DISPOSAL OF THE CORPSE. The disposal of the corpse does not necessarily mean interment. We may distinguish five methods which have under gone countless modifications as outgrowths of race, climate, soil, and grade of culture. ( 1 ) Exposure. —The bodies are not sealed up, but are left to destruction on the ground (rare), or are hidden in clefts, caves, or grottoes; in the hut where the death took place; on trees, posts. folds, or platforms; in boxes or canoes; in log pens, or dead houses; or in Towers of Silence. (2) .1quatie Burial.—The corpse is placed on the water or under the water, as among the Hindus, who consign dead bodies to the Ganges. (3) Inhumation.—The corpse is buried in a single grave, which is often shelved or recessed; in pits or Golgothas; inn cairns, or under mounds or tumuli ; under the floor of the home or in con secrated structures. (4) Eneysted.—The body is inclosed in rude boxes of wood, stone, or other materials, which are placed in dolmens, vaults. sepulchres, house-tombs, kistvaens, or mauso leums. (5) Crema ion.—The corpse is burned and the ashes are abandoned, scattered, buried, boxed, or inurned.
In this connection belongs the custom of mak ing deposits with the dead. No other part of this complicated series of customs comes so near to the world of shades. Thus in Dahomey the
bodies of wives and slaves were sacrificed with out number, and in the days of knighthood the horse and armor accompanied the warrior. It is through these relics found with the dead that is to a large extent possible. Most extinct peoples were without the art of writing; but stone implements, pottery, objects in bone and metal, and even textile fabrics reveal enough to enable the archaeologist to reconstruct ancient society. Among some American tribes articles of use were punctured or broken hefore being played in the grave. One of the tribe who robbed a grave would not be tolerated. but an inimical tribe might lie tempted. The Polynesians would rob sacred inclosures of the enemies' dead in time of war and steal the bones of distinguished men to make tools, fish-hooks, and other degrading im plements. To avoid this, bones were carried to the caverns far away and hidden in clefts of rocks. In the Fiji Islands favorite wives as well as slaves were strangled on the death of a chief in order that they might wait upon him and be happy with him in the spirit world. To this they gladly submitted, not only in the prospect of greater happiness, but to avoid unspeakable miseries in after life.