Ashes

“ Their tombs, high as mountains though they be, decked out like queens’ palaces, white and fair to see as those of the Pharisees, guard only ashes, dust returning again to dust, even as the dead bodies of animals. Death cannot be conquered by copying life in wood and stone. Stone crumbles away and turns to dust, wood rots and turns to dust, and both of them are mud—eternal mud. ”

“ The ashes of the dead were collected in a piece of Kangaroo-skin, and every morning, before sunrise, till they were consumed, a portion of them was smeared over the faces of the survivors, and a death song sung, with great emotion, tears clearing away lines among the ashes. ”

“ The dust, ashes, and bones of defunct life which they often contain, nourish in the dark the green grass, the fair flowers, the blooming trees, that shoot up into the light. You cannot dig it all up and throw it out without tearing asunder the net-work of roots which organically connects the living with the dead. ”

“ When therefore any persons were defiled by a dead body, they put a little of these ashes into spring water, with hyssop, and, dipping part of these ashes in it, they sprinkled them with it, both on the third day, and on the seventh, and after that they were clean. ”

“ People tell us that sometimes the fair, still, green earth trembles, and fire and flame burst forth, and showers of gray ashes bury the dwellings of men, and the temples of God. It seemed to her that a beautiful temple, in which she had often worshipped, had been buried under gray ashes, and her grief broke forth in streaming tears, as her good foster-mother put her arms around her, and led her from the room. ”

“ The ashes being riddled or sifted on the hearth, if any one of the family be to die within the year, the mark of a shoe will be impressed upon the ashes.201 In Wales they make a bonfire, and when it is extinguished each one throws a white stone into the ashes. In the morning they search out the stones, and if any one is found wanting, he that threw it will die within the year.202 In Manxland the ashes are carefully swept to the open hearth and nicely flattened down by the women before they go to bed. ”

“ But the phrase “ashes to ashes” forbids that interpretation. It has, so far as may be known, never been taught that man originally came from ashes, though, figuratively, in moments of contrition, he has declared himself to be “but dust and ashes.” The collocation of the phrases seems to betray a compromise between modes of burial. Parenthetically, we note that the Roman practice, as described by Horace, was to cast earth three times upon the body [800] . ”

“ Under the earth and a layer of ashes the skeleton lies with its head covered by a little brazier of baked clay, and accompanied by arrows, fragments of double-edged knives, obsidian fragments, bird-bone necklaces strung on twisted bird-gut, smooth stones, some small semi-spheres of baked clay with a hole in the centre of each, and a few grotesque idols. ”

“ In parts where the ashes lay dry and unmixed with the boiling torrents, cast upward from the mountain at capricious intervals, the surface of the earth presented a leprous and ghastly white. In other places, cinder and rock lay matted in heaps. ”

“ What the body is, we see with our eyes, especially if we attend a cremation, or if in ancient graves we look into the urns which contain the grayish black ashes, whilst near by there sleeps in cold marble, as in the Museo Nazionale in Rome, the lovely head of the young Roman maiden, to whom two thousand years ago belonged these ashes, as well as the beautiful mansion that has been excavated from the earth and rebuilt round about her. ”

“ Jerome relates, that the Jews, in his time, rolled themselves in ashes, as a sign of mourning. To repent in sackcloth and ashes is a frequent expression in Scripture, for mourning and being afflicted for our sins. Numb. xix. 17. There was a sort of lustral water, made with the ashes of an heifer, sacrificed on the great day of atonement, the ashes whereof were distributed among the people. In the Romish Church, ashes are given among the people on Ash-Wednesday: they must be made from branches of olive, or some other trees, that have been blessed the foregoing year. ”

“ But if any one, watching till it opens, throws a cloth over it, and then, when the magic hour has passed, burns the blossoms carefully, the ashes will serve as a mirror in which you can read the fate of absent friends; if your friends are well and happy, the ashes will resume the shape of a lovely flower; but if they are unhappy or dead, the ashes will remain cold and lifeless.228 In Thuringia people think that he who has on his person or in his house the male fern (Aspidium filix mas) cannot be bewitched. ”

“ I speak of ashes because early ardours for the most part burn themselves out, while the place they hold in our lives varies, I think, mainly according to the degree of tenderness with which we gather up and preserve their dust; and I speak of oddity because in the present case it is difficult to say whether the agitation of the embers results at last in a returning glow or in a yet more sensible chill. That indeed is perhaps a small question compared with the simple pleasure of the reviving emotion. One reads and wonders and enjoys again, just for the sake of the renewal. ”

“ The ashes, also, as we are reminded in receiving them, represent the dust of death to which we must sooner or later come, and in which all the distinctions upon which we pride ourselves so much now will be confounded, nothing being left of us in this world after a short time but a few handfuls of dust, and our souls having gone to another, where their claims to consideration will have been judged according to a very different standard from that which prevails in this life. ”

“ Picking up, with reverential and almost ritual gesture, an urn shaped like a dwelling and containing a small quantity of ashes, he went on:
"The men who in immemorial times gave this form to clay, believed that the soul, being attached to the bones and the ashes, had need of a dwelling, but that it did not require a very large house wherein to live the abridged life of the dead. These men were of a noble race which came from Asia. The one whose light ashes I now hold lived before the days of Evander and of the shepherd Faustulus." ”

“ When the fire died down people took some of the ashes home with them, either to keep them in the house as a preservative against thunder or to scatter them on the fields for the purpose of destroying corn-cockles and darnel. ”

“ If I were but mere dust and ashes I might speak unto the Lord, for the Lord's hand made me of this dust, and the Lord's hand shall re-collect these ashes; the Lord's hand was the wheel upon which this vessel of clay was framed, and the Lord's hand is the urn in which these ashes shall be preserved. I am the dust and the ashes of the temple of the Holy Ghost, and what marble is so precious? But I am more than dust and ashes: I am my best part, I am my soul. And being so, the breath of God, I may breathe back these pious expostulations to my God: ”

“ The body is lifted from the bier and placed upon it, then more wood is piled on and the kindling is lit with a torch. If there is plenty of dry fuel the corpse is reduced to ashes in about two hours. Usually the ashes are claimed by friends, who take them to the nearest temple and after prayers and other ceremonies cast them into the waters of the bay. ”

“ A Sicilian poet suggested that along with the ashes thus buried might be deposited the seeds of some flower,—such as heart’s-ease, violets, or forget-me-nots,—so that when it sprung up, the friends and relatives might gather the blossoms from year to year as a dear memorial of the life that lasts beyond the tomb ”

“ But if they are taken into the hand, being broken open they display no fruit indeed, but much dust and ashes stored up within. Such also is the whole land. If you find a stone, you will find it full of ashes. ”

“ A human bone from a burial-ground, over which powerful mantrams have been recited, if thrown into an enemy’s house, will cause his ruin. Ashes from the burial-ground on which an ass has been rolling on a Saturday or Sunday, if thrown into the house of an enemy, are said to produce severe illness, if the house is not vacated. ”

“ Hence, in contrast to the sacrifices themselves, the ashes were considered as the impure residuum which is found in everything which men do in relation to God, as the image of sinful contamination attaching to all, even the best works, and to the holiest elevation of the heart. ”

“ Or if the Pagans should be viewed in many cases as rather dead than sick, you might as well praise the ashes in the tomb because they have no longer the human shape, as compared with the living body, which does not differ so much from a corpse as from ashes. ”

“ So they have mixed plaster and poured it into the hole. They have given it a little time to harden and then have dug away the ashes from around it. In that way they have made a plaster cast just the shape of the hole. And several times when they have uncovered their cast they have found it to be the form of a man or woman or child. Perhaps the person had been hurrying through the street and had stumbled and fallen. The gases had choked him, the ashes had slowly covered him. Under the moistening rain and the pressure of all the hundreds of years the ashes had hardened almost to stone. ”

“ But these graves do not hold hideous skeletons: only urns with ashes, and sometimes a few little pieces of bone. The bodies were all burned, and the ashes consigned to earthenware urns, which vary in size according to the rank the person held in life. ”

“ Interspersed throughout the mass of ashes filling the basin were many small pieces of bone and teeth converted into animal charcoal, and bits of flint, perhaps weapons, shivered and broken by the fierce heat of the pyre. I also observed many minute scales of burnt mica and shell, but found no part of any pipe or other object carved in stone, or of pottery. ”

“ Under clouds of ashes, cinders, mud, lava, three of those happy cities—Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabiæ—were buried at once. They were buried just as the people had fled from them, leaving the furniture and the earthenware, often even jewels and gold behind, and here and there a human being who had not had{129} time to escape from the dreadful rain of ashes and dust. ”

“ As soon as a dying man draws his last breath, ashes are strewed on the floor of the room, and the door is securely fastened. Next morning the ashes are carefully examined to ascertain whether they show any impression of footsteps, and imagination readily traces marks, which are alleged to have been produced by the feet of birds, dogs, cats, oxen, or llamas. ”

“ Ashes, the burned and pulverized seeds of fruits, the blood and bones of slaughtered animals, all played an important part in the intelligent and systematic treatment of the rich and productive valleys of the South, whose surface, resting on an impenetrable subsoil of clay, required continual renovation. ”

“ They who dig into graves, and rake into the ashes and bones of the dead, in order to find some valuable thing buried together with the corpse, (not they who only take some stones belonging to a sepulchre, in order to use them in building) to do the penance of fornicators. ”

“ There is another beautiful thing in our text, which comes out more distinctly if we follow the Revised Version, and read 'to give unto them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.' There we have two contrasted pictures suggested: one of a mourner with grey ashes strewed upon his dishevelled locks, and his spirit clothed in gloom like a black robe ”

“ Copies of this book are common, but good ones are rather scarce. According to a popular superstition, the ashes brought down during the day by the tread of pilgrims feet re-ascend spontaneously at night. ”

“ When they die their bodies are taken to the steps. There they are washed in the river water, and are placed on piles of wood. Friends set fire to the wood, and soon the bodies are burnt to ashes. These ashes are thrown into the stream, which bears them to the distant ocean. ”

“ THE IMMORTAL RESIDUE Wouldst thou find my ashes? Look
In the pages of my book;
And, as these thy hand doth turn,
Know here is my funeral urn. ”

“ A very small portion of the remains is ashes, but the mass is in the form of calcined bones in small fragments, very white, odorless, entirely deprived of all animal matter, and may be preserved any length of time without change. ”

“ The ashes might be dispersed to the winds, harmlessly buried, or preserved in urns near monuments or memorial tablets in our cemeteries, or beneath or around any place of worship, or in any family mausoleum, or in some park, public garden, or any ornamental open space near a great city, as the wishes of the dead or of the surviving relations and friends may prefer. ”

“ In some localities on the evening of the third day the ashes of the cooking-place are sifted, and laid out on a tray at night on the spot where the deceased died, or near the cooking-place. In the morning the layer of ashes is inspected, and if what appears to be a hand- or footprint is seen, it is held that the spirit of the deceased has visited the house. ”

“ These women, however, belong to families which have trees and shrubs for totems, and for fear of scattering the ashes of their totem trees inadvertently burnt they have to put all the ashes of their fires in a particular place, thus honouring all ashes to avert the possibility of being disrespectful to the ashes of their totem trees. ”

“ We bury our dead instead of burning them, yet every cemetery is set thick with urns. As there are no ashes for the urns we do not trouble ourselves to make them hollow, and we say their use is "emblematic." ”

“ A shower of ashes, however heavy, however charged with humidity, could never have thrown down and choked a strong man like the one who met his death while making his escape, in company with his two daughters, along one of the public roads. ”

“ On the sixteenth day, food is again offered on leaves. In cases where burial is resorted to, an effigy of the deceased is made in straw, and burnt. On the third day, the ashes are taken to the grave, and buried. ”