Part 40

[Footnote 149: Brooke, _Ten Years in Saráwak_, i. 100. _Cf._ Rengger, _Naturgeschichte in der Säugethiere von Paraguay_, p. 26.]

[Footnote 150: Hardy, _Manual of Budhism_, pp. 478, 480.]

[Footnote 151: Cobbe, _op. cit._ p. 10.]

At present there is among ourselves no topic of moral concern which presents a greater variety of opinion than the question how far the happiness of the lower animals may be justly sacrificed for the benefit of man. The extreme views on this subject might, no doubt, be somewhat modified, on the one hand by a more vivid representation of animal suffering, on the other hand by the recognition of certain facts, often overlooked, which make it unreasonable to regard conduct towards dumb creatures in exactly the same light as conduct towards men. It should especially be remembered that the former have none of those long-protracted anticipations of future misery or death which we have.[152] If they are destined to serve as meat they are not aware of it; whereas many domestic animals would never have come into existence, and been able to enjoy what appears a very happy life, but for the purpose of being used as food. But though greater intellectual discrimination may somewhat lessen the divergencies of moral opinion on the subject, nothing like unanimity can be expected, for the simple reason that moral judgments are ultimately based upon emotions, and sympathy with the animal world is a feeling which varies extremely in different individuals.

[Footnote 152: _Cf._ Bentham, _Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation_, p. 311, n.]

CHAPTER XLV

REGARD FOR THE DEAD

MORALITY takes notice not only of men's conduct towards the living but of their conduct towards the dead.

There is a general tendency in the human mind to assume that what has existed still exists and will exist. When a person dies it is difficult for those around him to conceive that he is really dead, and when the cold motionless body bears sad testimony to the change which has taken place, there is a natural inclination to believe that the soul has only changed its abode. In the savage the tendency to assume the continued existence of the soul after death is strongly supported by dreams and visions of his deceased friends. What else could these mean but visits of their souls?

There are, it is true, some savages who are reported to believe in the annihilation of the soul at the moment of death, or to have no notion whatever of a future state.[1] But the accuracy of these statements is hardly beyond suspicion. We sometimes hear that the very people who are said to deny any belief in an after-life are afraid of ghosts.[2] A native of Madagascar will almost in the same {516} breath declare that when he dies he ceases altogether to exist and yet confess the fact that he is in the habit of praying to his dead ancestors.[3] Of the Masai in Eastern Africa some writers state that they believe in annihilation,[4] others that they attribute a future existence to their chiefs, medicine men, or influential people.[5] The ideas on this subject are often exceedingly vague, and inconsistencies are only to be expected.

[Footnote 1: Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 348 _sq._ (Miwok). Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, p. 233 _sq._ (some Oregon Indians). Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p. 101 (natives of the Herbert River, Northern Queensland). Martin, _Reisen in den Molukken_, p. 155 (Alfura). Worcester, _Philippine Islands_, p. 412 (Mangyans). Colquhoun, _Amongst the Shans_, p. 76 (Lethtas). Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 257 (Oráons). Petherick, _Travels in Central Africa_, i. 321 (Nouaer tribes). Du Chaillu, _Explorations in Equatorial Africa_, p. 385.]

[Footnote 2: New, _Life in Eastern Africa_, p. 105.]

[Footnote 3: Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, 393.]

[Footnote 4: Thomson, _Through Masai Land_, p. 259. Hinde, _The Last of the Masai_, p. 99.]

[Footnote 5: Johnston, _Uganda_, ii. 832. Hollis, _Masai_, pp. 304, 305, 307. Eliot, _ibid._ p. xx.]

The disembodied soul is commonly supposed to have the shape of a small unsubstantial human image, and to be in its nature a sort of vapour, film, or shadow.[6] It is believed to have the same bodily wants and to possess the same mental capacities as its owner possessed during his lifetime. It is not regarded as invulnerable or immortal--it may be hurt and killed. It feels hunger and thirst, heat and cold. It can see and hear and think, it has human passions and a human will, and it has the power to influence the living for evil or for good. These notions as regards the disembodied soul determine the relations between the living and the dead.

[Footnote 6: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 429.]

The dead are supposed to have rights very similar to those they had whilst alive. The soul must not be killed or injured. The South Australian Dieyerie, for instance, show great reverence for certain trees, which are believed to be their fathers transformed; they will not cut them down and protest against the settlers doing so.[7] So also some of the Philippine Islanders maintain that the souls of their forefathers are in trees, which they therefore spare.[8] The North American Powhatans refrained from doing harm to some small wood-birds, which were supposed to receive the souls of their chiefs.[9] In Lifu, {517} when a father was about to die, surrounded by members of his family, he might say what animal he would be, for instance a butterfly or some kind of bird, and that creature would be sacred to his family, who would neither injure nor kill it.[10] The Rejangs of Sumatra imagine that tigers in general contain the spirits of departed men, and "no consideration will prevail on a countryman to catch or to wound one, but in self-defence, or immediately after the act of destroying a friend or relation."[11] Among other peoples monkeys, crocodiles, or snakes, being thought men in metempsychosis, are held sacred and must not be hurt.[12] Some Congo Negroes, again, abstain for a whole year after a death from sweeping the house, lest the dust should injure the delicate substance of the ghost.[13] In China, for seven days after a man's death his widow and children avoid the use of knives and needles, and even of chopsticks, eating their food with their fingers, so as not to wound the ghost.[14] And to this day it remains a German peasants' belief that it is wrong to slam a door, lest one should pinch a soul in it.[15]

[Footnote 7: Gason, 'Dieyerie Tribe,' in Woods' _Native Tribes of South Australia_, p. 280.]

[Footnote 8: Blumentritt, 'Der Ahnencultus der Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels,' in _Mittheil. d. kais. u. kön. Geograph. Gesellsch. in Wien_, xxv. 164 _sqq._]

[Footnote 9: Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, p. 102.]

[Footnote 10: Codrington, quoted by Tylor, 'Remarks on Totemism,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxviii. 147.]

[Footnote 11: Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, p. 292. The same belief prevails among the natives of the Malay Peninsula (Newbold, _British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca_, ii. 192).]

[Footnote 12: Meiners, _Geschichte der Religionen_, i. 212. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 8.]

[Footnote 13: Bastian, _Der Mensch in der Geschichte_, ii. 323.]

[Footnote 14: Gray, _China_, i. 288.]

[Footnote 15: Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart_, § 609, p. 396 _sq._]

But the survivors must not only avoid doing anything which might hurt the soul, they must also positively contribute to its comfort and subsistence. They often provide it with a dwelling, either burying the deceased in his own house, or erecting a tent or hut on his grave. Some Australian natives kindle a fire at a few yards' distance from the tomb, and repeat this until the soul is supposed to have gone somewhere else;[16] others, again, are in the habit of wrapping the body up in a rug, professedly for the purpose of keeping it warm.[17] In the Saxon district of Voigtland people have been known to {518} put into the coffin an umbrella and a pair of galoshes.[18] An extremely prevalent custom is to place provisions in or upon the grave, and very commonly feasts are given for the dead.[19] Weapons, implements, and other movables are deposited in the tomb; domestic animals are buried or slaughtered at the funeral;[20] and, as we have seen before, even human beings are sacrificed to the dead to serve them as companions or attendants, or to vivify their spirits with their blood, or to gratify their craving for revenge.[21]

[Footnote 16: Roth, _North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines_, p. 165.]

[Footnote 17: Fraser, _Aborigines of New South Wales_, p. 79 _sq._]

[Footnote 18: Kohler, _Volksbrauch im Voigtlande_, p. 441.]

[Footnote 19: See Tylor. _op. cit._ ch. xi. _sq._; Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 155 _sqq._, 257 _sqq._; Frazer, _Adonis Attis Osiris_, p. 242 _sqq._]

[Footnote 20: See Spencer, _op. cit._ i. 184 _sqq._]

[Footnote 21: _Supra_, i. 472 _sqq._]

The offerings made to the dead may be gifts presented to them by the survivors, but the regular funeral sacrifice consists of the deceased person's own individual property. Among savages the whole, or a large part, of it is often consigned to the grave or destroyed.[22] The right of ownership does not cease with death where the belief prevails that the dead stand in need of earthly chattels. The recognition of this right is also apparent in the severe condemnation of robbery or violation committed at a tomb. Among various North American tribes such an act was regarded as an offence of the first magnitude and provoked cruel revenge.[23] Of the Chippewa Indians it is said that however bad a person may be or however much inclined to steal, the things left at a grave, valuable or not, are never touched, being sacred to the spirit of the {519} dead.[24] Among the Maoris "the least violation of any portion of the precincts of the dead is accounted the greatest crime that a human being can commit, and is visited with the direst revenge of a surviving tribe."[25] The laws of Athens[26] and Rome[27] and the ancient Teutonic law-books[28] punished with great severity the plunder of a corpse or a tomb. In Rome the punishment was death if the offence was committed by force, otherwise condemnation to the mines.

[Footnote 22: Boas, 'Central Eskimo,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ vi. 580. Murdoch, 'Ethn. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' _ibid._ ix. 424 _sq._ (Point Barrow Eskimo). Powell, _ibid._ iii. p. lvii. (North American Indians). Yarrow, 'Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians,' _ibid._ i. 98 (Pimas), 100 (Comanches). McGee, 'Siouan Indians,' _ibid._ xv. 178. Roth, _op. cit._ p. 164 (certain Queensland tribes). Colenso, _Maori Races of New Zealand_, p. 57. Kolff, _Voyages of the Dourga_, p. 166 _sq._ (Arru Islanders). Kloss, _In the Andamans and Nicobars_, p. 304 (Kar Nicobarese). Batchelor, _Ainu and their Folk-Lore_, p. 560 _sq._ Georgi, _Russia_, iv. 152 (Burats). Caillié, _Travels through Central Africa_, i. 164 (Bagos). Burrows, _Land of the Pigmies_, p. 107 (Monbuttu). Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_, p. 79 (Barotse). Strabo, xi. 4. 8 (Albanians of the Eastern Caucasus). See also Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 185 _sq._; Post, _Entwicklungsgeschichte des Familienrechts_, p. 295 _sq._; _Idem_, _Grundriss der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz_, ii. 173 _sq._; _infra_, p. 514 _sq._]

[Footnote 23: Sagard, _Voyage du Pays des Hurons_, p. 288. Gibbs, 'Tribes of Western Washington and North-western Oregon,' in _Contributions to North American Ethnology_, i. 204.]

[Footnote 24: Reid, 'Religious Belief of the Ojibois,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ iii. 112.]

[Footnote 25: Polack, _Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders_, i. 111 _sq._]

[Footnote 26: Cicero, _De legibus_, ii. 26. See also Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 105 _sq._]

[Footnote 27: _Digesta_, xlvii. 12, 'De sepulchro violato.']

[Footnote 28: Wilda, _Das Strafrecht der Germanen_, p. 975 _sqq._]

Like living men the dead are sensitive to insults and fond of praise; hence respect must be shown for their honour and self-regarding pride. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum;_ [Greek: ou) ga\r e)sthla\ katthanou=si kertomei=n e)p' a)ndra/sin].[29] In Greece custom required that at the funeral meal the virtues of the deceased should be enumerated and extolled,[30] and calumny against a dead person was punished by law.[31] The same was the case in ancient Egypt.[32] In Greenland, after the interment, the nearest male relative of the dead commemorated in a loud plaintive voice all the excellent qualities of the departed.[33] Among the Iroquois the near relatives and friends approached the body in turn and addressed it in a laudatory speech.[34]

[Footnote 29: Archilochus, _Reliquiæ_, 40.]

[Footnote 30: Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 122 _sq._]

[Footnote 31: Rohde, _Psyche_, p. 224.]

[Footnote 32: Diodorus Siculus, i. 92. 5. Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, p. 322.]

[Footnote 33: Cranz, _History of Greenland_, i. 218.]

[Footnote 34: Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 175, n. 2.]

The dead also demand obedience and are anxious that the rules they laid down while alive should be followed by the survivors. Hence the sacredness which is attached to a will;[35] hence also, in a large measure, the rigidity of ancestral custom. The greatest dread of the natives of South-Eastern Africa "is to offend their ancestors and the only way to avoid this is to do everything according to {520} traditional usage."[36] Among the Basutos "the anger of the deified generations could not be more directly provoked than by a departure from the precepts and examples they have left behind them."[37] The E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast have a proverb which runs:--"Follow the customs of your father. What he did not do, avoid doing, or you will harm yourself."[38] Among the Aleuts the old men always impress upon the native youth the great importance of strictly observing the customs of their forefathers in conducting the chase and other matters, as any neglect in this respect would be sure to bring upon them disaster and punishment.[39] The Kamchadales, says Steller, consider it a sin to do anything which is contrary to the precepts of their ancestors.[40] The Papuans of the Motu district, in New Guinea, believe that when men and women are bad--adulterers, thieves, quarrellers, and the like--the spirits of the dead are angry with them.[41] One of the most powerful sentiments in the mind of a Chinese is his reverence for ancestral custom; and in a large sense Japan also is still a country governed by the voices that are hushed.[42] The life of the ancient Roman was beset with a society of departed kinsmen whose displeasure he provoked if he varied from the practice handed down from his fathers. The expression _mos majorum_, "the custom of the elders," was used by him as a charm against innovation.[43]

[Footnote 35: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iii. 116 (Tahitians). Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders_, p. 257. Sarbah, _Fanti Customary Laws_, p. 82. Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 124 _sq._]

[Footnote 36: Macdonald, _Light in Africa_, p. 192.]

[Footnote 37: Casalis, _Basutos_, p. 254.]

[Footnote 38: Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p. 263.]

[Footnote 39: Elliott, _Alaska and the Seal Islands_, p. 170. Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, _Report on the Population, &c. of Alaska_, p. 156.]

[Footnote 40: Steller, _Beschreibung von Kamtschatka_, p. 274.]

[Footnote 41: Chalmers, _Pioneering in New Guinea_, p. 169.]

[Footnote 42: Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 308. Hozumi, _Ancestor-Worship and Japanese Law_, p. 1, &c.]

[Footnote 43: Granger, 'Moral Life of the Early Romans,' in _Internal. Jour. of Ethics_, vii. 287. _Idem_, _Worship of the Romans_, pp. 65, 66, 138.]

Besides such duties to the dead as are similar in nature to those which men owe to their living fellow men or superiors, there are obligations of a different character arising from the fact of death itself. The funeral, the rites connected with it, and the mourning customs are largely regarded as duties to the dead.

{521} The grave is represented as a place where the deceased finds his desired rest, and if denied proper burial he is believed not only to walk but to suffer. The Iroquois considered that unless the rites of burial were performed, the spirits of the dead had to wander for a time upon the earth in a state of great unhappiness; hence their extreme solicitude to recover the bodies of their slain in battle.[44] The Abipones regard it as the greatest misfortune for the dead to be left to rot in the open air, and they therefore inter even the smallest bone of a departed friend.[45] In Ashantee the spirits of those who for some reason or other have been deprived of the customary funeral rites are doomed, in the imagination of the people, to haunt the gloom of the forest, stealing occasionally to their former abodes in rare but lingering visits, troubling and bewitching their neglectful relatives.[46] The Negroes of Accra believe that happiness in a future life depends not only upon courage, power, and wealth in this world, but also upon a proper burial.[47] In some Australian tribes the souls of those whose bodies have been left to lie unburied are supposed to have to prowl on the face of the earth and about the place of death, with no gratification but to harm the living;[48] or there is said to be no future existence for them, as their bodies will be devoured by crows and native dogs.[49] Among the Bataks of Sumatra nothing is considered to be a greater disgrace to a person than to be denied a grave; for by not being held worthy of burial he is declared to be spiritually dead.[50] The Samoans believed that the souls of unburied friends, for instance such as had been drowned or had fallen in war, haunted them everywhere, crying out in a pitiful tone, "Oh, how cold! Oh, how cold!"[51] According to Karen ideas the {522} spirits of those who die a natural death and are decently buried go to a beautiful country and renew their earthly life, whereas the ghosts of persons who by accident are left uninterred will wander about the earth, occasionally showing themselves to mankind.[52] Confucius connected the disposal of the dead immediately with the great virtue of submission and devotion to superiors.[53] No act is in China recognised more worthy a virtuous man than that of interring stray bones and covering up exposed coffins,[54] and to bury a person who is without friends is considered to be as great a merit as to save life.[55] It is also held highly important to provide the proper place for a grave; the Taouists maintain that "if a coffin be interred in an improper spot, the spirit of the dead is made unhappy, and avenges itself by causing sickness and other calamities to the relatives who have not taken sufficient care for its repose."[56] The ancient Chaldeans believed that the spirits of the unburied dead, having neither place of repose nor means of subsistence, wandered through the town and country, occupied with no other thought than that of attacking and robbing the living.[57] In classical antiquity it was the most sacred of duties to give the body its funeral rites,[58] and the Greeks referred the right of sepulture to the gods as its authors.[59]

[Footnote 44: Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 175.]

[Footnote 45: Dobrizhoffer, _Account of the Abipones_, ii. 284.]

[Footnote 46: Bowdich, _Mission to Ashantee_, p. 262 _sq._]

[Footnote 47: Monrad, _Skildring af Guinea-Kysten_, p. 4.]

[Footnote 48: Oldfield, 'Aborigines of Australia,' in _Trans. Ethn. Soc._ N.S. iii. 228, 236 _sq._]

[Footnote 49: Chauncy, in Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, ii. 280.]

[Footnote 50: Buning, in _Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago_, p. 75.]

[Footnote 51: Turner, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_, p. 233. Hood, _Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific_, p. 142.]

[Footnote 52: Cross, quoted by Mac Mahon, _Far Cathay_, p. 202 _sq._ Mason, 'Religion, &c. among the Karens,' in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xxxiv. pt. ii. 203.]

[Footnote 53: de Groot, _Religious System of China_, (vol. ii. book) i. 659.]

[Footnote 54: Giles, _Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio_, ii. 147, n. 11.]

[Footnote 55: _Indo-Chinese Gleaner_, iii. 161.]

[Footnote 56: Legge, _Religions of China_, p. 200.]

[Footnote 57: Maspero, _Dawn of Civilization_, p. 689. Jeremias, _Die babylonisch-assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode_, p. 54 _sqq._ Halévy, _Mélanges de critique et d'histoire relatifs aux peuples sémitiques_, p. 368.]

[Footnote 58: See Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 97 _sqq._; Granger, _Worship of the Romans_, p. 37 _sqq._; Aust, _Die Religion der Römer_, p. 226 _sq._]

[Footnote 59: Sophocles, _Antigone_, 454 _sq._ Euripides, _Supplices_, 563.]

So also among peoples who practise cremation the dead themselves are considered to be benefited by being burned. The Nâyars of Malabar are of opinion that no time should be lost in setting about the funeral, as the disposal of a corpse either by cremation or burial as soon {523} as possible after death is conducive to the happiness of the spirit of the departed; they say that "the collection and careful disposal of the ashes of the dead gives peace to his spirit."[60] The Thlinkets maintain that those whose bodies are burned will be warm and comfortable in the other world, whereas others will have to suffer from cold. "Burn my body! Burn me!" pleaded a dying Thlinket; "I fear the cold. Why should I go shivering through all the ages and the distances of the next world?"[61] The ancient Persians, on the other hand, considered both cremation and burial to be sins for which there was no atonement, and exposed their dead on the summits of mountains, thinking it a great misfortune if neither birds nor beasts devoured their carcases.[62] So also the Samoyedes and Mongols held it to be good for the deceased if his corpse was soon devoured by beasts,[63] and the Kamchadales regarded it as a great blessing to be eaten by a beautiful dog.[64] The East African Masai, who likewise, as a rule, expose their dead to the wild beasts, say that if the corpse is eaten by the hyænas the first night, the deceased must have been a good man, as the hyænas are supposed to act by the command of 'Ng ais, or God.[65]

[Footnote 60: Fawcett, 'Nâyars of Malabar,' in the Madras Government Museum's _Bulletin_, iii. 245, 251.]

[Footnote 61: Dall, _Alaska_, p. 423. Petroff, _op. cit._ p. 175. McNair Wright, _Among the Alaskans_, p. 333.]

[Footnote 62: _Vendîdâd_, i. 13, 17; vi. 45 _sqq._; viii. 10. Darmesteter, in _Sacred Books of the East_, iv. p. lxxv. _sqq._ Agathias, _Historiæ_, ii. 22 _sq._ (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, Ser. Graeca, lxxxviii. 1377). Herodotus, i. 140; iii. 16.]

[Footnote 63: Preuss, _Die Begräbnisarten der Amerikaner und Nordostasiaten_, p. 272. _Cf._ Yarrow, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ i. 103 (Caddoes or Timber Indians).]

[Footnote 64: Steller, _op. cit._ p. 273.]

[Footnote 65: Merker, _Die Masai_, p. 193.]

Certain ceremonies are professedly performed for the purpose of preventing evil spirits from doing harm to the dead.[66] This is sometimes the case with cremation; we are told that among some Siberian peoples the dead are burned so as to be "effectually removed from the machinations of spirits."[67] The Teleutes believe that the {524} spirits of the earth do much mischief to the departed; hence their shamans drive them off at the funeral by striking the air several times with an axe.[68] In Christian countries the passing-bell has likewise been supposed to repel evil spirits.[69]

[Footnote 66: See Frazer, 'Certain Burial Customs as illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xv. 87 _sq._; Hertz, 'La représentation collective de la mort,' in _L'année sociologique_, x., 1905-1906, p. 56 _sq._]

[Footnote 67: Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 264.]

[Footnote 68: Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 264.]

[Footnote 69: Frazer, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xv. 87.]

Fasting after a death is regarded as a dutiful tribute to the dead; the Chinese say that it is "a means of raising the mind up to the soul, a means to enable the sacrificer to perform in a more perfect way the acts of worship incumbent upon him, by bringing about a closer contact between himself and the soul."[70] The self-mutilations performed by the relatives of the dead are supposed to be pleasing to him as tokens of affliction;[71] and the same is of course the case with the lamentations at funerals. In some Central Australian tribes the custom of painting the body of a mourner is said to have as its object "to render him or her more conspicuous, and so to allow the spirit to see that it is being properly mourned for."[72] The mourning dress is a sign of regard for the dead. Nay, even the custom of not mentioning his name is looked upon in the same light. Some peoples maintain that to name him would be to disturb his rest,[73] or that he would take it as an indication that his relatives are not properly mourning for him, and would feel it as an insult.[74]

[Footnote 70: de Groot, _op. cit._ (vol. ii. book) i. 657.]

[Footnote 71: Dorman, _Origin of Primitive Superstitions_, p. 216 _sqq._]

[Footnote 72: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 511.]

[Footnote 73: Nansen, _Eskimo Life_, p. 233 (Greenlanders). Tout, 'Ethnology of the Stlatlumh of British Columbia,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxxv. 138. Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 27 (Samoyedes).]

[Footnote 74: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 498.]

As the duties to the living, so the duties to the dead are greatly influenced by the relationship between the parties. Everywhere the obligation to satisfy the wants of the deceased is incumbent upon those who were nearest to him whilst alive. In the archaic State, as we have seen, it is considered the greatest misfortune which can befall a person to die without descendants, since in such a case there would be nobody to attend to his soul.[75] Confucius {525} said, "For a man to sacrifice to a spirit which does not belong to him is flattery."[76] The distinction between a tribesman or fellow countryman and a stranger also applies to the dead. In Greenland a stranger without relatives or friends was generally suffered to lie unburied.[77] Among North American Indians it is permitted to scalp warriors of a hostile tribe, whereas "there is no example of an Indian having taken the scalp of a man of his own tribe, or of one belonging to a nation in alliance with his own, and whom he may have killed in a quarrel or a fit of anger";[78] and an Indian who would never think of desecrating the grave of a tribesman may have "no such scruple in regard to the graves of another tribe."[79] Yet already from early times we hear of the recognition of certain duties even to strangers and enemies. The Greeks of the post-Homeric age made it a rule to deliver up a slain enemy so that he should receive the proper funeral rites.[80] It was considered a disgraceful act of Lysander not to accord burial to Philocles, the Athenian general at Aegospotami, together with about four thousand prisoners whom he put to the sword;[81] and the Athenians themselves boasted that their ancestors had with their own hands buried the Persians who had fallen in the battle of Marathon, holding it to be "a sacred and imperative duty to cover with earth a human corpse."[82] According to the Chinese penal code, "destroying, mutilating, or throwing into the water the unenclosed and unburied corpse of a stranger," though a much less serious crime than the same injury inflicted upon the corpse of a relative, is yet an offence punishable with 100 blows, and perpetual banishment to the distance of 3,000 _lee_.[83]

[Footnote 75: _Supra_, ii. 400 _sqq._]

[Footnote 76: _Lun Yü_, ii. 24. 1.]

[Footnote 77: Cranz, _op. cit._ i. 218.]

[Footnote 78: Domenech, _Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of North America_, ii. 357.]

[Footnote 79: Dodge, _Our Wild Indians_, p. 162.]

[Footnote 80: Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 100 _sqq._ Rohde, _op. cit._ p. 200 _sq._]

[Footnote 81: Pausanias, ix. 32. 9.]

[Footnote 82: _Ibid._ i. 32. 5; ix. 32. 9.]

[Footnote 83: _Ta Tsing Leu Lee_, sec. cclxxvi. p. 295.]

The duties to the dead also vary according to the age, {526} sex, and social position of the departed. Among the natives of Australia children and women are interred with but scant ceremony.[84] In the tribes of North-West-Central Queensland nobody paints his body in mourning for a young child.[85] In Eastern Central Africa the spirit of a child which dies when about four or five days of age gets nothing of the attention usually bestowed on the dead.[86] Among the Wadshagga married persons are buried in their huts, whilst the bodies of unmarried ones and especially children are put in some hidden place, where they are left to rot or be devoured by beasts.[87] Some Siberian tribes were formerly accustomed to inhume adults only, whereas the corpses of children were exposed on trees.[88] The natives of Port Jackson, in New South Wales, consigned their young people to the grave, but burned those who had passed middle age.[89] The Kondayamkottai Maravars, a Dravidian tribe of Tinnevelly in Southern India, bury the corpses of unmarried persons, whilst those of married ones are cremated.[90] In some other tribes in India burial is practised in the case of young children only,[91] and this has long been a rule of Brahmanism.[92] Among the Andaman Islanders, again, infants are buried within the encampment, whereas all other dead are carried to some distant and secluded spot in the jungle.[93] We meet with a kindred custom in the neighbourhood of Victoria Nyanza in Central Africa: in Karagwe and Nkole "children are buried in the huts themselves, grown-up people outside, generally in cultivated fields, or in such as are going to be cultivated."[94] The bodies of women are sometimes disposed of in a {527} different way from those of men. Thus among the Blackfeet Indians the latter were fastened in the branches of trees so high as to be beyond the reach of wolves, and then left to waste in the dry winds; whilst the body of a woman or child was thrown into the underbush or jungle, where it soon became the prey of the wild animals.[95] Among the Tuski (Chukchi), who cremate or rather boil the bodies of good men, women are not usually burned, on account of the scarcity of wood.[96]

[Footnote 84: Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 89.]

[Footnote 85: Roth, _op. cit._ p. 164.]

[Footnote 86: Macdonald, _Africana_, i. 59.]

[Footnote 87: Volkens, _Der Kilimandscharo_, p. 253.]

[Footnote 88: Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 31 (Koibales).]

[Footnote 89: Collins, _English Colony of New South Wales_, i. 601.]

[Footnote 90: Fawcett, 'Kondayamkottai Maravars,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxiii. 64.]

[Footnote 91: Thurston, in the Madras Government Museum's _Bulletin_, i. 198 (Kotas). Fawcett, 'Nâyars of Malabar,' _ibid._ iii. 245.]

[Footnote 92: Hopkins, _Religions of India_, p. 273.]

[Footnote 93: Man, 'Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xii. 144.]

[Footnote 94: Kollmann, _Victoria Nyanza_, p. 63 _sq._]

[Footnote 95: Yarrow, _Introduction to the Study of Mortuary Customs among the North American Indians_, p. 67.]

[Footnote 96: Dall, _op. cit._ p. 382.]

Class distinctions likewise influence the disposal of the dead. In some American tribes cremation seems to be reserved for persons of higher rank.[97] Among the pagans of Obubura Hill district in Southern Nigeria "the bodies of ordinary people are buried in the bush, sometimes being merely thrown on the ground, but those of chiefs and important men and women are buried in their huts or in the adjoining verandah."[98] The Masai throw away the corpses of ordinary persons to be eaten by hyænas, whereas medicine-men and influential people are buried.[99] The Nandi do not bury their dead unless they have been very important persons.[100] Among the Waganda, when a chief dies, he is buried in a wooden coffin, whilst the bodies of slaves are thrown into the jungle.[101] Some other African peoples throw the corpses of slaves into a morass or the nearest pool of water.[102] The Thlinkets committed them to the tender mercies of the sea.[103] Among the Maoris a slave would not be greatly bewailed after death, nor have his bones ceremonially scraped.[104] The Roman 'Law of the Twelve Tables' prohibited the bodies of slaves from being embalmed.[105] Moral distinctions, also, are noticeable in {528} the treatment of the dead. In some parts of Central America the bodies of men of high standing who had committed a crime were, like those of the common people, exposed to be devoured by wild beasts.[106] Among the Tuski the corpses of bad men were simply left to rot.[107] In Greenland the body of a dead malefactor was dismembered, and the separate limbs were thrown apart.[108] To the same class of facts belong the punishments which were inflicted upon the corpses of criminals in classical antiquity and formerly in Christian Europe.[109]

[Footnote 97: Preuss, _op. cit._ p. 301.]

[Footnote 98: Partridge, _Cross River Natives_, p. 237.]

[Footnote 99: Hollis, _op. cit._ pp. 304, 305, 307; Eliot, _ibid._ p. xx.]

[Footnote 100: Johnston, _Uganda_, ii. 880.]

[Footnote 101: Wilson and Felkin, _Uganda_, i. 188.]

[Footnote 102: Denham and Clapperton, _Travels in Northern and Central Africa_, ii. 64 (natives of Kano). Pogge, _Im Reiche des Muata Jamwo_, p. 243 (Kalunda).]

[Footnote 103: Holmberg, 'Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des russischen Amerika,' in _Acta Soc. Scient. Fennicæ_, iv. 323. Dall, _op. cit._ pp. 417, 420.]

[Footnote 104: Colenso, _op. cit._ p. 30.]

[Footnote 105: _Lex Duodecim Tabularum_, x. 6.]

[Footnote 106: Preuss, _op. cit._ p. 301.]

[Footnote 107: Dall, _op. cit._ p. 382.]

[Footnote 108: Rink, _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_, p. 64.]

[Footnote 109: Ayrault, _Des procez faicts au cadaver_, p. 5 _sqq._ Trummer, _Vorträge über Tortur, &c._ i. 455 _sqq._ _Supra_, ii. 254.]

From this survey of facts we shall now pass to a consideration of the causes from which the duties to the dead have sprung. In the first place, there can be no doubt that these duties to a considerable extent are based upon the feeling of sympathetic resentment, in the same way as is the case with duties to living persons. Death does not entirely extinguish the affection which was felt for a person whilst he was alive. The rites and customs connected with a death are very largely similar to or identical with natural expressions of grief, and in spite of their ceremonial character it is impossible to believe that they are altogether counterfeit. We are told by trustworthy eye-witnesses that, although the self-inflicted pain and the loud lamentations which form part of a funeral among the Australian blacks are not to be taken as a measure of the grief actually felt, this expression of despair "is not all artificial or professional";[110] and Mr. Man believes that among the Andaman Islanders "in the majority of cases the display of grief is thoroughly sincere."[111] But the dead also inspire other feelings than sympathy and sorrow, and the duties towards them have consequently a complex origin.

[Footnote 110: Fraser, _Aborigines of New South Wales_, p. 44. Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 510 _sq._]

[Footnote 111: Man, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xii. 145.]

The souls of the dead are not generally supposed to lead a merely passive existence. They are conceived as {529} capable of acting upon the living, of conferring upon them benefits, or at all events of inflicting upon them harm. Death has in some respects enhanced their powers. They know what is going on upon earth, what those whom they have left behind are doing. Their power of acting, also, is greater than that which they possessed when they were tied to the flesh. They are raised to a higher sphere of influence; magic properties are ascribed even to their corpses. Their character may remain on the whole unchanged, and so, too, their affection for their surviving friends. Hence they often become guardians of their descendants. Among the Amazulu the head of each house is worshipped by his children; remembering his kindness to them while he was living, they say, "He will still treat us in the same way now he is dead."[112] The Herero invoke the blessings of their deceased friends or relatives, praying for success against their enemies, an abundance of cattle, numerous wives, and prosperity in their undertakings.[113] On the West African Slave Coast the head of a family, after death, often becomes its protector, and is sometimes regarded as the guardian of a whole community or village.[114] The Mpongwe teach the child "to look up to the parent not only as its earthly protector, but as a friend in the spirit-land."[115] The Gournditch-mara in Australia believed that "the spirit of the deceased father or grandfather occasionally visited the male descendant in dreams, and imparted to him charms (songs) against disease or against witchcraft."[116] The Veddah of Ceylon invokes the spirits of his departed relatives "as sympathetic and kindred, though higher powers than man, to direct him to a life pleasing to the gods, through which he may gain their protection or favour."[117] The Nay[=a]dis of Malabar, on certain ceremonial occasions, offer solemn prayers that the souls of the {530} departed may protect them from the ravages of wild beasts and snakes.[118] The Vedic people called upon the aid of their dead:--"O Fathers, may the sky-people grant us life; may we follow the course of the living."[119] So also the Zoroastrian Fravashis, who corresponded to the Vedic "Fathers," helped their own kindred, borough, town, or country.[120] Aeschylus, in his 'Eumenides,' represents Orestes as saying, "My father will send me aid from the tomb."[121] The Lar Familiaris, the spirit guardian of the Roman family, was undoubtedly the spirit of a deceased ancestor.[122] The old Slavonians believed that the souls of fathers watched over their children and their children's children. In Galicia the people still think that their hearths are haunted by the souls of the dead, who make themselves useful to the family; and among the Czechs, it is a common belief that departed ancestors look after the fields and herds of their descendants and assist them in hunting and fishing.[123]

[Footnote 112: Callaway, _Religious System of the Amazulu_, p. 144 _sq._]

[Footnote 113: Andersson, _Lake Ngami_, p. 222.]

[Footnote 114: Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples_, p. 104. See also _ibid._ p. 24 (Slave and Gold Coast natives).]

[Footnote 115: Wilson, _Western Africa_, p. 394.]

[Footnote 116: Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 278.]

[Footnote 117: Nevill, 'Vaeddas of Ceylon,' in _Taprobanian_, i. 194.]

[Footnote 118: Iyer, 'Nay[=a]dis of Malabar,' in the Madras Government Museum's _Bulletin_, iv. 72.]

[Footnote 119: _Rig-Veda_, x. 57. 5. _Cf._ Hopkins, _op. cit._ p. 143 _sq._]

[Footnote 120: _Yasts_, xiii. 66 _sqq._; &c.]

[Footnote 121: Aeschylus, _Eumenides_, 598.]

[Footnote 122: Jevons, in Plutarch's _Romane Questions_, p. xli. Rohde, _op. cit._ p. 232.]

[Footnote 123: Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, pp. 119, 121. For other instances of a similar kind see Shooter, _Kafirs of Natal_, p. 161; Arbousset and Daumas, _Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope_, p. 340 (Bechuanas); Casalis, _Basutos_, p. 248; Wilken, _Het animisme bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel_, p. 194 _sqq._; Nansen, _Eskimo Life_, p. 290 (Greenlanders); Jessen, _Afhandling over de Norske Finners og Lappers Hedenske Religion_, p. 27; Friis, _Lappisk Mythologi_, p. 115 _sq._; von Düben, _Lappland_, p. 249; Abercromby, _Pre- and Proto-historic Finns_, i. 178 (Mordvins); von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube der Zigeuner_, p. 43 _sqq._ (Gypsies).]

But the ancestral guardian spirit does not bestow his favours for nothing. He must be properly attended to,[124] and if neglected he easily becomes positively dangerous to his living relatives. The same Africans who invoke the dead in adversity think them "capable of wreaking their vengeance on those who do not liberally minister to their wants and enjoyments."[125] The Chaldeans believed that {531} the departed who otherwise carefully watched over the welfare of his children, if abandoned and forgotten, avenged himself for their neglect by returning to torment them in their homes, by letting sickness attack them, and by ruining them with his imprecations.[126] The Vedic poet prays to the Fathers, "May ye not injure us for whatever impiety we have as men committed."[127] The Fravashis come to the help of those only who treat them well, and are "dreadful unto those who vex them."[128] In Rome, according to Ovid, once upon a time when the great festival of the dead was not observed, and the manes failed to receive the customary gifts, the injured spirits revenged themselves on the living, and the city "became heated by the suburban funeral pyres."[129] So also, according to Slavonic beliefs, the dead "might be induced, if proper respect was not paid to them, to revenge themselves on their forgetful survivors."[130]

[Footnote 124: Wilken, _op. cit._ p. 194 _sq._ (peoples in the Malay Archipelago). Abercromby, _op. cit._ i. 178 (Mordvins). Jessen, _op. cit._ p. 27; Friis, _op. cit._ p. 116 _sq._ (Laplanders).]

[Footnote 125: Rowley, _Religion of the Africans_, p. 90.]

[Footnote 126: Halevy, _op. cit._ p. 368.]

[Footnote 127: _Rig-Veda_, x. 15. 6.]

[Footnote 128: _Yasts_, xiii. 31, 42, 51, 70, &c.]

[Footnote 129: Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 549 _sqq._]

[Footnote 130: Ralston, _op. cit._ p. 335.]

Moreover, we must not conclude that wherever the spirits of deceased ancestors are invoked as guardians they are necessarily looked upon as essentially benevolent to their descendants.[131] Concerning the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians Professor Jastrow writes:--"In general the dead were not favorably disposed towards the living, and they were inclined to use what power they had to work evil rather than for good. In this respect they resembled the demons, and it is noticeable that an important class of demons was known by the name _ekimmu_, which is one of the common terms for the shades of the dead."[132] The Greeks were much afraid of their dead, and regarded their "heroes" as extremely irritable, in later times as exclusively malicious.[133] It appears from Ovid's 'Fasti' that fear was the predominant feeling of the Romans with reference to the spirits of the departed, who were supposed {532} to wander about by night, causing men to pine away or bewitching them into madness.[134] Even in China, where the souls of the dead are supposed effectually to control the destiny of the living,[135] malevolent rather than benevolent inclinations are ascribed to them by the popular belief, as appears from the fact that the words for "ghost" and "devil" are the same and form a portion of the objectionable epithets applied to foreigners.[136] Generally speaking, my collection of facts has led me to the conclusion that the dead are more commonly regarded as enemies than friends,[137] and that Professor Jevons[138] and Mr. Grant Allen[139] are mistaken in their assertion that, according to early beliefs, the malevolence of the dead is for the most part directed against strangers only, whereas they exercise a fatherly care over the lives and fortunes of their descendants and fellow clansmen.

[Footnote 131: _Cf._ Karsten, _Origin of Worship_, p. 122 _sqq._]

[Footnote 132: Jastrow, _op. cit._ p. 581.]

[Footnote 133: Rohde, _op. cit._ pp. 177 _sqq._, 225 n. 4. Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 130.]

[Footnote 134: Ovid, _Fasti_, v. 429 _sqq._ Granger, _Worship of the Romans_, p. 67.]

[Footnote 135: de Groot, _op. cit._ (vol. v. book) ii. 464.]

[Footnote 136: Dennys, _Folk-Lore of China_, p. 73. See also Legge, _Religions of China_, pp. 13, 201.]

[Footnote 137: Dr. Steinmetz (_Ethnol. Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe_, i. 283) has arrived at the same conclusion. See also Meiners, _Geschichte der Religionen_, i. 301 _sqq._; Karsten, _op. cit._ p. 115 _sqq._]

[Footnote 138: Jevons, _Introduction to the History of Religion_, p. 53 _sq._]

[Footnote 139: Grant Allen, _Evolution of the Idea of God_, p. 347 _sq._]

Thus the Bondeis in East Africa apparently make little difference between a devil and a departed ancestor.[140] Among the Fjort of Loango the good people who have left this life "are generally considered the enemies of mankind."[141] Other Africans maintain that the spirits of the dead hover in the air, "watching the destiny of friends, haunting houses, killing children, injuring cattle, and causing disease and destruction," all being malevolent to the living.[142] Of the Savage Islanders in Polynesia we are told that "no effort of the missionary can avail to break them of their belief in the malevolence of ghosts, even of those who loved them best in life; the spirits of the dead seem compelled to work ill to the living without their own volition."[143] In Tahiti the spirits of parents and children, sisters and brothers, "seemed to have been regarded as a sort of {533} demons."[144] Among the Maoris "the nearest and most beloved relatives were supposed to have their natures changed by death, and to become malignant, even towards those they formerly loved."[145] The natives of Erromanga, in the New Hebrides, maintained that all the spirits of their departed ancestors were evil, and roamed the earth doing harm to men.[146] In the tribes inhabiting the mouth of the Wanigela River, in New Guinea, all dead ancestors are supposed to be constantly on the watch to deal out sickness or death to anyone who may displease them; hence the natives are most particular to do nothing that should raise their anger.[147] Australian natives believe that a deceased person is malevolent for a long time after death, and the more nearly related the more he is feared.[148] The _anitos_ or ghosts, of the Tagales in the Philippine Islands are likewise perpetually anxious to do harm to their descendants, trying to kill people, especially shortly after death, and being the causes of nearly all diseases.[149] The Saora of the Madras Presidency only know the existence of the departed souls by the mischief they do, and think that all ills are occasioned either by ancestral spirits or gods.[150] In the North-Western Provinces of India the _díwárs_, or _genii loci_, are oftentimes "the spirits of good men, Brahmans, or village heroes, who manage, when they become objects of worship, to be generally considered very malicious devils";[151] and the ghosts of all low caste natives are notoriously malignant.[152] The Tibetans are of opinion that a ghost is always malicious, and that it returns and gives troubles either on account of its malevolence or its desire to see how its former property is being disposed of.[153] The Finns and other peoples of the same stock believed that the souls of the dead were generally intent to do harm to the living, their nearest relatives included.[154] Thus, according to Votyak ideas, even a mother may become {534} the enemy of her own child from the moment of her death.[155] Among the Ainu of Japan, "if a man is at a loss for the authorship of any particular calamity, which has befallen him, he is very apt to refer it to the ghost of a dead wife, mother, grandmother, or, still more certainly, to that of a dead mother-in-law";[156] an Ainu who accompanied Mr. Batchelor would on no account come within twenty-five or thirty yards of the spot where his own mother was burned.[157] The Koniagas believe that after death every man becomes a devil.[158] According to ideas prevalent among the Central Eskimo, the dead are at first malevolent spirits who frequently roam around the villages, causing sickness and mischief and killing men by their touch; but subsequently they are supposed to attain to rest and are no longer feared.[159] The Tarahumares of Mexico are afraid of their dead; a mother asks her deceased infant to go away and not to come back, and the weeping widow implores her husband not to carry off, or do harm to, his own sons or daughters.[160] Mr. Bridges informs us that the Fuegian word for a ghost, _cúshpich_, is also an adjective signifying "frightful, dreadful, awful."[161]

[Footnote 140: Dale, 'Natives inhabiting the Bondei Country,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxv. 233.]

[Footnote 141: Dennett, _Folklore of the Fjort_, p. 11 _sq._]

[Footnote 142: Burton, _Lake Regions of Central Africa_, ii. 344.]

[Footnote 143: Thomson, _Savage Island_, p. 94.]

[Footnote 144: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 334 _sq._]

[Footnote 145: Taylor, _Te Ika a Maui_, p. 18. See also _ibid._ pp. 137, 221; Polack, _op. cit._ i. 242.]

[Footnote 146: Robertson, _Erromanga_, p. 389.]

[Footnote 147: Guise, 'Tribes inhabiting the Mouth of the Wanigela River,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxviii. 216.]

[Footnote 148: Fraser, _Aborigines of New South Wales_, p. 80. Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 87.]

[Footnote 149: Blumentritt, in _Mittheil. d. kais. u. kön. Geograph. Gesellsch. in Wien_, p. 166 _sqq._ de Mas, _Informe sobre el estado de las Islas Filipinas en_ 1842, 'Orijen de los habitantes de la Oceania,' p. 15; 'Poblacion,' p. 29. _Cf._ _ibid._ 'Poblacion,' p. 17; Blumentritt, p. 168 (Igorrotes).]

[Footnote 150: Fawcett, _Saoras_, pp. 43, 51.]

[Footnote 151: Elliot, _Races of the North Western Provinces of India_, p. 243.]

[Footnote 152: Crooke, _Popular Religion of Northern India_, i. 269.]

[Footnote 153: Waddell, _Buddhism of Tibet_, p. 498.]

[Footnote 154: Castrén, _Nordiska resor och forskningar_, iii. 121 _sqq._ Waronen, _Vainajainpalvelus muinaisilla Suomalaisilla_, p. 23.]

[Footnote 155: Buch, 'Die Wotjäken,' in _Acta Soc. Scient. Fennicæ_, xii. 607.]

[Footnote 156: Howard, _Life with Trans-Siberian Savages_, p. 196.]

[Footnote 157: Batchelor, _Ainu of Japan_, p. 220 _sq._]

[Footnote 158: Holmberg, in _Acta Soc. Scient. Fennicæ_, iv. 402.]

[Footnote 159: Boas, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ vi. 591.]

[Footnote 160: Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, i. 380, 382.]

[Footnote 161: Bridges, 'Manners and Customs of the Firelanders,' in _A Voice for South America_, xiii. 211.]

The belief in the irritable or malevolent character of the dead is easily explained. As Bishop Butler observed, we presume that a thing will remain as it is except when we have some reason to think that it will be altered.[162] And in the case of the souls of departed friends men may have reason to suppose that they undergo a change. Death is commonly regarded as the gravest of all misfortunes; hence the dead are believed to be exceedingly dissatisfied with their fate. According to primitive ideas a person only dies if he is killed--by magic if not by force,--and such a death naturally tends to make the soul revengeful and ill-tempered. It is envious of the living and is longing for the company of its old friends; no wonder, then, that it sends them diseases to cause their {535} death. The Basutos maintain that their dead ancestors are continually endeavouring to draw them to themselves, and therefore attribute to them every disease;[163] and the Tarahumares in Mexico suppose that the dead make their relatives ill from a feeling of loneliness, that they, too, may die and join the departed.[164] But the notion that the disembodied soul is on the whole a malicious being constantly watching for an opportunity to do harm to the living is also, no doubt, intimately connected with the instinctive fear of the dead, which is in its turn the outcome of the fear of death.

[Footnote 162: Butler, _Analogy of Religion_, i. 1, p. 82.]

[Footnote 163: Casalis, _op. cit._ p. 249.]

[Footnote 164: Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_, i. 380.]

We are told, it is true, that many savages meet death with much indifference, or regard it as no great evil, but merely as a change to a life very similar to this.[165] But it is a fact often noticed among ourselves, that a person on the verge of death may resign himself to his fate with the greatest calmness, although he has been afraid to die throughout his life. Moreover, the fear of death may be disguised by thoughtlessness, checked by excitement, or mitigated by dying in company. There are peoples who are conspicuous for their bravery, and yet have a great dread of death.[166] Nobody is entirely free from this feeling, though it varies greatly in strength among different races and in different individuals. In many savages it is so strongly developed, that they cannot bear to hear death mentioned.[167] And inseparably mingled with {536} this fear of death is the fear of the dead. The place in which a death occurs is abandoned,[168] or the hut is destroyed,[169] or the corpse is carried out from it as speedily as possible.[170] The survivors endeavour to frighten away the ghost by firing off guns,[171] or shooting into the grave,[172] or throwing sticks and stones behind themselves after they have interred the corpse.[173] To prevent the return of the ghost the body is buried face downwards,[174] or its limbs are firmly tied,[175] or, in extreme cases, it is fixed in the ground with a stake driven through it.[176] We may assume that these and many other funeral ceremonies are very closely connected with the fear of the pollution of death; for even when their immediate object is to keep the ghost at {537} a distance, it is likely that they are largely due to dread of its presence for the reason that it is conceived as a seat of deadly contagion.[177] It seems to me that certain anthropologists, in their explanations of funeral ceremonies, have too much accentuated the volitional activity of ghosts. To take an instance. The common custom of carrying the dead body away through some aperture other than the door,[178] has generally been interpreted as a means of preventing the ghost from finding its way back to the old home; but various facts indicate that it also may have sprung from a desire to keep the ordinary exit free from pollution. According to the Vendîdâd a spirit of death is breathing all along the way which a corpse has passed; hence no man, no flock, no being whatever that belongs to the world of Ahura Mazda is allowed to go that way until the deadly breath has been blown away to hell.[179] In the capital of Corea there is a small gate in the city-wall known as the "Gate of the Dead," through which alone a dead body can be carried out, and no one is ever allowed to enter through that passage-way.[180] In China even a messenger who delivers tidings of death strictly abstains from passing the threshold of the houses at which he knocks, unless urgently requested by the inmates to walk in.[181] Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia a mourner, who is regarded as unclean, "must not use the house door, but a separate door is cut for his use"; girls at puberty, whilst in a state of uncleanness, may leave {538} and enter their room only through a hole made in the floor;[182] and men who have polluted themselves by partaking of human flesh are for four months allowed to go out only by the secret door in the rear of the house.[183] Even the water and fire ceremonies performed in connection with a death have been represented as methods of preventing the ghost from attacking the living by placing a physical barrier of water or fire between them.[184] But I see no reason whatever to assume, with Sir J. G. Frazer, that "the conceptions of pollution and purification are merely the fictions of a later age, invented to explain the purpose of a ceremony of which the original intention was forgotten."[185]

[Footnote 165: Turner, 'Ethnology of the Ungava District,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 192 (Hudson Bay Eskimo), 269 _sq._ (Hudson Bay Indians). de Brebeuf, 'Relation de ce qui s'est passé dans le pays des Hurons,' in _Relations des Jésuites_, i. 1636, p. 129. Roth, _North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines_, p. 161. Tregear, 'Niue,' in _Jour. Polynesian Soc._ ii. 14 (Savage Islanders). Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, p. 204 _sq._ Romilly, _From my Verandah in New Guinea_, p. 45 (Solomon Islanders). Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 266 (Siberian shamans). Monrad, _op. cit._ p. 23 (Negroes of Accra). Brinton, _Religions of Primitive Peoples_, p. 72.]

[Footnote 166: _E.g._, the Kalmucks (Bergmann, _Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken_, ii. 318 _sqq._) and the ancient Caribs (Müller, _Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen_, p. 215).]

[Footnote 167: Dunbar, 'Pawnee Indians,' in _Magazine of American History_, viii. 742. Batchelor, _Ainu of Japan_, p. 203. Bergmann, _op. cit._ ii. 318. Bosman, _Description of the Coast of Guinea_, p. 327 (Negroes of Fida). Du Chaillu, _Explorations in Equatorial Africa_, p. 338. Kropf, _Das Volk der Xosa-Kaffern_, p. 155. For other instances of savages' great fear of death, see Bridges, in _A Voice for South America_, xiii. 211 (Fuegians); Müller, _Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen_, p. 215 (Caribs); Dunbar, in _Magazine of American History_, v. 334 (various North American tribes); Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, p. 238; Georgi, _op. cit._ ii. 400 (Jakuts); Bosman, _op. cit._ p. 130 (Gold Coast natives).]

[Footnote 168: Dorman, _op. cit._ p. 22 (North American Indians). von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_, p. 502 (Bororó). Hyades and Deniker, _Mission scientifique du Cap Horn_, vii. 379 (Fuegians). Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 44. Fraser, _Aborigines of New South Wales_, p. 82. Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 498. Worcester, _Philippine Islands_, p. 496 (Tagbanuas of Busuanga). Bailey, 'Veddahs of Ceylon,' in _Trans. Ethn. Soc._ N. S. ii. 296; Deschamps, _Carnet d'un voyageur_, p. 383 (Veddahs). Decle, _op. cit._ p. 79 (Barotse). von Düben, _Lappland_, pp. 241, 249.]

[Footnote 169: Hyades and Deniker, _op. cit._ vii. 379 (Fuegians). Batchelor, _Ainu of Japan_, p. 222 _sq._ Worcester, _op. cit._ p. 108 _sq._ (Tagbanuas of Palawan). Butler, _Travels in Assam_, p. 228. Fawcett, _Saoras_, p. 50 _sq._ Cunningham, _Uganda_, p. 130 (Bavuma).]

[Footnote 170: Howard, _op. cit._ p. 197 (Ainu). Selenka, _Sonnige Welten_, p. 89 (Dyaks). The rapid pace of the funeral procession among the Bataks (von Brenner, _Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras_, p. 235) probably belongs to the same class of facts.]

[Footnote 171: von Brenner, _op. cit._ p. 235 (Bataks). Fawcett, _Saoras_, p. 46 _sq._]

[Footnote 172: von Brenner, _op. cit._ p. 235 (Bataks). von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube der Magyaren_, p. 134.]

[Footnote 173: Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces_, i. 45 (Aheriya, in Duâb), 287 (Bhangi, the sweeper tribe of Hindustan). Ralston, _op. cit._ p. 320 (ancient Bohemians).]

[Footnote 174: Dorsey, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 420 (Omahas). Crooke, _op. cit._ i. 44 (Aheriya, in Duâb).]

[Footnote 175: Zimmer, _Altindisches Leben_, p. 402 (Vedic people). Turner, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 191 (Hudson Bay Eskimo). Yarrow, _ibid._ i. 98 (Pimas of Arizona). Southey, _History of Brazil_, i. 248 (Tupinambas). Of the trussing and tying of the dead body which is practised in various Australian tribes the blacks themselves say that it is done "to prevent the spirit of the deceased from wandering in the night from its bed, and disturbing the living and doing them harm" (Fraser, _Aborigines of New South Wales_, p. 79 _sq._; see also Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 44, 87).]

[Footnote 176: _Supra_, ii. 256. Hyltén-Cavallius, _Wärend och Wirdarne_, i. 472 (Middle Ages).]

[Footnote 177: _Cf._ _supra_, ii. 303. For the contagion of death see also Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, p. 95 _sqq._]

[Footnote 178: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 26 _sq._ Frazer, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xv. 69 _sq._ Trumbull, _Threshold Covenant_, p. 23 _sqq._ Liebrecht, _Zur Volkskunde_, pp. 372, 373, 414 _sq._ Lippert, _Christenthum, Volksglaube und Volksbrauch_, p. 391 _sq._ Egede, _Description of Greenland_, p. 152 _sq._; Nansen, _Eskimo Life_, p. 245 _sq._ (Greenlanders). Turner, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 191 (Hudson Bay Eskimo). McNair Wright, _Among the Alaskans_, p. 313. Jochelson, 'Koryak Religion', in _Jesup North Pacific Expedition_, vi. 110 _sq._ Georgi, _op. cit._ iii. 26 _sq._; Jackson, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxiv. 406 (Samoyedes). Ramseyer and Kühne, _Four Years in Ashantee_, p. 50. Kålund, 'Skandinavische Verhältnisse,' in Paul, _Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_, ii. pt. ii. 227 (ancient Scandinavians).]

[Footnote 179: _Vendîdâd_, viii. 14 _sqq._ Darmesteter, in _Sacred Books of the East_, iv. p. lxxiv. _sq._]

[Footnote 180: Trumbull, _op. cit._ p. 24.]

[Footnote 181: de Groot, _op. cit._ (vol. ii. book) i. 644.]

[Footnote 182: Boas, in _Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_, p. 42 _sqq._]

[Footnote 183: _Idem_, quoted by Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. 341 _sq._ Among the Bhuiyâr, a Dravidian tribe in South Mirzapur, each house has two doors, one of which is only used by menstruous women; and when such a woman has to quit the house "she is obliged to creep out on her hands and knees so as to avoid polluting the house thatch by her touch" (Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces_, ii. 87). Among the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia meat was only taken into the hunting lodge through a hole in the back of the structure, because the common door was used by women and women were regarded as unclean (Teit, 'Thompson Indians,' in _Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History_, 'Anthropology,' i. 347). In other instances ordinary people are prohibited from using a door through which a sacred person has passed, obviously because contact with his sanctity is looked upon as dangerous. In some of the South Sea Islands, where the first-born, whether male or female, was especially sacred, no one else was allowed to pass by the door through which he or she entered the paternal dwelling (Gill, _Life in the Southern Isles_, p. 46). "In some parts of the Pacific, the door through which the king or queen passed in opening a temple was shut up, and ever after made sacred" (Turner, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_, p. 328). Ezekiel (xliv. 2 _sq._) represents the Lord as saying:--"This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; . . . he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same." Among the Arabs in olden days those who returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca entered their houses not by the door but by a hole made in the back wall (Palmer, in _Sacred Books of the East_, vi. 27, n. 1). This practice was forbidden by Muhammed (_Koran_, ii. 185).]

[Footnote 184: Frazer, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xv. 76 _sqq._]

[Footnote 185: It should be added, however, that. Sir J. G. Frazer's important essay on 'Burial Customs' was published many years ago and therefore perhaps does not exactly represent the author's present views on the subject.]

It is obvious that the beliefs held as regards the character, activity, and polluting influence of the dead greatly affect the conduct of the survivors. They are {539} naturally anxious to gain the favour of the disembodied soul, to avert its ill-will, to keep it at a distance, and to avoid the defilement of death. Self-interest is often a conspicuous motive for acts and omissions which are regarded as duties to the dead, and prudence also has a very large share in their being enjoined as obligatory. This is obviously true of the offerings made to the dead. The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia threw some food on the ground near the grave of the deceased, "that he might not visit the house in search of food, causing sickness to the people."[186] Among the Iroquois, "on the death of a nursing child two pieces of cloth are saturated with the mother's milk and placed in the hands of the dead child so that its spirit may not return to haunt the bereaved mother."[187] The Negroes of Accra, when asked why they slaughtered animals at the tombs of their departed friends, answered that they did so in order to prevent the ghosts from walking.[188] The Monbuttu place some oil and other victuals in the little hut which is erected for the dead in the forest, so that his spirit shall not return to his old home in search of food.[189] For the same reason the Bataks of Sumatra put various things into the graves of their deceased friends, ask the dead to be quiet and not to long for the company of the living, and finish their address with the words, "Here you have still some _sirih_ and tobacco, and every year, at harvest time, we shall give you some rice."[190] Among the Chuvashes the son says to his departed father, "We remember you with a feast, here are bread and different kinds of food for you, everything you have before you, do not come to us."[191] It is considered particularly dangerous to keep back and make use of articles which belonged to the dead. The Gypsies burn on the grave all those chattels which the deceased was in the habit of using during his lifetime, "because his soul would otherwise {540} return to torment his relatives and claim back his property."[192] A Saora gave the following reason for the custom of burning all the belongings of a dead person:--"If we do not burn these things with the body, the Kulba (soul) will come and ask us for them and trouble us."[193] The Kafirs believe that, after his death, "a man's personality haunts his possessions."[194] Among the Brazilian Tupinambas "whoever happened to have any thing which had belonged to the dead produced it, that it might be buried with him, lest he should come and claim it."[195] When a Navaho Indian dies within a house the rafters are pulled down over the remains and the place is usually set on fire; after that nothing would induce a Navaho to touch a piece of the wood or even approach the immediate vicinity of the place, the shades of the dead being regarded "as inclined to resent any intrusion or the taking of any liberties with them or their belongings."[196] The Greenlanders, as soon as a man is dead, "throw out every thing which has belonged to him; otherwise they would be polluted, and their lives rendered unfortunate. The house is cleared of all its movables till evening, when the smell of the corpse has passed away."[197]

[Footnote 186: Teit, _loc. cit._ p. 329.]

[Footnote 187: Smith, _Myths of the Iroquois_, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ii. 69.]

[Footnote 188: Monrad, _op. cit._ p. 26.]

[Footnote 189: Burrows, _op. cit._ p. 103.]

[Footnote 190: von Brenner, _op. cit._ p. 234 _sqq._]

[Footnote 191: Castrén, _op. cit._ iii. 123 _sq._]

[Footnote 192: von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube der Zigeuner_, p. 100.]

[Footnote 193: Fawcett, _op. cit._ p. 47.]

[Footnote 194: Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_, p. 83.]

[Footnote 195: Southey, _op. cit._ i. 248. _Cf._ von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_, p. 502 (Bororó).]

[Footnote 196: Mindeleff, 'Navaho Houses,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xvii. 487.]

[Footnote 197: Cranz, _op. cit._ i. 217.]

The fear of the dead has also taught men to abstain from robbing or violating their tombs. The Omahas believe that, if anybody touched an article of food exposed at a grave, "the ghost would snatch away the food and paralyse the mouth of the thief, and twist his face out of shape for the rest of his life; or else he would be pursued by the ghost, and food would lose its taste, and hunger ever after haunt the offender."[198] The Brazilian Coroados "avoid disturbing the repository of the dead, for fear they should appear to them and torment them."[199] {541} The Maoris suppose that the violation of a burial place would bring disease and death on the criminal.[200] The extreme dislike of the Chinese to disturbing a grave is based on the supposition that the spirit of the person buried will haunt and cause ill-luck or death to the disturber.[201] According to the popular beliefs of the Magyars, he who seizes upon anything belonging to a tomb, even if it were only a flower, will be unhappy for the rest of his life.[202] The Rumanians of Transylvania think that a person who picks a flower which grows on a grave will die in consequence, and that he who smells at such a flower will lose his sense of smell.[203]

[Footnote 198: La Flesche, 'Death and Funeral Customs among the Omahas,' in _Jour. American Folk-Lore_, ii. 11. _Cf._ Reid, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ iii. 112 (Chippewas).]

[Footnote 199: von Spix and von Martius, _Travels in Brazil_, ii. 251.]

[Footnote 200: Polack, _op. cit._ i. 112.]

[Footnote 201: Dennys, _op. cit._ p. 26. de Groot, _op. cit._ (vol. iv. book) ii. 446 _sq._]

[Footnote 202: von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube der Magyaren_, p. 135. _Cf._ _Idem_, _Volksglaube der Zigeuner_, p. 96 _sq._]

[Footnote 203: Prexl, 'Geburts- und Todtengebräuche der Rumänen in Siebenbürgen,' in _Globus_, lvii. 30.]

The transgression of ancestral custom, as we have already seen, is supposed to be punished by the spirits of the dead; and the sacredness of a will largely springs from superstitious fear. The South Slavonian belief that, if a son does not fulfil the last will of his father the soul of the father will curse him from the grave,[204] has its counterpart in the denunciatory clause in Anglo-Saxon landbooks, which usually curses all and singular who attack the donee's title.[205]

[Footnote 204: _Supra_, i. 624.]

[Footnote 205: Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law before the Time of Edward I._ ii. 251 _sq._]

The custom of praising the dead, again, is mainly flattery, and the lamentations over them are not altogether sincere.[206] By their excessive demonstrations of grief the Andaman Islanders hope to conciliate the spirits of the departed, and to be preserved from many misfortunes which might otherwise befall them.[207] The Central Australian native fears "that, unless a sufficient amount of grief be displayed, he will be harmed by the offended _Ulthana_ or spirit of the dead man."[208] The Angmagsaliks {542} on the East Coast of Greenland say that they cry and groan and perform other mourning rites "in order to prevent the dead from getting angry."[209] But the loud wailing of mourners may also, like the shouting after a death,[210] be intended to drive away the ghost, or perhaps death itself.

[Footnote 206: See Gibbs, _loc. cit._ p. 205 (tribes of Western Washington and North-western Oregon); Wied-Neuwied, _Reise nach Brasilien_, ii. 56 (Botocudos).]

[Footnote 207: Man, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xii. 145.]

[Footnote 208: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 510.]

[Footnote 209: Holm, 'Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,' in _Meddelelser om Grønland_, x. 107.]

[Footnote 210: Spencer and Gillen, _op. cit._ p. 506. _Cf._ Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, p. 432, n. 2.]

Fear is certainly a very common motive for funeral and mourning rites which have been interpreted as duties to the dead. This is the case with the various methods of disposing of the corpse. Thus the custom of leaving it as food for beasts of prey[211] is, in some instances at least, deliberately practised for the purpose of preventing the ghost from walking. The Herero who accompanied Chapman said of two of their sick comrades who formed part of the company, "You must throw them away, and let the wolves eat them; then they won't come and bother us."[212] Cremation, also, has frequently been resorted to as a means of protecting the living from unwelcome visits of the dead, or, as the case may be, of effectually getting rid of the contagion of death.[213] The Vedic people, while burning the corpses of their dead, cried aloud, "Away, go away, O Death! injure not our sons and our men."[214] In Northern India the corpses of all low caste people are either cremated or buried face downwards, in order to prevent the evil spirit from escaping and troubling its neighbours.[215] The Nâyars of Malabar not only believe that the collection and careful disposal of the ashes of the dead man gives peace to his spirit, but, "what is more important, the pacified spirit will not thereafter injure the living members of the Taravâd (house or family), cause miscarriage {543} to the women, possess the men, as with an evil spirit, and so on."[216] In Tibet a ghost which makes its presence felt in dreams or by causing deliriousness or temporary insanity is disposed of by cremation.[217] In his description of the Savage Islanders, Mr. Thomson tells us of a mother who destroyed her own daughter's grave by fire in order to burn the spirit which was afflicting her.[218] Among the ancient Scandinavians the bodies of persons who were believed to walk after death were dug up from their graves and burned.[219] And exactly the same is done in Albania to this day.[220]

[Footnote 211: For this custom see also Murdoch, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 424 _sq._ (Point Barrow Eskimo); Nordenskiöld, _Vegas färd kring Asien och Europa_, ii. 93 (Chukchi); Andersson, _Notes on Travel in South Africa_, p. 234 (Ovambo).]

[Footnote 212: Chapman, _Travels in the Interior of South Africa_, ii. 282.]

[Footnote 213: _Cf._ Rohde, _op. cit._ p. 28 _sqq._ (ancient Greeks); Preuss, _op. cit._ p. 294.]

[Footnote 214: _Rig-Veda_, x. 18. 1.]

[Footnote 215: Crooke, _Popular Religion of Northern India_, i. 269.]

[Footnote 216: Fawcett, in the Madras Government Museum's _Bulletin_, iii. 251. See also Iyer, 'Nay[=a]dis of Malabar,'_ibid._ iv. 71.]

[Footnote 217: Waddell, _op. cit._ p. 498.]

[Footnote 218: Thomson, _Savage Island_, p. 134.]

[Footnote 219: Kålund, _loc. cit._ p. 227.]

[Footnote 220: von Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_, i. 163.]

Burial itself has served a similar purpose.[221] According to the Danish traveller Monrad, the Negroes of Accra expressly believe that by covering the body of a dead person with earth they keep the ghost from walking and causing trouble to the survivors; and he adds that exactly the same superstition prevails in Jutland in Denmark.[222] This belief is also preserved in the Swedish word for committing a corpse to the earth, _jordfästa_, which literally means "to fasten to the earth." In Gothland, in Sweden, there was an old tradition of a man called Takstein who in his lifetime was overbearing and cruel and after his death haunted the living, in consequence of which "a wizard finally earth-fastened him in such a manner that he afterwards lay quiet."[223] But burial has often been supplemented by other precautions against the return of the ghost. Högström says that the Laplanders carefully wrapped up their dead in cloth so as to prevent the soul from slipping away.[224] The practice of placing logs or stones immediately over the corpse may have a similar origin; in some Queensland tribes, when an individual has been killed by the whole tribe in punishment for some {544} serious crime, boomerangs are substituted for the ordinary logs, evidently for fear of the ghost.[225] The Chuvashes, again, put two stakes across the coffin of a dead man for the purpose of preventing him from lifting up the cover.[226] Graves are often provided with mounds, tombstones, or enclosures in order to keep the dead from walking.[227] The Omahas raise no mound over a man who has been killed by lightning, but bury him face downwards and with the soles of his feet split, in the belief that he will then go to the spirit-land without giving further trouble to the living.[228] The Savage Islanders pile heavy stones upon the grave to keep the ghost down.[229] The Cheremises believe that the ghosts cannot step over the fence-poles with which they surround the graves.[230] When ceremonies like that of striking the air at a funeral or the ringing of bells are represented as means of keeping off evil spirits from the dead, we have reason to suspect that their original object was to keep off the ghost from the living. At Central Australian funerals women beat the air with the palms of their hands for the express purpose of driving the spirit away from the old camp which it is supposed to haunt, and the men beat the air with their spear-throwers.[231] The Bondeis of East Africa frighten the ghosts by beating drums.[232] And at Port Moresby, in New Guinea, when the church bell was first used, the natives thanked the missionaries for having driven off numerous bands of ghosts.[233]

[Footnote 221: _Cf._ Frazer, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xv. 64 _sq._; Preuss, _op. cit._ p. 292 _sq._]

[Footnote 222: Monrad, _op. cit._ p. 13.]

[Footnote 223: Läffler, _Den gottländska Taksteinar-sägnen_, p. 5.]

[Footnote 224: Högström, _Beskrifning öfver de til Sveriges Krona lydande Lapmarker_, p. 207.]

[Footnote 225: Roth, _op. cit._ p. 165.]

[Footnote 226: Castrén, _op. cit._ iii. 121.]

[Footnote 227: _Cf._ Frazer, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xv. 65 _sq._; Preuss, _op. cit._ p. 293.]

[Footnote 228: Dorsey, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 420. La Flesche, in _Jour. American Folk-Lore_, ii. 11.]

[Footnote 229: Thomson, _Savage Island_, p. 52.]

[Footnote 230: Castrén, _op. cit._ iii. 122.]

[Footnote 231: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 506.]

[Footnote 232: Dale, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxv. 238.]

[Footnote 233: Chalmers and Gill, _Work and Adventure in New Guinea_, p. 260.]

That the mourning fast is essentially a precaution taken by the survivors, and not a tribute to the dead, is obvious from what has been said in a previous chapter.[234] When mourners mutilate, cut, or beat themselves, the original object of their doing so seems often to be to ward off the {545} contagion of death.[235] Among the Bedouins of Morocco women at funerals not only scratch their faces, but also rub the wounds with cow-dung, and cow-dung is regarded as a means of purification. The mourning customs of painting the body and of assuming a special costume have been explained as attempts on the part of the survivors to disguise themselves;[236] but the latter custom may also have originated in the idea that a mourner is more or less polluted for a certain period and that therefore a dress worn by him then, being a seat of contagion, could not be used afterwards. Egede writes of the Greenlanders, "If they have happened to touch a corpse, they immediately cast away the clothes they have then on; and for this reason they always put on their old clothes when they go to a burying, in which they agree with the Jews."[237] There can, finally, be no doubt that the widespread prohibition of mentioning the name of a dead person[238] does not in the first instance arise from respect for the departed, but from fear. To name him is to summon him; the Indians of Washington Territory even change their own names when a relative dies, because "they think the spirits of the dead will come back if they hear the same name called that they were accustomed to hear {546} before death."[239] But apart from this, a dead man's name itself is probably felt to be defiling, or at all events produces an uncanny association of thought, which even among ourselves makes many people reluctant to mention it.[240] And to do so may also be a wrong to other persons who would be endangered thereby. Among the Goajiro Indians of Colombia, to mention a dead man before his relatives is a dreadful offence, which is often punished even with death.[241]

[Footnote 234: _Supra_, ii. 302 _sqq._]