Urn from a funeral must touch the Lingam, fire, cowdung, a grain of barley, a grain of sesame and water--"all,"…
- Date of account
- Second edition published 1896
- Source
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2)
- Reference
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2) · selected passage 32
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
urn from a funeral must touch the Lingam, fire, cowdung, a grain of barley, a grain of sesame and water--"all," as Professor De Gubernatis says, "symbols of that fecundity which the contact with a corpse might have destroyed." [166] The real motive is doubtless to get rid of the ghost, which may have accompanied the mo…
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyurn from a funeral must touch the Lingam, fire, cowdung, a grain of barley, a grain of sesame and water--"all," as Professor De Gubernatis says, "symbols of that fecundity which the contact with a corpse might have destroyed." [166] The real motive is doubtless to get rid of the ghost, which may have accompanied the mourners from the cremation ground. In Borneo rice is sprinkled over them with the same object, and the Basutos who have carried a corpse to the grave have their hands scratched with a knife and magic stuff is rubbed into the wound to remove the ghost which may be adhering to them. [167]
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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