ceased warrior. The Scythian, the Goth, the Indian, and the half-barbarous Greek, burned or buried the horse, or the servant, the wife, or the captive of a great man at his decease, that he might go down royally attended to the realm of shades. Metempsychosis; the deification of the dead, ceremonies in their honour, gifts left on their tombs, oaths confirmed in their name, are all signs of this belief.[1] The Egyptians, the Gauls, and Scandinavians spoke of death as the object of life.[2] Lucan foolishly thinks the latter are brave because they believe in endless existence.
Each savage people has its place of souls. Death with them is not an extinction, but a change of life. The tomb is a sacred place. No expense is too great for the dead. The picture of Heaven is earth embellished. At first, the next world is not a domain of moral justice; God has no tribunal of judgment. But with the advance of the present, the conception of a future state rises also. The Pawnees have but one place for all the departed. The Scandinavians have two, Nifleheim and Nastrond; the Persians seven; the Hindoos no less than twenty-four, for different degrees of merit.[3] With many savages, the good and evil become angels to bless, or demons to curse mankind.[4]
To come to the civilized states of antiquity, India, Egypt, Persia, we find the doctrine prevalent in the earliest time, even in the ages when Mythology takes the place of History. In India and Egypt it was most often connected with
- ↑ See Lafitau, ubi sup., Vol. II. p. 387, et seq., 410, et seq., 420, et seq., 444, et seq., Vol I. p. 359, et seq., 507, et seq.; Catlin, ubi sup., Vol. I. Bancroft's Hist. Vol. III. Ch. xxii.; Constant, Livre IX. Ch. vii. viii., Livre II. Ch. iv.; Martin, ubi sup., Vol. I. p. 18, 56, 329; Vol. II. p. 212, et seq.; United States Exploring Expedition, Phil. 1845-6, Vol. VII. p. 63, et seq., 99, et seq., et al. For the Fetichism of the Savages, see p. 16, et seq., 26, et seq., 51, et seq., 97, et seq., 110, et seq.
- ↑ On the belief of the Scandinavians, the Caledonians, the Parsees, Indians, &c., see Flügge, Vol. II. The ancient Lithuanians had some singular opinions and customs in relation to the dead, for which see Boemus, Omnium Gentium Mores, &c., Friburg, 1540, p. 182.
- ↑ Constant, ibid. Meiners, ubi sup., Vol. I. Book iii. See Leroux, De l'Humanité, &c., Vol. II. p. 468, et seq.
- ↑ Meiners, p. 302, et seq. Farmer, On the Worship of Human Spirits, passim. I have mentioned a few books on this subject, which have furnished the facts on which the above conclusions rest. I can refer to books of Travels, Voyages in general, the Lettres Edifiantes, descriptions of foreign countries, which furnish the facts in abundance. The works of Meiners, Constant, and Lafitau are themselves but a compilation from these sources.
