Festival of the Dead

“ To other men [2] the present might not seem to be a suitable time for a festival. Nor indeed is this or any other time suitable for them; neither sorrowful times, nor even such as might be thought especially cheerful. [3] Now, indeed, everything is tears and every one is mourning, and wailings resound daily through the city because of the multitude of the dead and dying. ”

“ One who buries one’s dead before a festival, such that he became subject to mourning and he started practicing [the customs of mourning] even for one hour [i.e. a short time] before the festival, the period of mourning stops and the laws of shiva are canceled and the days of the festival count for him towards the counting of sheloshim – that is, he has seven before the festival, the days of the festival and then he completes on top of those days the rest of sheloshim. ”

“ Accordingly at a great festival the bodies of all who have died within a certain time are dug up and the decaying flesh scraped from the bones. Comparing these ideas, I suggested that they may explain the widespread custom of a second burial, that is, the practice of disinterring the dead after a certain time and disposing of their bones otherwise. ”

“ All who take part in the ceremony bathe their faces and hands in his blood. They then burn his body on a funeral pyre, {315} standing around it and praying the departed not to forget them.315.1 A Dyak rite identifies the victim at the commemorative festival with the deceased. The corpse is put into a temporary coffin for preliminary burial until the Tiwah, or Feast of the Dead, can be held. On that occasion a slave, or prisoner of war, is provided and dressed in the usual clothing of the deceased. Thus clad, the victim is wounded by all the assembled guests and finally killed. ”

“ With what shapeless terror does the plague fill the feeble little camp! With what awful solemnity must the dead body invest the frail, small hut! What wailing cries take the place of all the cheerful sounds, and with what hurried dread is the corpse committed to an unremembered grave! ”

“ The streets were no longer darkened with funerals; you no longer saw men running in every direction with coffins on their heads, knocking at doors, and delivering them with no more ceremony or feeling than the postman delivers his letters. The solemn hearse and the dark mourning-coach now moved slowly along, and the dead were borne away to green and peaceful cemeteries, far removed from the dwellings of the living. ”

“ The burial-grounds were regarded with awe and fear, for sometimes a restless ghost would break bounds and spread sickness among the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Within their sacred precincts stood altars or stages for offerings to the gods, and any living man who entered them did so at his peril. For the same reason no one would set foot in a house where a dead man or woman had been buried. Hence in nearly every village half the houses stood empty and deserted, falling into decay, tenanted only by ghosts. The living had constantly before their eyes the mansions of the dead. ”

“ But is night needful in order to visit a graveyard? Is not daytime enough—restless, noisy day, sufficient unto which is the evil thereof?
Look into your own soul, and then, be it day or night, you will find there a burial ground. Small greedy, having devoured so much! And a gentle, sorrowful, whisper will ye hear, an echo of bygone heavy groans when the dead was dear, whom ye left in the tomb, and could not forget nor cease to love. ”

“ Even these no one could save from being consumed by flesh-devouring flames, lying alone on the funeral pyre in the cemetery whither the dead are followed by weeping friends, and when their extremities had been shrivelled, from being at last devoured by the jackals: much less can any others escape this fate. So tell us, wise man, what mean you by embracing that corpse? ”

“ The dead gave place to the dying by dozens, and there has been high carnival down in the dead-yard. The quick succession of funeral trains has cast a shade of melancholy over the broad road that leads to it. Old women are vending pies and cakes at the gates, and little boys are sporting over the newly-made graves, that the wind has lashed into furrows. Rude coffins stand about in piles, and tipsy negroes are making the very air jubilant with the songs they bury the dead to. ”

“ Funeral and mourning customs of the Tami.
But if they do not gratify the desire for vengeance of the blood-thirsty ghost, they are at great pains to testify their respect for him in all other ways. The whole village takes part in the mourning and lamentation for a death. The women dance death dances, the men lend a hand in the preparations for the burial. All festivities are stopped: the drums are silent. ”

“ The mock death or burial type of folk-drama resolves itself, then, into two varieties. In one, it is winter whose passing is represented, and for this the discarded harvest-May serves as a nucleus. In the other, which is not really complete without a resurrection, it is summer, whose death is mimed merely as a preliminary to its joyful renewal; and this too is built up around a fragment of ancient cult in the person of the leaf-clad worshipper, who is, indeed, none other than the priest-king, once actually, and still in some sort and show, slain at the festival [638] . ”

“ When he lies in his narrow bed, the ornaments are removed from his person, but some of his tools, weapons, and other belongings are buried with him, no doubt for his use in the life hereafter. The funeral celebration, in which the whole village commonly takes part, lasts several days and consists in the bringing of offerings to the dead and the abstinence from all labour in the fields. ”

“ A committee was appointed to visit the spot. Upon drawing near, subdued laughter and the sounds of vulgar merriment arose, from one of the tombs—a light was seen glimmering from below—the strong odor, not of corruption, but of mutton chops, filled the air. Some vagabonds had cleared the tomb, and taken possession, and, with broken coffins for fuel, had found an appetite, among the dead. The occupation of tombs, by the outcasts of society, was common, long before the Christian era.
That the living have been buried, unintentionally, now and then, is undoubtedly true. ”

“ Occasional funeral trains, slowly moving towards the newly opened graves, and the mournful strains of the requiems of the dead, do not distract the thoughts of those who are bent in chasing the shadows of Time, even while the realities of Eternity are passing in review before them, and the very spectres of the tombs seem ready to burst their cerements, and start up in mocking derision. ”

“ And to keep the victim's ghost quiet while his body is being devoured, a cut from a joint is very considerately placed on a tree outside of the house, so that he may eat of his own flesh and be satisfied. At the conclusion of the banquet, the people shout, brandish spears, beat the bushes, blow horns, beat drums, and make all kinds of noises for the purpose of chasing the ghost or ghosts of the murdered and eaten men away from the village. But while they send away the souls, they keep the skulls and jawbones of the victims ”

“ Bands of reckless young fellows went through the streets singing, and, dressing up in masks, performed the dance of death. The dead were too many to be carried away in carts at night to the great pits prepared for them, but the dismal tones of the bell, and the cries of "Bring out your dead!" ”

“ Hie thee back, thou find'st not here Corpse or coffin, grave or bier; The Dead Alive is gone and fled— Go thou, and join the Living Dead! 'The Living Dead, whose sober brow Oft shrouds such thoughts as thou hast now, Whose hearts within are seldom cured Of passions by their vows abjured ”

“ After the pit has been filled and covered over, the women are to be seen trudging back and forth to the village with [Pg 122] hampers of food, to be deposited on the gigantic grave for the use of their departed friends. It is only after the Feast of the Dead is over that the soul is supposed to take its final journey to the spirit-land. Previous to this celebration they believe that it hovers near the body, which they expose on a bark scaffold, or else put in a sitting posture in a temporary grave covered lightly with bark or twigs. ”

“ If after such an offering and invocation the night wind rustles the tops of the trees or shakes the thatch of leaves on the roofs, they know that the ghost is in the village. The twinkle of a glow-worm near his grave is the glitter of his eye. In the morning, too, before they sally forth to the woods, one of the next of kin to the dead huntsman will go betimes to his grave, stamp on it to waken the sleeper below, and call out, "So-and-so, come! ”

“ The hotels, shipyards, and stores were closed, bodies rudely nailed up in boards were hurried about the streets, and met with hasty burial outside the city, before vital warmth had fled; the holy ties of natural affection were disregarded, and the dying were left alone to meet the King of Terrors, none remaining to close their eyes; the ominous clang of the death-bell was heard both night and day, and a dense brown fog was supposed to brood over the city, which for five weeks was the abode of the dying and the dead.
A temporary regard for religion was produced among the inhabitants of St. ”

“ When the funeral procession is within a hundred yards from the exit from the village a priest takes a spade and marks out the spot destined for the funeral pyre. Wood is brought and piled up and the corpse is stripped of its wrappings and offered its last meal. As soon as the flames break out the clothes of the deceased are thrown into them. Now comes the [314] moment, marked by the passage of the soul to the life beyond, when the living send gifts to their dead relations. Each man writes his list of presents on a slip of paper and then burns it. ”

“ It is like the chill, dark crypts underneath our churches, where the masses for the dead are celebrated, and where in some monastic churches the embalmed corpses lie shrivelled to mummies, and visible through gratings. Through all the joyous festivals of the holidays above, the consciousness of those dark chambers of death below seems to creep up ”

“ The feast of the dead came some years since in May, and I well remember visiting the Chinese quarter of Lone Mountain Cemetery at that time to witness the ceremonies. Their New Year festivities are accompanied by an incessant roar of burning fireworks: crackers of every size, from those which pop in the slightest and most delicate manner, to those which make a report like a young cannon, are burned by the cartload at a time; but the feast of the dead is a more quiet and solemn affair. ”

“ When a death takes place they wrap the body in a skin or hide, and drag it by the leg to a grave, which is heaped up with stones as a protection against wild beasts. They mourn till the end of that moon, allow a month to elapse, and then resume their lamentations for another moon: the interval is gradually increased till the grief ends. It is usual to make the dead man's lodge appear as desolate as possible. ”

“ There are fireworks, sermons from the bonzes, nocturnal theatricals, where all sorts of monsters are introduced. Seats are erected within the precincts of the temples, and games and gambling accompany the rites connected with the dead." [Pg 253]
At the death of any member of the royal family the funeral ceremonies become a matter of national importance. If it is the king who is dead the whole country is in mourning; all heads are shaved. ”

“ Horrified, they will then look at one another, and shake their heads; they will cover the dead man's face, and proceed to carry him home. By-and-by they will have a funeral, and convey the corpse to the cemetery with wailing and weeping, and after it has been solemnly laid to rest there will be a rapid and delightful resurrection. ”

“ Some of the faculty were consulted, in this city, about thirty years ago, upon the question of burying under churches; and, on the strength of the opinion given, a large church, not then finished, was provided with tombs, and the dead have been buried therein, ever since. Now I think the public good would have been advanced, had those doctors set their faces against the selfish proposition. That it is a nuisance, I entertain not the slightest doubt. The practice of burying in their own houses, among the ancients, gave place to burying without the city, or to cremation. ”

“ So a united festival, such as that held on the ruins of the marae, was in every sense a Christian love-feast, and strangely in contrast with the hideous scenes previously enacted on the spot, when the coral-walls were dyed with the blood of human victims offered to the cruel war-gods, and where, in every crevice of the noble old trees, were seen bleaching human bones, skeletons hanging from the boughs, and beneath them, ghastly heaps of skulls, generally those of warriors slain in battle. ”

“ There he sees two evil men dragging a corpse from its coffin, and pays his all that it may be buried. He is joined by the ghost of the dead man, who accompanies him. They get three rods from an old woman, who is healed by the comrade's salve, and they come to a city, where they get a sword from a showman, whose puppets are made alive by the salve. They come to a mountain, where the companion cuts off the wings of a great white swan and carries them along. They come at length to the city of the beautiful princess, who is a witch. ”