3

liable to appear very shortly after death than at any other period. The natives of Australia are only afraid of the spirits of men who have lately died. In the course of time savages also become more willing to speak of their dead. But whilst the large bulk of disembodied souls sooner or later lose their individuality and dwindle into insignificance or sink into the limbo of All Souls, it may be that some of them escape this fate, and, instead of being ignored, are raised to the rank of gods.

Progress in intellectual culture has a tendency to affect the notions of death. The change involved in it appears. greater. The soul, if still thought to survive the death of the body, is more distinctly separated from it; it is rid of all sensuous desires, as also of all earthly interests. Duties to the dead which arose from the old ideas may still be maintained, but their meaning is changed.

Thus the funeral sacrifice may be continued as a mark of respect or affection. In Melanesia, for instance, at the death-meals which follow upon funerals or begin before them, and which still form one of the principal institutions of the natives, a piece of food is put aside for the dead. "It is readily denied now," says Dr. Codrington, "that the dead . . . are thought to come and eat the food, which they say is given as a friendly remembrance only, and in the way of associating together those whom death has separated. In many cases the offerings made to the dead have become alms given to the poor, just as has been the case with sacrifices offered to gods; and this almsgiving is undoubtedly looked upon as a duty to the dead. Among the Omahas goods are collected from the kindred of the dead between the death and the funeral, and when the body has been deposited in the grave they

1 Dennys, op. cit. p. 76.

"4

2 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 44, 87. Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 279 (Northern Queensland aborigines).

3 Tout, Ethnology of the Stlatlumh of British Columbia,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 138. Bourke, Medicine

5

are brought forth and equally divided among the poor who are assembled on the spot. At a Hindu funeral in Sindh, on the road to the burning place, the relatives of the dead throw dry dates into the air over the corpse; these are considered as a kind of alms and are left to the

poor. Among some peoples of Malabar, at the fráddha, or yearly anniversary of a death, not less than three Brahmins are well fed and presented with money and cloth; and according to Brahmanism the çráddha is "a debt which is transferred from one generation to another, and on the payment of which depends the happiness of the dead in the next life." Among Muhammedans alms, generally consisting of food, are distributed in connection with a death in order to confer merits upon the deceased. Thus in Morocco bread or dried fruits are given to the poor who are assembled at the grave-side on the day of the funeral, as also on the third and sometimes on the fortieth day after it, on the tenth day of Muharram, and in many parts of the country on other feast-days as well, when the graves are visited by relatives of the dead. These alms are obviously survivals of offerings to the dead themselves. While residing among the Bedouins of Dukkâla, I was told that if the funeral meal were omitted the dead man's mouth would be filled with earth; and it is a common custom among the Moors that, if a dead person appears in a dream complaining of hunger or thirst, food or drink is at once given to some poor people. Among the Christians, in former days, alms were distributed in the church when, soon after a death or on the anniversary of a death, the sacrifice of the mass was offered; and alms were also given at funerals and at graves, in the hope that their merit might be of advantage to the deceased. At Mykonos, in the Cyclades, on some fixed days after the

burial a dish consisting of boiled wheat adorned with sugar plums or other delicacy is put on the tomb, and finally distributed to the poor at the church door;1 and in some parts of Russia the people still believe that if the usual alms are not given at a funeral the dead man's soul will reveal itself to his relatives in the form of a moth

flying about the flame of a candle.2 The supposed conferring of merits upon the dead and the prayers on their behalf, so common both in Christianity and Muhammedanism, are the last remains of a series of customs by means of which the living have endeavoured to benefit their departed friends.

But even when the dead are no longer believed to be in need of human care, nay, though death be thought to put an end to existence, there are still duties, if not to the dead, at all events to those who were once alive. A person may be wronged by an act which he can no longer feel. There are rights that are in force not only during his lifetime but after his death. A given promise is not buried with him to whom it was made. A dead man's will is binding. His memory is protected against calumny. These rights have the same foundation as all other rights the feelings of the person himself and the claims of others that his feelings shall be respected. We have wishes with regard to the future when we live no more. We take an interest in persons and things that survive We desire to leave behind a spotless name. And the sympathy felt for us by our fellow men will last when we ourselves are gone.

us.

1 Bent. Cyclades, p. 221 sq.

2 Ralston, op. cit. p. 117.

CHAPTER XLVI

CANNIBALISM

BEFORE We take leave of the dead we have still to consider the practice of eating them.

cases

Habitual cannibalism, permitted or in some enjoined by custom, has been met with in a large number of savage tribes and, as a religious or magical rite, among several peoples of culture. It is, or has been, particularly prevalent in the South Sea Islands, Australia, Central Africa, and South and Central America But it has also been found among various North American Indians, in certain tribes of the Malay Archipelago, and among a few peoples on the Asiatic continent. And it is proved to have occurred in many parts of Europe.1

For the prevalence and extension of cannibalism, see Andree, Die Anthropophagie, p. 1 sqq.; Bergemann, Die Verbreitung der Anthropophagie, p. 5 sqq.; Steinmetz, Endokannibalismus, p. 2 sqq.; Schneider, Die Naturvölker, 'i. 121 sqq.; Letourneau, L'évolution de la morale, p. 82 sqq.; Ritson, Abstinence from Animal Food, p. 125 sqq.; Hartland, Legend of Perseus, ii. 279 sqq.; Schaafhausen, 'Die Menschenfresserei und das Menschenopfer,' in Archiv f. Anthropologie, iv. 248 sqq.; Henkenius, Verbreitung der Anthropophagie,' in Deutsche Rundschau f. Geographie u. Statistik, xv. 348 sqq.; de Nadaillac, L'Anthropophagie et les sacrifices humains,' in Revue des Deux Mondes, Ixvi. 406 sqq.; idem, in Bulletins de la Soc. d'Anthrop. de Paris, 1888, p. 27 sqq.; Dorman,

Origin of Primitive Superstitions, p. 145 sqq. (American aborigines); Koch, Die Anthropophagie der südameri kanischen Indianer,' in Internationales Archiv f. Ethnographie, xii. 84 sqq.; Preuss, Die Begräbnisarten der Amerikaner und Nordostasiaten, p. 217 sqq.; Vos, 'Die Verbreitung der Anthropophagie auf dem asiatischen Festlande,' in Intern. Archiv f. Ethnogr. iii. 69 sqq.; de Groot, Religious System of China, (vol. iv. book) ii. 363 sqq. ; Hübbe-Schleiden, Ethiopien, p. 209 sqq.; Matiegka, Anthropophagie in der prähistorischen Ansiedlung bei Knovize und in der prähistorischen Zeit überhaupt,' in Mittheil. d. Anthrop. Gesellsch. in Wien, xxvi. 129 sqq.; Wood-Martin, Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland, ii. 286 sqq.

Sometimes the whole body is eaten, with the exception of the bones, sometimes only a part of it, as the liver or the heart. Frequently the victim is an enemy or a member of a foreign tribe, but he may also be a relative or fellow tribesman. Among various savages exo- and endo-anthropophagy prevail simultaneously; but many cannibals restrict themselves to eating strangers, slain enemies, or captives taken in war, whereas others eat their own people in preference to strangers, or are exclusively endo-anthropophagous. Thus the Birhors of the Central Provinces of India are said to eat their aged relatives, but to abhor any other form of cannibalism;1 and in certain Australian tribes it is not the dead bodies of slain enemies that are eaten, but the bodies of friends, the former being left where they fell. Sometimes people feed on the corpses of such kinsmen as have happened to die, sometimes they kill and eat their old folks, sometimes parents eat their children, sometimes criminals are eaten by the other members of their own community. The Australian Dieyerie have a fixed order in which they partake of their dead relatives :-"The mother eats of her children. The children eat of their mother. Brothersin-law and sisters-in-law eat of each other. Uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, grandchildren, grandfathers, and grandmothers eat of each other. But the father does not eat of his offspring, or the offspring of the sire." " Among some peoples cannibalism is an exclusively masculine custom, the women being forbidden to eat human flesh, except perhaps in quite exceptional circumstances.1

1 Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p.

220 sq.

2 Palmer, Some Australian Tribes,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xiii. 283; Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 56; Howitt, Native Tribes of SouthEast Australia, p. 753 (Queensland aborigines). Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 67 (tribes of Western Victoria).

3 Gason, 'Dieyerie Tribe,' in Woods, Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 274.

4 Coquilhat, Sur le Haut-Congo, p. 274 (Bangala). Torday and Joyce, Ethnography of the Ba-Mbala," in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 403 sq. lidem, Ethnography of the Ba-Huana, ibid. xxxvi. 279. Reade, Savage Africa, p. 158 (West Equatorial Africans). Thomson, Story of New Zealand, i. 145; Best, Art of War, as conducted by the Maori,' in Jour. Polynesian Soc. xi. 71 (some of the Maoris). von Langsdorf, op. cit. i. 134 (Nukahivans). Erskine, Cruise among the Islands of