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No. XXXVIII.
The præficæ, or mourning women, were not confined to Greece, Rome, and Judea. In 1810, Colonel Keatinge published the history of his travels. His account of Moorish funerals, is, probably, the best on record. The dead are dressed in their best attire. The ears, nostrils, and eyelids are filled with costly spices. Virgins are ornamented with bracelets, on their wrists and ankles. The body is enfolded in sanctified linen. If a male, a turban is placed at the head of the coffin; if a female, a large bouquet. Before a virgin is buried, the loo loo loo is sung, by hired women, that she may have the benefit of the wedding song. “When a person,” says Mr. Keatinge, “is thought to be dying, he is immediately surrounded by his friends, who begin to scream, in the most hideous manner, to convince him that there is no more hope, and that he is already reckoned among the dead.”
Premature burial is said to be very common, among the Moors. For this, Mr. Keatinge accounts, in this manner: “As, according to their religion, they cannot think the departed happy, till they are under ground, they are washed instantly, while yet warm; and the greatest consolation the sick man’s friends can have, is to see him smile, while this operation is performing; not supposing such an appearance to be a convulsion, occasioned by washing and exposing the unfortunate person to the cold air, before life has taken its final departure.”
When a death occurs, the relations immediately set up the wooliah woo; or death scream. This cry is caught up, from house to house, and hundreds of women are instantly gathered to the spot. They come to scream and mourn with the bereaved. This species of condolence is very happily described by Colonel Keatinge, page 92. “They,” the howlers, “take her,” the mother, widow or daughter, “in their arms, lay her head on their shoulders, and scream without intermission for several minutes, till the afflicted object, stunned with the constant howling and a repetition of her misfortune, sinks senseless on the floor. They likewise hire a number of women, who make this horrid noise round the bier, over which they scratch their faces, to such a degree, that they appear to have been bled with a lancet. These women are hired at burials, weddings and feasts. Their voices are heard at the distance of half a mile. It is the custom of those, who can afford it, to give, on the evening of the day the corpse is buried, a quantity of hot-dressed victuals to the poor. This, they call “the supper of the grave.”
Dr. E. D. Clarke observes, in his Travels in Egypt, Lond., 1817, that he recognized, among the Egyptians, the same notes, and the repetition of the same syllables, in their funeral cries, that had become familiar to his ear, on like occasions, among the Russians and the Irish.
Dr. Martin, in his account of the Tonga Islands, in the South Pacific, compiled from Mariner’s papers, in his narrative of the funeral of a chief, states, that the women mourned over the corpse, through the whole night, sitting as near as possible, singing their dismal death song, and beating their breasts and faces.
The desire, to magnify one’s apostleship, is, doubtless, at the bottom of all extravagant demonstrations of sorrow, at funerals, in the form of screaming, howling, yelling, personal laceration, and disfigurement. In the highly interesting account of the missionary enterprise, upon which the Duff was employed, in 1796, it was stated, that, at the funeral of a chief of Tongataboo, the people of both sexes continued, during two days, to mangle and hack themselves, in a shocking manner;—some thrust spears, through their thighs, arms, and cheeks; others beat their heads, till the blood gushed forth in streams; one man, having oiled his hair, set it on fire, and ran about the area, with his head in a blaze. This was a burning shame, beyond all doubt. I never forget old Tasman’s bowl, when I think of this island. Tasman discovered Tongataboo, in 1643. At parting, he gave the chief a wooden bowl. Cook found this bowl, on the island, one hundred and thirty years afterwards. It had been used as a divining bowl, to ascertain the guilt or innocence of persons, charged with crimes. When the chief was absent, at some other of the Friendly Islands, the bowl was considered as his representative, and honored accordingly. Captain Cook presented the reigning chief with a pewter platter, and the bowl became immediately functus officio, the platter taking its place, for the purposes of divination.
In 1818, Captain Tuckey published the account of his expedition, to explore the Zaire, or Congo river. He describes a funeral, at Embomma, the chief mart, on that river. In returning to their vessel, after a visit to the chief, Chenoo, the party observed a hut, in which the corpse of a female was deposited, dressed as when alive. On the inside were four women howling lustily, to whom two men, outside, responded; the concert closely resembling the yell, at an Irish funeral. Captain Tuckey should not have spoken so thoughtlessly of the keena, the funeral cry of the wild Irish, the most unearthly sound, that ever came from the agonized lungs of mortal. For the most perfect description of this peculiar scream, this inimitable hella-baloo, the reader may turn to Mrs. Hall’s incomparable account of an Irish funeral. In close connection with this incident, Captain Tuckey, p. 115, remarks, that, in passing through the burying ground, at Embomma, they saw two graves, recently prepared, of monstrous size, being not less than nine feet by five.
This he explains as follows:—“Simmons (a native, returned from England to his native country) requested a piece of cloth to envelop his aunt, who had been dead seven years, and was to be buried in two months. The manner of preserving corpses, for so long a time, is by enveloping them in the cloth of the country, or in European cotton. The wrappers are successively multiplied, as they can be procured by the relations of the deceased, or according to the rank of the person; in the case of a rich and very great man, the bulk being only limited, by the power of conveyance to the grave.” When the Spaniards entered the Province of Popayan, they found a similar practice there, with this difference, that the corpse was partially roasted, before it was enveloped. When a chief dies, among the Caribs of Guyana, his wives, the whole flock of them, watch the corpse for thirty days, to keep off the flies—a task which becomes daily more burdensome, as the attraction becomes greater. At the expiration of thirty days, it is buried, and one of the ladies, probably the best beloved, with it.
Some of the Orinoco tribes were in the practice of tying a rope to the corpse, and sinking it in the river; in twenty-four hours, it was picked clean to the bones, by the fishes, and the skeleton became a very convenient and tidy memorial. This is decidedly preferable to the mode, adopted by the Parsees. Their sacred books enjoin them not to pollute earth, water, or fire, with their dead. They therefore feel authorized to pollute the air. They bury not; but place the corpses at a distance, and leave them to their fate. It was the opinion of Menu, that the body was a tenement, scarcely worth inhabiting; “a mansion,” says he, “with bones for beams and rafters—nerves and tendons for cords; muscles and blood for mortar; skin for its outward covering; a mansion, infested by age and sorrow, the seat of many maladies, harassed with pains, haunted with darkness, and utterly incapable of standing long—such a mansion let the vital soul, its tenant, always quit cheerfully.”
This contempt for the tabernacle—the carcass—the outer man—strangely contrasts with that deep regard for it, evinced by the Egyptians, and such of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, as were in the practice of embalming. When that extraordinary man, Sir Thomas Browne, exclaimed, in his Hydriotaphia, “who knows the fate of his bones or how oft he shall be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered?” he, doubtless, was thinking of Egyptian mummies, transported to Europe, forming a part of the materia medica, and being actually swallowed as physic. A writer, in the London Quarterly, vol. 21, p. 363, states, that, when the old traveller, John Sanderson, returned to England, six hundred pounds of mummies were brought home, for the Turkey Company. I am aware, that it has been denied, by some, that the Egyptian mummies were broken up, and sent to Europe, for medicinal uses. By them it is asserted, that what the druggists have been supplied with is the flesh of executed criminals, or such others, as the Jews can obtain, filled with bitumen, aloes and
