24 King, Folk-lore of the North American hidians. 



Arawaks of South America, whose wives are said to dry 

 the bones of their dead husbands, reduce them to powder, 

 make an infusion and drink the mixture. The dead 

 were eaten possibly to keep the soul in the family, just as 

 at the death of an ancient Roman the nearest kinsman 

 leant over to inhale the last breath of the dying, or as 

 Algonkin mothers flocked to the side of the dying in the 

 hope of receiving the passing soul. 



2. The sacrifice was not eaten, it was flung away 

 in a desert place outside inhabited districts. Similarly, 

 there are tribes, as for instance in South Africa, who take 

 the dead away from their habitation, and leave the bodies 

 exposed to wild beasts. We may compare the towers of 

 silence of the Parsees and the practice of the ancient 

 Magi,* but in these cases there is the further notion that 

 earth, fire and water are not to be defiled by contact with 

 putrefying flesh. 



3. Lastly, where the sacrifice was not eaten, it or the 

 part of it which was not eaten was burnt or buried. Simi- 

 larly, in the case of dead bodies we have inhumation and 

 cremation. The corpse, like the sacrifice, is "taboo," a 

 source, that is, of very dangerous supernatural influences 

 of an infectious kind. 



I have not gone through all forms of burial. 

 Besides inhumation, whether in graves, caves, mounds, 

 &c., there is embalment, as with the Egyptian^ and 

 Chinese, urn burial, burial in trees and burial in water. 

 In a great many instances, with savages in different 

 parts of the world, there is a second burial. There 

 seems to have been a wide-spread wish to get rid of the 

 perishable part of the body before the final disposal of 

 the remains and laying of the ghost. Various means are 



* Ildt., i., 140, 



