Page:Books on Egypt and Chaldaea, Vol. 25--Liturgy of Funeral Offerings.pdf/80

 are forcibly bent, and the body placed in the wicker coffin. In the house two stages are raised, one above the other; on the upper one is placed the coffin, on the lower one a large earthen pot. The body decomposes; a noxious liquid infested with maggots escapes from it and falls into the receptacle; it is left there for several weeks.” The Belgian missionary who describes the chief's burial does not tell us what was done with the “noxious liquid,” but, as human flesh and bones form an important element in the “medicines” which are prescribed by medicine men in Central Africa, we are probably justified in assuming that the liquid was used in the same way.

 

The first ceremony removed evil or sin from the body of the deceased, the second gave it warmth, and the third restored to it the humours which had been expressed from it. For the fourth ceremony the priest dissolved five grains of incense made from the salt deposits near the city of Nekheb, i.e., “Incense of the South,” in a libation vase of water, and, having poured it into a vessel, walked with it four times round the mummy or statue, and sprinkled it each time. The name given to this libation water is “Semmȧn,”  and of the five grains of salt, or alum, which it contained, one was for Horus, one for Set, one for Thoth, one for Sep, and one for Osiris, that