Moreover, even if the soul is localized especially in certain parts of the organism, it is not absent from the others. In varying degrees, it is diffused through the whole body, as is well shown by the funeral rites. After the last breath has been expired and the soul is believed to be gone, it seems as though it should profit by the liberty thus regained, to move about at will and to return as quickly as possible to its real home, which is elsewhere. Nevertheless, it remains near to the corpse; the bond uniting them has been loosened, but not broken. A whole series of special rites are necessary to induce it to depart definitely. It is invited to go by gestures and significant movements.[762] The way is laid open for it, and outlets are arranged so that it can go more easily.[763] This is because it has not left the body entirely; it was too closely united to it to break away all at once. Hence comes the very frequent rite of funeral anthropophagy; the flesh of the dead is eaten because it is thought to contain a sacred principle, which is really nothing more than the soul.[764] In order to drive it out definitely, the flesh is melted, either by submitting it to the heat of the sun,[765] or to that of an artificial fire.[766] The soul departs with the liquids which result. But even the dry bones still retain some part of it. Therefore they can be used as sacred objects or instruments of magic;[767] or if someone wishes to give complete liberty to the principle which they contain, he breaks these.[768]
But a moment does arrive when the final separation is accomplished; the liberated soul takes flight. But by nature it is so intimately associated with the body that this removal cannot take place without a profound change in its condition. So it takes a new name also.[769] Although keeping all the distinctive traits of the individual whom it animated, his humours and his good and bad qualities,[770] still it has become a new being. From that moment a new existence commences for it.
It goes to the land of souls. This land is conceived differently by different tribes; sometimes different conceptions are found existing side by side in the same society. For some, it is situated under the earth, where each totemic group has its part. This is at the spot where the first ancestors, the founders of the clan, entered the ground at a certain time, and where they live since their death. In the subterranean world there is a geographical disposition of the dead corresponding to that of the living. There, the sun always shines and rivers flow which never run dry. Such is the conception which Spencer and Gillen attribute to the central tribes, Arunta,[771] Warramunga,[772] etc. It is found again among the Wotjobaluk.[773] In other places, all the dead, no matter what their totems may have been, are believed to live together in the same place, which is more or less vaguely localized as beyond the sea, in an island,[774] or on the shores of a lake.[775] Sometimes, finally, it is into the sky, beyond the clouds, that the souls are thought to go. "There," says Dawson, "there is a delectable land, abounding in kangaroos and game of every sort, where men lead a happy life. Souls meet again there and recognize one another."[776] It is probable that certain of the features of this picture have been taken from the paradise of the Christian missionaries;[777] but the idea that souls, or at least some souls, enter the skies after death appears to be quite indigenous; for it is found again in other parts of the continent.[778]