Of all the many forms which natural religion has assumed none probably has exerted so deep and far-reaching an influence on human life as the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead. This first volume of Frazer's book comprises the Gifford Lectures he gave at the University of St. Andrews in the years 1911 and 1912, and deals with the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead, as these are found among the aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea, and Melanesia.
In the second volume, the author describes the corresponding belief and worship among the Polynesians, a people related to their neighbors the Melanesians by language, if not by blood.

Contents:

Introduction

The Savage Conception of Death

Myths of the Origin of Death

The Belief in Immortality among the Aborigines of Central Australia

The Belief in Immortality among the other Aborigines of Australia

The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of the Torres Straits Islands

The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of British New Guinea

The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of German New Guinea

The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of German and Dutch New Guinea

The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Southern Melanesia (New Caledonia)

The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Central Melanesia

The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Northern and Eastern Melanesia

The Belief in Immortality among the Natives of Eastern Melanesia (Fiji)

The Belief in Immortality among the Maoris

The Belief in Immortality among the Tongans

The Belief in Immortality among the Samoans

The Belief in Immortality among the Hervey Islanders

The Belief in Immortality among the Society Islanders

The Belief in Immortality among the Marquesans

The Belief in Immortality among the Hawaiians