Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/67

Rh bear directly on burial customs, as in the Arctic, where the shallow frozen soil makes deep inhumation impossible; but also indirectly in its effect on local imagination and therefore on the character of belief. Such conceptions may indeed differ as greatly as the Valhalla of the hardy Norsemen from the languorous paradise of the Orient. Perhaps, however, enough has been said to indicate that, when all these complicating considerations are set aside, there remain substantial reasons for holding that the ritual of burial as such has played an important part in determining the development of belief.