Adoption and Revenge

Among many North American Indian groups, the ideal funeral for a leader or war hero concluded with a ritual that brought the dead man back to life by passing his name and station on to another man who assumed his place. Father Barthelmy Vimont, a Jesuit missionary who worked in Quebec in the 17th century, described it like this:

It has often been said that the dead were brought back to life by making the living bear their names. This is done for several reasons -- to revive the memory of a brave man, and to incite him who shall bear his name to imitate his courage; to take revenge upon the enemies, for he who takes the name of a man killed in battle binds himself to avenge his death; to assist the family of the dead man, because he who brings him back to life, and who represents him, assumes all the duties of the deceased, feeding his children as if he were their own father -- in fact, they call him father, and he calls them his children . . . He who brings back the dead to life makes a present to him who is to take his place. He sometimes hangs a collar of glass beads around his neck. If the latter accepts, he takes the name of the deceased, and begins to dance before all the others, as a mark of rejoicing.

When one of the 49 chiefs of the Iroquois League died, he was replaced in this way, so that the ceremony of creating a new chief was simultaneously the funeral for the old one. By some sort of "jugglery", as our white witnesses described it, the new chief took the place of the old one's body on the funeral bed and rose up in the dead man's clothes, bearing his name.

Among warriors, the rebirth ceremony was always associated with revenge. As Father Vimont tells us, it was the duty of the renamed man to avenge his own death. This might be deferred, but it might also take place right away. If a captive was handy, the risen man might proceed immediately to torturing him to death, perhaps eating some of his flesh to complete the cycle. Thus the need to properly mourn the dead drove ever more fighting, and led to ever more deaths.

In the late 1600s the Iroquois created a version of this ritual in which a dead warrior's place was taken by a captive brought from an enemy tribe to take his place. The Iroquois had lost thousand of people to disease, so to keep up their numbers they adopted many members of other tribes into their own. Some came willingly, after their own tribes had collapsed in the face of disease and warfare. Others were brought in as captives. Capturing children to take the place of warriors fallen in battle became one of the main motives for raiding.

I am much impressed by the way these channel the emotions of mourning into the desire for revenge, insuring that there could never be peace.