A third origin for Temples is found in the shed, hut, or shelter, erected over the grave, either for the protection of the dead or for the convenience of the living who bring their offerings. Thus, in parts of New Guinea, according to Mr. Chalmers, “The natives bury their dead in the front of their dwellings, and cover the grave with a small house, in which the near relatives sleep for several months.”
“Where house-burial is not practised,” says Mr. Spencer, once more, “the sheltering structure raised above the grave, or above the stage bearing the corpse, becomes the germ of the sacred building. By some of the New Guinea people there is a ‘roof of atap erected over’ the burial-place. In Cook’s time the Tahitians placed the body of a dead person upon a kind of bier supported by sticks and under a roof. So, too, in Sumatra, where ‘a shed is built over’ the grave; and so, too, in Tonga. Of course { 077}this shed admits of enlargement and finish. The Dyaks in some places build mausoleums like houses, 18 feet high, ornamentally carved, containing the goods of the departed--sword, shield, paddle, etc. When we read that the Fijians deposit the bodies of their chiefs in small _enbures_ or temples, we may fairly conclude that these so-called temples are simply more-developed sheltering structures. Still more clearly did the customs of the Peruvians show that the structure erected over the dead body develops into a temple. Acosta tells us that ‘every one of these kings Yncas left all his treasure and revenues to entertaine the place of worshippe where his body was layed, and there were many ministers with all their familie dedicated to his service.’”
Note in the last touch, by anticipation, one origin of priesthood. On the other hand, we saw in Mr. Duff Macdonald’s account of the Central African natives that those savages do not worship at the actual grave itself. In this case, terror of the _revenant_ seems to prevent the usual forms of homage at the tomb of the deceased. Moreover, the ghost being now conceived as more or less freely separable from the corpse, it will be possible to worship it in some place remote from the dreaded cemetery. Hence these Africans “seek the spirit at the place where their departed kinsman last lived among them. It is the great tree at the verandah of the dead man’s house that is their temple: and if no tree grow here, they erect a little shade, and there perform their simple rites.” We have in this case yet another possible origin for certain temples, and also, I will add by anticipation of a future chapter, for the sacred tree, which is so common an object of pious adoration in many countries.