Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/536

470 laid, was let go, and, with loud shouts, driven from the village, bearing away with it the guilt of the departed.

The bier was now carried a short distance down the hill, and, the body having been removed from it, new ceremonies were gone through with. Prayers were offered for the safe passage of the dead over an imaginary river in the spirit world, and a piece of money to pay his fare was placed in his mouth; the widow was brought near and stripped of her upper mantle and jewels, which were thrown upon the body; both body and bier were then carried to the borders of a little stream, wood was piled about it, offerings of grain thrown upon it, and the whole consumed.

The thoughtful reader will not fail to notice the universal acknowledgment, even by the most degraded tribes, of the necessity of some provision for the future world. In the ceremonies of some, the idea of sin and sacrifices for sin is a prominent one; in those of others, an effort is made to provide for wants which they believe to resemble the wants of this life. It is most rare to find a nation which does not recognise the necessity of some preparation or provision for the future world. But how dark