26 Hutton Webster 



next day the sons who have taken part in the burial do not 

 work."-" Among the Arabs of Morocco studied by Professor 

 Westermarck, there is a prohibition of all work in the village until 

 the funeral has taken place. -^ 



In the New World, the funeral ceremonies of the kings of 

 Mechoacan " lasted five days, and in all that time no Fire was 

 permitted to be kindled in the City, except in the King's house 

 and Temples, nor yet any Corn was ground, or IMarket kept, nor 

 durst any go out of their houses."-- Among the Seminoles of 

 Florida on the day of a funeral and for three days thereafter, the 

 relatives of the deceased remained at home and abstained from 

 work. During this time the dead man was supposed to remain 

 in his grave. Subsequently he took his departure for an abode in 

 the skies and mourning then ceased.-^ 



The taboos following a death appear to be especially promi- 

 nent among the Eskimo tribes within the Arctic circle. In 

 Greenland we meet the practice of requiring the household of the 

 deceased to abstain from certain kinds of work for some time 

 after death.-* Among the Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson 

 Strait, after the death of any person it is forbidden " to scrape 

 the frost from the window, to shake the beds or to disturb the 

 shrubs under the bed, to remove oil-drippings from under the 

 lamp, to scrape hair from skins, to cut snow for the purpose of 

 melting it, to work on iron, wood, stone or ivory. Furthermore, 

 women are forbidden to comb their hair, to wash their faces, and 

 to dry their boots and stockings."-" Among the Central Eskimo, 

 Dr. Boas notes how in the winter a long space of bad weather 

 occasions privation since hunters cannot leave their huts. "If 



"^W. S. and Katherine Routledge. ]]"itJi a Prehistoric People, London, 

 1910, p. 172. 



^ Origin and Development of the Morcrl Ideas, ii. 283. 



^Thomas Gage, New Survey of the West Indies, London, 1677, p. 160; 

 cited by Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion' 65. 



-' Maccauley, in Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 521. 



■^Hans Egede, Description of Greenland, London. 1845, p. 150. 



-'Boas, in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 1901, 

 XV. 121 sq. 



26 



