624 SUMMARY OF PROGRESS IN ANTHROPOLOGY. 



ance with tliis detiiiitiou it would be iiet'essaiy tiirtlier to explain its 

 verbal elements.* 



Religion, as it enters the field of comparative or scientific stndy, is 

 what men think concerning a spirit world and what they do in pursu- 

 ance of such thinking. The thoughts of a spirit world involve the fol- 

 lowing questions: 



(1) Its location and physiography, systems of cosmogony. 



(2) Its peoples, their forms, origins, lives, thoughts, sayings, etc. 



(3) Its government, including its entire social system. 



(4) Its relation to this world. 



The operative side of religion, or the cult, includes also 

 (1) The place of worship and its fittings in all their details. 

 (L*) The organization of society on the basis of religion and the place 

 of each individual in the system. 



(3) The conduct in and with respect to the holy place, including 

 prayer, sacrifice, fasting, incense, music, decorations, feasts, preaching. 



(4) Piety or everyday conduct toward the gods, especially the con- 

 duct of the laity. 



(5) Sacred books or what took their place in more primitive society. 

 The Musee des Religions, or the Guimct Museum in Paris, i)ublishes 

 La Revue des Religious and special monographs. 



For American religions study the w^orks of Brinton, Boas, Dorsey, 

 Powell. 



At a meeting of the Anthropological Society of Washington the sub- 

 ject of breaking vases deposited with the dead Avas discussed. Mr. 

 Cushing said that formerly the notion at the basis of the custom was 

 to kill the vessel and send its spirit to dwell with the owner in the 

 other wM)rld. In modern times the custom also was a precaution 

 against gra\e robbers. Prof. N. G. Poletis, of the University of 

 Athens, works out the study of breaking vessels as a funeral rite of 

 modern Greece. Vessels either specially detlicated to the deceased or 

 having been used at funeral rites are broken at the grave. Fragments 

 of vases have been discovered on the Bathron, at the upper opening 

 of tombs at Myceiue; huge heaps of potsherds are found at old Alex- 

 andria, Greek, Egyptian, and Roman, belonging to various epochs. 

 The present Greek custom is to break clay vessels upon the grave, and 

 also as the remains ])ass out in front of the dead man's house. Some- 

 times the same thing goes on along the whole road following the 

 funeral. While the priest pronounces the words: "Dust thou art and 

 unto dust slialt thou return,'' he pours water upon the grave from a 

 vessel specially brought for the purpose. This done the vessel is 

 instantly broken while the priest fiings with it upon the grave a hand- 

 ful of earth. (J. Anihrop. I))st., xxiii, L'8-41.) 



In his course of lectures in the Iilcole d'Anthropologie, M. Andre 



' Edward Caird. The evolutiou of religion. Giflord Lectures, 1890-91 and 1891- 

 '92. Glasgow, 1893, Maclchose, 2 vols., 400 and 334 pages. 



