676 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hand and foot by the priest, who flings her into the water several 

 times over, with the intention of drowning her husband's ghost, who 

 may be supposed to be clinging to his unfeeling spouse.* In Angola, 

 for a similar purpose, widows adopt the less inconvenient practice of 

 ducking their late husbands, f In New Zealand all who have attended 

 a funeral betake themselves to the nearest stream and plunge several 

 times, head under, in the water. \ In Feejee the sextons always washed 

 themselves after a burial.* In Tahiti all who assisted at a burial fled 

 precipitately and plunged into the sea, casting also into the sea the 

 garments they had worn.|| In some parts of West Africa, after the 

 corpse has been deposited in the grave, "all the bearers rush to the 

 water-side and undergo a thorough ablution before they are permitted 

 to return to the town." A 



But the barrier by water, like the barrier by fire, often dwindled 

 into a mere stunted survival. Thus, after a Roman funeral it was 

 enough to carry water three times round the persons who had been 

 engaged in it and to sprinkle them with the water. Q In China, on 

 the fifth day after a death, the mourners merely wash their eyes and 

 sprinkle their faces three times with water.J In Cappadocia and 

 Crete persons returning from a funeral wash their hands.$ In Samoa 

 they wash their faces and hands with hot water.J In ancient India 

 it was enough merely to touch water.** In Greece, so long as a dead 

 body was in the house, a vessel of water stood before the street-door 

 that all who left the house might sprinkle themselves with it.ff Note 

 that in this case the water had to be fetched from another house 

 water taken from the house in which the corpse lay would not do. 

 The significance of this fact I shall have occasion to point out pres- 

 ently. 



When considered along with the facts I have mentioned, it can 

 hardly be doubted that the original intention of this sprinkling with 

 water was to wash off the ghost who might be following from the 

 house of death ; and in general I think we may lay down the rule 

 that, wherever we find a so-called purification by fire or water from 

 pollution contracted by contact with the dead, we may assume with 

 much probability that the original intention was to place a physical 



* Sonntag, p. 113. \ Id., p. 115. 

 X Yates, "New Zealand," p. 137 ; Klemm, iv, p. 305. 



* Williams and Culvert, "Feejee," p. 163, ed. 1870. 

 I Ellis, " Polynesian Researches," i, p. 403. 



A Wilson, quoted by Gardner, " Faiths of the World," i, p. 938 ; cf. Brinton, " Myths 

 of the New World," p. 133 ; Ellis, "History of Madagascar," i, p. 238. 



Virgil, "iEn.," vi, 228, where Servius speaks of carrying /re round similarly. 



i Gray, " China," i, p. 305. 



% Wachsmuth, p. 120. 



j Turner, " Polynesia," p. 228. 



** Monier Williams, " Religious Thought and Life in India," pp. 283, 288. 



ft Pollux, viii, 65 ; Hesychius and Suidas, s.v., apSdvwv. Cf. Wachsmuth, ibid., p. 109. 



