2 order to show that they do not wish to keep him waiting longer than is necessary and thus make him kindly disposed towards them. This explanation presupposes that the fast is immediately followed by offerings or a feast for the dead. In some instances this is expressly said to be the case; the ancient Chinese, for instance, observed a special fast as an introductory rite to the sacrifices which they offered to the manes at regular periods after the demise and even after the close of the mourning. But generally there is no indication of the mourning fast being an essential preliminary to a sacrifice to the dead, and in an instance mentioned above the funeral feast regularly precedes it.* " 5 3 It seems that Dr. Frazer comes much nearer the truth when he observes that people originally fasted after a death "just in those circumstances in which they considered that they might possibly in eating devour a ghost." Yet I think it would be more correct to say that they were afraid of swallowing, not the ghost, but food polluted with the contagion of death. The dead body is regarded as a seat of infection, which defiles anything in its immediate neighbourhood, and this infection is of course considered particularly dangerous if it is allowed to enter into the bowels. In certain cases the length of the mourning fast is obviously determined by the belief in the polluting presence of the ghost. The six days' fast of the Paressí coincides with the period after which the dead is supposed to have arrived in heaven no longer to return; and they say that anybody who should fail to observe this fast would "eat the mouth of the dead" and die himself. Frequently the fasting lasts till the corpse is buried; and burial is a common safeguard against the return of the ghost. The custom 1 Wilken, in Revue coloniale internationale, iv. 347, 348, 350 sq. n. 32. Selenka, Sonnige Welten, p. 90 (Dyaks). Black, Fasting,' in Encyclopaedia Britannica, ix. 44. 3 de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 656. Supra, ii. 299. 5 Frazer, 'Certain Burial Customs as illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xv. 94. See also Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 270, 590. 6 von den Steinen, op. cit. p. 434 sq. 7 Infra, on Regard for the Dead. (2 of restricting the fast to the daytime probably springs from the idea that a ghost cannot see in the dark, and is consequently unable to come and pollute the food at night. That the object of the fast is to prevent pollution is also suggested by its resemblance to some other practices, which are evidently intended to serve this purpose. The Maoris were not allowed to eat on or near any spot where a dead body had been buried, or to take a meal in a canoe while passing opposite to such a place.1 In Samoa, while a dead body is in the house, no food is eaten under the same roof; hence the family have their meals outside, or in another house.2 The Todas, who fast on the day when a death has taken place, have on the following day their meals served in another hut. In one of the sacred books of India it is said that a Brâhmana "shall not eat in the house of a relation within six degrees where a person has died, before the ten days of impurity have elapsed"; in a house "where a lying-in woman has not yet come out of the lying-in chamber "; nor in a house where a corpse. lies; and in connection with this last injunction we are told that, when a person who is not a relation has died, it is customary to place at the distance of "one hundred bows" a lamp and water-vessel, and to eat beyond that distance. In one of the Zoroastrian books Ormuzd is represented as saying, "In a house when a person shall die, until three nights are completed . . . nothing whatever of meat is to be eaten by his relations";" and the obvious reason for this rule was the belief that the soul of the dead was hovering about the body for the first three nights after death. Closely related to this custom is that of the modern Parsis, which forbids for three days all cooking under a roof where a death has occurred, but allows the inmates to obtain food from their neighbours 1 Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, i. 239. Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 228. Idem, Samoa, p. 145. Thurston, in the Madras Govern ment Museum's Bulletin, i. 174. • Ápastamba, i. 5. 16. 18 sqq. 5 Haradatta, quoted by Bühler, in Sacred Books of the East, ii. 59, n. 20. 6 Shayast La-Shayast, xvii. 2. 7 West, in Sacred Books of the East, v. 382, n. 3. 3 and friends. Among the Agariya, a Dravidian tribe in the hilly parts of Mirzapur, no fire is lit and no cooking is done in the house of a dead person on the day when he is cremated, the food being cooked in the house of the brother-in-law of the deceased. In Mykonos, one of the Cyclades, it is considered wrong to cook in the house of mourning; hence friends and relatives come laden with food, and lay the "bitter table." Among the Albanians there is no cooking in the house for three days after a death, and the family are fed by friends. So also the Maronites of Syria "dress no victuals for some time in the house of the deceased, but their relations and friends supply them." When a Jew dies all the water in the same and adjoining houses is instantly thrown away; nobody may eat in the same room with the corpse, unless there is only one room in the house, in which case the inhabitants may take food in it if they interpose a screen, so that in eating they do not see the corpse; they must abstain from flesh and wine so long as the dead body is in the house; and on the evening of mourning the members of the family may not eat their own food, but are supplied with food by their friends. Among the Arabs of Morocco, if a person has died in the morning, no fire is made in the whole village until he is buried, and in some parts of the country the inmates of a house or tent where a death has occurred, abstain from making fire for two or three days. In Algeria " dès que quelqu'un est mort, on ne doit pas allumer de feu dans la maison pendant trois jours, et il est défendu de toucher à de la viande rôtie, grillée ou bouillie, à moins qu'elle ne vienne de quelqu'un de dehors." " In China, for seven days after a death "no food is cooked in the house, and friends 1 West, ibid. v. 382, n. 2. 2 Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces, i. 7. Bent, Cyclades, p. 221. 4 von Hahn, Albanesische Studien, P. 151. 5 Dandini, • Voyage to Mount VOL. II Libanus,' in Pinkerton, Collection of Allen, Modern Judaism, p. 435. Buxtorf, Synagoga Judaica, p. 707. 9 Certeux and Carnoy, L'Algérie traditionnelle, p. 220. X and neighbours are trusted to supply the recvaries of life." There is no sucent reson to assume that this practice of abstaining from cooking food after a death is a survival of a previous mouming fast, but the two customs seem partly to have a sole The cooking may contaminate the food dine in a polluted house, or by a polluted individu The relatives of the dead, or persons who have handled the corpo, are regarded as defiled; hence they have to abstain from cooking food, as they have to abstain from any kind of work, and from sexual intercourse. Hence, also, they are often prohibited from touching food; and this may in some cases have led to fasting, whilst in other instances they have to be fed by their neighbours However, an unclean individual may be supposed to pollute a piece of food not only by touching it with his hand, but in some cases by eating it; and, in accordance with the principle of pars pro toto, the pollution may then spread to all victuals belonging to the same species. Reas of this kind are sometimes conspicuous in connection with the restrictions in diet after a death. Thus the Siciat of British Columbia believe that a dead body, or anything connected with the dead, is inimical to the salmon, and therefore the relatives of a deceased person must abstain from eating salmon in the early stages of the run, as also from entering a creek where salmon are found. Among the Stlatlumh, a neighbouring people, not even elderly widowers, for whom the period of abstention is compara 1 Gray, China, i. 287 sq. Supra, ii. 2839. * Teit, loc. cit. p. 331 (Upper Thomp on Indians). Tout, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 139 (Stlatlumh of British Columbia), Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 578, 590; Caland, Die Altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebrauche, p. 81. de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 609 (Chinese). Wilken, in Revue internationale coloniale, iv. 352, n. 41. 4 Turner, Samoa, p. 145; idem, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 228 tively short, are allowed to eat fresh salmon till the first of the run is over and the fish have arrived in such numbers that there is no danger of their being driven away. It is not unlikely that if the motives for the restrictions in diet after a death were sufficiently known in each case, a similar fear lest the unclean mourner should pollute the whole species by polluting some individual member of it would be found to be a common cause of those rules which prohibit the eating of staple or favourite food. But it would seem that such rules also may spring from the idea that this kind of food is particularly sought for by the dead and therefore defiled. 3 Moreover, unclean individuals are not only a danger to others, but are themselves in danger. As Dr. Frazer has shown, they are supposed to be in a delicate condition, which imposes upon them various precautions; and one of these may be restrictions in their diet. Among the Thlinkets and some peoples in British Columbia the relatives of the deceased not only fast till the body is buried, but have their faces blackened, cover their heads with ragged mats, and must speak but little, confining themselves to answering questions, as it is believed that they would else become chatterboxes. According to early ideas, mourners are in a state very similar to that of girls at puberty, who also, among various peoples, are obliged to fast or abstain from certain kinds of food on account of their uncleanness." Among the Stlatlumh, for instance, 1 Tout, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 139. In the Arunta tribe, Central Australia, no menstruous woman is allowed to gather the Irriakura bulbs, which form a staple article of diet for both men and women, the idea being that any infringement of the restriction would result in the failure of the supply of the bulb (Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 615). 3 Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 343, &c. 4 Boas, loc. cit. p. 41. Boas, loc. cit. p. 40 sqq. (various tribes in British Columbia). Tout, in 4 Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxiv. 33 (Siciatl). Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, p. 93 sq. (Ahts). Bourke, Medicine-Men of the Apache,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 501. Du Tertre, Histoire generale des Antilles, ii. 371. Schomburgk, Natives of Guiana,' in Jour. Ethn. Soc. London, i. 269 sq. von Martius, Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika's, i. 644 (Macusis). Seligmann, in Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, v. 200 sqq. (Western Islanders). Man, Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 94. See Frazer, op. cit. iii. 205 sqq. |