Funerary effigy

“ Decked with bright-coloured ribbons and cloths, and fastened to the top of a long pole, the effigy was then borne with singing and clamour to the nearest height, where it was stript of its gay attire and thrown or rolled down the slope. One of the girls was next dressed in the gauds taken from the effigy of Death, and with her at its head the procession moved back to the village. In some villages the practice is to bury the effigy in the place that has the most evil reputation of all the country-side: others throw it into running water.676
Life-giving virtue ascribed to the effigy of Death. ”

“ Poor Bet was sure to follow in every funeral procession, and sometimes she would thrust herself amidst the mourners, and say, "the dead could not rest in their graves, if they were not followed there by one true mourner." She has been seen to spring forward when the men were carelessly placing the coffin in the grave with the head to the east, and exclaim, "are ye heathens, that ye serve the dead thus? ”

“ 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. ”

“ With the growing taste for privacy and simplicity, many of the foolish demonstrations of grief, expressed in outward display, have been eliminated. It is now a very rare occurrence for the room in which the dead body lies to be filled with wreaths and masses of flowers, for people are beginning to realize that this is a relic of ancient and savage burial customs, and that it is not so much a manifestation of grief as a display of vanity. ”

“ Preparations were made to deposit the coffin in the earth. There was that bustling stir, which breaks so harshly on the feelings of grief and affection; directions given in the cold tones of business; the striking of spades into sand and gravel; which, at the grave of those we love, is, of all sounds, the most withering. The bustle around seemed to waken the mother from a wretched revery. She raised her glazed eyes, and looked about with a faint wildness. As the men approached with cords to lower the coffin into the grave, she wrung her hands, and broke into an agony of grief. ”

“ I was told that the new-made grave was for the only son of a poor widow. While I was meditating on the distinctions of worldly rank, which extend thus down into the very dust, the toll of the bell announced the approach of the funeral. They were the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. A coffin of the plainest materials, without pall or covering, was borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked before, with an air of cold indifference. There were no mock mourners in the trappings of affected woe: but there was one real mourner, who feebly tottered after the corpse. ”

“ We throw the earth aside and finally lay bare a coffin. A coffin? Something that must have been one in the remote past. A sickening odor greets us. We step back to draw a breath of pure air. At last we muster up sufficient courage to return to the grave. A touch of the spade causes the top-board of the box to fall to pieces, and there is revealed to the sight a spectacle that is horrible. The ground around the body has been moist and non-porous; what has remained of the corpse is only a mass of foul flesh in a state of putrefaction. ”

“ We get a curious glimpse of the paraphernalia of a funeral in the Life of a notorious cheat, "The German Princess," who lived, and was hanged, in the latter part of the 17th Century, and the same funeral customs therein described obtained in Queen Anne's time. She took a lodging at a house, in a good position, and told the landlady that a friend of hers, a stranger to London, had just died, and was lying at "a pitiful Alehouse," and might she, for convenience sake, bring his corpse there, ready for burial on the morrow. ”

“ The funeral was scrupulously held before the second sun went down, and had to be hurried a little, because the morgue authorities, hobbled of red tape, move as slowly as the sea itself in giving up the dead. The coffin—of poorest pine—was knocked to pieces in the grave, before the clods of earth were shoveled in and the doomsday sods laid on. The garments of him who acted as principal mourner were faithfully torn; that is to say, the rabbi cut a careful slit in the lapel of that mourner's waistcoat where it wouldn't show. ”

“ To the surprise of the sexton the coffin-lid showed signs of displacement, and on its being removed the grave-digger was horrified to find the remains turned face downward, the hand filled with long tufts of hair torn from the head, and the face, neck, and bosom deeply scratched and scarred, while the lining of the coffin had been torn into fragments in the desperate efforts of the entombed victim to escape from her horrible fate. Since the discovery the young husband has been prostrated, and his life is despaired of. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the funeral procession, the coffin was carried on the shoulders of several young men, while at the sides walked young ladies, each dressed in a blue satin gown with a long train and white veil, and each lavishly decorated with precious jewels. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Never knew I any man who gave so much out of a little, and never have I seen a happier or more peaceful face on a death-bed.
My grand-uncle’s burial was grand and magnificent. All the town-council, and many of the nobles joined in the funeral-train. Bells tolling and priests chanting, crape, tapers, incense and the rest of it—we had more than enough of them all. Only one thing was lacking, namely, tears—not those of the hirelings who attended it, but such as fall in silence from a sorrowing eye.
In the Im Hoffs’ great house all was silence till the burying was done ”

“ The mourning continues without interruption until the burial, except while the coffin is being made—for the Mpongwe use coffins. The coffin is made in the street, in front of the house. If there should be any wailing at that time the departed spirit will not like his new house, and some of those who helped to make it will surely die before the year is over. I have seen a man, who heard the least sound of a wail while he was working on the coffin, fling his hammer on the ground in great anger and refuse to continue the work. ”

“ The day is fine and a ride to the out-of-town cemetery pleasant, and (to them) inexpensive; they whose eyes scarce rested with interest on the living form, gaze ceremoniously and curiously on the dead; the widow’s tears are counted, the mourning dresses of herself and children scrutinized; the prayer that always falls so immeasurably short of what critical ears demand, is said; a great silence—then a rustling—bustling—whispering—then the coffin is borne past the widow, who sees it through a mist of tears ”

“ Moreover, at their funerals they believe the dead body has the power of compelling [269] them to carry it to the grave, in which road it likes, to shew its resentment to those who have offended it; by the coffin’s tumbling off the shoulders of the bearer, making them stand stock still, or running therewith with speed, now one way, then another, and sometimes throwing down and trampling on the people who stand in the way. ”

“ At a funeral in China, when the lid is about to be placed on the coffin, most of the bystanders, with the exception of the nearest kin, retire a few steps or even retreat to another room, for a person's health is believed to be endangered by allowing his shadow to be enclosed in a coffin. And when the coffin is about to be lowered into the grave most of the spectators recoil to a little distance lest their shadows should fall into the grave and harm should thus be done to their persons. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the front of the funeral procession walk the noisy, musicless musicians; then come men (they may be friends, they may be coolies) bearing the insignia of the dignity of the dead, if he had any. Next walk more men carrying figures of animals, idols, umbrellas, and blue and white streamers. After them come men carrying pans of perfume. Just before the coffin walk bonzes—Chinese priests. Over the coffin a canopy is usually carried. The casket is borne by about a score of men. Immediately after the coffin walk the children of the deceased. ”

“ The coffin nothing but a few naked planks coarsely put together,—the want of a pall (that decent and well-imagined veil, which, hiding the coffin that hides the body, keeps that which would shock us at two removes from us) , the colored coats of the men that are hired, at cheap rates, to carry the body,—altogether give the notion of the deceased having been some person of an ill life and conversation, some one who may not claim the entire rites of Christian burial,—one by whom some parts of the sacred ceremony would be desecrated if they should be bestowed upon him. ”

“ If the guardians of consecrated sepulchres, in which people have paid an honest fee to be buried, are to dig them up and cart them off as in England, or make a show of them as here, why, I can only say that cremation will gain a good many converts. Any one would prefer urn burial to the chance of being thus made a spectacle. So good, too, it must be for the rising population to take off the edge of any salutary horror they may feel at death and decay, or of reverence for the dead. ”

“ In several rural districts in England, especially in the north, when a funeral takes place, a basin full of sprigs of box is placed at the door of the house where the corpse lies, and each person who attends the funeral takes a sprig of box as he enters the house, carries it in the funeral procession, and finally throws it into the grave of the deceased. ”

“ If a man accidentally found a body on the high-road, he was obliged to turn aside and bury it. When the people saw a funeral procession pass, they uncovered their heads and murmured a prayer. The laws against the violation of the sepulchres of the dead were most severe, and any one who was caught damaging a tomb was usually flogged for his trouble, but if he overthrew it and disturbed the body, he was burnt alive. ”