Funeral feast

“ The use of the funeral feast was almost universal in the Græco-Roman world. Many ancient authors may be cited as witnesses to the practice in classical lands. Among the Jews, averse by taste and reason to all foreign customs, we find what amounts to a funeral banquet, if not the rite itself ”

“ This perhaps has no significance for our present inquiry; but the funeral feast which follows the burial must not be left unnoticed. Its material is provided by the most intimate friend of the dead,300.1 who sometimes joins in it. No one else is admitted beside relatives. The table whereon the coffin has rested is the one used for the meal, and if not large enough, others are added to it to extend it. ”

“ The mother who has lost a young child wraps her head, as a sign of mourning, in a fiery red cloth. The former prevalence of cremation is indicated in the custom of burning the clothes which the deceased wore last. The tear-jugs of the ancients may still be found in the houses, of exactly the old form and size, but destined to a quite different purpose. Another peculiar custom at the funeral feast is to lay a plate with salt and bread upon the table, for the use of the soul of the departed one, if it should appear in the circle of friends. ”

“ The final absurdity is the funeral feast, at which the assembled relatives strive to console the parents, and to prevail upon them to take food; and, Heaven knows, they are willing enough to be persuaded, being almost prostrated by a three days' fast. ”

“ The family of the deceased invite men and women from some other community, but only one community, to a funeral feast, which is held after an interval of two or three days from the day of the funeral. On [248] the day appointed these guests arrive. They are all well ornamented, but, with one exception, they do not wear their dancing ornaments. One of them, however, usually a chief or the son of a chief of the community invited, comes in his full dancing ornaments. All the guest men bring with them their spears, and perhaps adzes or clubs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It will be noticed that, though representatives from several communities may be invited and come to the funeral, only one community is invited to the subsequent funeral feast, just as only one community is invited to the big feast, which latter we must, I think, associate with the general superstitious idea of laying the ghosts of past departed chiefs and notables. ”

“ On the fourth day is the funeral feast, in which all relations and friends join, and after this the house becomes pure, it being presumably held that the dead man’s spirit has taken its departure. For these three days food is cooked in the house and given to dogs, and immediately after the man is dead a dog is brought in to look at his face. ”

“ Funeral feasts also testify respect:672 they appear to be extensions of the practice of providing food for the dead, feasts in which the mourners, from motives of thriftiness, take part; the ghost consumes only the invisible soul of the food, and it is proper that what is left should furnish refreshment for the living.673 The funeral festivities are sometimes protracted, and become occasions of enjoyment to the circle of kinsfolk, in some cases at a ruinous expense to the family of the deceased, as is true now sometimes of Irish and other wakes. ”

“ After three days the funeral takes place, when all the provisions which the family can procure are expended in a feast, to which the neighbours are generally invited; and, although on all solemn occasions it is required that every thing should be eaten, the relations do not partake. These last cut off their hair, cover their heads, paint their faces of a black colour, and continue long to deny themselves every species of amusement. The deceased is then interred with his arms and ornaments, his face painted, and his person attired in the richest robes which they can furnish. ”

“ Oxen are slaughtered and the flesh cooked for a feast, and great quantities of beer and mead are drunk. The cost of a funeral in these parts is therefore very great, and it is thought a point of honor to expend as much wealth as can be got together for the purpose.
The religious element is represented by a kind of idol or figure covered with feathers, which is carried about during some parts of the ceremony; and in some places a man, in a strange dress, covered with feathers, dances with the mourners all night, and retires to the feast in the early morning. ”

“ All this is plainly evidenced by the fact that in many German churches when a good wife dies, the pastor, at the funeral, as the best friend of the stricken husband, casts his eyes over the congregation for a suitable successor to the deceased. And very often the funeral baked meats do coldly furnish forth the marriage feast.158 Man is made to mourn, but most widowers say but a year. ”

“ It has been kindled by the chief undertaker from the fire within the deceased’s house, with a wisp of grass out of the roof—like the torch already mentioned. If a fire is wanted for cooking, a light must be fetched from one of the houses of the living. When the mourning is over, the first thing done is to brew a large quantity of beer, and, when that is ready, to kill fowls and cook porridge—in fact, to hold the funeral [167] feast, which in other parts of the world takes place immediately after the burial. ”

“ It is a favourite taboo colour.
4. A feast is an essential feature of every primitive funeral, and in the Irish “wake” it still survives. A dead man’s soul or double has to be fed at the tomb itself, perhaps to keep it from prowling about the homes of the survivors in search of victuals; and such food must also be supplied to the dead at stated intervals for months or years. Many races leave a narrow passage or tube open down to the cavity in which the corpse lies, and through it pour down drinks for the dead. ”

“ Agape.—The celebration of funeral feasts in honour of the dead dates back almost to the beginnings of the worship of the departed—that is, to the very earliest times. The dead, in the region beyond the tomb, were thought to derive both pleasure and advantage from these offerings. ”

“ After death, when the body has been prepared for burial, a table is spread covered with refreshments, and open house is held till the funeral. Whoever comes is invited to eat and drink. Two candles are kept burning by the coffin, and two women are employed to watch and pass their time in prayer. ”

“ Every circumstance of the funeral is meant to force joy upon the mourners. The child, dressed in white garments, and crowned with a wreath of flowers, is followed by the officiating priest in silk robes of the same colour; and the clergymen who attend him to the house from whence the funeral proceeds to the church, sing in joyful strains the psalm Laudate, pueri, Dominum, while the bells are heard ringing a lively peal. The coffin, without a lid, exposes to the view the little corpse covered with flowers, as four well-dressed children bear it, amidst the lighted tapers of the clergy. ”

“ The one buried that day I had known, or she had known me in my boyhood, and it was expected that I would attend. My mother sent the wreath that belongs,—there is both sense and sentiment in flowers at a funeral when they are wreathed by the hands of those who loved the dead, as is still the custom here; none where they are bought at a florist's and paid for with a growl,—and we stood around the coffin and sang the old hymns, then walked behind it, two by two, men and women, to the grave, singing as we passed through the gate. ”

“ While you are admiring the flowers and trees a funeral enters the gates. The body is carried by four professional bearers and is followed by two priests and the relatives and friends. All the mourners are clothed in white. They walk two by two, no matter how distant may be the house of death, each couple holding a handkerchief as a symbol of their union in sorrow. When the procession reaches the top of the hill the mourners diverge and take seats in the house of prayer, where the sacred fire is burning, or they seat themselves in the beautiful garden for meditation and prayer. ”

“ A funeral procession is an imposing spectacle, and, to the uninstructed foreigner, a cheerful one; for there is nothing sad or sombre in the white, or bright-colored, robes of the priests, the white, tinsel-decorated bier, the red and white flags borne aloft, the enormous bunches of gay-colored flowers;—the very mourners in white silk, and with faces apparently unmoved by grief, bring no thought of the object of the procession to the Western mind. ”

“ How much better to have a small funeral! a funeral remarkable for nothing but its modesty and simplicity, to which only the few are called who knew the dead and loved him, who follow him to his long home with serious thoughts, like thinking men and Christians, remembering that before long they must go with him into the grave and lie down beside him, and who return home to remember his soul before God as often as they kneel down to pray. ”

“ At funerals, especially when the death is attributed to the spells of a magician, the traditional ceremonies of the guisa are scrupulously observed, a procession of howlers preceding the dead, the women tearing their hair and beating their breasts, men creating a tremendous din with their tom-toming, after which the virtues of the departed are commemorated by a funeral banquet and by more drum-beating, continued every night for one or more weeks afterwards in his late home. ”

“ The funeral pageant moves,—a dozen carriages preceded by mourners on foot, clad in white, their heads covered, their feet bare, their grief insupportable, so that an attendant is at hand to sustain each mourner howling at the wheels of the hearse. An orchestra heads the procession; the air is flooded with paper prayers that are cast hither at you to appease the troubled spirit. ”

“ The first class of funerals are of great pomp: they include bearers, crosses, plumes, eighteen mourning coaches and attendants, grand mass at church, 120 lbs. of wax tapers, an anniversary service, and material of mourning cloth; and also the attendance of Monsieur le Curé, two vicars, twenty-one priests, six singers and ten chorister boys, and two instrumental performers, at a cost of 145l., for a funeral superior in magnificence perhaps to any private funeral in England. ”

“ Among the funeral offerings described in the last chapter of which the purpose more or less distinctly appears to be that the departed soul shall take them away in some ghostly or ideal manner, or that they shall by some means be conveyed to him in his distant spirit-home, there are given supplies of food and drink. But the feasts of the dead with which we are now concerned are given on a different principle; they are, so to speak, to be consumed on the premises. ”

“ So the custom of funeralizing the dead long after burial grew from a necessity. The funeralizing of a departed kinsman or friend was published from the pulpit. The bereaved family set a day, months or even a year in advance, for the purpose of having the preacher eulogize their beloved dead. “Come the third Sunday in May next summer,” a mountain preacher could be heard in mid winter publishing the occasion. “Brother Tom’s funeral will be held here at Christy Creek church house.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Which be-wept to the grave did go, With true love showers. There is also a most delicate and beautiful rite observed in some of the remote villages of the south at the funeral of a female who has died young and unmarried. A chaplet of white flowers is borne before the corpse by a young girl nearest in age, size, and resemblance, and is afterwards hung up in the church over the accustomed seat of the deceased. ”

“ On such occasions friends and relatives flock from afar to the "funeral baked meats;" for a handsome banquet forms an essential part of the otherwise melancholy details. From twenty to thirty bearers convey the corpse to its last abode, amid the deafening discord of drums, cymbals, and tom-toms. The procession moves with slow and measured step, and on the coffin is placed a shell filled with water, which enables the master of the ceremonies to ascertain that the coffin is borne with becoming steadiness. Mourning is worn for twenty-seven months for a father, mother, or husband ”

“ Arrived at the Church yard Gate, the funeral party, according to the rules of that exercise, formed two lines, and leaned their heads on their firelocks pointed to the ground; through this space the corpse was carried; the party drew up along side of the grave, and after the interment, fired three vollies over it. The whole ceremony presented a solemn, grand, and affecting spectacle; and accorded with the general regret for the loss of a man, whose like we scarce can see again. ”

“ Another curious custom, which is now obsolete, was to put cloves, spikenard, fine herbs, and twigs of various aromatic shrubs into the coffin, in memory of the embalming of our Lord. Young girls and unmarried women were buried in white, and had their coffins covered with white flowers. All the people who accompanied the funeral wore white scarves, and before the Reformation, white dresses, and the way was strewn with box leaves, grass, and flowers. ”