Part 35

4. A feast is an essential feature of every primitive funeral, and in the Irish "wake" it still survives. A dead man's soul or double has to be fed at the tomb itself, perhaps to keep it from prowling about the homes of the survivors in search of victuals; and such food must also be supplied to the dead at stated intervals for months or years. Many races leave a narrow passage or tube open down to the cavity in which the corpse lies, and through it pour down drinks for the dead. Traces of such tubes are visible in the prehistoric tombs of the British Isles. However, such provision of food is not properly a funeral feast unless the survivors participate. In the Eastern churches and in Russia the departed are thus fed on the ninth, twelfth and fortieth days from death. "Ye appease the shades of the dead with wine and meals," was the charge levelled at the Catholics by the 4th-century Manichaeans, and it has hardly ceased to be true even now after the lapse of sixteen centuries. The funeral feast proper, however, is either a meal of communion with or in the dead, which accompanies interment, or a banquet off the flesh of victims slain in atonement of the dead man's sins. Some anthropologists see in the common meal held at the grave "the pledge and witness of the unity of the kin, the chief means, if not of making, at least of repairing and renewing it."[1] The flesh provided at these banquets is occasionally that of the dead man himself; Herodotus and Strabo in antiquity relate this of several half-civilized races in the East and West, and a similar story is told by Marco Polo of certain Tatars. Nor among modern savages are funeral feasts off the flesh of the dead unknown, and they seem to be intended to effect and renew a sacramental union or kinship of the living with the dead. The Uaupes in the Amazons incinerate a corpse a month after death, pound up the ashes, and mix them with their fermented drink. They believe that the virtues of the dead will thus be passed on to his survivors. The life of the tribe is kept inside the tribe and not lost. Such cannibal sacraments, however, are rare, and, except in a very few cases, the evidence for them weak. The slaying and eating of animal victims, however, at the tomb is universal and bears several meanings, separately or all at once. The animals may be slain in order that their ghosts may accompany the deceased in his new life. This significance we have already dwelt upon. Or it is believed that the shade feeds upon them, as the shades came up from Hades and lapped up out of a trench the blood of the animals slain by Ulysses. The survivors by eating the flesh of a victim, whose blood and soul the dead thus consume, sacramentally confirm the mystic tie of blood kinship with the dead. Or lastly, the victim may be offered for the sins of the dead. His sins are even supposed to be transferred into it and eaten by the priest. Such expiatory sacrifices of animals for the dead survive in the Christian churches of Armenia, Syria and of the East generally. Their vicarious character is emphasized in the prayers which accompany them, but the popular understanding of them probably combines all the meanings above enumerated. It has been suggested by Robertson Smith (_Religion of the Semites_, 336) that the world-wide customs of tearing the hair, rending the garments, and cutting and wounding the body were originally intended to establish a life-bond between the dead and the living. The survivors, he argues, in leaving portions of their hair and garments, and yet more by causing their own blood to stream over the corpse from self-inflicted wounds, by cutting off a finger and throwing it into the grave, leave what is eminently their own with the dead, so drawing closer their tie with him. Conversely, many savages daub themselves with the blood and other effluences of their dead kinsmen, and explain their custom by saying that in this way a portion of the dead is incorporated in themselves. Often the survivors, especially the widows, attach the bones or part of them to their persons and wear them, or at least keep them in their houses. The retention of the locks of the deceased and of parts of his dress is equally common. There is also another side to such customs. Having in their possession bits of the dead, and being so far in communion with him, the survivors are surer of his friendship. They have ensured themselves against ghosts who are apt to be by nature envious and mischievous. But whatever their original significance, the tearing of cheeks and hair and garments and cutting with knives are mostly expressions of real sorrow, and, as Robertson Smith remarks, of deprecation and supplication to an angry god or spirit. It must not be supposed that the savage or ancient man feels less than ourselves the poignancy of loss.

6. Death-witchery has close parallels in the witch and heretic hunts of the Christians, but, happily for us, only flourishes to-day among savages. Sixty % of the deaths which occur in West Africa are, according to Miss Mary Kingsley--a credible witness--believed to be due to witchcraft and sorcery. The blacks regard old age or effusion of blood as the sole legitimate causes of death. All ordinary diseases are in their opinion due to private magic on the part of neighbours, just as a widespread epidemic marks the active hatred "of some great outraged nature spirit, not of a mere human dabbler in devils."[2] Similarly in Christian countries an epidemic is set down to the wrath of a God offended by the presence of Jews, Arians and other heretics. The duty of an African witch-doctor is to find out who bewitched the deceased, just as it was of an inquisitor to discover the heretic. Every African post-mortem accordingly involves the murder of the person or persons who bewitched the dead man and caused him to die. The death-rate by these means is nearly doubled; but, since the use of poison against an obnoxious neighbour is common, the right person is occasionally executed. It is also well for neighbours not to quarrel, for, if they do and one of them dies of smallpox, the other is likely to be slain as a witch, and his lungs, liver and spleen impaled on a pole at the entrance of the village. It is the same case with the Australian blacks: "no such thing as natural death is realized by the native; a man who dies has of necessity been killed by some other man, or perhaps even by a woman, and sooner or later that man or woman will be attacked. In the normal condition of the tribe every death meant the killing of another individual."[3]

7. Lastly, a primitive interment guards against the double risk of the ghost haunting the living and of ghouls or vampires taking possession of the corpse. The latter end is likely to be achieved if the body is cremated, for then there is no nidus to harbour the demon; but whether, in the remote antiquity to which belong many barrows containing incinerated remains, this motive worked, cannot be ascertained. The Indo-European race seems to have cremated at an early epoch, perhaps before the several races of East and West separated. In Christian funeral rites many prayers are for the protection of the body from violation by vampires, and it would seem as if such a motive dictated the architectural solidity of some ancient tombs. Christian graves were for protection regularly sealed with the cross; and the following is a characteristic prayer from the old Armenian rite for the burial of a layman:

"Preserve, Almighty Lord, this man's spirit with all saints and with all lovers of Thy holy name. And do Thou seal and guard the sepulchre of Thy servant, Thou who shuttest up the depths and sealest them with Thy almighty right hand ... so let the seal of Thy Lordship abide unmoved upon this man's dwelling-place and upon the shrine which guards Thy servant. And _let not any filthy and unclean devil dare to approach him, such as assail the body and souls of the heathen_, who possess not the birth of the holy font, and have not the dread seal laid upon their graves."

A terrible and revolting picture of the superstitious belief in ghouls which violate Christian tombs is given by Leo Allatius (who held it) in his tract _De opinionibus quorundam Graecorum_ (Paris, 1646). It was probably the fear of such demonic assaults on the dead that inspired the insanitary custom of burying the dead under the floors of churches, and as near as possible to the altar. In the Greek Church this practice was happily forbidden by the code of Justinian as well as by the older law in the case of churches consecrated with _Encaenia_ and deposition of relics. In the Armenian Church the same rule holds, and Ephrem Syrus in his testament particularly forbade his body to be laid within a church. Such prohibitions, however, are a witness to the tendency in question.

The custom of lighting candles round a dead body and watching at its side all night was originally due to the belief that a corpse, like a person asleep, is specially liable to the assaults of demons. The practice of tolling a bell at death must have had a similar origin, for it was a common medieval belief that the sound of a consecrated bell drives off the demons which when a man dies gather near in the air to waylay his fleeting soul. For a like reason the consecrated bread of the Eucharist was often buried with believers, and St Basil is said to have specially consecrated a Host to be placed in his coffin.

8. Some of the rites described under the previous heads may be really inspired by the fear of the dead haunting the living, but it must be kept in mind that the taboo attaching to a dead body is one thing and fear of a ghost another. A corpse is buried or burned, or scaffolded on a tree, a tower or a house-top, in order to get it out of the way and shield society from the dangerous infection of its taboo; but ghosts _qua_ ghosts need not be feared and a kinsman's ghost usually is not. On the contrary, it is fed and consoled with everything it needs, is asked not to go away but to stay, is in a thousand ways assured of the sorrow and sympathy of the survivors. Even if the body be eaten, it is merely to keep the soul of the deceased inside the circle of kinsmen, and Strabo asserts that the ancient Irish and Massagetae regarded it as a high honour to be so consumed by relatives. In Santa Cruz in Melanesia they keep the bones for arrow heads and store a skull in a box and set food before it "saying that this is the man himself" (R.H. Codrington, _The Melanesians_, p. 264), or the skull and jaw bone are kept and "are called _mangite_, which are _saka_, hot with spiritual power, and by means of which the help of the _lio'a_, the powerful ghost of the man whose relics these are, can be obtained" (ibid. p. 262). Here we have the savage analogue to Christian relics. So the Australian natives make pointing sticks out of the small bones of the arm, with which to bewitch enemies.

We may conclude then that in the most primitive societies, where blood-kinship is the only social tie and root of social custom it is the shades, not of kinsmen, but of strangers, who as such are enemies, that are dangerous and uncanny. In more developed societies, however, all ghosts alike are held to be so; and if a ghost walks it is because its body has not been properly interred or because its owner was a malefactor. Still, even allowing for this, it remains true that for a friendly ghost the proper place is the grave and not the homes of the living, and accordingly the Aruntas with cries of _Wah! Wah!_ with wearing of fantastic head-dresses, wild dancing and beating of the air with hands and weapons "drive the spirit away from the old camp which it is supposed to haunt," and which has been set fire to, and hunt it at a run into the grave prepared, and there stamp it down into the earth. "The loud shouting of the men and women shows him that they do not wish to be frightened by him in his present state, and that they will be angry with him if he does not rest." (Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 508). In Mesopotamia cemeteries have been discovered where the sepulchral jars were set upside down, clearly by way of hindering the ghosts from escaping into the upper world. In the Dublin museum we see specimens of ancient Celtic tombs showing the same peculiarity. For a like reason perhaps the name of the dead must among the Aruntas not be uttered, nor the grave approached, by certain classes of kinsmen. The same repugnance to naming the dead exists all over the world, and leads survivors who share the dead man's name to adopt another, at least for a time. If the dead man's name was that of a plant, tree, animal or stream, that too is changed. Here is a potent cause of linguistic change, that also renders any historical tradition impossible. The survivors seem to fear that the ghost will come when he hears his name called; but it also hangs together with the taboo which hedges round the dead as it does kings, chieftains and priests.

AUTHORITIES.--B. Spencer and F.J. Gillen, _The Native Tribes of Central Australia_ (London, 1899); F.B. Jevons, _Introduction to History of Religion_ (London, 1896); E.S. Hartland, _The Legend of Perseus_, vol. ii.; J.G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_ (London, 1900); L.W. Faraday, "Custom and Belief in the Icelandic Sagas," in _Folk-lore_, vol. xvii. No. 4; E.B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_ (London, 1903); E.A. W. Budge, _The Mummy_ (Cambridge, 1893); C. Royer, "Les Rites funeraires aux epoques prehistoriques," _Revue d'anthropologie_ (1876); Forrer, _Uber die Totenbestattung bei den Pfahlbauern_ (Ausland, 1885); J. Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_ (London, 1875) and _Prehistoric Times_ (London, 1865); L.A. Muratori, "De antiquis Christianorum sepulchris," _Anecd. Graeca_ (Padua, 1709); Onaphr. Panvinius, _De ritu sepeliendi mortuos apua veteres Christianos_, reprinted in Volbeding's _Thesaurus_ (Leipzig, 1841). (F. C. C.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] E.S. Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_ (1895), ii. 278.

[2] Mary Kingsley, _West African Studies_ (1901), p. 178.

[3] B. Spencer and F.J. Gillen, _The Native Tribes of Central Australia_ (1899), p. 48.

FUNGI (pl. of Lat. _fungus_, a mushroom), the botanical name covering in the broad sense all the lower cellular Cryptogams devoid of chlorophyll, which arise from spores, and the thallus of which is either unicellular or composed of branched or unbranched tubes or cell-filaments (hyphae) with apical growth, or of more or less complex wefted sheets or tissue-like masses of such (mycelium). The latter may in certain cases attain large dimensions, and even undergo cell-divisions in their interior, resulting in the development of true tissues. The spores, which may be uni- or multicellular, are either abstricted free from the ends of hyphae (acrogenous), or formed from segments in their course (_chlamydospores_) or from protoplasm in their interior (endogenous). The want of chlorophyll restricts their mode of life--which is rarely aquatic--since they are therefore unable to decompose the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere, and renders them dependent on other plants or (rarely) animals for their carbonaceous food-materials. These they obtain usually in the form of carbohydrates from the dead remains of other organisms, or in this or other forms from the living cells of their hosts; in the former case they are termed saprophytes, in the latter parasites. While some moulds (_Penicillium_, _Aspergillus_) can utilize almost any organic food-materials, other fungi are more restricted in their choice--e.g. insect-parasites, horn- and feather-destroying fungi and parasites generally. It was formerly the custom to include with the Fungi the Schizomycetes or Bacteria, and the Myxomycetes or Mycetozoa; but the peculiar mode of growth and division, the cilia, spores and other peculiarities of the former, and the emission of naked amoeboid masses of protoplasm, which creep and fuse to streaming plasmodia, with special modes of nutrition and spore-formation of the latter, have led to their separation as groups of organisms independent of the true Fungi. On the other hand, lichens, previously regarded as autonomous plants, are now known to be dual organisms--fungi symbiotic with algae.

The number of species in 1889 was estimated by Saccardo at about 32,000, but of these 8500 were so-called _Fungi imperfecti_--i.e. forms of which we only know certain stages, such as conidia, pycnidia, &c., and which there are reasons for regarding as merely the corresponding stages of higher forms. Saccardo also included about 400 species of Myxomycetes and 650 of Schizomycetes. Allowing for these and for the cases, undoubtedly not few, where one and the same fungus has been described under different names, we obtain Schroeter's estimate (in 1892) of 20,000 species. In illustration of the very different estimates that have been made, however, may be mentioned that of De Bary in 1872 of 150,000 species, and that of Cooke in 1895 of 40,000, and Massee in 1899 of over 50,000 species, the fact being that no sufficient data are as yet to hand for any accurate census. As regards their geographical distribution, fungi, like flowering plants, have no doubt their centres of origin and of dispersal; but we must not forget that every exchange of wood, wheat, fruits, plants, animals, or other commodities involves transmission of fungi from one country to another; while the migrations of birds and other animals, currents of air and water, and so forth, are

## particularly efficacious in transmitting these minute organisms. Against

this, of course, it may be argued that parasitic forms can only go where their hosts grow, as is proved to be the case by records concerning the introduction of _Puccinia malvacearum_, _Peronospora viticola_, _Hemileia vastatrix_, &c. Some fungi--e.g. moulds and yeasts--appear to be distributed all over the earth. That the north temperate regions appear richest in fungi may be due only to the fact that North America and Europe have been much more thoroughly investigated than other countries; it is certain that the tropics are the home of very numerous species. Again, the accuracy of the statement that the fleshy Agaricini, Polyporei, _Pezizae_, &c., are relatively rarer in the tropics may depend on the fact that they are more difficult to collect and remit for identification than the abundantly recorded woody and coriaceous forms of these regions. When we remember that many parts of the world are practically unexplored as regards fungi, and that new species are constantly being discovered in the United States, Australia and northern Europe--the best explored of all--it is clear that no very accurate census of fungi can as yet be made, and no generalizations of value as to their geographical distribution are possible.

The existence of fossil fungi is undoubted, though very few of the identifications can be relied on as regards species or genera. They extend back beyond the Carboniferous, where they occur as hyphae, &c., preserved in the fossil woods, but the best specimens are probably those in amber and in siliceous petrifactions of more recent origin.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--1, _Peronospora parasitica_ (De Bary). Mycelium with haustoria (h); 2, _Erysiphe_; A and B, mycelium (m), with haustoria (h). (After De Bary.)]

_Organs._--Individual hyphae or their branches often exhibit specializations of form. In many Basidiomycetes minute branches arise below the septa; their tips curve over the outside of the latter, and fuse with the cell above just beyond it, forming a _clamp-connexion_. Many parasitic hyphae put out minute lateral branches, which pierce the cell-wall of the host and form a peg-like (_Trichosphaeria_), sessile (_Cystopus_), or stalked (_Hemileia_), knot-like, or a more or less branched (_Peronospora_) or coiled (_Protomyces_) haustorium. In _Rhizopus_ certain hyphae creep horizontally on the surface of the substratum, and then anchor their tips to it by means of a tuft of short branches (_appressorium_), the walls of which soften and gum themselves to it, then another branch shoots out from the tuft and repeats the process, like a strawberry-runner. Appressoria are also formed by some parasitic fungi, as a minute flattening of the tip of a very short branch (_Erysiphe_), or the swollen end of any hypha which comes in contact with the surface of the host (_Piptocephalis_, _Syncephalis_), haustoria piercing in each case the cell-wall below. In _Botrytis_ the appressoria assume the form of dense tassels of short branches. In _Arthrobotrys_ side-branches of the mycelium sling themselves around the host (_Tylenchus_) much as tendrils round a support.

Many fungi (_Phallus_, _Agaricus_, _Fumago_, &c.) when strongly growing put out ribbon-like or cylindrical cords, or sheet-like mycelial plates of numerous parallel hyphae, all growing together equally, and fusing by anastomoses, and in this way extend long distances in the soil, or over the surfaces of leaves, branches, &c. These mycelial strands may be white and tender, or the outer hyphae may be hard and black, and very often the resemblance of the subterranean forms to a root is so marked that they are termed rhizomorphs. The outermost hyphae may even put forth thinner hyphae, radiating into the soil like root-hairs, and the convergent tips may be closely appressed and so divided by septa as to resemble the root-apex of a higher plant (_Armillaria mellea_).

_Sclerotia._--Fungi, like other plants, are often found to store up large quantities of reserve materials (oil, glycogen, carbohydrates, &c.) in special parts of their vegetative tissues, where they lie accumulated between a period of active assimilation and one of renewed

## activity, forming reserves to be consumed particularly during the