Bechuanas, Samoieds, Ojibways, Algonquins, Laosians, Hindoos, Thibetans, Siamese, Chinese, and Feejeeans. These special openings, or "doors of the dead," are still to be seen in a village near Amsterdam, and they were common in some towns of central Italy, as Perugia and Assisi.[1] A trace of the same custom survives in Thüringen, where it was thought that the ghost of a man who has been hanged will return to the house if the body be not taken out by a window instead of the door.[2]
The Siamese, not content with carrying the dead man out by a special opening, endeavor to make assurance doubly sure by hurrying him three times round the house at full speed a proceeding well calculated to bewilder the poor soul in the coffin.[3]
The Araucanians adopt the plan of strewing ashes behind the coffin as it is being borne to the grave, in order that the ghost may not be able to find his way back.[4]
The very general practice of closing the eyes of the dead appears to have originated with a similar object; it was a mode of blindfolding the dead, that he might not see the way by which he was carried to his last home. At the grave, where he was to rest forever, there was of course no motive for concealment; hence the Romans,[5] and apparently the Siamese,[6] opened the eyes of the dead man at the funeral pyre, just as we should unbandage the eyes of an enemy after conducting him to his destination. The notion that, if the eyes of the dead be not closed, his ghost will return to fetch away another of the household, still exists in Germany, Bohemia, and England.Wuttke, 725; Dyer, "English Folk-lore," p. 230; Grohmann, "Aberglauben," p. 188. In some parts of Russia they place a coin on each of the dead man's eyes.[7]
With a similar object, the corpse is carried out of the house feet foremost, for if he were carried out head foremost his eyes would be turned toward the door, and he might therefore find his way back. This custom is observed, and this reason is assigned for it, in many parts of Germany and among the Indians of Chili[8] Conversely, in
- ↑ Yule on Marco Polo, i, p. 188; Crantz, "Greenland," i, p. 237; ' Tylor, "Prim. Cult.," ii, p. 26; Waitz, "Anthropologie," iii, p. 199; Williams and Calvert, "Feejee," p. 168 Sonntag, p. 51; Bastian, "Mensch," ii, p. 322; Klemm, ii, pp. 221, 225; id., iii, p. 293 C. Bock, "Temples and Elephants," p. 262; Pallegoix, "Siam," i, p. 245; Bowring, "Siam," i, p. 222; Gubernatis, p. 52; C. J. Anderson, "Lake Ngami," 466. A dead pope is carried out by a special door, which is then blocked up till the next pope dies.
- ↑ Wuttke, 756.
- ↑ Pallegoix, "Siam," i, p. 245; Bowring, "Siam," i, p. 222. In some parts of Scotland the body used to be carried three times round the church (C. Rogers, "Social Life in Scotland," i, p. 167).
- ↑ Klemm, v, p. 51; Wood, "Natural History of Man," ii, p. 565.
- ↑ Pliny, N. II., xi, 150.
- ↑ C. Bock saw that the eyes of a dead man at the pyre were open (in Siam), and he says that in Lao it was the custom to close the eyes of the dead ("Temples and Elephants," pp. 58, 261).
- ↑ Gubernatis, "Usi funebri," p. 50.
- ↑ Wuttke, 736; Klemm, ii, p. 101.
