Note 18 — Chapter IV · THE WORSHIP OF THE SAINTED DEAD.

The next link between ancestor-worship and that of special deceased worthies is seen in the Satî, or “faithful wife,” who, before the practice was prohibited by our Government, was bound to bear her deceased lord company to the world of spirits for his consolation and service. The rite seems to have at one time prevailed throughout the Aryan world.18 It undoubtedly prevailed in Slavonic lands,19 and there are even traces of it in Greece. Evadne is said to have burnt herself with the body of her husband, Capaneus, and Oenone, according to one account, leaped into the pyre on which the body of Paris was being cremated. There are indications that the rite prevailed among the Drâvidian races, and it has been suggested that the Hindus may have adopted it from them. Even to the present day among some of the Bhîl tribes the wife of the dead man is carried along with him on the bier to the burning ground, where she is laid down. There she breaks her marriage necklace, and her ornaments are consumed with the corpse of her husband, obviously a survival of the time when she was actually burnt with him.20