680 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to after the burial for the purpose of barring the ghost were avoided 

 so long as the corpse was in the house, from fear no doubt of hurt- 

 ing and offending the ghost. Thus we saw that an axe laid on the 

 threshold or a knife hung over the door after the coffin has been car- 

 ried out, has power to exclude the ghost, who could not enter with- 

 out cutting himself. Conversely, so long as the corpse is still in the 

 house, the use of sharp-edged instruments should be avoided in case 

 they might wound the ghost. Thus for seven days after a death, the 

 corpse being still in the house, the Chinese refrain from the use of 

 knives and needles and even of chopsticks, eating their food with their 

 fingers.* So at the memorial feasts to which they invited the dead, 

 the Russians ate without using knives.f In Germany a knife should 

 not be left edge-upward, lest it hurt the ghosts or the angels. \ They 

 even say that if you see a child in the fire and a knife on its back, you 

 should run to the knife before the child.* Again, we saw that the 

 Romans and the Germans swept the ghost, without more ado, out of 

 his own house. On the other hand, the more considerate negroes on 

 the Congo abstain for a whole year from sweeping the house where a 

 man has died, lest the dust should annoy the ghost. |) Again, we have 

 seen the repugnance of ghosts to water. Hence, when a death took 

 place, the Jews used to empty all the water in the house into the 

 street, lest the ghost should fall in and be drowned. A In Burmah, when 

 the coffin is being carried out, every vessel in the house containing 

 water is emptied. Q In some parts of Bohemia, after a death, they 

 turn the water-butt upside down, because, if the ghost happened to 

 bathe in it and any one drank of it afterward, he would be a dead man 

 within the year. \ We can now appreciate the significance of the fact 

 mentioned above, that in Greece the lustral water before the door of a 

 house where a dead body lay had always to be fetched from a neigh- 

 boring house. For, if the water had been taken from the house of 

 death, who could tell but that the ghost might be disporting himself 

 in it ? % In Pomerania, even after a burial, no washing is done in the 

 house for some time, lest the dead man should be wet in his grave. % 

 Among the old Iranians no moisture was allowed to rest on the bread 



* Gray, " China," i, p. 283. 



f Ralston, "Songs of the Russian People," p. 321. 



% Grimm, " Deutsche Mythologie," iii, pp. 441, 454 ; Tettau u. Temme, p. 285 ; Groh- 

 mann, p. 198. 



* Grimm, ibid., p. 469. 



f Bastian, " Mensch," ii, p. 323. On the day of the funeral the Albanians refrain from 

 sweeping the place on which the corpse lay. Ilahn, " Albanesische Studien," p. 152. 



A Gardner, " Faiths of the World," i, p. 676. 



Forbes, " British Burmah," p. 95. 



\ Grohmann, 198. 



% Hence among the Jews all open vessels in the chamber of death were " unclean " 

 Numbers xix, 15). 



% Wuttke, 737. 



