[The Festival of the Dead: Poles erected for the Celebration.]
CHAPTER VIII
BELIEFS AND RITES (continued)
The origin and observance of funeral rites—The ceremony of the Commemoration of the Dead—Burial rites and various methods.
All students of primitive man have observed that egoism is one of his most prominent characteristics. Hence it is not difficult to believe that the extravagant attention he pays to the dead is due not so much to any sentiment of reverence as to the necessity of looking after his own interests.
Among primitive races the general idea is that after death man has exactly the same feelings and necessities as during life. Accordingly, his spirit will have to seek food for itself if the living fail to provide it, and this will always be the case where the deceased has been buried without the proper funeral rites. The dead man must then take by force what has been denied him. In this way many common thefts are accounted for. The loss to the owner is a vivid reminder that he has been neglecting his duties and a warning that further disaster will overtake him unless he mends his ways for the future. The fact is that the spirit has not yet been received into the society of the dead because the deceased has not yet been officially buried, and, on the other hand, he has ceased to belong to the company of the living. In this painful and anomalous position he conceives a great hatred of those who are responsible for it and wages war on them.
The folklore of all countries shows traces of this belief. In every country the most fearsome ghosts are the spirits of those who have died a violent death, for example by fire or drowning.
At a later stage, fear of the vengeance of the dead is a less powerful motive to the living than the hope of obtaining favours from those who regard their late companions with a feeling of gratitude, a feeling which the departed spirit manifests by granting his protection to the living and interceding for them with the gods.
In Egypt the development of this last idea coincides with the inception of the practice of building the immense tombs in which we find innumerable inscriptions detailing the end in view.