Note 326.1 — Chapter XIII · FUNERAL RITES.

Other funeral rites point in the same direction. We will confine our attention to one. The custom of burial in a common grave or at least in one general cemetery, is very widespread. It is found in all quarters of the globe. The reason is given by Sir Richard Burton in describing the practices in Sindh. “They believe that by interring corpses close to the dust of their forefathers, the ruha, or souls of the departed, will meet and commune together after death.”326.1 This is a belief that could not have arisen, save at a time when no sharp division had been drawn between body and spirit. Mr. Crawfurd says: “When a Javanese peasant claims to be allowed to cultivate the fields occupied by his forefathers, his chief argument always is that near them are the tombs of his progenitors. A Javanese, as I have remarked in another place, cannot endure to be removed from these objects of his reverence and affection: and when he is taken ill at a distance, begs to be carried home, at all the hazards of the journey, that he may ‘sleep with his fathers.’ The bodies of some of the princes who died in banishment at Ceylon, I perceive, were, at their dying request, conveyed to their native island.”327.1 I need not dwell on the practice itself of burying the kindred in one place. It is well known, and even among ourselves is not destitute of force, appealing as it does to our most sacred feelings. As little need I dwell upon the belief underlying it. But some of the modes of giving effect to it may detain us for a few moments.