682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



eaten, and if we make this supposition I venture to think that we have 

 a clew to the origin of fasting after a death. People in fact originally 

 refrained from eating just in those circumstances in which they con- 

 sidered that they might possibly in eating have devoured a ghost. 

 This supposition explains why, so long as the corpse is in the house, 

 the mourners may eat outside of the house but not in it. Again, it 

 explains why those who have been in contact with the dead and have 

 not yet purified themselves (i. e., have not yet placed a barrier between 

 themselves and the ghost) are not allowed to touch the food they eat ; 

 obviously the ghost might be clinging to them and might be trans- 

 ferred from their person to the food, and so eaten. 



This theory further explains the German superstition mentioned 

 above, that no one within hearing must eat while the passing-bell is 

 tolling. For the passing-bell is rung when a soul is issuing for the 

 last time from its mortal tabernacle, and, if any one in the neighbor- 

 hood were at this moment to eat, who knows but that his teeth might 

 close on the passing soul ? This explanation is confirmed by the com- 

 panion superstition that no one should sleep while the passing-bell is 

 tolling, else will his sleep be the sleep of death.* Put into primitive 

 language, this means that, as the soul quits the body in sleep, if it 

 chanced in this, its temporary absence, to fall in with a soul that was 

 taking its eternal flight, it might, perhaps, be coaxed or bullied into 

 accompanying it, and might thus convert what had been intended to 

 be merely a ramble, into a journey to that bourn from which no trav- 

 eler returns. 



All this time, however, Plutarch has been waiting for his answer ; 

 but, perhaps, as he has already waited two thousand years, he will not 

 object to be kept in suspense a very little longer. For the sake of 

 brevity in what remains, I will omit all mention of the particular 

 usages upon a comparison of which my answer is based, and will con- 

 fine myself to stating in the briefest way their general result. 



We have seen the various devices which the ingenuity of early 

 man struck out for the purpose of giving an "iron welcome to the 

 dead." In all of them, however, it was presupposed that the body 

 was in the hands of the survivors, and had been by them securely 

 buried ; that was the first and most essential condition, and, if it was 

 not fulfilled, no amount of secondary precautions would avail to bar 

 the ghost. 



But what happened when the body could not be found, as when the 

 man died at sea or abroad? Here the all-important question was, 

 What could be done to lay the wandering ghost ? For wander he 

 would, till his body was safe under the sod, and, by supposition, his 

 body was not to be found. The case was a difficult one, but early man 



* Sonntag, ibid. ; cf. Wuttke, 726. In Scotland it was an old custom not to allow 

 any one to sleep in the house where a sick person was at the point of death (C. Rogers, 

 " Social Life in Scotland," i, p. 152). 



