Curiosities of Olden TimesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Curiosities of Olden Times
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Curiosities and wonders
The pipeclay, lampblack, yellow ochre, and woad of the primeval mourners
must be brought into range with a whole series of other mourning usages,
and then the result is something of an “eye-opener.” It reveals a
condition of mind and an aspect of death that causes not a little
surprise and amusement. It is one of the most astonishing, and, perhaps,
shocking traits of barbarous life, that death revolutionises completely
the feelings of the survivors towards their deceased husbands, wives,
parents, and other relatives.
A married couple may have been sincerely attached to each other so long as
the vital spark was twinkling, but the moment it is extinguished the dead
partner becomes, not a sadly sweet reminiscence, but an object of the
liveliest terror to the survivor. He or she does everything that ingenuity
can suggest to get him or herself out of all association in body and
spirit with the late lamented. Death is held to be thoroughly demoralising
to the deceased. However exemplary a person he or she may have been in
life, after death the ghost is little less than a plaguing, spiteful
spirit.
There is in the savage no tender clinging to the remembrance of the loved
one, he is translated into a terrible bugbear, who must be evaded and
avoided by every contrivance conceivable. This is due, doubtless, mainly
to the inability of the uncultivated mind to discriminate between what is
seen waking from what presents itself in phantasy to the dreaming head.
After a funeral, it is natural enough for the mourners to dream of the
dead, and they at once conclude that they have been visited by his
_revenant_. After a funeral feast, a great gorging of pork or beef, it is
very natural that the sense of oppression and pain felt should be
associated with the dear departed, and should translate itself into the
idea that he has come from his grave to sit on the chests of those who
have bewailed him.
Moreover, the savage associates the idea of desolation, death, discomfort,
with the condition of the soul after death, and believes that the ghosts
do all they can to return to their former haunts and associates for the
sake of the warmth and food, the shelter of the huts, and the
entertainment of the society of their fellows. But the living men and
women are not at all eager to receive the ghosts into the family circle,
and they accordingly adopt all kinds of “dodges,” expedients to prevent
the departed from making these irksome and undesired visits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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