Besides such duties to the dead as are similar in nature to those which men owe to their living fellow men or superiors, there are obligations of a different character arising from the fact of death itself. The funeral, the rites connected with it, and the mourning customs are largely regarded as duties to the dead.
The grave is represented as a place where the deceased finds his desired rest, and if denied proper burial he is believed not only to walk but to suffer. The Iroquois considered that unless the rites of burial were performed, the spirits of the dead had to wander for a time upon the earth in a state of great unhappiness; hence their extreme solicitude to recover the bodies of their slain in battle.[44] The Abipones regard it as the greatest misfortune for the dead to be left to rot in the open air, and they therefore inter even the smallest bone of a departed friend.[45] In Ashantee the spirits of those who for some reason or other have been deprived of the customary funeral rites are doomed, in the imagination of the people, to haunt the gloom of the forest, stealing occasionally to their former abodes in rare but lingering visits, troubling and bewitching their neglectful relatives.[46] The Negroes of Accra believe that happiness in a future life depends not only upon courage, power, and wealth in this world, but also upon a proper burial.[47] In some Australian tribes the souls of those whose bodies have been left to lie unburied are supposed to have to prowl on the face of the earth and about the place of death, with no gratification but to harm the living;[48] or there is said to be no future existence for them, as their bodies will be devoured by crows and native dogs.[49] Among the Bataks of Sumatra nothing is considered to be a greater disgrace to a person than to be denied a grave; for by not being held worthy of burial he is declared to be spiritually dead.[50] The Samoans believed that the souls of unburied friends, for instance such as had been drowned or had fallen in war, haunted them everywhere, crying out in a pitiful tone, “Oh, how cold! Oh, how cold!”[51] According to Karen ideas the spirits of those who die a natural death and are decently buried go to a beautiful country and renew their earthly life, whereas the ghosts of persons who by accident are left uninterred will wander about the earth, occasionally showing themselves to mankind.[52] Confucius connected the disposal of the dead immediately with the great virtue of submission and devotion to superiors.[53] No act is in China recognised more worthy a virtuous man than that of interring stray bones and covering up exposed coffins,[54] and to bury a person who is without friends is considered to be as great a merit as to save life.[55] It is also held highly important to provide the proper place for a grave; the Taouists maintain that “if a coffin be interred in an improper spot, the spirit of the dead is made unhappy, and avenges itself by causing sickness and other calamities to the relatives who have not taken sufficient care for its repose.”[56] The ancient Chaldeans believed that the spirits of the unburied dead, having neither place of repose nor means of subsistence, wandered through the town and country, occupied with no other thought than that of attacking and robbing the living.[57] In classical antiquity it was the most sacred of duties to give the body its funeral rites,[58] and the Greeks referred the right of sepulture to the gods as its authors.[59]
[44] Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 175.
[45] Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abipones, ii. 284.
[46] Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, p. 262 sq.
[47] Monrad, Skildring af Guinea-Kysten, p. 4.
[48] Oldfield, ‘Aborigines of Australia,’ in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. iii. 228, 236 sq.
[49] Chauncy, in Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 280.
[50] Buning, in Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago, p. 75.
[51] Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 233. Hood, Cruise in H.M.S. “Fawn” in the Western Pacific, p. 142.