after which the dead is supposed to have arrived in heaven no longer to return; and they say that anybody who should fail to observe this fast would "eat the mouth of the dead," and die himself.[1] Frequently the fasting lasts till the corpse is buried; and burial is a conmmon safeguard against the return of the ghost. The custom of restricting the fast to the daytime probably springs from the idea that a ghost cannot see in the dark, and is consequently unable to come and pollute the food at night. That the object of the fast is to prevent pollution is also suggested by its resemblance to some other practices, which are evidently intended to serve this purpose. The Maoris were not allowed to eat on or near any spot where a dead body had been buried, or to take a meal in a canoe while passing opposite to such a place.[2] In Samoa, while a dead body is in the house, no food is eaten under the same roof, hence the family have their meals outside, or in another house.[3] The Todas, who fast on the day when a death has taken place, have on the following day their meals served in another hut.[4] In one of the sacred books of India it is said that a Brâhmana "shall not eat in the house of a relation within six degrees where a person has died, before the ten days of impurity have elapsed"; in a house "where a lying-in woman has not yet come out of the lying-in chamber; nor in a house where a corpse lies";[5] and in connection with this last injunction we are told that, when a person who is not a relation has died, it is customary to place at the distance of "one hundred bows" a lamp and water-vessel, and to eat beyond that distance.[6] In one of the Zoroas-
- ↑ von den Steinen, op. cit. p. 434 sq.
- ↑ Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, i. 239.
- ↑ Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 228. Idem, Samoa, p. 145.
- ↑ Thurston, in the Madras Government Museum's Bulletin, i. 174.
- ↑ Apastamba, i. 5. 16. 18 sqq.
- ↑ Haradatta, quoted by Bühler, in Sacred Books of the East, ii. 59, n. 20.
