34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tentation of political officials begins in this way will presently find 

 verification from its harmony with the inference more clearly to be 

 established, that the sustentation of ecclesiastical officials thus origi- 

 nates. 



Since at first the double of the dead man is conceived as being 

 equally visible and tangible with the original, and as being no less liable 

 to pain, cold, hunger, thirst ; he is supposed similarly to want food, 

 drink, clothing, etc., and to be similarly propitiated by providing them 

 for him. So that, at the outset, presents to the dead differ from pres- 

 ents to the living neither in meaning nor motive. 



All over the world, in lower forms of society, past and present, we 

 find gifts to the dead paralleling gifts to the living. Food and drink 

 are left with the unburied corpse by Papuans, Tahitians, Sandwich- 

 Islanders, Malayans, Badagas, Karens, ancient Peruvians, Brazilians, 

 etc. Food and drink are afterward carried to the grave in Africa, by 

 the Sherbro people, the Loango people, the inland negroes, the Daho- 

 mans, etc. ; throughout the Indian hills by Bhils, Santals, Kukis, etc. ; 

 in America, by Caribs, Chibchas, Mexicans ; and the like usage was gen- 

 eral among ancient races in the East. Clothes are periodically taken as 

 presents to the dead by the Esquimaux. In Patagonia they annually 

 open the sepulchral chambers and reclothe the dead ; as did too the 

 ancient Peruvians. When a potentate dies among the Congo people, 

 the quantity of clothes given from time to time is so great " that, the 

 first hut in which the body is deposited becoming too small, a second, a 

 third, even to a sixth, increasing in dimensions, is placed over it." The 

 motive for thus trying to please the dead man is the same as would 

 have been the motive for trying to please the man while alive. When 

 we read that a chief among the New Caledonians says to the ghost of 

 his ancestor : " Compassionate father, here is some food for you ; eat 

 it; be kind to us on account of it;" or when the Veddah, calling by 

 name a deceased relative, says: "Come and partake of this! Give us 

 maintenance, as you did when living ! " we see it to be undeniable that 

 present-giving to the dead is the same as present -giving to the living, 

 with the sole exception that the receiver is invisible. 



Noting only that there is a like motive for a like propitiation of the 

 undistinguished supernatural beings which primitive men suppose to be 

 all around them noting that whether it be in the fragments of bread 

 and cake left for the elves, etc., by our Scandinavian ancestors, or in the 

 eatables and drinkables which at their feasts the Dyaks place on the 

 tops of the houses to f :ed the spirits, or in the small portions of food 

 cast aside and of drink poured out for the ghosts before beginning their 

 meals by various races throughout the world let us go on to observe 

 the developed present-making to the developed supernatural being. 

 The things given and the motives for giving them remain the same; 

 though the sameness is slightly disguised by the use of different words 



