Skull-worship

Only in certain small outer islands were variations found. In the Gambier Islands the mummies were laid out wrapped in mats and cloth tied up with strings and put away in mountain caverns. In Falefa chiefs were preserved in a hut or in a cave laid upon a double canoe. In Mulgrave the dead were laid out upon stones covered with coco-palm leaves and afterwards buried in the family vault. Isolated cases of the disposal of the body by launching it out to sea in a canoe were obviously a variation of the custom of placing a conveyance at the disposal of the soul for its journey into the other world. In the Gilbert Islands a widow sleeps under the same mat with the corpse of her deceased husband until the head drops off the body; the skull is then cleaned, and she carries it about with her constantly, as is also done with the skull of a beloved child. This cult of skulls is also found elsewhere in Micronesia. In Yap the dead are never buried in the neighbourhood of the sea, the inhabitants of the mountains never anywhere but on mountain-tops. Adults were placed in a sitting position with knees drawn up, children and young people lying down. A curious combination of land and sea burial is found in Kusaie where the bones after burial are dug up, cleaned, tied in a bundle, and sunk in the sea.

Where interment is usual the skull is often separated from the body. Owing to this A. B. Meyer was enabled to acquire many human skulls by barter, since the Papuas did not hesitate, after exhausting their own store of slain enemies' heads, to plunder their relatives' graves; yet they could not at first make up their minds to hand over the lower jaw. Thus reverence for human remains has its limits, and yet these Papuas in West New Guinea always avoided handling the skulls.

Graves and funeral customs

Sacred drum with carving, from the Hervey Islands
Height approx 730mm (Christy Collection)

Great differences also occur within the much narrower limits of other archipelagos. On some islands in the Solomon group the corpse is thrown into the sea to swim away to the beautiful land in the west; in Anaiteum it is only the body of the supreme chief that is interred. Before they are thrown into the sea female corpses are clothed with their girdles, and males have the face painted. In other islands the bodies are wrapped in mats and taken into the mangrove thickets, where they are exposed to the air until the head can be easily separated from the trunk. The head is then prepared and the rest buried in the common burying-place. In San Cristoval and other places, the dead are laid upon a high stage, and a trench is dug underneath to receive the flesh which is sliced off by the mourners; skull and finger-bones are taken away as heirlooms, and a hut or pyramidal framework covered with leaves is erected over the trench; graves of children are strewn with flowers.

While in Tanna the corpse is laid in a boat-shaped coffin, in New Caledonia paddle and spear are set up on the graves. Here ornaments are put with the body, but if not the whole skull at any rate the lower jaw is preserved as a relic, and so in New Ireland, Duke of York's Island, and Vate. In the last-named island trees in the neighbourhood of the graves are cut in a peculiar fashion.

The outward indications of the grief of the mourners go as far as self-injuries and mutilations. In Tonga, when the king's mother died the chiefs descended from her branded their temples, and at the death of the high priest it was usual to cut off a joint of the little finger. The Tahiti women used as soon as they were married to fix sharks' teeth in a wooden handle with which to wound themselves when mourning for their husbands. On these occasions they, with their friends, invoked the soul of the departed. In Tahiti also, the chief mourner wore clothing made of the shroud, while the others went with their clothes torn and sprinkled with dust, and the neighbours who came to lament had a sham fight with the household of the departed in order to the due performance of the common lamentation. Funeral fights were also held in Mangaia, where all the friends of the deceased went about the island in strange clothing to attack the ghosts of other districts.

Burying alive

The practice of burying alive is widely extended, it was extensively used as a means of infanticide, but old and sick people sought of their own free will to be buried. In the case of new-born children a fire was lighted over the grave to stifle the soul. In Vate, when old people are to be buried alive, a pig is tied to their arm, which is afterwards consumed at the feast and accompanies the soul into the next world. In the Fiji Islands it is also customary to strangle, and the cord is regarded there as a great kindness in comparison with the club. If a chief in the Solomon Islands dies his wives are strangled in their sleep; it would be a shame for them and an insult to the dead man's memory if they were to marry men of lower rank. The same end is frequently allotted to the wives or nearest relations of an ordinary man; even in death he must be surrounded by those who love him. In Anaiteum the women are said to wear the ominous cord round their necks from their wedding day.