Note 302.1 — Chapter XIII · FUNERAL RITES.

In classical times and classical lands, as we saw, the tables were spread at the tomb. At Argentière, in the department of the Hautes Alpes, France, this continues to be done immediately after the burial; and the table of the curé and the family is placed upon the grave itself. The dinner ended, every one, led by the next of kin, drinks the health of the departed. Here the situation of the chief table is unambiguous. We should hesitate to say so much of the classical feast, or of the custom prescribed by the ritual of the monastery of Saint Ouen at Rouen, where after the abbot’s death a repast of spices and wine was given in his chamber.302.1 Neither the celebration of the formal meal in the death-chamber nor at the grave is conclusive of itself. When once the practice of eating the dead was abandoned, and only a symbol of the loathsome food remained, the meaning of the symbol would tend to pass out of memory, and, according to varying circumstances, sooner or later the symbol itself would undergo change and disappear. The totem-feast, on the other hand, of which it may be plausibly maintained the cannibal feast on the dead kinsman was originally part, shorn of its most savage detail, would remain in full vigour. So far as it was a funeral observance it would receive a specific development with appropriate surroundings, and its totemistic character would gradually be forgotten. Moreover, it is possible that the cannibal feast was by no means universal at any time. However this may be, the totem-feast being a sacramental rite, a communion between the living members of a clan and their totem, one of the most obvious extensions of the sacramental idea would be that of communion with the dead. The latter would be supposed to join in the feast and partake of the food: a portion of which would accordingly be reserved for them. And as the deceased member of the clan would be supposed to be sojourning at his grave, it would of course be greatly for the convenience of all parties that the feast should be held there, and the portion meant for him deposited in or upon the tomb. Death had not relieved him of the wants of life; but it had released him from certain of its limitations. The conditions of his existence were changed. While in some directions he had been deprived of power, in others he had become possessed of greater power than during life; and all beings possessed of extraordinary power were regarded with distrust. Savage man felt himself capricious, revengeful, envious, cruel. The feelings he experienced, the feelings he saw manifested in his fellow-men, he attributed to the mightier creatures of his imagination. Now life was, in his contemplation, so much more desirable than death, that the dead would naturally have been supposed to envy the living. Here was a distinct cause of ill-will. The dead man must, therefore, be kept from haunting the survivors. To that end his funeral rites must be fully and properly performed, and every precaution taken both to persuade him to stay at a distance and to prevent him from finding his way back. One means to do this was to provide him with food in or upon his sepulchre. He would thus be induced to abide there, or, as the case might be, to take his departure straight thence to the dwelling-place of spirits, and not to linger among the kindred who were anxious to be rid of him. This belief gave rise to the repetition of feasts of the dead, for the needs of the dead must be constantly supplied. Besides, to keep them in good humour would be to enlist their sympathy and their help; and who could know how much that help might mean against enemies, or in the chase, or in the operations of agriculture? Thus, not only love for the departed, and the desire for communion with them, but every other motive concurred on the one hand to provide them with food, and on the other hand to consult their convenience in facilitating their enjoyment of it. The reasoning was not free from inconsistencies, because there were cross-currents of tradition. All of them did not flow from the habit of looking upon the dead as abiding permanently in their graves. Probably this was the original faith. But the belief in a separate realm of souls grew up as culture advanced, and disturbed the earlier tradition. The possibility of return to life by a new birth into the kin was another opinion that affected it. And the doctrine of Transformation must, from the most archaic times, have intervened as a modifying influence, for transformation implies locomotion. The savage did not always trouble himself to reconcile inconsistencies. His simple credulity accepted them all. We need not wonder; for even the mind of civilised and educated man is built in watertight compartments: whereof no reader will want examples.