CROSS-ROAD SUPERSTITIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 124, 21 November 1931, Page 19

CROSS-ROAD SUPERSTITIONS

GHOSTS AND SUICIDES

(By "Ajax.")

It was quite unintentionally that I was. led. last week to discuss the "Points of. the Compass in their reia.tiou. to religion. . it is a subject of which .1 knew'nothing, but. of which 'I'he'writer of tWartielo-upon'it in the book'.tliat I Had consulted for another purpose—tfastings's "Encyclopaedia of Koligion and Ethics"—probably knows •as much as any man. But, as luck would liavo it. ho had a paragraph dealing ■with tho very point—the relation of cross-roads to religion—which ■ had drawn me to the book. In the section on "Burial" in .this article, after, referring to tiio position of the^ dead body as .determined"'by the desire to make the' journey as easy' as possible, the writer,. Mr. T. D. Atkinson, mentions that the choice was sometimes inspired by the exactly opposite motive. '■'.'.-■■

11. may be desirable, he says, to keep the spirit in tho grave. Thus the soul oi the chief should continue to. reside among and |.o protect tho' tribe; that ol" the wicked man should bo prevented' from returning lo the village and disturbing the peace of the surviving relatives. .1. U. J'razer. bcm i\ survival of the latter feeling in the rn«toui in this country, not -long since piven up, of burying a suicide with a fitako through his body, -(^The Belie in Immortality," London 1913; i, Ibi). The further opinion may perhaps be hazarded "that the selection :of cross-roads as ihe pliice- -wai 'suggested by tho thought that, tf'.ih.e- spirit".did -make .its- escape, it misht be puzzled 'as to' which road led. honiel-in. tho.samj3...K»X.it is .believed that the sick are cured by being taken to the ■Voss-roads, the original idea probably 'beiri?- that,'"when the" evil spirit was expelled from the patient, it was liable, to lose; its way.

What had sent me to the .'book, was I,ho report cabled from England on the -22nd- October of the strauge problem presented by- tho. burial •of the faniily which had died of gas-poisoning. The parents who had turned- on the gas in order to kill- themselves and their child were denied Christian burial, not as murderers,., but as. suicides. The child' was 'of .course. n.ot disqualified. The origin o£ the, practice before 1823 for which, however, thero seems to have; -been, -no legal warrant —of burying the suicide with a stake, driven -through-his body,, and .sometimes, with a heavy weight on top of it, was one .of -the. inquiries naturally suggested. There is-not-much about it hi the 100-. page article on "Death and Disposal o£ the Dead", iv the "Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,".but I was astonished., to find that it had a six-page article •on "Cross-roads" —a,. feeling which: there was perhaps no justification "after finding in the first', volume I opened ■ articles on ."Picts," "Pindar," ""Points of the Compass," "Poles and Posts," "Politics,"1 "Portentsand Prodigies, " ■ and "Eo ver.ty.'? But .there was no surprise in finding in the bibliographical note at"the. end of the article. oa "Crosswroads'.' thqt. there is no speecial work on the subject."

The sc'dpff of "Dr. & A.. MaeCulloch's' article oil'"Cross-roads"' may bo con•vemeatly. indicated by quoting his. opening sentences and the headings of the sections into which it is divided. .

Cross-roads, he says, are very generally regarded as the dwelling-place or resort " 01 evil "spirits',' ghosts, etc., and hence are considered unlucky 'or even dangerous,. '-;wbilo"-varioji&.-expedients are resorted to iij order to ward off their dangers. On the other'- hand, they are sometimes asso- • dated with a divinity—probably, in the first instance, because images 01 the divinity ' were ■ placed there to counteract 'thfl- powers" of--evil, and a -cult-of the' divinity was observed at the cross-ways. ' Or {fiey;"may; be regarded .as sacred in themselves.. . .■-.',

The section headings arc as follows: — 1. Burial at .cross-roads. .2.. Ghosts, spirits, and demons at cross-roads. ' 3. Divinities at cross-roads. 4. Omens at cross-roads. 5. Magical rites at cross-roads. 6. Crossroads and'the''four quarters.

Dr. MacCulloch is able toci.te a good deal of evidence, to show that the tiead were' sometimes buried "at' cross-roads, a"ad this he" considers to be one reason for regarding these places as peculiarly liable-to be haunted by ghosts—"a belief-,' !..' he-mys,- " ; wh}ch is certainly very .-remote and widespread."

• -It is not impossible, he adds, that one reason for honourable burial at cross-roads was the'desire for reincarnation. Among the Mongols, among many iNorth American tribes, and'in West Africa, children are often' buried by tho side of a path, or road, in order that the ghost may have an opportunity of ''entering some woman passing that way, and so .being reborn .of her. As more women are likely to pass a cross-way than on any single path, the chances of reincarnation would be greater there. . .

But for the dishonourable burial: at cToss-roafls of "persons' whoso ghosts were believed to be dangerous, some other-reason- must, as.Dr.. .MaeCulloch points out, be sought. Suicides..were commonly so treated, and sometimes murderers. But he is wrong when ho says that the customary treatment-of -a \ suicide in England was prescribed by law. The statement is contradicted by live ,very.-au.thpr.Hy.. that., he. quotes— '&tfipsifti'!"."" W'story" ;of, the Criminal L^Wj'/iu. 105, ' What Stephen says is:

' IA custom "formerly prevailedr of burying ■ poT'sons- against whom' a Coroner's jury hifi found a. verdict of •■lclo dc sc" at cross-roads, with, a -slake driven through ■ (he-body.. I-know of.no legal authority For this custom. .H is not mentioned by .any ot the authors cited as a consequence of puch a: verdict, nor does Blackstone refer to it. . . .It was, however, abol•:islied in 1823, by i Goo. 4, c, 52, which enacted that thenceforth it should not bo lawful for- any Coroner to issue his war* ' ra'nt-for the- interment of. ii "fnlo dc se"--"in'any public highway."

ThVsile of Tyburn at the junction of. the London, Oxford, and Edgeware roads- is mentioned by Dr. MacCulloch. as .illustrating the use of .cross-roads as a.' place of execution. The fact, that it was a triple and not ii quadruple junction.is also in accord with the usage of tho ancient Greeks and. Romans, to whom a cross-road was a place where three roads meet, and it is interesting to note in passing that the Roman word is preserved in our word "trivial," which originally meant "of or pertaining to a trivinm, or three-road place,' 7 and' so '' hackneyed, commonplace, unimportant." In a passage of Plato'to'which Dr. MacCulloch refers tho punishment prescribed for the murderer of father, mother, brother, or child is that

the. servants of the Judges and the. Magistrates .shall slay him at an appointed place where flirpc ways meet, and cast him naked .out of. the city.

But I lie cross-road plays no part in

the treatment prescribed in the sam passage for the- suicide.

What, says I'lato. shall he sutler who slays him who of all men, as they say, is his own bent friend? T mean tho'suicide . . .

They who meet their death in this way .shall bs buried alone, and none, shall be laid by their side; they shall be buried inglorioiisly in the borders of the twelve portions ot the land.' in such places us are uncultivated and nameless, and no column or name shall mark the place .ot" their interment.

'•A propos"- of the treatment of the suicide in Britain and some other countries, Dr. MacCullbeh speculates on the superstitions centring in the cross-roads as follows:—

Stake and ftonc were, intended Lo prevent the restless ghost from wandering and troubling the neighbourhood. It has also been suggested that the constant traffic over the grave would help to keep the ghost down, or that the number of roads would confuse it, and so prevent its finding its way home, or that the cross would act as a disperser of the evil energy .concentrated in the* body of the.ghost, or that sacrificial victims .(these being frequently criminals) were formerly slain on the altars at 'cross-roads, ■ which were therefore regarded as fitting places for the execution and burial of criminals after the .introduction of. . Christianity. . . . To this it should be added that suicides were generally buried in out-of-the-way places; and the cross-roads, being a place of evil repute, would-naturally be selected for the grave. The underlying thought is that, of riddance of the -contagion of evil, and in ■no better place could this be effected than. at the cross-road--'.

But surely to say that suicides'were generally buried- in - out-of-the-way places, aiid" therefore-; the' cross-roads were selected for their burial, is a complete "non suquitur." For so far were the cross-roads from being'out-of-Ihc-way places that the very reason for their selection was that they were very much in the way. This is implied by Dr. MacC'ulloclr liimsulf in his reference to the suggestion that "the constant traffic over, the grave' would • help to keep the :ghost 'down, "rind "the place where three ways meet" and the places which are "uncultivated and nameless" are properly contrasted by Plato.