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. A native of Madagascar will almost in the same

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.

105.

New, Life in Eastern Africa, p.

believed to have the same 300.7 73 and to possess the

same menti ardines is its possessed

His life

is the pover to influence These titlurs is regards

the living for evt, or for good.

the disembodied soul determine the matins between the Aving and the Band

The dead are supposed to have rights very similar to those then had an et alive. The so must not be killed or injured The South Austrilin Preverie, the instance,

stor great reverence for certain tres, are believed to be their fathers transformed; then w. not cut them down and protest against the settlers doing so. So also some of the Philippine Islanders maintain that the souls of their forefathers are in tres, which they therefore spare. The North American Powhatans refrained from acing harm to some small wood-Birds, which were supposed to receive the souls of their chiefs In Lifu.

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.' 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." 2 Among other peoples monkeys, crocodiles, or snakes, being thought men in metempsychosis, are held sacred and must not be hurt. 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.1 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. 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.

3

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; others, again, are in the habit of wrapping the body up in a rug, professedly for the purpose of keeping it warm. In the Saxon district of Voigtland people have been known to

1 Codrington, quoted by Tylor, Remarks on Totemism,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxviii. 147.

Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 202. The same belief prevails among the natives of the Malay Peninsula (Newbold, British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca, ii. 192).

3 Meiners, Geschichte der Religionen, i. 212. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 8.

4 Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte, ii. 323.

5 Gray, China, i. 288.

6 Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, § 609, p. 396 sq. 7 Roth, North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines, p. 165.

Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 79 sq.

put into the coffin an umbrella and a pair of pair of galoshes.1 An extremely prevalent custom is to place provisions in or upon the grave, and very commonly feasts are given for the dead. Weapons, implements, and other movables are deposited in the tomb; domestic animals are buried or slaughtered at the funeral; 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.

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. 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. 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 nct, are never touched, being sacred to the spirit of the

1 Köhler, Volksbrauch im Voigtlande, p. 441.

* See Tylor, op. cit. ch. xi. 5.: Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 155 $99, 257 399.; Frazer, Adonis Attic Osiris, p. 242 599.

3 See Spencer, op. cit. i. 184 599. 4 Supra, i. 472 599.

Boas, 'Central Eskimo,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 580. Murdoch, Ethn. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' itid. ix. 424 sq. (Point Barrow Eskimo). Powell, itid. iii. p. Ivii. (North American Indians). Yarrow, "Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians,' ¿'id i. 98 (Pimas), 100 Comanches). McGee, Siouan Indians, il. 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 y. (Arru Islanders). Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 304 (Kar Nicobarese). Batchelor, dinu and their Folk-Lore, p. 560 sq. Georgi, Rustia, iv. 152 (Burats Caillié, Travels through Central Africa, i. 164 (Bagos). Burrows, Land of the Pig mies, 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 59.3 infra, p. 514 sq.

Sagard. Voyage du Pays des Hurons, p. 288. Gibbs, Tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon,' in Contributions to North American Ethnology, i. 204.

3

dead. 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." 2 The laws of Athens and Rome and the ancient Teutonic law-books 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.

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; οὐ γὰρ ἐσθλὰ κατθανοῦσι κερτομεῖν ἐπ' ἀνδράσιν. In Greece custom required that at the funeral meal the virtues of the deceased should be enumerated and extolled,' and calumny against a dead person was punished by law. The same was the case in ancient Egypt. 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.10 Among the Iroquois the near relatives and friends approached the body in turn and addressed it in a laudatory speech."1

12

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; 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

1 Reid, Religious Belief of the Ojibois,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 112.

2 Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, i. 111 sq.

3 Cicero, De legibus, ii. 26. See also Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 105 sq.

Digesta, xlvii. 12, De sepulchro violato."

Wilda, Das Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 975 894.

6 Archilochus, Reliquie, 40.

7 Schmidt, Die Ethik der allen

Griechen, ii. 122 sq.

8 Rohde, Psyche, p. 224.

9 Diodorus Siculus, i. 92. 5. Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 322.

10 Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 218. 11 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 175, n. 2.

12 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.