[17] Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 79 sq.
[18] Kohler, Volksbrauch im Voigtlande, p. 441.
[19] See Tylor. op. cit. ch. xi. sq.; Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 155 sqq., 257 sqq.; Frazer, Adonis Attis Osiris, p. 242 sqq.
[20] See Spencer, op. cit. i. 184 sqq.
[21] Supra, [i. 472 sqq.]
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.[22] 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.[23] 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 not, are never touched, being sacred to the spirit of the dead.[24] 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.”[25] The laws of Athens[26] and Rome[27] and the ancient Teutonic law-books[28] 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.
[22] Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 580. Murdoch, ‘Ethn. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,’ ibid. ix. 424 sq. (Point Barrow Eskimo). Powell, ibid. iii. p. lvii. (North American Indians). Yarrow, ‘Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians,’ ibid. i. 98 (Pimas), 100 (Comanches). McGee, ‘Siouan Indians,’ ibid. 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 sq. (Arru Islanders). Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 304 (Kar Nicobarese). Batchelor, Ainu and their Folk-Lore, p. 560 sq. Georgi, Russia, iv. 152 (Burats). Caillié, Travels through Central Africa, i. 164 (Bagos). Burrows, Land of the Pigmies, 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 sq.; infra, [p. 514 sq.]
[23] Sagard, Voyage du Pays des Hurons, p. 288. Gibbs, ‘Tribes of Western Washington and North-western Oregon,’ in Contributions to North American Ethnology, i. 204.
[24] Reid, ‘Religious Belief of the Ojibois,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 112.
[25] Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, i. 111 sq.