When they are asked what they think of the soul, they answer that it is the shadow "or living image" of the body; and it is as a consequence of this principle that they believe all animated in the universe. It is by tradition that they suppose the soul immortal. They pretend that, separated from the body, it retains the inclinations it had during life; and hence comes the custom of burying with the dead all that had served to satisfy their wants or their tastes. They are even persuaded that the soul remains a long time near the body after their separation, and that it afterwards passes on into a country which they know not, or, as some will have it, transformed into a turtle. Others give all men two souls, one such as we have mentioned, the other which never leaves the body, and goes from one but to pass into another.
For this reason it is that they bury children on the roadside, so that women passing by may pick up these second souls, which, not having long enjoyed life, are more eager to begin it anew. They must also be fed; and for that purpose it is that divers sorts of food are placed on the graves, but that is only done for a little while, as it is supposed that in time the souls get accustomed to fasting. The difficulty they find in supporting the living makes them forget the care for the nourishment of the dead. It is also customary to bury with them all that had belonged to them, presents being even added thereto; hence it is a grievous scandal amongst all those nations when they see Europeans open graves to take out the beaver robes they have placed therein. The burial-grounds are places so respected that their profanation is accounted the most atrocious outrage that can be offered to an Indian village.
Is there not in all this a semblance of belief in our doctrine of
Purgatory?
REMEMBRANCE OF THE DEAD AMONGST THE EGYPTIANS.
In Egypt, as all over the East, the lives of women amongst the wealthier classes are for the most part spent within the privacy of their homes, as it were in close confinement: they are born, live, and die in the bosom of that impenetrable sanctuary. It is only on Thursday that they go forth, with their slaves carrying refreshments and followed by hired weepers. It is a sacred duty that calls them to the public cemetery. There they have funeral hymns chanted, their own plaintive cries mingling with the sorrowful lamentations of the mourners. They shed tears and flowers on the graves of their kindred, which they afterwards cover with the meats brought by their servants, and all the crowd, after inviting the souls of the dead, partake of a religious repast, in the persuasion that those beloved shades taste of the same food and are present at the sympathetic banquet. Is there not in this superstition a distorted tradition of the dogma by which we are commanded not to forget the souls of our brethren beyond the grave?— Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, Vol. XVII.
REMEMBRANCE OF THE DEAD THROUGHOUT EUROPE.
PART I.
ANNA T. SADLIER.
"Hark! the whirlwind is in the wood, a low murmur in the vale; it is the mighty army of the dead returning from the air." These beautiful words occur in one of the ancient Celtic poems quoted by Macpherson and dating some thousand years later than Ossian. For the Celts held to the doctrine of the immortality of souls, and believed that their ethereal substance was wafted from place to place by the wind on the clouds of heaven. Amongst the Highlanders a belief prevailed that there were certain hills to which the spirits of their departed friends had a peculiar attachment. Thus the hill of Ore was regarded by the house of Crubin as their place of meeting in the future life, and its summit was supposed to be supernaturally illumined when any member of the family died. It was likewise a popular belief that the spirits of the departed haunted places beloved in life, hovered about their friends, and appeared at times on the occasion of any important family event. In the calm of a new existence,
"Side by side they sit who once mixed in battle their steel."