Читать книгу Dealings with the Dead (Vol. 1&2) - Lucius M. Sargent - Страница 11

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It could not have been particularly desirable to be the cook, or the concubine, or the cup-bearer, or the master of the horse, or the chamberlain, or the gentleman usher of a Scythian king, for Herodotus tells us, book 4, page 280, that every one of these functionaries was strangled, upon the body of the dead monarch.

Castellan, in his account of the Turkish Empire, says, that a dying Turk is laid on his back, with his right side towards Mecca, and is thus interred. A chafing-dish is placed in the chamber of death, and perfumes burnt thereon. The Imam reads the thirty-sixth chapter of the Koran. When death has closed the scene, a sabre is laid upon the abdomen, and the next of kin ties up the jaw. The corpse is washed with camphor, wrapped in a white sheet, and laid upon a bier.

The burial is brief and rapid. The body is never carried to the mosque. Unlike the solemn pace of our own age and nation, four bearers, who are frequently relieved, carry the defunct, almost on a run, to the place of interment. Over the bier is thrown a pall; and, at the head, the turban of the deceased. Women never attend. Mourning, as it is called, is never worn. Christians are not permitted to be present, at the funeral of a Mussulman.

It is not lawful to walk over, or sit upon, a grave. A post mortem examination is never allowed, unless the deceased is so near confinement, that there may be danger of burying the living with the dead. The corpse is laid naked in the ground. The Imam kneels in prayer, and calls the name of the deceased, and the name of his mother, thrice. The cemeteries of the Turks are without the city, and thickly planted with trees, chiefly cypress and evergreens. Near Constantinople there are several cemeteries—the most extensive are at Scutari, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. There, as here, marble columns designate the graves of the eminent and wealthy, but are surmounted with sculptured turbans. The inscriptions are brief and simple. This is quite common: “This world is transient and perishable—today mine—tomorrow thine.”

The funeral ceremonies of the Hindoos are minute, trivial, and ridiculous, in the extreme. A curious account may be found, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. 7, page 264. Formal, or nominal obsequies are performed, says Mr. Colebrooke, not less than ninety-six times, in every year, among the Hindoos.

We do, for the dead, that, which we would have done for ourselves. The desire of making a respectable corpse is quite universal. It has been so, from the days of Greece and Rome, to the present. Such was the sentiment, which caused the Romans to veil those, whose features were distorted in death, as in the case of Scipio Africanus: such obsequies were called larvata funera. Such has ever been the feeling, among the civilized and the savage. Such was the opinion of Pope’s Narcissa, when she exclaimed—

One need not sure be ugly, though one’s dead;

And Betty, give this cheek a little red.

The Roman female corpses were painted. So are the corpses of the inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands, and of New Zealand. When a New Zealand chieftain dies, says Mr. Polack, the relatives and friends cut themselves with muscle shells, and let blood profusely, because they believe that ghosts, and especially royal ghosts, are exceedingly partial to this beverage. The body is laid out by the priests. The head is adorned with the most valued feathers of the albatross. The hair is anointed with shark oil, and tied, at the crown, with a riband of tapa. The lobes of the ears are ornamented with bunches of white, down, from the sea-fowl’s breast, and the cheeks are embellished with red ochre. The brow is encircled with a garland of pink and white flowers of the kaikatoa. Mats, wove of the silken flax, are thrown around the body, which is placed upright. Skulls of enemies, slain in battle, are ranged at its feet. The relics of ancestors, dug up for the occasion, are placed on platforms at its head. A number of slaves are slaughtered, to keep the chieftain company. His wives and concubines hang and drown themselves, that they also may be of the party. The body lies in state, three or four days. The priests flourish round it, with wisps of flax, to keep off the devil and all his angels. The pihe, or funeral song, is then chanted, which I take to be the Old Hundred of the New Zealanders, very much resembling the nœnia, or funereal songs of the Romans. At last, the body is buried, with the favorite mats, muskets, trinkets, &c., of the deceased.

The Mandans, of the Upper Missouri, never inhume or bury their dead, but place their bodies, according to Mr. Catlin, on light scaffolds, out of the reach of the wolves and foxes. There they decay. This place of deposit is without the village. When a Mandan dies, he is painted, oiled, feasted, supplied with bow, arrows, shield, pipe and tobacco, knife, flint, steel, and food, for a few days, and wrapped tightly, in a raw buffalo hide. The corpse is then placed upon the scaffold, with its feet to the rising sun. An additional piece of scarlet cloth is thrown over the remains of a chief or medicine man. This cemetery is called, by the Mandans, the village of the dead. Here the Mandans, especially the women, give daily evidence of their parental, filial, and conjugal devotion. When the scaffold falls, and the bones have generally decayed, the skulls are placed in circles, facing inwards. The women, says Mr. Catlin, are able to recognize the skulls of their respective husbands, by some particular mark; and daily visit them with the best cooked dishes from their wigwams. What a lesson of constancy is here! It is a pity, that so much good victuals should be wasted; but what an example is this, for the imitation of Christian widows, too many of whom, it is feared, resemble Goldsmith’s widow with the great fan, who, by the laws of her country, was forbidden to marry again, till the grave of her husband was thoroughly dry; and who was engaged, day and night, in fanning the clods. Some thirty years ago, my business led me frequently to pass a stonecutter’s door, a few miles from the city; and, in a very conspicuous position, I noticed a gravestone, sacred to the memory of the most affectionate husband, erected by his devoted and inconsolable widow. It continued thus, before the stonecutter’s shop, for several years. I asked the reason. “Why,” said the stonecutter, “the inconsolable got married, in four months after, and I have never got my pay. They pass this way, now and then, the inconsolable and her new husband, and, when I see them, I always run out, and brush the dust off.”