Manners^ Arts^ Customs, etc, I2g 
of worship consists in placing dead birds beside, or on the 
top of the idol-posts, there to remain until decomposition 
has done its work, when the offerings are again renewed. 
They have no definite ideas about a future state, but the 
prevaiHng one is that the spirits of their departed friends 
wander restlessly about in the woods, and sometimes enter 
into the bodies of wild animals. When death approaches 
one of these singular people, the utmost dread is felt by all 
around. Immediately after death, the corpse is dressed in 
its best clothes, and laid on a shelf for two or three days. 
The body is then sewn up in a mat, with the ornaments, or 
tools, or weapons, or pipe used during life, and, slung on 
poles, is carried to a solitary grave in the woods. There it 
is deposited, without any " sure and certain hope " of a 
joyful resurrection, and the friends of the departed return to 
their houses to indulge ignorantly in their drunken worship 
of their gods by way of relief to the fear and terror they 
feel at the prospect of death. 
A gentleman who visited Japan in i858, gives us the 
following account of a funeral, as witnessed by himself at 
Hiogo, among the Japanese proper: — First walked a group 
of boys bearing poles ornamented with long streamers, and 
paper banners covered with inscriptions, no doubt laudatory 
of the dead. Next came several white-robed priests, with 
shaven heads, and carrying cereal offerings to the deities. 
Two of them had cymbals, which, at a signal from a silver 
bell, they would strike, as if to drive away evil influences. 
After these was the corpse, borne on a cumbrous bier. The 
latter looked like a small temple, and was decorated with 
tinsel and parti-coloured paper. Then came more priests, 
boys bearing sacred chairs, and a group of mourners com- 
pletely enveloped in white robes, with long gauze veils 
thrown over their heads, and reaching to their feet. After 
K 
