allowance for all this, we shall find good reason to judge that many other peoples, though they may never have stated the theory of object-souls in the same explicit way as the Algonquins, Fijians, and Karens, have recognized it with more or less distinctness. It has given me the more confidence in this opinion to find it held, under proper reservation, by Mr. W. R. Alger, an American investigator, who in a treatise entitled 'A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life' has discussed the ethnography of his subject with remarkable learning and sagacity. 'The barbarian brain,' he writes, 'seems to have been generally impregnated with the feeling that everything else has a ghost as well as man. ... The custom of burning or burying things with the dead probably arose, in some cases at least, from the supposition that every object, has its manes.'[1] It will be desirable briefly to examine further the subject of funeral offerings, as bearing on this interesting question of early psychology.
A wide survey of funeral sacrifices over the world will plainly show one of their most usual motives to be a more
- ↑ Alger, 'Future Life,' p. 81. He treats, however (p. 76), as intentionally symbolic the rite of the Winnebagos, who light fires on the grave to provide night after night camp-fires for the soul on its far journey (Schoolcraft, 'Ind. Tr.' vol. iv. p. 55; the idea is introduced in Longfellow's 'Hiawatha,' xix.). I agree with Dr. Brinton ('Myths of New World,' p. 241) that to look for recondite symbolic meaning in these simple childish rites is unreasonable. There was a similar Aztec rite (Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 94). The Mintira light fires on the grave for the spirit to warm itself at ('Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. i. p. 325*, see p. 271, and compare Martius, vol. i. p. 491). So Australians will light a fire near their camp at night for the ghost of some lately dead relative to sit by (Millett, 'Australian Parsonage,' p. 76.
For good cases of the breaking of vessels and utensils given to the dead, see 'Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. i. p. 325 (Mintira); Grey, 'Australia,' vol i. p. 322; G. F. Moore, 'Vocab. W. Australia,' p. 13 (Australians); Markham in 'Tr. Eth. Soc.' vol. iii. p. 188 (Ticunas); St John, vol. i. p. 68 (Dayaks); Ellis, 'Madagascar,' vol. i. p. 254; Schoolcraft, 'Indian Tribes,' part i. p. 84 (Appalachicola); D. Wilson, 'Prehistoric Man,' vol. ii. p. 196 (N. A. I. and ancient graves in England). Cases of formal sacrifice where objects are offered to the dead and taken away again, are generally doubtful as to motive; see Spix and Martius, vol. i. p. 383; Martius, vol. i. p. 485 (Brazilian Tribes); Moffat, 'S. Africa,' p. 308 (Bechuanas); 'Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. iii. p. 149 (Kayans).
