Among the more Hinduized Majhwârs and Patâris we reach the stage where the clothes, implements of the deceased, and some food are given to the Patâri priest, who, by vicariously consuming them, lays up a store for the use of the dead man in the other world. This is the principle on which food and other articles are given to the Mahâbrâhman or ordinary Hindu funeral priest at the close of the period of mourning.
Among the Bengal tribes, the Mâl Pahariyas pour the blood of goats and fowls on their ancestral memorial pillars that the souls may not hunger in the world of the dead. Among the Bhûmij, at the funeral ceremony, an outsider, who is often a Laiya or priest, comes forward to personate the deceased, by whose name he is addressed, and asked what he wants to eat. Acting thus as the dead man’s proxy, he mentions various articles of food, which are placed before him. After making a regular meal, he goes away, and the spirit of the deceased is believed to go with him. So among the Kolis of the Konkan, the dead man’s soul is brought back into one of the mourners. Among the Vârlis of Thâna, on the twelfth day after death, a dinner is given to the nearest relations, and during the night the spirit of the dead enters into one of the relations, who entertains the rest with the story of some event in the dead man’s life. Among the Santâls, one of the mourners drums by the ashes of the dead, and the spirit enters the body, when the mourner shaves, bathes, eats a cock, and drinks some liquor.[194]
Among the Bengal Chakmas, a bamboo post or other portion of a dead man’s house is burned with him, probably in order to provide him with shelter in the next world. Among the Kâmis, before they can partake of the funeral feast, a small portion of every dish must be placed in a leaf plate and taken out into the jungle for the spirit of the dead man, and carefully watched until a fly or other insect settles upon it. The watcher then covers up the plate with a slab of stone, eats his own food, and returns to tell the relatives that the spirit has received the offering prepared for him.
The Fly as a Life Index.
The fly here represents the spirit, an idea very common in folk-lore, where an insect often appears as the Life Index. An English lady has been known in India to stop playing lawn-tennis because a butterfly settled in the court. In Cornwall wandering spirits take the form of moths, ants, and weasels.[195] We have the same idea in Titus Andronicus, when Marcus, having been rebuked for killing a fly, gives as his reason,—
“It was a black, ill-favoured fly,
Like to the empress Moor; therefore I kill’d him.”
A fly is the guardian spirit of St. Michael’s well in Banff.[196]