Chapter XII: ANIMISM (continued) (2)

After all, it scarcely seems to the lower animistic philosophy that the connexion between body and soul is utterly broken by death. Various wants may keep the soul from its desired rest, and among the chief of these is when its mortal remains have not had the funeral rites. Hence the deep-lying belief that the ghosts of such will walk. Among some Australian tribes the ‘ingna,’ or evil spirits, human in shape, but with long tails and long upright ears, are mostly souls of departed natives, whose bodies were left to lie unburied or whose death the avenger of blood did not expiate, and thus they have to prowl on the face of the earth, and about the place of death, with no gratification but to harm the living.[67] In New Zealand, the ideas were to be found that the souls of the dead were apt to linger near the bodies, and that the spirits of men left unburied or killed in battle and eaten, would wander; and the bringing such malignant souls to dwell within the sacred burial-enclosure was a task for the priest to accomplish with his charms.[68] Among the Iroquois of North America the spirit also stays near the body for a time, and ‘unless the rites of burial were performed, it was believed that the spirits of the dead hovered for a time upon the earth, in a state of great unhappiness. Hence their extreme solicitude to procure the bodies of the slain in battle.’[69] Among Brazilian tribes, the wandering shadows of the dead are said to be considered unresting till burial.[70] In Turanian regions of North Asia, the spirits of the dead who have no resting-place in earth are thought of as lingering above ground, especially where their dust remains.[71] South Asia has such beliefs: the Karens say that the ghosts who wander on earth are not the spirits of those who go to Plu, the land of the dead, but of infants, of such as died by violence, of the wicked, and of those who by accident have not been buried or burned;[72] the Siamese fear as unkindly spirits the souls of such as died a violent death or were not buried with the proper rites, and who desiring expiation, invisibly terrify their descendants.[73] Nowhere in the world had such thoughts a stronger hold than in classic antiquity, where it was the most sacred of duties to give the body its funeral rites, that the shade should not flit moaning near the gates of Hades, nor wander in the dismal crowd along the banks of Acheron.[74] An Australian or a Karen would have taken in the full significance of the fatal accusation against the Athenian commanders, that they abandoned the bodies of their dead in the sea-fight of Arginousai. The thought is not unknown to Slavonic folk-lore: ‘Ha! with the shriek the spirit flutters from the mouth, flies up to the tree, from tree to tree, hither and thither till the dead is burned.’[75] In mediæval Europe the classic stories of ghosts that haunt the living till laid by rites of burial pass here and there into new legends, where, under a changed dispensation, the doleful wanderer now asks Christian burial in consecrated earth.[76] It is needless to give here elaborate details of the world-wide thought that when the corpse is buried, exposed, burned, or otherwise disposed of after the accepted custom of the land, the ghost accompanies its relics. The soul stays near the Polynesian or the American Indian burial-place; it dwells among the twigs and listens joyfully to the singing birds in the trees where Siberian tribes suspend their dead; it lingers by the Samoyed’s scaffolded coffin; it haunts the Dayak’s place of burial or burning; it inhabits the little soul-hut above the Malagasy grave, or the Peruvian house of sun-dried bricks; it is deposited in the Roman tomb (animamque sepulchro condimus); it comes back for judgment into the body of the later Israelite and the Moslem; it inhabits, as a divine ancestral spirit, the palace-tombs of the old classic and new Asiatic world; it is kept down by the huge cairn raised over Antar’s body lest his mighty spirit should burst forth, by the iron nails with which the Cheremiss secures the corpse in its coffin, by the stake that pins down the suicide’s body at the four-cross way. And through all the changes of religious thought from first to last in the course of human history, the hovering ghosts of the dead make the midnight burial-ground a place where men’s flesh creeps with terror. Not to discuss here the general subject of funeral rites of mankind, of which only part of the multifarious details are directly relevant to the present purpose, a custom may be selected which is admirably adapted for the study of animistic religion, at once from the clear conception it gives of the belief in disembodied souls present among the living, and from the distinct line of ethnographic continuity in which it may be traced onward from the lower to the higher culture. This is the custom of Feasts of the Dead.

Among the funeral offerings described in the last chapter of which the purpose more or less distinctly appears to be that the departed soul shall take them away in some ghostly or ideal manner, or that they shall by some means be conveyed to him in his distant spirit-home, there are given supplies of food and drink. But the feasts of the dead with which we are now concerned are given on a different principle; they are, so to speak, to be consumed on the premises. They are set out in some proper place, especially near the tombs or in the dwelling-houses, and there the souls of the dead come and satisfy themselves. In North America, among Algonquins who held that one of a man’s two souls abides with the body after death, the provisions brought to the grave were intended for the nourishment of this soul; tribes would make offerings to ancestors of part of any dainty food, and an Indian who fell by accident into the fire would believe that the spirits of his ancestors pushed him in for neglecting to make due offerings.[77] The minds of the Hurons were filled with fancies not less lifelike than this. It seemed to them that the dead man’s soul, in his proper human figure, walked in front of the corpse as they carried it to the burial-ground, there to dwell till the great feast of the dead; but meanwhile it would come and walk by night in the village, and eat the remnants in the kettles, wherefore some would not eat of these, nor touch the food at funeral feasts—though some indeed would eat all.[78] In Madagascar, the elegant little upper chamber in King Radama’s mausoleum was furnished with a table and two chairs, and a bottle of wine, a bottle of water, and two tumblers were placed there conformably with the ideas entertained by most of the natives, that the ghost of the departed monarch might occasionally visit the resting-place of his body, meet with the spirit of his father, and partake of what he was known to be fond of in his lifetime.[79] The Wanika of East Africa set a coco-nut shell full of rice and tembo near the grave for the ‘koma’ or shade, which cannot exist without food and drink.[80] In West Africa the Efik cook food and leave it on the table in the little shed or ‘devil-house’ near the grave, and thither not only the spirit of the deceased, but the spirits of the slaves sacrificed at his funeral, come to partake of it.[81] Farther south, in the Congo district, the custom has been described of making a channel into the tomb to the head or mouth of the corpse, whereby to send down month by month the offerings of food and drink.[82]

Among rude Asiatic tribes, the Bodo of North-East India thus celebrate the last funeral rites. The friends repair to the grave, and the nearest of kin to the deceased, taking an individual’s usual portion of food and drink, solemnly presents it to the dead with these words, ‘Take and eat, heretofore you have eaten and drunk with us, you can do so no more; you were one of us, you can be so no longer; we come no more to you, come you not to us.’ Thereupon each of the party breaks off a bracelet of thread put on his wrist for this purpose, and casts it on the grave, a speaking symbol of breaking the bond of fellowship, and ‘next the party proceed to the river and bathe, and having thus lustrated themselves, they repair to the banquet and eat, drink, and make merry as though they never were to die.’[83] With more continuance of affection, Naga tribes of Assam celebrate their funeral feasts month by month, laying food and drink on the graves of the departed.[84] In the same region of the world, the Kol tribes of Chota Nagpur are remarkable for their pathetic reverence for their dead. When a Ho or Munda has been burned on the funeral pile, collected morsels of his bones are carried in procession with a solemn, ghostly, sliding step, keeping time to the deep-sounding drum, and when the old woman who carries the bones on her bamboo tray lowers it from time to time, then girls who carry pitchers and brass vessels mournfully reverse them to show that they are empty; thus the remains are taken to visit every house in the village, and every dwelling of a friend or relative for miles, and the inmates come out to mourn and praise the goodness of the departed; the bones are carried to all the dead man’s favourite haunts, to the fields he cultivated, to the grove he planted, to the threshing-floor where he worked, to the village dance-room where he made merry. At last they are taken to the grave, and buried in an earthen vase upon a store of food, covered with one of those huge stone slabs which European visitors wonder at in the districts of the aborigines in India. Besides these, monumental stones are set up outside the village to the memory of men of note; they are fixed on an earthen plinth, where the ghost, resting in its walks among the living, is supposed to sit shaded by the pillar. The Kheriahs have collections of these monuments in the little enclosures round their houses, and offerings and libations are constantly made at them. With what feelings such rites are celebrated may be judged from this Ho dirge:—

‘We never scolded you; never wronged you;
Come to us back!
We ever loved and cherished you; and have lived long together
Under the same roof;
Desert it not now!
The rainy nights, and the cold blowing days, are coming on;
Do not wander here!
Do not stand by the burnt ashes; come to us again!
You cannot find shelter under the peepul, when the rain comes down.
The saul will not shield you from the cold bitter wind.
Come to your home!
It is swept for you, and clean; and we are there who loved you ever;
And there is rice put for you; and water;
Come home, come home, come to us again!’

Among the Kol tribes this kindly hospitality to ancestral souls passes on into the belief and ceremony of full manes-worship: votive offerings are made to the ‘old folks’ when their descendants go on a journey, and when there is sickness in the family it is generally they who are first propitiated.[85] Among Turanian races, the Chuwash put food and napkins on the grave, saying, ‘Rise at night and eat your fill, and there ye have napkins to wipe your mouths!’ while the Cheremiss simply said, ‘That is for you, ye dead, there ye have food and drink!’ In this Tatar region we hear of offerings continued year after year, and even of messengers sent back by a horde to carry offerings to the tombs of their forefathers in the old land whence they had emigrated.[86]

Details of this ancient rite are to be traced from the level of these rude races far upward in civilization. South-East Asia is full of it, and the Chinese may stand as its representative. He keeps his coffined parent for years, serving him with meals as if alive. He summons ancestral souls with prayer and beat of drum to feed on the meat and drink set out on special days when they are thought to return home. He even gives entertainments for the benefit of destitute and unfortunate souls in the lower regions, such as those of lepers and beggars. Lanterns are lighted to show them the way, a feast is spread for them, and with characteristic fancy, some victuals are left over for any blind or feeble spirits who may be late, and a pail of gruel is provided for headless souls, with spoons for them to put it down their throats with. Such proceedings culminate in the so-called Universal Rescue, now and then celebrated, when a little house is built for the expected visitors, with separate accommodation and bath-rooms for male and female ghosts.[87] The ancient Egyptian would set out his provision of cakes and trussed ducks on reed scaffolds in the tomb, or would even keep the mummy in the house to be present as a guest at the feast, σύνδειπνον καὶ συμπότην ἐποιήσατο, as Lucian says.[88] The Hindu, as of old, offers to the dead the funeral cakes, places before the door the earthen vessels of water for him to bathe in, of milk for him to drink, and celebrates at new and full moon the solemn presentation of rice-cakes made with ghee, with its attendant ceremonies so important for the soul’s release from its twelvemonth’s sojourn with Yama in Hades, and its transition to the Heaven of the Pitaras, the Fathers.[89] In the classic world such rites were represented by funeral feasts and oblations of food.[90]

In Christian times there manifests itself that interesting kind of survival which, keeping up the old ceremony in form, has adapted its motive to new thoughts and feelings. The classic funeral oblations became Christian, the silicernium was succeeded by the feast held at the martyr’s tomb. Faustus inveighs against the Christians for carrying on the ancient rites: ‘Their sacrifices indeed ye have turned into love-feasts, their idols into martyrs whom with like vows ye worship; ye appease the shades of the dead with wine and meals, ye celebrate the Gentiles’ solemn days with them, such as calends and solstices,—of their life certainly ye have changed nought,’[91] and so forth. The story of Monica shows how the custom of laying food on the tomb for the manes passed into the ceremony, like to it in form, of setting food and drink to be sanctified by the sepulchre of a Christian saint. Saint-Foix, who wrote in the time of Louis XIV., has left us an account of the ceremonial after the death of a King of France, during the forty days before the funeral when his wax effigy lay in state. They continued to serve him at meal-times as though still alive, the officers laid the table, and brought the dishes, the maître d’hôtel handed the napkin to the highest lord present to be presented to the king, a prelate blessed the table, the basins of water were handed to the royal arm-chair, the cup was served in its due course, and grace was said in the accustomed manner, save that there was added to it the De Profundis.[92] Spaniards still offer bread and wine on the tombs of those they love, on the anniversary of their decease.[93] The conservative Eastern Church still holds to ancient rite. The funeral feast is served in Russia, with its tables for the beggars, laden with fish pasties and bowls of shchi and jugs of kvas, its more delicate dinner for friends and priests, its incense and chants of ‘everlasting remembrance’; and even the repetition of the festival on the ninth, and twentieth, and fortieth day are not forgotten. The offerings of saucers of kutiya or kolyvo are still made in the church; this used to be of parboiled wheat and was deposited over the body, it is now made of boiled rice and raisins, sweetened with honey. In their usual mystic fashion, the Orthodox Christians now explain away into symbolism this remnant of primitive offering to the dead: the honey is heavenly sweetness, the shrivelled raisins will be full beauteous grapes, the grain typifies the resurrection, ‘that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.’[94]

In the calendar of many a people, differing widely as they may in race and civilization, there are to be found special yearly festivals of the dead. Their rites are much the same as those performed on other days for individuals; their season differs in different districts, but seems to have particular associations with harvest-time and the fall of the year, and with the year’s end as reckoned at midwinter or in early spring.[95] The Karens make their annual offerings to the dead in the ‘month of shades,’ that is, December;[96] the Kocch of North Bengal every year at harvest-home offer fruits and a fowl to deceased parents;[97] the Barea of East Africa celebrate in November the feast of Thiyot, at once a feast of general peace and merry-making, of thanksgiving for the harvest, and of memorial for the deceased, for each of whom a little pot-full of beer is set out two days, to be drunk at last by the survivors;[98] in West Africa we hear of the feast of the dead at the time of yam-harvest;[99] at the end of the year the Haitian negroes take food to the graves for the shades to eat, ‘manger zombi,’ as they say.[100] The Roman Feralia and Lemuralia were held in February and May.[101] In the last five or ten days of their year the Zoroastrians hold their feasts for departed relatives, when souls come back to the world to visit the living, and receive from them offerings of food and clothing.[102] The custom of setting empty seats at the St. John’s Eve feast, for the departed souls of kinsfolk, is said to have lasted on in Europe to the seventeenth century. Spring is the season of the time-honoured Slavonic rite of laying food on the graves of the dead. The Bulgarians hold a feast in the cemetery on Palm Sunday, and, after much eating and drinking, leave the remains upon the graves of their friends, who, they are persuaded, will eat them during the night. In Russia such scenes may still be watched on the two appointed days called Parents’ Days. The higher classes have let the rite sink to prayer at the graves of lost relatives, and giving alms to the beggars who flock to the cemeteries. But the people still ‘howl’ for the dead, and set out on their graves a handkerchief for a tablecloth, with gingerbread, eggs, curd-tarts, and even vodka, on it; when the weeping is over, they eat up the food, especially commemorating the dead in Russian manner by partaking of his favourite dainty, and if he were fond of a glass, the vodka is sipped with the ejaculation, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven be his! He loved a drink, the deceased!’[103] When Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, at the end of the tenth century, instituted the celebration of All Souls’ Day (November 2),[104] he set on foot one of those revivals which have so often given the past a new lease of life. The Western Church at large took up the practice, and round it there naturally gathered surviving remnants of the primitive rite of banquets to the dead. The accusation against the early Christians, that they appeased the shades of the dead with feasts like the Gentiles, would not be beside the mark now, fifteen hundred years later. On the eve of All Souls’ begins, within the limits of Christendom, a commemoration of the dead which combines some touches of pathetic imagination with relics of savage animism scarcely to be surpassed in Africa or the South Sea Islands. In Italy the day is given to feasting and drinking in honour of the dead, while skulls and skeletons in sugar and paste form appropriate children’s toys. In Tyrol, the poor souls released from purgatory fire for the night may come and smear their burns with the melted fat of the ‘soul light’ on the hearth, or cakes are left for them on the table, and the room is kept warm for their comfort. Even in Paris the souls of the departed come to partake of the food of the living. In Brittany the crowd pours into the churchyard at evening, to kneel bareheaded at the graves of dead kinsfolk, to fill the hollow of the tombstone with holy water, or to pour libations of milk upon it. All night the church bells clang, and sometimes a solemn procession of the clergy goes round to bless the graves. In no household that night is the cloth removed, for the supper must be left for the souls to come and take their part, nor must the fire be put out, where they will come to warm themselves. And at last, as the inmates retire to rest, there is heard at the door a doleful chant—it is the souls, who, borrowing the voices of the parish poor, have come to ask the prayers of the living.[105]

If we ask how the spirits of the dead are in general supposed to feed on the viands set before them, we come upon difficult questions, which will be met with again in discussing the theory of sacrifice. Even where the thought is certainly that the departed soul eats, this thought may be very indefinite, with far less of practical intention in it than of childish make-believe. Now and then, however, the sacrificers themselves offer closer definitions of their meaning. The idea of the ghost actually devouring the material food is not unexampled. Thus, in North America, Algonquin Indians considered that the shadow-like souls of the dead can still eat and drink, often even telling Father Le Jeune that they had found in the morning meat gnawed in the night by the souls. More recently, we read that some Potawatomis will leave off providing the supply of food at the grave if it lies long untouched, it being concluded that the dead no longer wants it, but has found a rich hunting-ground in the other world.[106] In Africa, again, Father Cavazzi records of the Congo people furnishing their dead with supplies of provisions, that they could not be persuaded that souls did not consume material food.[107] In Europe the Esths, offering food for the dead on All Souls’, are said to have rejoiced if they found in the morning that any of it was gone.[108] A less gross conception is that the soul consumes the steam or savour of the food, or its essence or spirit. It is said to have been with such purpose that the Maoris placed food by the dead man’s side, and some also with him in the grave.[109] The idea is well displayed among the natives in Mexican districts, where the souls who came to the annual feast are described as hovering over and smelling the food set out for them, or sucking out its nutritive quality.[110] The Hindu entreats the manes to quaff the sweet essence of the offered food; thinking on them, he slowly sets the dish of rice before the Brahmans, and while they silently eat the hot food, the ancestral spirits take their part of the feast.[111] At the old Slavonic meals for the dead, we read of the survivors sitting in silence and throwing morsels under the table, fancying that they could hear the spirits rustle, and see them feed on the smell and steam of the viands. One account describes the mourners at the funeral banquet inviting in the departed soul thought to be standing outside the door, and every guest throwing morsels and pouring drink under the table, for him to refresh himself. What lay on the ground was not picked up, but was left for friendless and kinless souls. When the meal was over, the priest rose from table, swept out the house, and hunted out the souls of the dead ‘like fleas,’ with these words, ‘Ye have eaten and drunken, souls, now go, now go!’[112] Many travellers have described the imagination with which the Chinese make such offerings. It is that the spirits of the dead consume the impalpable essence of the food, leaving behind its coarse material substance, wherefore the dutiful sacrificers, having set out sumptuous feasts for ancestral souls, allow them a proper time to satisfy their appetite, and then fall to themselves.[113] The Jesuit Father Christoforo Borri suggestively translates the native idea into his own scholastic phraseology. In Cochin China, according to him, people believed ‘that the souls of the dead have need of corporeal sustenance and maintenance, wherefore several times a year, according to their custom, they make splendid and sumptuous banquets, children to their deceased parents, husbands to their wives, friends to their friends, waiting a long while for the dead guest to come and sit down at table to eat.’ The missionaries argued against this proceeding, but were met by ridicule of their ignorance, and the reply ‘that there were two things in the food, one the substance, and the other the accidents of quantity, quality, smell, taste, and the like. The immaterial souls of the dead, taking for themselves the substance of the food, which being immaterial is food suited to the incorporeal soul, left only in the dishes the accidents which corporeal senses perceive; for this the dead had no need of corporeal instruments, as we have said.’ Thereupon the Jesuit proceeds to remark, as to the prospect of conversion of these people, ‘it may be judged from the distinction they make between the accidents and the substance of the food which they prepare for the dead,’ that it will not be very difficult to prove to them the mystery of the Eucharist.[114] Now to peoples among whom prevails the rite of feasts of the dead, whether they offer the food in mere symbolic pretence, or whether they consider the souls really to feed on it in this spiritual way (as well as in the cases inextricably mixed up with these, where the offering is spiritually conveyed away to the world of spirits), it can be of little consequence what becomes of the gross material food. When the Kafir sorcerer, in cases of sickness, declares that the shades of ancestors demand a particular cow, the beast is slaughtered and left shut up for a time for the shades to eat, or for its spirit to go to the land of shades, and then is taken out to be eaten by the sacrificers.[115] So, in more civilized Japan, when the survivors have placed their offering of unboiled rice and water in a hollow made for the purpose in a stone of the tomb, it seems to them no matter that the poor or the birds really carry off the grain.[116]

Such rites as these are especially exposed to dwindle in survival. The offerings of meals and feasts to the dead may be traced at their last stage into mere traditional ceremonies, at most tokens of affectionate remembrance of the dead, or works of charity to the living. The Roman Feralia in Ovid’s time were a striking example of such transition, for while the idea was recognized that the ghosts fed upon the offerings, ‘nunc posito pascitur umbra cibo,’ yet there were but ‘parva munera,’ fruits and grains of salt, and corn soaked in wine, set out for their meal in the middle of the road. ‘Little the manes ask, the pious thought stands instead of the rich gift, for Styx holds no greedy gods:’—

‘Parva petunt manes. Pietas pro divite grata est
Munere. Non avidos Styx habet ima deos.
Tegula porrectis satis est velata coronis,
Et sparsae fruges, parcaque mica salis,
Inque mero mollita ceres, violaeque solutae:
Haec habeat media testa relicta via.
Nec majora veto. Sed et his placabilis umbra est.’[117]

Still farther back, in old Chinese history, Confucius had been called on to give an opinion as to the sacrifices to the dead. Maintainer of all ancient rites as he was, he stringently kept up this, ‘he sacrificed to the dead as if they were present,’ but when he was asked if the dead had knowledge of what was done or no, he declined to answer the question; for if he replied yes, then dutiful descendants would injure their substance by sacrifices, and if no, then undutiful children would leave their parents unburied. The evasion was characteristic of the teacher who expressed his theory of worship in this maxim, ‘to give oneself earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.’ It is said that in our own time the Taepings have made a step beyond Confucius; they have forbidden the sacrifices to the spirits of the dead, yet keep up the rite of visiting their tombs on the customary day, for prayer and the renewal of vows.[118] How funeral offerings may pass into commemorative banquets and feasts to the poor, has been shown already. If we seek in England for vestiges of the old rite of funeral sacrifice, we may find a lingering survival into modern centuries, doles of bread and drink given to the poor at funerals, and ‘soul-mass cakes’ which peasant girls perhaps to this day beg for at farmhouses with the traditional formula,

‘Soul, soul, for a soul cake,
Pray you, mistress, a soul cake.’[119]

Were it not for our knowledge of the intermediate stages through which these fragments of old custom have come down, it would seem far-fetched indeed to trace their origin back to the savage and barbaric times of the institution of feasts of departed souls.

Footnote 1:

Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés. dans la Nouvelle France,’ 1636, p. 130;
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. vi. p. 75. See Brinton, p. 253.

Footnote 2:

Waitz, vol. iii. p. 195, see p. 213. Morse, ‘Report on Indian
Affairs,’ p. 345.

Footnote 3:

Mayne, ‘British Columbia,’ p. 181.

Footnote 4:

Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ pp. 248, 258, see p. 212. See also Turner,
‘Polynesia,’ p. 353; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 793.

Footnote 5:

Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 28.

Footnote 6:

Bastian, ‘Zur vergl. Psychologie,’ in Lazarus and Steinthal’s
‘Zeitschrift,’ vol. v. p. 160, &c., also Papuas and other races.

Footnote 7:

Burton, ‘W. & W. fr. W. Afr.’ p. 376.

Footnote 8:

Krapf, ‘E. Afr.’ p. 201.

Footnote 9:

J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 210; see also R. Clarke, ‘Sierra Leone,’ p.
159.

Footnote 10:

Bastian, l. c.

Footnote 11:

Macpherson, p. 72; also Tickell in ‘Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,’ vol. ix.
pp. 793, &c.; Dalton in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 22 (similar rite
of Mundas and Oraons).

Footnote 12:

Klemm, ‘C. G.’ vol. iii. p. 77; K. Leems, ‘Lapper,’ c. xiv.

Footnote 13:

R. Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 284; see Shortland, ‘Traditions,’ p. 145;
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 353; Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 279; see
also p. 276 (Samoyeds). Compare Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. v.
p. 426; Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 353; Kracheninnikow, ii. 117. See
Plath, ‘Rel. der alten Chinesen,’ ii. p. 98.

Footnote 14:

Grey, ‘Australia,’ vol. i. p. 301, vol. ii. p. 363 (native’s
accusation against some foreign sailors who had assaulted him,
‘_djanga_ Taal-wurt kyle-gut bomb-gur,’—‘one of the dead struck
Taal-wurt under the ear,’ &c. The word _djanga_ = the dead, the
spirits of deceased persons (see Grey, ‘Vocab. of S. W. Australia’),
had come to be the usual term for a European). Lang, ‘Queensland,’ pp.
34, 336; Bonwick, ‘Tasmanians,’ p. 183; Scherzer, ‘Voy. of Novara,’
vol. iii. p. 34; Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 222, ‘Mensch,’ vol. iii.
pp. 362-3, and in Lazarus and Steinthal’s ‘Zeitschrift,’ l. c.;
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 424.

Footnote 15:

Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 85; Brun-Rollet, ‘Nil Blanc,’ &c. p. 234.

Footnote 16:

Sproat, ‘Savage Life,’ ch. xviii., xix., xxi. Souls of the dead appear
in dreams, either in human or animal forms, p. 174. See also Brinton,
p. 145.

Footnote 17:

Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iii. p. 113.

Footnote 18:

Hayes, ‘Arctic Boat Journey,’ p. 198.

Footnote 19:

Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 102.

Footnote 20:

Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1636, p. 104.

Footnote 21:

Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 174.

Footnote 22:

Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 5.

Footnote 23:

Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 602; Markham in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’
vol. iii. p. 195.

Footnote 24:

Dobrizhoffer, ‘Abipones,’ vol. ii. pp. 74, 270.

Footnote 25:

Coreal in Brinton, l. c. See also J. G. Müller, pp. 139 (Natchez), 223
(Caribs), 402 (Peru).

Footnote 26:

Chomé in ‘Lettres Edif.’ vol. viii.; see also Martius, vol. i. p. 446.

Footnote 27:

Waitz, vol. ii. p. 419 (Maravi).

Footnote 28:

Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 196, &c.; Arbousset and Daumas, p.
237.

Footnote 29:

J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ pp. 210, 218. See also Brun-Rollet, pp. 200,
234; Meiners, vol. i. p. 211.

Footnote 30:

Steinhauser in ‘Mag. der Evang. Miss.’ Basel, 1856, No. 2, p. 135.

Footnote 31:

Manu, xi. xii. Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. i. p. 164, vol. ii. pp. 215,
347-52.

Footnote 32:

St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 181; Perelaer, ‘Ethnog. Beschr. der
Dajaks,’ p. 17.

Footnote 33:

Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal,’ p. 210. See also Shaw in ‘As. Res.’ vol. iv.
p. 46 (Rajmahal tribes).

Footnote 34:

Abraham Roger, ‘La Porte Ouverte,’ Amst. 1670, p. 107.

Footnote 35:

Manu, xii. 9: ‘çarîrajaih karmmadoshaih yâti sthâvaratâm narah’—‘for
crimes done in the body, the man goes to the inert (motionless)
state;’ xii. 42, ‘sthâvarâh krimakîtâçcha matsyâh sarpâh sakachhapâh
paçavaçcha mrigaschaiva jaghanyâ tâmasî gatih’—‘inert (motionless)
things, worms and insects, fish, serpents, tortoises and beasts and
deer also are the last dark form.’

Footnote 36:

Köppen, ‘Religion des Buddha,’ vol. i. pp. 35, 289, &c., 318;
Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, ‘Le Bouddha et sa Religion,’ p. 122; Hardy,
‘Manual of Budhism,’ pp. 98, &c., 180, 318, 445, &c.

Footnote 37:

Herod. ii. 123, see Rawlinson’s Tr.; Plutarch. De Iside 31, 72;
Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ vol. ii. ch. xvi.

Footnote 38:

Plat. Phædo, Timæus, Phædrus, Repub.; Diog. Laert. Empedokles xii.;
Pindar. Olymp. ii. antistr. 4; Ovid. Metam. xv. 160; Lucian. Somn.
17, &c. Philostr. Vit. Apollon. Tyan. See also Meyer’s
Conversations-Lexicon, art. ‘Seelenwanderung.’ For re-birth in old
Scandinavia, see Helgakvidha, iii., in ‘Edda.’

Footnote 39:

Eisenmenger, part ii. p. 23, &c.

Footnote 40:

Beausobre, ‘Hist. de Manichée,’ &c., vol. i. pp. 245-6, vol. ii. pp.
496-9; G. Flügel, ‘Mani.’ See Augustin. Contra Faust.; De Hæres.; De
Quantitate Animæ.

Footnote 41:

Gul. de Rubruquis in ‘Rec. des Voy. Soc. de Géographie de Paris,’ vol.
iv. p. 356. Benjamin of Tudela, ed. and tr. by Asher, Hebrew 22, Eng.
p. 62. Niebuhr, ‘Reisebeschr. nach Arabien,’ &c., vol. ii. pp.
438-443; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 796.

Footnote 42:

St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 57. Compare the tenets of the
Russian sect of Dukhobortzi, in Haxthausen, ‘Russian Empire,’ vol. i.
p. 288, &c.

Footnote 43:

Since the first publication of the above remark, M. Louis Figuier has
supplied a perfect modern instance by his book, entitled ‘Le Lendemain
de la Mort,’ translated into English as ‘The Day after Death: Our
Future Life according to Science.’ His attempt to revive the ancient
belief, and to connect it with the evolution-theory of modern
naturalists, is carried out with more than Buddhist elaborateness.
Body is the habitat of soul, which goes out when a man dies, as one
forsakes a burning house. In the course of development, a soul may
migrate through bodies stage after stage, zoophyte and oyster,
grasshopper and eagle, crocodile and dog, till it arrives at man,
thence ascending to become one of the superhuman beings or angels who
dwell in the planetary ether, and thence to a still higher state, the
secret of whose nature M. Figuier does not endeavour to penetrate,
‘because our means of investigation fail at this point.’ The ultimate
destiny of the more glorified being is the Sun; the pure spirits who
form its mass of burning gases, pour out germs and life to start the
course of planetary existence. (Note to 2nd edition.)

Footnote 44:

Swedenborg, ‘The True Christian Religion,’ 13. Compare the notion
attributed to the followers of Basilides the Gnostic, of men whose
souls are affected by spirits or dispositions as of wolf, ape, lion,
or bear, wherefore their souls bear the properties of these, and
imitate their deeds (Clem. Alex. Stromat. ii. c. 20).

Footnote 45:

See J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrel.’ p. 208 (Caribs); but compare
Rochefort, p. 429. Steller, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 269, Castrén, ‘Finnische
Mythologie,’ p. 119.

Footnote 46:

For Egyptian evidence see the funeral papyri and translations of the
‘Book of the Dead.’ Compare Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 254, &c.

Footnote 47:

Aryan evidence in ‘Rig-Veda,’ x. 14, 8; xi. 1, 8; Manu, xii. 16-22;
Max Müller, ‘Todtenbestattung,’ pp. xii. xiv.; ‘Chips,’ vol. i. p. 47;
Muir in ‘Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,’ vol. i. 1865, p. 306; Spiegel,
‘Avesta’; Haug, ‘Essays on the Parsis.’

Footnote 48:

Origen, De Princip. ii. 3, 2: ‘materiæ corporalis, cujus materiæ anima
usum semper habet, in qualibet qualitate positæ, nunc quidem carnali,
postmodum vero subtiliori et puriori, quæ spiritalis appellatur.’

Footnote 49:

Burton, ‘Central Africa,’ vol. ii. p. 345.

Footnote 50:

Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 84.

Footnote 51:

Kaufmann, ‘Schilderungen aus Centralafrika,’ p. 124; G. Lejean in
‘Rev. des Deux Mondes,’ Apr. 1, 1860, p. 760; see Brun-Rollet, ‘Nil
Blanc,’ pp. 100, 234. A dialogue by the missionary Beltrame (1859-60),
in Mitterutzner, ‘Dinka-Sprache,’ p. 57, ascribes to the Dinkas ideas
of heaven and hell, which, however, show Christian influence.

Footnote 52:

Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 136; John Smith, ‘Descr. of
Virginia,’ 33; Oviedo, ‘Nicaragua,’ p. 50. The reference to the Laos
in Meiners, vol. ii. p. 760, is worthless.

Footnote 53:

Cranz, ‘Grönland,’ p. 259.

Footnote 54:

Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 244. See ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iii.
p. 113 (Dayaks). Compare wasting and death of souls in depths of
Hades, Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 232.

Footnote 55:

Bosman, ‘Guinea’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 401. See also Waitz,
‘Anthropologie,’ vol. ii. p. 191 (W. Afr.); Callaway, ‘Rel. of
Amazulu,’ p. 355.

Footnote 56:

Cavazzi, ‘Congo, Matamba, et Angola,’ lib. i. p. 270. See also
Liebrecht in ‘Zeitschr. für Ethnologie,’ vol. v. p. 96 (Tartary,
Scandinavia, Greece).

Footnote 57:

Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 310; Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’
pp. 111, 193; Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 235.

Footnote 58:

Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 323.

Footnote 59:

Kolben, p. 579.

Footnote 60:

Billings, p. 125.

Footnote 61:

Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien.’ vol. i. p. 145; Cross, l.c., p. 311. For
other cases of desertion of dwellings after a death, possibly for the
same motive, see Bourien, ‘Tribes of Malay Pen.’ in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’
vol. iii. p. 82; Polack, ‘M. of New Zealanders,’ vol. i. pp. 204, 216;
Steiler, ‘Kamtschatka,’ p. 271. But the Todas say that the buffaloes
slaughtered and the hut burnt at the funeral are transferred to the
spirit of the deceased in the next world; Shortt in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’
vol. vii. p. 247. See Waitz, vol. iii. p. 199.

Footnote 62:

Egede, ‘Greenland,’ p. 152; Cranz, p. 300.

Footnote 63:

Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 323; see pp. 329, 363.

Footnote 64:

Bowring, ‘Siam,’ vol. i. p. 122; Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien.’ vol. iii. p.
258.

Footnote 65:

Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 120.

Footnote 66:

Wuttke, ‘Volksaberglaube,’ pp. 213-17. Other cases of taking out the
dead by a gap made on purpose: Arbousset and Daumas, p. 502 (Bushmen);
Magyar, p. 351 (Kimbunda); Moffat, p. 307 (Bechuanas); Waitz, vol.
iii. p. 199 (Ojibwas);—their motive is probably that the ghost may not
find its way back by the door.

Footnote 67:

Oldfield in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. pp. 228, 236, 245.

Footnote 68:

Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 221; Schirren, p. 91; see Turner,
‘Polynesia,’ p. 233.

Footnote 69:

Morgan, ‘League of Iroquois,’ p. 174.

Footnote 70:

J. G. Müller, p. 286.

Footnote 71:

Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 126.

Footnote 72:

Cross in ‘Journ. Amer. Or. Soc.’ vol. iv. p. 309; Mason in ‘Journ. As.
Soc. Bengal,’ 1865, part ii. p. 203. See also J. Anderson, ‘Exp. to W.
Yunnan,’ pp. 126, 131 (Shans).

Footnote 73:

Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ pp. 51, 99-101.

Footnote 74:

Lucian. De Luctu. See Pauly, ‘Real. Encyclop.’ and Smith, ‘Dic. of Gr.
and Rom. Ant.’ s.v. ‘inferi.’

Footnote 75:

Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 277.

Footnote 76:

Calmet, vol. ii. ch. xxxvi.; Brand, vol. iii. p. 67.

Footnote 77:

Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. vi. p. 75; Schoolcraft, ‘Indian
Tribes,’ part i. pp. 39, 83; part iv. p. 65; Tanner’s ‘Narr.’ p. 293.

Footnote 78:

Brebeuf in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1636, p. 104.

Footnote 79:

Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. pp. 253, 364. See Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’
p. 220.

Footnote 80:

Krapf, ‘E. Afr.’ p. 150.

Footnote 81:

T. J. Hutchinson, p. 206.

Footnote 82:

Cavazzi, ‘Congo, &c.’ lib. i. p. 264. So in ancient Greece, Lucian.
Charon, 22.

Footnote 83:

Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 180.

Footnote 84:

‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. ii. p. 235.

Footnote 85:

Tickell in ‘Journ. As. Soc. Bengal,’ vol. ix. p. 795; Dalton, ibid.
1866, part ii. p. 153, &c.; and in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 1, &c.;
Latham, ‘Descr. Eth.’ vol. ii. p. 415, &c.

Footnote 86:

Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 62; Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p. 121.

Footnote 87:

Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 173, &c.; vol. ii. p. 91, &c.;
Meiners, vol. i. p. 306.

Footnote 88:

Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ vol. ii. p. 362; Lucian. De Luctu, 21.

Footnote 89:

Manu, iii.; Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol. i. p. 161, &c.; Pictet,
‘Origines Indo-Europ.’ part ii. p. 600; Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p.
332.

Footnote 90:

Pauly, ‘Real-Encyclop.’ s.v. ‘funus.’; Smith’s ‘Dic.’ s.v. ‘funus.’
See Meiners, vol. i. pp. 305-19.

Footnote 91:

Augustin. contra Faustum, xx. 4; De Civ. Dei, viii. 27; conf. vi. 2.
See Beausobre, vol. ii. pp. 633, 685; Bingham, xx. c. 7.

Footnote 92:

Saint-Foix, ‘Essais Historiques sur Paris,’ in ‘Œuvres,’ vol. iv. p.
147, &c.

Footnote 93:

Lady Herbert, ‘Impressions of Spain,’ p. 8.

Footnote 94:

H. C. Romanoff, ‘Rites and Customs of Greco-Russian Church,’ p. 249;
Ralston, ‘Songs of the Russian People,’ pp. 135, 320; St. Clair and
Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 77; Brand, ‘Pop. Ant.’ vol. i. p. 115.

Footnote 95:

Beside the accounts of annual festivals of the dead cited here, see
the following:—Santos, ‘Ethiopia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 685
(Sept.); Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. pp. 23, 522, 528 (Aug., Oct.,
Nov.); Rivero and Tschudi, ‘Peru,’ p. 134 (Peruvian feast dated as
Nov. 2 in coincidence with All Souls’, but this reckoning is vitiated
by confusion of seasons of N. and S. hemisphere, see J. G. Müller, p.
389; moreover, the Peruvian feast may have been originally held at a
different date, and transferred, as happened elsewhere, to the
‘Spanish All Souls’); Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. ii. pp. 44, 62 (esp.
Apr.); Caron, ‘Japan,’ in Pinkerton, vol. vii. p. 629 (Aug.).

Footnote 96:

Mason, ‘Karens,’ l. c. p. 238.

Footnote 97:

Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 147.

Footnote 98:

Munzinger, ‘Ostafr. Stud.’ p. 473.

Footnote 99:

Waitz, vol. ii. p. 194.

Footnote 100:

G. D’Alaux in ‘Rev. des Deux Mondes,’ May 15, 1852, p. 76.

Footnote 101:

Ovid. Fast. ii. 533; v. 420.

Footnote 102:

Spiegel, ‘Avesta,’ vol. ii. p. ci.; Alger, p. 137.

Footnote 103:

Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ pp. 374, 408; St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’
p. 77; Romanoff, ‘Greco-Roman Church,’ p. 255.

Footnote 104:

Petrus Damianus, ‘Vita S. Odilonis,’ in the Bollandist ‘Acta
Sanctorum,’ Jan. 1, has the quaint legend attached to the new
ordinance. An island hermit dwelt near a volcano, where souls of the
wicked were tormented in the flames. The holy man heard the
officiating demons lament that their daily task of new torture was
interfered with by the prayers and alms of devout persons leagued
against them to save souls, and especially they complained of the
Monks of Cluny. Thereupon the hermit sent a message to Abbot Odilo,
who carried out the work to the efficacy of which he had received such
perfect spiritual testimony, by decreeing that November 2, the day
after All Saints’, should be set apart for services for the departed.

Footnote 105:

Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 336. Meiners, vol. i. p. 316; vol. ii.
p. 290. Wuttke, ‘Deutsche Volksaberglaube,’ p. 216. Cortet, ‘Fêtes
Religieuses,’ p. 233; ‘Westminster Rev.’ Jan. 1860; Hersart de la
Villemarqué, ‘Chants de la Bretagne,’ vol. ii. p. 307.

Footnote 106:

Le Jeune in ‘Rel. des Jés.’ 1634, p. 16; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 195.

Footnote 107:

Cavazzi, ‘Congo,’ &c., book i. 265.

Footnote 108:

Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 865, but not so in the account of the Feast of the
Dead in Boecler, ‘Ehsten Abergl. Gebr.’ (ed. Kreutzwald), p. 89.
Compare Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 345 (Gês). The following
passage from a spiritualist journal, ‘The Medium,’ Feb. 9, 1872, shows
this primitive notion curiously surviving in modern England. ‘Every
time we sat at dinner, we had not only spirit-voices calling to us,
but spirit-hands touching us; and last evening, as it was his
farewell, they gave us a special manifestation, unasked for and
unlooked for. He sitting at the right hand of me, a vacant chair
opposite to him began moving, and, in answer to whether it would have
some dinner, said “Yes.” I then asked it to select what it would take,
when it chose _croquets des pommes de terre_ (a French way of dressing
potatoes, about three inches long and two wide. I will send you one
that you may see it). I was desired to put this on the chair, either
in a tablespoon or on a plate. I placed it in a tablespoon, thinking
that probably the plate might be broken. In a few seconds I was told
that it was eaten, and looking, found the half of it gone, with the
marks showing the teeth.’ (Note to 2nd ed.)

Footnote 109:

Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 220, see 104.

Footnote 110:

Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 24.

Footnote 111:

Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol. i. p. 163, &c.; Manu. iii.

Footnote 112:

Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ p. 408; Hartknoch, ‘Preussen,’ part i. p. 187.

Footnote 113:

Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. ii. pp. 33, 48; Meiners, vol. i. p. 318.

Footnote 114:

Borri, ‘Relatione della Nuova Missione della Comp. di Giesu,’ Rome,
1631, p. 208; and in Pinkerton, vol. ix. p. 822, &c.

Footnote 115:

Grout, ‘Zulu Land,’ p. 140; see Callaway, ‘Rel. of Amazulu,’ p. 11.

Footnote 116:

Caron, ‘Japan,’ vol. vii. p. 629; see Turpin, ‘Siam,’ ibid. vol. ix.
p. 590.

Footnote 117:

Ovid. Fast. ii. 533.

Footnote 118:

Legge, ‘Confucius,’ pp. 101-2, 130; Bunsen, ‘God in History,’ p. 271.

Footnote 119:

Brand, ‘Pop. Ant.’ vol. i. p. 392, vol. ii. p. 289.