Funeral. 
38 FUNERAL. 
humanely prohibited. Sometimes the slaves and friends 
of the ancients voluntarily sacrificed themselves on'the 
pile of the deceased; and those wives, who were, not 
dragged to be murdered at the tomb, or by a horrible 
solemnity buried alive in the same grave, sometimes pe- 
rished .by voluntary immolation. It is recorded in 
history, .that one of the earlier kings.of Sweden hav- 
ing, \in the heat of battle, vowed to sacrifice him- 
self in ten years to the gods, should they then propi- 
tiate his cause; his queen accidentally discovered the 
fact, and, to anticipate the necessity of being) buried 
alive when the event should happen, separated from him 
during life. The northern. nations believed in a kind 
of elysium, or ethereal palace, where their resurrection 
would take place amidst their usual.earthly enjoyments; 
and slaves conceived, that admission would be:denied 
them, unless they accompanied their masters, whence a 
contempt of death, unknown to posterity, was inspired. 
Among the ancient Thracians, it appears that the favou- 
rite wife was put to death by her nearest relations at the 
tomb of her deceased. husband, and interred along with 
him; and if he had more than one wife, a contest arose 
for permission to offer this token. of affection,’’ Diodo- 
rus the Sicilian relates, that about eight years subse- 
quent to the death of Alexander the Great, the two wives 
of an Indian commander, who had fallen in battle, con- 
tended for the honour of being burnt along with hisbody ; 
a singular custom introduced, as Strabo affirms, from the 
‘women of those climes being wont to become enamour- 
ed of young men, and poison their husbands... The el- 
der being pregnant at the time, preference was given to 
the younger, and preparations were made for the cere~ 
mony, ‘The widow approached the pile, and divesting 
herself of her numerous personal, ornaments, as rings, 
necklaces, and jewels among her hair, distributed them 
as tokens of remembrance to her friends and attendants. 
Having taken leave of all, she was placed by her own 
‘brother on the pile, while the army of Eumenes, then 
contending for the Macedonian empire, marched three 
times solemnly around it with their arms... Meantime, 
without betraying the smallest apprehension at the 
‘crackling of the flames, she turned. towards her hus- 
band’s body, and heroically closed her earthly career to 
the great admiration of the spectators. 
It is remarkable that now, after the lapse of thou- 
sands of years, the most intimate coincidence is wit- 
nessed in this voluntary sacrifice of the Hindoo females 
on the funeral pile of their departed husbands ; we say 
voluntary, but it can scarcely be called so, for although 
there is no compulsion, it is not creditable to evade 
it. When a Hindoo expires, it is of no importance 
whether a person of rank or otherwise, his widow, if be- 
longing to that particular cast, enforcing it, declares her 
resolution to perish ; itnot only entails credit on her me- 
mory, but de her husband in obtaining celestial privile- 
ges. Attended by her friends and relatives, she approach- 
es a consecrated spot, where a pile is erected by Bramins, 
generally near a river, wherein she sometimes bathes, 
No apprehension is ever betrayed by the youngest; she 
walks with a firm step thrice around the pile; mounts 
it unassisted, and sits down by the body of the decea- 
sed ; then taking off her personal ornaments, she dis- 
tributes them, with great composure and precision, to 
her female attendants, and gently reclin towards 
her husband, draws a cloth over her face. Meantime 
the Bramins perform certain ceremonies, and continue 
building up the pile several feet above both the bodies: 
they supply combustible substances; and pouring oil 
upon it, the whole is kindled by the nearest relation, 
and blazes forth amidst the shouts of the multitude, 
There are examples of thetorch being applied by the 
children of the widow while almost in i » and it 
is thus that by common consent of nations the last of- 
fices are committed to the nearest relative. Although 
this horrible and ,barbarous custom is established a- 
mong the Hindoos, it is unquestionably on the de 
cline, and, in those places to which Europeans have | 
common access, it is now of rare occurrence. 
In other countries therearesanguinary scenes of anana- 
logous description, practised to appease the manes of the 
dead. Formerly, in North America, a number of wives: 
were strangled at.once, with a single cord, on the de- 
cease of a husband. In Kodiak, an island on the north- 
west of that continent, when a chief is interred, some of 
his most confidential, labourers are sacrificed and bus 
ried along with him, In: the kingdom of Assam, seves 
ral wives of a rajah or sovereign, a number of servants, 
and a quantity of oil and provisions, were all wont to 
be snalabedl in the pit whicti received his body, and ei< 
ther instantaneously destroyed, or left to diea lingeri 
death.’ In the island of Nukahiwa, if'a priest dies, three 
human victims must immediately be offered up for the 
repose of his soul ; and those whose + ani it is to 
procure them, lie in ambush where the unsuspecting 
natives. resort in their canoes for food, and are soon ena- ¥ 
bled to fulfil their bloody mission. . Yet all this is incon« i 
siderable when.compared with what are called the Cus« t 
toms, an annual ceremony in Dahomy, an African state, 
There the king “waters the gravesof his ancestors,” with ¥ 
the blood of victims in thousands ; pyramids are abso= # 
lutely constructed of human heads. Most of those unhap- 
py beings are prisoners of war, who are mercilessly sa« 
crificed. On the decease of the king himself, his wo- ‘ 
men. immediately begin to break and.destroy every al 
thing around them, and then to massacre each other, 4 
which continues until a successor is named, who takes 
possession of the palace and interrupts the carnage. 
On an.occasion of this kind in 1774, 285 women pe~ 
rished, besides six said to have been buried alive with 
the king ; and more recently, in the year 1789, when 
a king died, the number amounted to no less than 595. y 
There is still another waste of human life at the funeral ‘ 
a 
’ 
— 
4 
of some of the African and Australasian tribes. If a 
mother dies while suckling her child, it is buried alive 
in the same grave along with her. This, however, is 
not to be viewed in the light of asacrifice ; it originates a 
in a different principle, which seems to be that among # 
savages the care of their own. children. is all that they, * 
can accomplish; the infant, therefore, is doomed. to - 
destruction, from the belief that no female can be found y 
willing to preserve it. Modernexample therefore proves; ’ 
that we may safely credit what is recorded of the immo i 
lation of human victims at the tomb or the funeral pile é 
of the ancients. ra 
It seldom happens that the assistants at a funeral Festivals a 
simply dispose of the dead with the ceremonies now funerals, 
alluded to, as a greater or lesser festival almost al«; ’ 
ways follows. ‘This has already been partly illustra- 
ted. In our own country, we know that the obse- 
quies of those, even in. the most humble station, are 
ways attended with the distribution of bread and wine, } 
or less costly liquors: In some places it is preparatory: 
to_a more ample feast, in such profusion, as to prove of 
serious inconvenience to the successor: it lasts. whole): 
days, and, as among savage nations, resembles a res 
Joicing for the liberation of the deceased from his earthly: . 
