Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/437

Rh On the other hand the Peruvian custom was to place the dead huddled up in a sitting posture and with faces turned to the west. Barbaric Asia may be represented by the modern Ainos of Yesso, burying the dead lying robed in white with the head to the east, 'because that is where the sun rises;' or by the Tunguz who bury with the head to the west; or by the mediæval Tatars, raising a great mound over the dead, and setting up thereon a statue with face turned toward the east, holding a drinking-cup in his hand before his navel; or by the modern Siamese, who do not sleep with their heads to the west, because it is in this significant position that the dead are burned. The burial of the dead among the ancient Greeks in the line of east and west, whether according to Athenian custom of the head toward the sunset, or the converse, is another link in the chain of custom. Thus it is not to late and isolated fancy, but to the carrying on of ancient and widespread solar ideas, that we trace the well-known legend that the body of Christ was laid with the head toward the west, thus looking eastward, and the Christian usage of digging graves east and west, which prevailed through mediæval times and is not yet forgotten. The rule of laying the head to the west, and its meaning that the dead shall rise looking toward the east, are perfectly stated in the following passage from an ecclesiastical treatise of the 16th century: 'Debet autem quis sic sepeliri, ut capite ad occidentem posito, pedes dirigat ad orientem, in quo quasi ipsa positione orat: et innuit quod promptus est, ut de occasu festinet ad ortum: de mundo ad seculum.'