Note 163 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

Another means is to bar the return of the ghost in a physical way. Thus, when the Aheriyas of the North-Western Provinces burn the corpse, they fling pebbles in the direction of the pyre to prevent the spirit accompanying them. In the Himâlayas, when a man has attended the funeral ceremonies of a relative, he takes a piece of the shroud worn by the deceased and hangs it on some tree in the cremation ground, as an offering to the spirits which frequent such places. On his return, he places a thorny bush on the road wherever it is crossed by another path, and the nearest male relative of the deceased, on seeing this, puts a stone on it, and pressing it down with his feet, prays the spirit of the dead man not to trouble him.163 Among the Bengal Limbus, the Phedangma attends the funeral, and delivers a brief address to the departed spirit on the general doom of mankind and the succession of life and death, concluding with the command to go where his fathers have gone, and not to come back to trouble the living with dreams.164