ersonified. They say that Death
(_Mate_) used to live underground in a shadowy realm called Panoi, while
men on earth changed their skins like serpents and so renewing their
youth lived for ever. But a practical inconvenience of immortality was
that property never changed hands; newcomers had no chance, everything
was monopolised by the old, old stagers. To remedy this state of things
and secure a more equitable distribution of property Death was induced
to emerge from the lower world and to appear on earth among men; he came
relying on an assurance that no harm would be done him. Well, when they
had him, they laid him out on a board, covered him with a pall as if he
were a corpse, and then proceeded with great gusto to divide his
property and eat the funeral feast. On the fifth day they blew the conch
shell to drive away the ghost, as usual, and lifted the pall to see what
had become of Death. But there was no Death there; he had absconded
leaving only his skeleton behind. They naturally feared that he had made
off with an intention to return to his home underground, which would
have been a great calamity; for if there were no Death on earth, how
could men die and how could other people inherit their property? The
idea was intolerable; so to cut off the retreat of the fugitive, the
Fool was set to do sentinel duty at the parting of the ways, where one
road leads down to the underworld, Death's home, and the other leads up
to the upper world, the abode of the living. Here accordingly the Fool
was stationed with strict orders to keep his eye on Death if he should
attempt to sneak past him and return to the nether world. However, the
Fool, like a fool as he was, sat watching the road to the upper world,
and Death slipped behind him and so made good his retreat. Since then
all men have followed Death down that fatal path.[105]

[Sidenote: Thus according to savages death is not a necessary part of
the order of nature. A similar view is held by some eminent modern
biologists.]

So much for savage stories of the origin of death. They all imply a
belief that death is not a necessary part of the order of nature, but
that it originated in a pure mistake or misdeed of some sort on
somebody's part, and that we should all have lived happy and immortal if
it had not been for that disastrous blunder or crime. Thus the tales
reflect the same frame of mind which I illustrated in the last lecture,
when I shewed that many savages still