672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Bechuanas, Samoieds, Ojibways, Algonquins, Laosians, Hindoos, Thibe- 

 tans, Siamese, Chinese, and Feejeeans. These special openings, or "doors 

 of the dead," are still to be seen in a village near Amsterdam, and they 

 were common in some towns of central Italy, as Perugia and Assisi.* 

 A trace of the same custom survives in Thiiringen, where it was thought 

 that the ghost of a man who has been hanged will return to tbe house 

 if the body be not taken out by a window instead of the door.f 



The Siamese, not content with carrying the dead man out by a 

 special opening, endeavor to make assurance doubly sure by hurrying 

 him three times round the house at full speed a proceeding well cal- 

 culated to bewilder the poor soul in the coffin.J 



The Araucanians adopt the plan of strewing ashes behind the coffin 

 as it is being borne to the grave, in order that the ghost may not be 

 able to find his way back.* 



The very general practice of closing the eyes of the dead appears 

 to have originated with a similar object ; it was a mode of blindfold- 

 ing the dead, that he might not see the way by which he was carried to 

 his last home. At the grave, where he was to rest forever, there was 

 of course no motive for concealment ; hence the Romans,| and ap- 

 parently the Siamese, A opened the eyes of the dead man at the funeral 

 pyre, just as we should unbandage the eyes of an enemy after conduct- 

 ing him to his destination. The notion that, if the eyes of the dead 

 be not closed, his ghost will return to fetch away another of the house- 

 hold, still exists in Germany, Bohemia, and England. Q In some parts 

 of Russia they place a coin on each of the dead man's eyes. J 



With a similar object, the corpse is carried out of the house feet 

 foremost, for if he were carried out head foremost his eyes would be 

 turned toward the door, and he might therefore find his way back. 

 This custom is observed, and this reason is assigned for it, in many 

 parts of Germany and among the Indians of Chili4 Conversely, in 



* Yule on Marco Polo, i, p. 188 ; Crantz, " Greenland," i, p. 237 ; ' Tylor, " Prim. Cult.," 

 ii, p. 26; Waitz, " Anthropologic," iii, p. 199; Williams and Calvert, "Feejee," p. 168 

 Sonntag, p. 51 ; Bastian, "Mensch," ii, p. 322; Klemm, ii, pp. 221, 225; id., iii, p. 293 

 C. Bock, " Temples and Elephants," p. 262 ; Pallegoix, " Siam," i, p. 245 ; Bowring, " Siam,' 

 i, p. 222 ; Gubernatis, p. 52 ; C. J. Anderson, " Lake Ngami," 466. A dead pope is car- 

 ried out by a special door, which is then blocked up till the next pope dies. 



f Wuttke, 756. 



% Pallegoix, " Siam," i, p. 245 ; Bowring, " Siam," i, p. 222. In some parts of Scot- 

 land the body used to be carried three times round the church (C. Rogers, " Social Life in 

 Scotland," i, p. 167). 



* Klemm, v, p. 51 ; "Wood, " Natural History of Man," ii, p. 565. 

 1 Pliny, N. II., xi, 150. 



A C. Bock saw that the eyes of a dead man at the pyre were open (in Siam), and he 

 says that in Lao it was the custom to close the eyes of the dead (" Temples and Elephants," 

 pp. 58, 261). 



Wuttke, 725 ; Dyer, " English Folk-lore," p. 230; Grohmann, "Aberglauben," p. 188. 



% Gubernatis, " Usi funebri," p. 50. 



X Wuttke, 736 ; Klemm, ii, p. 101. 



