Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/508

 Again in the case of a man drowned at sea or having met his death in any way which precluded the possibility of his body being brought home for burial, a means has always been found for fulfilling 'the mysterious law of piety.' Still, as in old time, the cenotaph serves the same end as the real sepulchre. A lay-figure, dressed if possible in some clothes of the dead man, receives on his behalf the full rite of burial ; and if enquiry be made, to what purpose this empty ceremony, the answer is not slow in coming, [Greek: gia na lyôthê ho pethamenos], 'to the end that the dead man may be dissolved'; nor can I doubt that the same formal rite in old time served the same end.

And let no practical-minded critic here interpose the objection that a dead body lying unburied, exposed to sun and rain, must decompose at least as rapidly as one that has been buried; I have myself tried the effect of that criticism on the Greek peasants with instructive results. Once my suggestion was promptly met with a flat and honest denial—the most simple and final of answers, for, be it remembered, it is with the honest beliefs of the peasant, and not with physical facts, that we are dealing. Another time there was a pause, and then came the deliberate answer, [Greek: brômaei to kormi, den lyônetai], 'the corpse becomes putrid, but is not "loosed".' There was a distinction in the peasant's mind between natural decomposition and the dissolution effected by a religious rite. But more often it has been pointed out to me that my apparently reasonable suggestion was really unpractical; a dead body left unburied would never suffer natural decay, but would be a prey to the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air; the vultures circling yonder overhead convicted me of unreason. And the answer could not but recall the threats of Achilles against Hector, or the fears of Antigone for Polynices, that dogs and carrion-birds should feast upon the corpse. So then it is perhaps a logical as well as an honest belief which the Greeks have always held, that dissolution of the body is afforded by one of two rites and by no third means.

Now one of these rites, inhumation, might on occasion be reduced to a mere ceremonial observance, the scattering of a handful of dust over the body, or the interment of an effigy in its, p. 46.]