Burial urn

“ Most powerful of all in its favor is the prevention of premature burial. All these are on the side of cremation, and against it is but one—sentiment. It seems more beautiful to lay our friends to rest, softly pillowed, shrouded in satin, inclosed in rose-wood, covered with flowers, and of anything beyond we refuse to think. We erect the imposing marble, set out the blossoming plant, and carry flowers to the spot. The cemetery appeals more strongly to the sentiment than does the crematory. ”

“ As to the mode of burial before the use of coffins became general, the General Assembly ordained, in 1563, “that a bier should be made in every country parish, to carry the dead corpse of the poor to the burial-place, and that those of the villages or houses next adjacent to the house where the dead corpse lieth, or a certain number out of every house, shall convey the dead corpse to the burial-place, and bury it six feet under the earth.” ”

“ At a burial there is but darkness, at a cremation rosy light unaccompanied by fustiness; the dead is really reduced to ashes, and with him the time-honored saying, “Peace to his ashes,” is not a hollow phrase, as it is with those who are interred.
Those who do not wish to miss religious and other ceremonies at incinerations may use any form of burial service they like, and those who desire to dispense with them may do so. And those who already have beloved dead in the cemeteries may rest by their side when the end is come, for the ashes can be interred as well as the body. ”

“ During the operation of the acts for burying in woollen, the law was sometimes evaded by covering the corpse with hay, or flowers, notification of which is sometimes met with in the parish registers.
Burial in armour was not at all uncommon in the middle ages, and was considered a most honourable form of burial. ”

“ Figs. 3, 4.—Clay Vases found at Castle Hill of Rattray, Aberdeenshire (5 inches high) .
In the special features of such survivals as these we read the story of the transition from the older to the newer forms of burial resulting from the change of faith. We see the custom of burial with grave-goods retained as a ceremonial observance in Christian sepulture, and the practice of cremation succeeded by the symbolic act of strewing charcoal in the open grave, and by a ritual which still regards the act of burial as a consigning of “ashes to ashes;” ”

“ Of course, some of these invalids succumb, and from time to time a death occurs; but a funeral is seldom or never seen. When a death happens, the hotel people keep it as long quiet as possible. The authorities take charge of the burial, and the body, which must lie unburied twenty-four hours after death, is removed in a coffin after dark to the mortuary adjoining the cemetery, where the relations assemble usually on the following day, and it is buried. ”

“ In these latter days when over crowded cemeteries and the levelling of graveyards in the midst of our metropolis have called forth the cry of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," by some new means, and some means quicker than the old; when even cremation has come within the bounds of possibility, surely the Parsee mode of burial will commend itself to many foreseeing minds. True that we do not like to think of the vultures hovering around the funeral procession for the last few miles, nor of others awaiting it, perched on, and greedily gazing down into, the tower ”

“ Wherefore all these last offices and ceremonies that concern the dead, the careful funeral arrangements, and the equipment of the tomb, and the pomp of obsequies, are rather the solace of the living than the comfort of the dead. If a costly burial does any good to a wicked man, a squalid burial, or none at all, may harm the godly. ”

“ Later in the day the mourners bring food and sacrifice to the spirit of the mountain, calling aloud the name of the dead and announcing that he is to be buried at that spot. The chief mourner returns home and announces to the dead that a burial place has been prepared. Those that have remained at the burial site dig the grave, making the measurements very exact, so that the casket will fit. At the bottom they put sand mixed with lime, and pound it down hard, so as to form a solid bed for the casket to rest upon. ”

“ I found with infinite search a scrap of lumber, and a rude coffin was made for him also. When it was finished, and we went to lay the body within it, what was my horror to find it gone!
I hastened to the graveyard, resolved to have it exhumed in case of burial, and found them standing beside the remains, about to offer up a prayer for his repose. I said, "What is a prayer to a promise?" when the Chaplain argued that others had no coffins—it was unwise to establish such precedents, and he wished to conclude the ceremony as quickly as possible. ”

“ The burial train glides slowly before us, as we have seen it represented in the woodcuts of that day, the coffin, and the bearers, and the lamentable friends, trailing their long black garments, while grim Death, a most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds of doleful emblems, stalks hideously in front. ”

“ If they have relatives buried in any part of the country whatever they spare no trouble to go and bring them. They take them from the cemeteries, carry them on their own shoulders, and cover them with the finest robes they have in their possession. In each village a good day is chosen, and they repair to the cemetery, where those called Aiheonde, who have had the care of the sepulcher, take the bodies from the tomb in the presence of the relatives, who renew their tears and repeat the mourning of the day of the funeral. ”

“ Of corpse and carrion, with which earth is fill’d.
I am not unmindful, that, in a former number of these Dealings with the Dead, I have passed over these burial-grounds, and partially exhibited the interior of these tombs already. But there really seems to be a great awakening, upon this subject, at the present moment, at home and abroad; and I rejoice, that it is so.
I am aware, that, within the bounds of old, peninsular Boston, no inhumations—burials in graves—are permitted. This is well.—Burials in tombs are still allowed.—Why? This mode of burial is much more offensive. ”

“ Rocks strewn about, half hidden in the fallen leaves, must not be overlooked.
August 26th.—A funeral last evening, nearly at sunset,—a coffin of a boy about ten years old laid on a one-horse wagon among some straw,—two or three barouches and wagons following. As the funeral passed through the village street, a few men formed a short procession in front of the coffin, among whom were Orrin S——- and I. The burial-ground (there are two in the town) is on the sides and summit of a round hill, which is planted with cypress and other trees, among which the white marble gravestones show pleasantly. ”

“ The new vault was consecrated the 31st August, 1683. This accounts for the apparent want of an entrance to the centre of the crypt; as all visitors to the church are aware, you look through little apertures to the place where a few post-revolution burials have taken place. I commend all these particulars, which exemplify the horrors of burial above ground, with the rifling of tombs and coffins perpetrated by the officers of the Convention, to the opposers of cremation. ”

“ In burial customs, with their numerous little superstitious observances, the survival of folk-memory is well displayed. It is needless to repeat the evidence here—how, in recent years, objects have been surreptitiously, and even openly, buried with the dead; how the funeral feast, in an attenuated form, lingers on; how we still scrupulously don the funeral garb, once the sign of deprecation or fear; how graveyard teeth are used as charms and remedies. ”

“ Their burial-ground was a cemetery, that is, a sleeping-place; they regarded the dead as put there to await the awakening; the body was depositus, that is, intrusted to the grave, while the heathen was situs or sepultus, interred or buried,—the words implying a final and definitive position. And as the Christian dormit or quiescit, sleeps or rests in death, so the heathen is described as abreptus, or defunctus, snatched away or departed from life.
Again, the contrast between the inscriptions is marked, and in a sadder way, by the difference of the expressions of mourning and grief. ”

“ Then, when the red flames cease to shoot upwards and the body is consumed, careful hands reverently gather the ashes and charred bones into the urn and deposit it in the prepared grave. A flat stone being placed above, the mourners perform the last rite in honour of the dead by heaping up stones to form his cairn, which may not be complete at nightfall when men return to the funeral feast. ”

“ In some cemeteries corpses are allowed to remain in a grave only a stipulated time; in English burial-grounds, where a freehold right is not secured, the remains may rest undisturbed but seven, in France five, years. ”

“ A lucky place and day have then to be fixed, by fortune-tellers, for the burial, and should these not be forthcoming, the coffin would be placed on a hill till they can be found. Burial is considered of so much importance, that should a man be drowned his spirit would be called back into a figure of wood or paper, and buried with pomp. Before the grave-diggers begin their work, members of the family worship the genii of the mountain, and write letters to these gods, asking them to be so kind as to allow the funeral to take place. ”

“ It being impracticable to provide a coffin, the body was wrapped in several blankets, and a quantity of pine boughs spread at the bottom of the grave. At the time appointed for the burial, most of the miners might be seen leaving their various employments, and slowly walking in small groups toward the grave. ”

“ M. B. Kent, the Sacs and Foxes, who formerly resided in the region now under consideration, buried the body "in a grave made about 21⁄2 feet deep, which was laid always with the head towards the east, the burial taking place as soon after death as possible. The grave was prepared by putting bark in the bottom of it before the corpse was deposited, a plank covering made and secured some distance above the body." ”

“ At present we have considered only the different modes of burial during the Middle Ages, but we may now proceed to speak of the coffin and the tomb. No work of art is more curious, or fuller of historical and picturesque information, than the funeral monuments of all ages. But it must be remembered that there is a marked distinction between the coffin and the tomb, one being the receptacle of the dead, the other only a monument raised to mark the spot of ground in which the coffin has been interred. ”

“ The custom of burial inside the church was a favourite one, and was continued down to the nineteenth century. While the choir was reserved for the knight or gentleman (and of the former there were none within the parish) and for the priest, the statesman was buried in the nave or aisle; and only [109] the landless man or cottar would be laid in the garth outside. Frequently in wills the testator expressed his wish to be buried as near as possible to a deceased relative, or the place where he had worshipped. ”

“ The mode of burial varies according to the rank of the deceased. The body of a chief is carefully interred, and so is that of a king, the sepulchre of the latter being, as has just been mentioned, kept a profound secret. By the grave are placed certain implements belonging to the dead person, a stool or a jug marking the grave of a man, and a calabash that of a woman. ”

“ They were placed in the earth without any protection, and were in consequence mostly broken by the pressure of the earth. Singly and in small groups urns containing incinerated remains have been found in most parts of Ireland. Worsaae was of opinion that many of the mounds or barrows were places of family sepulture, and that cists containing urns with burial remains found in open fields were those used by the poorer class who had no burial mound in which to place their dead.63
We have ample evidence of the antiquity and general practice of cremation in Europe. ”

“ The burial generally takes place the day after death. As many friends as can be present in time attend. Every one brings a present; and the day after the funeral, these presents are all so distributed again as that every one goes away with something in return for what he brought. Formerly, the body was buried without a coffin, except in the cases of chiefs; but now it is quite common to cut off the ends of some canoe belonging to the family, and make a coffin of it. ”

“ The burial system is thus a compromise between the old graveyard usages to which England has been accustomed for a thousand years or more, and the very un-English process of cremation which has a few advocates among us. ”

“ If the burial-place is some distance away in the country, or if the deceased is to be buried in another country, the procession makes its way to a temporary resting-place, where the coffin is deposited, and the friends who have followed the cortege take leave of the departed after burning incense, kowtowing, and performing other religious rites. Only the relatives follow to the graveside and witness the interment. ”

“ No more grave robberies in the twentieth century. The old style of burial becomes a back number. Popular errors about Cremation removed. Undertakers at a discount. Costly funerals discouraged. Funeral etiquette in 1999. No person buried alive in the twentieth century. Sacred memories of the dead still jealously treasured. “Rented graves” and other burial abominations of the nineteenth century are forever banished.
The great innovation of the twentieth century which long rankled within the human breast, but finally uprooted and conquered prejudice, was cremation. ”