The fear of the dead has also taught men to abstain from robbing or violating their tombs. The Omahas believe that, if anybody touched an article of food exposed at a grave, “the ghost would snatch away the food and paralyse the mouth of the thief, and twist his face out of shape for the rest of his life; or else he would be pursued by the ghost, and food would lose its taste, and hunger ever after haunt the offender.”[198] The Brazilian Coroados “avoid disturbing the repository of the dead, for fear they should appear to them and torment them.”[199] The Maoris suppose that the violation of a burial place would bring disease and death on the criminal.[200] The extreme dislike of the Chinese to disturbing a grave is based on the supposition that the spirit of the person buried will haunt and cause ill-luck or death to the disturber.[201] According to the popular beliefs of the Magyars, he who seizes upon anything belonging to a tomb, even if it were only a flower, will be unhappy for the rest of his life.[202] The Rumanians of Transylvania think that a person who picks a flower which grows on a grave will die in consequence, and that he who smells at such a flower will lose his sense of smell.[203]
[198] La Flesche, ‘Death and Funeral Customs among the Omahas,’ in Jour. American Folk-Lore, ii. 11. Cf. Reid, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 112 (Chippewas).
[199] von Spix and von Martius, Travels in Brazil, ii. 251.
[200] Polack, op. cit. i. 112.
[201] Dennys, op. cit. p. 26. de Groot, op. cit. (vol. iv. book) ii. 446 sq.
[202] von Wlislocki, Volksglaube der Magyaren, p. 135. Cf. Idem, Volksglaube der Zigeuner, p. 96 sq.
[203] Prexl, ‘Geburts- und Todtengebräuche der Rumänen in Siebenbürgen,’ in Globus, lvii. 30.
The transgression of ancestral custom, as we have already seen, is supposed to be punished by the spirits of the dead; and the sacredness of a will largely springs from superstitious fear. The South Slavonian belief that, if a son does not fulfil the last will of his father the soul of the father will curse him from the grave,[204] has its counterpart in the denunciatory clause in Anglo-Saxon landbooks, which usually curses all and singular who attack the donee’s title.[205]
[205] Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. ii. 251 sq.