Old German chroniclers mention the cremation of Attila, the king of the Tartar Huns, who was burned while sitting—fully armed—upon his war-horse. It is still an undecided question whether incineration was general among the Huns, or only a royal honor.
The Scythians and Sarmatians of old reduced their dead to ashes, as also did the Kurds, till 1205 A.D.; and the Esthonians till 1225.
Cremation was likewise practiced by the ancient Scandinavians,—more especially by the Norwegians and Swedes than by the Danes. The national Scandinavian epic, the Edda, mentions the funeral piles of Sigurdh and Brynhilde.
The ancient Britons disposed of their dead by fire. Some workmen engaged in excavations in the bail within the boundaries of the old Roman city at Lincoln lately came across a crematorium and a sarcophagus. In the latter ten urns were found, which contained ashes and calcined bones. The urns were of different sizes and shapes, and were all provided with saucer-shaped covers. Only one of them, however, was extracted perfect. The interior of the sarcophagus was lined with long, thin bricks, that perished on being exposed to the air.
The Mexicans of antiquity also cinerated their deceased.
Incineration was practiced in India since the most remote ages, and is now as much in vogue in this country as it was in the earliest times. At Calcutta, Bombay, Madras,—in fact, all over India,—cremation is executed daily.
The Vishnavites burn their dead; the worshippers of Siva bury them, deliver them up to beasts of prey, or throw them into the holy river Ganges. Folks who are too poor to dispose of their deceased by burning, also consign them to the waves of the holy stream. This is done at night, since it is against the law. It is not unusual to see a whole procession of corpses float down the Ganges, while crows feed on the remains.
At Calcutta, cremation is performed within the “Burning Ghât,” outside the city, in a walled enclosure which is frequented by numberless vultures and other birds of prey, near the Hoogly, as the Ganges is thereabouts called. This place is seldom visited by the British inhabitants of Calcutta; for they regard this rude cineration (properly so) far too horrible to witness.
By order of the government, a cinerator was built on the banks of the Hoogly, which is used only by a part of the Hindoo population. The Hindoos are hard to wean from their old-fashioned method of cineration (which is substantially the same as that practiced by the ancient Romans and Greeks), and, therefore, seldom make use of a cinerator, as Mr. William Eassie was informed by the sanitary commissioner of Madras, where a cinerary apparatus had also been erected. The commissioner, however, was of the opinion that if the Siemens principle of a furnace were exhibited before the educated Hindoos, they would very probably adopt it.
