Note 166 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

Many other mourning customs appear to be based on the same principle. Thus, the old ritual directs that all who return from a funeral must touch the Lingam, fire, cowdung, a grain of barley, a grain of sesame and water—“all,” as Professor De Gubernatis says, “symbols of that fecundity which the contact with a corpse might have destroyed.”166 The real motive is doubtless to get rid of the ghost, which may have accompanied the mourners from the cremation ground. In Borneo rice is sprinkled over them with the same object, and the Basutos who have carried a corpse to the grave have their hands scratched with a knife and magic stuff is rubbed into the wound to remove the ghost which may be adhering to them.167