THE PRIMITIVE GHOST AND HIS RELATIONS. 669 



house ? " The curious custom to which Plutarch here refers prevails 

 in modern Persia, for we read in "Hajji Baba" (c. 18) of the man who 

 went through " the ceremony of making his entrance over the roof, 

 instead of through the door ; for such is the custom, when a man who 

 has been thought dead returns home alive." From a passage in Aga- 

 thias (ii, 23) we may, perhaps, infer that the custom in Persia is at 

 least as old as the sixth century of our era. A custom so remote from 

 our modern ways must necessarily have its roots far back in the his- 

 tory of our race. Imagine a modern Englishman, whom his friends 

 had given up for dead, rejoining the home circle by coming down the 

 chimney instead of entering by the front door ! In this paper I propose 

 to show that the custom originated in certain primitive beliefs and 

 observances touching the dead beliefs and observances by no means 

 confined to Greece and Rome, but occurring in similar if not identical 

 forms in many parts of the world. 



The importance attached by the Romans in common with most 

 other nations to the due performance of burial rites is well known, and 

 need not be insisted on. For the sake of my argument, however, it is 

 necessary to point out that the attentions bestowed on the dead sprang 

 not so much from the affections as from the fears of the survivors. 

 For, as every one knows, ghosts of the unburied dead haunt the earth 

 and make themselves exceedingly disagreeable, especially to their 

 undutiful relatives. Instances would be superfluous ; it is the way of 

 ghosts all the world over, from Brittany to Samoa.* But burial by 

 itself was by no means a sufficient safeguard against the return of the 

 ghost ; many other precautions were taken by primitive man for the 

 purpose of excluding or barring the importunate dead. Some of these 

 precautions I w T ill now enumerate. They exhibit an ingenuity and fer- 

 tility of resource worthy of a better cause. 



In the first place, an appeal was made to the better feelings of the 

 ghost. He was requested to go quietly to the grave, and at the grave 

 he was requested to stay there.f 



But to meet the possible case of hardened ghosts, upon whom moral 

 persuasion would be thrown away, more energetic measures were 

 resorted to. Thus among the South Slavonians and Bohemians, the 

 bereaved family, returning from the grave, pelted the ghost of their 

 deceased relative with sticks, stones, and hot coals.J The Tschuwas- 

 che, a tribe in Finland, had not even the decency to wait till he was 

 fairly in the grave, but opened fire on him as soon as the coffin was 

 outside the house.* 



Again, heavy stones were piled on his grave to keep him down, on 



* Sebillot, " Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne," i, p. 238 ; Turner, 

 " Nineteen Years in Polynesia," p. 233. 



f Gray, " China," i, pp. 300, 304. 



% Ralston, " Songs of the Russian People," p. 319 ; Bastian, " Mensch," ii, p. 329. 



* Castren, "Finnische Mythologie," p. 120. 



