wall.[1] This corresponds remarkably with the common custom in our own country of carrying a body out through an opening in the wall made for the purpose.[2] The reason is, no doubt, the same in both cases—namely, that these openings can be entirely closed again, so that the spectre or soul cannot re-enter, as it might if the body were carried out by way of the passage or the door. It is not improbable that the Greenlanders may have borrowed the habit from the ancient Norwegian or Icelandic settlers in Greenland. It is mentioned in several sagas as having been the custom of the heathen Icelanders. In the Eyrbyggja Saga[3] it is said: 'Then he [Arnkel] let break down the wall behind him [the body of Thorolf], and brought him out thereby.' The clothes and other possessions of the deceased are also at once thrown out, that they may not make the survivors unclean. This recalls our death-bed burning, which is also a
- ↑ Holm, however, tells us (Meddelelser om Grönland, part 10, p. 105), that on the east coast the body is sometimes dragged out through the house-passage by means of a thong looped around the legs. In such cases, I take it, the dread of touching the body must have conquered the dread of taking it out through the passage, for if it is taken through the window it must be lifted and handled. By dragging it with the feet foremost and pointing outwards they probably think to hinder the soul from effecting a re-entrance.
- ↑ From information given me by Moltke Moe. Compare also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 372.
- ↑ Morris and Magnússon, The Saga Library, vol ii. 'The Ere-Dwellers,' p. 88.
