Note 41 — II.—BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH.

Our own custom of throwing earth upon the coffin when the solemn words “earth to earth, ashes to ashes” are pronounced by the clergyman, is closely paralleled in China. Directly the coffin has been lowered, “the sons of the deceased hasten to scatter earth into the grave. This earth they have previously put into the lap of their sackcloth mourning garments, and they manage to shake it out so as to fall upon the coffin if possible.”41 The idea thus symbolized is in both cases the same. It is, by the way, to be noted that, in China, when husband and wife are buried side by side, the grave of the husband must be on the left side (the place of honour). The water coming from a hill on which a grave has been dug is esteemed peculiarly lucky for use and is termed “dragon’s water”—in reference to the term usually applied to the hill near to or on which, when possible, sites for graves are always selected.42 The superstitious aversion shewn in China to permitting a corpse to enter or be buried within the walls of a city has obtained at various times in many parts of the Western world. The Moors never bury their dead within the bounds of an inhabited place, and the inhabitants of Thibet used, it was said, to be similarly particular, always exposing them on the tops of mountains.