Handbook to the ethnographical collections . animal or thing may l)ecome the temporary home ofa truant soul belonging to some one else. But if spirits arethus independent, their existence cannot terminate with theirproper bodies, and the necessity tluit they should have somedefinite place of abode after dissolution led to the idea ofanother world, which is understood not as a place of rewards INTRODUCTION 33 and punishments, but as a region very similar to this. Inthis after-world the chief continues to be a chief, the fisher-man goes on fishing with the souls of earthly hooks, thewoman makes
Handbook to the ethnographical collections . animal or thing may l)ecome the temporary home ofa truant soul belonging to some one else. But if spirits arethus independent, their existence cannot terminate with theirproper bodies, and the necessity tluit they should have somedefinite place of abode after dissolution led to the idea ofanother world, which is understood not as a place of rewards INTRODUCTION 33 and punishments, but as a region very similar to this. Inthis after-world the chief continues to be a chief, the fisher-man goes on fishing with the souls of earthly hooks, thewoman makes spirit-pottery or l)eats liarkcloth with a spirit- Fi(i. 29.—Trap forcatcliing souls. Puka-puka (Dtmger •ill.—The jjropertyot a dead man, broken(killed) and placedabovehis grave. Koita tribe,British New Gruinea. mallet, all alike puisuing the avocations of the old life ina ghostly but familiar enviroiniient. Foi- this reason weapons,implciiieiits, and f(Kjd are placed l»y the side of the dead and• killed by being bioken in order to release the spirit (fig. 30).Slaves are sacrificed at the grave that the dead may continue K. D 34 INTRODUCTION to be served as they were while they lived on earth. Thisspirit life is regarded by primitive man as so immediatelycontinuous with actual existence that the passage from one tothe other is not feared to the same extent as among civilizedpeoples. To primitive reasoning, beings so volatile as spirits
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjoycetho, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1910
