400
The Principles of Fasting.
observe a similar fast for a year.[1] In some tribes of British Columbia and among the Thlinkets, until the dead body is buried the relatives of the deceased may eat a little at night but have to fast during the day.[2] Among the Upper Thompson Indians a different custom prevailed: "nobody was allowed to eat, drink, or smoke in the open air after sunset (others say after dusk) before the burial, else the ghost would harm them."[3]
Very frequently mourners have to abstain from certain victuals only, especially flesh or fish, or some other staple or favourite food.
In Greenland everybody who had lived in the same house with the dead, or who had touched his corpse, was for some time forbidden to partake of certain kinds of food.[4] Among the Upper Thompson Indians "parents bereft of a child did not eat fresh meat for several months."[5] Among the Stlatlumh of British Columbia a widow might eat no fresh food for a whole year, whilst the other members of the deceased person's family abstained from such food for a period of from four days to as many months. A widower was likewise forbidden to eat fresh meats for a certain period, the length of which varied with the age of the person—the younger the man, the longer his abstention.[6] In some of the Goajiro clans of Colombia a person is prohibited from eating flesh during the mourning time, which lasts nine days.[7] Among the Abipones, when a chief died, the whole tribe abstained for a month from eating fish, their principal dainty.[8] While in mourning, the Northern Queensland aborigines carefully avoid certain victuals, believing that the forbidden
- ↑ Dorsey, 'Mourning and War Customs of the Kansas,' in American Naturalist, xix. 679 sq.
- ↑ Boas, loc. cit. p. 41.
- ↑ Teit, loc. cit. p. 328.
- ↑ Egede, Description of Greenland (1745), p. 149 sq. Cranz, History of Greenland (1820), i. 218.
- ↑ Teit, loc. cit. p. 332.
- ↑ Tout, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 138 sq.
- ↑ Candelier, Rio-Hacha, p. 220.
- ↑ Charlevoix, History of Paraguay, i. 405.
