Note (return) — LECTURE XX

But widespread as such customs have been among Indo-european peoples, they have been by no means confined to that branch of the human race. It was an ancient Chinese practice to knock down part of the wall of a house for the purpose of carrying out a corpse.737 Some of the Canadian Indians would never take a corpse out of the hut by the ordinary door, but always lifted a piece of the bark wall near which the dead man lay and then drew him through the opening.738 Among the Esquimaux of Bering Strait a corpse is usually raised through the smoke-hole in the roof, but is never taken out by the doorway. Should the smoke-hole be too small, an opening is made in the rear of the house and then closed again.739 When a Greenlander dies, "they do not carry out the corpse through the entry of the house, but lift it through the window, or if he dies in a tent, they unfasten one of the skins behind, and convey it out that way. A woman behind waves a lighted chip backward and forward, and says: 'There is nothing more to be had here.'"740 Similarly the Hottentots, Bechuanas, Basutos, Marotse, Barongo, and many other tribes of South and West Africa never carry a corpse out by the door of the hut but always by a special opening made in the wall.741 A similar custom is observed by the maritime Gajos of Sumatra742 and by some of the Indian tribes of North-west America, such as the Tlingit and the Haida.743 Among the Lepchis of Sikhim, whose houses are raised on piles, the dead are taken out by a hole made in the floor.744 Dwellers in tents who practise this custom remove a corpse from the tent, not by the door, but through an opening made by lifting up an edge of the tent-cover: this is done by European gypsies745 and by the Koryak of north-eastern Asia.746