[66] Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 228. Idem, Samoa, p. 145.
[67] Best, ‘Tuhoe Land,’ in Trans. and Proceed. of the New Zealand Institute, xxx. 38.
[68] Yarrow, ‘Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. i. 95.
[69] Dorsey, ‘Mourning and War Customs of the Kansas,’ in American Naturalist, xix. 679 sq.
[70] Boas, loc. cit. p. 41.
[71] Teit, loc. cit. p. 328.
Very frequently mourners have to abstain from certain victuals only, especially flesh or fish, or some other staple or favourite food.
In Greenland everybody who had lived in the same house with the dead, or who had touched his corpse, was for some time forbidden to partake of certain kinds of food.[72] Among the Upper Thompson Indians “parents bereft of a child did not eat fresh meat for several months.”[73] Among the Stlatlumh of British Columbia a widow might eat no fresh food for a whole year, whilst the other members of the deceased person’s family abstained from such food for a period of from four days to as many months. A widower was likewise forbidden to eat fresh meats for a certain period, the length of which varied with the age of the person—the younger the man, the longer his abstention.[74] In some of the Goajiro clans of Colombia a person is prohibited from eating flesh during the mourning time, which lasts nine days.[75] Among the Abipones, when a chief died, the whole tribe abstained for a month from eating fish, their principal dainty.[76] While in mourning, the Northern Queensland aborigines carefully avoid certain victuals, believing that the forbidden food, if eaten, would burn up their bowels.[77] In Easter Island the nearest relatives of the dead are for a year or even longer obliged to abstain from eating potatoes, their chief article of food, or some other victuals of which they are particularly fond.[78] Certain Papuans and various tribes in the Malay Archipelago prohibit persons in mourning from eating rice or sago.[79] In the Andaman Islands mourners refuse to partake of their favourite viands.[80] After the death of a relative the Tipperahs abstain from flesh for a week.[81] The same is the case with the Arakh, a tribe in Oudh, during the fifteen days in the month of Kuâr which are sacred to the worship of the dead.[82] Among the Nayādis of Malabar the relatives of the deceased are not allowed to eat meat for ten days after his death.[83] According to Toda custom the near relatives must not eat rice, milk, honey, or gram until the funeral is over.[84] Among the Hindus described by Mr. Chunder Bose a widow is restricted to one scanty meal a day, and this is of the coarsest description and always devoid of fish, the most esteemed article of food in a Hindu lady’s bill of fare. The son, again, from the hour of his father’s death to the conclusion of the funeral ceremony, is allowed to take only a meal consisting of atab rice, a sort of inferior pulse, milk, ghee, sugar, and a few fruits, and at night a little milk, sugar, and fruits—a régime which lasts ten days in the case of a Brahmin and thirty-one days in the case of a Sûdra.[85] In some of the sacred books of India it is said that, during the period of impurity, all the mourners shall abstain from eating meat.[86] In China “meat, must, and spirits were forbidden even in the last month of the deepest mourning, when other sorts of food had long been allowed already.”[87]
[72] Egede, Description of Greenland, p. 149 sq. Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 218.
[73] Teit, loc. cit. p. 332.