258 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



more a ghost's power waned and it eventually wandered away 

 to a spiritual afterworld, which varied according to location and 

 tribes. Then, it was sometimes worshiped as an ancestor, espe- 

 cially when the individual had attained great stature during life. 

 Fear, however, was the predominating emotion inspired by such 

 progenitors. 



The motivating factor leading to burial of the dead was 

 fear of ghosts; the idea was to dispose of the body and demon 

 at one stroke. Some measure of peace and security was apparently 

 felt when a subject was buried five or six feet below the surface 

 of the ground. Cremation was one of the earliest methods of dis- 

 posing of the departed because it was judged to be the most effec- 

 tive way of handling both body and spirit. At one time, it 

 threatened to become a universal practice. 



Another important concept among primitives was that of re- 

 incarnation, especially that which held that a spirit could return 

 to the human body. Under such a belief, violation of the dead was 

 highly contraindicated. 



The primitive concepts of death were naturally carried over 

 into the early period of civilization. The new ideas advanced in 

 some quarters were those of personal salvation and retribution 

 in a heavenly afterlife; in other words, what an individual does 

 in this world may be of paramount significance to him in another. 

 Associated with this trend, was the origination of specific myths 

 revolving around events said to have occurred during the life of 

 certain selected gods, particularly in Egypt. The story of this de- 

 velopment is intimately related to the genesis of ancient religions. 



In ancient China, demons, ghosts, vampires and werewolves 

 populated the country and they could do all kinds of mischief. 

 Defense against them was by means of magic or the enlistment 

 of gods as allies. Confucius was reticent about an afterlife; Buddha 

 preached the doctrine of retribution. 



Under Shintoism, in Japan, the people had a fear of their 

 dead. Contact with a corpse, was automatically avoided because 

 it made a person unclean and defiled. Such contamination might 

 infect a whole community. 



