ELDEST MALE DESCENDANTS AS QUASl-PIilESTS. 710 



Aryans. Sir Henry Maine quotes the appeal of a Greek 

 orator on behalf of a litigant &quot; Decide between us, which 

 of us should have the succession and make the sacrifices at 

 the tomb.&quot; And he points out that &quot; the number, costliness, 

 and importance of these ceremonies and oblations [to the 

 dead] among the Eomans,&quot; were such that even when they 

 came to be less regarded, &quot; the charges for them were still a 

 heavy burden on Inheritances.&quot; Nay, even in mediaeval 

 Christendom there survived the same general conception in a 

 modified form. Personal property was held to be &quot; primarily 

 a fund for the celebration of masses to deliver the soul of the 

 owner from purgatory.&quot; 



That these obligations to the dead had a religious character, 

 is shown by the fact that where they have survived down, 

 to our own day, they take precedence of all other obliga 

 tions. In India &quot; a man may be pardoned for neglecting all 

 his social duties, but he is for ever cursed if he fails to 

 perform the funeral obsequies of his parents, and to present 

 them with the offerings due to them.&quot; 



600. That we may the better comprehend early ideas of 

 the claim supposed to be made by the double of the dead 

 man on his property and his heir, it will be well to give some 

 ancient examples of the way in which a son, or one who by 

 a fiction stands in the position of a son, speaks of, or speaks 

 to, his actual or nominal father who has died. 



In Egypt, at Beni-hassan, an inscription by Chnumhotep 

 S1 y s I made to flourish the name of my father, and I built 

 the chapels for his ka. I caused my statues to be conveyed 

 to the holy dwelling, and distributed to them their offerings 

 in pure gifts. I instituted the officiating priest, to whom I gave 

 donations in lands and peasants.&quot; Similarly at Abydos, Eameses 

 II says concerning the worship of his father, Seti I : 



&quot; I dedicated to thee the lands of the South for the service of thy 

 temple, and the lands of the North, they bring to thee their gifts before 

 thy beautiful countenance ... I fixed for thee the number of the fields 

 . . . great is their number according to their valuation in acres. I 



