[Footnote 164: _Cf._ Isocrates, _Oratio de pace_, 120; Cicero, _De natura Deorum_, iii. 38; Nägelsbach, _op. cit._ p. 33 _sq._] [Footnote 165: _Cf._ Schmidt, _op. cit._ i. 71 _sq._ (ancient Greeks).] [Footnote 166: de Groot, _op. cit._ (vol. iv. book) ii. 452.] The retributive sufferings which innocent persons have to undergo in consequence of the sins of the guilty, are not always supposed to be inflicted upon them directly, as a result of divine resentment. They are often attributed to infection. Sin is looked upon in the light of a contagious matter which may be transmitted from parents to children, or be communicated by contact. This idea is well illustrated by the funeral ceremonies of the Tahitians. "When the house for the dead had been erected, and the corpse placed upon the platform or bier, the priest ordered a hole to be dug in the earth or floor near the foot of the platform. Over this he prayed to the god by whom it was supposed the spirit of the deceased had been required. The purport of his prayer was that all the dead man's sins, and especially that for which his soul had been called to the _po_, might be deposited there, that they might not attach in any degree to the survivors, and that the anger of the god might be appeased." All who were employed in embalming the dead were also, during the process, carefully avoided by every person, {53} as the guilt of the crime for which the deceased had died was believed to contaminate such as came in contact with the corpse; and as soon as the ceremony of depositing the sins in the hole was over, all who had touched the body or the garments of the deceased, which were buried or destroyed, fled precipitately into the sea to cleanse themselves from the pollution.[167] In one part of New Zealand "a service was performed over an individual, by which all the sins of the tribe were supposed to be transferred to him, a fern stalk was previously tied to his person, with which he jumped into the river and there unbinding, allowed it to float away to the sea, bearing their sins with it."[168] The Iroquois White Dog Feast, which was held every year in January, February, or early in March,[169] implied, according to most authorities, a ceremony of sin-transference.[170] The following description of it is given by Mrs. Jemison, a white woman who was captured by the Indians in the year 1755:--Two white dogs, without spot or blemish, are strangled and hung near the door of the council-house. On the fourth or fifth day the "committee," consisting of from ten to twenty active men who have been appointed to superintend the festivities, "collect the evil spirit, or drive it off entirely, for the present, and also concentrate within themselves all the sins of their tribe, however numerous or heinous. On the eighth or ninth day, the committee having received all the sin, as before observed, into their own bodies, they take down the dogs, and after