Among further methods in use for frustrating the return of the dead, may be noticed the objection to utter the names of deceased persons—a superstition which Mr. Frazer shows has modified whole languages. Thus, ‘among the Australians, Tasmanians, and Abipones, if the name of a deceased person happened to be a common name, e.g. the name of an animal or plant, this name was abolished, and a new one substituted for it. During the residence of the Jesuit Missionary Dobritzhoffer amongst the Abipones, the name for tiger was thus changed three times. Amongst the Indians of Columbia, near relatives of a deceased person often change their names, under the impression that the ghost will return if he hears the familiar names.’[283]
The Sandwich Islanders say the spirit of the departed hovers about the place of its former resort, and in the country north of the Zambesi ‘all believe that the souls of the departed still mingle among the living, and partake in some way of the food they consume.’ In the Aleutian Islands, it is said that ‘the invisible souls or shades of the departed wander about among their children.’
But one of the most favourite haunts of departed spirits is said to be burial-grounds, and especially their own graves, reminding us of Puck’s words in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (Act v. sc. 2):
Now it is the time of night,
That the graves all gaping wide,
Everyone lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.
‘The belief in ghosts,’ writes Thorpe,[284] ‘was deeply impressed on the minds of the heathen Northmen, a belief closely connected with their ideas of the state after death. The soul, they believed, returned to the place whence it sprang, while the body, and the grosser life bound to it, passed to the abode of Hel or Death. Herewith was naturally combined the belief that the soul of the departed might, from its heavenly home, revisit the earth, there at night-time to unite itself in the grave-mound with the corporeal shadow released from Hel. Thus the dead could show themselves in the open grave-mounds in the same form which they had in life.’
Indeed, it has been the current opinion for centuries that places of burial are haunted with spectres and apparitions. Ovid speaks of ghosts coming out of their sepulchres and wandering about, and Virgil,[285] too, quoting the popular opinion of his day, tells us how ‘Mœris could call the ghosts out of their tombs.’ In short, the idea of the ghost remaining near the corpse is of world-wide prevalence, and, as Dr. Tylor remarks,[286] ‘through all the changes of religious thought from first to last in the course of human history, the hovering ghosts of the dead make the midnight burial-ground a place where man’s flesh creeps with terror.’ We may further compare Hamlet’s words (Act iii. sc. 2):
’Tis now the very witching time of night,
When church-yards yawn.
And Puck also tells how, at the approach of Aurora, ‘ghosts, wandering here and there, troop home to churchyards.’ Tracing this superstition amongst uncultured tribes, we find the soul of the North American hovering about its burial-place, and among the Costa Ricans the spirits of the dead are believed to remain near their bodies for a year. The Dayak’s burial-place is frequented by ghosts, and the explorer Swan tells us that when he was with the North-Western Indians, he was not allowed to attend a funeral for fear of his offending the spirits hovering about. From the same authority we learn how at Stony Point, on the north-west coast of America, a burial-place of the Indians was considered to be haunted by spirits, and on this account no Indian ever ventured there.[287] This dread of burial-grounds still retains a persistent hold, and is one of those survivals of primitive belief which has given rise to a host of strange superstitious practices.
Keppel, in his ‘Visit to the Indian Archipelago,’ says that in Northern Australia the natives will not willingly approach graves at night, alone, ‘but when they are obliged to pass them, they carry a firestick to keep off the spirit of darkness.’
There is still a belief that the ghost of the last person watches round the churchyard till another is buried, to whom he delivers his charge. Crofton Croker says that in Ireland it is the general opinion among the lower orders that ‘the last buried corpse has to perform an office like that of “fag” in our public schools by the junior boy, and that the attendance on his churchyard companions is duly relieved by the interment of some other person.’ Serious disturbances have resulted from this superstition, and terrific fights have at times taken place to decide which corpse should be buried first. The ancient churchyard of Truagh, county Monaghan, is said to be haunted by an evil spirit, whose appearance generally forebodes death. The legend runs, writes Lady Wilde,[288] ‘that at funerals the spirit watches for the person who remains last in the graveyard. If it be a young man who is there alone, the spirit takes the form of a beautiful young girl, inspires him with an ardent passion, and exacts from him a promise that he will meet her that day month in the churchyard. The promise is then sealed by a kiss, which sends a fatal fire through his veins, so that he is unable to resist her caresses, and makes the promise required. Then she disappears, and the young man proceeds homewards; but no sooner has he passed the boundary wall of the churchyard than the whole story of the evil rushes on his mind, and he knows that he has sold himself, soul and body, for a demon’s kiss. Then terror and dismay take hold of him, till despair becomes insanity, and on the very day month fixed for the meeting with the demon bride, the victim dies the death of a raving lunatic, and is laid in the fatal graveyard of Truagh.’