Note 282.3 — Chapter XIII · FUNERAL RITES.

These statements have received confirmation in modern times from the reports of travellers among tribes in the lower savagery almost everywhere. As in the older writers, there is some ambiguity on the question who was expected or entitled to partake of the horrible food. A comparison, however, of the accounts clearly shows that it was originally confined to the clan, though possibly the melancholy satisfaction of uniting oneself with the departed in this manner may, in different places, have been extended by special favour to intimate friends not belonging to the kin, or, by a modification of tribal customs, to the entire local organisation. Not to weary the reader I have selected in a note at the foot of the page a number of references to cases where the rite is reported to exist in full force;282.3 and I now propose to examine some changes and adaptations of its form down to its latest survivals in the folklore of civilised Europe.