50 The Influence of Burial Customs
As to the Egyptian libations, Mr. Blackman's translation states the intention in precise terms. To quote a typical formula : " These thy libations, Osiris ! I offer thee the moisture that has issued from thee, that thy heart, possess- ing it, may not be still." ^ Mr. Blackman says : " The general meaning of these passages is clear. The corpse of the deceased is dry and shrivelled. To revivify it the vital powers that exuded from it must be restored."
This phantasy of ancient Egypt certainly owes much of its vividness to the fact that in such a land the proximity of the arid sands of the desert emphasised the impDrtance of moisture as a life-giving factor, and the sacred Nile itself, so indispensable to animal and vegetable existence, was figured as the fluid element in the divine body of Osiris.^
This is not all, however. There are potent reasons of a more general nature for this religious regard for the fluid principle, to understand which we must probe to the very heart of primitive sentiment towards the phenomenon of death.
Certain definite examples have been noted of a belief that the soul is freed by the decomposition of the body.^
From a general survey of funeral custom, however, the broad principle seems to emerge that ritual centres mostly about a period which appears to awaken in the savage the deepest awe, the gravest religious anxiety ; namely, the interval during which the flesh alters and decays. The
^ " The Significance of Incense and Libations in Funerary and Temple Ritual," Aylward Blackman, in Ze.itsckrift fur Aeg)'plische Sprache und Alterlutiiskunde, Leipzig, 1912, p. 69.
^Blackman, ib. pp. 71, 75. See also his "Libations to the Dead in Modern Nubia and Ancient l^gy^i" Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. iii. part I, Jan. 1916, pp. 31, 33, where he tells us that the women of Nubia of to-day pour weekly libations of water on the graves of their husbands and other relatives, thus aft'ording a parallel to the ancient Egyptian usage of pouring out water once a week for the dead.
^Sir Jaities Frazer, T/ie Belief in Immortality.
