Note 180 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

In a country where immediate burial or cremation is necessary and habitual, we need not expect to meet many examples of the customs, of which Mr. H. Spencer gives examples,180 of placing the body on a platform or the like in order to secure its personal comfort and conciliate the spirit. With the object of keeping a place ready for the spirit, some tribes are careful to preserve the body. The Singpoo of the north-eastern frontier keep the bodies of their dead chiefs for several years, and the Kûkis dry the dead at a slow fire,181 practices which among more civilized races rise to embalming, as among the Chinese and Egyptians. The Thârus of the sub-Himâlayan Tarâî have a custom of placing the corpse on the village fetish mound during the night after death, and then the mourning goes on. The practice is perhaps intended as much to prevent, by the sanctity of the spot on which it is placed, the spirit from harming the survivors, as from any special desire to conciliate it. Among all Hindus, of course, as far as exigencies of the rapid disposal of the remains allow, it is habitual to treat the dead with respect; corpses are carefully covered with red cloth, and removed reverently for burial or cremation.