Burial

“ At your death-bed how boldly might we comfort and encourage your departing souls! And at your burial, how comfortably might we leave you in the grave, in expectation to meet your souls in heaven, and to see your bodies raised to that glory! ”

“ 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. ”

“ A dead body is shunned. Therefore, a shroud is prepared, and other paraphernalia of burial, in order that the survivors may cease to loathe. At death, there is a sacrifice of wine and meat; when the funeral cortege is about to start, there is another; and after burial there is yet another. Yet no one ever saw the spirit of the departed come to taste of the food.
“These have been our customs from remote antiquity. They have not been discarded, because, in consequence, men no more shun the dead. What you may censure in those who perform the ceremonial is no blemish in the ceremonial itself.” ”

“ I know not what dear departed form, whose grave is already sunk as deep as itself, I may not, like a dream, raise up on its burial place and show anew to your tearful eyes, and of how many dead a single grave may be the reminder. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I reflected on many a country walk in England, culminating in a visit to an old church and graveyard, and the tracing of the names and dates of people long since passed away. It is somewhat strange. When we are in an old graveyard and looking at the graves of people who have died centuries ago we feel, instead of grief, a sort of quiet satisfaction, and that even when those whose burial is recorded are of our own name and family. We dare not even contrast our feeling with the poignancy that is attached to a new grave—with its garish stone, fresh clods, and wilted flowers. ”

“ Our burial places abound in mortuary horrors which, with clumsy fingers, point in the assumed direction of immortality, inspiring hope in a future life by the thought that it, at worst, cannot contain ugliness to equal their own. ”

“ Like other men, I have particular fancies about the place of my burial; having lived chiefly in a mountainous region, I rather cleave to the conceit, that a grave in a green churchyard amongst the ancient and solitary hills will be a sublimer and more tranquil place of repose for a philosopher than any in the hideous Golgothas of London. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The objects of interest lying about the funeral pyres and burial mounds of the human race in its long, long march are so many and so full of interest that one knows not where or when to stop. There is the burial at sea—the most solemn of all—when upon the mighty ocean the little group gathers round the captain, and he commits the body to the waters until that day when "the sea shall give up her dead." There are the rare forms of funeral ceremonies; for, although the chief are those I have mentioned—earth-burial, burning, and embalming—yet these are not all. ”

“ Death is sufficiently terrible in itself, and the grave in its best form has enough of horror to make the stoutest heart quail at the thought, but nothing I have seen or read of can equal the Campo Santo for the most loathsome and disgusting mode of burial. ”

“ MORTUARY (Med. Lat. mortuarium, from mortuus, dead) , of or belonging to the dead, or, in particular, to the burial of the dead. The chief modern use of the word is for a building in which dead bodies awaiting burial may be temporarily kept, for the purpose of inquiry, identification, post-mortem examination, &c. But it has also been applied to many subjects connected with death and burial. In monastic institutions it was the duty of the almoner to send round to other monastic houses notice of the death of a member, asking for prayers for the soul of the dead. ”

“ let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung!—
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—
A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young. ”

“ What feelings of revenge and sorrow must have stirred their hearts as they raised their mother's soulless frame tenderly in their arms, and carried it along through woods and valleys, over highways and fields to the homestead, where, on the following night, the three pronounced the only burial service over the remains, as they lowered the body into a newly-made grave in their own consecrated grounds, which down through the generations has been reverently guarded. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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;” ”

“ Concerning Burial of the Dead, all customs of praying, reading, and singing, both in going to or from the grave, are said to have been greatly abused. The simple direction is therefore given, that when any person departeth this life, let the body upon the day of burial be decently attended from the house to the place appointed for public burial, and there immediately interred without any ceremony. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do you not understand that the functions belonging to the day and the night have been separated more than all other things? With good reason, therefore, has burial been taken out of the day and would be reserved for the night. ”

“ It is singular that a funeral consequent on an unusual death should be attended by greater numbers than an ordinary one. On this occasion, I may safely say, that my little retired burial-ground, and its immediate vicinity, were occupied by thousands. ”

“ But I pray the Lord to have mercy on my soul, beseeching my Redeemer from this day to the last to strengthen my hands to fight, and to deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living.
Should it please my Heavenly Father to let mo die in the bosom of my family, then a pine coffin, a plain funeral, and u simple burial, with an evergreen to mark the spot, will constitute the burial, the tomb and the epitaph, that under the circumstances, are most grateful to me. ”

“ When death enters our homes and lays his icy hand on some one whom we love, we know that the next thing to follow is the funeral. We have to make preparation, as Abraham said on the death of Sarah, his wife, to “bury our dead out of our sight.” Gen. xxiii: 4. And so, after the crucifixion, or death of our Saviour, the next thing for us to consider is—his burial. We have an account of this burial in each of the four gospels. We can read all that is said about it in the following places:—St. Matt. xxvii: 56-66; St. Mark xv: 42-47; St. Luke xxiii: 50-56, and St. John xix: 38-42. ”

“ A few weeks afterwards the poor woman’s soul took its flight, I confidently hope, and solemnly believe, to a place of eternal happiness and rest. I performed the burial service over her remains. She lies in our little churchyard. There is no stone at her grave’s head. ”

“ The work of burial is performed by our own men, under guards and orders, twenty-five bodies being placed in a single pit, without head-boards, and the sad duty performed with indecent haste. Sometimes our men were rewarded for this work with a few sticks of firewood, and I have known them to quarrel over a dead body for the job. ”

“ Although we meet with the burial of the dead either in a recumbent or a crouching position, everywhere the minor ceremonies connected with death are innumerable; each people, each race, indeed, having its own custom, handed down from one generation to another, and piously preserved intact by each successive family. ”

“ If the funeral be that of a person of rank or wealth, two or three skins of water, and as many camel-loads of bread, being conveyed to the burial ground, as before mentioned, are there distributed, after the burial, to the poor, who flock thither in great numbers, on such an occasion. ”

“ After reviewing the various substitutes for burial which have been tried or suggested, it happens with most minds that none of them seem on the whole to be improvements. It remains, then, to find a form of burial which will accomplish its purpose effectively and without offense or danger to the living. ”

“ The veneration they have for the memory of their ancestors, and the assurance they have of their spirits always existing, is apparent in almost every circumstance of the few religious ceremonies which they perform: the burial of their dead is very particular and solemn. ”

“ BURIALS. The two modes of burial—Burning of the dead on the pyre—The law of Odin—Ceremonies after death—Laws and superstitions connected with the dead—The journey to Hel—The burial of Sigurd and Brynhild—Burial on waggons—Burial of weapons with the dead—Burials in ships—The Gökstad ship’s sepulchral chamber—The Moklebust mound.
The Eddas and Sagas abound with descriptions of funeral rites and burials, the accuracy of which is most fully vindicated by the finds.
Two modes of burial were prevalent among the people, one that of burning the dead, the other of burying them unburned. ”

“ Will never more return.
[2]
"The Graveyard," sung at the burial of common men.
What man's land is the graveyard?
It is the crowded home of ghosts, —
Wise and foolish shoulder to shoulder.
The King of the Dead claims them all;
Man's fate knows no tarrying. ”

“ All things that we ordained festival Turn from their office to black funeral- Our instruments to melancholy bells, Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast; Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change; Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse; And all things change them to the contrary. ”

“ Only the underlying idea is the same,—that the burial of the dead is a pious act and a sacred duty, which will meet a fitting reward.5 This belief is so widespread and ancient that it is not difficult to surmise how stories inculcating the duty might have grown up independently in many lands. ”

“ But it wasn’t a well-ordered funeral, in this case, and I was denied even the tempered satisfaction of the bereaved after the finality of a smoothly conducted burial. For nothing has been settled. It’s merely that Time has been trying to encyst what it can not absorb. ”

“ What tho’ other Ceremonies be perform’d with the greatest Splendor and Exactness, they can give no other Satisfaction than the Decency of Burial, or performing perhaps the Will of the Dead; for the Body will nevertheless stink, corrupt, and it may be startle the nearest Friend to see it a while after? Then shall his Bones not be known, nor his Ashes be distinguish’d from another Mans, nay even from common Earth, so that the parcimonious Heir may well reflect, how vain and needless it would have been to have bestow’d more than a decent Expence on his Funeral. ”

“ Just before the procession starts, a religious ceremony is held at the house, which is attended by the friends of the deceased, and which is substantially the same as that performed at the cemetery. On the day of the burial, great bunches of natural flowers are sent to the dead, each bunch so large as to [347] require the services of one man to carry it. ”

“ A company of the grammarian’s disciples are bearing his coffin for burial on a tall mountain, the appropriate lofty place of sepulture for an elevated man. As they carry the body, one of them tells his story, and dilates on the praises of the departed scholar. They cannot fitly bury their master in the plain with the common herd. ”

“ Are burial posts or slabs used, plain, or marked, with flags or other insignia of position of deceased. Describe embalmment, mummification, desiccation, or if antiseptic precautions are taken, and subsequent disposal of remains. Are bones collected and reinterred; describe ceremonies, if any, whether modern or ancient. If charnel houses exist or have been used, describe them.
5th. Mourning observances.—Is scarification practiced, or personal mutilation? What is the garb or sign of mourning? How are the dead lamented? Are periodical visits made to the grave? ”