This same offering of sacrifice for the dead is carried on in a variety of ways. In Armenian villages the family of the deceased prepares a lamb or a kid with rice, and on the day of the funeral pieces of it are given to the attendants; given, as they say, and taken, in sacrifice for the dead. The practice in Constantinople is somewhat different, although the idea is exactly the same. Forty days after the death of an individual, or perhaps on the anniversary of the death, the bereaved family prepares a lamb or a kid with rice, which is distributed to the people in small pots, and given, as they say, in sacrifice for the dead. The Greek custom in this respect is most absurd. At the head of the casket, which is left open, two men march in the funeral procession carrying a wide tray filled with boiled wheat and sugar, and trailing a piece of black crape. After the burial this is distributed to the mourners in handfuls, again in sacrifice for the dead. Libations set aside and poured out in Roman days are illustrative of the same thing. That these practices are not Christian but distinct survivals of pagan festivals and customs is very clear. The above conclusions, namely, first that the festival as I described it is an aberration of city life, and second, that although identified with the church it is distinctly pagan in character, are borne out by Abeghian, whose material, as an Armenian who for many years lived in the little Armenian village of Astapat, is distinctly first-hand. [129] Worship of the deceased, he says, begins immediately after death. Each departed soul, and especially those of elderly people, requires particular honor on the first day after death, and during the ensuing year. It is for this reason a great misfortune for an Armenian peasant not to have a child. A still greater misfortune, however, it is to die in a strange land where there are none to care for the departed soul. That a curious evolution has taken place in these requirements is very clear. In the beginning, satisfactions of a material kind were required, something to eat and to drink, and accordingly the custom arose of placing bread upon the heart of the dead, or sanctified bread in the cavity of the mouth and incense in the nostrils. Then there arose the idea of facilitating the journey of the departed into the beyond, and of making the future life of the soul a happier one. For example, Armenians generally bathe the bodies of their dead in blessed water, and wash the clothes of the deceased on the day following burial for the purification of the soul so that it may arrive spotless at its destination. Since the soul has been cleansed of all sin through the symbolic washing of the body and clothes, no more covering is required for the body than a large white cloth. No other color is permissible. Should the deceased be more than ten years of age, candles or oil lamps are burned during eight days over the spot where the body was bathed