[61] Dall, Alaska, p. 423. Petroff, op. cit. p. 175. McNair Wright, Among the Alaskans, p. 333.
[62] Vendîdâd, i. 13, 17; vi. 45 sqq.; viii. 10. Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. lxxv. sqq. Agathias, Historiæ, ii. 22 sq. (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, Ser. Graeca, lxxxviii. 1377). Herodotus, i. 140; iii. 16.
[63] Preuss, Die Begräbnisarten der Amerikaner und Nordostasiaten, p. 272. Cf. Yarrow, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. i. 103 (Caddoes or Timber Indians).
[64] Steller, op. cit. p. 273.
[65] Merker, Die Masai, p. 193.
Certain ceremonies are professedly performed for the purpose of preventing evil spirits from doing harm to the dead.[66] This is sometimes the case with cremation; we are told that among some Siberian peoples the dead are burned so as to be “effectually removed from the machinations of spirits.”[67] The Teleutes believe that the spirits of the earth do much mischief to the departed; hence their shamans drive them off at the funeral by striking the air several times with an axe.[68] In Christian countries the passing-bell has likewise been supposed to repel evil spirits.[69]
[66] See Frazer, ‘Certain Burial Customs as illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xv. 87 sq.; Hertz, ‘La représentation collective de la mort,’ in L’année sociologique, x., 1905–1906, p. 56 sq.
[67] Georgi, op. cit. iii. 264.
[68] Georgi, op. cit. iii. 264.
[69] Frazer, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xv. 87.