93 insure that the lewa liver, or one particular organ considered innermost within the body, was burning its last
when the sun rose over the horizon. The ashes, kaa rarearo, were gathered and put into a basket. At some stage, the burial site was washed with a specially prepared water.
The ashes were kept inside the relatives’ house for a period of time. While the ashes were still in the house, a feast was given for all of the village people in order to end the mourning period. After the mourning
period was completed by the feast, the ashes were carried to another place for burial. The site was usually at the base of a large tree most likely one of the trees which were used to mark clan property.
If a Rotokas man or woman died while visiting the Keriaka side of the island, it was the responsibility of the Keriaka relatives to cremate the body in the proper manner. This was so they wouldn’t have to carry the
body back across the mountains to the Rotokas area.
8.2.4 Mourning period
All Melanesian peoples perform ritual for the dead with economic ends in view: mourning ceremonies, food offerings, and the Male Cult dances and exchanges of pigs,
vegetable food, and valuables. This category of ritual obviously assumes greater importance in those societies which have no elaborate rites for creative or regulative spirit-beings, such
as Siane, Chimbu, Gahuku Gama and Mae in the Highlands, and the Orokaiva, Ngarawa- pum, Manus, Lesu and To’ambaita on the Seaboard. Beyond this, however, there appear to
be two major differences in the ritual of the two regions. First, there are divergent attitudes to the recent and remote dead, to which we have already referred. Highlanders generally expect
economic benefits from the spirits of remote rather than recent dead. They regard the spirits of the recent dead as more interested in punishing the transgressions of their descendants.
This is especially marked in the case of the Mae, for whom ghosts of immediate forebears are invariably malevolent. Seaboard peoples, on the other hand, tend to regard the spirits of
the recent dead as potentially friendly to their living relatives, provided that requisite honour is accorded them—although the Lakalai, at least, are not convinced that this is always
certain.
Second, in both regions, the emotional character of ritual for the dead, who are treated as an extension of the social structure, seems to correspond with that of human relationships….
In short, Highlands ritual assumes that the dead have freedom of choice in helping mankind, while Seaboard ritual tries to leave them no options but to do so Lawrence et al. 1965:14.
Mention of the mourning period and the ritual, if any, which the Rotokas people perform has already been made in foregoing sections. On rare occasions, a special memorial ceremony is held to honor the deceased.
Such a celebration, called oovapa aio memorial feast was held in Togarao to conclude mourning for a woman of great importance to her clan. Her name was Tevievi [pictured in section 8.4.1], and she was the mother of
the village councilor, the lay pastor, and other important members of the community.
Togarao village, where she usually lived, and Ruruvu village provided food for the feast. The people were in the jungle hunting pigs and opossum for several weeks ahead of time. The opossum were hunted first, since
preserving them in bamboo tubes doesn’t toughen the meat as much as is the case with pig meat. People came from outside of the Rotokas dialect area, since it was a very big event. At the time of the actual feast, after the
food had been distributed by the host villages, the guests provided the dancing and singing.
The length of the mourning period will vary. For important people it can be up to a couple of months. In some cases, it is only a few days. One mourning period ended 4 days after the burial had taken place. It was
“marked” as finished when a white cross was placed on the grave site in the village cemetery. Various taboos are enforced during the period. Certainly no disrespectful or frivolous activities would be
allowed. In one case, I was not permitted to photograph the dead person’s male relatives who had not completed their Upe initiation rites at the time, until after the mourning period had passed.
8.2.5 Communicating with the dead
In the past, when cannibalism was practiced, it was the custom not to eat the flesh together in any one spot. Following a feast, the men were not to defecate in any one area. Even the fecal material would be
scattered about. All of this was to help insure that the dead man’s body could not somehow be reconstructed to the degree necessary for its ghost to function. The fear was that the ghost would return to get vengeance on the
94 killers of its body. One man with a badly pocked face was said to have been bitten by a returning vengeful
ghost. Except for cases of murder as above, there appears to have been an eagerness to communicate with a
person’s ghost, in order to find out about its well being. The manifestation of this ghost is termed raviravia. When our old neighbor, Va., was a younger man, his brother died. After he was buried, a man with special
powers came to make contact with the ghost. Men with these powers are said to have all died by now. The man built a small fence around the grave. A hole was left in the area of the corpse’s mouth when the body was
covered with earth. Towards dark, Va. and David A. who was a young man at the time gathered with the others around the
grave site. The empowered older man called to the dead man’s ghost repeatedly “just like you call over the shortwave radio and strain to hear an answer.” Finally, the spirit answered and asked what they wanted to
know. They replied that they just wanted to know that everything was all right. If the dead brother’s spirit had not responded, they would have then known that the body and the spirit were dead.
Another method of establishing contact with the dead person’s ghost was shown to me in a drawing recreated below. A small partition was erected at the head of the grave. It was made of leaves and had a small
opening through the middle of it. At the head of the grave, two frogs were placed. As communication with the deceased was established, the voice of the dead person was said to have been relayed by means of the frogs.
The sound came through the hole in the partition towards the observers, who were stationed a short distance in front of the partition and away from the grave.
Grave prepared for communication
This process of communication with the deceased is called variriu. The phrase, kuu piereve, states that “he would cause the communication.” The response would be that “he the ghost replied” kuuro viro. In most of
these attempts to speak with the dead, opossum hair was burned. The odor being produced by the burning hair is described by the phrase, piu geesi pie.
Less tangible or more indirect ways of communicating with ghosts of the deceased were also known. After a person was cremated in the old days, a man with some type of animal tied to a rope would cover the area
where the body was burned. He would call for the person’s ghost. If a shrill whistle was heard, the others would quickly tear down the remainder of the framework that held the body, in order to get rid of the ghost.
There were two clansmen who were very good friends. When one of them was close to death, the other asked if they would remain good friends even after death; the answer was “Yes.”
A day or two after the man died, the friend prepared some food for his deceased friend’s ghost. It consisted of a portion of meat, probably opossum, cooked in a broth. At any rate it was said to have a “pungent
aroma.” A bowl of this “soup” was placed in a dark room near the body and the man then waited for his friend’s ghost to come and drink it. Eventually, the ghost came, and although the man could not see him, he
could hear him drinking the soup. The ghost then told the man that he was prepared to help him. If the man made medicine, the ghost would cause it to be effective. If the man predicted an event, the ghost would cause it
to happen. The only requirement was that the man provide food for the ghost from time to time.
I was told of another relationship with a deceased person’s ghost which has an interesting twist to it. A man’s killer could be identified with the help of the dead person’s ghost. The ghost assists in doing so by the
aid of a white magic practitioner who “cleared up” the thoughts of the dead man by means of certain charms. If the charms were effective, the sharpened thoughts would direct the ghost to the person responsible for the
death.
95 If the ghost could not locate the killer, there was the possibility that it would return to the white magic
practitioner and take out its vengeance upon him or her. If the practitioner were aware of this, he or she could quickly work another charm for protection. The ghost would eventually give up and go to its final resting
place. About three years after we arrived in the Rotokas area, we learned of a “party” called vate keari aio being
held in the jungle by men of Togarao and Sisivi villages. This feast was to conclude a wrong which had occurred some thirty-five to forty years in the past. At that time, two men from Togarao and one from Ibu had
killed a couple of men at Sisivi. They had burned them in their house and had speared the one who had attempted to escape. The lone survivor had been able to get to the “ai bilong masalai” Pidgin expression, ‘eye
of the masalaighost’ and arranged for vengeance to be carried out by the ghosts of the murdered men.
Villagers believed that these ghosts, over the years, had been causing deformed children to be born as part of their revenge. Another result of the revenge was the suicide by hanging of one of the three murderers. The
feast was to conclude the wrong once and for all.
8.3 Problems of Defining Spirit Beings
