So also among peoples who practise cremation the dead themselves are considered to be benefited by being burned. The Nâyars of Malabar are of opinion that no time should be lost in setting about the funeral, as the disposal of a corpse either by cremation or burial as soon as possible after death is conducive to the happiness of the spirit of the departed; they say that “the collection and careful disposal of the ashes of the dead gives peace to his spirit.”60 The Thlinkets maintain that those whose bodies are burned will be warm and comfortable in the other world, whereas others will have to suffer from cold. “Burn my body! Burn me!” pleaded a dying Thlinket; “I fear the cold. Why should I go shivering through all the ages and the distances of the next world?”61 The ancient Persians, on the other hand, considered both cremation and burial to be sins for which there was no atonement, and exposed their dead on the summits of mountains, thinking it a great misfortune if neither birds nor beasts devoured their carcases.62 So also the Samoyedes and Mongols held it to be good for the deceased if his corpse was soon devoured by beasts,63 and the Kamchadales regarded it as a great blessing to be eaten by a beautiful dog.64 The East African Masai, who likewise, as a rule, expose their dead to the wild beasts, say that if the corpse is eaten by the hyænas the first night, the deceased must have been a good man, as the hyænas are supposed to act by the command of ’Ng ais, or God.65

Certain ceremonies are professedly performed for the purpose of preventing evil spirits from doing harm to the dead.66 This is sometimes the case with cremation; we are told that among some Siberian peoples the dead are burned so as to be “effectually removed from the machinations of spirits.”67 The Teleutes believe that the spirits of the earth do much mischief to the departed; hence their shamans drive them off at the funeral by striking the air several times with an axe.68 In Christian countries the passing-bell has likewise been supposed to repel evil spirits.69

Fasting after a death is regarded as a dutiful tribute to the dead; the Chinese say that it is “a means of raising the mind up to the soul, a means to enable the sacrificer to perform in a more perfect way the acts of worship incumbent upon him, by bringing about a closer contact between himself and the soul.”70 The self-mutilations performed by the relatives of the dead are supposed to be pleasing to him as tokens of affliction;71 and the same is of course the case with the lamentations at funerals. In some Central Australian tribes the custom of painting the body of a mourner is said to have as its object “to render him or her more conspicuous, and so to allow the spirit to see that it is being properly mourned for.”72 The mourning dress is a sign of regard for the dead. Nay, even the custom of not mentioning his name is looked upon in the same light. Some peoples maintain that to name him would be to disturb his rest,73 or that he would take it as an indication that his relatives are not properly mourning for him, and would feel it as an insult.74

As the duties to the living, so the duties to the dead are greatly influenced by the relationship between the parties. Everywhere the obligation to satisfy the wants of the deceased is incumbent upon those who were nearest to him whilst alive. In the archaic State, as we have seen, it is considered the greatest misfortune which can befall a person to die without descendants, since in such a case there would be nobody to attend to his soul.75 Confucius said, “For a man to sacrifice to a spirit which does not belong to him is flattery.”76 The distinction between a tribesman or fellow countryman and a stranger also applies to the dead. In Greenland a stranger without relatives or friends was generally suffered to lie unburied.77 Among North American Indians it is permitted to scalp warriors of a hostile tribe, whereas “there is no example of an Indian having taken the scalp of a man of his own tribe, or of one belonging to a nation in alliance with his own, and whom he may have killed in a quarrel or a fit of anger”;78 and an Indian who would never think of desecrating the grave of a tribesman may have “no such scruple in regard to the graves of another tribe.”79 Yet already from early times we hear of the recognition of certain duties even to strangers and enemies. The Greeks of the post-Homeric age made it a rule to deliver up a slain enemy so that he should receive the proper funeral rites.80 It was considered a disgraceful act of Lysander not to accord burial to Philocles, the Athenian general at Aegospotami, together with about four thousand prisoners whom he put to the sword;81 and the Athenians themselves boasted that their ancestors had with their own hands buried the Persians who had fallen in the battle of Marathon, holding it to be “a sacred and imperative duty to cover with earth a human corpse.”82 According to the Chinese penal code, “destroying, mutilating, or throwing into the water the unenclosed and unburied corpse of a stranger,” though a much less serious crime than the same injury inflicted upon the corpse of a relative, is yet an offence punishable with 100 blows, and perpetual banishment to the distance of 3,000 lee.83

The duties to the dead also vary according to the age, sex, and social position of the departed. Among the natives of Australia children and women are interred with but scant ceremony.84 In the tribes of North-West-Central Queensland nobody paints his body in mourning for a young child.85 In Eastern Central Africa the spirit of a child which dies when about four or five days of age gets nothing of the attention usually bestowed on the dead.86 Among the Wadshagga married persons are buried in their huts, whilst the bodies of unmarried ones and especially children are put in some hidden place, where they are left to rot or be devoured by beasts.87 Some Siberian tribes were formerly accustomed to inhume adults only, whereas the corpses of children were exposed on trees.88 The natives of Port Jackson, in New South Wales, consigned their young people to the grave, but burned those who had passed middle age.89 The Kondayamkottai Maravars, a Dravidian tribe of Tinnevelly in Southern India, bury the corpses of unmarried persons, whilst those of married ones are cremated.90 In some other tribes in India burial is practised in the case of young children only,91 and this has long been a rule of Brahmanism.92 Among the Andaman Islanders, again, infants are buried within the encampment, whereas all other dead are carried to some distant and secluded spot in the jungle.93 We meet with a kindred custom in the neighbourhood of Victoria Nyanza in Central Africa: in Karagwe and Nkole “children are buried in the huts themselves, grown-up people outside, generally in cultivated fields, or in such as are going to be cultivated.”94 The bodies of women are sometimes disposed of in a different way from those of men. Thus among the Blackfeet Indians the latter were fastened in the branches of trees so high as to be beyond the reach of wolves, and then left to waste in the dry winds; whilst the body of a woman or child was thrown into the underbush or jungle, where it soon became the prey of the wild animals.95 Among the Tuski (Chukchi), who cremate or rather boil the bodies of good men, women are not usually burned, on account of the scarcity of wood.96

Class distinctions likewise influence the disposal of the dead. In some American tribes cremation seems to be reserved for persons of higher rank.97 Among the pagans of Obubura Hill district in Southern Nigeria “the bodies of ordinary people are buried in the bush, sometimes being merely thrown on the ground, but those of chiefs and important men and women are buried in their huts or in the adjoining verandah.”98 The Masai throw away the corpses of ordinary persons to be eaten by hyænas, whereas medicine-men and influential people are buried.99 The Nandi do not bury their dead unless they have been very important persons.100 Among the Waganda, when a chief dies, he is buried in a wooden coffin, whilst the bodies of slaves are thrown into the jungle.101 Some other African peoples throw the corpses of slaves into a morass or the nearest pool of water.102 The Thlinkets committed them to the tender mercies of the sea.103 Among the Maoris a slave would not be greatly bewailed after death, nor have his bones ceremonially scraped.104 The Roman ‘Law of the Twelve Tables’ prohibited the bodies of slaves from being embalmed.105 Moral distinctions, also, are noticeable in the treatment of the dead. In some parts of Central America the bodies of men of high standing who had committed a crime were, like those of the common people, exposed to be devoured by wild beasts.106 Among the Tuski the corpses of bad men were simply left to rot.107 In Greenland the body of a dead malefactor was dismembered, and the separate limbs were thrown apart.108 To the same class of facts belong the punishments which were inflicted upon the corpses of criminals in classical antiquity and formerly in Christian Europe.109

From this survey of facts we shall now pass to a consideration of the causes from which the duties to the dead have sprung. In the first place, there can be no doubt that these duties to a considerable extent are based upon the feeling of sympathetic resentment, in the same way as is the case with duties to living persons. Death does not entirely extinguish the affection which was felt for a person whilst he was alive. The rites and customs connected with a death are very largely similar to or identical with natural expressions of grief, and in spite of their ceremonial character it is impossible to believe that they are altogether counterfeit. We are told by trustworthy eye-witnesses that, although the self-inflicted pain and the loud lamentations which form part of a funeral among the Australian blacks are not to be taken as a measure of the grief actually felt, this expression of despair “is not all artificial or professional”;110 and Mr. Man believes that among the Andaman Islanders “in the majority of cases the display of grief is thoroughly sincere.”111 But the dead also inspire other feelings than sympathy and sorrow, and the duties towards them have consequently a complex origin.

The souls of the dead are not generally supposed to lead a merely passive existence. They are conceived as capable of acting upon the living, of conferring upon them benefits, or at all events of inflicting upon them harm. Death has in some respects enhanced their powers. They know what is going on upon earth, what those whom they have left behind are doing. Their power of acting, also, is greater than that which they possessed when they were tied to the flesh. They are raised to a higher sphere of influence; magic properties are ascribed even to their corpses. Their character may remain on the whole unchanged, and so, too, their affection for their surviving friends. Hence they often become guardians of their descendants. Among the Amazulu the head of each house is worshipped by his children; remembering his kindness to them while he was living, they say, “He will still treat us in the same way now he is dead.”112 The Herero invoke the blessings of their deceased friends or relatives, praying for success against their enemies, an abundance of cattle, numerous wives, and prosperity in their undertakings.113 On the West African Slave Coast the head of a family, after death, often becomes its protector, and is sometimes regarded as the guardian of a whole community or village.114 The Mpongwe teach the child “to look up to the parent not only as its earthly protector, but as a friend in the spirit-land.”115 The Gournditch-mara in Australia believed that “the spirit of the deceased father or grandfather occasionally visited the male descendant in dreams, and imparted to him charms (songs) against disease or against witchcraft.”116 The Veddah of Ceylon invokes the spirits of his departed relatives “as sympathetic and kindred, though higher powers than man, to direct him to a life pleasing to the gods, through which he may gain their protection or favour.”117 The Nayādis of Malabar, on certain ceremonial occasions, offer solemn prayers that the souls of the departed may protect them from the ravages of wild beasts and snakes.118 The Vedic people called upon the aid of their dead:—“O Fathers, may the sky-people grant us life; may we follow the course of the living.”119 So also the Zoroastrian Fravashis, who corresponded to the Vedic “Fathers,” helped their own kindred, borough, town, or country.120 Aeschylus, in his ‘Eumenides,’ represents Orestes as saying, “My father will send me aid from the tomb.”121 The Lar Familiaris, the spirit guardian of the Roman family, was undoubtedly the spirit of a deceased ancestor.122 The old Slavonians believed that the souls of fathers watched over their children and their children’s children. In Galicia the people still think that their hearths are haunted by the souls of the dead, who make themselves useful to the family; and among the Czechs, it is a common belief that departed ancestors look after the fields and herds of their descendants and assist them in hunting and fishing.123

But the ancestral guardian spirit does not bestow his favours for nothing. He must be properly attended to,124 and if neglected he easily becomes positively dangerous to his living relatives. The same Africans who invoke the dead in adversity think them “capable of wreaking their vengeance on those who do not liberally minister to their wants and enjoyments.”125 The Chaldeans believed that the departed who otherwise carefully watched over the welfare of his children, if abandoned and forgotten, avenged himself for their neglect by returning to torment them in their homes, by letting sickness attack them, and by ruining them with his imprecations.126 The Vedic poet prays to the Fathers, “May ye not injure us for whatever impiety we have as men committed.”127 The Fravashis come to the help of those only who treat them well, and are “dreadful unto those who vex them.”128 In Rome, according to Ovid, once upon a time when the great festival of the dead was not observed, and the manes failed to receive the customary gifts, the injured spirits revenged themselves on the living, and the city “became heated by the suburban funeral pyres.”129 So also, according to Slavonic beliefs, the dead “might be induced, if proper respect was not paid to them, to revenge themselves on their forgetful survivors.”130