Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/862

 82(5 FUNERAL RITES mourning ended, and the relatives might appear in public again. It was customary afterwards to visit the tomb and leave garlands, and burn meals as offerings to the dead. The Roman ceremonies were analogous. Burial was the earlier custom. Burning was not general till the republic, but was universal under the empire ; the preparation of the body for burial or cremation was performed by a hired body called polliiictores. The corpse was dressed in its best, if a magistrate, in official robes ; and if he had while alive been crowned, then wearing the crown. In early times the burial took place at night, but in later times this was the practice only of the poor who could not afford a funeral display. On the eighth day the body was carried to the grave in a stone coffin on a wooden, or in some cases a golden, bier, amid music and lamentation, and sometimes mimic repre sentations of the life and merits of the deceased by profes sional players. The sons of the deceased went veiled, and the women beat their breasts. When the body was burned, oil, perfumes, ornaments, and everything supposed to be agree able to the deceased were thrown into the tire. On returning from the funeral friends were purified by sprinkling them selves with water or stepping over a fire. Mourning lasted nine days, and on the ninth a funeral sacrificial feast was celebrated, sometimes with games and gladiatorial combats. The funeral rites of ancient Egypt were too elaborate to be described here. Their chief peculiarities were the em balming of the body and the judgment of the dead before burial. It is an error to suppose the embalming took place in order to preserve the body for a future state, for there is no evidence that the Egyptians believed in the resurrec tion of the body, and embalming could nob have reference to that belief if they did, for the whole body was not pre served, but some of the most important internal parts were taken out first ; besides, they embalmed not only men, but the lower animals also. The mummy was often kept in the house a whole year before being buried, and during that interval feasts were held in honour of the dead, and the tomb was being prepared. Then the case was taken out, set on a hearse, taken by a sledge to the sacred lake of the uome, across which it was carried in a boat by a boatman called Charon, and then deposited in the tomb on the other side. Before being allowed to cross, however, the judgment of the dead took place before forty-two judges summoned for the purpose ; any one was allowed to bring forward any accusation against the deceased, and if he had led an evil life burial was refused. If there was no accusation, then the relatives ceased lamenting and pronounced encomiums, enlarging not on his descent, as among the Greeks, but on his personal merits. The denial of burial was not per petual, however, its duration being measured by the extent of the crimes of the deceased. A gold or silver plate was put into the mouth of the mummy, not as a fee to the ferry man, but as a passport or certificate of good character. _ The Russians have a similar custom of putting a passport (in their case a paper one) into the hand of the deceased as a testimonial of his virtue, to be shown to Peter at the gate of heaven. More curious still are the custom of the Badages of the Nilgherry Hills, who let loose a scape calf at the grave to take away the dead man s sins, and the practice men tioned by Brand as prevailing in Wales at one time, of em ploying sin-eaters, men who receive a loaf over the corpse, and eating it take upon them all the sins of the deceased. The Mahometans bury their dead usually on the day of death. The prophet forbade wailing, but this prohibition is generally neglected. Even hired wailing women are employed by some, who wail during all the time the corpse is m the house and on the way to the grave ; parts of the Koran are recited by religious officials in the house. In the funeral procession the male relatives go in front of the bier, and are preceded by four or six poor old men, mostly blind, who chant the profession of faith, and followed by four or six schoolboys who chant passages from a poem descriptive of the last judgment; wbile the female relatives come behind the bier, accompanied by the wailing women with their tambourines, and cry and shriek, and celebrate the praises of the deceased. If the dead man was rich, then several camels follow bearing bread and water to give the poor at the tomb, and last of all comes a buffalo to be slaughtered there for the same purpose. The bier is then brought to the mosque, laid in the usual place of prayer, with the right side towards Mecca ; and the imam standing at its left side, with the people behind him, recites the funeral service, after which he calls upon those present to give their testimony respecting the dead, and they reply, &quot; He was of the virtuous.&quot; The body is then laid in the tomb, and is there instructed in the answers to be given to ques tions, such as Who is God, and who is his apostle ? which the angels are expected to put. Christian rites are marked by high reverence for the body, due to the belief in its future resurrection. Under Christian influence cremation gradually disappeared from Europe, northern and southern alike, and burial became universal, as being more expressive of the truth held so precious. Christians bury in separate places of their own, which, ex cept among Presbyterians and other sections of Protestants, have been usually consecrated for the purpose by a special ceremony. Interment in churches of favourite martyrs and apostles was at one time much sought after, and had to be repeatedly forbidden by ecclesiastical councils. Bishops and distinguished churchmen or laymen were some times allowed to be buried in the church, only not near the altar. Among the early Christians the washing and anoint ing ot the body for the burial were not done by hired persons, but were counted a work of love, done by friend for friend, and by the charitable for the poor and the stranger. The body was swathed in white, decked some times with the insignia of office or personal ornaments, placed in a coffin and laid out in the church or in the chamber of death for friends to come and take a last look at it. Three or four days usually elapsed between the death and burial, and vigils were held with prayers and hymn- singing. Hired mourners were forbidden. The funeral took place by day, for, Christian death being a victory, it was meant to give the procession the aspect of a triumph ; for which reason those who took part in it carried branches, not of cypress, as among the Romans, but of palm and olive. Evergreen leaves were strewn on the coffin, but the practice of crowning the head with wreaths was forbidden, as savouring of idolatry. Lamps and torches, however, were sometimes carried. The body was borne on a bier, and covered with a pall costly in proportion to the rank of the deceased. It was laid in the grave with face upward and feet to the east, in token of the resurrection at the coming again of the Sun of Righteousness. A service took place at the grave, and, as a rule, does so still among most Christians. In Scotland this was abolished at the Reforma tion, as being liable to be mingled with superstitious ideas, and a service and exhortation in the church were recom mended instead, but this is seldom practised. Christian burial in consecrated ground, and with a religious service, was denied by canon law to all who were not Christians, to excommunicated persons, suicides, criminals, usurers, schis matics, heretics, and, among Roman Catholics, even un- baptized children of Christian parents. The eucharist was celebrated at the grave as early as the 4th century ; and for some centuries, in spite of repeated prohibition by ecclesiastical councils, the practice prevailed in West Africa, Gaul, and the East, of placing the consecrated bread itself, steeped in wine, in the lips of the dead. An other practice, which has indeed the sanction of Basil,