# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Burial

BURIAL.
“What must we do with the corpse?” is a question that has forced itself on the attention of men since the beginning of the world. There seems to be a natural sentiment of respect in human kind everywhere for the remains of the dead. Death, too, is so inevitable, and happens so often in every numerous community, that some regularly understood system must be adopted for the proper removal and deposition of the “empty tenement,” out of regard to public health and morals, as well as religion. Any neglect or disrespect in this matter has been always visited with reprobation. For the credit of humanity, it must be said that affectionate regard for relatives and friends has not always ceased with their death, even in rude times; and although the performance of good offices towards the remains of fellow-creatures is not seldom marked by ostentatious display, let us hope that these demonstrations are excrescences that have grown out of a real feeling in human beings to pay the last attentions to the dead with decency and respect. According to M. Du Chaillu a sense of the presence of a friend seems to the untutored African mind to linger, at least for a time, round his grave. But people have not always arrived at precisely the same conclusions as to the way of best showing their regard for “friends departed;” and they have sometimes hit upon what we in this country would consider—most properly, of course—a very odd fashion.
Perhaps no two men ever yet agreed as to the proper plan for doing things right; and so people have had their own conscientious opinions regarding “the right thing to do” with “the corpse.” According to Sir Charles Lyell holes and caves were the receptacles of human remains in very ancient times indeed. A natural cavity in the ground was probably the first kind of tomb; and whether from superstitious fear of separation, or from the want of proper tools for digging easily, many bodies seem to have been deposited together in such places. Similarly Abraham purchased a cave as a sepulchre, adopting a custom originally established by chance or necessity. The Jewish tomb, hewn out of a rock, was probably a refined descendant of the old cave. In such places the bodies were merely hidden “out of sight,” not buried, strictly speaking. When the simple cave was used the funeral ceremonies appear to have been of the simplest possible kind. It was when men became settled in civilised communities, as in Egypt, and their affectionate sensibilities were strengthened by the pleasure of social life, that a more elaborate and costly system of interment became established. Domestic affection seems to have suggested the effort to retain the remains of the dead as long as possible, and led to the art of embalming. In Egypt, then, when a death occurred in a family, “the right thing to do” was to send for the doctor. The medical gentlemen of the day had not only the privilege of doseing and scarifying people when alive; but even when dead “vile bodies” had another ordeal to undergo at their hands.
When the doctor came he had to show his skill, not to bring back the dead man or woman to life again, but to adopt every precaution that he or she should do no such thing; or, if he or she did, he or she should be of very little use. The doctor had first to extract the brain through the nostrils with a curved probe, to make the head as empty as possible—supposing the head not to be empty already—and then to put in certain drugs. An incision being made in the side of the corpse, the intestines were drawn out, washed in palm wine, and covered with powdered aromatics. Sometimes they were restored to the body; sometimes deposited in vases, and laid in the same tomb. The body itself was filled with powdered myrrh, cassia, and other fragrant substances, and sewn up. This being done, it was kept in natron for seventy days; then washed, and wrapped in linen, of which a thousand yards were occasionally used. Thus prepared it was removed by the relations, placed in a wooden coffin, and, in the case of a wife or husband, retained at home until the time came for the second of the pair to undergo the same process, and then both were deposited together in a vault. A respectable funeral, thus carried out, would cost altogether more than 200l. A less costly way of preserving the body was simply to salt and dry it. Fire was never permitted to prey on the remains of the dead; and the idea of being contaminated by creeping things of any kind was horrible to the mind of an Egyptian. It was almost as keen as if
The dead could feel
The icy worm around them steal,
And shudder as the reptiles creep
To revel o’er their rotting sleep,
Without the power to scare away
Those cold consumers of their clay.
All possible precautions were therefore taken to secure dead bodies from being thus devoured. These soft sentiments, however, were by no means shared by all other people; or at least, different ones were considered as indicating more delicacy and affection. Religion, too, had its influence. Thus among the Chinese a respect for the physical elements of nature was the most fashionable orthodoxy at one time. Accordingly, people fastened the dead up in hermetically-sealed coffins, to prevent the desecration of any of the elements. This was better than throwing “their parents into ​ditches by the way-side,” as they are said to have done in “the earliest antiquity.” Probably in those days there were no way-sides, or ways at all, and people had to die as best they could.
The worship of the sun, as the prime physical agent in nature, and the elements as subordinates, is of great antiquity. Hence veneration for fire, water, earth, trees, and other objects through which man is benefited. Disrespect, therefore, to any of the elements was a crime against religion—it was sacrilege. To pollute the earth by placing a corruptible dead body in it, was a gross offence against all propriety. For a similar reason, the corpse might not be burned, nor put under water. To retain it was impossible where embalming was unknown. Here was a dilemma. What was to be done? Among the Parsees, the knot was cut by placing the body on a grating set across the top of a low tower; and there exposed to the full rays of the sun, to be absorbed into that luminary.
“When the man is dead,” says Henry Lord, “the Churchman cometh not near him by ten feet; but appointeth who shall be the bearers. Then they carry him on an iron bier; for the law forbiddeth that the body of the dead should touch wood, because it is fuel to the fire they account most holy.”
The idea of a metempsychosis, or translation of the soul into another human body, or into an animal, had its own share, too, in bringing about a system of funeral ceremonies. These latter are simple, and easily carried out.
Speaking of the Tartars of the Desert, Huc says:
“The true nomadic tribes convey the dead to the tops of hills, or the bottoms of ravines, there to be devoured by the birds and beasts of prey. It is really horrible to travellers through the deserts of Tartary, to see, as they constantly do, human remains for which eagles and wolves are contending.”
In Thibet, dogs are the sepulchres. A recent describer of that country tells us, that “the marvellous infinitude of dogs arises from the extreme respect which the Thibetans have for those animals, and the use to which they apply them in burying the dead. There are four different species of sepulture practised in Thibet; the first, combustion; the second, immersion in the rivers and lakes; the third, exposure on the summits of mountains; and the fourth, which is considered the most complimentary of all, consists in cutting the dead body in pieces, and giving these to be eaten by the dogs. The last method is by far the most popular. The poor have as their only mausoleum, the common vagabond dogs of the locality; but the more distinguished defunct are treated with greater ceremony. In the Lamaseries, a number of dogs are kept ad hoc, and within them the rich Thibetians are buried.”
Justin says of the Parthians, that, “their burial was effected by means of dogs and birds, and that the naked bones strewed the earth.”
Cicero says of the Hyrcanians that, “the people supported public dogs,—the chief men private ones, each according to his faculty, to be torn by them; and this they think the best kind of sepulture.”
Strabo says: “In the capital of Bactria they breed dogs to which they give a special name, which name, rendered into our language, means buriers. The business of these dogs is to eat up all persons who are beginning to fall into decay from old age, or sickness. Hence it is that no tomb is visible in the suburbs of the town, while the town itself is all filled with human bones. It is said that Alexander abolished this custom.”
“Amongst other curious particulars,” says Professor Wilson in his ‘Ariana Antiqua,’ “relating to this animal, it is enjoined that dogs of different colours should be made to see a dead body on its way to be exposed, either thrice, or six, or nine times, that they may drive away the evil spirit, the Daraj Nesosh, who comes from the north, and settles on the carcase in the shape of a fly.”
Supposing a native of one of those parts to come among us in England, it is not impossible that he might write home to his friends, that the great lords among the English kept great numbers of dogs, which could answer no other purpose than that of portable burying-places, which they took with them to France and elsewhere, that in case of accident they might enjoy a certain and honourable sepulture.
Henceforth let no man despise the fate of “going to the dogs.”
Dogs, however, are not the only animals whose stomachs occupy the place of our Kensal Green and Woking. Eagles and wolves are mentioned above. In the Himalaya Mountains, according to Fraser, “when a man of property dies, they take the body and bruise it to pieces, bones and all, and form it into balls, which they give to a very large sort of kites, who devour them. These birds are sacred, kept by the Lamas, and fed by them, or by people appointed for the purpose, who alone approach them; others dare not go near them, perhaps from superstitious motives, for they are held in great fear.”
The New Zealander, it is well-known, used to find a sepulchre for “the dear departed” nearer home.
Among the Hindoos this right in the corpse originally vested in the dogs and kites, has been commuted for certain offerings deposited for their special benefit in a clean separate spot. The Tartars, however, sometimes employ a kind of burial, if such it can be called, slightly more respectable than the former. “The richer Tartars,” says Huc, “sometimes burn their dead with great solemnity. A large furnace of earth is constructed in a pyramidal form. Just before it is completed, the body is placed inside, standing, surrounded by combustibles; the edifice is then completely covered in with the exception of a small hole to give egress to the smoke, and keep up a current of air. During the combustion the Lamas surround the tomb and recite prayers. The corpse being burnt, they demolish the furnace, remove the bones, which they carry to the grand Lama; he reduces them to a very fine powder, and having added to them an equal quantity of meal, he kneads the whole with care, and constructs with his own hands cakes of different sizes, which he places one upon the other in the form of a pyramid.” If this compound ever becomes a repast for the priests, it ​is to be hoped they do not find it very unwholesome. Let us hope, too, that the bone-dust which our bakers mix in our bread may not be derived from “dead men’s bones.”
Among the Hindoos the river Ganges is the place of sepulture, when it is within reach; the mud along the banks being the sick-chamber. In this case the jackals and adjutants (not the military adjutants, however), take the place of the kites and dogs of Tartary, as the last resting-place of the deceased. Crocodiles were sometimes employed for the interment of children. Towards the south cremation is usually adopted. If, as sometimes happens, the quantity of wood be deficient, those who live or happen to be passing at the lee side of a burning-ground when a body is being burned, have good reason to wish that the practice of decent committal to “mother earth” were universally prevalent.
The notion that fire was the chief element, and the source of nature and life, probably influenced, if it did not introduce, the practice of cremation. However this may be, to burn the corpse has been for many ages the aristocratic, and emphatically the “right thing to do” with it, even in those places where other modes of disposing of bodies were adopted, and when no particular veneration was paid to fire as a chief element. The Romans both burned and buried. Slaves were buried—in a mean way, perhaps to avoid the expense of burning them. The Jews sometimes embalmed their dead, and sometimes burned them, as in the case of the body of Saul. This monarch’s early bravery probably secured that honour for his remains. The Greeks burned, buried, and embalmed. This last custom was borrowed from Egypt, but it was not carried out quite in the same way; and the learned in mummies can readily notice the difference between a Grecian and an Egyptian.
In all these various modes, however, we can trace, if not in all cases formal respect for the dead body, yet an entire absence of everything approaching to intentional disrespect; indeed, the mutilation of the dead has been always held as an act of fiendish barbarity. If the kites, crows, or dogs got a meal, those animals were supposed to contain the souls of ancestors; and to clothe those souls in human flesh again was a respectful,—a graceful act. Whether a dead body were wrapped in shrouds, or the bark of a tree, and laid in a canoe set on stakes; or the bones denuded of the flesh were carefully preserved and transferred from place to place, either to rest in an ancestral sepulchre, or with the bones of a husband or wife in a new settlement, that kind attention was prompted by motives of respectful regard. We cannot, then, boast much of our progress in this direction, in the much-vaunted nineteenth century, when a savage mob of frenzied Celts, without decency or religious feelings, do their utmost to mutilate the prostrate body of a dying man in the streets of a great city.
In the selection of a place of interment men have different tastes. Attila was laid in a grave under the bed of a running stream; Napoleon in a splendid mausoleum in the Invalides; Mr. Howard, with republican simplicity, has elected to be buried “under the pavement.” No doubt he would reject the idea of being trampled upon in any sense during his life-time; and we wish him a more peaceful resting place than he would find probably “under the pavement,” where gas-pipes and water-pipes might seriously interfere with the proper relative position of his bones.
R. H. Vickers.