To pass from the cradle of older civilization to the land whose original peopling has sometimes been attributed, though we believe inaccurately, to Egyptian enterprise, the America of the Aztec and the Red Indian, we find in Parkman's Jesuits in America some lengthy details on the funereal customs of the Huron tribe, now extinct. He says that “the primitive Indian believed in the immortality of the soul, but not always in a state of future punishment or reward. Nor was the good or evil to be rewarded or punished (when such a belief did exist) of a moral nature. Skilful hunters, brave warriors, men of influence, went to the happy hunting-grounds, while the slothful, the weak, the cowardly, were doomed to eat serpents and ashes in dreary regions of mist and darkness.... The spirits, in form and feature, as they had been in life, wended their way through dark forests to the villages of the dead, subsisting on bark and rotten wood. On arriving, they sat all day in the crouching posture of the sick, and when night came hunted the shades of animals, with the shades of bows and arrows, among the shades of trees and rocks; for all things, animate and inanimate, were alike immortal, and all passed together to the gloomy country of the dead.” The public ceremony of exhuming the dead, of which some interesting details are given further on, was supposed to be the occasion of the beginning of the other life. The souls “took wing, as some affirmed, in the shape of pigeons; while the greater number believed that they journeyed on foot ... to the land of shades, ... but, as the spirits of the old and of children are too feeble for the march, they are forced to stay behind, lingering near their earthly homes, where the living often hear the shutting of their invisible cabin doors, and the weak voices of the disembodied children driving birds from their corn-fields.... The Indian land of souls is not always a region of shadows and gloom. The Hurons sometimes represented the souls of their dead as dancing joyously.... According to some Algonquin traditions, heaven was a scene of endless festivity, ghosts dancing to the sound of the rattle and the drum.... Most of the traditions agree, however, that the spirits were beset with difficulties and perils. There was a swift river which must be crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet, while a ferocious dog opposed [pg 268] their passage, and drove many into the abyss. This river was full of sturgeon and other fish, which the ghosts speared for their subsistence. Beyond was a narrow path between moving rocks which each instant crashed together, grinding to atoms the less nimble of the pilgrims who endeavored to pass. The Hurons believed that a personage named Oscotarach, or the Head-Piercer, dwelt in a bark house beside the path, and that it was his office to remove the brains from the heads of all who went by, as a necessary preparation for immortality. This singular idea is found also in some Algonquin traditions, according to which, however, the brain is afterwards restored to its owner.”
Le Clerc, in his Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspésie, tells a curious story, which is mentioned in a foot-note by Parkman. It was current in his (Le Clerc's) time among the Algonquins of Gaspé and Northern New Brunswick, and bears a remarkable likeness to the old myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. “The favorite son of an old Indian died, whereupon the father, with a party of friends, set out for the land of souls to recover him. It was only necessary to wade through a shallow lake, several days' journey in extent. This they did, sleeping at night on platforms of poles which supported them above the water. At length, they arrived and were met by Papkootparout, the Indian Pluto, who rushed on them in a rage, with his war-club upraised, but, presently relenting, changed his mind and challenged them to a game of ball. They proved the victors, and won the stakes, consisting of corn, tobacco, and certain fruits, which thus became known to mankind. The bereaved father now begged hard for his son's soul, and Papkootparout at last gave it to him in the form and size of a nut, which, by pressing it hard between his hands, he forced into a small leather bag. The delighted parent carried it back to earth, with instructions to insert it into the body of his son, who would thereupon return to life. When the adventurers reached home, and reported the happy issue, of their journey, there was a dance of rejoicing; and the father, wishing to take part in it, gave his son's soul to the keeping of a squaw who stood by. Being curious to see it, she opened the bag, upon which it escaped at once, and took flight for the realms of Papkootparout, preferring them to the abodes of the living.”
These superstitions, although they may make us smile, yet attest, through their rude simplicity, the natural and deep-rooted existence in all races of a belief not only in the immortality of the soul, but in the possibility of communication with the departed. The Buddhist doctrine of transmigration is but a distorted version of the truth we call purgatory, that is, a state of temporary expiation and gradual cleansing. The Egyptian practice of embalming the dead and often of preserving the bodies of several generations of one's forefathers in the family house, is another consequence of the primeval belief in the soul's immortality. Everywhere reverence for the dead implied this belief and symbolized it, and even the custom of placing in the mouth of the Roman dead the piece of money, denarius, with which to pay their passage over the Styx, is referable to the true doctrine of good works being laid up in heaven and helping those who have performed them to gain the desired entrance into eternal repose.
The following minute description of the Indian feast of the dead, of which mention has already been made, is interesting, [pg 269] and is condensed from the account given by Father Brebœuf: “The corpses were lowered from their scaffolds and lifted from their graves. Each family claimed its own, and forthwith addressed itself to the task of removing what remained of flesh from the bones. These, after being tenderly caressed with tears and lamentations, were wrapped in skins and pendent robes of beaver. These relics, as also the recent corpses, which remained entire, but were likewise carefully wrapped in furs, were carried to one of the largest houses, and hung to the numerous cross poles which, rafterlike, supported the roof. The concourse of mourners seated themselves at a funeral feast, the squaws of the household distributed the food, and a chief harangued the assembly, lamenting the loss of the deceased and praising their virtues. This over, the mourners began their march for Ossonané, the scene of the final rite. The bodies remaining entire were borne on litters, while the bundles of bones were slung at the shoulders of the relatives, like fagots. The procession thus defiled slowly through the forest pathways, and as they passed beneath the shadow of the pines, the mourners uttered at intervals and in unison a wailing cry, meant to imitate the voices of disembodied souls, ... and believed to have a peculiarly soothing effect on the conscious relics that each man carried. The place prepared for the last rite was a cleared area in the forest, many acres in extent. Around it was a high and strong scaffolding of upright poles, with cross-poles extended between, for hanging the funeral gifts and the remains of the dead. The fathers lodged in a house where over a hundred of these bundles of mortality hung from the rafters. Some were mere shapeless rolls, others were made up into clumsy effigies, adorned with feathers, beads, etc. In the morning (the procession having arrived over night at Ossonané) the relics were taken down, opened again, and the bones fondled anew by the women, amid paroxysms of grief. When the procession bearing the dead reached the ground prepared for the last solemnity, the bundles were laid on the ground, and the funeral gifts outspread for the admiration of the beholders. Among them were many robes of beaver and other rich furs, collected and preserved for years with a view to this festival. Fires were lighted and kettles slung, and the scene became like a fair or caravanserai. This continued till three o'clock in the afternoon, when the gifts were repacked, and the bones shouldered afresh. Suddenly, at a signal from the chiefs, the crowd ran forward from every side towards the scaffolding, like soldiers to the assault of a town, scaled it by the rude ladders with which it was furnished, and hung their relics and their gifts to the forest of poles which surmounted it. The chiefs then again harangued the people in praise of the departed, while other functionaries lined the grave throughout with rich robes of beaver skin. Three large copper kettles were next placed in the middle, and then ensued a scene of hideous confusion. The bodies which had been left entire were brought to the edge of the grave, flung in, and arranged in order at the bottom by ten or twelve Indians, stationed there for the purpose, amid the wildest excitement and the uproar of many hundred mingled voices. Night was now fast closing in, and the concourse bivouacked around the clearing.... One of the bundles of bones, tied to a pole on the scaffold, chanced to fall into [pg 270] the grave. This accident precipitated the closing act, and perhaps increased its frenzy. All around blazed countless fires, and the air resounded with discordant cries. The naked multitude, on, under, and around the scaffolding, were flinging the remains of their dead, relieved from their wrappings of skins, pell-mell into the pit, where were discovered men who, as the ghastly shower fell around them, arranged the bones in their places with long poles. All was soon over; earth, logs, and stones were cast upon the grave, and the clamor subsided into a funereal chant, so dreary and lugubrious that it seemed like the wail of despairing souls from the abyss of perdition.”
These processions and ceremonies relating to the bones of the dead remind us of the singular custom observed at the Capuchin Convent of the Piazza Barberini in Rome. The skeletons of the dead monks are robed in the habit of the order and seated in choir-stalls round the crypt, until they fall to pieces, or are displaced by a silent new-comer to their ghostly brotherhood. The bones which are thus yearly accumulating are formed into patterns of stars and crosses on the walls of the crypt and surrounding corridors, while the skulls are often heaped up in small mounds against the partitions. The convent is strictly enclosed, and is only accessible to men during the rest of the year, but on All Souls' day and during the octave, the public, men and women alike, are allowed to visit this strange place of entombment. Crowds flock to see it, especially foreigners. Hawthorne, in his Marble Faun, has described it in terms that make one feel as if his impression were vivid enough to supply the place of a personal one on the part of each of his readers.
The ancient Roman customs and beliefs concerning the dead are well worth noticing, as embodying the essence of the utmost civilization a heathen land could boast. It is said that the Romans chose the cypress as emblematic of death because that tree, when once cut, never grows again. The facts of natural history are sometimes disregarded by the ancient poets, but it is not with that that we now have to deal, but with the false idea symbolized by this choice. The Romans, nevertheless, fully believed in an after-life, though one modelled much on the same principle as their life on earth. The unburied and those whose bodies could not be found were supposed to wander about, unable to cross the river Styx, and their friends therefore generally built them an empty tomb, which they believed served as a retreat to their restless spirits. Pliny ascribes the Roman custom of burning the dead to the belief that was current amongst the people, that their enemies dug up and insulted the bodies of their soldiers killed in distant wars. During the earlier part of the Republic, the dead were mostly buried in the natural way, in graves or vaults. Some very strange ceremonies are recorded in Adams' Roman Antiquities concerning the funeral processions, which usually took place at night by torch-light. (This was chiefly done to avoid any chance of meeting a priest or magistrate, who was supposed to be polluted by the sight of a corpse, as in the Jewish dispensation.) After the musicians, who sang the praises of the deceased to the accompaniment of flutes, came “players and buffoons, one of whom, called archimimus (the chief mimic), sustained the character of the deceased, imitating his words or actions while alive. These players sometimes introduced apt sayings [pg 271] from dramatic writers.” Actors were also employed to personate the individual ancestors, and Adams' commentator adds in a foot-note: “A Roman funeral must therefore have presented a singular appearance, with a long line of ancestors stalking gravely through the streets of the capital.” Pliny, Plautus, Polybius, Suetonius, and others are the authorities quoted on this curious point. It is said by some authors that, in very ancient times, the dead were buried in their own houses; hence the origin of idolatry, the worship of household gods, the fear of goblins, etc. Relations also consecrated temples to the dead, which Pliny calls a very ancient custom, which had its share in contributing to the establishment of idol-worship. In the Book of Wisdom[115] we find a reference to this in these words: “For a father, being afflicted with bitter grief, made to himself the image of his son, who was quickly taken away, and him who then had died as a man, he began now to worship as a god, and appointed him rites and sacrifices among his servants. Then in process of time, wicked custom prevailing, this error was kept as a law.” Adams tells us that “the private places of burial of the Romans were in fields or gardens, usually near the highway (such as the Via Appia near Rome, the Via Campana near Pozzuoli, the Street of Tombs at Pompeii), to be conspicuous and remind those who passed of mortality. Hence the frequent inscriptions—Siste, viator,[116] Aspice, viator.”[117] Games of gladiators were frequently held both on the day and the anniversaries of great funerals; and on the pyre slaves and clients were sometimes burnt with the body of their deceased master, as also all manner of clothes and ornaments, and, “in short, whatever was supposed to have been agreeable to him when alive.” As the funeral cortége left the place where the body had been burnt, they “used to take a last farewell, repeating several times Vale, or Salve æternum,”[118] also wishing that the earth might lie light on the person buried, as Juvenal relates, and which was found marked on several ancient monuments in these letters, S.T.T.L.[119] “This is a very remarkable instance of the dead being considered, in one sense, as conscious, sentient beings, and evidently has an origin which can hardly be disconnected from some remote or indistinct recollection of the true religion.”
Adams goes on to say that “oblations or sacrifices to the dead were afterwards made at various times, both occasionally and at stated periods, consisting of liquors, victims, and garlands, as Virgil, Tacitus, and Suetonius tell us, and sometimes to appease their manes, or atone for some injury offered them in life. The sepulchre was bespread with flowers, and covered with crowns and fillets. Before it there was a little altar, on which libations were made and incense burnt. A keeper was appointed to watch the tomb, which was frequently illuminated with lamps. A feast was generally added, both for the dead and the living. Certain things were laid on the tomb, commonly beans, lettuce, bread, and eggs, or the like, which it was supposed the ghosts would come and eat. What remained was burnt. After the funeral of great men,... a distribution of raw meat was made to the people.”
“Immoderate grief was thought to be offensive to the manes, according to Tibullus, but during the shortened [pg 272] mourning that was customary, the relations of the deceased abstained from entertainments or feasts of any sort, wore no badge of rank or nobility, were not shaved, and dressed in black, a custom borrowed (as was supposed) from the Egyptians. ‘No fire was ever lighted, as it was considered an ornament to the house.’ ”
The common places of burial were called columbaria, from the likeness of their arrangement to that of a pigeon-house, each little niche scooped out in the walls holding the small urn in which the ashes of the dead were deposited. These columbaria, Adams tells us, were often below ground, like a vault, but private tombs belonging to wealthy citizens were in groves and gardens; as, for instance, that of Augustus, mentioned by Strabo, who calls it a hanging garden supported on marble arches, with shrubs planted round the base, and the Egyptian obelisks at the entrance. The tomb of Adrian, now the Castel S. Angelo, was a perfect palace of wealth and art, and supplied many a later building with ready-made adornment before it became what it now is, a fortress. The tomb of Cecilia Metella, on the Via Appia, was also used as a mediæval stronghold, and looks more fit for such a use than for its former funereal distinction.
From ancient and imperial, we now pass to modern and Christian Rome, so undistinguishable in the chronology of their first blending, so widely apart in the moral order of their succession.