[179] Vendîdâd, viii. 14 sqq. Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. lxxiv. sq.
[180] Trumbull, op. cit. p. 24.
[181] de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 644.
[182] Boas, in Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 42 sqq.
[183] Idem, quoted by Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 341 sq. Among the Bhuiyâr, a Dravidian tribe in South Mirzapur, each house has two doors, one of which is only used by menstruous women; and when such a woman has to quit the house “she is obliged to creep out on her hands and knees so as to avoid polluting the house thatch by her touch” (Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces, ii. 87). Among the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia meat was only taken into the hunting lodge through a hole in the back of the structure, because the common door was used by women and women were regarded as unclean (Teit, ‘Thompson Indians,’ in Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, ‘Anthropology,’ i. 347). In other instances ordinary people are prohibited from using a door through which a sacred person has passed, obviously because contact with his sanctity is looked upon as dangerous. In some of the South Sea Islands, where the first-born, whether male or female, was especially sacred, no one else was allowed to pass by the door through which he or she entered the paternal dwelling (Gill, Life in the Southern Isles, p. 46). “In some parts of the Pacific, the door through which the king or queen passed in opening a temple was shut up, and ever after made sacred” (Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 328). Ezekiel (xliv. 2 sq.) represents the Lord as saying:—“This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; … he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.” Among the Arabs in olden days those who returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca entered their houses not by the door but by a hole made in the back wall (Palmer, in Sacred Books of the East, vi. 27, n. 1). This practice was forbidden by Muhammed (Koran, ii. 185).
[184] Frazer, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xv. 76 sqq.
[185] It should be added, however, that. Sir J. G. Frazer’s important essay on ‘Burial Customs’ was published many years ago and therefore perhaps does not exactly represent the author’s present views on the subject.
It is obvious that the beliefs held as regards the character, activity, and polluting influence of the dead greatly affect the conduct of the survivors. They are naturally anxious to gain the favour of the disembodied soul, to avert its ill-will, to keep it at a distance, and to avoid the defilement of death. Self-interest is often a conspicuous motive for acts and omissions which are regarded as duties to the dead, and prudence also has a very large share in their being enjoined as obligatory. This is obviously true of the offerings made to the dead. The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia threw some food on the ground near the grave of the deceased, “that he might not visit the house in search of food, causing sickness to the people.”[186] Among the Iroquois, “on the death of a nursing child two pieces of cloth are saturated with the mother’s milk and placed in the hands of the dead child so that its spirit may not return to haunt the bereaved mother.”[187] The Negroes of Accra, when asked why they slaughtered animals at the tombs of their departed friends, answered that they did so in order to prevent the ghosts from walking.[188] The Monbuttu place some oil and other victuals in the little hut which is erected for the dead in the forest, so that his spirit shall not return to his old home in search of food.[189] For the same reason the Bataks of Sumatra put various things into the graves of their deceased friends, ask the dead to be quiet and not to long for the company of the living, and finish their address with the words, “Here you have still some sirih and tobacco, and every year, at harvest time, we shall give you some rice.”[190] Among the Chuvashes the son says to his departed father, “We remember you with a feast, here are bread and different kinds of food for you, everything you have before you, do not come to us.”[191] It is considered particularly dangerous to keep back and make use of articles which belonged to the dead. The Gypsies burn on the grave all those chattels which the deceased was in the habit of using during his lifetime, “because his soul would otherwise return to torment his relatives and claim back his property.”[192] A Saora gave the following reason for the custom of burning all the belongings of a dead person:—“If we do not burn these things with the body, the Kulba (soul) will come and ask us for them and trouble us.”[193] The Kafirs believe that, after his death, “a man’s personality haunts his possessions.”[194] Among the Brazilian Tupinambas “whoever happened to have any thing which had belonged to the dead produced it, that it might be buried with him, lest he should come and claim it.”[195] When a Navaho Indian dies within a house the rafters are pulled down over the remains and the place is usually set on fire; after that nothing would induce a Navaho to touch a piece of the wood or even approach the immediate vicinity of the place, the shades of the dead being regarded “as inclined to resent any intrusion or the taking of any liberties with them or their belongings.”[196] The Greenlanders, as soon as a man is dead, “throw out every thing which has belonged to him; otherwise they would be polluted, and their lives rendered unfortunate. The house is cleared of all its movables till evening, when the smell of the corpse has passed away.”[197]
[186] Teit, loc. cit. p. 329.
[187] Smith, Myths of the Iroquois, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ii. 69.