The Astrologers Sometimes Forbid The Body To Be Carried Out For
Interment At The Principal Door Of The House, Pretending
To be regulated in
this by the stars, and order it to be carried out by some other way; or
Will even command a passage to be broken out in the opposite wall of the
house, to propitiate the adverse planet. And if any one object to this,
they allege that the spirit of the dead would be offended, and would
occasion injury to the family. When the body is carried through the city to
be buried, wooden cottages are built at certain distances by the way,
having porches covered with silk, in which the coffin is set down, with a
table spread out with bread and wine and delicate viands, that the spirit
of the dead may be refreshed with the savour. When the body is carried to
the place of the funeral, a number of pieces of paper, made of the bark of
trees, curiously painted with figures of men and women servants, horses,
camels, money, and garments of all kinds are carried in procession, all the
instruments of music in the city sounding as the cavalcade moves along; and
all these pieces of painted paper are burned in the same funeral pile with
the body, under the idea that the deceased will have as many servants,
cattle, and garments in the next world, and as much money, as there were
pictures of these things burnt along with his body, and shall live
perpetually hereafter in the enjoyment of all these things[7].
[1] The text is here obviously transposed.
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