Note 251.3 — RITUAL AND BELIEF (continued 2)

A third possible example is the custom in Calabria, whereby the women cease wailing at night and put off the black veils they donned at the moment of death.251.3 Here it may be, as Professor Frazer suggests, a sufficient explanation that disguise is superfluous in the dark. The custom of wearing veils or hoods to conceal the face in mourning is not confined to Europe, though widely spread there. The “weepers” and other crape trappings still in use in France, but for the most part abandoned in this country, are probably relics of it. It is found among nations sundered as far as the Eskimo on the shores of the frozen ocean from the tribes of the Eastern Archipelago and Melanesia. The veil is sometimes worn without intermission. Among the Minuanes of South America the widow carefully covers her face with her hair, notwithstanding she remains for several days in the hut.252.1 About Bering Strait the housemates of a deceased Eskimo must remain in their accustomed places in the house during the four days following the death, while the ghost is believed to be still about. During this time all of them must keep their fur hoods drawn over their heads, not to deceive the dead man, but “to prevent the influence of the shade from entering their heads and killing them.”252.2 Where the mourners are confined more or less to the house, however, the custom of veiling is often, perhaps usually, more stringent on going out of doors than when they are inside in the dark. In the lower culture the women at least are frequently confined to the house, and only go out in case of necessity at night, or at early morning and evening to weep at the grave. But the Calabrian women would more naturally go out of doors, if at all, by day; hence they would be more closely veiled by day; and at night, when they would not go out, they might wear their ordinary head-dress of a white handkerchief. It is at least curious that they themselves assume that they would be recognized at night through the disguise by “il demonio,” who has doubtless succeeded to the pre-Christian terrors of the other world; and they declare it is lest he should rejoice over their sorrow—to deceive him as to that, and not as to their identity—that they doff the discomfort of the veil. For the same reason they take the opportunity to suspend their wailing, which to be sure is not as a rule anywhere absolutely continuous: human nature could not endure it.