A Parsi is defiled by touching a corpse. “And when he is in contact and does not move it, he is to be washed with bull’s urine and water.”—(“Shapast la Shayast,” cap. 2.; “Sacred Books of the East,” Max Müller, editor, Oxford, 1880, pp. 262, 269, 270, 272, 273, 279, 281, 282, 333, 349.)

In the cremation of a Hindu corpse at Bombay, the ashes of the pyre were sprinkled with water, a cake of cow-dung placed in the centre, and around it a small stream of cow-urine; upon this were placed plantain-leaves, rice-cakes, and flowers.—(“Modern India,” Monier Williams, p, 65.)

“They who return from the funeral must touch the stone of Priapus, a fire, the excrement of a cow, a grain of sesame, and water,—all symbols of that fecundity which the contact with a corpse might have destroyed.”—(“Zoöl. Mythol.,” De Gubernatis, p. 49.)

The followers of Zoroaster were enjoined to pull a dead body out of the water. “No sin attaches to him for any bone, hair, grass, flesh, dung, or blood that may drop back into the water.”—(Fargard VI., Vendidad, Zendavesta, Darmesteter’s edition; Max Müller’s edition of the “Sacred Books of the East,” Oxford, 1880, p. 70.)

“There dies a man in the depths of the vale; a bird takes flight from the top of the mountain down into the depths of the vale, and it eats up the corpse of the dead man there; then up it flies from the depths of the vale to the top of the mountain; it flies to some one of the trees there,—of the hard-wooded or the soft-wooded, and upon that tree it vomits, it deposits dung, it drops pieces from the corpse.... If a man chop any of that wood for a fire, he is not regarded as defiled because ... Ahura-Mazda answered, ‘There is no sin upon any man for any dead matter that has been brought by dogs, by birds, by wolves, by winds, or by flies.’”—(Fargard V., of same work.)

If a dog had died on a piece of ground, the ground had to lie fallow for a year; at the end of that time, “they shall look on the ground for any bones, hair, flesh, dung, or blood that may be there.”—(Fargard VI.)

If the clothing of the dead “has not been defiled with seed or sweat or dirt or vomit, then the worshippers of Mazda shall wash it with gomez.”—(Fargard VII. Gomez (bull-urine) again alluded to as the great purifier on pp. 78-80, 104, 117, 118, 122, 123, 128, 182, 183, 212.)

The sacred vessels that had been defiled by the touch of a corpse were to be cleaned with gomez.—(Idem, pp. 91, 92.)

The most efficacious gomez was that of “an ungelded bull.”—(Idem, p. 212.)

“They shall cover the surface of the grave with ashes or cow-dung.”—(Fargard VIII.)

“Let the worshippers of Mazda here bring the urine wherewith the corpse-bearers shall wash their hair and their bodies.”—(Fargard VIII. See, also, p. 201 of this volume.)

In describing the funerals of the Eskimo, Gilder says: “The closing ceremony was a most touching one. After ‘Papa’ had returned from the grave, Armow went out of doors and brought in a piece of frozen something that it is not polite to specify, further than that the dogs had entirely done with it, and with it he touched every block of snow on a level with the beds of the igloo. The article was then taken out of doors and tossed up in the air, to fall at his feet; and by the manner in which it fell he could joyfully announce that there was no liability of further deaths in camp for some time to come.”—(“Schwatka’s Search,” Gilder, p. 234.)

“The Africans have an evil spirit called ‘Abiku,’ who takes up his abode in the human body.” This spirit is believed to cause the death of children. “If the child dies, the body is thrown on the dirt-heap.”—(“Fetichism,” Baudin, p. 57.)

There is also a purification of the soul of the dying by the same peculiar methods. In Coromandel,[68] the dying man is so placed that his face will come under the tail of a cow; the tail is lifted, and the cow excited to void her urine. If the urine fall on the face of the sick man, the people cry out with joy, considering him to be one of the blessed; but if the sacred animal be in no humor to gratify their wishes, they are greatly afflicted.

“The inhabitants of the coast of Coromandel carried those of their sick who were on the point of death, as a last resource, to the back of a fat cow, whose tail they twisted to make her urinate; if the cow’s urine spread over the whole face of the patient, it was a very good sign to the dirty rascals.”—(Paullini, pp. 80, 81.)

With equal solicitude does the Hottentot medicine-man follow the remains of his kinsmen to the grave, aspersing with the same sacred liquid the corpse of the dead and the persons of the mourners who bewail his fate.[69]

At Hottentot funerals, “two old men, the friends or relations of the deceased, enter each circle and sparingly dispense their streams upon each person, so that all may have some; all the company receive their water with eagerness and veneration. This being done, each steps into the hut, and taking up a handful of ashes from the hearth, comes out by the passage made by the corpse, and strews the ashes by little and little upon the whole company. This, they say, is done to humble their pride.”—(Kolbein, p. 401.)

“It is a pity that men in a savage state should take delight in doing that which is nasty, but such is the fact. It is a very common custom for the tribe, or that portion of it who are related to the one who has died, to rub themselves with the moisture that comes from the dead friend. They rub themselves with it until the whole of them have the same smell as the corpse.”—(“Aborigines of Victoria,” Smyth, vol. i. p. 131.) But in a footnote he adds that some of the Australians will not touch a dead body with the naked hand.

In the mortuary ceremonies of the Encounter Bay tribe (South Australians), “the old women put human excrement on their heads,—the sign of deepest mourning.”—(Idem, vol. i. p. 113.)

The corpse of an Australian chief was surrounded “with wailing women, smeared with filth and ashes.”—(“Native Tribes of South Australia,” Adelaide, 1879, p. 75, received through the kindness of the Royal Society, New South Wales, Sydney, T. B. Kyngdon, Secretary.)

“In the burial ceremonies, the women of many tribes besmear or plaster their heads with excrement and pipe-clay.”—(Personal letter from John F. Mann, Esq., dated Neutral Bay, Sydney, New South Wales.)

“When a child dies, women who carried it in their hands must throw their jackets away if the child has urinated on them. This is part of the custom that everything that has come in contact with a dead person must be destroyed.”—(“The Central Eskimo,” Boas, p. 612.)

The Kootenays of Canada have a ceremonial aspersion after funerals. “When those who have buried the body return, they take a thorn bush, dip it into a kettle of water, and sprinkle the doors of all lodges.”—(“Report on the Northwest Tribes of Canada,” Dr. Franz Boas, to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, 1889, p. 46.)

Describing Italian funerals, Blunt says: “When the procession has reached the church, the bier is set down in the nave, and the officiating priest, in the course of the appointed service, sprinkles the body with holy water three times,—a rite in all probability ensuing from that practised by the Romans, of thrice sprinkling the bystanders with the same element.”—(“Vestiges,” p. 183.)

In the Tonga Islands, there are two principal personages,—Tooitonga and Veachi,—who are believed to be the living representatives of powerful gods. Upon the death of Tooitonga, certain ceremonies are practised, among which: “The men now approach the mount, i. e., the funeral mound, it being dark, and, if the phrase be allowable, perform the devotions to Cloacina, after which they retire. As soon as it is daylight the following morning, the women of the first rank, wives and daughters of the greatest chiefs, assemble with their female attendants, bringing baskets, one holding one side and one the other, advancing two and two, with large shells to clear up the depositions of the preceding night, and in this ceremonious act of humiliation, no female of the highest consequence refuses to take her part. Some of the mourners in the ‘fytoca’ generally come out to assist; so that, in a very little while, the place is made perfectly clean. This is repeated the fourteen following nights, and as punctually cleaned away by sunrise every morning. No persons but the agents are allowed to be witnesses of these extraordinary ceremonies; at least, it would be considered highly indecorous and irreligious to be so. On the sixteenth day, early in the morning, the same females again assemble; but now they are dressed up in the finest ‘gnatoo,’ and most beautiful Hamao mats, decorated with ribbons, and with wreaths of flowers round their necks; they also bring new baskets ornamented with flowers, and little brooms, very tastefully made. Thus equipped they approach, and act as if they had the same task to do as before, pretending to clear away the dirt, though no dirt is now there, and take it away in their blankets.... The natives themselves used to regret that the filthy part of these ceremonies was necessary to be performed, ... and that it was the duty of the most exalted nobles, even of the most delicate females of rank, to perform the meanest and most disgusting offices, rather than that the sacred grounds in which he was buried should remain polluted.” (Dillon’s “Expedition in Search of La Perouse,” London, 1829, vol. ii. pp. 57-59.) Dillon says that this “must be considered a religious rite, standing upon the foundation of very ancient customs.”—(Idem, p. 57.)