Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/698

 water over his face. The intention of this latter proceeding can hardly be doubtful—it is a last effort to stop the soul about to take flight forever. So among the Abipones, a dying man is surrounded by a crowd of old crones brandishing rattles, stamping and yelling, while every now and then one of them flings water over his face so long as there is breath left in his body. The same practice of throwing water over the sick is observed also in China, Siam, Siberia, and Hungary.

By analogy, the origin of the Caffre custom of kindling a fire beside a sick person, the Russian practice of fumigating him, and the Persian practice of lighting a fire on the roof of a house where any one is ill, may perhaps be found in the intention of interposing a barrier of fire to prevent the escape of the soul. For, with regard to the custom of lighting a fire on the roof, it is a common belief that spirits pass out and in through a hole in the roof. In the same way I would explain the extraordinary custom in Lao and Siam of surrounding a mother after childbirth with a blazing fire, within which she has regularly to stay for weeks after the birth of the child. The object, I take it, is to hem in the fluttering soul at this critical period with an impassable girdle of fire. Conversely, among the Caffres a widow must stay by herself beside a blazing fire for a month after her husband's death—no doubt in order to get rid of his ghost. If any confirmation of this interpretation of the Siamese practice were needed, it