From various quarters of the world we hear of the immolation of men for the service of the dead, the victims generally being slaves, wives, or captives of war, or, sometimes, friends.[278] This rite occurs or has occurred, more or less extensively, in Borneo[279] and the Philippine Islands,[280] in Melanesia and Polynesia,[281] in many different parts of Africa,[282] and among some American tribes.[283] In America, however, it was carried to its height by the more civilised nations of Central America and Mexico, Bogota and Peru.[284] There is evidence to show that the funeral ceremonies of the ancient Egyptians occasionally included human sacrifice at the gate of the tomb, although the practice would seem to have been exceptional, at any rate after Egypt had entered upon her period of greatness.[285] It has been suggested that in China the burial of living persons with the dead dates from the darkest mist of ages, and that the cases on record in the native books are of relatively modern date only because in high antiquity the custom was so common, that it did not occur to the annalists and chroniclers to set down such everyday matters as anything remarkable.[286] In the fourteenth century of our era, the funeral sacrifice of men was abolished, even for emperors and members of the imperial family,[287] but it has assumed a modified shape under which it still maintains itself in China. “Daughters, daughters-in-law, and widows especially imbued with the doctrine that they are the property of their dead parents, parents-in-law, and husbands, and accordingly owe them the highest degree of submissive devotion, often take their lives, in order to follow them into the next world.” And though it has been enacted that no official distinctions shall be awarded to such suttees, whereas honours are granted to widowed wives, concubines, and brides who, instead of destroying themselves, simply abjure matrimonial life for good, sutteeism of widows and brides still meets with the same applause as ever, and many a woman is no doubt prevailed upon, or even compelled, by her own relations, to become a suttee.[288] Professor Schrader observes that “it is no longer possible to doubt that ancient Indo-Germanic custom ordained that the wife should die with her husband.”[289] It has been argued, it is true, that the burning of widows begins rather late in India;[290] yet, though the modern ordinance of suttee-burning be a corrupt departure from the early Brahmanic ritual, the practice seems to be, not a new invention by the later Hindu priesthood, but the revival of an ancient rite belonging originally to a period even earlier than the Veda.[291] In the Vedic ritual there are ceremonies which obviously indicate the previous existence of such a rite.[292] From Greece we have the instances of Evadne throwing herself into the funeral pile of her husband,[293] and of the suicide of the three Messenian widows mentioned by Pausanias.[294] Sacrifice of widows occurred, as it seems as a regular custom, among the Scandinavians,[295] Heruli,[296] and Slavonians.[297] “The fact,” says Mr. Ralston, “that, in Slavonic lands, a thousand years ago, widows used to destroy themselves in order to accompany their dead husbands to the world of spirits, seems to rest on incontestable evidence”; and if the dead was a man of means and distinction, he was also solaced by the sacrifice of his slaves.[298] Funeral offerings of slaves occurred among the Teutons[299] and the Gauls of Cæsar’s time;[300] and in the Iliad we read of twelve captives being laid on the funeral pile of Patroclus.[301]
[278] See Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 458 sqq.; Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 203 sqq.; Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 380 sq.; Schneider, Naturvölker, i. 202 sqq.; Hehn, op. cit. p. 416 sqq.; Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 125 sq.; Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 199 sq.
[279] Brooke, Ten Years in Saráwak, i. 74. Hose and McDougall, ‘Relations between Men and Animals in Sarawak,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 207 sq. Bock, Head-Hunters of Borneo, pp. 210 n., 219 sq.
[280] Blumentritt, ‘Der Ahnencultus und die religiösen Anschauungen der Malaien des Philippinen Archipels,’ in Mittheilungen d. Geograph. Gesellsch. in Wien, xxv. 152 sq.
[281] Westermarck, op. cit. p. 125 sq. Brenchley, op. cit. p. 208 (natives of Tana). Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 161 sq. (Fijians). Lisiansky, op. cit. p. 81 (Nukahivans). Mariner, op. cit. ii. 220 sq. (Tonga Islanders). Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, p. 218 (Maoris). von Kotzebue, op. cit. iii. 247 (Sandwich Islanders).
[282] Rowley, Africa Unveiled, p. 127. Idem, Religion of the Africans, p. 102 sq. Schneider, Religion der afrikanischen Naturvölker, p. 118 sqq. Westermarck, op. cit. p. 125. Ramseyer and Kühne, Four Years in Ashantee, p. 50. Mockler-Ferryman, British Nigeria, pp. 235, 259 sqq. Burton, Mission to Gelele, ii. 19 sqq. (Dahomans). Idem, Abeokuta, i. 220 sq. Idem, Lake Regions of Central Africa, i. 124 (Wadoe); ii. 25 sq. (Wanyamwezi). Wilson, Western Africa, pp. 203, 219. Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 159 sqq. Idem, Ew̔e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, pp. 117, 118, 121 sqq. Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, ii. 687 (Somraï and Njillem). Baker, Ismaïlia, p. 317 sq. (Wanyoro). Casati, Ten Years in Equatoria, i. 170 (Mambettu). Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 212 sq.
[283] Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 204. Dorman, op. cit. p. 210 sqq. Westermarck, op. cit. p. 125. Macfie, Vancouver Island and British Columbia, p. 448. Charlevoix, Voyage to North America, ii. 196 sq. (Natchez). Rochefort, Histoire naturelle et morale des Iles Antilles, p. 568 sq. (Caribs).
[284] Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 461. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 205. Dorman, op. cit. p. 212 sqq. Acosta, op. cit. ii. 313, 314, 344 (Peruvians).
[285] Wiedemann, Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, p. 62 n.
[286] de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 721.