Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/559

 with soap and soda. The work continued for two days. At the end of that time the bones were shown white and clean. All else had disappeared—had probably been burnt in secret, but the secret was kept close. It was therefore claimed and allowed that dissolution was complete.

The attitude adopted by the relatives on this occasion makes it perfectly clear that all the care expended on the dead is obligatory up to the time of dissolution, but no longer. So long as the fleshly substance remains in this world, provision of food must be made for it; when it has disappeared and only the bones are left, the departed cease to be dependent upon their surviving relatives, and no further anxiety is felt for their welfare.

Nor must it be supposed that the cleaning and whitening of the bones in the case which I have described had anything to do with a desire to preserve the bones as relics of the dead. Such a custom is indeed well known in Greek monasteries; at Megaspélaeon, for instance, the wealthiest and most famous monastery of Greece proper, there is an ossuary in which the monks take great pride. On one side, ranged against the wall, stands a large triangular heap of skulls; the opposite wall is decorated with cleverly-designed geometrical figures carried out in other bones; while in a corner perhaps may be seen a basket or two full of material awaiting the decorator's convenience. My guide, I remember, pointed out to me the skulls of many of the distinguished monks of past time, and indicated with great satisfaction the spot which he had bespoken for his own. But the usage of monastic bodies has in truth little bearing upon the popular semi-pagan beliefs and customs; the practice of storing up the bones of members of a religious order in an ossuary is more closely akin to the old custom of preserving relics of saints and martyrs; it is to the usage of the common-folk in such matters that we must look. And what do they do with the white or whitened bones? They throw them away and expend no more care upon them. At Leonídi itself, close beside the fenced-in burial-ground, but unprotected from the intrusion of man or beast, there is a square open pit into which the bones of many generations have been tipped like rubbish, lying at random in confusion as they fell. Nor is this a solitary case. In far-away Sciathos I recall the same scene as at Leonídi—a chapel set on a