“Next day they go out very early, and cut down some perfectly unblemished tree, either teak or Salâi, not hollow or decayed or marked with an axe, which they cut to make the Munda stake. It is brought home at once and fashioned by a skilful man. In the afternoon it is carried to the place where cattle rest outside the village at noontide, and is washed and covered with turmeric like a bridegroom, and five chickens are sacrificed to it. It is then brought home again, and the pith representing the bones is taken outside the village and hung to some tree for safety during the night.” (The idea, as we have elsewhere seen, is more probably to allow the ghost an opportunity of revisiting them.)
“All the friends and relations have by this time assembled, and this evening the chief funeral dinner is given. Next day, the whole party set out for the place where the stakes of their clan are set up, and after digging a hole and putting two copper coins in it, and the bones of the deceased or the pith which represents them, they put the stake in and fix it upright. Then they offer a goat or chickens to it, which are presently eaten close by, and in the evening the whole party returns home.”[177]
All this ritual, carried out by one of the most primitive Indian tribes, admirably illustrates the principles which we have been discussing. The obvious intention of the custom is to provide a resting-place for the spirit of the dead man, so that it may no longer be a source of danger to the survivors.
Similar customs prevail among other aboriginal races of the Central Provinces. In some places they burn their dead and then erect platforms, at the corners of which they place tall, red stones. In other places a sort of low square mound is raised over the remains of the deceased, at the corners of which are erected wooden posts, round which thread is wound to complete the sacred circle, and a stone is set up in the centre. Here offerings are presented, as in the jungle worship of their deities, of rice and other grains, fowls or sheep. On one occasion after the establishment of the Bhonsla or Marhâta Government in Gondwâna a cow was offered to the manes of a Gond; but this having come to the notice of the authorities, the relations were publicly whipped, and all were interdicted from doing such an act again.
To persons of more than usual reputation for sanctity offerings continue to be presented for many years after their decease. In the District of Bhandâra rude collections of coarse earthenware in the form of horses may be seen, which have accumulated from year to year on the tombs of such men.[178] The Pauariyas of Chota Nâgpur bury their dead, except the bodies of their priests, which are carried on a cot into the forests covered with leaves and branches and kept there, the reason assigned being that if laid in the village cemetery their ghosts become very troublesome. The bodies of people who die of contagious disease are similarly disposed of, the fact of death in this way being supposed to be the direct act of one of the deities who govern plagues.[179]
In a country where immediate burial or cremation is necessary and habitual, we need not expect to meet many examples of the customs, of which Mr. H. Spencer gives examples,[180] of placing the body on a platform or the like in order to secure its personal comfort and conciliate the spirit. With the object of keeping a place ready for the spirit, some tribes are careful to preserve the body. The Singpoo of the north-eastern frontier keep the bodies of their dead chiefs for several years, and the Kûkis dry the dead at a slow fire,[181] practices which among more civilized races rise to embalming, as among the Chinese and Egyptians. The Thârus of the sub-Himâlayan Tarâî have a custom of placing the corpse on the village fetish mound during the night after death, and then the mourning goes on. The practice is perhaps intended as much to prevent, by the sanctity of the spot on which it is placed, the spirit from harming the survivors, as from any special desire to conciliate it. Among all Hindus, of course, as far as exigencies of the rapid disposal of the remains allow, it is habitual to treat the dead with respect; corpses are carefully covered with red cloth, and removed reverently for burial or cremation.
There is also among some tribes the custom of disinterring corpses after temporary burial. Thus, the Bhotiyas of the Himâlayas burn their dead only in the month of Kârttik; those who die in the meantime are temporarily buried and disinterred when the season for cremation arrives. The Kathkâris, a jungle tribe in Bombay, dig up the corpse some time after burial and hold a wake over the ghastly relics. They appear to do this only in the case of persons dying of cholera or small-pox, with some idea of appeasing the deity of disease. In parts of Oudh the custom is said still to prevail among the lower castes during epidemics, and it has recently attracted the attention of the sanitary officers.[182]
The Funeral Feast.
The funeral feast is evidently a survival of the feast when the dead kinsman was consumed by his relatives, who wished thus to partake of the properties of the dead. By another theory the feasting of the mourners is intended to resist the attempt of the ghost of the dead man to enter their bodies, food being offensive to spirits.