Note 298.1 — Chapter XIII · FUNERAL RITES.

It is natural to inquire whether any trace of this cannibalism lingers among the Irish, who alone among European races have been charged with it. There is a trace, though it must be admitted a fainter trace than we have found on this side of Saint George’s Channel. Yet I think when we compare it with the latter we shall conclude that it is enough, and therefore that in all probability Strabo’s accusation was not unfounded. The drinking which goes on at a wake is of course a relic of the funeral feast. It takes place in the presence of the corpse. A foreigner, describing a nobleman’s obsequies which he witnessed at Shrewsbury in the early years of King Charles the Second, states that the minister made a funeral oration in the chamber where the body lay, and “during the oration there stood upon the coffin a large pot of wine, out of which every one drank to the health of the deceased. This being finished six men took up the corps, and carried it on their shoulders to the church.”298.1 I am not aware whether in Ireland the whisky is thus brought into immediate contiguity with the bier. In Connaught it was the custom about a generation ago, and probably still is, to place a plate of tobacco cut in short lengths, and a plate of snuff on the breast of the corpse; a boy stood at the door with a basket of pipes, and each person helped himself according to his inclination.299.1 Whatever may be the case as regards tobacco, I am informed by eye-witnesses that it is still an Irish custom to lay a plate of snuff on the breast of the dead; and everybody who attends the funeral is expected to take a pinch. This ceremony must have assumed its present shape in recent times; but it cannot be doubted that it represents the more archaic consumption of food or drink similarly placed.