conclusion that “the wide distribution of
this peculiar custom is of considerable significance, especially as it
follows so nearly in the line” which she had “indicated in two previous
papers (=8= and =9=) as suggestive of a prehistoric intercourse between
the two hemispheres.... When we find in India, Japan, Egypt, New Guinea,
New Zealand, Alaska, Greenland and America, the custom of tattooing
carried out in precisely the same manner and for the same ends, and when
in addition to this we find a similarity in other ornaments, in weapons,
in games, in modes of burial, and many other customs, we think it may
fairly be assumed that they all derived these customs from a common
source, or that at some unknown period, some intercourse existed” (p.
326).
In the first of her memoirs (=8=) Miss Buckland calls attention to “the
curious connection between early worship of the serpent and a knowledge
of metals,” which is of peculiar interest in this discussion, because the
Proto-Egyptians, who were serpent-worshippers (_see_ Sethe, =74=), had
a knowledge of metals at a period when, so far as our present knowledge
goes, no other people had yet acquired it. Referring to the ancient
Indian Indra, the Chaldean Ea and the Mexican Quetzalcoatl, among other
gods, Miss Buckland remarks:—“The deities, kings and heroes who are
symbolised by the serpent are commonly described as the pioneers of
civilisation and the instructors of mankind in the arts of agriculture
and mining.”
Further, in an interesting article on “Stimulants in Use among Savages
and among the Ancients” (=9=), she tells us that “among aboriginal races
in a line across the Pacific, from Formosa on the West to Peru and
Bolivia on the East, a peculiar, and what would appear to civilised
races a disgusting mode of preparing fermented drinks, prevails,
the women being in all cases the chief manufacturers; the material
employed varying according to the state of agriculture in the different
localities, but the mode of preparation remaining virtually the same”
(=9=, p. 213).
If space permitted I should have liked to make extensive quotations from
Park Harrison’s most conclusive independent demonstration of the spread
of culture along the same great route, at which he arrived from the study
of the geographical distribution of the peculiar custom of artificially
distending the lobe of the ear (=29=). This practice was not infrequent
in Egypt (=79=) in the times of the new Empire, a fact which Harrison
seems to have overlooked: but he records it amongst the Greeks, Hebrews,
Etruscans, Persians, in Bœotia, Zanzibar, Natal, Southern India, Ceylon,
Assam, Aracan, Burma, Laos, Nicobar Islands, Nias, Borneo, China, Solomon
Islands, Admiralty Islands, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Pelew Islands,
Navigators Island, Fiji, Friendly Islands, Penrhyn, Society Islands,
Easter Island, Peru, Palenque, Mexico, Brazil and Paraguay. This is an
excellent and remarkably complete [if he had used the data now available
it might have been made even more complete] mapping out of the great
“heliolithic” track.
The identity of geographical distribution is no mere fortuitous
coincidence.
It is of peculiar interest that Harrison is able to demonstrate a linked
association between this custom and sun-worship in most of the localities
enumerated. In the figures illustrating his memoir other obvious
associations can be detected intimately binding it by manifold threads
into the very texture of the “heliolithic culture.” If to this we add the
fact that in many localities the design tattooed on the skin was the
sun, we further strengthen the woof of the closely woven fabric that is
gradually taking shape.
To these forty-year-old demonstrations let me add Wilson’s interesting
recent monograph on the swastika (=105=), which independently tells the
same story and blazens the same great track around the world (see his
map). He further calls attention to the close geographical association
between the distribution of the swastika and the spindle-whorl. By
attributing the introduction of weaving and the swastika into most
localities where they occur by the same culture-heroes he thereby adds
the swastika to the “heliolithic” outfit, for weaving already belongs to
it.
To these practices one might add a large series of others of a character
no less remarkable, such, for example, as circumcision, the practice of
massage (=57=, =67= and =11=), the curious custom known as _couvade_, all
of which are distributed along the great “heliolithic” pathway and belong
to the great culture-complex which travelled by it.
But there are several interesting bits of corroborative evidence that I
cannot refrain from mentioning.
One of the most carefully-investigated bonds of cultural connection
between the Eastern Mediterranean in Phœnician times and pre-Columbian
America (Tehuantepec) has recently been put on record by Zelia Nuttall
in her memoir on “a curious survival in Mexico of the use of the Purpura
shell-fish for dyeing” (=50=). After a very thorough and critical
analysis of all the facts of this truly remarkable case of transmission
of an extraordinary custom, Mrs. Nuttall justly concludes that “it seems
almost easier to believe that certain elements of an ancient European
culture were at one time, and perhaps once only, actually transmitted
by the traditional small band of ... Mediterranean seafarers, than to
explain how, under totally different conditions of race and climate, the
identical ideas and customs should have arisen” (pp. 383 and 384). Nor
does she leave us in any doubt as to the route taken by the carriers of
this practice. Found in association with it, both in the Old and the New
World, was the use of conch-shell trumpets and pearls. The antiquity of
these usages is proved by their representation in pre-Columbian pictures
or, in the case of the pearls, the finding of actual specimens in graves.
In Phœnician Greek, and later times these shell-trumpets were extensively
used in the Mediterranean: “European travellers have found them in actual
use in East India, Japan and, by the Alfurs, in Ceram, the Papuans of New
Guinea, as well as in the South Sea islands as far as New Zealand,” and
in many places in America (p. 378). “In the Old and the New World alike,
are found, in the same close association, (1) the purple industry and
skill in weaving; (2) the use of pearls and conch-shell trumpets; (3)
the mining, working and trafficking in copper, silver and gold; (4) the
tetrarchial form of government; (5) the conception of ‘Four Elements’;
(6) the cyclical form of calendar. Those scholars who assert that all
of the foregoing must have been developed independently will ever be
confronted by the persistent and unassailable fact that, throughout
America, the aborigines unanimously disclaim all share in their
production and assign their introduction to strangers of superior-culture
from distant and unknown parts” (p. 383).
Many other equally definite proofs might be cited of the transmission of
customs from the Old to the New World, of which the instance reported by
Tylor (=102=) is the classical example[2]; but I know of no other which
has been so critically studied and so fully recorded as Mrs. Nuttall’s
case.
But the difficulty may be raised—as in fact invariably happens when these
subjects come up for discussion—as to the means of transmission. Rivers
has explained what does actually happen in the contact of peoples (=68=)
and how a small group of wanderers bringing the elements of a higher
culture can exert a profound and far-reaching influence upon a large
uncultured population (=64= to =70=).
Lane-Fox’s [Pitt Rivers’] memoir “on Early Modes of Navigation” (=21=)
not only affords in itself an admirable summary of the definite evidence
for the spread of culture; but is also doubly valuable to us, because
incidentally it illustrates also the actual means by which the migrations
of the culture-bearers took place. The survival into modern times,
upon the Hooghly and other Indian rivers, of boats provided with the
fantastic steering arrangement used by the Ancient Egyptians 2000 years
B.C., is in itself a proof of ancient Egyptian influence in India; and
the contemporary practice of representing eyes upon the bow of the ship
enables us to demonstrate a still wider extension of that influence, for
in modern times that custom has been recorded as far apart as Malta,
India, China, Oceania and the North-West American coast.
But there is no difficulty about the question of the transmission of
such customs. Most scholars who have mastered the early history of some
particular area, in many cases those who most resolutely deny even the
possibility of the wider spread of culture, frankly admit—because it
would stultify their own localised researches to deny it—the intercourse
of the particular people in which they are interested and its neighbours.
Merely by using these links, forged by the reluctant hands of hostile
witnesses, it is possible to construct the whole chain needed for such
migrations as I postulate (see _Map II_.)
No one who reads the evidence collected by such writers as Ellis (=15=),
de Quatrefages (=60=) and Percy Smith (=98=)[3] can doubt the fact of
the extensive prehistoric migrations throughout the Pacific Ocean along
definitely known routes. Even Joyce (whose otherwise excellent summaries
of the facts relating to American archæology have been emasculated by his
refusal to admit the influence of the Old World upon American culture)
states that migrations from India extended to Indonesia (and Madagascar)
and all the islands of the Pacific; and even that “it is likely that the
coast of America was reached” (=61=, p. 119).[4]
There is no doubt as to the reality of the close maritime intercourse
between the Persian Gulf and India from the eighth century B.C. (=13=;
=14=; =51=; and =101=); and of course it is a historical fact that the
Mediterranean littoral and Egypt had been in intimate connexion with
Babylonia for some centuries before, and especially after, that time.
[Illustration: _Map 2._—An attempt to represent roughly the areas more
directly affected by the “heliolithic” culture-complex, with arrows
to indicate the hypothetical routes taken in the migrations of the
culture-bearers who were responsible for its diffusion.]
In the face of this overwhelming mass of definite evidence of the reality
not only of the spread of culture and its carriers, but also of the
ways and the means by which it travelled, it will naturally be asked
how it has come to pass that there is even the shadow of a doubt as to
the migrations which distributed this “heliolithic” culture-complex
so widely in the world. It cannot be explained by lack of knowledge,
for most of the facts that I have enumerated are taken bodily from the
anthropological journals of forty or more years ago.
The explanation is to be found, I believe, in a curious psychological
process incidental to the intensive study of an intricate problem.
As knowledge increased and various scholars attempted to define the
means by (and the time at) which the contacts of various peoples took
place, difficulties were revealed which, though really trivial, were
magnified into insuperable obstacles. All of these real difficulties were
created by mistaken ideas of the relative chronology of the appearance
of civilisation in various centres, and especially by the failure to
realise that useful arts were often lost. For example, if on a certain
mainland _A_ two practices, _a_ and _b_—one of them, _a_, a useful
practice, say the making of pottery; the other, _b_, a useless custom,
say the preservation of the corpse—were developed, and _a_ was at least
as old, or preferably definitely older than _b_, it seemed altogether
inconceivable to the ethnologist if an island _B_ was influenced by the
culture of the mainland _A_, at some time after the practices _a_ and _b_
were in vogue, that it might, under any conceivable circumstances, fail
to preserve the useful art _a_, even though it might allow the utterly
useless practice _b_ to lapse. Therefore it was argued that, if the later
inhabitants of _B_ mummified their dead, but did not make pottery, this
was clear evidence that they could not have come under the influence of
_A_.
But the whole of the formidable series of obstacles raised by this
kind of argument has been entirely swept away by Dr. Rivers, who has
demonstrated how often it has happened that a population has completely
lost some useful art which it once had, and even more often clung to some
useless practice (=65=).
The remarkable feature of the present state of the discussion is that,
in spite of Rivers’ complete demolition of these difficulties (=65=),
most ethnologists do not seem to realise that there is now a free scope
for taking a clear and common-sense view of the truth, unhindered by
any obstructions. It is characteristic of the history of scientific,
no less than of theological argument, that the immediate effect of the
destruction of the foundations of cherished beliefs is to make their
more fanatical votaries shout their creed all the louder and more
dogmatically, and hurl anathemas at those who dissent.
This is the only explanation I can offer of the remarkable presidential
address delivered by Fewkes to the Anthropological Society of Washington
in 1912 (=18=), Keane’s incoherent recklessness[5] (=41=, pp. 140, 218,
219, and 367 to 370), and the amazing criticisms which during the last
four years I have had annually to meet. There is no attempt at argument,
but mere dogmatic and often irrelevant assertions. The constant appeal
to the meaningless phrase “the similarity of the working of the human
mind”[6] (=18=), as though it were a magical incantation against logical
induction, and harping on the so-called “psychological argument” (=41=),
which is directly opposed to the teaching of psychology, are the only
excuses one can obtain from the “orthodox” ethnologist for this obstinate
refusal to face the issue. Of course it is a historical fact that the
discussions of the theory of evolution inclined ethnologists during the
last century the more readily to accept the _laisser faire_ attitude, and
put an end to all their difficulties by the pretence that most cultures
developed independently _in situ_. It is all the more surprising that
Huxley took some small part in encouraging this lapse into superficiality
and abuse of the evolution conception, when it is recalled that, as Sir
Michael Foster tells us, the then President of the Ethnological Society
“made himself felt in many ways, not the least by the severity with which
he repressed the pretensions of shallow persons who, taking advantage of
the glamour of the Darwinian doctrine, talked nonsense in the name of
anthropological science” (“Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley,” Vol.
I., p. 263).
It is a singular commentary on the attitude of the “orthodox” school
of ethnologists that, when pressed to accept the obvious teaching of
ethnological evidence, they should desert the strong intrenchments
which the difficulties of full and adequate explanation have afforded
them in the past, and take refuge behind the straw barricades of
imaginary psychological and biological analogies, which they have hastily
constructed for their own purposes, and in flagrant defiance of all that
the psychologist understands by the phrase “working of the human mind,”
if perchance he is ever driven to employ this expression, or the meaning
attached by the biologist to “evolution.”
It is not sufficient proof of my thesis, however, merely to expose the
hollowness of the pretensions of one’s opponents, nor even to show the
identity of geographical distribution and the linking up of customs to
form the “heliolithic” culture-complex. Many writers have dimly realised
that some such spread of culture took place, but by misunderstanding
the nature of the factors that came into play or the chronology of
the movements they were discussing (see especially Macmillan Brown’s
(=7=) and Enoch’s (=16=) books, to mention the latest, but by no means
the worst offenders), have brought discredit upon the thesis I am
endeavouring to demonstrate.
Another danger has arisen out of the revulsion against Bastian’s old
idea of independent evolution by his fellow-countrymen Frobenius,
Graebner, Ankermann, Foy and others, with the co-operation of the
Austrian philologist, Schmidt, and the Swiss ethnologist, Montandon
(who has summarised the views of the new school in the first part of
the new journal, _Archives suisses d’Anthropologie générale_, May,
1914, p. 113); for they have rushed to the other extreme, and, relying
mainly upon objects of “material culture,” have put forward a method of
analysis and postulated a series of migrations for which the evidence
is very doubtful. Rivers (=64=) has pointed out the unreliability of
such inferences when unchecked by the consideration of elements of
culture which are not so easily bartered or borrowed as bows and spears.
He has insisted upon the fundamental importance of the study of social
organisation as supplying the most stable and trustworthy data for the
analysis of a culture-complex and an index of racial admixture. The
study of such a practice as mummification, the influence of which is
deep-rooted in the innermost beliefs of the people who resort to it,
affords data almost as reliable as Rivers’ method; for the subsequent
account will make it abundantly clear that the practice of embalming
leaves its impress upon the burial customs of a people long ages after
other methods of disposal of their dead have been adopted.
I have been led into this digression by attempting to make it clear that
the mere demonstration of the identity of geographical distribution
and the linking together of a series of cultural elements by no means
represents the solution of the main problem.
What has still to be elucidated is the manner and the place in which the
complex fabric of the “heliolithic” culture was woven, the precise epoch
in which it began to be spread abroad and the identity of its carriers,
the influences to which it was subjected on the way, and the additions,
subtractions and modifications which it underwent as the result.
Although I have now collected many of the data for the elucidation of
these points, the limited space at my disposal compels me to defer for
the present the consideration of the most interesting aspect of the whole
problem, the identity of the early mariners who were the distributors
of so strange a cargo. It was this aspect of the question which first
led me into the controversy; but I shall be able to deal with it more
conveniently when the ethnological case has been stated. The enormous
bulk of the data that have accumulated compels me to omit a large mass of
corroborative evidence of an ethnological nature; but no doubt there will
be many opportunities in the near future for using up this reserve of
ammunition.
Before setting out for the meeting of the British Association in
Australia last year I submitted the following abstract of a communication
(=96=) to be made to the Section of Anthropology:—
“After dealing with the evidence from the resemblances in the physical
characteristics of widely separated populations—such, for instance, as
certain of the ancient inhabitants of Western Asia on the one hand, and
certain Polynesians on the other—suggesting far-reaching prehistoric
migrations, the distribution of certain peculiarly distinctive practices,
such as mummification and the building of megalithic monuments, is made
use of to confirm the reality of such wanderings of peoples.
“I have already (at the Portsmouth, Dundee, and Birmingham meetings)
dealt with the problem as it affects the Mediterranean littoral and
Western Europe. On the present occasion I propose to direct attention
mainly to the question of the spread of culture from the centres of the
ancient civilisations along the Southern Asiatic coast and from there
out into the Pacific. From the examination of the evidence supplied by
megalithic monuments and distinctive burial customs, studied in the light
of the historical information relating to the influence exerted by Arabia
and India in the Far East, one can argue by analogy as to the nature of
migrations in the even more remote past to explain the distribution of
the earliest peoples dwelling on the shores of the Pacific.
“Practices such as mummification and megalith-building present so many
peculiar and distinctive features that no hypothesis of independent
evolution can seriously be entertained in explanation of their
geographical distribution. They must be regarded as evidence of the
diffusion of information, and the migrations of bearers of it, from
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Eastern Mediterranean, step by step
out into Polynesia, and even perhaps beyond the Pacific to the American
littoral.”
At that time it was my intention further to develop the arguments from
megalithic monuments which I had laid before the Association at the three
preceding meetings and elsewhere (=90=; =91=; =92=; =93=; and especially
=94=); and endeavour to prove that the structure and the geographical
distribution of these curious memorials pointed to the spread of a
distinctive type of culture along the Southern Asiatic littoral, through
Indonesia and Oceania to the American Continent. The geographical
distribution of the practice of mummification was to have been used
merely as a means of corroboration of what I then imagined to be the more
complete megalithic record, and of emphasizing the fact that Egypt had
played some part at least in originating these curiously linked customs.
But when I examined the mummy from Torres Straits in the Macleay Museum
(University of Sydney), and studied the literature relating to the
methods employed by the embalmers in that region (=1=; =19=; =25=; and
=27=), I was convinced, from my knowledge of the technical details
used in mummification in ancient Egypt (see especially =78=; =86= and
=87=), that these Papuan mummies supplied us with the most positive
demonstration of the Egyptian origin of the methods employed. Moreover,
as they revealed a series of very curious procedures, such as were not
invented in Egypt until the time of the New Empire, and some of them not
until the XXIst Dynasty, it was evident that the cultural wave which
carried the knowledge of these things to the Torres Straits could not
have started on its long course from Egypt before the ninth century B.C.,
at the earliest.
The incision for eviscerating the body was made in the flank, right or
left, or in the perineum (=19=; =25=)—the two sites selected for making
the embalming incision in Egypt (=78=); the flank incision was made in
the precise situation (between costal margin and iliac crest) which was
distinctive of XXIst and XXIInd Dynasty methods in Egypt (=86=); and the
wound was stitched up in accordance with the method employed in the case
of the cheaper kinds of embalming at that period (=78=). When the flank
incision was not employed an opening was made in the perineum, as was
done in Egypt—the second method mentioned by Herodotus—in the case of
less wealthy people (=56=, p. 46).
The viscera, after removal, were thrown into the sea, as, according to
Porphyry and Plutarch, it was the practice in Egypt at one time (=56=,
pp. 57 and 58) to cast them into the Nile.
The body was painted with a mixture containing red-ochre, the scalp was
painted black, and artificial eyes were inserted. These procedures were
first adopted (in their entirety) in Egypt during the XXIst Dynasty,
although the experiments leading up to the adoption of these methods
began in the XIXth.
But most remarkable of all, the curiously inexplicable Egyptian procedure
for removing the brain, which in Egypt was not attempted until the
XVIIIth Dynasty—_i.e._, until its embalmers had had seventeen centuries
experience of their remarkable craft (=78=)—was also followed by the
savages of the Torres Straits (=25=; =27=)!
Surely it is inconceivable that such people could have originated the
idea or devised the means for practising an operation so devoid of
meaning and so technically difficult as this! The interest of their
technique is that the Torres Straits operators followed the method
originally employed in Egypt (in the case of the mummy of the Pharaoh
Ahmes I. [=86=, p. 16]), which is one requiring considerable skill and
dexterity, and not the simpler operation through the nostrils which was
devised later (=78=).
The Darnley Islanders also made a circular incision through the skin
of each finger and toe, and having scraped off the epidermis from the
rest of the body, they carefully peeled off these thimbles of skin, and
presented them to the deceased’s widow (=25=; =27=).
This practice is peculiarly interesting as an illustration of the
adoption of an ancient Egyptian custom in complete ignorance of the
purpose it was intended to serve. The ancient Egyptian embalmers (and,
again, those of the XXIst Dynasty) made similar circular incisions around
fingers and toes, and also scraped off the rest of the epidermis: but the
aim of this strange procedure was to prevent the general epidermis, as
it was shed (which occurred when the body was steeped for weeks in the
preservative brine bath), from carrying the finger- and toe-nails with
it (=78=). A thimble of skin was left on each finger and toe to keep the
nail _in situ_; and to make it doubly secure, it was tied on with string
(=78=) or fixed with a ring of gold or a silver glove (=84=).
In the Torres Straits method of embalming the brine bath was not
used; so the scraping off of the epidermis was wholly unnecessary. In
addition, after following precisely the preliminary steps of this aimless
proceeding, by deliberately and intentionally removing the skin-thimbles
and nails they defeated the very objects which the Egyptians had in view
when they invented this operation!
An elaborate technical operation such as this which serves no useful
purpose and is wholly misunderstood by its practitioners cannot have been
invented by them. It is another certain proof of the Egyptian origin of
the practice.
There is another feature of these Papuan mummies which may or may not be
explicable as the adoption of Egyptian practices put to a modified, if
not a wholly different, use. Among the new methods introduced in Egypt
in the XXIst Dynasty was a curious device for restoring to the mummy
something of the fulness of form and outline it had lost during the
process of preservation. Through various incisions (which incidentally
no doubt allowed the liquid products of decomposition to escape) foreign
materials were packed under the skin of the mummy (=78=; =87=). These
incisions were made between the toes, sometimes at the knees, in the
region of the shoulders, and sometimes in other situations (=78=). In
the Papuan method of mummification “cuts were made on the knee-caps and
between the fingers and toes; then holes were pierced in the cuts with an
arrow so as to allow the liquids to drip from them” (Hamlyn-Harris, =27=,
p. 3). In one of the mummies in the Brisbane museum there seem to be
incisions also in the shoulders. The situation of these openings suggests
the view that the idea of making them _may_ (and I do not wish to put it
any more definitely) have been suggested by the Egyptian XXIst Dynastic
practice. For, although the incisions were made, in the latter case, for
the purpose of packing the limbs, incidentally they served for drainage
purposes.
But it was not only the mere method of embalming, convincing and definite
as it is, that establishes the derivation of the Papuan from the
Egyptian procedure; but also all the other funerary practices, and the
beliefs associated with them, that help to clinch the proof. The special
treatment of the head, the use of masks, the making of stone idols, these
and scores of other curious customs (which have been described in detail
in Haddon’s and Myers’ admirable account [=25=]) might be cited.
When I called the attention of the Anthropological Section to these
facts and my interpretation of them at the meeting of the British
Association in Melbourne, Professor J. L. Myres opened the discussion
by adopting a line of argument which, even after four years’ experience
of controversies of the megalith-problem, utterly amazed me. “What
more natural than that people should want to preserve their dead? Or
that in doing so they should remove the more putrescible parts? Would
not the flank be the natural place to choose for the purpose? Is it
not a common practice for people to paint their dead with red-ochre?”
It is difficult to believe that such questions were meant to be taken
seriously. The claim that it is quite a natural thing on the death of
a near relative for the survivors instinctively to remove his viscera,
dry the corpse over a fire, scrape off his epidermis, remove his brain
through a hole in the back of his neck, and then paint the corpse red is
a sample of casuistry not unworthy of a mediæval theologian. Yet this is
the gratuitous claim made at a scientific meeting! If Professor Myres
had known anything of the history of Anatomy he would have realized
that the problem of preserving the body was one of extreme difficulty
which for long ages had exercised the most civilized peoples, not only
in antiquity, but also in modern times. In Egypt, where the natural
conditions favouring the successful issue of attempts to preserve the
body were largely responsible for the possibility of such embalming,
it took more than seventeen centuries of constant practice and
experimentation to reach the stage and to acquire the methods exemplified
in the Torres Straits mummies. In Egypt also a curious combination
of natural circumstances and racial customs was responsible for the
suggestion of the desirability and the possibility artificially to
preserve the corpse. How did the people of the Torres Straits acquire the
knowledge even of the possibility of such an attainment, not to mention
the absence of any inherent suggestion of its desirability? For in the
hot, damp atmosphere of such places as Darnley Island the corpse would
never have been preserved by natural means, so that the suggestion which
stimulated the Egyptians to embark upon their experimentation was lacking
in the case of the Papuans. But even if for some mysterious reasons these
people had been prompted to attempt to preserve their dead, during the
experimental stage they would have had to combat these same unfavourable
conditions. Is it at all probable or even possible to conceive that under
such exceptionally difficult, not to say discouraging, circumstances they
would have persisted for long periods in their gruesome experiments; or
have attained a more rapid success than the more cultured peoples of
Egypt and Europe, operating under more favourable climatic conditions,
and with the help of a knowledge of chemistry and physics, were able
to achieve? The suggestion is too preposterous to call for serious
consideration.
But if for the moment we assume that the Darnley Islander instinctively
arrived at the conclusion that it was possible to preserve the dead, that
he would rather like to try it, and that by some mysterious inspiration
the technical means of attaining this object was vouchsafed him, why,
when the whole ventral surface of the body was temptingly inviting him
to operate by the simplest and most direct means, did he restrict his
choice to the two most difficult sites for his incision? We know why the
Egyptian made the opening in the left flank and in other cases in the
perineum; but is it likely the Papuan, once he had decided to cut the
body, would have had such a respect for the preservation of the integrity
of the front of the body as to impel him to choose a means of procedure
which added greatly to the technical difficulty of the operation? We have
the most positive evidence that the Papuan had no such design, for it was
his usual procedure to cut the head off the trunk and pay little further
attention to the latter. Myres’ contention will not stand a moment’s
examination.
As to the use of red-ochre, which Myres rightly claimed to be so
widespread, no hint was given of the possibility that it might be so
extensively practised simply because the Egyptian custom had spread far
and wide.
It is important to remember that the practice of painting stone statues
with red-ochre (obviously to make them more life-like) was in vogue in
Egypt before 3000 B.C.; and throughout the whole “heliolithic” area,
wherever the conception of human beings dwelling in stones, whether
carved or not, was adopted, the Egyptian practice of applying red paint
also came into vogue. But it was not until more than twenty centuries
later—_i.e._ when, for quite definite reasons in the XXIst Dynasty,
the Egyptians conceived the idea of converting the mummy itself into a
statue—that they introduced the procedure of painting the mummy (the
actual body), simply because it was regarded as the statue (=78=).
After Professor Myres, Dr. Haddon offered two criticisms. Firstly, the
incisions in the feet and knees were not suggested by Egyptian practices,
but were made for the strictly utilitarian purpose of draining the
fluids from the body. I have dealt with this point already (_vide
supra_). His second objection was that there were no links between
Egypt and Papua to indicate that the custom had spread. The present
communication is intended to dispose of that objection by demonstrating
not only the route by which, but also how, the practice reached the
Torres Straits after the long journey from Egypt.
It will be noticed that this criticism leaves my main arguments from the
mummies quite untouched. Moreover, the fact that originally I made use
of the testimony of the mummies merely in support of evidence of other
kinds (the physical characters of the peoples and the distribution of
megalithic monuments) was completely ignored by my critics.
But, as I have already remarked, it is not merely the remarkable identity
of so many of the peculiar features of Papuan and Egyptian embalming that
affords definite evidence of the derivation of one from the other; but in
addition, many of the ceremonies and practices, as well as the traditions
relating to the people who introduced the custom of mummification,
corroborate the fact that immigrants from the west introduced these
elements of culture. In addition, they also suggest their affinities.
“A hero-cult, with masked performers and elaborate dances, spread from
the mainland of New Guinea to the adjacent islands: part of this movement
seems to have been associated with a funeral ritual that emphasised a
life after death.... Most of the funeral ceremonies and many sacred songs
admittedly came from the west” (Haddon, =25=, p. 45).
“Certain culture-heroes severally established themselves on certain
islands, and they or their followers introduced a new cult which
considerably modified the antecedent totemism,” and taught “improved
methods of cultivation and fishing” (p. 44).
“An interesting parallel to these hero-cults of Torres Straits occurred
also in Fiji. The people of Viti-Levu trace their descent from
[culture-heroes] who drifted across the Big Ocean and taught to the
people the cult associated with the large stone enclosures” (p. 45).
In these islands the people were expert at carving stone idols and they
had legends concerning certain “stones that once were men” (p. 11). It is
also significant that at the bier of a near relative, boys and girls, who
had arrived at the age of puberty, had their ears pierced and their skin
tattooed (p. 154).
Thus Haddon himself supplies so many precise tokens of the “heliolithic”
nature of the culture of the Torres Straits.
These hints of migrations and the coming of strangers bringing from the
west curious practices and beliefs may seem at first sight to add little
to the evidence afforded by the technique of the embalming process;
but the subsequent discussion will make it plain that the association
of these particular procedures with mummification serves to clinch the
demonstration of the source from which that practice was derived.
It is doubly interesting to obtain all this corroborative evidence
from the writings of Dr. Haddon, in view of the fact, to which I have
already referred, that he vigorously protested against my contention
that the embalmers of the Torres Straits acquired their art, directly or
indirectly, from Egypt. For, in his graphic account of a burial ceremony
at Murray Islands, his confession that, as he watched the funerary boat
and the wailing women, his “mind wandered back thousands of years, and
called up ancient Egypt carrying its dead in boats across the sacred
Nile” has a much deeper and more real significance than he intended.
The analogy which at once sprang to his mind was not merely a chance
resemblance, but the expression of a definite survival amongst these
simple people in the Far East of customs their remote ancestors had
acquired, through many intermediaries no doubt, from the Egyptians of the
ninth century B.C.
At the time when Dr. Haddon asked for the evidence for the connection
between Egypt and Papua, I was aware only of the Burmese practices (_vide
infra_) in the intervening area, and the problem of establishing the
means by which the Egyptian custom actually spread seemed to be a very
formidable task.
But soon after my return from Australia all the links in the cultural
chain came to light. Mr. W. J. Perry, who had been engaged in analysing
the complex mixture of cultures in Indonesia, kindly permitted me to
read the manuscript of the book he had written upon the subject. With
remarkable perspicuity he had unravelled the apparently hopeless tangle
into which the social organisation of this ethnological cockpit has been
involved by the mixture of peoples and the conflict of diverse beliefs
and customs. His convincing demonstration of the fact that there had been
an immigration into Indonesia (from the West) of a people who introduced
megalithic ideas, sun-worship and phallism, and many other distinctive
practices and traditions, not only gave me precisely the information
I needed, but also directed my attention to the fact that the culture
(for which, so he informed me, Professor Brockwell, of Montreal, had
suggested the distinctive term “heliolithic”) included also the practice
of mummification. In the course of continuous discussions with him during
the last four months a clear view of the whole problem and the means of
solving most of its difficulties emerged.
For Perry’s work in this field, no less than for my own, Rivers’
illuminating and truly epoch-making researches (=64= to =70=)
have cleared the ground. Not only has he removed from the path of
investigators the apparently insuperable obstacles to the demonstration
of the spread of cultures by showing how useful arts can be lost (=65=);
but he has analysed the social organisation of Oceania in such a way
that the various waves of immigration into the Pacific can be identified
and with certainty be referred back to Indonesia (=69=). Many other
scholars in the past have produced evidence (for example =2=; =60=;
=61= and =98=) to demonstrate that the Polynesians came from Indonesia;
but Rivers analysed and defined the characteristic features of several
streams of culture which flowed from Indonesia into the Pacific. Perry
undertook the task of tracing these peoples through the Indonesian maze
and pushing back their origins to India. In the present communication
I shall attempt to sketch in broad outline the process of the gradual
accumulation in Egypt and the neighbourhood of the cultural outfit of
these great wanderers, and to follow them in their migrations west, south
and east from the place where their curious assortment of customs and
accomplishments became fortuitously associated one with the other (_Map
II._).
I cannot claim that my colleagues in this campaign against what seems to
us to be the utterly mistaken precepts of modern ethnology see altogether
eye to eye with me. They have been dealing exclusively with more
primitive peoples amongst whom every new attainment, in arts and crafts,
in beliefs and social organisation, in everything in fact that we regard
as an element of civilization, has been introduced from without by more
cultured races, or fashioned in the conflict between races of different
traditions and ideals.
My investigations, on the contrary, have been concerned mainly with the
actual invention of the elements of civilization and with the people who
created practically all of its ingredients—the ideas, the implements
and methods of the arts and crafts which give expression to it. Though
superficially my attitude may seem to clash with theirs, in that I am
attempting to explain the primary origin of some of the things, with
which they are dealing only as ready-made customs and beliefs that were
handed on from people to people, there is no real antagonism between us.
It is obvious that there must be a limit to the application of the
borrowing-explanation; and when we are forced to consider the people who
really invented things, it is necessary to frame some working hypothesis
in explanation of such achievements, unless we feebly confess that it is
useless to attempt such enquiries.
In previous works (=82= and =85=) I have explained why it must be
something more than a mere coincidence that in Egypt, where the operation
of natural forces leads to the preservation of the corpse when buried
in the hot dry sand, it should have become a cardinal tenet in the
beliefs of the people to strive after the preservation of the body as
the essential means of continuing an existence after death. When death
occurred the only difference that could be detected between the corpse
and the living body was the absence of the vital spirit from the former.
[For the interpretation of the Egyptians’ peculiar ideas concerning
death, see Alan Gardiner’s, important article (=23=).] It was in a
condition in some sense analogous to sleep; and the corpse, therefore,
was placed in its “dwelling” in the soil lying in the attitude naturally
assumed, by primitive people when sleeping. Its vital spirit or _ka_ was
liberated from the body, but hovered round the corpse so long as its
tissues were preserved. It needed food and all the other things that
ministered to the welfare and comfort of the living, not omitting the
luxuries and personal adornments which helped to make life pleasant.
Hence at all times graves became the objects of plunder on the part
of unscrupulous contemporaries; and so incidentally the knowledge was
forthcoming from time to time of the fate of the body in the grave.
The burial customs of the Proto-Egyptians, starting from those common to
the whole group of the Brown Race in the Neolithic phase, first became
differentiated from the rest when special importance came to be attached
to the preservation of the actual tissues of the body.
It was this development, no doubt, that prompted, their more careful
arrangements for the protection of the corpse, and gradually led to the
aggrandisement of the tomb, the more abundant provision of food offerings
and funerary equipment in general.
Even in the earliest known Pre-dynastic period the Proto-Egyptians were
in the habit of loosely wrapping their dead in linen—for the art of the
weaver goes back to that remote time in Egypt—and then protecting the
wrapped corpse from contact with the soil by an additional wrapping of
goat-skin or matting.
Then, as the tomb became larger, to accommodate the more abundant
offerings, almost every conceivable device was tried to protect the body
from such contact. Instead of the goat-skin or matting, in many cases the
same result was obtained by lining the grave with series of sticks, with
slabs of wood, with pieces of unhewn stone, or by lining the grave with
mud-bricks. In other cases, again, large pottery coffins, of an oblong,
elliptical, or circular form, were used. Later on, when metal implements
were invented (=90=), and the skill to use them created the crafts of
the carpenter and stonemason, coffins of wood or stone came into vogue.
It is quite certain that the coffin and sarcophagus were Egyptian
inventions. The mere fact of this extraordinary variety of means and
materials employed in Egypt, when in other countries one definite method
was adopted, is proof of the most positive kind that these measures
for lining the grave were actually invented in Egypt. For the inventor
tries experiments: the borrower imitates one definite thing. During this
process of gradual evolution, which occupied the whole of the Pre- and
Proto-dynastic periods, the practice of inhumation (in the strict sense
of the term) changed step by step into one of burial in a tomb. In other
words, instead of burial in the soil, the body came to be lodged in a
carefully constructed subterranean chamber, which no longer was filled
up with earth. The further stages in this process of evolution of tomb
construction, the way in which the rock-cut tomb came into existence,
and the gradual development of the stone superstructure and temple of
offerings—all of these matters have been summarised in some detail in my
article on the evolution of megalithic monuments (=94=).
What especially I want to emphasize here is that in Egypt is preserved
every stage in the gradual transformation of the burial customs from
simple inhumation into that associated with the fully-developed rock-cut
tomb and the stone temple. There can be no question that the craft of the
stonemason and the practice of building megalithic monuments originated
in Egypt. In addition, I want to make it quite clear that there is the
most intimate genetic relationship between the development of these
megalithic practices and the origin of the art of mummification.
For in course of time the early Egyptians came to learn, no doubt
again from the discoveries of their tomb-robbers, that the fate of the
corpse, after remaining for some time in a roomy rock-cut tomb or stone
coffin, was vastly different from that which befell the body when simply
buried in the hot, dry, desiccating sand. In respect of the former they
acquired the idea which the Greeks many centuries later embalmed in the
word “sarcophagus” under the simple belief that the disappearance of
the flesh was due to the stone in some mysterious way devouring it.[7]
[Certain modern archæologists within recent years have entertained an
equally child-like, though even less informed, view when they claimed
the absence of any trace of the flesh in certain stone sarcophagi as
evidence in favour of a fantastic belief that the Neolithic people of the
Mediterranean area were addicted to the supposed practice which Italian
archæologists call _scarnitura_.]
But by the time the discovery was made that bodies placed in more
sumptuous tombs were no longer preserved as they were apt to be when
buried in the sand, the idea of the necessity for the preservation of the
body as the essential condition for the attainment of a future existence
had become fixed in the minds of the people and established by several
centuries of belief as _the_ cardinal tenet of their faith. Thus the very
measures they had taken the more surely to guard and preserve the sacred
remains of their dead had led to a result the reverse of what had been
intended.
The elaborate ritual that had grown up and the imposing architectural
traditions were not abandoned when this discovery was made. Even in these
modern enlightened days human nature does not react in that way. The
cherished beliefs held by centuries of ancestors are not renounced for
any discovery of science. The ethnologist has not given up his objections
to the idea of the spread of culture, now that all the difficulties that
militated against the acceptance of the common-sense view have been
removed! Nor did the Egyptians of the Proto-dynastic period revert to
the practices of their early ancestors and take to sand-burial again.
They adopted the only other alternative open to a people who retained
implicitly the belief in the necessity of preserving the body, _i.e._,
they set about attempting to attain by art what nature unaided no longer
secured, so long as they clung to their custom of burying in large tombs.
They endeavoured artificially to preserve the bodies of their dead.
This explains what I meant to imply when I said that the megalithic idea
and the incentive to mummify the dead are genetically related, the one
to the other. The stone-tomb came into existence as a direct result of
the importance attached to the corpse. This development defeated the very
object that inspired it. The invention of the art of embalming was the
logical outcome of the attempt to remedy this unexpected result.
As in the history of every similar happening elsewhere, necessity, or
what these simple-minded people believed to be a necessity, was the
“mother of invention.”
In the course of the following discussion it will be seen that the
practice of mummification became linked up in another way with what
may be called the megalithic traditions. The crudely-preserved body no
longer retained any likeness to the person as his friends knew him when
alive. A life-like stone statue was therefore made to represent him.
Magical means (p. 42) were adopted to give life to the statue. Thus
originated the belief that a stone might become the dwelling of a living
person; and that a person when dead may become converted into stone. So
insistent did this belief become that among more uncultured people, who
borrowed Egyptian practices but were unable to make portrait statues, a
rudely-shaped or even unhewn pillar of stone came to be regarded as the
dwelling of the deceased.
Thus from being the mere device for the identification of the deceased
the stone statue degenerated among less cultured people into an object
even less like the dead man than his own crudely-made mummy. But the
fundamental idea remained and became the starting point for that rich
crop of petrifaction-myths and beliefs concerning men and animals living
in stones.
Thus arose in Egypt, somewhere about 3000 B.C., the nucleus of the
“heliolithic” culture-complex—mummification, megalithic architecture,
and the making of idols, three practices most intimately and genetically
linked one with the other. But it was the merest accident that the people
amongst whom these customs developed, should also have been weavers
of linen, workers in copper, worshippers of the sun and serpent, and
practitioners of massage and circumcision.
But it was not for another fifteen centuries that the characteristic
“heliolithic” culture-complex was completed by the addition of numerous
other trivial customs, like ear-piercing, tattooing and the use of the
swastika, none of which originated in Egypt, but happened to have become
“tacked on” to that distinctive culture before its great world tour began.
The earliest unquestionable evidence (=89=) of an attempt artificially
to preserve the body was found in a rock-cut tomb of the Second Dynasty,
at Sakkara. It is important to note that the body was lying in a _flexed_
position upon the left side, and was contained in a short wooden coffin,
modelled like a house. The limbs were wrapped separately and large
quantities of fine linen bandages had been applied around all parts of
the body, so as to mould the wrapped mummy to a life-like form.
Thus in the earliest mummy—or, to be strictly accurate, in the remains
which exhibit the earliest evidence of the attempt at embalming—we find
exemplified the two objects that the Ancient Egyptian embalmer aimed at
throughout the whole history of his craft, viz., to preserve the actual
tissues of the body, as well as the form and likeness of the deceased as
he was when alive.
From the first the embalmer realised the limitations of his
craftsmanship, _i.e._, that he was unable to make the body itself
life-like. Hence he strove to preserve its tissues and then to make use
of its wrappings for the purpose of fashioning a model or statue of
the dead man. At first this was done while the body was flexed in the
traditional manner. But soon the flexed position was gradually abandoned.
Perhaps this change was brought about because it was easier to model the
superficial form of a wrapped body when extended; and the greater success
of the results so obtained may have been sufficiently important to have
outweighed the restraining influence of tradition. The change may have
occurred all the more readily at this time as beds were coming into use,
and the idea of placing the “sleeping” body on a bed may have helped
towards the process of extension.
But whatever view is taken of the explanation of the change of the
attitude of the body, it is certain that it began soon after the first
attempts at mummification were made. The evidence of extended burials,
referred to the First Dynasty, which were found by Flinders Petrie at
Tarkhan (=54=), may seem to contradict this: but there are reasons for
believing that attempts at embalming were being made even at that time
(=85=). It seems to be definitely proved that this change was not due
to any foreign influence (=45=). At the time that it occurred there was
a very considerable alien element in the population of Egypt; but the
admixture took place long before the change in the position of the body
was manifested. Perhaps the presence of a large foreign element may
have weakened the sway of Egyptian tradition; but the evidence seems
definitely opposed to the inference that it played any active part in the
change of custom. For the history of the gradual way in which the change
was slowly effected is certain proof of the causal factors at work. There
was no sudden adoption of the fully extended position, but a slow and
very gradual straightening of the limbs—a process which it took centuries
to complete. The analysis of the evidence by Mace is quite conclusive on
this point (=45=).
I am strongly of the opinion that there is a causal relationship
between this gradual extension of the body and the measures for the
reconstruction of a life-like model of the deceased, with the help of the
mummy’s wrappings. In other words, the adoption of the extended position
was a direct result of the introduction of mummification.
At an early stage in the history of these changes it seems to have been
realised that the likeness of the deceased which could be made of the
wrapped mummy lacked the exactness and precision demanded of a portrait
Perhaps also there may have been some doubt as to the durability of a
statue made of linen.
A number of interesting developments occurred at about this time to
overcome these defects. In one case (=85=), found at Mêdum by Flinders
Petrie, the superficial bandages were saturated with a paste of resin and
soda, and the same material was applied to the surface of the wrappings,
which, while still in a plastic condition, was very skilfully moulded to
form a life-like statue. The resinous carapace thus built up set to form
a covering of stony hardness. Special care was devoted to the modelling
of the head (sometimes the face only) and the genitalia, no doubt to
serve as the means of identifying the individual and indicating the sex
respectively.
The hair (or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say, the wig) and the
moustache were painted with a dark brown or black resinous mixture, and
the pupils, eyelids and eyebrows were represented by painting with a
mixture of malachite powder and resinous paste. In other cases, recently
described by Junker (=40=), plaster was used for the same purpose as the
resinous paste in Petrie’s mummy. In two of the four instances of this
practice found by Junker, only the head was modelled.
The special importance assigned to the head is one of the outstanding
features of ancient Egyptian statuary. It was exemplified in another
way in the tombs of the early part of the Old Kingdom, as Junker has
recalled in his memoir, by the construction of stone portrait-statues of
the head only, which were made life-size and placed in the burial chamber
alongside the mummy. It seems to me that Junker overlooks an essential,
if not the, chief, reason for the special importance assigned to the head
when he attributes it to the fact that the head contained the organs of
sight, smell, hearing and taste. There can be no doubt that the head was
modelled because it affords the chief means of recognising an individual.
This portrayal of the features enabled any one, including the deceased’s
own _ka_, to identify the owner. Every circumstance of the making and
the use of these heads bears out this interpretation, and no one has
explained these facts more lucidly than Junker himself.
[Since the foregoing paragraphs have been put into print a preliminary
report has come to hand from Professor Reisner, to whom I am indebted for
most of my information regarding these portrait heads—_Museum of Fine
Arts Bulletin_, Boston, April, 1915.]
At a somewhat later period in the Old Kingdom the making of these
so-called “substitution-heads” was discontinued, and it became the
practice to make a statue of the whole man (of woman), which was placed
above-ground in the megalithic _serdab_ within the _mastaba_ (see
=94=). But even when the complete statue was made for the _serdab_
the head alone was the part that was modelled with any approach to
realism. In other words, the importance of the head as the chief means
of identification was still recognised. Moreover, this idea manifested
itself throughout the whole history of Egyptian mummification, for as
late as the first century of the Christian era a portrait of the deceased
was placed in front of the face of the mummy.
Thus in course of time the original idea of converting the wrapped
body itself into a portrait-statue of the deceased was temporarily[8]
abandoned and the mummy was stowed away in the burial chamber at the
bottom of a deep shaft, the better to protect it from desecration,
while the portrait-statue was placed above ground, in a strong chamber
(_serdab_), hidden in the _mastaba_ (=94=).
A certain magical value soon came to be attached to the statue in
the _serdab_. It provided the body in which the _ka_ could become
reincarnated, and the deceased, thus reconstituted by magical means,
could pass through the small hole in the _serdab_ to enter the chapel of
offerings and enjoy the food and the society of his friends there.
Dr. Alan Gardiner has kindly given me the following note in reference
to this matter: “That statues in Egypt were meant to be efficient
animate substitutes for the person or creature they portrayed has not
been sufficiently emphasised hitherto. Over every statue or image were
performed the rites of ‘opening the mouth’—magical passes made with a
kind of metal chisel in front of the mouth. Besides the _up-ro_ ‘mouth
opening,’ other words testify to the prevalence of the same idea; the
word for ‘to fashion’ a statue (_ms_) is to all appearances identical
with _ms_ ‘to give birth,’ and the term for the sculptor was _saʿnkh_,
‘he who causes to live.’”
As Blackman (=5=) has pointed out, the Pyramid Texts make it clear that
libations were poured out and incense burnt before the statue or the
mummy with the specific object of restoring to it the moisture and the
odour respectively which the body had during life.
I have already indicated how, out of the conception of the possibility of
bringing to life the stone portrait-statue, a series of curious customs
were developed. Among peoples on a lower cultural plane, who were less
skilled than the Egyptians in stone-carving, the making of a life-like
statue was beyond their powers. Sometimes they made the attempt to
represent the human form; in other cases crude representations of the
breasts or suggestions of the genitalia were the only signs on a stone
pillar to indicate that it was meant to represent a human statue: in many
cases a simple uncarved block of stone was set up. But the idea that
such a pillar, whether carved or not, was the dwelling of some deceased
person, seized the imagination and spread far and wide. It is seen in
the Pygmalion and Galatea story, and its converse in the tragic history
of Lot’s wife. It is found throughout the Mediterranean area, the whole
littoral of Southern Asia, Indonesia, the Pacific Islands and America,
and can be regarded as definite evidence of the influence of the cult
that developed in association with the practice of mummification.
It is necessary to emphasise that the making of portrait-statues was an
outcome of the practice of mummification and an integral part of the
cult associated with that burial custom. Hartland falls into grave error
when he writes “where other peoples set up images of the deceased, those
who practised desiccation or embalmment were enabled to keep the bodies
themselves” (=32=, p. 418). It was precisely the people who embalmed or
preserved the bodies of their dead who also made statues of them.
As these stones, according to such beliefs, could be made to hear and
speak (=23=), they naturally became oracles. People were able to commune
with and get advice and instruction from the kings and wise men who dwelt
within these stone pillars. Thus it became the custom in many lands for
meetings of special solemnity, such as those where important decisions
had to be made, to be held at stone circles, where the members of the
convention sat on the stones and communed with their ancestors, former
rulers or wise men, who dwelt in the stones (or the grave) in the centre
of the circle.
“Chardin, in his account of the stone circles he saw in Persia, mentions
a tradition that they were used as places of assembly, each member of the
council being seated on a stone; Homer, in his description of the shield
of Achilles in the _Iliad_, speaks of the elders sitting in the place of
justice upon stones in a circle; Plot, in his account of the Rollrich
stones in Oxfordshire, says that Olaus Wormius, Saxo Grammaticus,
Meursius, and many other early historians, concur in stating that it was
the practice of the ancient Danes to elect their kings in stone circles,
each member of the council being seated upon a stone; the tradition
arising out of this custom, that these stones represent petrified
giants, is widely spread in all countries where they occur, and Col.
Forbes Leslie has shown that within the historic period, these circles
were used in Scotland as places of justice” (Lane Fox, (=20=), p. 64).
Is not our king crowned seated upon the Lia-fail, which is now in the
coronation chair at Westminster? Such customs and beliefs are widespread
also in India, Indonesia, and beyond, as W. J. Perry has pointed out.
The practices still observed in the Khasia Hills in modern times clearly
indicate the significance of this use of stone seats; and the custom can
be found from the Canary Islands in the West (=26=) to Costa Rica in the
East, encircling the whole globe (compare “_Man_,” May, 1915, p. 79).
I shall enter more fully into the consideration of the origin of the
ideas associated with stone seats when Perry has published his important
analysis of the significance of so curious a practice.
The converse of the belief in the bringing to life of stone statues—or
perhaps it would be more correct to say, the complementary view that,
if a stone can be converted into a living creature, the latter can also
be transformed into stone—is found also wherever the parent belief is
known to exist. As a rule it forms part of a complexly interwoven series
of traditions concerning the creation, the deluge, the destruction of
the “sons of men” by petrifaction, and the repeopling the earth by the
incestuous intercourse of the “children of the gods.”
Perry, who has made a study of the geographical distribution and
associations of these curiously-linked traditions, has clearly
demonstrated that they form an integral part of the cultural equipment of
the sun-worshipping, stone-using peoples.
In the foregoing statement I have endeavoured to indicate also their
genetic connection with the ideas that sprang from the early practice of
mummification in Egypt.
There are many other curious features of the early Egyptian practices
which might have served as straws to indicate how the cultural current
had flowed, if much more substantial proofs had not been available of
the reality of the movement. The diffusion of such a distinctive object
as the Egyptian head-rest, which used to be buried with mummies of the
Pyramid Age, is an example. It occurs widely spread in Africa, Southern
Asia, Indonesia and the Pacific.
But the use of beds as funerary biers is a much more distinctive custom.
The believers in theories of the independent evolution of customs may say
“is it not natural to expect that people who regarded death as a kind
of sleep should have placed head-rests and beds in the graves of their
dead?” But how would such ethnologists explain the use of a funerary
bier on the part of people (such as many of the less cultured people who
adopted this Egyptian custom) who do not themselves use beds?
The evidence afforded by the use of biers is, in fact, a most definite
demonstration of the diffusion of customs. Although it is a familiar
scene in ancient Egyptian pictures to find the mummy borne upon a bed—a
custom which we know from Egyptian literature, no less than that of the
Jews, Phœnicians, Greeks and Romans to have been actually observed—only
one Egyptian cemetery, so far as I am aware—a proto-dynastic site,
excavated by Flinders Petrie (=54=) at Tarkhan—has revealed corpses lying
upon beds. But in a cemetery, some sixteen centuries later, excavated
by Reisner in the Soudan (=62=), a similar practice was demonstrated.
Garstang has recorded the observance of a similar custom further South
(Meroe) at a later date.
These form useful connecting links with the region around the head-waters
of the Nile, where even in modern times this practice has survived, and
the mummified corpse of the king is placed upon a rough bier. I shall
have occasion to point out later on that this curious practice spread
from East Africa along the Asiatic littoral to Indonesia, Melanesia and
Polynesia, thence to the American continent; and in most places was
definitely associated with attempts at preservation of the corpse.
In many places along the whole course of the same great track, instead
of a bed, a boat of some sort, usually a rough dug-out, was used. This
practice also was observed in Egypt, where its symbolic purpose is
clearly apparent.
Another distinctive feature of the burial customs in the same area was
the idea that the grave represented the house in which the deceased
was sleeping. How definitely this view was held by the proto-Egyptians
is seen in their coffins, subterranean burial chambers, and the
superstructures of their tombs, all three of which were originally
represented as dwelling houses (see my memoir, =94=).
The Pyramid texts clearly explain the precise significance and origin of
the hitherto mysterious and widespread custom of burning incense at the
statue. For, as Blackman (=5=) has pointed out, the aim was by burning
aromatic woods and resins thereby magically to restore to the “body” the
odours of the living person.
It was therefore intimately related to the practice of mummification and
genetically connected with it. It was part of the magical procedure for
making the portrait-statue of the deceased (or later, in the time of the
New Empire, the mummy itself) “an efficient animate substitute for the
person” (Alan Gardiner).
A careful investigation of the geographical distribution of the custom
of burning incense before the corpse and of the circumstances related to
such a practice has convinced me that wherever it is found, even where no
attempt is made to preserve the body, it can be regarded as an indication
of the influence of the Egyptian custom of mummification. For apart from
such an influence incense-burning is inexplicable. The attempt on the
part of certain writers to explain the use of incense merely as a means
of disguising the odours of putrefaction will not bear examination. It is
an example of that kind of so-called psychological explanation which is
opposed by all the ascertainable facts.
Beyond the borders of Egypt peoples who for a time adopted the custom
of embalming and then for some reason, such as the failure to attain
successful results or the adoption of conflicting beliefs or customs,
allowed the practice to lapse, the simpler parts of the Egyptian funerary
ritual often continued to be observed. The body was anointed with oil,
perhaps packed in salt and aromatic plants, wrapped in linen or fine
clothes, had incense burned before it, and was laid on a bed or special
bier. All of these practices originated in Egypt and observance of any
or all of them is to be regarded as a sure sign of the influence of the
Egyptian custom of mummification. Among the more immediate neighbours
of the Egyptians, such as the Jews, Greeks and Romans, the evidence for
this is clear. Occasionally the full process of embalming was followed,
even if it were only a temporary procedure preliminary to the observance
of some other burial custom, such as cremation, perhaps inspired by
ideas wholly foreign to those which prompted mummification. I need
not enumerate instances of this curious syncretism of burial customs,
numerous examples of which will be found in Reutter (=63=, pp. 144-147)
and in Hastings’ Dictionary (=32=), as well as in the following pages.
At the very earliest period in Egypt from which historical records have
come down to us (the time of the First Dynasty, 3200 B.C., or even
earlier) “the king’s favourite title was ‘Horus,’ by which he identified
himself as the successor of the great god [the hawk sun-god] who had once
ruled over the kingdom ... [other symbols often appeared] side by side
with Buto, the serpent-goddess of the northern capital. As [the king]
felt himself still as primarily king of Upper Egypt, it was not until
later that he wore the serpent of the North, the sacred uraeus, upon his
forehead.” (Breasted, =6=, p. 38). “The sun-disc, with the outspread
wings of the hawk, became the commonest symbol of their religion” (p.
54). But in the time of the Fourth Dynasty “the priests of Heliopolis now
demanded that [the king, who had always been represented as the successor
of the sun-god and had borne the title ‘Horus’] be the bodily son of Ré,
who henceforth would appear on earth to become the father of the Pharaoh”
(p. 122).
Now, when the Pharaoh thus became identified with the great sun-god Ré,
his Pyramid-temple became the place of worship of the sun-god. Megalithic
architecture thus became indissolubly connected with sun-worship,
simply from the accident of the invention of the art of building in
stone—of erecting stone tombs, which were also temples of offerings—by a
people who happened to be sun-worshippers and whose ruler’s tomb became
the shrine of the sun-god. I have already explained the close genetic
connection between the practice of mummification and megalithic building.
The fact that the dominance of the sun-god Ré was attained in the
northern capital, which was also the seat of serpent-worship, led to the
association of the sun and the serpent.[9] From this purely fortuitous
blending of the sun’s disc with the uraeus, often combined, especially
in later times, with the wings of the Horus-hawk, a symbolism came into
being which was destined to spread until it encircled the world, from
Ireland to America. For an excellent example of this composite symbolism
from America see Bancroft, (=3=), Vol. IV., p. 351. A more striking
illustration of the completeness of the transference of a complex and
wholly artificial design from Ancient Egypt to America could not be
imagined. [For the full discussion of the original association of the sun
and the serpent see Sethe’s important _Memoir_ (=74=).]
The chance circumstances which led to the linking together of all these
incongruous elements—mummification, megalithic architecture, the idea
of the king as son of the sun, sun and serpent worship and its curious
symbolism—were created in Egypt, so that, wherever these peculiar customs
or traditions make their appearance elsewhere in association the one with
the other, it can confidently be regarded as a sure token of Egyptian
influence, exerted directly or indirectly.
When certain modern ethnologists argue that it is the most natural thing
in the world for primitive peoples to worship the sun as the obvious
source of warmth and fertility, and therefore such worship can have no
value as an indication of the contact of peoples, on general principles
one might be prepared to admit the validity of the claim. But when it is
realised that sun-worship, wherever it is found, is invariably associated
with part (or the whole) of a large series of curiously incongruous
customs and beliefs, it is no longer possible to regard the worship of
the sun as having originated independently in several centres. Why should
the sun-worshipper also worship the serpent and use a winged symbol,
build megalithic monuments, mummify his dead, and practise a large series
of fantastic tricks to which other peoples are not addicted? There is no
inherent reason why a man who worships the sun should also tattoo his
face, perforate his ears, practise circumcision, and make use of massage.
In fact, until the time of the New Empire, the sun-worshipping Egyptian
did not practise ear-piercing and tattooing, thereby illustrating the
fact that originally these practices were not part of the cult, and that
their eventual association with it was purely accidental. This only
serves more definitely to confirm the view that it was the fortuitous
association of a curious series of customs in Egypt at the time of the
New Empire which supplied the cultural outfit of the “heliolithic”
wanderers for their great migration.
In accordance with Egyptian beliefs “the sun was born every morning and
sailed across the sky in a celestial barque, to arrive in the west and
descend as an old man tottering into the grave” (Breasted, (=6=), p. 54).
The deceased might reach the west by being borne across in the sun-god’s
barque: friendly spirits, the four sons of Horus, might bring him a craft
on which he might float over: but by far the majority depended upon the
services of a ferryman called “Turnface” (Breasted, p. 65).
In later times (Middle Kingdom) a model boat, fully equipped, was usually
put in the tomb, “in order that the deceased might have no difficulty in
crossing the waters to the happy isles.” “By the pyramid of Sesostris
III., in the sands of the desert, there were even buried five large Nile
boats, intended to carry the king and his house across these waters”
(Breasted, p. 176).
At a later period “the triumph of a Theban family brought with it the
supremacy of Amon.... His essential character and individuality had
already been obliterated by the solar theology of the Middle Kingdom,
when he had become Amon-Re, and with some attributes borrowed from
his ithyphallic neighbour, Min of Coptos, he now rose to a unique and
supreme position of unprecedented splendour” (=6=, p. 248). Thus there
was added to this “heliolithic” complex of ideas the definitely phallic
element: but one must confess that this aspect of the culture did not
become obtrusive until it was planted in alien lands, where among the
Phœnicians and the peoples of India the phallic aspect became more
strongly emphasised. From time to time various writers have striven to
demonstrate a phallic motive in almost every element of the culture now
under consideration. What I want to make clear is that it was a late
addition, which was relatively insignificant in the original home of the
culture.
After this digression I must now return to the further consideration of
the mummies themselves.
Direct examination of the mummified bodies does not, of course, afford
any certain evidence of the application of oil or fat to the surface of
the body. Large quantities of fatty material were often found in the
mouth and the body cavity (=78=; =81= and =86=); and the surface of the
body was often greasy; but, of course, the fatty materials in the skin
itself might have afforded a sufficient explanation of this. Dr. Alan
Gardiner, however, tells me that ancient Egyptian literature contains
repeated references to the process of anointing the body with “oil of
cedar,”[10] and great stress is laid upon this procedure as an essential
element of the technique of embalming.[11]
Thus in the time of the decadence of the New Empire an Egyptian writer
laments the loosening of Egypt’s hold on the Lebanons, because if no “oil
of cedar” were obtainable it might become impossible any longer to embalm
the dead.
Diodorus Siculus, writing many centuries later, says the body was
“anointed with oil of cedar and other things for thirty days, and
afterwards with myrrh, cinnamon, and other such like matters” (Pettigrew,
=56=, p. 62). Thus there can be little doubt that it was an essential
part of the Ancient Egyptian technique to anoint the body with oil.
Pettigrew (=56=, p. 62, and also p. 242) adduces cogent reasons in proof
of the fact that the Egyptians (and in modern times the Capuchins, at
Palermo) made use of heat to desiccate the body, probably in a stove.
It is quite clear, therefore, that the Ancient Egyptians realised the
importance of desiccation as an essential element in the preservation of
the body. Moreover, they were familiar with a number of different means
of ensuring this end:—(1) by burial in dry sand; (2) by exposure to the
sun’s rays; (3) by removing all the softer and more putrescible parts of
the body; (4) possibly by massaging and squeezing out the juices from the
body; (5) by the free use of alcohol (palm wine) and large quantities of
powdered wood; and (6) by the aid of fire.
Dr. Alan Gardiner tells me that the most ancient Egyptian writings,
such, for example, as the Pyramid texts, afford positive evidence that
the Egyptians recognised the fact of the desiccation of the body in the
process of embalming, for their scribes tell us, in the most definite
manner, that the aim of the ceremony of offering libations was magically
to restore to the body (as represented by the statue above ground) the
fluids it had lost during embalming (Blackman, =5=).
If then the Egyptians of the Pyramid Age recognised the importance of
restoring the fluids to reanimate the mummy or its statue, it is quite
clear they must have appreciated the physical fact that their process of
preservation was largely a matter of desiccation.
It is a point of some interest and importance to note in this connection
that the essential processes of mummification—(1) salting, (2)
evisceration, (3) drying, and (4) smoking (or even cooking)—are identical
with those adopted for the preservation of meat, and (5) the use of honey
is analogous to the means taken to preserve fruit. In fact, the term used
by Herodotus for the first stage of the Egyptian process of mummification
is the term used for salting fish. It would be instructive to enquire
in what measure these two needs of primitive man in North-East Africa
mutually influenced one another, and led to an acquisition of knowledge
useful to them for the preservation both of their food and their dead
relatives!
To the constituent elements of the “heliolithic” culture may now be added
the practices of anointing with oil or unguents, the burning of incense
and the offering of libations, all derived from the ritual of embalming.
In considering the southern extension of Egyptian influence it must be
remembered that as early “as 2600 B.C. the Egyptian had already begun the
exploitation of the Upper Nile and had been led in military force as far
as the present Province of Dongola” (=62=, p. 23). For several centuries
Nubia and the Soudan were left very much to themselves. Then during the
time of the Middle Kingdom Egypt once more exerted a powerful influence
to the South. At the close of that period Egypt was overrun by the Hyksos.
At Kerma, near the Third Cataract, Reisner has recently unearthed a
cemetery which he refers to the Hyksos Period (=62=, p. 23). “The burial
customs are revolting in their barbarity. On a carved bed in the middle
of a big circular pit the chief personage lies on his right side with his
head east. Under his head is a wooden pillow: between his legs a sword or
dagger. Around the bed lie a varying number of bodies, male and female,
all contracted on the right side, head east. Among them are the pots and
pans, the cosmetic jars, the stools, and other objects. Over the whole
burial is spread a great ox-hide. It is clear they were all buried at
once. The men and women round about must have been sacrificed so that
their spirits might accompany the chief to the other world.... I could
not escape the belief that they had been buried alive” (=62=). These
funerary practices supply a most important link in the chain which I am
endeavouring to forge. I would especially call attention (1) to the fact
of the sacrifice of the chief’s (? wives and) servants and (2) to the
burial of the chief himself on a bed.
We know that the Egyptian practice of mummification spread south into
Nubia (=39=) and the Soudan.
According to Herodotus the ancient Macrobioi preserved the bodies of
their dead by drying: then they covered them with plaster, painted them
to look like living men, and set them up in their houses for a year. For
a fuller account of this practice and much more instructive information
for comparison see Ridgeway’s “Early Age of Greece,” Vol. I., p. 483 _et
seq._
Numerous references in the classical writers lead us to believe that a
similar custom of keeping the mummy in the house of the relatives for
a longer or shorter period may have been in vogue in Egypt. Throughout
the widespread area in which mummification was practised—from Africa to
America—a precisely similar practice is found among many peoples.
The custom of covering the mummies with plaster[12] is an interesting
survival of the practice described by Junker in Egypt (_vide supra_),
which seems to supply the explanation of the curious measures adopted for
modelling the face in Melanesia.
Even at the present day, centuries after the art of the embalmer
disappeared from Egypt, mummification is being attempted by certain
people dwelling in the neighbourhood of the head-waters of the Nile.
In his article in Hastings’ Dictionary (=32=, p. 418) Hartland states
that the practice of mummification is found “more or less throughout the
west of Africa: among the Niamniam of the Upper Nile basin the bodies of
chiefs, and among the Baganda the kings, are preserved, and the custom is
found also among the Warundi in German East Africa (Frobenius); and in
British Central Africa the corpse is rubbed with boiled maize (Werner).”
Roscoe (=72=, p. 105), in his book on the Baganda, describes the process
of embalming the king’s body. As in Egypt, the body was disembowelled;
and the bowels were washed in beer, just as the Egyptians, according to
Herodotus and Diodorus, are said to have done with palm-wine. The viscera
were spread out in the sun to dry and were then returned to the body, as
was done in Egypt at the time of the XXIst Dynasty. The body was then
dried and washed with beer.
So far as we are aware, the Egyptians never sacrificed any human beings
at their funerals, although they often placed in the _serdab_ of the
_mastaba_ statues of the deceased’s wife, family and servants, to
ensure him their presence and the comforts of a home in his new form of
existence.
In the quotations from Reisner’s report, it has just been seen that he
found some burials made about 1800 B.C., in which servants appear to have
been sacrificed.
In the case of the Baganda, Roscoe describes the killing of the king’s
wives and attendants at his funeral.
Roscoe further describes (in his book) the body of the chief as being
laid on a bed or framework of plantain trees (p. 117).
At the end of five months the head was removed from the mummy and the
jaw-bone was removed, cleaned, and then buried, and a large conical
thatched temple was built over the jaw. [In the islands of the Torres
Straits the same curious custom of rescuing the head after about six
months is also found; but it was the tongue and not the jaw which
received special attention (=25= and =27=)].
In Egypt, where the practice of mummification was most successful,
special treatment of the head was not necessary, except occasionally in
Ptolemaic times (=39=), when carelessness on the part of the embalmer
led to disastrous results and it became necessary to “fake” a body for
attachment to the separated head. But as the Baganda were unable to make
a mummy which would last, they adopted these special measures with regard
to the skull. Originally special importance was attached to the head,
primarily (_vide supra_) as a means of identifying the deceased. But when
the practice of preservation spread to uncultured people, whose efforts
at embalming were ineffectual, the idea was transferred to the skull, the
reason for the special treatment of the head probably being forgotten.
Why such peculiar honour should be devoted to the jaw can only be
surmised from our knowledge of the belief that the deceased was supposed
to be able to talk and communicate with the living (=21=).
In his article in the _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_ (=72=,
p. 44) Roscoe give some further particulars. Four men and four women were
clubbed to death at the funeral ceremony of the king.
The body was wrapped in strips of bark cloth and each finger and toe was
wrapped separately.
In _L’Anthropologie_ (T. 21, 1910, p. 53) Poutrin says of the burial
customs of the M’Baka people of French Congo “le corps, préalablement
embaumé avec des herbes sécher et de la cendre est couché sur un lit.”
Weeks (=104=, pp. 450 and 451) gives an account of the burial customs of
the Bangala of the Upper Congo. “They took out the entrails and buried
them, placed the corpse on a frame, lit a fire under it, and thoroughly
smoke-dried it.” “The dried body was tied in a mat, put in a roughly made
hut.” “Coffins were often made out of old canoes.” “Poorer folk were
rubbed with oil and red camwood powder, bound round with cloth and tied
up in a mat.”
One of the most remarkable instances of the survival of burial practices
strangely reminiscent of those of ancient Egypt has been described by
Mr. Amaury Talbot (=99=). Among the Ibibio people living in the extreme
south-west corner of Nigeria, bordering on the Gulf of Guinea, he found
that both the Ibibios and a neighbouring tribe, the Ibos, had burial
rites which “recall those of ancient Egypt.” For instance, “among Ibos
embalming is still practised.” Two methods of mummification, in which the
evisceration of the corpse takes place, are practised.
For the grave “a wide-mouthed pit” was dug and “from the bottom of this
an underground passage, sometimes thirty feet long, led into a square
chamber with no other outlet. In this the dead body was laid, and, after
the bearers had returned to the light of day, stones were set over
the pit mouth and earth strewn over all.” Further, in the case of the
Ibibios, “in some prominent spot near the town arbour-like erections are
raised as memorials, and furnished with the favourite property of the
dead man. At the back or side of these is placed what we always called
a little ‘Ka’ house, with window or door, into the central chamber,
provided, as in ancient Egypt, for the abode of the dead man’s Ka or
double. Figures of the Chief, with favourite wives and slaves, may also
be seen—counterparts of the Ushabtiu.”
From the photographs illustrating Mr. Talbot’s article many other
remarkable points of resemblance to ancient Egyptian practices are to be
noted.
The snake and the sun constitute the obtrusive features of the crude
design painted in the funeral shrine. The fact that so many features
of the Egyptian burial practices should have been retained (and in
association with many other elements of the “heliolithic” culture)
in this distant spot, on the other side of the continent, raises the
question whether or not its proximity to the Atlantic littoral may not
be a contributory factor in the survival. They may have been spared by
the remoteness of the retreat and the relative freedom from disturbance,
to which nearer localities in the heart of the continent may have been
subjected. But, on the other hand, there is the possibility that the
spread of culture around the coast may have brought these Egyptian
practices to Old Calabar. In the next few pages it will be seen that such
a possibility is not so unlikely as it may appear at first sight.
But the fact that it was the custom among the Ibibio to bury the wives of
the king with his mummy suggests a truly African, as distinct from purely
Egyptian, influence, and makes it probable that the custom spread across
the continent. This view is further supported by the traditions of the
people themselves, no less than by the physical features of their crania
(see _Report British Association_, 1912, p. 613).
As the people of the Ivory Coast (_vide infra_) practice a method of
embalming which is clearly Egyptian and untainted by these African
influences, it is clear that the two streams of Nilotic culture, one
across the continent _viâ_ Kordofan and Lake Chad and the other around
the coasts of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, after reaching the West
Coast must have met somewhere between the mouth of the Niger and the
Ivory Coast.
[Since writing the above paragraphs, in which inferences as to racial
movements across Africa were based solely upon the distribution and
methods of mummification, I have become acquainted with remarkable
confirmation of these views from two different sources. Frobenius, in
his book “The Voice of Africa,” 1913 (see especially the map on p.
449, Vol. II.), makes an identical delimitation of the two spheres of
influence from the east, trans- and circum-African (_i.e._, _viâ_ the
Mediterranean) respectively.
Sir Harry Johnston (“A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa,” _Journ. Roy.
Anthr. Inst._, 1913, p. 384) supplies even more precise and definite
confirmation of the route taken by the Egyptian culture-migration across
Kordofan to Lake Chad, thence to the Niger basin and “all parts of West
Africa.”
He adds further (pp. 412 and 413):—“Stone worship and the use of stone
in building and sepulture extend from North Africa southwards across
the desert region to Senegambia (sporadically) and the northern parts
of the Sudan, and to Somaliland. The superstitious use of stone in
connection with religion, burial and after-death memorial, reappears
again in Yoruba, in the North-West Cameroons and adjoining Calabar region
(Ekir-land).”]
For the purpose of embalming the bodies of their dead “the Baoule of the
Ivory Coast remove the intestines, wash them with palm wine or European
alcohol, introduce alcohol and salt into the body cavity, afterwards
replacing the intestines and stitching up the opening.” (Clozel and
Villamur, quoted by Hartland, (=32=), p. 418.)
Scattered around the western shores of the African continent there are
numerous ethnological features to suggest that it has been subjected to
the influence of the megalithic culture spreading from the Mediterranean.
But there is no spot in which this influence and its Egyptian derivation
is more definitely and surely demonstrated than in the Canary Islands.
For the art of embalming was practised there in the truly Egyptian
fashion; and it became a matter of some interest to discover whether
or not the Nigerian customs were influenced in any way by the Guanche
practices.
There can be little doubt that the practices on the Ivory Coast, to which
reference has just been made, were either inspired by the Guanches or by
the same influence which started embalming in the Canary Islands.
The information we possess in reference to the Canary Islands was
collected by Bory de Saint Vincent (“Les Îles Fortunées,” 1811, p. 54)
and has been summarized by many writers, especially Pettigrew, Haigh and
Reutter.
From Miss Haigh’s account (=26=, p. 112) I make the following extracts:—
“When any person died they preserved the body in this manner; first, they
carried it to a cave and stretched it on a flat stone, opened it and took
out the bowels; then twice a day they washed the porous parts of the body
with salt and water; afterwards they anointed it with a composition of
sheep’s butter mixed with a powder made from the dust of decayed pine
trees, and a sort of brushwood called “Bressos,” together with powdered
pumice stone, and then dried it in the sun for fifteen days....
“When the body was thoroughly dried, and had become very light, it was
wrapped in sheep skins or goat skins, girded tight with long leather
thongs, and carried to one of the sepulchral grottoes, usually situated
in the most inaccessible parts of the island.
“The bodies were either upright against the sides of the cavern, or side
by side upon a kind of scaffolding made of branches of juniper, mocan,
or other incorruptible wood.
“The knives for opening the body were made of sharp pieces of obsidian.
“In the grotto of Tacoronté was the mummy of an old woman dried in the
sitting posture like that of the Peruvian corpses.”
The mummies were wrapped in reddish goat skin, just as the shroud of
Egyptian mummies was often of red linen.
From the same article, in which, as the above quotation states, the body
was placed upon a stone for the purpose of the embalmer’s operations, I
should like to call attention to the following statement of a curious
custom which is found in the most diverse parts of the world, in most
cases in association with the practice of mummification.
Tradition says that at his installation the new Mencey (or chief of
a principality) is required to seat himself on a stone, cut in the
form of a chair and covered with skins: one of his nearest relatives
presents him with a sacred relic—the bone of the right arm of the chief
of the reigning family (p. 107). I have already (_supra_) indicated the
significance of this characteristic feature of the “heliolithic” culture.
Reutter (=63=) gives some additional information in reference to Guanche
embalming. The incision was made in the lower part of the abdomen (in the
flank). After the body had been treated with a saturated salt solution,
the viscera were returned to the body. The orifices of the nose, mouth
and eyes were “stopped with bitumen as was the Egyptian practice.” After
packing the cavities of the body with aromatic plants the body was
exposed either to the sun, or in a stove, to desiccate it.
During this operation, other embalmers repeatedly smeared the body with
a kind of ointment, prepared by mixing certain fats, with powdered
odoriferous plants, resin, pumice stone and absorbent substances (p. 139).
As in Egypt, according to Herodotus and Diodorus,—and my own observations
have verified their account, at any rate so far as its chief feature is
concerned—there was another method of embalming in which no abdominal
incision was made, unless it was per rectum.
When this cheaper method was employed the corpse was dried in the sun
and some corrosive liquid, called “cedria” in the case of the Egyptians,
but in that of the Guanches supposed by Dr. Parcelly to be Euphorbia
juice, was injected for the purpose of dissolving the intestines and thus
facilitating the process of preservation by removing the chief seat of
decomposition.
[It is important to recall the fact, to which I have already referred in
this account, that in the islands of the Torres Straits also the same two
alternative methods of evisceration, either through a flank incision or
per rectum were in use.]
Most mummies, wrapped in goat skins, were buried in caves. But those of
kings and princes were placed in coffins cut out of a solid log, and
buried (head north) in the open, a monument of pyramidal form being
erected above them.
It is important to bear in mind that both in East and West Africa and
in the Canary Islands the technical procedures in the practice of
mummification are those which were not adopted in Egypt until the time
of the XXIst Dynasty. I have already called attention to this fact in
my references to the Torres Straits mummies (_vide supra_), and to the
inference that these extensive migrations of Egyptian influence could not
have begun before the ninth century B.C.
(For more complete bibliographical references, see Pettigrew, (=56=), p.
233.)
The large series of identical procedures makes it absolutely certain that
the method of embalming practised in the Canary Islands was derived from
Egypt, and not earlier than 900 B.C.
Reutter states (=63=, p. 137) that “the Carthaginians, as the result
of long-continued commercial intercourse with Egypt, assimilated its
civilization even to the extent of worshipping certain of the Egyptian
gods and of accepting many of her ideas and beliefs as to a future life.”
“These reasons impelled them to practise the art of embalming and to
represent the features of the dead upon their sarcophagi to enable the
soul to refind its double.”
“Their burial chambers, for the most part not built up, but carved out of
the rock, communicated with the exterior by a staircase. Above them were
built mastabas or monuments to be utilised, as amongst the Egyptians, as
offering-places” (p. 138).
“Even the inscriptions in the mortuary chambers were written in
hieroglyphics, and their sarcophagi contained scarabs inscribed with
invocations to the Egyptian gods, Ptah, Bes and Ra, &c.”
This reference is sufficient to indicate how the later (certainly not
earlier than 900 B.C. and probably some centuries later) Egyptian
practices spread around the Mediterranean.
I do not propose (in the present communication) to discuss the influence
and the manner of spread of the practice of mummification in Europe.
Reutter gives certain information in reference to this subject. It will
suffice to say that there is no evidence to show that mummification was
widely adopted until comparatively late times (New Empire and later)
in the Mediterranean area, although certain effects of the Egyptian
practice, such for example as “extended burial,” spread abroad many
centuries earlier, appearing in most regions during the Eneolithic phase.
The procedures revealed in the Canary Islands bear no trace of the
influence of Negro Africa to which I have called attention (_supra_) in
the Soudan, Uganda, the Congo and the Niger. The details of the technique
suggests the method employed in the XXIst Dynasty; and other features
seem to point to the conclusion that the practice must have reached the
Canary Islands from the Western Mediterranean through the Straits of
Gibraltar, not improbably through Phœnician channels.
[For a full critical discussion of all the literature relating to
Egyptian influence in West Africa see Dahse, “Ein zweites Goldland
Salomos,” _Zeitsch. f. Ethn._, 1911, p. 1. The mass of evidence collected
in this memoir is entirely corroborative of the conclusions at which I
have arrived from the study of mummification.]
With reference to Babylonia Langdon (=32=) states:—“Traces of embalming
have not been found, but Herodotus says that the Babylonians preserved in
honey. But a text has been discovered which mentions embalming with cedar
oil (cited by Meissner, _Wiener Zeitsch. f. Kunde des Morgenlandes_, xii,
1898, p. 61). At any rate embalming is not characteristic of Babylonian
burials and the custom may be due to Egyptian influence.”
There can, I think, be no doubt whatever as to the Egyptian origin of
these instances of embalming in Babylonia. The mere fact of its sporadic
occurrence in a country of which it is not characteristic clearly points
to this conclusion, which is confirmed by the emphasis laid upon the
use of oil of cedar—a definite indication of the Egyptian practice.
The reference of Herodotus to the use of honey in Babylonia is also of
peculiar interest, for it provides us with a connecting link between the
Mediterranean area and India and Burma.
The extensive use of honey for the preservation of the body among the
Greeks, Romans, Jews, and possibly also the Egyptians, is indicated by
the frequent references to the practice in the classics, which have been
summarised, with numerous quotations, by Pettigrew (=56=, pp. 85-87).
The employment of honey suggests the spread of Egyptian influence to
Babylonia _viâ_ the Mediterranean and Syria, seeing that, so far as is
known, such a method was used only on the Mediterranean littoral of
Egypt, in Phœnicia and the Ægean.
Concerning the use of wax in the process of embalming, of which ancient
Egyptian mummies, especially of the new Empire (=86=), afford numerous
instances, Pettigrew (p. 87) remarks:—“The body of King Agesilaus was
enveloped in wax and thus conveyed to Lacedæmon. This is confirmed by
Cornelius Nepos, and also by Plutarch, who ascribe the adoption of wax to
the want of honey for this purpose. Cicero reports the use of it by the
Persians.”
In his account of the methods employed by the Scythians (living north
of Thrace) for mummifying their kings, Herodotus tells us that the body
was coated with wax, the abdomen opened, cleaned out and then filled
with pounded stems, with perfumes, aniseed and wild celery seed and then
stitched up. The important bearing of the practices described in the
Black Sea littoral upon Indian and Burmese customs (_vide infra_) I must
reserve for discussion at some later time.
It will be seen in the subsequent account that honey was in use for
embalming in modern times in Burma.
In an article on Persian burial customs (=32=, p. 505) Dr. Louis H.
Gray says: “Unfortunately our sole information on this subject [Ancient
Persian rites] must thus far be gleaned from the meagre statements of
the classics. If we may judge from the tombs of the Achæmenians, their
bodies were not exposed as Zoroastrianism dictated; but it is by no means
impossible that they were coated with wax, or even, as Jackson[13] also
suggests (“Persia, Past and Present,” p. 235), ‘perhaps embalmed after
the manner of the Egyptians.’”
In later times the Persians seem to have been influenced by the practices
in vogue in Early Christian times in Egypt, before the coming of Islâm.
Thus in Moll’s History (=46=, p. 545), the statement is made in reference
to the Moslem burial customs in Persia; “if it [the corpse] is to be
buried a great way off, it is put into a wooden coffin filled up with
salt, lime and perfumes to preserve it; for they embalm their dead bodies
no otherwise in Persia, nor do they ever embowel them, as with us.”
That this is merely a degraded form of the Egyptian embalmer’s practice
is shown by the fact that it is identical with the method used by the
Copts in Egypt until the seventh, or perhaps even as late as the ninth
century A.D., and in their case we know that it is a development from, or
degradation of, the ancient practice.
This method seems also to have spread to India: for Mr. Crooke tells me
that even at the present day several of the ascetic orders bury their
dead in salt.
In Moll’s book the following curious statement also occurs, p.
474:—“_Mummy_, which is human flesh embalm’d that has lain in dry
earth several ages, and become hard as horn, is frequently found in
the sands of Chorassan, or the ancient Bactria, and some of the bodies
are so little alter’d, ’tis said, that the features may be plainly
distinguish’d.”
In studying the easterly migration of the custom of mummification it
is quite certain that the main stream of the wanderers who carried the
knowledge to the east must have set out from the East African coast,
because a whole series of modifications of the Egyptian method which were
introduced in the Soudan and further south are also found in Indonesia,
Polynesia and America. A curious feature of Egyptian embalming in the
XIXth and especially the XXIst Dynasties (=78= and =86=) was the use of
butter for packing the mummy. Among the Baganda, according to Roscoe,
special importance came to be attached to this practice. Mr. Crooke has
given me references from Indian literature (see especially _Journ. Anthr.
Soc. Bombay_, Vol. I., 1886, p. 39) to bodies being “skilfully embalmed
with heavenly drugs and _ghee_” [clarified butter].
The ancient Aryans used to disembowel the corpse and fill the cavity with
_ghee_ (Mitra, “Indo-Aryans,” London, 1881, Vol. I., p. 135), as was done
in the case of the mummy of the famous Pharaoh Meneptah (=86=).
The peculiarly Mediterranean modifications also spread east and it seems
most likely that in this case the route from Syria down the Euphrates to
the Persian Gulf was taken.
[Since this has been in print further investigation has elucidated with
remarkable precision the ways and means of, as well as the impelling
motives for, the great migration to the East. This calls for some
modification of the foregoing (as well as many of the subsequent)
paragraphs. It has been seen that the great wave of culture carried
east and west from Egypt the distinctive method of embalming that came
into full use somewhere about 900 B.C.; hence it is probable the eighth
century B.C. witnessed the commencement of the series of expeditions,
which probably extended over many centuries. It can be no mere chance
that the period indicated coincides with the time when the Phœnicians
were embarking upon maritime enterprises on a much greater and more
daring scale than the world had known until then, in the Mediterranean
and Atlantic, in the Red Sea and beyond. In the course of their trading
expeditions to the Bab-el-Mandeb these Levantine mariners brought to that
region a fuller knowledge of the customs and practices of Egypt and of
the whole Phœnician world in the Mediterranean. It was probably in this
way and not by the Euphrates route that the culture of the Levant reached
the Persian Gulf and India.
The easterly migration of culture which set out from the region of the
Bab-el-Mandeb conveyed not only the Ethiopian modifications of Egyptian
practices, but also the Egyptian and Mediterranean contributions which
the Phœnicians had brought to Ethiopia. On some future occasion I shall
discuss the important part played by the Phœnicians in these expeditions
to the Far East.]
It is unfortunate that practically nothing is known of the practice
of mummification on the Southern coast of Arabia. Bent tells us that
the Southern Arabians preserved their dead. Moreover, as the Egyptians
obtained from Sabæa much of the materials used for embalming, it is
not unlikely that the Arabs may also have learned the use of these
preservatives.
In support of this suggestion I might refer to the evidence from
Madagascar. It is well known that this island was colonised in ancient
times by people from the neighbourhood of the Bab-el-Mandeb, probably
Galla-people from the Somali coast as well as Sabæans from the Arabian
coast, possibly ferried along the African shore by expert mariners from
Oman and the Persian Gulf, either the Phœnicians themselves or their
kinsmen. A more numerous element came from the distant Malay Archipelago.
Either or both of these racial elements may have introduced the practice
of mummification into Madagascar.
In his “History on Madagascar” (1838, Vol. I, p, 243) Ellis says there
“was no regular embalming,” but the “body was preserved for a time by the
use of large quantities of gum benzoin, or other powdered aromatic gums.”
This method is strongly suggestive of South Arabian influence.
Hartland says “the Betsileo [and other Madagascar tribes] dry the corpse
in the air, the fluids being assisted to escape” (=32=, p. 418).
Grandidier, however, gives us more precise information on this subject
(“La Mort et les Funerailles à Madagascar,” _L’Anthropologie_, T. 23,
1912, p. 329). According to him the Betsileo open the body of the dead
and remove all the viscera, which they throw into a lake: among the
Merina the entrails are removed only in the cases of their sovereigns or
members of the royal family.
The practice of mummification amongst the Betsileo is of peculiar
interest because the embalmed bodies are buried in stone tombs obviously
inspired by Egyptian models. The subterranean megalithic burial chamber
in association with an oblong _mastaba_-like superstructure at once
recalls the distinctive features of the Egyptian tomb. But there is a
curious feature suggestive of Babylonian influence, namely, the situation
of the temple of offerings on the top of the _mastaba_. In some respects
this type of grave recalls those found in the Bahrein Islands by Bent
(=4=), which he compares with the Early Phœnician tombs at Arvad (=55=).
There can be no question that the latter were copied from Theban tombs of
the New Empire (_vide supra_).
This seems to point quite clearly to the fact that the Betsileo burial
practices were inspired by Egyptian models, possibly modified by Southern
Arabian influences.
In Hall’s “Great Zimbabwe” (1905, pp. 94 and 95), it is stated that “the
Baduma, who live in Gutu’s country, and also the Barotse, still embalm,
or, rather, dry the bodies of their chiefs, and also the dead of certain
families, though generally the bodies are buried lengthways on their
right side, facing the sun. The body is placed in the hut on a bier made
of poles near a large fire, and continually turned until the body is dry.
Then it is wrapped up in a blanket and hung from the roof” [as is done in
the Doré Bay region in New Guinea].
There has been considerable controversy as to the origin of the vast
stone monuments in this region. The writer from whom I have just quoted,
with many others, believed the Zimbabwe ruins to be the work of Early
Sabæan or Phœnician immigrants, who were attracted by the Rhodesian
gold-fields. Randall-MacIver believed that he found Chinese and Persian
relics (no earlier than the 14th or at earliest 13th century) under the
foundations; and recklessly jumped to the conclusion that the local
Negroes had conceived and built these vast monuments! The idea of any
savage people, and especially Negroes, planning such structures and
undertaking the enormous labour of their construction is surely too
ludicrous to be considered seriously. Even if these monuments were built
no earlier than five or six centuries ago, that does not invalidate
the hypothesis that they were inspired by the models of some old
civilization. Is it necessary to expound the whole theory of survivals
to make this point clear? The whole of this memoir is concerned with the
persistence in outlying corners of the world of strange practices whose
inventors passed away twenty-eight centuries and more ago, and whose
country has forgotten them and their works for more than a thousand
years. [My friend, W. J. Perry, is collecting other evidence which proves
quite definitely that the Zimbabwe culture was “heliolithic.”]
In Moll’s History (=46=) the following passage occurs in an account of
the customs of Ceylon, p. 430, “when a person of condition dies his
corps is laid out and wash’d, and being cover’d with a linnen-cloath, is
carried out upon a bier to some high place and burnt: but if he was an
officer who belong’d to the court, the corps is not burnt till the king
gives orders for it, which is sometimes a great while after. In this case
his friends hollow the body of a tree, and having bowell’d and embalm’d
the corps, they put it in, filling the hollow up with pepper, and having
made it as close as possible, they bury the corpse in some room of the
house till the king orders it to be burnt.”
“As for the poorer people, they usually wrap them up in mats and bury
them.”
This traveller’s tale would not call for serious attention if it were not
confirmed by modern accounts of an analogous practice in Burma and the
neighbourhood.
In his “Himalayan Journal” Sir Joseph Hooker described how the Khasias
temporarily embalm their dead in honey before cremating them.
Pettigrew (=56=, p. 245) quotes Captain Coke’s account of the embalming
of a Burman priest. The body, as witnessed by him, was lying exposed to
public view upon a stage constructed of bamboos. This is the bier which
is so invariably associated with mummification.
“The entrails of the deceased (who had been dead upwards of a month) had
been taken out a few hours after death by means of an incision in the
stomach, and the vacuum being filled with honey and spices the opening
was sewed up. The whole body was then covered over with a slight coating
of resinous substance called _dhamma_, and wax, to preserve it from the
air, after which it was richly overlaid with gold leaf, thus giving the
body the appearance of one of the finely moulded images so common in the
temples of the worshippers of BOODH.”
Then it was cremated.
This is a curious instance of the blending of the custom of mummification
with the later practice of cremation, which was inspired by entirely
different ideals. Throughout the whole area in which Egyptian methods
of embalming were adopted there are found numerous instances of such
syncretism with a variety of burial customs.
“Another method which I have known to be practised, but not as common as
the one above detailed, of embalming bodies in the Burman country, is by
forcing two hollow bamboos through the soles of the feet, up the legs and
into the body of the deceased; then by dint of pressing and squeezing the
fluid is carried off through the bamboos into the ground.”
This practice is an important link between the Egyptian and the
Indonesian methods.
In his article on Thibetan burial customs (=32=, p. 511), Waddell
informs us that preservation of the entire body by embalming seems to
be restricted to the sovereign Grand Lamas of Lhāsa and Tāshilhumpo.
“The body is embalmed by salting, and, clad in the robes of the deceased
and surrounded by his personal implements of worship, is placed, in the
attitude of a seated Buddha, within a gilded copper sarcophagus in one of
the rooms of the palace: it is then worshipped as a divinity.”
There are many points of interest in this practice, which, considered in
conjunction with the methods practised in Burma, Ceylon and Persia just
mentioned, clearly indicate not only the sources and the routes taken by
this knowledge of embalming in its spread from Egypt, but also how the
burial rites of a variety of peoples can become intimately blended and
intermingled one with another.
In Captain T. H. Lewins’ book on “The Wild Tribes of South-Eastern India”
(London, 1870, p. 274) I find the following statement:—“Among the Dhun
and Khorn clans the body is placed in a coffin made of a hollow tree
trunk, with holes in the bottom. This is placed on a lofty platform and
left to dry in the sun. The dried body is afterwards rammed into an
earthern vase and buried; the head is cut off and preserved. Another clan
sheathe their dead in pith; the corpse is then placed on a platform,
under which a slow fire is kept up until the body is dried. The corpse
is then kept for six months ... it is then buried. The Howlong clan hang
the body up to the house-beams for seven days, during which time the dead
man’s wife has to sit underneath spinning.”
These interesting records are of considerable value in establishing
connexions between East Africa and regions further east, which will be
discussed in the following pages.
[In my search for information concerning the practice of embalming in
India, where by inference I was convinced it must have had some vogue
in ancient times, I completely overlooked the important memoir by Mr.
W. Crooke on “Primitive Rites of Disposal of the Dead, with Special
Reference to India” (_Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, Vol. XXIX, 1899, p. 272).
Since the rest of this article has been in print Mr. Crooke has kindly
called my attention to his memoir and given me a lot of other valuable
information. Fortunately all this evidence supports and substantiates
the opinions I had previously arrived at inductively. For it provides
a complete series of connecting links between the western and eastern
portions of the chain I am reconstructing. It is too bulky to insert here
and too important merely to summarise, so that I must postpone fuller
discussion of this Indian evidence until some future time.]
If it is admitted that the custom of mummification as it is practised,
for example, in the islands of the Torres Straits was derived from Egypt,
however remotely and indirectly, it is clear that, as the technique
includes a number of curious features which were not introduced in Egypt
before the XVIIIth, XXth and XXIst Dynasties (respectively in the case
of different procedures), the migration of people carrying the methods
east could not have left Egypt before the time of the XXIst Dynasty,
say 900 B.C. as the earliest possible date. At this time Egypt was in
very close relationship with the Soudan and Western Asia; and it is
obvious that the Egyptian practices may have reached the Persian Gulf
by three routes:—(1) _viâ_ the Soudan, the head-waters of the Nile and
the Somali Coast, (2) by the Red Sea route, and (3) from the Phœnician
Coast down the Euphrates. No doubt all three routes served as avenues for
communication and for the transmission of cultural influences; and it is
not essential for our immediate purposes to enquire which channel served
to transmit each element of Egyptian culture that made its influence
felt in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf at this period. For it was
a period of active maritime enterprise, especially on the part of the
Phœnicians, both in the Mediterranean and the Southern Seas, and a time
when the fluctuating political fortunes of Egypt, Western Asia and the
Soudan produced a more intimate intermingling of the peoples, so that
they mutually influenced one another most profoundly.
It is important to remember that many of the features of the embalmer’s
art as it is practiced in the far East are modifications of the Egyptian
method which were first introduced in the region of the Upper Nile,
so that the East African Coast must have been the point of departure
for such methods. Other features, not only of the method of embalming,
but also of the associated megalithic architecture, were equally
distinctive of the Phœnician region and may have been transmitted by the
Euphrates.[14] Other features again were distinctively Babylonian. Of the
former, the African influence, I might refer to the use of the frame-like
support for the mummy, the custom of removing the head some months after
burial, and the sacrifice of wives and servants. As to the Phœnician
and Babylonian influences, the use of honey might be cited, and the
emphasis laid upon “cedar” wood and “cedar” oil in mummification; and the
Phœnician adaptation of the New Empire type of Theban tomb seen at Arvad
and the analogous sepulchres found in the Bahrein Islands (=4=) The
Betsileo tombs in Madagascar probably represent the same type transferred
_viâ_ Sabæa down the East African coast.
As to the means by which the customs of the dwellers around the Persian
Gulf were communicated to the peoples of India and Ceylon there is a
considerable mass of evidence. The fact that mummification, the building
of megalithic monuments of the recognised Mediterranean types, sun-
and serpent-worship and all the other impedimenta of the “heliolithic”
culture made their appearance in India in pre-Aryan times affords
positive evidence of the reality of the intercourse. I have already
referred to the adoption in India of the curiously eccentric method
of steering river-boats found in Middle Kingdom Egyptian tombs; and
the custom of representing eyes on the prow of the boat are further
illustrations of the spread of distinctive practices. According to Rhys
Davids (=14=, p. 116) “it may now be accepted as a working hypothesis
that sea-going merchants [mostly Dravidians, not Aryans], availing
themselves of the monsoons, were in the habit, at the beginning of
the seventh (and perhaps at the end of the eighth) century B.C., of
trading from ports on the South-West of India to Babylon, then a great
mercantile emporium.” He adduces evidence which clearly demonstrates
that the written scripts of India, Ceylon and Burma were in this way
derived from “the pre-Semitic race now called Akkadians.” “It seems
almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that [the] curious buildings
[at Anurādhapura in Ceylon] were not entirely without connection with
the seven-storied Ziggarats which were so striking a feature among
the buildings of Chaldæa.... it would seem that in this case also the
Indians were borrowers of an idea” (p. 70). The more precise and definite
influence of Babylonian models further east removes any doubt as to the
part it played. Crooke speaks of the Southern Dravidians as a maritime
people, who placed in their burial mounds “bronze articles which were
probably imported in the course of trade with Babylonia” (=12=, p. 29).
“They were probably the builders of the remarkable series of rude stone
monuments which crown the hills in the Nilgiri range and the plateau of
the Deccan” (p. 28). The most ancient stone monuments in Southern India
contain objects which go to prove that they were built at the earliest
just before the introduction of iron-working. Thus, if the knowledge of
iron-working came from Europe, these monuments could not have been built
much before 800 B.C. As a matter of fact it is known that many of them
cannot be older than 600 B.C. (Crooke, =13=, p. 129). All of these facts
agree in supporting the view that the influence of Egypt, which, so far
as the matters under consideration are concerned, came into operation
not earlier than the eighth century B.C., spread to India partly _viâ_
Babylonia and partly by way of East Africa, somewhere between the close
of the eighth and the commencement of the sixth century B.C.
The monuments to which I have just been referring were not, in my
opinion, directly inspired by Egypt, but indirectly. The North Syrian
and the adjoining territories adopted the Egyptian burial customs at
an earlier period and the finished type of holed dolmen was probably
developed and survived in that region long after its Egyptian prototype
had become a thing of the past. The real types that have come down to our
times are found in the Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian.
The Indian dolmens were certainly imitations of these models. But in
respect of other buildings the Indians directly adopted Babylonian and
Egyptian types. I have already referred to the former. Many of the
Dravidian temples are so precisely modelled on the plan of the Theban
temples of the New Empire that to question the source of the inspiration
of the former is impossible.
“Fergusson first called attention to the striking similarity in general
arrangement and conception between the great South Indian temples and
those of ancient Egypt.... The gopurams or gate-towers, which in the
later more ornate examples are decorated from the base to the summit with
sculptures of the Hindu Pantheon, increase in size with the size of the
walled quadrangles, the outer ones becoming imposing landmarks, which
are visible for miles around, and are strikingly similar to the pylons
of Egyptian temples” (Thurston, =101=, pp. 158 and 161). Thus in the
matter of its early buildings India has clearly been influenced by Egypt,
Phœnicia and Chaldea; and this great cultural wave impinged upon the
Indian peninsula not before the close of the eighth century B.C.
It is important also to remember that it reached India just (perhaps not
more than a century) before another wave of a very different culture
poured down from the north, and introduced, among other things, the
practice of cremation.
For our immediate purpose this is unfortunate, because that practice
is inspired by ideas utterly opposed to those underlying the custom of
embalming, and naturally destroyed most, though by no means all, traces
of the latter. That the practice of embalming did actually reach India
from the west is known not merely because evidence of unmistakably
Egyptian technique is found further east, but also because in India and
Ceylon there are definite traces of the custom, to which reference has
already been made in the foregoing pages. Cases from Persia, Ceylon,
India, Burma and Thibet were cited in proof of the survival of elements
of the embalming process or ritual, even when the Brahmanical and
Buddhist burial practices had been adopted.
From the foregoing account there can be no doubt that the people of
India did at one time practice mummification, at any rate in the case of
their chiefs. They also acquired a knowledge of the arts and crafts, as
the result of the influence exerted by the rich stream of culture which
brought the attainments of the great western civilizations to India
before the Ayran immigration. The bringers of this new culture mingled
their blood with the aboriginal pre-Dravidian population and the result
was the Dravidians. It is not at all improbable that the resultant
Dravidian civilization had reached a higher plane than that of the Aryas,
who entered the country after them.
In Oldham’s interesting and suggestive brochure (=51=, pp. 53-55), which,
in spite of Crooke’s drastic criticism, seems to me to be a valuable
contribution to a knowledge of the questions under discussion, the
following passages occur:—
“The Asuras, Dasyus, or Nagas, with whom the Aryas came into contact, on
approaching the borders of India, were no savage aboriginal tribes, but
a civilized people who had cities and castles. Some of these are said in
the Veda to have been built of stone.
“It would seem, indeed, as if the Asuras had reached a higher degree of
civilization than their Aryan rivals. Some of their cities were places of
considerable importance. And, in addition to this, wealth and luxury, the
use of magic, superior architectural skill, and ability to restore the
dead to life, were ascribed to the Asuras by Brahmanical writers.”
The “ability to restore the dead to life” is probably a reference to the
Egyptian ritual of “the opening of the mouth,” which of course is an
integral part of the funerary procedure incidental to the practice of
mummification.
“The Nagas occupy a very prominent position in connection with Indian
astronomy, and this is not likely to have been assigned to them, by their
Brahmanical rivals, without good reason. Probably this and other branches
of science were brought, by the Asuras, from their ancient home in the
countries between the Kaspian and the Persian Gulf.
“The close relationship between the Indian and the Chaldean astronomical
systems has been frequently noticed.
“The sun-worship of the Asuras; their holding sacred the Naga or hooded
serpent, sometimes represented with many heads; their deification of
kings and ancestors; their veneration of the cedar; their religious
dances; their sacrificial rights; their communication with the deities
through the medium of inspired prophets; their occasional tendency
towards democratic institutions; their use of tribal emblems or
totems—and many of their social customs; seem to connect them with that
very early civilization—Turanian or otherwise—which we find amongst so
many of the peoples of extreme antiquity. They had, in fact, much in
common with the early inhabitants of Babylonia; and, perhaps, even more
with those of Elam and the neighbouring countries.
“We shall see later that the Asuras and the Dravidians were, apparently,
the same people.”
“Not only were the Asuras or Nagas a civilized people, but they were a
maritime power. Holding both banks of the great river Indus, they must
have had access to the sea from a very early period. Their kinship,
too, with the serpent-worshipping people of ancient Media, and the
neighbouring countries, which has already been referred to, must have led
to a very early development of trade with the Persian Gulf.
“The Asuras were actively engaged in ‘The Churning of the Ocean’
(_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xviii.), which is but an allegorical
description of sea-borne commerce in its early days” (_op. cit._, p. 58).
“In the _Mahabharata_, the ocean is described as the habitation of the
Nagas and the residence of the Asuras; it is also said to be the refuge
of the defeated Asuras (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xxii.).
This was no doubt because marauding bands of this people retreated to
their ships after an unsuccessful raid. Thus we find that on the death
of Vrita, his followers took refuge in the sea (_Mahabharata_, _Vana_,
_Tirthayatra_, p. ciii.). So also did the Asura Panchajana, who lived in
Patala, when he was pursued by Krishna (_Vishnu Parana_, v., xxi., 526).
And so did the Danavas when defeated by the Devas at the churning of the
ocean (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xix.).”
“An ancient legend, given in the _Mahabharata_, relates how Kadru, mother
of the serpents, compelled Garuda to convey her sons across the sea into
a beautiful country in a distant region, which was inhabited by Nagas.
After encountering a violent storm and great heat, the sons of Karur were
landed in the country of Ramaniaka, on the Malabar coast.”
“This territory had been occupied previously by a fierce Asura named
Lavana (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xxvii.). So there had been a
still earlier colonization by the same race.”
“Naga chiefs are frequently mentioned as ruling countries in or under the
sea” (p. 61).
“The civilization of Burmah, and other Indo-Chinese countries, is
ascribed by legend and by the native historians to invaders from India.
And these are connected with the Naga People of Magadha, and of the
north and west of India. The ancient navigators, too, who carried the
Brahmanical and Buddhist religions, the worship of the Naga, and the
Sanscrit or Pali language to Java, Sumatra, and even to distant Celebes,
were Indian people. And they were, doubtless, descendants of those Asura
dwellers in the ocean, which are mentioned in the _Mahabharata_, and have
already been referred to” (p. 166).
“Another proof of the ancient connection of these islands with India
is that the Javan era is the Saka-kala, which is so well known, and is
still in use in parts of Western India and in the Himalaya. According
to a Javan tradition an expedition from India, led by a son of the king
of Kujrat (Gujrat), arrived on the west coast of the island about A.D.
603. A settlement was founded, and the town of Mendan Kamalan was built.
Other Hindus followed, and a great trade was established with the ports
of India and other countries (Raffles, Hist. Java, ii., 83). There is
however no reason to suppose that this was the first arrival of Indian
voyagers in the Archipelago.
“Traditions still remain in Western India of expeditions to Java. A
Guzerati proverb runs thus: ‘He who goes to Java never comes back; but
if he does return, his descendants, for seven generations, live at ease’
(_Bombay Gazetter_, i., 402). The bards in Marwar have a legend that
Bhoj raja, the great puar chief of Ujaini, in anger drove away his son
Chandrabhan, who sailed to Java (_Ib._, i., 448).
“Evidence brought forward by Mr. Kennedy (_J. R. A. S._, April, 1898)
shows that a great sea-borne trade was carried on from Indian ports by
Dravidian merchants as early as the seventh century B.C. The beginnings
of Dravidian navigation, however, were probably much earlier than this.
“We have seen that the sea-borne commerce of the Solar or Naga tribes
of Western India had become important at a very early period. Of this
the legend of ‘the churning of the ocean’ already referred to is an
allegorical description, but we have no detailed account of ocean voyages
until a much later period. Sakya Buddha himself, however, refers to such
voyages. He says: ‘Long ago ocean going merchants were wont to plunge
forth upon the sea, taking with them a shore-sighting bird. When the ship
was out of sight of land they would set the shore-sighting bird free.
And it would go to the east and to the south and to the west and to the
north and to the intermediate points and rise aloft. If on the horizon it
caught sight of land, thither it would go. But if not then it would come
back to the ship again’ (Rhys Davids, _J. R. A. S._, April, 1899, 432).
“It will be observed that this mode of finding the position of the ship
at sea, which recalls the sending out of the birds from the Ark, is said
to have been the custom ‘long ago.’ It would seem therefore, that in the
fifth century B.C. other and probably more scientific methods were in
use. It would also appear that the navigation of the ocean was even then
an ancient institution.
“In the time of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fah Hian (about 406 A.D.)
there was a regular and evidently old-established trade between India and
China and with the islands of the Archipelago.
“Fah Hian sailed from Tamalitti, or Tamralipti, at the mouth of the
Ganges, in a great merchant ship, and in fourteen days reached Ceylon
(Fo-Kwo-ki, Beal., I, lxxi, lxxii.). From thence he sailed in a great
ship which carried about two hundred men, and which was navigated by
observing the sun, moon and stars. In this ship Fah Hian reached Ye-po-ti
(probably Java) in which country heretics and Brahmans flourished, but
the law of Buddha was not much known (_Ib._, I, lxxx.). Here the pilgrim
embarked for China on board another ship carrying two hundred men,
amongst whom were Brahmans. These proposed to treat the sramana as Jonah
was treated, and for the same reason, but some of those on board took his
part. At length when their provisions were nearly exhausted, they reached
China (_Ib._, I, lxxxi., lxxxii.). All these ships appear to have been
Indian and not Chinese.
“Fah Hian mentions that pirates were numerous in those seas (_Ib._, I,
lxxx.), which shows that the commerce must have been considerable” (p.
171).
“It seems in the highest degree improbable that this close connection
between the Sun and the serpent could have originated, independently,
in countries so far apart as China and the West of Africa, or India
and Peru. And it seems scarcely possible that, in addition to this,
the same forms of worship of these deities, and the same ritual, could
have arisen, spontaneously, amongst each of these far distant peoples.
The alternative appears to be that the combined worship of the Sun and
serpent-gods must have spread from a common centre, by the migration of,
or communication with, the people who claimed Solar descent.
“So universally was the Naga held sacred, that it would seem to have been
the earliest totem of the people who claimed descent from the Sun-god”
(p. 183).
I have quoted so extensively from Oldham’s fascinating work because the
conclusions at which he arrived from a study of the ancient literature of
India is confirmed by evidence derived from utterly different sources,
not only from India itself but also from other countries. For, scattered
throughout the length and breadth of India, are to be found thousands of
indications (in traditions, beliefs, customs, social organisation and
material relics) that the complete “heliolithic” culture had reached
India not later than the beginning of the seventh century B.C.
Moreover the evidence which I have culled from Oldham bears out
the conclusions my own investigations lead up to, namely, that the
“heliolithic” culture spread from India to Malaysia soon after it reached
India itself. It is surely something more than a mere coincidence that
the period of the greatest maritime exploits of the Phœnicians, in the
course of which, according to many authorities, they reached India or
even further east, should coincide with that of the great pre-Aryan
maritime race of India, whose great expeditions, as the above quotations
indicate, were primarily for purposes of commerce between the Persian
Gulf and the West Coast of India. There is gradually accumulating a
considerable mass of evidence to suggest that, if the Asuras were not
themselves Phœnicians, they acquired their maritime skill from these
famous sailors and traders. The same hardy mariners who brought the new
knowledge and practices from the Persian Gulf to India and Ceylon also
carried it further, to Burma and Indonesia.
That this is so is clearly shown by the fact that these customs spread to
Indonesia and the Pacific _before_ cremation was introduced; and it has
been indicated above that the introduction of the practice of cremation
into India may have taken place within a century of the arrival of the
“heliolithic” civilization there. Hence it is obvious that the latter
must have spread to the far east soon after it reached India; and the
completeness of the transmission of the distinctive culture-complex can
be explained only by supposing that the same people who brought it to
India also carried it further east.
All the other evidence at our disposal is in full harmony with this view.
The advancing wave of western culture swept past India into Indonesia,
carrying into the isles of the Pacific and on to the American littoral
the products of the older civilizations at first almost, but not
altogether, untainted by Indian influence; but for centuries afterwards,
as this same ferment gradually leavened the vast bulk of India, the
stream of western culture continued to percolate eastwards and carried
with it in succession the influence of the Brahmanical, Buddhist and,
within in a more restricted area, Mahometan cults.
It is an interesting confirmation of the general accuracy of the scheme
that has now been sketched out that the dates at which the influence
of Egypt began to be exerted in the east, that to which Rhys Davids
assigns the definite influencing of India by Babylonia, that at which
India influenced Malaysia, and finally that assigned by students of
the Polynesian problem to the inauguration of the great Indonesian
migration into the Pacific (=60= and =98=), all fit into one consecutive
series, though each was determined from different kinds of evidence and
independently of the rest.
It is not my intention to discuss the evidence for the coming of the
“heliolithic” culture to Indonesia, for the complex problems of this
region have been analysed and interpreted in a masterly fashion by W.
J. Perry in a book which is shortly to be published. The form which my
present communication has assumed is largely the outcome of the reading
of Perry’s manuscript and of discussions with him of the new lines of
investigation which it suggested; and I am satisfied to leave this
region for him to elucidate in detail. It will suffice to say here that
the traditions of the inhabitants of the various islands of Malaysia,
no less than their heterogeneous customs and beliefs, provided him with
very precise evidence in demonstration of the complex constitution of the
“heliolithic” culture, and of the fact that it was brought to the islands
by an immigration from the west.
There is less need for me to analyse the vast literature relating to
the burial practices in the islands of the Malay Archipelago since this
useful service has already been accomplished by Hertz (=33=). Although I
dissent from the main contention in his interpretation of the facts, his
accurate record is none the less valuable on that account—perhaps indeed
it is more useful, as it certainly cannot be accused of bias in favour of
the views I am expounding.
A great variety of burial customs, in most respects closely
analogous to the practices of the Naga tribes of India, is found in
Indonesia;—exposing the dead on trees or platforms, burial in hollow
trees, smoking and other methods of preservation, temporary burial, and
cremation.
Apart from the definite evidence of preservation of the dead found in
scattered islands from one end of the Archipelago to the other, there are
much more generally diffused practices which are unquestionably derived
from the former custom of mummification.
In the account of mummification as practised in the more savage African
tribes, it was seen that the practice was restricted in most cases to
the bodies of kings; and even then the failure to preserve the body in a
permanent manner compelled these peoples to modify the Egyptian methods.
Realising that the corpse, even when preserved as efficiently as they
were able to perform the work of embalming, would undergo a process of
disintegration within a few months, it became the practice to rescue the
skull, to which special importance was attached (for the definite reasons
explained by the early Egyptian evidence).
In his survey Hertz (=33=, p. 66) calls attention to the widespread
custom of temporary burial throughout Indonesia, but, instead of
recognising that such procedures have come into vogue as a degradation
of the full rites incidental to mummification, he regards it as part of
a widespread “notion que les derniers rites funéraires ne peuvent pas
être célébrés de suite après la mort, mais seulement à l’expiration d’une
période plus on moins longue” (p. 66); and regards mummification simply
as a specialised form of this rite which is almost universal (p. 67):—“il
paraît légitime de considérer la momification comme un cas particulier
et dérivé de la sépulture provisoire.” (p. 69). This is a remarkable
inversion of the true explanation. For the enormous mass of evidence
which is now available makes it quite certain that the practice of
temporary burial was adopted only when failure (or the risk of failure)
to preserve the body compelled less cultured people to desist from the
complete process.
I am in full agreement with Hertz when he says:—“L’homologie entre la
préservation artificielle du cadavre et la simple exposition temporaire
paraîtra moins difficile à admettre si l’on tient compte du fait qui sera
mis en lumière plus bas: les ossements secs, résidu de la décomposition,
constituent pour le mort un corps incorruptible, absolument comme la
momie.” (p. 69). But does not this entirely bear out my contention? It is
quite inconceivable that the practice of mummification could have been
derived from the custom of preparing the skeleton; but the reverse is
quite a natural transition, for even in the hands of skilled embalmers
(see especially =39=), not to mention untutored savage peoples, the
measures taken for preserving the body may fail and the skeleton alone
may be spared. If this contention be conceded, the demonstration given by
Hertz of the remarkable geographical distribution of customs of temporary
burial affords a most valuable confirmation of the general scheme of
the present communication. “Au point de vue où, nous sommes placés, il
y a homologie rigoureuse entre l’exposition du cadavre sur les branches
d’un arbre, telle que la pratiquent les tribus du centre de l’Australie,
ou à l’intèrieur de la maison des vivants, comme cela se rencontre chez
certains Papous et chez quelques peuples Bantous, ou sur une plateforme
élevée à dessein, ainsi que le font en général les Polynésiens et de
nombreuses tribus indiennes de l’Amérique du Nord, ou enfin l’enterrement
provisoire, observé en particulier par la plupart des Indiens de
l’Amérique du Sud” (p. 67). There can be no doubt whatever of the justice
of this “homology,” for in every one of the areas mentioned these
customs exist side by side with the practice of mummification; and in
many cases there is definite evidence to show that the other methods of
treatment have been derived from it by a process of degradation. In his
excellent bibliography, and especially the illuminating footnotes, Hertz
gives a number of references to the practice of desiccation by smoking
or simple forms of embalming, which had escaped me in my search for
information on these matters. He refers especially to further instances
of such practices in Australia, New Guinea, various parts of West Africa,
Madagascar and America (p. 68).
An interesting reference in the same note (p. 68, footnote 5) is to
the practice of simple embalming among the Ainos of Sakhalin (Preuss,
_Begräbnisarten der Amerikaner_, p. 190). This seems to supply an
important link between the Eastern Asiatic littoral and the Aleutian
Islands, where mummification is practised. In Saghalien, according to St.
John (“The Ainos,” _Journ. Anthropol. Inst._, Vol. II., 1873, p. 253),
“when the chief of a tribe or village died, his body was laid out on a
table close to the door of his hut; his entrails were then removed, and
daily for twelve months his wife and daughters wash him thoroughly. He is
allowed ... to dry in the sun.”
In a recent article on the customs of the people of Laos (G. Maupetit,
“Moeurs laotiennes,” _Bull. et Mem. de la Soc. d’ Anthropol. de Paris_,
1913), an account is given of the practice of mummification in this far
south-eastern corner of the Asiatic mainland. Cremation is the regular
means adopted for disposal of the dead: but it is also “the Laotian’s
ideal to be able to preserve the corpse in his house, for as long a
time as possible, before incinerating it: in the same way the Siamese
and Chinese keep their dead in the house for several months, often for
several years” (p. 549).
According to Maupetit the method of preservation is a most remarkable
one. They pour from 75 to 300 grammes of mercury into the mouth! “It
passes along the alimentary canal and suffices to produce mummification,
the rapid desiccation of the organic tissues.” Then the body was
stretched upon a thick bed of melted wax, wood ashes, cloth and cushions.
The great stream of “heliolithic” culture exerted a profound influence
upon and played a large part in shaping the peculiar civilizations of
China, Corea, and Japan. As the practice of embalming does not play an
obtrusive part[15] in this influence, I do not propose (in the present
communication) to enter upon the discussion of these matters, except to
note in passing that the influence exerted by the “heliolithic” culture
upon the Pacific coast of America may have been exerted partly by the
East Asiatic-Aleutian route (see _Map II._).
The disgusting practice of collecting the fluids which drip from the
putrefying corpse and mixing them with the food for the living occurs
in Indonesia, in New Guinea and the neighbouring islands, in Melanesia,
Polynesia and in Madagascar (for the bibliographical references see
Hertz, p. 83, footnote 3).
The Indonesian methods of preserving the dead are found in Seram (W. J.
Perry), and the report recently published by Lorenz[16] (=43=, p. 22)
records a similar practice in the neighbourhood of Doré Bay in North-West
New Guinea. The corpse was tied to the rafter of the dwelling-house; and
the practice of mixing the juices of decomposition with the food is in
vogue also. The accounts given by D’Albertis (=1=) and other travellers
show that analogous customs are found at other places in New Guinea.
There can be no doubt that the practice spread along the north coast of
the island and then around its eastern extremity to reach the islands of
the Torres Straits, where the practice is seen in its fully developed
form, as Flower (=19=), Haddon and Myers (=25=), and Hamlyn-Harris (=27=)
have described.
As I have already referred to Papuan mummies earlier in this
communication and at some future time intend to devote a special memoir
to the full discussion of the methods of the Torres Straits embalmers, I
shall not go into the matter in detail here. I should like, however, to
call special attention to the admirable account given by Haddon and Myers
(=25=) of the associated funeral rites.
In his memoir Flower described two interesting mummies, then in the
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, one “brought in 1872
from Darnley Island in Torres Strait by Mr. Charles Lemaistre, Captain
of the French barque ‘Victorine,’ and the other, an Australian mummy,
obtained in 1845 near Adelaide, by Sir George Grey.” By a curious and
utterly incomprehensible act of vandalism these extremely rare and
priceless ethnological specimens were deliberately destroyed by Sir
William Flower, who naively explains his extraordinary action by the
statement “as the skeleton will form a more instructive specimen when the
dried and decaying integuments are removed I have had it cleaned” (p.
393)! He treated in the same manner the second mummy, the only example
of its kind, so far as I am aware, in this country! His photographs
show that these two specimens, so far from being “decaying,” were in
a remarkably good state of preservation at the time he doomed them to
destruction.
Captain Lemaistre found the Torres Strait mummy “in its grave, which
consisted of a high straw and bamboo hut of round form: it was not lying
down, but standing up on the stretcher” (=19=, p. 389). This is a close
parallel to the African customs—mummification, burial in a house of round
form, and fixing the corpse to a rough form of funeral bier, which is
stood up in the house.
The skin was painted red, the scalp black. “The sockets of the eyes were
filled with a dark brown substance, apparently a vegetable gum.... In
this was imbedded a narrow oval piece of mother of pearl, pointed at each
end, in the centre of the anterior surface of which is fixed a round mass
of the same resinous substance, representing the pupil of the eye” (p.
301).
“Both nostrils had been distended.”
“In the right flank was a longitudinal incision, 3½ inches in length,
extending between the last rib and the crest of the ilium. This had
been very neatly closed by what is called in surgery the interrupted
suture.... The whole of the pelvic, abdominal and thoracic viscera had
been removed, and their place was occupied by four pieces of very soft
wood.... Except the wound in the flank, there was no other opening or
injury to the skin” (p. 391).
“Heads and bodies prepared in a similar way” are found in many museums,
and afford an interesting illustration of the old Egyptian practice of
paying special attention to the head. This is all the more instructive
in view of the fact that it was common in certain regions, especially
Mallicolo in the New Hebrides, to restore the features by means of clay
and resinous paste, usually making use of the skull as a basis, but
occasionally modelling the whole body,[17] the model including parts
of the deceased’s skeleton (see Henry Balfour’s article, “Memorial
Heads in the Pitt Rivers Museum,” _Man_, Vol. I., 1901, p. 65). These
modelling-practices and especially the fact that they usually deal with
the head (or even face) only afford an interesting confirmation of the
Egyptian origin of these customs (_vide supra_, etc., =40=).
In the 6th volume of the reports of the Cambridge Anthropological
Expedition to Torres Straits, C. S. Myers and Haddon (=25=, pp. 129 and
135) give a detailed account of the funeral ceremonies from which I quote
certain points. “As soon as death had occurred the women of the village
started wailing. The corpse was placed on the ground on a mat in front of
the house; the arms were placed close to the side; the great toes were
tied together by a string; the hair of the head and face was cut off
and thrown away; the length of the nose was then measured with a piece
of wax, which was preserved by a female relative for subsequent use in
making a wax mask for the prepared skull. The dead man’s bow and arrow
and his stone-headed club were laid beside him” (p. 129). The Egyptian
analogies in all of these procedures is quite obvious.
“Five men wearing masks performed a series of manœuvres ending up with
flexion of the arms and a bending of the head. This movement was said to
indicate the rising and setting of the sun and to be symbolic of the life
and death of man.
“Mourners then took the body and placed it upon a wooden framework, which
stood upon four wooden supports at a little distance from the house of
the deceased. The relatives then took large yams and placed them beside
the body on the framework; they also hung large bunches of bananas upon
the bamboos around. This was regarded as nourishment for the ghost, which
was supposed to eat it at night-time (p. 135).
“In two or three days when the skin of the body had become loose the
framework was taken up to the reef in a small canoe; the epidermis was
then rubbed off and by means of a sharp shell a small incision was made
in the side of the abdomen (in the right side, at least, in the case of
women), whence the viscera were extracted.
“The perineum was incised in the males.”
From a study of all the literature regarding this custom, as well as
the actual specimens now in Sydney and Brisbane, it is clear that
the incision may be made either in the left or right flank or in the
perineum, and that sex does not determine the site.
“The abdominal cavity was then filled up with pieces of Nipa palm; the
viscera were thrown into the sea and the incision closed by means of fine
fish line. An arrow was used to remove the brain, partly by way of the
foramen magnum and partly through a small slit which was made in the back
of the neck. The ‘strong skin’ of the brain (the dura mater) was first
cut and then the ‘soft skin’ was pulled out.
“The body was then brought back to the island and was placed in a sitting
position upon a stone; the entire body was then painted with a mixture
of red earth and sea water. The head, body and limbs were then lashed to
the framework with string and a small stick was affixed to the lower jaw
to keep it from drooping. The framework, with its burden, was fastened
vertically to two posts set up in the rear of the house, and it was
protected from public view by a screen of coconut leaves. The body was
then gently rubbed down and holes were made with the point of an arrow so
that the juices might escape. A fire was always kept alight beneath the
body, ‘by-n-by meat swell up’ (p. 136).
“D’Albertis (=1=) saw in Darnley Island the mummy of a man, who had been
dead over a year, standing in the middle of the widow’s house attached to
a kind of upright ladder of poles. They tint him from time to time with
red chalk (ochre) and keep his skin soft by anointing it with coconut
oil” (p. 137).
In the Berlin Museum für Volkerkunde there are mummies of two children,
photographs of which, obtained from Professor von Luschan, are reproduced
by Dr. Haddon. They were given to Dr. Bastian by the Rev. James Chamlers
in 1880, having been obtained at Stephen’s Island. One of them is a small
girl a few days old. The body is painted red all over, except the scalp
and eyebrows, which are blackened. The other one was a small girl two or
three years of age treated in a similar way; the incision for embalming
is on the _left_ side and has been sewn up.
“In 1845 Jukes saw on the lap of a woman of Darnley Island the body of
a child a few months old which seemed to have been dead for some time.
It was stretched on a framework of sticks and smeared over with a thick
red pigment, which dressing she was engaged in renewing. (“Voyage of the
‘Fly,’” Vol. I., 1847, p. 246)” (p. 138).
“Macgillivray (“Voyage of the ‘Rattlesnake,’” Vol. II., 1852, p. 48)
also refers to a mummy of a child in Darnley Island. Sketches of the two
Miriam mummies in the Brisbane Museum will be found on Plate 94 of Edge
Partington and Heape’s Ethnographical Album of the Pacific Islands, third
series. [Compare also Plate 2, Figure 4, in Brockett’s “Voyage to Torres
Straits,” Sydney, 1836]” (p. 137).
“On about the tenth day after death, when the hands and feet have become
partially dried, the relatives, using a bamboo knife, remove the skin
of the palms and soles, together with the nails, and then cut out the
tongue, which is put into a bamboo clamp so that it may be kept straight
while drying. These were presented to the widow, who henceforth wore
them” (p. 138).
A great deal of further information in regard to this practice is given
by Haddon and Myers in their important monograph. Among other things
they call attention once more to the custom of preserving the skull in
the Torres Straits Islands where mummification is practised. The use
of masks and ceremonial dances to assist the performers so as the more
realistically to play the part of the deceased is welcome confirmation of
the conclusion drawn from geographical distribution that such practices
were intimately related to mummification and form part of the ritual
genetically linked to it.
Dr. Hamlyn-Harris, the Director of the Queensland Museum, gives an
account (=27=) of the two mummies from the Torres Straits, which are
now in Brisbane; and he adds further interesting information which
he obtained from Mr. J. S. Bruce, of Murray Island, who was also one
of Dr. Haddon’s informants. During my recent visit to Australia Dr.
Hamlyn-Harris very kindly gave me every facility for examining these two
mummies (as well as the Australian mummies in the Queensland Museum); and
I also examined another specimen in the Macleay Museum of the University
of Sydney. I am preparing a full report on all of these interesting
specimens.
From the Torres Straits the practice of mummification spread to
Australia, as Flower (=19=), Frazer (=22=), Howitt (see Hertz, =33=),
Roth (=71=) and Hamlyn-Harris (=28=), among others, have described. Roth
says “Desiccation is a form of disposal of the dead practised only in the
case of very distinguished men. After being disembowelled and dried by
fire the corpse is tied up and carried about for months.” (=71=, p. 393).
The mummy was painted with red ochre (Fraser, =22=).
In Roth’s photographs, as well as in the mummies which I have had
the opportunity of examining, the embalming-incision was made in the
characteristically Egyptian situation in the left flank. In one of the
mummies in the Brisbane Museum (see =28=, plate 6) the head is severely
damaged. Examination of the specimen indicates that incisions had been
deliberately made. Perhaps it was an attempt to remove the brain, which
ended in destruction of the cranium.
A curious feature of Australian embalming is that the body was always
flexed, and not extended as in the Torres Straits. At first I was
inclined to believe that this may be due to the influence of the Early
Egyptian (Second Dynasty) procedure (=89=), but a fuller consideration of
the evidence leads me to the conclusion that the adoption of the flexed
position is due to syncretism with local burial customs, which were
being observed when the bringers of the “heliolithic” culture reached
Australia. It is probable that the boomerang came from Egypt, _viâ_ East
Africa, India (=12=) and Indonesia at the same time.
Several curious burial customs which may be regarded as degradations of
the practice of mummification occur in Australia, but the consideration
of these I must defer for the present.
In the discussion on Flower’s memoir (=19=), Hyde Clarke justly
emphasized “the importance of the demonstrations in reference to their
bearings on the connection of the Australian populations with those of
the main continents, and in the influence exerted in Australasia at a
former time by a more highly cultivated race. This, to his mind, was the
explanation of the relations of the higher culture, whether with regard
to language, marriage and kindred, weapon names, or modes of culture,
such as the mummies now described, the modes of incision, and form of
burial. He did not consider these institutions, as some great authorities
did, indigenous in Australia” (=19=, p. 394).
Corroborative evidence is now accumulating (=70=), which will definitely
establish the reality of the influence thus adumbrated by Clarke 37 years
ago.
Frazer (=22=, p. 80) says the burial (in Australia) on a raised stage
reminds him of the “towers of silence,” and adds:—“This novelty of a
raised stage can scarcely be a thing which our blacks have invented for
themselves since they came to Australia; and if it is a custom which
some portion of their ancestors brought with them into this country,
I would argue from it that these ancestors were once in contact with,
or rather formed part of, a race which had beliefs similar to those of
the Persians; such beliefs are not readily adopted by strangers; they
belong to a race.” Frazer proceeds to contrast this practice with the
other Australian custom of desiccation, which, he says, “corresponds to
the Egyptian practice of mummification” (p. 81): but, as Hertz (=33= _et
supra_) has pointed out, they were inspired by the same fundamental idea,
however much the present practitioners of the two methods may fail to
realize this in their beliefs and traditions. The interesting suggestion
emerges from these considerations that the peculiar Persian burial
customs may be essentially a degraded and profoundly modified form of the
ancient Egyptian funerary rites.
In his “Polynesian Researches” William Ellis (=15=) gives an interesting,
though unfortunately too brief, account of the Tahitian practice of
embalming. Among the poor and middle classes “methods of preservation
were too expensive” to be used, but the body was “placed upon a sort of
bier covered with the best native cloth” while awaiting burial (p. 399).
“The bodies of the dead, among the chiefs, were, however, in general
preserved above ground: a temporary house or shed was erected for them,
and they were placed on a kind of bier ... sometimes the moisture of the
body was removed by pressing the different parts, drying it in the sun,
and anointing it with fragrant oils. At other times, the intestines,
brains, etcetera were removed: all moisture was extracted from the body,
which was fixed in a sitting position during the day, and exposed to the
sun, and, when placed horizontally at night was frequently turned over,
that it might not remain long on the same side. The inside was then
filled with cloth saturated with perfumed oils, which were also injected
into other parts of the body, and carefully rubbed over the outside every
day” (pp. 400 and 401).
“It was then clothed, and fixed in a sitting posture; a small altar was
erected before it, and offerings of fruit, food and flowers, were daily
presented by the relatives, or the priests appointed to attend the body.
In this state it was preserved several months, and when it decayed, the
skull was carefully kept by the family, while the other bones etc. were
buried within the precincts of the family temple” (p. 401).
Ellis makes the significant comment:—“It is singular that the practice of
preserving the bodies of their dead by the process of embalming, which
has been thought to indicate a high degree of civilization, and which
was carried to such perfection by one of the most celebrated nations of
antiquity, some thousand years ago, should be found to prevail among
this people.” The whole of the circumstances attending the practice of
this custom, and the curious ritual and the behaviour of the mourners,
as described by Ellis, no less than the details of the process, in fact
afford the most positive evidence of its derivation from Egypt.
Ellis says “it is also practiced by other distant nations of the Pacific,
and on some of the coasts washed by its waters.” “In some of the islands
they dried the bodies, and, wrapping them in numerous folds of cloth,
suspended them from the roofs of their dwelling-houses” (p. 406).
Ellis notes the remarkable points of identity between the Tahitian
account of the deluge and not only the Hebrew but also those of the
Mexicans and Peruvians and many other peoples (p. 394).
In Glaumont’s summary (=24=, p. 517) five modes of burial are described
as being practised in New Caledonia. The first is burial in the flexed
position; 2nd, extended burial in caves; 3rd, exposure of the body in
trees or on the mountains; 4th, mummification; 5th, the body erect or
reposing in a dug-out canoe. With regard to the method of embalming,
this is practised only in the case of a chief. The body of a chief soon
after death was covered with pricks into which were introduced the juices
of certain plants with the object of preventing decomposition of the
tissues. Afterwards the body was suitably dried or smoked, then it was
dressed in its best clothes, its face painted red and black, and then
the body was preserved indefinitely. A hole was made at the top of the
hut, and by means of this they haul up the mummy. After it has been
exposed in this way for a certain time, the body was withdrawn from the
hole into the house, which was then carefully shut up and became taboo
with all that it contained. Analogous customs are found in New Zealand
and elsewhere in Oceania. A singularly strange custom is now in use in
the New Hebrides and in the Solomon Islands. The father and son, for
example, or the husband and wife, having just died, they smoke the head
alone as in New Zealand, but they make (with bamboo covered with cloth)
a mannikin, having roughly the human form; then they tattoo the whole of
the surface; fastened upon each shoulder—and this is the strange part
of it—is a piece of bamboo, to one of which they attach the father’s
head and the other that of his son. [The account is not altogether
intelligible here.] The heads are painted white and black. With reference
to the placing of the body in a canoe, this is reserved for chiefs only.
When a chief dies, messengers go in all directions, repeating “The sun is
set.” This expression springs from the idea that the chief is a god, the
supreme Sun-god.
These procedures afford a remarkably complete series of links with the
“heliolithic” cult as practised elsewhere in the west and east. The
account of the curious attachment of the heads to the shoulders of the
dummy figure throw some light upon the custom (to which I have referred
elsewhere in this communication) in Mallicolo (=61=, p. 138) and in
America of representing human faces on the shoulders of such models. It
is a remarkable fact that in certain of the Mallicolo figures the phallus
is fixed to the girdle in a very curious manner, exactly analogous to
that recently described and figured by Blackman from an Egyptian tomb of
the Middle Kingdom at Meir.
Embalming was a method rarely employed in New Zealand.
“After the extraction of the softer parts, oil or salt was rubbed into
the flesh, and the body was dried in the sun or over a fire; then the
mummy was wrapped in cloth and hidden away.”
“In some parts of New Zealand the skeletons of mummified bodies are found
in the crouching or sitting posture” (Macmillan Brown, =7=, p. 70).
In Schmidt’s _Jahrbücher der gesammten Medicin_, 1890, Bd. 226, p. 175,
there is an abstract of an article on Samoa by P. Burzen in which, among
other things, the three Egyptian operations of circumcision, massage and
mummification are described as being practiced.
The embalming is done by women. After removing the viscera, which are
buried or burnt, the eviscerated corpse is then soaked for two months in
coconut oil, mixed with vegetable juices. When the body is fully treated
and no more fluid escapes from it, the hair which had previously been cut
off, is stuck on again with a resinous paste. The body cavity is packed
with cloth soaked in vegetable oil and resinous materials: then the
mummy is wrapped up with bandages, the head and hands being left exposed.
The body so prepared is put in a special place where it is preserved
indefinitely.
“In Pitcairn Island 1,400 miles due west of Easter Island carved stone
pillars or images of a somewhat similar character to those of Easter
Island” are found (Enoch, =16=, p. 274).
“Another 1,400 miles to the north-west takes us to Tahiti. The natives
of Tahiti buried their chiefs in temples; their embalmed bodies, after
being exposed, were interred in a couching position. Mention is made of a
pyramidal stone structure, on which were the actual altars, which stood
at the farther end of one of the squares.”
“There are many close analogies between the sacrificial practices and
those of Mexico” (p. 275).
In their extensive migrations the carriers of the “heliolithic” culture
took with them the custom of circumcision, and introduced it into most of
the regions where their influence spread. In some of the areas affected
by the “heliolithic” leaven the more primitive operation of “incision”
is found. This consists not of removing the prepuce, but merely slitting
up its dorsal aspect (=69=, p. 432). It was the method employed in Egypt
in pre-dynastic times, when it was the custom to hide the phallus in a
leather sheath suspended from a rope tied round the body. The practice of
“incision” and the use of the pudendal sheath persists in some parts of
Africa until the present day (see _Journ. Roy. Anthropol. Instit._ 1913,
p. 120).
Rivers claims that “the practice of incision arose in Oceania as a
modification of circumcision” (=69=, p. 436): but I think the possibility
of it having been introduced from the west along with or before the
practice of circumcision needs to be considered.
Another remarkable practice which probably formed part of the
equipment of the heliolithic wanderers was massage. It was employed
by the Egyptians as early as the Sixth Dynasty, as we know from the
representations of the operations in a Sakkara _mastaba_ (Capart, =11=).
Piorry (=57=) has given an account of the wide range of the practice
of massage, from Egypt to India, China and Tahiti, and the high state
of efficiency attained in its use in ancient times in India and China.
The Chinese manuscript _Kong-Fau_ contained detailed accounts of the
operation. Piorry remarks, “it is clear that for us its development did
not originate from the practices described in the books of Cong-tzée or
the compilation of Susrata.”
From Rivers’ interesting account of massage in Melanesia (=67=) it is
evident that the method must have an origin common to it and the modern
European practice, and that it could not have arisen amongst a barbarous
people like the Melanesians, who have the most extraordinary conceptions
as to why and how it serves a therapeutic purpose. Although we have no
evidence to prove that massage spread along with the heliolithic culture,
the fact that it has a similar geographical distribution, and certainly
was extensively practised in Egypt long before the great migration
began, suggests that it may represent another Egyptian element of that
remarkable culture-complex.
In his masterly analysis of the cultures of Oceania (=69=) Rivers has
given a useful summary of the evidence relating to the practice of
preserving the body, and has drawn certain inferences from these and
other burial practices, which I propose to examine. “In some cases,
as in Tikopia, interment takes place either in the house or within a
structure representing a house, while in Tonga and Samoa the bodies of
chiefs are interred in vaults built of stone. Often the body is buried in
a canoe or in a hollowed log of wood, which represents a canoe” (=69=, p.
269). From the evidence to which reference has been made in the course
of the present memoir it is unnecessary to insist at any length on the
importance and obvious significance of these facts. But I question the
inference Rivers draws (p. 270) from the burial in boats. He says “the
practice can be regarded as a result of the fact of migration, and does
not show that the use of a canoe was the practice of the immigrants
in their original home.” The practice is so widespread, however, and
in Egypt and elsewhere had such a deep-rooted significance that it is
difficult to believe this custom was not brought by the immigrants with
them. I am willing to admit that the special circumstances of the people
of Oceania naturally emphasized what may be called the “boat-element”
in the funerary ritual; but the association of the use of boats with
burial is so curious and constant a feature of the “heliolithic” culture
where-ever it manifests itself (_vide supra_) as hardly to have arisen
independently in different parts of the area of distribution.
“A second mode of treatment is preservation of the body, either in the
house or on a stage often covered with a roof. Some kind of mummification
is usually practised in these cases, by continual rubbing with oil,
drying by means of a fire, and puncture of the body to hasten the
disappearance of the products of decomposition.”
“In some parts of Samoa there is a definite process of embalming in
which the viscera are removed and buried. A body thus treated lies on a
platform resting upon a double canoe, and in many other places a canoe
is used as a receptacle for the body while it is undergoing the process
of mummification” (p. 269). This association of the use of a canoe with
a method of preservation obviously Egyptian in origin naturally provokes
comparison with the use of boats in the Egyptian funeral ceremonies.
An instance is the boat found in the tomb of Amenophis II. (=81=). The
platform is probably a type of bed found elsewhere in the region under
consideration (see, for instance, Roth’s account of the Queensland
sleeping-platform) and represents the bier found so often elsewhere
(_vide supra_). This is in no way inconsistent with Rivers’ view that
“exposure of the dead on platforms is only a survival of preservation in
a house” (p. 273).
Earlier in this memoir I have explained why the Egyptians came to attach
special importance to the head, and how the less cultured people of
Africa, when faced with the difficulties of preserving the body, saved
the skull (or in some cases the jaw). When it is recalled how widespread
this custom is in other parts of the “heliolithic area,” and how
deep-rooted were the ideas which prompted so curious a procedure, Rivers’
independent inference in regard to this matter is fully confirmed. “Many
practices become intelligible as elements of a single culture if we
suppose that a people imbued with the necessity for the preservation
of the body after death acquired ... the further idea that the skull
is the representative of the body as a whole; if they came to believe
that the purpose for which they had hitherto preserved the body could
be fulfilled as well if the head only were kept” (p. 273). This is
unquestionably true: but I dissent from Rivers’ qualification that this
modification happened “perhaps in the course of their wanderings towards
Oceania,” because it has already been seen that it had occurred before
the wanderers set out from the East African coast. There is, of course,
the possibility that Africa may have been influenced by a cultural reflux
from Indonesia, such as has been demonstrated in the case of Madagascar;
but there are reasons for believing that the facts under consideration
cannot be explained in this way.
In thus venturing upon criticisms of Rivers’ great monograph I should
like especially to emphasize the fact that these comments do not refer
in any way to his attack on the “orthodox” ethnological position. On
the contrary, the views that I am setting forth in this communication
represent a further extension of Rivers’ own attitude that the Oceanic
cultures have been derived mainly from contacts with other peoples. A
series of practices which he has hesitated to recognise as having been
introduced, but inclined to regard as local developments, I hold to be
part of the immigrant culture. The use of boats for burial, the custom
of regarding the head as an efficient representative of the whole body
and the practice of “incision” as well as circumcision (=69=, p. 432)
are examples of customs, which he regards as local developments in the
Pacific: but all three are equally distinctive of Ancient Egypt and occur
at widely separated localities along the great “heliolithic” track. The
linking-up of sun-worship with all the other elements of the “heliolithic
cult” also compels me to question his limitation of such worship to
certain regions only in Oceania (=69=, p. 549); even though I fully admit
that the data used by Rivers are not sufficient to justify any further
inference than he has drawn from them.
My aim is then, not an attempt to weaken Rivers’ general attitude, but
enormously to strengthen it, by demonstrating that each culture-complex
was brought into the Pacific in an even more complete form than he had
postulated. Nor does my criticism affect his hypothesis of a series of
cultural waves into Oceania. Here, again, I am prepared to go not only
the whole way with him, but even further, and to seek for additional
cultural influences which he has not yet defined.
Most modern writers who refer in any way to the preserved bodies which
have been found in vast numbers in Peru and in other parts of America
assume that these bodies have been preserved not by embalming or any
other artificial method or mode of treatment, but simply as the result
of desiccation by the unaided forces of nature. Although in the great
majority of cases there are no obvious signs of any artificial means
having been employed to preserve the bodies, yet a not inconsiderable
number of examples have come to light to demonstrate the reality of the
practice of mummification in America (=3=; =37=; =58=; =63=; and =106=).
Yarrow’s classical monograph (=106=) established the reality of the
practice of embalming in America quite conclusively. Moreover the fact
that practically every item of the multitude of curiously distinctive
practices found widespread in other parts of the world, in the most
intimate association with methods of embalming certainly inspired by
Egypt, puts it beyond all reasonable doubt that the variety of American
practices for preserving the body is also to be attributed to the same
source.
In his book on the “History of the Conquest of Peru,” Prescott makes the
following statement:—“When an Inca died (or, to use his own language, was
called home to the mansion of his father, the Sun) his obsequies were
celebrated with great pomp and solemnity. The bowels were taken from the
body and deposited in the Temple of Tampu, about five leagues from the
capital. A quantity of his plate and jewels was buried with him, and a
number of his attendants and favourite concubines, amounting sometimes,
it is said, to a thousand, were immolated on his tomb....
“The body of the deceased Inca was skilfully embalmed and removed to
the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco. There the Peruvian sovereign on
entering the awful sanctuary might behold the effigies of his royal
ancestors, ranged in opposite files—the men on the right and their queens
on the left of the great luminary which blazed in refulgent gold on the
walls of the temple. The bodies, clothed in princely attire which they
had been accustomed to wear, were placed on chairs of gold, and sat
with their heads inclined downwards, their hands placidly crossed over
their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural dusky hue—less
liable to change than the fresher colouring of a European complexion—and
their hair of raven black, or silvered over with age, according to the
period at which they died. It seemed like a company of solemn worshippers
fixed in devotion, so true were the forms and lineaments to life. The
Peruvians were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt
to perpetuate the existence of the body beyond the limits assigned to
it by nature. [Note—Ondegardo, Rel. Prim., M.S.—Garcilasso, Com. Real.,
parte i., lib. v., cap. xxix. The Peruvians secreted their mummies of
their sovereigns after the Conquest, that they might not be profaned
by the insults of the Spaniards. Ondegardo, when corregidor of Cuzco,
discovered five of them, three males and two females. The former were the
bodies of Viracocha, of the great Tupac, Inca Yupanqui, and of his son,
Huayna Cupac. Garcilasso saw them in 1650. They were dressed in their
regal robes, with no insignia but the llautu on their heads. They were
in a sitting position, and, to use his own expression, ‘perfect as life,
without so much as a hair of an eyebrow wanting.’ As they were carried
through the streets, decently shrouded with a mantle, the Indians threw
themselves on their knees, in sign of reverence, with many tears and
groans, and were still more touched as they beheld some of the Spaniards
themselves doffing their caps in token of respect to departed royalty.
(_Ibid._ _ubi supra._) The bodies were subsequently removed to Lima; and
Father Acosta, who saw them there some twenty years later, speaks of them
as still in perfect preservation]” (=58=, pp. 19 and 20).
Later on in the same work Prescott, relying again on the somewhat,
questionable authority of Garcilasso’s works, makes a statement which in
some respects may seem to be at variance with what I have just quoted:—
“It was this belief in the resurrection of the body which led them to
preserve the body with so much solicitude—by a simple process, however,
that unlike the elaborate embalming of the Egyptians, consisted in
exposing it to the action of the cold, exceedingly dry and highly
rarified atmosphere of the mountains. [Note.—Such indeed seems to be the
opinion of Garcilasso, though some writers speak of resinous and other
applications for embalming the body. The appearance of the royal mummies
found at Cuzco, as reported both by Ondegardo and Garcilasso, makes it
probable that no foreign substance was employed for their preservation.]
As they believed that the occupations in the future world would have
great resemblance to those of the present, they buried with the deceased
noble some of his apparel, his utensils, and frequently his treasures;
and completed the gloomy ceremony by sacrificing his wives and favourite
domestics to bear him company and do him service in the happy regions
beyond the clouds. Vast mounds of an irregular or more frequently oblong
shape, penetrated by galleries running at right angles to each other
were raised over the dead, whose dried bodies or mummies have been found
in considerable numbers, sometimes erect, but more often in the sitting
posture common to the Indian tribes of both continents” (p. 54).
In the light of the information concerning the practices in other parts
of the world, which I have collected in the present memoir, there can
be no doubt of the substantial accuracy of these reports, and that they
refer to real embalming and not to mere natural desiccation.
Hrdlička has adduced positive evidence of the adoption of embalming
procedures (=37=).
In his report, “Culture of the Ancient Pueblos of the Upper Gila River
Region, New Mexico and Arizona,” Walter Hough (=36=) publishes excellent
photographs of two mummies of babies, but he gives no information as to
the method of preservation.
There are four Peruvian mummies in the Anatomical Museum in the
University of Manchester, three of which are adults, and one of them a
baby. In only one of them is there any positive evidence of artificial
measures having been adopted for the preservation of the body, and in
this case the condition of the mummy was a most amazing one. The body
was clad in woollen garments in the usual way, and was wearing a woollen
peaked cap, the apex of which was furnished with a bunch of feathers. The
body was placed in a sitting position, and a large wound extending across
the trunk had been covered with cloth strongly impregnated with resinous
material. The legs were sharply flexed upon the body and the arms were
bound up in front. But to my intense amazement I found the shoulder
blades on the front of the chest, and on examination found that the
thorax was turned back to front. As the head was already separate there
was nothing to show what position it originally occupied; and it seemed
impossible to explain how it had been possible to twist the vertebral
column in the lumbar region as to bring the thorax back to front. In
order to solve this mystery I removed the resin-impregnated cloth, which
was firmly fixed to the abdominal wound, and found that the body had
been cut right across the abdomen and packed with wool after the viscera
had been removed. Then the abdomen and thorax had been stuck together by
means of the broad strip of cloth with resinous paste as an adhesive.
But for some reason which is not very apparent, or probably through mere
carelessness, the thorax had been placed the wrong way round, and it
had become necessary, in order to restore some semblance of life-like
appearance to the monstrosity, forcibly to twist the arms at the shoulder
joints in order to get them into the position above described. [Since
this was written I have learned that in certain American tribes it is
the custom to dress the corpse with a coat turned back to front. This
seems to suggest that the curious procedure just described may have been
dictated by the same underlying idea, whatever it may be.] In the cranium
of this case the remains of the desiccated brain were still present,
and although there was a quantity of brownish powder along with it, the
evidence was not sufficiently definite to say whether or not any foreign
material had been introduced into the cranial cavity. In the case of the
other three bodies, as I have already mentioned, there was no evidence,
apart from the excellent state of preservation, to suggest what measures
had been taken to hinder the process of decomposition.
In his account of the obsequies of the Aztec kings, Bancroft (=3=,
Vol. II., p. 603) tells us that “the body was washed with aromatic
water, extracted chiefly from trefoil, and occasionally a process of
embalming was resorted to. The bowels were taken out and replaced by
aromatic substances.” “The art was an ancient one, however, dating from
the Toltecs as usual, yet generally known and practised throughout the
whole country” (p. 604). He then proceeds to describe “a curious mode
of preserving bodies used by the lord of Chalco,” which consisted of
desiccation; and adds a singularly interesting reference to libations,
not only curiously reminiscent of the ancient Egyptian practice, but also
described in language which might be regarded as a paraphrase of the
Pyramid text expounded by Blackman (=5=). “Water was then poured upon its
[the mummy’s] head with these words: ‘this is the water which thou usedst
in this world’—Brasseur de Bourbourg uses the expression ‘C’est cette eau
que tu as reçue en venant au monde’” (Bancroft, =3=, Vol. II., p. 604).
It is altogether inconceivable that such a curious practice, embodying so
remarkable an idea, could by chance have been invented independently in
Egypt and in America. This can be no mere coincidence, but proof of the
most definite kind of the derivation of these Toltec and Aztec ideas from
Egypt.
Bancroft further describes (=3=, p. 604 _et seq._) a whole series of
other ritual observances, many of which find close parallels in the
scenes depicted in the royal Egyptian tombs of the New Empire.
I have already referred to Tylor’s case (=102=) of the adoption _in toto_
by the Aztecs of the Japanese Buddhist’s story of the soul’s wanderings
in the spirit-land. In the case recorded by Bancroft almost the same
story is reproduced, but with the characteristic Egyptian additions
relating to parts of the way guarded by a gigantic snake and an alligator
respectively [in the Egyptian ritual it is of course the Crocodile; see
Budge, “The Egyptian Heaven and Hell,” Vol. 1, p. 159]. This is a most
remarkable example of syncretism between the Egyptian ritual of the New
Empire with Buddhist practices on the distant shores of America.
As the connecting link between the Old and New World, it may be noted
that in Oceania “everywhere is the belief that the soul after death must
undertake a journey, beset with various perils, to the abode of departed
spirits, which is usually represented as lying towards the west” (=61=,
p. 138).
Reutter (=63=) gives a summary of information relating to the practice of
embalming in the New World and particularly amongst the Incas. The custom
of preserving the body was not general in every case, for amongst certain
peoples only the bodies of kings and chiefs were embalmed. The Indian
tribes of Virginia, of North Carolina, the Congarees of South Carolina,
the Indians of the North-West Coast, of Central America and those of
Florida practised this custom as well as the Incas. In Florida the body
was dried before a big fire, then it was clothed in rich materials and
afterwards it was placed in a special niche in a cave where the relatives
and friends used to come on special days and converse with the deceased.
According to Beverley (1722) the tribes of Virginia practised embalming
in the following way:—The skin was incised from the head to the feet
and the viscera as well as the soft parts of the body were removed.
To prevent the skin from drying up and becoming brittle oil and other
fatty materials were applied to it. In Kentucky when the body had been
dried and filled with fine sand it was wrapped in skins or in matting
and buried either in a cave or in a hut. In Colombia the inhabitants of
Darien used to remove the viscera and fill the body cavity with resin,
afterwards they smoked the body and preserved it in their houses reposing
either in a hammock or in a wooden coffin. The Muiscas, the Aleutians,
the inhabitants of Yucatan and Chiapa also embalmed the bodies of their
kings, of their chiefs, and of their priests by methods similar to those
just described, with modifications varying from tribe to tribe. Reutter
acknowledges as the source of most of his information the memoirs of
Bauwenns, entitled “Inhumation et Cremation,” and Parcelly, “Étude
Historique et Critique des Embaumements”; but most of it has clearly
been obtained from Yarrow’s great monograph (=106=). Alone amongst the
people of the New World who practised embalming the Incas employed it not
only for their kings, chiefs and priests, but also for the population
in general. These people were not confined to Peru, but dwelt also in
Bolivia, in Equador, as well as in a part of Chili and of the Argentine.
Mummified bodies were placed in monuments called Chullpas. According
to De Morcoy these Chullpas were constructed of unbaked brick and were
sometimes built in the form of a truncated pyramid, twenty to thirty feet
high, in other cases simple mausolea of a simple monolith. The burial
chamber inside them was square and as many as a dozen mummies might be
buried in a single one. The bodies were sharply flexed and were placed in
a sitting position. An interesting and curious fact about these mummies,
or at any rate those from Upper Peru, was that all of them presented on
the forehead or on the occiput a circle composed of small holes through
the wall of the cranium, which had probably been used for evacuating the
brain and for the introduction of preservative substances.
Yarrow (=106=) refers to the fact that the Indians of the North-West
coast and the Aleutian Islands also embalm their dead. This, like the
practice of tattooing (Buckland, =10=), serves to map out the possible
alternative northern route taken by the spread of culture from Asia to
America (_vide supra_ the account of Aino embalming; also _Map II._).
In his account of the Araucanos of Southern Chile (_Journ. Roy. Anthr.
Inst._, Vol. 39, 1909, p. 364) Latcham describes how, when a person of
importance dies of disease, these people believe that some one must
have poisoned him. They “open the side of the deceased” and extract the
gall-bladder, so as to obtain from the bile contained in it some clue
as to the guilty person. “The corpse is then hung in a wicker frame and
under it a fire is kept smouldering till such time as the perpetrator be
found and punished.”
This confused jumble of practices suggestive of a blending of the
influences of Egyptian embalming and Babylonian hepatoscopy is also
obviously linked to the customs of Oceania and Indonesia.
Scattered in certain protected localities along the whole extent of the
great “heliolithic” track the ancient Egyptian [also Chaldean and Indian]
practice of burial in large urns or jars occurs. In America also it is
found; but, according to Yarrow, it is restricted to certain people of
New Mexico and California, although similar urns have been found in
Nicaragua.
After the coming of the first great “heliolithic” wave, Asiatic
civilization did not cease to influence America.
There are innumerable signs of the later effects of both Western and
Eastern Asiatic developments. For instance, there is the coming of the
practice of cremation. The fact that such burial customs are spread
sporadically in the islands of the Pacific suggests that the custom may
have been carried to America by the same route as the main stream of the
“heliolithic” cult; but against this is the evidence that cremation was
practised especially on the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains, and in
Mexico rather than in Peru. It seems more probable that the main stream
of the later wave of culture, of which cremation is the most distinctive
practice, took the northern route skirting the eastern Asiatic littoral
and then following the line of the Aleutian Islands.
In the account of the method of mummification adopted by the Virginian
Indians (_supra_) it was seen that the whole skin was removed and
afterwards fitted on to the skeleton again. Great care and skill had
to be used to prevent the skin shrinking. Apparently the difficulties
of this procedure led certain Indian tribes to give up the attempt to
prevent the skin shrinking. Thus the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador, as
well as certain tribes in the western Amazon area, make a practice of
preserving the head only, and, after removing the skull, allowing the
softer tissues to shrink to a size not much bigger than a cricket ball
(=44=; =52=, p. 252, and =61=, p. 288).
According to Page (=52=), who has described one of the two Jivaro
specimens now in the Manchester Museum, desiccation by heat was the
method of preservation. He adds, “‘Momea’ and ‘Chancha’ are the names
commonly given to such specimens by the natives.” Surely the former must
be a Spanish importation!
A comparison of this variety in the methods of preserving the body
in America with the series of similar practices which I have been
following from the African shore, makes it abundantly plain that there
can be no doubt as to the source of the American inspiration to do such
extraordinary things. The remarkable burial ritual and all the associated
procedures afford strong corroborative evidence.
But the proof of the influence of the civilizations of the Old World on
pre-Columbian America does not depend upon the evidence of one set of
practices, however complex, bizarre and distinctive they may be.
The positive demonstration that I have endeavoured to build up in this
communication depends upon the fact that the whole of the complex
structure of the “heliolithic” culture, which was slowly built up in
Egypt during the course of the thirty centuries before 900 B.C., spread
to the east, acquiring on its way accretions from the civilizations of
the Mediterranean, Western Asia, Eastern Africa, India, Eastern Asia and
Indonesia and Oceania, until it reached America. Like a potent ferment it
gradually began to leaven the vast and widespread aboriginal culture of
the Americas.
The rude megalithic architecture of America bears obvious evidences of
the same inspiration which prompted that of the Old World; and so far
as the more sumptuous edifices are concerned the primary stimulus of
Egyptian ideas, profoundly modified by Babylonian, and to a less extent
Indian and Eastern Asiatic, influences is indubitable. Comparison of the
truncated pyramids of America, of the Pacific, Eastern Asia and Indonesia
with those of ancient Chaldea, affords quite definite corroboration of
these views. It would be idle to pretend that so complex a design and so
strange a symbolism as the combination of the sun’s disc with the serpent
and the greatly expanded wings of a hawk, carved upon the lintel of the
door of a temple of the sun, could possibly have developed independently
in Ancient Egypt and in Mexico (see especially Bancroft, =3=, Vol. IV.,
p. 351).
But it is not merely the designs of the buildings and their association
with the practice of mummification (and later, in Mexico, with
cremation), but the nature of the cult of the temples and all the
traditions associated with them that add further corroboration. Thus, for
example, Wake (=103=, p. 383), describing the geographical distribution
of serpent-worship (the intimate bond of which with sun-worship and in
fact the whole “heliolithic” cult was forged in Egypt, as I have already
explained), writes:—“Quetzalcoatl, the divine benefactor of the Mexicans,
was an incarnation of the serpent-sun Tonacatlcoatl, who thus became the
great father, as the female serpent Cihuacoatl was the great mother, of
the human race.” “The solar character of the serpent-god appears to be
placed beyond all doubt.... The kings and priests of ancient peoples
claimed this divine origin, and ‘children of the sun’ was the title of
the members of the sacred caste. When the actual ancestral character
of the deity is hidden he is regarded as ‘the father of his people’
and their divine benefactor. He is the introducer of agriculture, the
inventor of arts and sciences, and the civilizer of mankind.”
Writing of the Maya empire, Bancroft (=3=, Vol. V., p. 233) says:—“The
Plumed Serpent, known in different tongues as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz,
and Cukulcan, was the being who traditionally founded the new order of
things.”
Even the most trivial features of the “heliolithic” culture-complex make
their appearance in America. Thus, for example, Harrison tells us that:—
“The artificial enlargement of the lobe [of the ear] appears originally
to have been adopted in India for the purpose of receiving a solar disc”
(=29=, p. 193).
“The early Spanish historian mentioned that an elaborate religious
ceremony took place in the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, on the occasion of
boring the ears of the young Peruvian nobles” (p. 196).
“The practice of enlarging the ear lobes was connected with Sun-worship”
(p. 198).
So also in the case of circumcision, tattooing, and almost every one of
the curious customs I have enumerated in the foregoing account. Then,
again, all the characteristic stories of the creation, the deluge, the
petrifaction of human beings and of spirits dwelling in rocks, and of
the origin of the chosen people from an incestuous union make their
appearance in Mexico, Peru and elsewhere.
The peculiar Swastika symbol, associated with the “heliolithic” cult by
pure chance in the place of its origin, which the people of Timor, in
Indonesia, regard as the ancient emblem of fire, the Son of the Sun, also
appears in America.
Even so bizarre a practice as the artificial deformation of the head
(=48=, pp. 515 to 519), which seems to have originated in Armenia,
became added to the repertoire of the fantastic collection of tricks of
the “heliolithic” wanderers, and was adopted sporadically by numerous
isolated groups of people along the great migration route. For some
reason this strange idea “caught on” in America to a greater extent than
elsewhere and spread far and wide throughout the greater part of the
continent.
Many other curious customs might be cited as straws that indicate clearly
which way the stream of culture has flowed. For instance Keane (=42=, p.
264) states that “like the Burmese the Nicobarese place a piece of money
in the mouth of a corpse before burial to help it in the other world”;
and Hutchinson (=38=, p. 448) supplies the link across the Pacific:—“Men,
women and children [in ancient Peru] had frequently a bit of copper
between the teeth, like the obolus which the pagan Romans used to place
in the mouth to pay ferry to the boatman Charon for passage across the
Styx.”
This reference to Charon reminds us also of the widespread custom,
apparently originating in Egypt and spread far and wide, right out into
the Pacific and America, of the association of a boat with the funerary
ritual, to ferry the mummy to the west.
Certain distinctive aspects of phallism in America might also be
mentioned as evidence of the influence of Old World practices.
In the appendix (part 1) to his “Conquest of Mexico,” Prescott (=59=)
summarises fully and fairly the large and highly suggestive mass of
evidence available at the time when he wrote in favour of the view that
the pre-Columbian civilization of Mexico and Peru had been inspired from
Asia. In view of the apparent conclusiveness of his statement of the
evidence it becomes a matter of some interest and importance to enquire
into the reasons which, in the face of the apparently overwhelming
testimony of the facts he has summarised, restrained him from adopting
the obvious conclusion to which his whole argument points.
Referring to the numerous islands of the Pacific as one means of access
of population to America, Prescott quotes Cook’s voyages to illustrate
how easily the Polynesians travelled from island to island hundreds of
miles apart, and adds, “it would be strange if these wandering barks
should not sometimes have been intercepted by the great continent, which
stretches across the globe, in unbroken continuity, almost from pole to
pole.
“Whence did the refinement of these more polished races [of America]
come? Was it only a higher development of the same Indian character,
which we see, in the more northern latitudes, defying every attempt at
permanent civilization? Was it engrafted on a race of higher order in
the scale originally, but self-instructed, working its way upward by
its own powers? Was it, in short, an indigenous civilization? or was
it borrowed, in some degree, from the nations of the Eastern world? If
indigenous, how are we to explain the singular coincidence with the East
in institutions and opinions? If Oriental, how shall we account for the
great dissimilarity in language, and for the ignorance of some of the
most simple and useful arts, which, once known, it would seem scarcely
possible should have been forgotten? This is the riddle of the Sphinx,
which no Œdipus has yet had the ingenuity to solve.”
In the light of the facts brought together in the present memoir, it
requires no Œdipus to answer the riddle. For the only two objections
which Prescott raises in opposition to the great mass of evidence he
cites in favour of the derivation of American civilization from the
Old World can easily be disposed of. Rivers has completely disposed of
one by his demonstration of the fact that people—moreover those on the
direct route across the Pacific to America—do actually “forget simple
and useful arts” (=65=). The other objection is equally easily disposed
of, when it is remembered that it requires only a few people of higher
culture to leaven a large mass of lower culture with the elements of a
higher civilization (see also on this point, Rivers, =68=). Moreover, if
language is made a test, the affinities of the various American tribes
one with the other would have to be denied. Thus, the language difficulty
cuts both ways. But when we have disposed of his objections, the whole of
his admirable summary then becomes valid as an argument in favour of the
derivation of American culture from Asia across the Pacific.
Since then it has become the fashion on the part of most ethnologists
either contemptuously to put aside the probability or even the
possibility of the derivation of American civilization from the Old
World (characteristic examples of this attitude will be found in Fewkes’
address, =18=, and Keane’s text-book, =41=). On the other side the
discussion has been seriously compromised from time to time by a wholly
uncritical and often recklessly inexact use of the evidence in support
of the reality of the contact, which has to some extent prejudiced the
serious discussion of the problem. Perhaps the least objectionable of
such unfortunate attempts are Macmillan Brown’s (=7=) and Enoch’s books
(=16=). The former has been led astray by grotesque errors in chronology
and the failure to realize that useful arts can be lost. Enoch, on the
other hand, has collected a large series of interesting but incompatible
statements, and has made no serious attempt to sift or assimilate them.
But from time to time serious students, proceeding with the caution
befitting the discussion of so difficult a problem, have definitely
expressed their adherence to the view that elements of culture did spread
across, or around, the Pacific from Asia to America (=8=; =9=; =10=;
=15=; =20=; =21=; =29=; =30=; =38=; =48=; =49=; =50=; =51=; =60=; =73=;
=102=; =103= and =105=). Among modern demonstrations I would especially
call attention to the evidence collected by Dall (=73=, p. 395), Cyrus
Thomas (=73=, p. 396), Tylor (=102=) and Zelia Nuttall (=49= and =50=),
and of the older literature the remarkable statement of Ellis (=15=,
p. 117). [In Mrs. Nuttall’s monograph (=49=) there is a great deal,
especially in the introductory part, to which serious objection must
be taken: but in spite of the strong bias in favour of “psychological
explanation” with which she started, eventually she was compelled to
admit the force of the evidence for the spread of culture.]
For detailed statements concerning the discussions of this problem in
the past the reader is referred to Bancroft’s excellent summary (=3=),
which also supplies a wonderfully rich storehouse of facts and traditions
wholly corroborative of the conclusions at which I have arrived in the
present memoir.
I find it difficult to conceive how there could ever have been any doubt
about the matter on the part of anyone who knows his “Bancroft.”
It will naturally be asked, if the case in proof of the actual diffusion
of culture from Asia to America is so overwhelmingly convincing, on what
grounds is assent refused? One school (of which the most characteristic
utterance that I know of is Fewkes’ presidential address, =18=) refuses
to discuss the evidence: with pontifical solemnity it lays down the dogma
of independent evolution as an infallible principle which it is almost
sacrilege to question. I can best illustrate the methods of the other
school of reactionaries by a sample of its dialectic.
No single incident in the discussion of the origin of American
civilization has given rise to greater consternation in the ranks of the
“orthodox” ethnologists than Tylor’s statement (=102=):—
“The conception of weighing in a spiritual balance in the judgment of
the dead, which makes its earliest appearance in the Egyptian religion,
was traced thence into a series of variants, serving to draw lines of
intercourse through the Vedic and Zoroastrian religions, extending from
Eastern Buddhism to Western Christendom. The associated doctrine of
the Bridge of the Dead, which separates the good, who pass over, from
the wicked, who fall into the abyss, appears first in ancient Persian
religion, reaching in like manner to the extremities of Asia and Europe.
By these mythical beliefs historical ties are practically constituted,
connecting the great religions of the world, and serving as lines along
which their interdependence is to be followed out. Evidence of the same
kind was brought forward in support of the theory, not sufficiently
recognised by writers on culture history, of the Asiatic influences under
which the pre-Columbian culture of America took shape. In the religion
of old Mexico four great scenes in the journey of the soul in the land
of the dead are mentioned by early Spanish writers after the conquest,
and are depicted in a group in the Aztec picture-writing known as the
Vatican Codex. The four scenes are, first, the crossing of the river;
second, the fearful passage of the soul between the two mountains which
clash together; third, the soul’s climbing up the mountain set with sharp
obsidian knives; fourth, the dangers of the wind carrying such knives on
its blast. The Mexican pictures of these four scenes were compared with
more or less closely corresponding pictures representing scenes from the
Buddhist hells or purgatories as depicted on Japanese temple scrolls.
Here, first, the river of death is shown, where the souls wade across;
second, the souls have to pass between two huge iron mountains, which are
pushed together by two demons; third, the guilty souls climb the mountain
of knives, whose blades cut their hands and feet; fourth, fierce blasts
of wind drive against their lacerated forms, the blades of knives flying
through the air. It was argued that the appearance of analogues so close
and complex of Buddhist ideas in Mexico constituted a correspondence
of so high an order as to preclude any explanation except direct
transmission from one religion to another. The writer, referring also to
Humboldt’s argument from the calendars and mythic catastrophes in Mexico
and Asia, and to the correspondence in Bronze Age work and in games in
both regions, expressed the opinion that on these cumulative proofs
anthropologists might well feel justified in treating the nations of
America as having reached their level of culture under Asiatic influence.”
One might have imagined that such an instance, especially when backed
with the authority[18] of our greatest anthropologist, who certainly has
no bias in favour of the views I am promulgating, would have carried
conviction to the mind of anyone willing to be convinced by precise
evidence. But not to Mr. Keane! In endeavouring to whittle down the
significance of this crucial case, he incidentally illustrates the
lengths of unreason to which this school of ethnologists will push their
argument, when driven to formulate a _reductio ad absurdum_ without
realizing the magnitude of the absurdity their blind devotion to a
catch-word impels them to perpetrate.
In Keane’s “Ethnology” (=41=, pp. 217-219) the following passages are
found:—
“It is further to be noticed that religious ideas, like social usages,
are easily transmitted from tribe to tribe, from race to race. [Most of
my critics base their opposition on a denial of these very assumptions!]
Hence resemblances in this order, where they arise, must rank very low as
ethnical tests. If not the product of a common cerebral structure, they
can prove little beyond social contact in remote or later times. A case
in point is [Tylor’s statement, which I have just quoted].
“The parallelism is complete; but the range of thought is extremely
limited—nothing but mountains and knives, beside the river of death
common to Egyptians, Greeks, and all peoples endowed with a little
imagination.” “Hence Prof. E. B. Tylor, who calls attention to the
points of resemblance, builds far too much on them when he adduces
them as convincing evidence of pre-Columbian culture in America taking
shape under Asiatic influences. In the same place he refers to
Humboldt’s argument based on the similarity of calendars and of mythical
catastrophes. But the ‘mythical catastrophes,’ floods and the like, have
long been discounted, while the Mexican calendar, despite the authority
of Humboldt’s name, presents no resemblance whatsoever to those of the
‘Tibetan and Tartar tribes,’ or to any other of the Asiatic calendars
with which it has been compared. ‘There is absolutely no similarity
between the Tibetan calendar and the primitive form of the American,’
which, ‘was not intended as a year-count, but as a ritual and formulary,’
and whose signs ‘had nothing to do with the signs of the zodiac, as
had all those of the Tibetan and Tartar calendars’ (D. G. Brinton, ‘On
various supposed Relations between the American and Asian races,’ from
_Memoirs of the International Congress of Anthropology_, Chicago, p.
148). Regarding all such analogies as may exist ‘between the culture
and customs of Mexico and those of China, Cambodia, Assyria, Chaldæa,
and Asia Minor,’ Dr. Brinton asks pertinently, ‘Are we, therefore, to
transport all these ancient peoples, or representatives of them, into
Mexico?’ (_ib._ p, 147). So Lefevre, who regards as ‘quite chimerical’
the attempts made to trace such resemblances to the Old World. ‘If there
are coincidences, they are fortuitous, or they result from evolution,
which leads all the human group through the same stages and by the same
steps’ (‘Race and Language,’ p. 185).
“Many far more inexplicable coincidencies than any of those here referred
to occur in different regions, where not even contact can be suspected.
Such is the strange custom of _Couvade_, which is found to prevail among
peoples so widely separated as the Basques and Guiana Indians, who could
never have either directly or indirectly in any way influenced each
other” (=34=).
It is surely unnecessary to comment at length upon this quibbling, which
is a fair sample of the kind of self-destructive criticism one meets
in ethnological discussions nowadays. Talking of the “limitation of
the range of thought” when out of the unlimited possibilities for its
unhampered activities the human mind hit upon four episodes of such a
fantastic nature, Keane taxes the credulity of his readers altogether too
much when he solemnly tries to persuade them that such ideas are the most
natural things in the world for mankind to imagine!
Surely it would have been better tactics frankly to admit the identity
of origin, and then, following the example of Hough (=35=), minimize its
importance by indicating the variety of possible ways by which Asiatic
influence may have influenced America sporadically in comparatively
recent times.
But instead of this, Keane insisted upon pushing his refusal to admit the
most obvious inferences to the extreme limit and invoked the practice
of _Couvade_ as the _coup de grâce_ to the views he was criticizing.
But it was singularly unfortunate for his argument that he selected
_Couvade_. His dogmatic assertion that the two peoples he selected are
“so widely separated” that they could “never have either directly or
indirectly in any way influenced one another” is entirely controverted
by the fact that, although _Couvade_ is, or was, a widespread custom,
all the places where it occurred are either within the main route of
the great “heliolithic culture-wave” or so near as easily to be within
its sphere of influence. Thus it is recorded among the Basques,[19] in
Africa, India, the Nicobar Islands, Borneo, China, Peru, Mexico, Central
California, Brazil and Guiana. Instead of being a “knockout blow” to the
view I am maintaining, the geographical distribution of this singularly
ludicrous practice is a very welcome addition to the list of peculiar
baggage which the “heliolithic” traveller carried with him in his
wanderings, and a striking confirmation of the fact that in the spread
from its centre of origin this custom must have travelled along the same
route as the other practices we are examining.
After the artificialities of Keane and Fewkes, it is a satisfaction to
turn back to the writings of the old ethnologists who lived in the days
before the so-called “psychological” and “evolutionary explanations” were
invented, and were content to accept the obvious interpretation of the
known facts.
More than eighty years ago, Ellis (=15=, p. 117) with remarkable insight
explained the relationships of the Polynesians and their wanderings, from
Western Asia to America, with a lucidity and definiteness which must
excite the enthusiastic admiration of those familiar with the fuller
information now available. On p. 119 he cites an interesting series of
racial factors, usages and beliefs in substantiation of the cultural link
between the Pacific Islands and America.
Quite apart from the mere evidence provided by the arts, customs and
beliefs in favour of the transmission of certain of the essential
elements of American civilization from the Old World, there is a
considerable amount of evidence of another kind, consisting no doubt
to a large extent of mere scraps. For instance, there are not only the
stories of Chinese and Japanese junks arriving on the American shore
and of American traditions of the coming of pale-faced bearded men from
the east,[20] but there is also a certain amount of evidence from the
physical characters of the population themselves. It has been raised
as an objection by many people that if there had been any considerable
emigration of Polynesians into America they would have left a much
more definite trace of their coming in the physical characters of the
people of America than is supposed the case. But this argument does not
necessarily carry very much weight, for the number of such Polynesians
who reached America would have been a mere drop in the ocean of the vast
aboriginal population of the Americas. Moreover, there is a certain
amount of evidence of the presence of people with Polynesian traits in
certain parts of the Pacific littoral. Von Humboldt stated the people
of Mexico and Peru had much larger beards and moustaches than the rest
of the Indians. But there is a more striking instance in substantiation
of the reality of this mixture of Pacific people in America which
raises the possibility that a certain number of Melanesians, whose
physical characters, being more obtrusive by contrast than those of the
Polynesians, were more easily detected. In Allen’s memoir (=2=, p. 47)
the following statements are found:—
“Sir Arthur Helps tells us in his ‘History of Spanish Conquest in
America’ that the Spaniards, when they first visited Darien under Vasco
Nunez, found there a race of black men, whom they (gratuitously as
it seems to me) supposed to be descended from a cargo of shipwrecked
negroes; this race was living distinct from the other races and at enmity
with them,”
and on page 48,
“Perhaps other black tribes may be discovered upon a more careful
enquiry, and if the theory of Crawford be accepted, which represents
the inhabitants of Polynesia in Ante-historic times as being a great
semi-civilized nation who had made some progress in agriculture and
understood the use of gold and iron, were clothed ‘with a fabric made of
the fibrous bark of plants which they wove in the loom,’ and had several
domesticated animals, a new and unexpected light may possibly be thrown
upon the origin of primitive American culture. It is certain that massive
ruins and remains of pyramidal structures and terraced buildings closely
analogous to those of India, Java and Cambodia, as well as to those of
Central America, Mexico and Peru, exist in many islands of Polynesia,
such as the Ladrone Islands, Tahiti, Fiji, Easter Island and the Sandwich
Islands, and the customs of the Polynesians are almost all of them found
to exist also amongst the American races.”
“Perhaps here, then, we have the ‘missing link’ between the Old World
civilizations and the mysterious civilizations of America.”
SUMMARY.
Between 4000 B.C. and 900 B.C. a highly complex culture compounded of a
remarkable series of peculiar elements, which were associated the one
with the other in Egypt largely by chance, became intimately interwoven
to form the curious texture of a cult which Brockwell has labelled
“heliolithic,” in reference to the fact that it includes sun-worship,
the custom of building megalithic monuments, and certain extraordinary
beliefs concerning stones. An even more peculiar and distinctive feature,
genetically related to the development of megalithic practices and
the belief that human beings could dwell in stones, is the custom of
mummification.
The earliest known Egyptians (before 4000 B.C.) practised weaving and
agriculture, performed the operation of “incision” (the prototype of
complete circumcision), and probably were sun-worshippers. Long before
3400 B.C. they began to work copper and gold. By 3000 B.C. they had begun
the practice of embalming, making rock-cut tombs, stone superstructures
and temples. By the mere chance that the capital of the united Kingdom
of Egypt happened to be in the centre of serpent-worship (and the
curious symbolism associated with it—Sethe, =74=), the sun, serpent and
Horus-hawk (the older symbol of royalty) became blended in the symbol of
sun-worship and as the emblem of the king, who was regarded as the son of
the sun-god.
The peculiar beliefs regarding the possibility of animate beings dwelling
in stone statues (and later even in uncarved columns), and of human
beings becoming petrified, developed out of the Egyptian practices of the
Pyramid Age (circa 2800 B.C.).
By 900 B.C. practically the whole of the complex structure of the
“heliolithic” culture had become built up and definitely conventionalized
in Egypt, with numerous purely accidental additions from neighbouring
countries.
The great migration of the “heliolithic” culture-complex probably began
shortly before 800 B.C. [Its influence in the Mediterranean and in
Europe, as also in China and Japan, is merely mentioned incidentally in
this communication.]
Passing to the east the culture-complex reached the Persian Gulf strongly
tainted with the influence of North Syria and Asia Minor, and when it
reached the west coast of India and Ceylon, possibly as early as the end
of the eighth century B.C., it had been profoundly influenced not only by
these Mediterranean, Anatolian and especially Babylonian accretions, but
even more profoundly with Eastern African modifications. These Ethiopian
influences become more pronounced in Indonesia (no doubt because in
India and the west the disturbances created by other cults have destroyed
most of the evidence).
From Indonesia the “heliolithic” culture-complex was carried far out
into the Pacific and eventually reached the American coast, where it
bore fruit in the development of the great civilizations on the Pacific
littoral and isthmus, whence it gradually leavened the bulk of the vast
aboriginal population of the Americas.
[When this communication was made to the Society my sole object was
to put together the scattered evidence supplied by the practice of
mummification, and other customs associated with it, in substantiation
of the fact that the influence of ancient Egyptian civilization, or a
particular phase of it, had spread to the Far East and America. Since
then so much new information has come to light, not only in confirmation
of the main thesis, but also defining the dates of a series of cultural
waves, that it will soon be possible, not only to sketch out in some
detail the routes taken by the series of ancient mariners who spread
abroad this peculiarly distinctive civilization, but also to identify the
adventurers and determine the dates of their greatest exploits and the
motives for most of their enterprises. In collaboration with Mr. J. W.
Perry I hope soon to be ready to attempt that task.
I have deliberately refrained from referring to the vexed question of
totemism in this communication, although it is obvious that it is closely
connected with the “heliolithic” culture. I have used the expression
“serpent worship” in several places where perhaps it would have been
more correct to refer to the serpent-totem; but so far from weakening,
the consideration of totemism will add to the strength and cogency of my
argument.
When I assigned (p. 65) a comparatively late date for the extension
of the “heliolithic” culture to the western Mediterranean and beyond I
was not aware that Siret (_L’Anthropologie_, T. 20 and 21, 1909-10) had
arrived at the same conclusion.]
FOOTNOTES
[1] These figures refer to the bibliography at the end.
[2] Tylor (“On the Game of Patolli,” _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, Vol. VIII.,
1879, p. 128) cites another certain case of borrowing on the part of
pre-Columbian America from Asia. “Lot-backgammon as represented by tab,
_pachisi_, etc., ranges in the Old World from Egypt across Southern Asia
to Birma. As the _patolli_ of the Mexicans is a variety of lot-backgammon
most nearly approaching the Hindu _pachisi_, and perhaps like it passing
into the stage of dice-backgammon, its presence seems to prove that it
had made its way across from Asia. At any rate, it may be reckoned among
elements of Asiatic culture traceable in the old Mexican civilization,
the high development of which ... seems to be in large measure due to
Asiatic influence.”
[3] See also =2=; =3=; =7=; =8=; =9=; =10=; =16=; =20=; =21=; =24=; =29=;
=30=; =38=; =48=; =49=; =50=; =51=; =61=; =73=; =103=; and =105=.
[4] For proof that it was reached see =3=; =8=; =9=; =10=; =20=; =21=;
=38=; =49=; =50=; =51=; =73=; =102=; =103=; and =105=.
[5] Dr. Fewkes’ discourse is essentially a farrago of meaningless
verbiage. Later on in this communication I shall give a characteristic
sample of the late Professor Keane’s dialectic; but the whole of the
passages referred to should be read by anyone who is inclined to cavil at
my strictures upon such expositions of modern ethnological doctrine. The
obvious course for any serious investigator to pursue is to ignore such
superficial and illogical pretensions: but the ethnological literature of
this country and America is so permeated with ideas such as Fewkes and
Keane express, that it has become necessary bluntly to expose the utter
hollowness of their case.
[6] For if any sense whatever is to be attached to this phrase it implies
that man is endowed with instincts of a much more complex and highly
specialised kind than any insect or bird—instincts moreover which impel
a group of men to perform at the same epoch a very large series of
peculiarly complex, meaningless and fantastic acts that have no possible
relationship to the “struggle for existence,” which is supposed to be
responsible for the fashioning of instincts.
But William McDougall tells us that the distinctive feature of human
instincts is that they are of “the most highly general type.” “They
merely provide a basis for vaguely directed activities in response
to vaguely discriminated impressions from large classes of objects.”
(“Psychology, the Study of Behaviour,” p. 171.) There is nothing vague
about the extraordinary repertoire of the “heliolithic” cult!
[7] It is a curious reflection that the idea of stone living which made
such a fantastic belief possible may itself have arisen from the Egyptian
practices about to be described.
[8] How insistent the desire was to make a statue of the mummy itself is
shown by the repeated attempts made in later times; see the account of
the mummies of Amenophis III. (=86=) and of the rulers and priests of the
XXIst and XXIInd Dynasties (=78= and =87=).
[9] For an account of the geographical distribution of serpent-worship
and a remarkable demonstration of the intimacy of its association with
distinctive “heliolithic” ideas, see Wake (=103=).
[10] Sir William Thiselton Dyer informs me that in all probability it was
not _cedar_ but _juniper_ that was obtained by the Ancient Egyptians from
Syria [and used for embalming]. The material to which reference is made
here would probably be identical with the modern ‘huile de cade,’ and be
obtained from _juniperus excelsa_.
I retain the term “oil of cedar” to facilitate the bibliographical
references, as all the archæologists and historians invariably use this
expression.
[11] Since this memoir has been printed Dr. Alan Gardiner has published
a most luminous and important account of “The Tomb of Amenemhēt” (N. de
Garis Davies and Alan Gardiner, 1915), which throws a flood of light upon
Egyptian ideas concerning the matters discussed in this communication.
[12] Mr. Crooke has called my attention to a similar practice in India.
Leith (Journ. Anthr. Soc. of Bombay, Vol. I., 1886, pp. 39 and 40) stated
that the _Káší Khanda_ contained an account of a Bráhman who preserved
his mother’s corpse. After having it preserved and wrapped he “coated the
whole with pure clay and finally deposited the corpse in a copper coffin.”
[13] Jackson refers the suggestion to Curzon’s “Persia and the Persian
Question,” 1892, where I find (Vol. II., pp. 74, 79, 80, 146, 178 and
192) most conclusive evidence in proof of the fact that the body of Cyrus
was mummified and all the Egyptian rites were observed (see especially
Mr. Cecil Smith’s note on p. 80). In Persia, under Darius (p. 182), the
Egyptian methods of tomb-construction were closely copied, not only in
their general plan, but in minute details of their decoration (see p.
178)—also the bas-relief of Cyrus wearing the Egyptian crown (p. 74).
Cambyses even introduced Egyptian workmen to carry out such work (p. 192).
There are reasons for believing that India also was in turn influenced
by this direct transmission of Egyptian practices to Persia, but only
after (perhaps more than a century after) the Ethiopian modification of
Egyptian embalming had been adopted there.
[14] See, however, p. 69. At some future time I shall explain what an
important link is provided by the ancient culture of the Black Sea
littoral between Egypt and the civilizations of the Western Mediterranean
on the one hand and India on the other.
[15] Reutter (=63=) quotes the statement from Tschirch that Neuhof has
described the embalming of bodies in Asia. In Borneo camphor, areca
nut and the wood of aloes and musk are used; and in China camphor and
sandalwood.
[16] For this and certain other references I have to thank my colleague
Professor S. J. Hickson, F.R.S. So far I have been unable to consult the
full reports of Lorenz’s expedition.
[17] A curious feature of these models is the representation of faces on
the shoulders. Similar practices have been recorded in America (Bancroft,
=3=).
[18] For the whole driving force of the so-called “psychological”
ethnologists is really a reverence for authority and a meaningless creed.
[19] Recent literature has thrown some doubt upon its occurrence in
Western Europe.
[20] It is quite possible this may refer to the relatively modern
incursion of Norsemen and other Europeans into America by the North
Atlantic.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Many other bibliographical references have been added in the text while
this memoir was in course of printing.
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=59.= _Ibid._ “Conquest of Mexico.”
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356.
=65.= _Ibid._ “The Disappearance of Useful Arts.” _Report Brit. Assoc._,
1912, p. 598 [Abstract of a memoir published in _Festsscrift Tillägnad
Edvard Westermarck_, Helsingfors, 1912, p. 109].
=66.= _Ibid._ “Survival in Sociology.” _The Sociological Review_,
October, 1913, p. 292.
=67.= _Ibid._ “Massage in Melanesia.” _Report of the 17th International
Congress of Medicine_, London, August, 1913, Section XXIII., History of
Medicine.
=68.= _Ibid._ “The Contact of Peoples.” Essays and Studies presented to
William Ridgeway. Cambridge, p. 474.
=69.= _Ibid._ “The History of Melanesian Society.” Cambridge, 1914, Vol.
II.
=70.= _Ibid._ “Is Australian Culture Simple or Complex?” _Report Brit.
Assoc._, 1914; also _Man_, 1914, p. 172.
=71.= ROTH, W. E. “North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 9, Burial
Ceremonies and Disposal of the Dead.” _Records of the Australian Museum_,
Sydney, Vol. VI., No. 5, 1907, p. 365.
=72.= ROSCOE, J. “Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
Baganda.” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Vol. XXXII., 1902,
p. 44. [Also his book entitled “The Baganda.”]
=73.= SEMPLE, ELLEN C. “Influences of Geographic Environment on the basis
of Ratzel’s System of Anthropo-Geography.” London, 1911.
=74.= SETHE, KURT. “Zur altaegyptischen Sage vom Sonnenauge das in der
Fremde war.” _Untersuchungen zur Gesch. u. Altertumskunde Aeg._, Bd. V.,
Heft 3, 1912, p. 10.
=75.= SMITH, G. ELLIOT. “On the Natural Preservation of the Brain in the
Ancient Egyptians.” _Journal of Anatomy and Physiology_, Vol. XXXVI., pp.
375-380. Two text figures. 1902.
=76.= _Ibid._ “The physical characters of the mummy of the Pharaoh
Thothmosis IV.” _Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte_, 1904,
[and in Carter and Newberry’s “Tomb of Thothmosis IV.” London, 1908].
=77.= _Ibid._ “Report on four mummies of the XXI. dynasty.” Ibid., 1904.
=78.= _Ibid._ “A Contribution to the Study of Mummification in Egypt.”
_Mémoires presentés à l’Institut Égyptien_, Tome V., Fascicule I., 1906,
pp. 1-54, 19 plates.
=79.= _Ibid._ “An Account of the Mummy of a Priestess of Amen.” _Annales
du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte_, 1906, pp. 1-28, 9 plates.
=80.= _Ibid._ “Report on the Unrolling of the Mummies of the Kings
Siptah, Seti II., Ramses IV., Ramses V., and Ramses VI., in the Cairo
Museum.” _Bulletin de l’Institut Égyptien_, 5ᵉ Série, T.I. pp. 45 à 67.
=81.= _Ibid._ “Report on the Unwrapping of the Mummy of Menephtah.”
_Annales du Service des Antiquités_, 1907.
=82.= _Ibid._ “Notes on Mummies.” _The Cairo Scientific Journal_,
February, 1908.
=83.= _Ibid._ “On the Mummies in the Tomb of Amenhotep II.” _Bulletin de
l’Institut Égyptien_, 5ᵉ Série, Tome I., 1908.
=84.= _Ibid._ Account of the Mummies of Yuaa and Thuiu, in Quibell’s
“Tomb of Yuaa and Thuiu.” Catalogue Général du Musée du Caïre, 1908.
=85.= _Ibid._ “The History of Mummification in Egypt.” _Proc. Royal
Philosophical Society of Glasgow_, 1910.
=86.= _Ibid._ “The Royal Mummies.” Catalogue Général des Antiquités
Égyptiennes du Musée du Caïre, 1912.
=87.= _Ibid._ “Egyptian Mummies.” _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol.
I., Part III., July, 1914, p. 189.
=88.= _Ibid._ “Heart and Reins.” _Journal of the Manchester Oriental
Society_, Vol. I., 1911, p. 41.
=89.= _Ibid._ “The Earliest Evidence of Attempts at Mummification in
Egypt.” _Report Brit. Assoc._, 1912, p. 612.
=90.= _Ibid._ “The Ancient Egyptians.” London and New York, 1911.
=91.= _Ibid._ “The Influence of Egypt under the Ancient Empire.” _Report
Brit. Assoc._, 1911; also Man, 1911, p. 176.
=92.= _Ibid._ “Megalithic Monuments and their Builders.” _Report Brit.
Assoc._, 1912, p. 607; also _Man_, 1912, p. 173.
=93.= _Ibid._ “The Origin of the Dolmen.” _Report Brit. Assoc._, 1913;
also _Man_, 1913, p. 193.
=94.= _Ibid._ “The Evolution of the Rock-cut Tomb and the Dolmen.” Essays
and Studies presented to William Ridgeway. Cambridge, 1913, p. 493.
=95.= _Ibid._ “Report on the Physical Characters of the Ancient
Egyptians.” _Report Brit. Assoc._, 1914; also _Man_, 1914, p. 172.
=96.= _Ibid._ “Early Racial Migrations and the Spread of Certain
Customs.” _Report Brit. Assoc._, 1914; also _Man_, 1914, p. 173.
=97.= _Ibid._ “The Rite of Circumcision.” _Journ. Manchester Egy. and
Oriental Soc._, 1913, p. 75.
=98.= SMITH, PERCY. “Hawaiki.” London, 3rd Edn., 1910.
=99.= TALBOT, P. AMAURY. “Some Ibibio Customs and Beliefs.” _Journ.
African Soc._, 1914, p. 241.
=100.= TAYLOR, MEADOWS. “On Prehistoric Archæology of India.” _Journ.
Ethnol. Soc._, New Series, Vol. I., 1868-9, p. 157.
=101.= THURSTON, E. “The Madras Presidency,” 1913.
=102.= TYLOR, E. B. “On the Diffusion of Mythical Beliefs as Evidence in
the History of Culture.” _Report Brit. Assoc._, 1894, p. 774.
=103.= WAKE, C. S. “Origin of Serpent Worship.” _Journ. Anthropol.
Inst._, Vol. 2, 1872-3.
=104.= WEEKS, J. H. “Anthropological Notes on the Bangala of the Upper
Congo River.” _Journ. Roy. Anthropol. Inst._, Vol. XXXIX., 1909, pp. 450
and 451.
=105.= WILSON, THOMAS. “The Swastika.” _Report of Smithsonian
Institution_, 1896.
=106.= YARROW, H. C. “A further Contribution to the Study of the North
American Indians.” _1st Report, Bureau Amer. Ethnol._, Washington, 1881.
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