Death and the right hand

Robert Hertz, Claudia Needham, Rodney Needham, Claudia Needham, Rodney Needham

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415330244
• eBook ISBN: 9781136539206
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in English 1960.The historical value of Hertz's writings is that they are a representative example of the culmination of two centuries of development of sociological thought in France, from Montesquieu to Durkheim and his pupils. In the intervening years since publication, that development has grown into the systematic comparative study of primitive institutions, based on a great body of ethnographic facts from all over the world: in effect social anthropology.

NOTES

THE COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATION OF DEATH

¹ Cf. Dastre 1903: 296 ff.

² Lafitau 1724, 2: 444.

³ The institution is relatively well known among them; Grabowsky has collated the accounts relating to the Dayak of the southeast (Olo Ngaju and Ot Danom), together with certain personal observations, in an article that is valuable but a little subject to caution (1889: 177 ff.). It contains a bibliography; the best source remains Hardeland, who has published, as an appendix to his Dayak grammar (1858), the complete text and a literal translation of a large number of songs and formulas recited by the priestesses during the tivah.

⁴ Cf., on the Olo Ngaju, Grabowsky (1889: 182); on the Olo Maanyan, Tromp (1877: 48); on the Dayak of Kutai, Tromp (1888: 76) and Bock (1881: 141–2); on the Kayan, a riverine people of the Tinjar, Hose in Ling Roth (1896, 1: 148); on the Long Kiput of the Baram river, Kükenthal (1896: 270); on the Skapan, Brooke Low in Roth (1896, 1: 152–3); on the Dusun and Murut of the north of the island, Roth (1896, 1: 151, 153).

⁵ Grabowsky 1884: 472; Tromp 1877: 47 ff.

⁶ Cf. for example Nieuwenhuis 1907, 1: 27.

⁷ Cf. Tromp 1888: 76; according to Müller (1839–44: 402), among the riverine Olo Ngaju of the Beyaju the coffin is placed with a number of others in a collective sepulture, the sandong raung; but this report is contradicted by Hardeland (1859: 503), who tells us expressly that the coffin (raung) is not taken to the collective resting-place or sandong until the time of the final ceremony. In any case, if the example reported by Müller is exact it is exceptional: the rule is that the coffin is isolated during the period of waiting.

⁸ Cf. for example Grabowsky 1889: 181–2.

⁹ Hardeland 1858: 350; Perelaer 1870: 224–5.

¹⁰ It has the same name among the Olo Ngaju: pasah; cf. Hardeland 1859 s.v. Among the Alfuru of north Halmahera the temporary sepulture is called ‘the house of the deceased’ (Clercq 1889: 208).

¹¹ Cf. in particular Nieuwenhuis 1907, 1: 162.

¹² In Timor Laut, Riedel (1886: 305–6); on Timor, Forbes (1885: 434); on the Toumbuluh of Minahassa, cf. Riedel (1895: 108–9).

¹³ Among the Olo Ngaju there is no burial unless it is foreseen that there will be a long wait before the second obsequies; if the coffin were raised above the ground it would be in danger of falling, an event considered fatal for the family. A little hut is built over the tomb (Grabowsky 1889: 182). Among the Olo Maanyan, burial is the rule when the corpse is not kept in the house (Tromp 1877: 46).

¹⁴ Halewijn, in Grabowsky 1889: 182.

¹⁵ 1859 s.v. tiwah.

¹⁶ Müller 1839–44: 402.

¹⁷ Hardeland 1859.

¹⁸ On Timor, according to Forbes (1885: 434), the delay may sometimes last a whole century (for important chiefs); the obligation to celebrate the final rites is then transmitted from father to son, with the inheritance.

¹⁹ Grabowsky 1889: 188.

²⁰ As is thought by Wilken (1884: 77 ff.; 1886, 3: 255 ff.; 4: 347 ff.).

²¹ Müller 1839–44; Hardeland 1859 s.v. tiwah.

²² Certain authors explain the provisional exposure of the corpse exclusively by the length of time demanded by the essential preparations and the difficulty of procuring victims for the sacrifice: cf., for the Batak, Hagen (1883: 517) and Rosenberg (1878: 27); for the inhabitants of northern Nias, Rosenberg (1878: 156); for Timor, Forbes (1885: 434 ff.); for the Kai Islands, Rosenberg (1878: 351).

²³ This is the case notably in Borneo, for the Milanau, the Dusun, and the Murut (Roth 1896, 1: 150–2), for the Long Kiput (Kükenthal 1896: 270); for the riverine Dayak of the Kapuas in western Borneo (Veth 1856, 2: 270); for the Ot Danom (Schwaner 1854: 151); in Sumatra, for the Karo Batak (Hagen 1883: 520); in Timor Laut (Forbes 1885: 322 ff.; Riedel 1886: 305–6); on Buru (Forbes 1885: 405); for the Alfuru of eastern Celebes (Bosscher in Wilken 1884: 179); in northern Halmahera (Clercq 1889: 208); on the island of Babar (Riedel 1886: 359).

²⁴ To this end a tube of bamboo is passed through a hole bored in the bottom of the coffin; cf. for example, on the Olo Ngaju, Grabowsky (1889: 181); on the Batak, Tuuk (1861: 165); on the Alfuru of the Bolaang-Mongoudou district, Wilken & Schwarz (1867: 323).

²⁵ Cf. Low 1848: 207: ‘The disgusting odour produced by decomposition (as the Dayak have frequently told me) is particularly agreeable to their senses.’ This passage concerns the corpse or rather the head of an enemy.

²⁶ Hardeland 1858: 218 (and the commentary).—Meyer & Richter (1896: 110 n. 1) suggest that the coffin was hermetically sealed perhaps in order to prevent the dreaded exit of the soul of the deceased; they add that the smell of decomposition might have been considered as the sign of the presence of the soul. The text transcribed by Hardeland seems to show that in fact the fear of a mystical danger is the determining motive, and at the same time that it is useless to bring in the idea of the soul of the deceased.

²⁷ Perham, in Roth (1896, 1: 204, 210), on the subject of the Sea Dayak who practise immediate burial: ‘The body of a dead person is not called body or corpse; it is an antu (spirit); and if the living kept it near them for long they would expose themselves to sinister supernatural influences.’

²⁸ Cf. p. 35.

²⁹ Grabowsky 1889: 181; according to Salomon Müller (1839–44) the pot is buried at the place where the remains of the corpse have been cremated.

³⁰ This rather vague statement shows without doubt that in this case the relatives cannot yet be relieved of the taboos and observances of mourning.

³¹ Tromp 1877: 48; cf. Grabowsky 1884: 472.

³² Relation: 59; cf. Crawfurd 1820: 255.

³³ Ritter, in Veth (1856, 2: 270).—In order to make the comparison between these western Dayak and the Olo Maanyan more complete we must add that among the latter, during the forty-nine days that precede the strange ceremony we have seen, the closest relatives of the deceased, instead of eating rice, have to eat jelai: its grains are small, brown in colour, have a quite disagreeable smell, and taste very nasty (Tromp 1877: 44, 47). Does the detail that we have italicised permit us to think that the jelai of the Sihing people is the substitute (after the decline of the former custom) for the rice impregnated with matter from the corpse which is imposed on the western Dayak? This hypothesis is not indispensable to our interpretation; the ‘duty’ in question in the passage above, and in which the relatives must not fail, was to not allow the matter to accumulate in the pot, and to take their share of it. The rite has eventually become an arbitrary formality.—On certain islands of Timor Laut the natives rub their bodies with the liquids coming from the corpses of their close relatives or chiefs (Riedel 1886: 308).

³⁴ For example, the body of a child for a certain time after its birth, or of a woman during menstruation.

³⁵ Cf. Nieuwenhuis (1907, 1: 89): he gives as motive the desire to ‘appease the evil spirits which might take possession of it’; in the case of chiefs he mentions in addition various protective amulets. Similarly, during certain ceremonies concerned with pregnancy or birth, the most exposed persons stop their ears with cotton ‘in order not to be troubled by the evil spirits’ (Riedel 1895: 95, 99). It is true that other authors present this custom as intended solely for the protection of the living (Grabowsky 1889: 179). The rite is probably ambiguous, with a dual object, as is often the case: it is concerned simultaneously, and confusedly, with preventing the spread of the fatal influence contained in the corpse, and with barring the way to evil spirits that want to penetrate the corpse and take possession of it. Also, elements of Hindu provenance seem in certain cases to have been grafted on to the original custom.

³⁶ Tromp 1877: 48; this text concerns the case when the corpse is kept in the house. But in Timor Laut, where it is exposed on the seashore at some distance from the village, figures of men beating gongs, firing guns, and gesticulating furiously are drawn on the coffin—at least when it concerns a person of mark—in order to frighten away evil influences from the sleeper (Forbes 1885: 322 ff.; cf. Kükenthal 1896: 180).

³⁷ It is found (exceptionally) among the Olo Ngaju (Hardeland 1859: 233; 1858: 364 n. 223; Braches 1882: 102); among the Olo Maanyan (Grabowsky 1884: 471; Tromp 1877: 47); among the Bahau. (Nieuwenhuis 1907, 1: 104); among the Kayan (Roth 1896, 2: 142); in the Serang Islands (Riedel 1886: 144); and on Bali (van Eck, in Wilken 1884: 52), etc.

³⁸ Hardeland 1859: 233, 308; Perelaer 1870: 219, 227; Grabowsky 1889: 183 ff.

³⁹ The same distinction is reported by Nieuwenhuis (1907, 1: 103) among the Bahau; but the two souls are separate even during the lifetime of the individual.

⁴⁰ Also the living offer it a sort of material support in their house: a plank covered with figures relating to the last journey of the soul and the other world (cf. Grabowsky 1889: 184).

⁴¹ If the tivah cannot be celebrated by the family the soul is in great danger of seeing this temporary state prolonged indefinitely; it is then, according to a characteristic expression, a liau matai, a dead soul (Grabowsky 1889: 181).

⁴² Kruyt 1895: 24, 26, 28. The author observes that ‘the idea of a house of waiting exists even among those for whom the soul stays on earth until the tengke; doubtless the soul is believed to pass part of this period on earth and part in the house. The thoughts of the Alfuru on this point are not clear.’ But this very vacillation seems to us characteristic, and the two conceptions, which seem logically exclusive, are at bottom interdependent (with no need to separate them in time): it is because he has not yet completely left this world that the deceased cannot yet completely e...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• TRANSLATORS’ NOTE
• INTRODUCTION
• A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF THE COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATION OF DEATH
• THE PRE-EMINENCE OF THE RIGHT HAND: A STUDY IN RELIGIOUS POLARITY
• NOTES
• REFERENCES