But the ancestral guardian spirit does not bestow his favours for nothing. He must be properly attended to,[124] and if neglected he easily becomes positively dangerous to his living relatives. The same Africans who invoke the dead in adversity think them “capable of wreaking their vengeance on those who do not liberally minister to their wants and enjoyments.”[125] The Chaldeans believed that the departed who otherwise carefully watched over the welfare of his children, if abandoned and forgotten, avenged himself for their neglect by returning to torment them in their homes, by letting sickness attack them, and by ruining them with his imprecations.[126] The Vedic poet prays to the Fathers, “May ye not injure us for whatever impiety we have as men committed.”[127] The Fravashis come to the help of those only who treat them well, and are “dreadful unto those who vex them.”[128] In Rome, according to Ovid, once upon a time when the great festival of the dead was not observed, and the manes failed to receive the customary gifts, the injured spirits revenged themselves on the living, and the city “became heated by the suburban funeral pyres.”[129] So also, according to Slavonic beliefs, the dead “might be induced, if proper respect was not paid to them, to revenge themselves on their forgetful survivors.”[130]
[124] Wilken, op. cit. p. 194 sq. (peoples in the Malay Archipelago). Abercromby, op. cit. i. 178 (Mordvins). Jessen, op. cit. p. 27; Friis, op. cit. p. 116 sq. (Laplanders).
[125] Rowley, Religion of the Africans, p. 90.
[126] Halevy, op. cit. p. 368.
[127] Rig-Veda, x. 15. 6.
[128] Yasts, xiii. 31, 42, 51, 70, &c.
[129] Ovid, Fasti, ii. 549 sqq.
[130] Ralston, op. cit. p. 335.
Moreover, we must not conclude that wherever the spirits of deceased ancestors are invoked as guardians they are necessarily looked upon as essentially benevolent to their descendants.[131] Concerning the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians Professor Jastrow writes:—“In general the dead were not favorably disposed towards the living, and they were inclined to use what power they had to work evil rather than for good. In this respect they resembled the demons, and it is noticeable that an important class of demons was known by the name ekimmu, which is one of the common terms for the shades of the dead.”[132] The Greeks were much afraid of their dead, and regarded their “heroes” as extremely irritable, in later times as exclusively malicious.[133] It appears from Ovid’s ‘Fasti’ that fear was the predominant feeling of the Romans with reference to the spirits of the departed, who were supposed to wander about by night, causing men to pine away or bewitching them into madness.[134] Even in China, where the souls of the dead are supposed effectually to control the destiny of the living,[135] malevolent rather than benevolent inclinations are ascribed to them by the popular belief, as appears from the fact that the words for “ghost” and “devil” are the same and form a portion of the objectionable epithets applied to foreigners.[136] Generally speaking, my collection of facts has led me to the conclusion that the dead are more commonly regarded as enemies than friends,[137] and that Professor Jevons[138] and Mr. Grant Allen[139] are mistaken in their assertion that, according to early beliefs, the malevolence of the dead is for the most part directed against strangers only, whereas they exercise a fatherly care over the lives and fortunes of their descendants and fellow clansmen.
[131] Cf. Karsten, Origin of Worship, p. 122 sqq.