Indian Antiquary Vol 54

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 66

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MACH, 1026
Death and Burial.
The consideration of the general subject carries Mr. Brown into that of several minor ones. A death to the mind of the Andamanese does not destroy & personality. It creates • profound change, however, and turns the deceased (p. 285) from "an object of pleasurable states of the social sentiments into an object of painful states." The burial customs (p. 286) are "a collective and ritual expression of collective feeling."
The burial customs do not depend as much on the fear of the dead as on their social value. The dead man's ties of solidarity have not ceased to exist, but (p. 288) "continue until the society has recovered from the effects of his death." This, Mr. Brown thinks, explains the burial customs abstention from particularly valued foods, painting the body with white clay and so on.
At the end of the mourning ceremonies (p. 292) "the dead man becomes completely absorbed in the spirit world and as a spirit he has no more part in or influence over the social life than any other spirit, and the mourning is brought to a close by means of a ceremony. : This ceremony has two parts. One is the recovery of the bones and their reaggregation to the society, & rite that we may regard as the final settling of the dead man in his proper place." The bones are dug up as soon as the society has recovered from the disruptive shock of the deceased's death, and are worn in various ways as the greatest power of protection to the wearer, just as are the bones of eaten animals. The mourners return to the normal social life with a dance and ceremonial weeping as a rite of aggregation.
Nomenclature. A person's name is dropped from use after his death and this custom Mr. Brown explains at some length (pp. 294 ff.):"there is a very special relation between the name of anything and its fundamental characteristics. .. and a very important connection between a person's name .... and his social personality . The name is always avoided whenever the owner is for any reason prevented from taking his or her usual place in the life of the society." The name of a girl from her first menstruation to the birth of her first child is dropped and she is given "& flower name." At initiation and mourning, after marriage and after other important occasions boys' names and girls' flower-names are dropped for a time. In fact (p. 297) “at any period, in which a person is undergoing a critical change in his condition in so far as it affects the society, his name falls out of use (is tabued). The reason for this is that during such periods of change the social personality is suppressed or latent, and therefore the name which is closely associated with the social personality must be suppressed also."
The Spirits. The basis of Andamanese beliefs about the Spirits, Mr. Brown maintains (p. 297), " is the fact that at the death of an individual his social personality (as defined above) is not annihilated, but is suddenly changed."
"The Spirits are feared and regarded (pp. 297-298) as dangerous. The basis of this fear is the fact that the Spirit (i.e., the social personality of a person recently dead) is obviously a source of weakness and disruption to the community, affecting the survivors through their attachment to him, and producing & condition of dysphoria, of diminished social activity ..The fear of the deard man (his body and his spirit) is a collective feeling induced in the society by the fact that by death he has become the object of a dysphoric condition of the collective consciousness."
The people's own explanation of their fear of the spirit of the dead is a fear of their own Bioknons and death. The basis of this notion is this (p. 298):