holy man is still familiar in many places; for example, in Auvergne, where, when the curé of a parish dies, the inhabitants will not, if they can avoid it, permit his burial outside the parish bounds, even though his relatives desire it, lest the village be subject to hail-storms for seven years or some other calamities happen.[1]
In this case it is not suggested that a violent end is put to the parish-priest's career. The law would look more than coldly on such a proceeding; and the superstition is in an attenuated form, glad to take advantage wherever it can of the action of a thoughtful Providence. But in East and West alike human beings have been from time to time murdered as foundation-sacrifices for house or bridge, or as guardians of hidden treasure or against a foreign invader. In all these cases the disembodied soul of the deceased is believed to become a powerful protector. On the other hand, superstitions like those concerning ghosts in the West and bhuts in the East exhibit souls disembodied by other than a natural death as vindictive and often extremely dangerous beings, who must be pacified and exorcised or even worshipped.
The cult of executed criminals in Sicily is therefore not an isolated example of the vagaries of human emotion. It is merely one of the many manifestations of the shock given to the collective mentality of any society by the death of a member. That shock is always deeper and more terrible where the severance from life is by violence, most terrible of all when it takes place under the impressive forms of law. Even where the law is the expression of the collective will, the shock and its accompanying emotions of pity and sorrow are often acutely felt. But where it is not the expression of the collective will, where it is imposed by arms or more mysterious terrors on the part of a class or classes with interests opposed to the general interests
- ↑ Revue des Traditions Populaires, vol. xii., p. 447.
