. The history of mankind . arrangedwith living relations to raise them todivine honours whenever they should die. A man when in danger invokes the spirits of his father and grandfather infull assurance that they hear. The souls of old chiefs are deified after theirdeath, and invoked by name with sacrifices. A certain gradation is importedinto this troop of spirits and souls by the distinctions of rank which prevailedamong their former earthly tabernacles. For this reason the destiny of thesouls of chiefs and priests which have quitted the earth is materially higherthan that of the lower classe
. The history of mankind . arrangedwith living relations to raise them todivine honours whenever they should die. A man when in danger invokes the spirits of his father and grandfather infull assurance that they hear. The souls of old chiefs are deified after theirdeath, and invoked by name with sacrifices. A certain gradation is importedinto this troop of spirits and souls by the distinctions of rank which prevailedamong their former earthly tabernacles. For this reason the destiny of thesouls of chiefs and priests which have quitted the earth is materially higherthan that of the lower classes, since even in life the former were inhabitedby higher powers, and these will have a yet more powerful effect whenfreed from the bodily husk. Since the souls of chiefs go to the stars, whileothers wait upon or within the earth, the stars are designated simply as thesouls of the departed. As these take their way upward in the darkness they areof course easily seized and dragged about by evil spirits. The origin of divine. Ancestral image [Korvar) from New Guinea—one-fourthreal size. (British Museum.) 302 THE HISTORY OF MANKIND honours in many cases falls almost within the recollection of living reverence as a war-god the ghost of some champion whose bones andhair have the effect of amulets. Great works, such as the stone terraces of Waieoin the Marquesas, were referred to gods, and men who had produced such thingswere raised to the rank of gods. Deification of heroic men was often quite amatter of notoriety. Tabuarik, the most respected god of the Gilbert Islanders,was formerly a chief. Now he appears sometimes as Hai, sometimes he livesabove the clouds and thunders, on which occasion the face of his wife may be seenflashing through the clouds. Tamatoa, the chief of Raiatea, was reverenced as a deity even in his in the legends of thegreat creating gods we findindications of the notion thatthey have been men or canbecome so again, and a descentfr
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectethnology, bookyear18
