CURIOUS FACTS CONCERNING FUNERALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7573, 27 February 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

CURIOUS FACTS CONCERNING FUNERALS.

The Mohammedans bury without a coffin of any kind. The Greenlanders bury with a child a dog to guide it in the other world, saying, " A dog can find his way anywhere." The music continuously kept up at Irish wakes used to bo for the purpose of warding off evil spirits. The Russians place in the hand of the corpse a paper certificate of the character of the deceased, to be shown to Peter at the gate of Heaven. In India the devoted wife formerly ascended her husband's funeral pyre and perished in the flames. The Australians tie the hands of the corpse and extract the finger nails, that the dead may not scratch his way out of the grave. The North American Indians buried with the corpse a kettle of provisions, bow, and arrows and moccasins, with pieces of deerskin and sinews of deer for the purpose of patching the moccasins. The Chinese scatter paper counterfeits of money on the way to the grave, that the evil spirit following the corpse may by delaying to gather them remain in ignorance of the locality of the grave. They also scatter in the wind, above the grave, paper images of the sedan-bearers and other servants, that they may overtake the soul and act in its service. The Greeks sometimes buried and sometimes burned their dead.