BURIED ALIVE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

BURIED ALIVE.

THE BARBAROUS CUSTOM STILL

PRACTISED,

The St. Petersburg report of the discovery of the bodies of 28 persons at Teraspol who were buried alive, the writings found with the bodies indicating that they belonged to the self-im-molating sect known .as the Bjegunl, draws attention to the fact that the practice is not confined to these Russian fanatics. In India the Brlt'sh authorities have recently been called upon »ao deal with! "a. somewhat analogous case at Rurkf, a city not far from Delhi. In China, among the Tobo Indians in Bolivia, and in the remote portions of Brazil, the practice of burying people alive is still in existence, the victims being consenting parties to their death.

In the recent case in India referred to above, the person buried alive was a woman, who had suddenly become aware of the fact that she was afflicted with leprosy. In Asia a superstition prevails to the effect that there is only one way of preventing this malady from descending to the- ohttdren and th«! children's children of the patient, and that is by burying the latter alive. This woman had several children, to whom she was devoted. Firmly resolved to spare her little ones from the scourge with which they were threatened, she communicated to her husband, a market gardener, her intention of sacrificing herself for their sake In accordance with the time honoured custom of the Orient. To the husband, the decision of his wife •seemed perfectly natural 'and In the normal order of things. Besides, he must have (realised that evlen Ithe fate to which she offered herself as a willing victim would be preferable to the living death to which she would be condemned as a leper—that is to say as an unclean outcast, cut off from all intercourse with her family, relatives, and friends. Accordingly, he invited four of his friends to take part in the « OBSEQUIES OF HIS WIFE,

who, after she had taken a final leave of her children, accompanied them to the site of the grave, which was thereupon dug in her presence by her husband and his friends. The entire village had flocked to the scene. The woman having addressed a few words of farewell to those around her took her place in the grave, was covered by the children present with flowers and green twigs, after which-the husband cast the first spadeful of earth upon her floral palL The grave was then filled wittt earth, and surmounted with a cone of soil, capped in its turn by an earthenware jug turned upside down.

The grave became a spot pf pilgrim* age to the women and children of the district for the purpose of depositing flowers and fruits upon the last resting place of this victim of maternal devotion, it was this that attracted the attention of the English authorities, and led to the arrest and trial of the widowed husband, and of his four friends who had helped to bury his wife. The trial at Burki created great excitement throughout the country, as It was held that the prisoners had merely acted in ».onformity with old; established . tradition, and usage. Even the two native judicial assessors who sat beside the English judge on the bench shared these views, and strove to induce their British colleague, the presiding judge, to see the matter in the same light. This he declined to do, and overruling their protests, he

SENTENCED THE PRISONERS,

not to death, but to imprisonment at hard labour for life, a decision against which the two assessors themselves have been the first to appeal to the Supreme Court, at Calcutta. It is unlikely that the judgment will be reversed, since it stands to reason that British justice, even when modified to conform to the requirements of Indian life, cannot concede legal sanction to such a custom as living burial. But Lord Curzon will probably solve the difficulty by exercising after a time his vice regal right of clemency in behalf of the prisoners. It may be pointed out that this incident serves to show anew how great are the difficulties of reconciling Western civilization to Eastern customs.

In China not merely lepers desirous of preserving their children from the inheritance of their malady, but people whose misconduct ie regarded as incorrigible, or who ha,ve become a nuisance to their relatives and the community are buried alive. These interments are generally the result of the decree of a sort of family council, compoßed of the principal relatives of the victim, and they are so far rtgrarded as legitimate, that the local authorities do »iot hfesitate to aJttend the obsequies Sometimes, too, the decree is pronounced by a species of vigilance committee—an institution that flourishes as extensively in China at the present day as it did in Germany two or three centuries ago. The French missionaries in the district of Tchong-Lok have recorded several cases of this kind, and declare that in each instance the victim, after having been ;notlfl,ed of the decree against him, offered

NO PROTEST OR RESISTANCE,

but followed the visitors intrusted with the duty of notifying him of his doom

to the scene of his interment, actually, helping them to dig his grave.

Ordinarily, however, the obsequies of a living person in China are attended by more pomp and ceremony thau this, especially when it is not misconduct but merely disease or old age that causes the family and fellow citizens of the candidate for funeral honours to d-csire his departure for another world. Everything possible is done to smooth the way, and to cheer, if one may be a>lowed to use the expression, the last moments of the person about to die. (Relatives and neighbours combine to purchase the most expensive coffin they, can afford. At the funeral repast, which, precedes the burial, the victim is the guest of honour, and as soon as the feasting has been brought to a coftclusion the procession to the grave begins. Immediately following thfi empty, coffin, and as chief mourner, walks the individual about to die. He is magnificently arrayed, bearing a fan In one hand and a prayer written on a piece of paper in the other. Then follow the members of the family, the village op town authorities and the neighbours^ On reaching the edge of the grave, tha principal actor in this extraordinary per* formance takes solemn leave of all pre* sent, arranges his garments in the moati Convenient and comfortable fashioc, ; takes a last big swallow of opium, and then lies down in his coffin. A piece oil silver having been placed on his chin,, the lid is nailed down by the nearest relative. The coffin is then lowered imo the grave, the earth is heaped upon it* and all is over. INSTANCES WELL AUTHENTICATED. These statements may seem to be mere travellers' tales—absurd exaggerations, embroideries of fact to which people whe have journeyed far are popularly suppose ed to be addicted. But confirmation IS afforded by duly authenticated instunce* recorded in one of the recent number* of the Austrian "Oriental Review," on* of the most erudite and weighty of alf publications dealing with Asiatic affairs. The object of the Chinese in burying people alive in this way is to get rifi ■of them 'in a manr/.er calculated, tcj free those who have taken part in ths laffair from .all responsibility in -this world, and at the same time to save thai victim from the odium of suicide in th« next world. Theoretically, at least, th« person buried is a consenting pariy te his death, and the relatives and friends in attendance are merely executing: his last, and, therefore, sacred, wishes, in nailing down the coffin and in burying him. Strictly speaking, from a Chinesa point of view, there is no murder, n» execution, no suicide. It is merely a sorC of mutual arrangement, satisfactory alike to all concerned, the occupant o£ the coffin complying with the desire ofl his relatives aud neighbours for his de< parture, while they on their side endeavour by every means in tfyeir power? to render the departure agreeable andS easy. ___^__ — __________ -: