WE have seen that to the discarnate spirit is attributed much of fondness for things to which it had become accustomed in its earthly life. The idea of preference or liking comes out frequently in connection with its post-mortem habitat. Of course, it is to be remembered that the eschatology of primitive peoples is vague and by no means consistent. Indeed, when it is recalled that Christian eschatology is still in a confused state, when orthodox theologians are at odds as to the location of the soul between death and the judgment, even as to the time of the judgment, whether immediately after death or at some indefinitely distant time; when these doctors of the faith disagree as to the conscious existence or the "sleep" of the soul after death, as to its removal to heaven or hell on dissolution, and whether that heaven or hell is final or, only temporary--one can hardly expect primitive peoples, whose memory for history is short and their outlook and forecast vague and brief, to have a consecutive and sharply defined eschatology. Consequently we find variations innumerable in the conceptions of the soul's location, and a sort of warfare between the poor ghost's supposed preference and the desires of survivors.
It is quite normal that the spirit is credited with lingering affection for the home and the environment that so long harbored it, and makes the grave, which is, of course, in the immediate neighborhood, its favorite haunt and the body in the grave still its home. How persistent this primitive notion is may be verified in almost any rural community, where few indeed care to pass God's acre after dark without company. The prehistoric Mycenæans left in graves a groove by which evidently to pour the offerings to the ghosts; Egyptian tombs had channels by which ka or ba could have access to and egress from the embalmed body. Even in Mongolia these apertures are found in the graves, though there they are placed at the sides, showing that they were intended for the spirit's exit and entrance and not to facilitate the placing of provisions--food and drink.[1] Many primitive peoples entertain beliefs parallel to those indicated by these customs. Such are African tribes like the Baganda, certain Australians, and many others.[2] From this conception may arise the thought that souls wander around their old haunts and even make them impossible for dwellings, at least for a time; or they may frequent places having peculiar topographical features, where their clans foregather.[3] Sometimes this return is only temporary, limited to certain hours of the night, as for example, the case of some African ghosts, who are released between twelve and three in the morning--remember the ghost of Hamlet's father![4] In other cases there is alleged to be a time when the ghosts must quit finally their earthly haunts for a permanent abode elsewhere. Thus in New Guinea[5] it seems that the spirit does not find its way at once to its home; but wanders for some
There is, however, in this conception left open the possibility of securing a brief visit from them for purposes that are supposed to serve the living. How easily out of this could develop the idea and practice of necromancy!
On the other hand one may support with abundant evidence the thesis that there is a quite general consensus to the effect that it is unseemly for departed spirits to inhabit the land where the living pass their earthly existence. It is widely believed that ghosts have their own land whither living mortals may not go, whence, also, spirits may not
It would be expected that ideas differ greatly as to the character of the spirit world. A wide group of unrelated peoples have looked on the place of the soul as melancholy and mournful, fitting the soul's unsubstantial character. The saying of Hezekiah, king of Israel, after he had recovered from a dangerous illness, here leaps into the mind:
Such were the conceptions of Babylonians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. A noted Greek hero is made to declare that he would rather be a lowly laborer on earth than have an exalted station among the dead. Adversely to this, not a few peoples patterned their ideas of future life on the present world. Such is the content of the notion in cases already cited[14] where primitive tribes mutilated foes to prevent the shades from taking revenge in the other world. And in many other instances the imagination has compassed only similar conceptions.[15] The Thay of Indo-China look on the next life as the counterpart of this.[16] The African Bakongo bury their dead late in the day so that the spirits may
We may further note that in parts of Fiji and New Guinea the souls of the departed are supposed to dwell in a great community, and the puberty ceremonies are by some construed as having reference to introduction to ancestral spirits in preparation for final union with them.[22]