[196] Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 227. Dr. Tylor quotes from Cato, De Re Rustica, 139; Pliny, xvii. 47.
[198] The Religious System of China, vol. ii. pp. 462 seq. See also vol. i. pp. 294 seq., and p. 348, where Dr. De Groot mentions "the conception that if a body is properly circumvested by objects and wood imbued with Yang matter, or, in other words, with the same shên afflatus of which the soul is composed, it will be a seat for the manes even after death, a support to which the manes may firmly adhere and thus prevent their nebulous, shadowy being from evaporating and suffering annihilation."
[199] "The ancient Chinese, as well as Pliny, must have observed that pinus et cupressus adversum cariem tineasque firmissimae. (Hist. Nat. xvi.) These trees being in fact more proof against the ravages of air, weather and insects than perhaps any other growing on the soil of the Empire, it is natural enough that the inhabitants thereof ascribed their strong constitution to the large amount of vital power in their wood."—De Groot, Religious System of China, vol. i. p. 295.
[200] In ancient Egypt the cemeteries were overshadowed by thick sycamores; and probably in nearly every country the planting of trees and shrubs (or flowering plants) on the graves of the dead is or has been a common practice. There is no necessity to ascribe the custom to a single origin. The mere desire to differentiate the grave from the surrounding tract of land is sufficient to explain the planting of a tree or a grove of trees on or near the funeral mound. The cypress, as every one knows, was and is a funereal tree in Europe as well as in China. That this was so in Roman times we know from classical literature. For some remarks on the cypress in connection with European folk-lore, see the Folk-lore Journal, vol. iii. (1885) p. 144. See also Sir Thomas Browne's Urn-Burial, ch. iv. para. 3, where it is remarked "that, in strewing their tombs, the Romans affected the rose; the Greeks, amaranthus and myrtle: that the funeral pyre consisted of sweet fuel, cypress, fir, larix, yew and trees perpetually verdant." He adds that these flowers and trees were intended to be silent expressions of the hopes of the survivors; and that "Christians, who deck their coffins with bays, have found a more elegant emblem; for that tree, seeming dead, will restore itself from the root, and its dry and exsuccous leaves resume their verdure again; which, if we mistake not, we have also observed in furze. Whether the planting of yew in churchyards hold not its original from ancient funeral rites, or as an emblem of resurrection, from its perpetual verdure, may also admit conjecture."
[201] See illustration.
[203] The services of these persons is by no means always considered necessary in Weihaiwei. Faith in the "science" of fêng-shui is much less strong here than in many other parts of the Empire.
[204] See Legge's Li-ki, vol. i. p. 123; De Groot, Religious System of China, vol. ii. pp. 663-4 and 689; and Wang Ch'ung's Lun Hêng, transl. by Prof. A. Forke, Part i. p. 197.
[205] See De Groot, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 720 seq.