Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (19 15), No. 10. 115 



of course the Crocodile ; see Budge, " The Egyptian 

 Heaven and Hell," Vol. 1, p. 159]. This is a most re- 

 markable example of syncretism between the Egyptian 

 ritual of the New Empire with Buddhist practices on the 

 distant shores of America. 



As the connecting link between the Old and New 

 World, it may be noted that in Oceania ''everywhere is 

 the belief that the soul after death must undertake a 

 journey, beset with various perils, to the abode of departed 

 spirits, which is usually represented as lying towards the 

 west" (61, p. 138). 



Reutter (63) gives a, summary of information relating 

 to the practice of embalming in the New World and par- 

 ticularly amongst the Incas. The custom of preserving 

 the body was not general in every case, for amongst 

 certain peoples only the bodies of kings and chiefs were 

 embalmed. The Indian tribes of Virginia, of North Caro- 

 lina, the Congarees of South Carolina, the Indians of the 

 North- West Coast, of Central America and those of Elorida 

 practised this custom as well as the Incas. In Florida the 

 body was dried before a big fire, then it was clothed in 

 rich materials and afterwards it was placed in a special 

 niche in a cave where the relatives and friends used to 

 come on special days and converse with the deceased. 

 According to Beverley (1722) the tribes of Virginia 

 practised embalming in the following way : — The skin 

 was incised from the head to the feet and the viscera as 

 well as the soft parts of the body were removed. To 

 prevent the skin from drying up and becoming brittle oil 

 and other fatty materials were applied to it. In Kentucky 

 when the body had been dried and filled with fine sand it 

 was wrapped in skins or in matting and buried either in a 

 cave or in a hut. In Colombia the inhabitants of Darien 

 used to remove the vi9Cera"and fill the body cavity with 



