Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/786

766 seeks out a hollow tree, climbs it, drops down inside, and is from that moment numbered among those who have "passed on."

Other methods are observed by the red men. Some of them are exposed to the winds of heaven, upon platforms raised on poles, as our own Dakotas, Blackfeet, Mandans, and some Sioux; others are placed in trees, like the Ahts of Vancouver's Island, where the height of the body indicates the social position of the departed; and not a few simply lay the cast-off "garment" on the bosom of its Mother Earth for the winds and storms to dispose of. In one place the body, in a canoe, is committed to the "mother of all things," the sea; and among the Hindoos it is often devoted to the sacred Ganges, lying on a platform with candles at the corners.

The largest number of civilized people, including all Christendom, bury in the earth, and, far less wise than the simple Indians whose ways we scorn, endeavor to keep as long as possible the "shell from which the pearl is gone" from its natural and much to-be-desired fate, dispersal into the elements. This custom of burial arose partly from the desire of Christians to imitate the dead Christ, who—as a Jew—was buried; partly from a belief in the resurrection of the body, and also influenced, no doubt, by the difficulty during the early persecutions of performing Christian rites at a burning which must necessarily be public.

The curious and peculiar manners connected with burial in the earth are almost numberless, and edifying in the extreme. The position differs: some sit as in life, and others are held standing, though most lie naturally. The direction of the head varies. Many of our Indians turn the face to the west, toward their "happy land"; a few turn to the east. The dead Japanese heads toward the north, for which reason the living never sleep that way, and, to avoid the chance of it, carry a compass, or mark its points on their houses. The Bongos of Africa carry the distinctions of sex into the grave, and set the faces of men to the north and of women to the south; while the Niam-Niam, a neighboring tribe, consider the east the point of honor, and the west good enough for the weaker sex. Quaintest of all is the burial of an aged clergyman, a life-long pastor in an old-fashioned village on Long Island, who is laid with his feet toward his congregation, so that on the last day, when the trump shall sound, he may rise facing them as usual, and prepared to lead them, a united flock—his flock—into the Kingdom.

Urn burial has attracted much attention since it was brought prominently before the world at the Vienna Exposition some fifteen years ago. There had been a spasmodic revival of interest in this manner of disposal of the body both in France and Italy, but nothing of importance till this exposition. A warm convert,