Chapter III: Part 3

There can be little doubt that the practices on the Ivory Coast, to which reference has just been made, were either inspired by the Guanches or by the same influence which started embalming in the Canary Islands.

The information we possess in reference to the Canary Islands was collected by Bory de Saint Vincent (“Les Îles Fortunées,” 1811, p. 54) and has been summarized by many writers, especially Pettigrew, Haigh and Reutter.

From Miss Haigh’s account (=26=, p. 112) I make the following extracts:—

“When any person died they preserved the body in this manner; first, they carried it to a cave and stretched it on a flat stone, opened it and took out the bowels; then twice a day they washed the porous parts of the body with salt and water; afterwards they anointed it with a composition of sheep’s butter mixed with a powder made from the dust of decayed pine trees, and a sort of brushwood called “Bressos,” together with powdered pumice stone, and then dried it in the sun for fifteen days....

“When the body was thoroughly dried, and had become very light, it was wrapped in sheep skins or goat skins, girded tight with long leather thongs, and carried to one of the sepulchral grottoes, usually situated in the most inaccessible parts of the island.

“The bodies were either upright against the sides of the cavern, or side by side upon a kind of scaffolding made of branches of juniper, mocan, or other incorruptible wood.

“The knives for opening the body were made of sharp pieces of obsidian.

“In the grotto of Tacoronté was the mummy of an old woman dried in the sitting posture like that of the Peruvian corpses.”

The mummies were wrapped in reddish goat skin, just as the shroud of Egyptian mummies was often of red linen.

From the same article, in which, as the above quotation states, the body was placed upon a stone for the purpose of the embalmer’s operations, I should like to call attention to the following statement of a curious custom which is found in the most diverse parts of the world, in most cases in association with the practice of mummification.

Tradition says that at his installation the new Mencey (or chief of a principality) is required to seat himself on a stone, cut in the form of a chair and covered with skins: one of his nearest relatives presents him with a sacred relic—the bone of the right arm of the chief of the reigning family (p. 107). I have already (_supra_) indicated the significance of this characteristic feature of the “heliolithic” culture.

Reutter (=63=) gives some additional information in reference to Guanche embalming. The incision was made in the lower part of the abdomen (in the flank). After the body had been treated with a saturated salt solution, the viscera were returned to the body. The orifices of the nose, mouth and eyes were “stopped with bitumen as was the Egyptian practice.” After packing the cavities of the body with aromatic plants the body was exposed either to the sun, or in a stove, to desiccate it.

During this operation, other embalmers repeatedly smeared the body with a kind of ointment, prepared by mixing certain fats, with powdered odoriferous plants, resin, pumice stone and absorbent substances (p. 139).

As in Egypt, according to Herodotus and Diodorus,—and my own observations have verified their account, at any rate so far as its chief feature is concerned—there was another method of embalming in which no abdominal incision was made, unless it was per rectum.

When this cheaper method was employed the corpse was dried in the sun and some corrosive liquid, called “cedria” in the case of the Egyptians, but in that of the Guanches supposed by Dr. Parcelly to be Euphorbia juice, was injected for the purpose of dissolving the intestines and thus facilitating the process of preservation by removing the chief seat of decomposition.

[It is important to recall the fact, to which I have already referred in this account, that in the islands of the Torres Straits also the same two alternative methods of evisceration, either through a flank incision or per rectum were in use.]

Most mummies, wrapped in goat skins, were buried in caves. But those of kings and princes were placed in coffins cut out of a solid log, and buried (head north) in the open, a monument of pyramidal form being erected above them.

It is important to bear in mind that both in East and West Africa and in the Canary Islands the technical procedures in the practice of mummification are those which were not adopted in Egypt until the time of the XXIst Dynasty. I have already called attention to this fact in my references to the Torres Straits mummies (_vide supra_), and to the inference that these extensive migrations of Egyptian influence could not have begun before the ninth century B.C.

(For more complete bibliographical references, see Pettigrew, (=56=), p. 233.)

The large series of identical procedures makes it absolutely certain that the method of embalming practised in the Canary Islands was derived from Egypt, and not earlier than 900 B.C.

Reutter states (=63=, p. 137) that “the Carthaginians, as the result of long-continued commercial intercourse with Egypt, assimilated its civilization even to the extent of worshipping certain of the Egyptian gods and of accepting many of her ideas and beliefs as to a future life.”

“These reasons impelled them to practise the art of embalming and to represent the features of the dead upon their sarcophagi to enable the soul to refind its double.”

“Their burial chambers, for the most part not built up, but carved out of the rock, communicated with the exterior by a staircase. Above them were built mastabas or monuments to be utilised, as amongst the Egyptians, as offering-places” (p. 138).

“Even the inscriptions in the mortuary chambers were written in hieroglyphics, and their sarcophagi contained scarabs inscribed with invocations to the Egyptian gods, Ptah, Bes and Ra, &c.”

This reference is sufficient to indicate how the later (certainly not earlier than 900 B.C. and probably some centuries later) Egyptian practices spread around the Mediterranean.

I do not propose (in the present communication) to discuss the influence and the manner of spread of the practice of mummification in Europe. Reutter gives certain information in reference to this subject. It will suffice to say that there is no evidence to show that mummification was widely adopted until comparatively late times (New Empire and later) in the Mediterranean area, although certain effects of the Egyptian practice, such for example as “extended burial,” spread abroad many centuries earlier, appearing in most regions during the Eneolithic phase.

The procedures revealed in the Canary Islands bear no trace of the influence of Negro Africa to which I have called attention (_supra_) in the Soudan, Uganda, the Congo and the Niger. The details of the technique suggests the method employed in the XXIst Dynasty; and other features seem to point to the conclusion that the practice must have reached the Canary Islands from the Western Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar, not improbably through Phœnician channels.

[For a full critical discussion of all the literature relating to Egyptian influence in West Africa see Dahse, “Ein zweites Goldland Salomos,” _Zeitsch. f. Ethn._, 1911, p. 1. The mass of evidence collected in this memoir is entirely corroborative of the conclusions at which I have arrived from the study of mummification.]

With reference to Babylonia Langdon (=32=) states:—“Traces of embalming have not been found, but Herodotus says that the Babylonians preserved in honey. But a text has been discovered which mentions embalming with cedar oil (cited by Meissner, _Wiener Zeitsch. f. Kunde des Morgenlandes_, xii, 1898, p. 61). At any rate embalming is not characteristic of Babylonian burials and the custom may be due to Egyptian influence.”

There can, I think, be no doubt whatever as to the Egyptian origin of these instances of embalming in Babylonia. The mere fact of its sporadic occurrence in a country of which it is not characteristic clearly points to this conclusion, which is confirmed by the emphasis laid upon the use of oil of cedar—a definite indication of the Egyptian practice. The reference of Herodotus to the use of honey in Babylonia is also of peculiar interest, for it provides us with a connecting link between the Mediterranean area and India and Burma.

The extensive use of honey for the preservation of the body among the Greeks, Romans, Jews, and possibly also the Egyptians, is indicated by the frequent references to the practice in the classics, which have been summarised, with numerous quotations, by Pettigrew (=56=, pp. 85-87).

The employment of honey suggests the spread of Egyptian influence to Babylonia _viâ_ the Mediterranean and Syria, seeing that, so far as is known, such a method was used only on the Mediterranean littoral of Egypt, in Phœnicia and the Ægean.

Concerning the use of wax in the process of embalming, of which ancient Egyptian mummies, especially of the new Empire (=86=), afford numerous instances, Pettigrew (p. 87) remarks:—“The body of King Agesilaus was enveloped in wax and thus conveyed to Lacedæmon. This is confirmed by Cornelius Nepos, and also by Plutarch, who ascribe the adoption of wax to the want of honey for this purpose. Cicero reports the use of it by the Persians.”

In his account of the methods employed by the Scythians (living north of Thrace) for mummifying their kings, Herodotus tells us that the body was coated with wax, the abdomen opened, cleaned out and then filled with pounded stems, with perfumes, aniseed and wild celery seed and then stitched up. The important bearing of the practices described in the Black Sea littoral upon Indian and Burmese customs (_vide infra_) I must reserve for discussion at some later time.

It will be seen in the subsequent account that honey was in use for embalming in modern times in Burma.

In an article on Persian burial customs (=32=, p. 505) Dr. Louis H. Gray says: “Unfortunately our sole information on this subject [Ancient Persian rites] must thus far be gleaned from the meagre statements of the classics. If we may judge from the tombs of the Achæmenians, their bodies were not exposed as Zoroastrianism dictated; but it is by no means impossible that they were coated with wax, or even, as Jackson[13] also suggests (“Persia, Past and Present,” p. 235), ‘perhaps embalmed after the manner of the Egyptians.’”

In later times the Persians seem to have been influenced by the practices in vogue in Early Christian times in Egypt, before the coming of Islâm. Thus in Moll’s History (=46=, p. 545), the statement is made in reference to the Moslem burial customs in Persia; “if it [the corpse] is to be buried a great way off, it is put into a wooden coffin filled up with salt, lime and perfumes to preserve it; for they embalm their dead bodies no otherwise in Persia, nor do they ever embowel them, as with us.” That this is merely a degraded form of the Egyptian embalmer’s practice is shown by the fact that it is identical with the method used by the Copts in Egypt until the seventh, or perhaps even as late as the ninth century A.D., and in their case we know that it is a development from, or degradation of, the ancient practice.

This method seems also to have spread to India: for Mr. Crooke tells me that even at the present day several of the ascetic orders bury their dead in salt.

In Moll’s book the following curious statement also occurs, p. 474:—“_Mummy_, which is human flesh embalm’d that has lain in dry earth several ages, and become hard as horn, is frequently found in the sands of Chorassan, or the ancient Bactria, and some of the bodies are so little alter’d, ’tis said, that the features may be plainly distinguish’d.”

In studying the easterly migration of the custom of mummification it is quite certain that the main stream of the wanderers who carried the knowledge to the east must have set out from the East African coast, because a whole series of modifications of the Egyptian method which were introduced in the Soudan and further south are also found in Indonesia, Polynesia and America. A curious feature of Egyptian embalming in the XIXth and especially the XXIst Dynasties (=78= and =86=) was the use of butter for packing the mummy. Among the Baganda, according to Roscoe, special importance came to be attached to this practice. Mr. Crooke has given me references from Indian literature (see especially _Journ. Anthr. Soc. Bombay_, Vol. I., 1886, p. 39) to bodies being “skilfully embalmed with heavenly drugs and _ghee_” [clarified butter].

The ancient Aryans used to disembowel the corpse and fill the cavity with _ghee_ (Mitra, “Indo-Aryans,” London, 1881, Vol. I., p. 135), as was done in the case of the mummy of the famous Pharaoh Meneptah (=86=).

The peculiarly Mediterranean modifications also spread east and it seems most likely that in this case the route from Syria down the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf was taken.

[Since this has been in print further investigation has elucidated with remarkable precision the ways and means of, as well as the impelling motives for, the great migration to the East. This calls for some modification of the foregoing (as well as many of the subsequent) paragraphs. It has been seen that the great wave of culture carried east and west from Egypt the distinctive method of embalming that came into full use somewhere about 900 B.C.; hence it is probable the eighth century B.C. witnessed the commencement of the series of expeditions, which probably extended over many centuries. It can be no mere chance that the period indicated coincides with the time when the Phœnicians were embarking upon maritime enterprises on a much greater and more daring scale than the world had known until then, in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, in the Red Sea and beyond. In the course of their trading expeditions to the Bab-el-Mandeb these Levantine mariners brought to that region a fuller knowledge of the customs and practices of Egypt and of the whole Phœnician world in the Mediterranean. It was probably in this way and not by the Euphrates route that the culture of the Levant reached the Persian Gulf and India.

The easterly migration of culture which set out from the region of the Bab-el-Mandeb conveyed not only the Ethiopian modifications of Egyptian practices, but also the Egyptian and Mediterranean contributions which the Phœnicians had brought to Ethiopia. On some future occasion I shall discuss the important part played by the Phœnicians in these expeditions to the Far East.]

It is unfortunate that practically nothing is known of the practice of mummification on the Southern coast of Arabia. Bent tells us that the Southern Arabians preserved their dead. Moreover, as the Egyptians obtained from Sabæa much of the materials used for embalming, it is not unlikely that the Arabs may also have learned the use of these preservatives.

In support of this suggestion I might refer to the evidence from Madagascar. It is well known that this island was colonised in ancient times by people from the neighbourhood of the Bab-el-Mandeb, probably Galla-people from the Somali coast as well as Sabæans from the Arabian coast, possibly ferried along the African shore by expert mariners from Oman and the Persian Gulf, either the Phœnicians themselves or their kinsmen. A more numerous element came from the distant Malay Archipelago. Either or both of these racial elements may have introduced the practice of mummification into Madagascar.

In his “History on Madagascar” (1838, Vol. I, p, 243) Ellis says there “was no regular embalming,” but the “body was preserved for a time by the use of large quantities of gum benzoin, or other powdered aromatic gums.” This method is strongly suggestive of South Arabian influence.

Hartland says “the Betsileo [and other Madagascar tribes] dry the corpse in the air, the fluids being assisted to escape” (=32=, p. 418).

Grandidier, however, gives us more precise information on this subject (“La Mort et les Funerailles à Madagascar,” _L’Anthropologie_, T. 23, 1912, p. 329). According to him the Betsileo open the body of the dead and remove all the viscera, which they throw into a lake: among the Merina the entrails are removed only in the cases of their sovereigns or members of the royal family.

The practice of mummification amongst the Betsileo is of peculiar interest because the embalmed bodies are buried in stone tombs obviously inspired by Egyptian models. The subterranean megalithic burial chamber in association with an oblong _mastaba_-like superstructure at once recalls the distinctive features of the Egyptian tomb. But there is a curious feature suggestive of Babylonian influence, namely, the situation of the temple of offerings on the top of the _mastaba_. In some respects this type of grave recalls those found in the Bahrein Islands by Bent (=4=), which he compares with the Early Phœnician tombs at Arvad (=55=). There can be no question that the latter were copied from Theban tombs of the New Empire (_vide supra_).

This seems to point quite clearly to the fact that the Betsileo burial practices were inspired by Egyptian models, possibly modified by Southern Arabian influences.

In Hall’s “Great Zimbabwe” (1905, pp. 94 and 95), it is stated that “the Baduma, who live in Gutu’s country, and also the Barotse, still embalm, or, rather, dry the bodies of their chiefs, and also the dead of certain families, though generally the bodies are buried lengthways on their right side, facing the sun. The body is placed in the hut on a bier made of poles near a large fire, and continually turned until the body is dry. Then it is wrapped up in a blanket and hung from the roof” [as is done in the Doré Bay region in New Guinea].

There has been considerable controversy as to the origin of the vast stone monuments in this region. The writer from whom I have just quoted, with many others, believed the Zimbabwe ruins to be the work of Early Sabæan or Phœnician immigrants, who were attracted by the Rhodesian gold-fields. Randall-MacIver believed that he found Chinese and Persian relics (no earlier than the 14th or at earliest 13th century) under the foundations; and recklessly jumped to the conclusion that the local Negroes had conceived and built these vast monuments! The idea of any savage people, and especially Negroes, planning such structures and undertaking the enormous labour of their construction is surely too ludicrous to be considered seriously. Even if these monuments were built no earlier than five or six centuries ago, that does not invalidate the hypothesis that they were inspired by the models of some old civilization. Is it necessary to expound the whole theory of survivals to make this point clear? The whole of this memoir is concerned with the persistence in outlying corners of the world of strange practices whose inventors passed away twenty-eight centuries and more ago, and whose country has forgotten them and their works for more than a thousand years. [My friend, W. J. Perry, is collecting other evidence which proves quite definitely that the Zimbabwe culture was “heliolithic.”]

In Moll’s History (=46=) the following passage occurs in an account of the customs of Ceylon, p. 430, “when a person of condition dies his corps is laid out and wash’d, and being cover’d with a linnen-cloath, is carried out upon a bier to some high place and burnt: but if he was an officer who belong’d to the court, the corps is not burnt till the king gives orders for it, which is sometimes a great while after. In this case his friends hollow the body of a tree, and having bowell’d and embalm’d the corps, they put it in, filling the hollow up with pepper, and having made it as close as possible, they bury the corpse in some room of the house till the king orders it to be burnt.”

“As for the poorer people, they usually wrap them up in mats and bury them.”

This traveller’s tale would not call for serious attention if it were not confirmed by modern accounts of an analogous practice in Burma and the neighbourhood.

In his “Himalayan Journal” Sir Joseph Hooker described how the Khasias temporarily embalm their dead in honey before cremating them.

Pettigrew (=56=, p. 245) quotes Captain Coke’s account of the embalming of a Burman priest. The body, as witnessed by him, was lying exposed to public view upon a stage constructed of bamboos. This is the bier which is so invariably associated with mummification.

“The entrails of the deceased (who had been dead upwards of a month) had been taken out a few hours after death by means of an incision in the stomach, and the vacuum being filled with honey and spices the opening was sewed up. The whole body was then covered over with a slight coating of resinous substance called _dhamma_, and wax, to preserve it from the air, after which it was richly overlaid with gold leaf, thus giving the body the appearance of one of the finely moulded images so common in the temples of the worshippers of BOODH.”

Then it was cremated.

This is a curious instance of the blending of the custom of mummification with the later practice of cremation, which was inspired by entirely different ideals. Throughout the whole area in which Egyptian methods of embalming were adopted there are found numerous instances of such syncretism with a variety of burial customs.

“Another method which I have known to be practised, but not as common as the one above detailed, of embalming bodies in the Burman country, is by forcing two hollow bamboos through the soles of the feet, up the legs and into the body of the deceased; then by dint of pressing and squeezing the fluid is carried off through the bamboos into the ground.”

This practice is an important link between the Egyptian and the Indonesian methods.

In his article on Thibetan burial customs (=32=, p. 511), Waddell informs us that preservation of the entire body by embalming seems to be restricted to the sovereign Grand Lamas of Lhāsa and Tāshilhumpo. “The body is embalmed by salting, and, clad in the robes of the deceased and surrounded by his personal implements of worship, is placed, in the attitude of a seated Buddha, within a gilded copper sarcophagus in one of the rooms of the palace: it is then worshipped as a divinity.”

There are many points of interest in this practice, which, considered in conjunction with the methods practised in Burma, Ceylon and Persia just mentioned, clearly indicate not only the sources and the routes taken by this knowledge of embalming in its spread from Egypt, but also how the burial rites of a variety of peoples can become intimately blended and intermingled one with another.

In Captain T. H. Lewins’ book on “The Wild Tribes of South-Eastern India” (London, 1870, p. 274) I find the following statement:—“Among the Dhun and Khorn clans the body is placed in a coffin made of a hollow tree trunk, with holes in the bottom. This is placed on a lofty platform and left to dry in the sun. The dried body is afterwards rammed into an earthern vase and buried; the head is cut off and preserved. Another clan sheathe their dead in pith; the corpse is then placed on a platform, under which a slow fire is kept up until the body is dried. The corpse is then kept for six months ... it is then buried. The Howlong clan hang the body up to the house-beams for seven days, during which time the dead man’s wife has to sit underneath spinning.”

These interesting records are of considerable value in establishing connexions between East Africa and regions further east, which will be discussed in the following pages.

[In my search for information concerning the practice of embalming in India, where by inference I was convinced it must have had some vogue in ancient times, I completely overlooked the important memoir by Mr. W. Crooke on “Primitive Rites of Disposal of the Dead, with Special Reference to India” (_Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, Vol. XXIX, 1899, p. 272). Since the rest of this article has been in print Mr. Crooke has kindly called my attention to his memoir and given me a lot of other valuable information. Fortunately all this evidence supports and substantiates the opinions I had previously arrived at inductively. For it provides a complete series of connecting links between the western and eastern portions of the chain I am reconstructing. It is too bulky to insert here and too important merely to summarise, so that I must postpone fuller discussion of this Indian evidence until some future time.]

If it is admitted that the custom of mummification as it is practised, for example, in the islands of the Torres Straits was derived from Egypt, however remotely and indirectly, it is clear that, as the technique includes a number of curious features which were not introduced in Egypt before the XVIIIth, XXth and XXIst Dynasties (respectively in the case of different procedures), the migration of people carrying the methods east could not have left Egypt before the time of the XXIst Dynasty, say 900 B.C. as the earliest possible date. At this time Egypt was in very close relationship with the Soudan and Western Asia; and it is obvious that the Egyptian practices may have reached the Persian Gulf by three routes:—(1) _viâ_ the Soudan, the head-waters of the Nile and the Somali Coast, (2) by the Red Sea route, and (3) from the Phœnician Coast down the Euphrates. No doubt all three routes served as avenues for communication and for the transmission of cultural influences; and it is not essential for our immediate purposes to enquire which channel served to transmit each element of Egyptian culture that made its influence felt in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf at this period. For it was a period of active maritime enterprise, especially on the part of the Phœnicians, both in the Mediterranean and the Southern Seas, and a time when the fluctuating political fortunes of Egypt, Western Asia and the Soudan produced a more intimate intermingling of the peoples, so that they mutually influenced one another most profoundly.

It is important to remember that many of the features of the embalmer’s art as it is practiced in the far East are modifications of the Egyptian method which were first introduced in the region of the Upper Nile, so that the East African Coast must have been the point of departure for such methods. Other features, not only of the method of embalming, but also of the associated megalithic architecture, were equally distinctive of the Phœnician region and may have been transmitted by the Euphrates.[14] Other features again were distinctively Babylonian. Of the former, the African influence, I might refer to the use of the frame-like support for the mummy, the custom of removing the head some months after burial, and the sacrifice of wives and servants. As to the Phœnician and Babylonian influences, the use of honey might be cited, and the emphasis laid upon “cedar” wood and “cedar” oil in mummification; and the Phœnician adaptation of the New Empire type of Theban tomb seen at Arvad and the analogous sepulchres found in the Bahrein Islands (=4=) The Betsileo tombs in Madagascar probably represent the same type transferred _viâ_ Sabæa down the East African coast.

As to the means by which the customs of the dwellers around the Persian Gulf were communicated to the peoples of India and Ceylon there is a considerable mass of evidence. The fact that mummification, the building of megalithic monuments of the recognised Mediterranean types, sun- and serpent-worship and all the other impedimenta of the “heliolithic” culture made their appearance in India in pre-Aryan times affords positive evidence of the reality of the intercourse. I have already referred to the adoption in India of the curiously eccentric method of steering river-boats found in Middle Kingdom Egyptian tombs; and the custom of representing eyes on the prow of the boat are further illustrations of the spread of distinctive practices. According to Rhys Davids (=14=, p. 116) “it may now be accepted as a working hypothesis that sea-going merchants [mostly Dravidians, not Aryans], availing themselves of the monsoons, were in the habit, at the beginning of the seventh (and perhaps at the end of the eighth) century B.C., of trading from ports on the South-West of India to Babylon, then a great mercantile emporium.” He adduces evidence which clearly demonstrates that the written scripts of India, Ceylon and Burma were in this way derived from “the pre-Semitic race now called Akkadians.” “It seems almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that [the] curious buildings [at Anurādhapura in Ceylon] were not entirely without connection with the seven-storied Ziggarats which were so striking a feature among the buildings of Chaldæa.... it would seem that in this case also the Indians were borrowers of an idea” (p. 70). The more precise and definite influence of Babylonian models further east removes any doubt as to the part it played. Crooke speaks of the Southern Dravidians as a maritime people, who placed in their burial mounds “bronze articles which were probably imported in the course of trade with Babylonia” (=12=, p. 29). “They were probably the builders of the remarkable series of rude stone monuments which crown the hills in the Nilgiri range and the plateau of the Deccan” (p. 28). The most ancient stone monuments in Southern India contain objects which go to prove that they were built at the earliest just before the introduction of iron-working. Thus, if the knowledge of iron-working came from Europe, these monuments could not have been built much before 800 B.C. As a matter of fact it is known that many of them cannot be older than 600 B.C. (Crooke, =13=, p. 129). All of these facts agree in supporting the view that the influence of Egypt, which, so far as the matters under consideration are concerned, came into operation not earlier than the eighth century B.C., spread to India partly _viâ_ Babylonia and partly by way of East Africa, somewhere between the close of the eighth and the commencement of the sixth century B.C.

The monuments to which I have just been referring were not, in my opinion, directly inspired by Egypt, but indirectly. The North Syrian and the adjoining territories adopted the Egyptian burial customs at an earlier period and the finished type of holed dolmen was probably developed and survived in that region long after its Egyptian prototype had become a thing of the past. The real types that have come down to our times are found in the Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian. The Indian dolmens were certainly imitations of these models. But in respect of other buildings the Indians directly adopted Babylonian and Egyptian types. I have already referred to the former. Many of the Dravidian temples are so precisely modelled on the plan of the Theban temples of the New Empire that to question the source of the inspiration of the former is impossible.

“Fergusson first called attention to the striking similarity in general arrangement and conception between the great South Indian temples and those of ancient Egypt.... The gopurams or gate-towers, which in the later more ornate examples are decorated from the base to the summit with sculptures of the Hindu Pantheon, increase in size with the size of the walled quadrangles, the outer ones becoming imposing landmarks, which are visible for miles around, and are strikingly similar to the pylons of Egyptian temples” (Thurston, =101=, pp. 158 and 161). Thus in the matter of its early buildings India has clearly been influenced by Egypt, Phœnicia and Chaldea; and this great cultural wave impinged upon the Indian peninsula not before the close of the eighth century B.C.

It is important also to remember that it reached India just (perhaps not more than a century) before another wave of a very different culture poured down from the north, and introduced, among other things, the practice of cremation.

For our immediate purpose this is unfortunate, because that practice is inspired by ideas utterly opposed to those underlying the custom of embalming, and naturally destroyed most, though by no means all, traces of the latter. That the practice of embalming did actually reach India from the west is known not merely because evidence of unmistakably Egyptian technique is found further east, but also because in India and Ceylon there are definite traces of the custom, to which reference has already been made in the foregoing pages. Cases from Persia, Ceylon, India, Burma and Thibet were cited in proof of the survival of elements of the embalming process or ritual, even when the Brahmanical and Buddhist burial practices had been adopted.

From the foregoing account there can be no doubt that the people of India did at one time practice mummification, at any rate in the case of their chiefs. They also acquired a knowledge of the arts and crafts, as the result of the influence exerted by the rich stream of culture which brought the attainments of the great western civilizations to India before the Ayran immigration. The bringers of this new culture mingled their blood with the aboriginal pre-Dravidian population and the result was the Dravidians. It is not at all improbable that the resultant Dravidian civilization had reached a higher plane than that of the Aryas, who entered the country after them.

In Oldham’s interesting and suggestive brochure (=51=, pp. 53-55), which, in spite of Crooke’s drastic criticism, seems to me to be a valuable contribution to a knowledge of the questions under discussion, the following passages occur:—

“The Asuras, Dasyus, or Nagas, with whom the Aryas came into contact, on approaching the borders of India, were no savage aboriginal tribes, but a civilized people who had cities and castles. Some of these are said in the Veda to have been built of stone.

“It would seem, indeed, as if the Asuras had reached a higher degree of civilization than their Aryan rivals. Some of their cities were places of considerable importance. And, in addition to this, wealth and luxury, the use of magic, superior architectural skill, and ability to restore the dead to life, were ascribed to the Asuras by Brahmanical writers.”

The “ability to restore the dead to life” is probably a reference to the Egyptian ritual of “the opening of the mouth,” which of course is an integral part of the funerary procedure incidental to the practice of mummification.

“The Nagas occupy a very prominent position in connection with Indian astronomy, and this is not likely to have been assigned to them, by their Brahmanical rivals, without good reason. Probably this and other branches of science were brought, by the Asuras, from their ancient home in the countries between the Kaspian and the Persian Gulf.

“The close relationship between the Indian and the Chaldean astronomical systems has been frequently noticed.

“The sun-worship of the Asuras; their holding sacred the Naga or hooded serpent, sometimes represented with many heads; their deification of kings and ancestors; their veneration of the cedar; their religious dances; their sacrificial rights; their communication with the deities through the medium of inspired prophets; their occasional tendency towards democratic institutions; their use of tribal emblems or totems—and many of their social customs; seem to connect them with that very early civilization—Turanian or otherwise—which we find amongst so many of the peoples of extreme antiquity. They had, in fact, much in common with the early inhabitants of Babylonia; and, perhaps, even more with those of Elam and the neighbouring countries.

“We shall see later that the Asuras and the Dravidians were, apparently, the same people.”

“Not only were the Asuras or Nagas a civilized people, but they were a maritime power. Holding both banks of the great river Indus, they must have had access to the sea from a very early period. Their kinship, too, with the serpent-worshipping people of ancient Media, and the neighbouring countries, which has already been referred to, must have led to a very early development of trade with the Persian Gulf.

“The Asuras were actively engaged in ‘The Churning of the Ocean’ (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xviii.), which is but an allegorical description of sea-borne commerce in its early days” (_op. cit._, p. 58).

“In the _Mahabharata_, the ocean is described as the habitation of the Nagas and the residence of the Asuras; it is also said to be the refuge of the defeated Asuras (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xxii.). This was no doubt because marauding bands of this people retreated to their ships after an unsuccessful raid. Thus we find that on the death of Vrita, his followers took refuge in the sea (_Mahabharata_, _Vana_, _Tirthayatra_, p. ciii.). So also did the Asura Panchajana, who lived in Patala, when he was pursued by Krishna (_Vishnu Parana_, v., xxi., 526). And so did the Danavas when defeated by the Devas at the churning of the ocean (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xix.).”

“An ancient legend, given in the _Mahabharata_, relates how Kadru, mother of the serpents, compelled Garuda to convey her sons across the sea into a beautiful country in a distant region, which was inhabited by Nagas. After encountering a violent storm and great heat, the sons of Karur were landed in the country of Ramaniaka, on the Malabar coast.”

“This territory had been occupied previously by a fierce Asura named Lavana (_Mahabharata_, _Adi_, _Astika_, p. xxvii.). So there had been a still earlier colonization by the same race.”

“Naga chiefs are frequently mentioned as ruling countries in or under the sea” (p. 61).

“The civilization of Burmah, and other Indo-Chinese countries, is ascribed by legend and by the native historians to invaders from India. And these are connected with the Naga People of Magadha, and of the north and west of India. The ancient navigators, too, who carried the Brahmanical and Buddhist religions, the worship of the Naga, and the Sanscrit or Pali language to Java, Sumatra, and even to distant Celebes, were Indian people. And they were, doubtless, descendants of those Asura dwellers in the ocean, which are mentioned in the _Mahabharata_, and have already been referred to” (p. 166).

“Another proof of the ancient connection of these islands with India is that the Javan era is the Saka-kala, which is so well known, and is still in use in parts of Western India and in the Himalaya. According to a Javan tradition an expedition from India, led by a son of the king of Kujrat (Gujrat), arrived on the west coast of the island about A.D. 603. A settlement was founded, and the town of Mendan Kamalan was built. Other Hindus followed, and a great trade was established with the ports of India and other countries (Raffles, Hist. Java, ii., 83). There is however no reason to suppose that this was the first arrival of Indian voyagers in the Archipelago.

“Traditions still remain in Western India of expeditions to Java. A Guzerati proverb runs thus: ‘He who goes to Java never comes back; but if he does return, his descendants, for seven generations, live at ease’ (_Bombay Gazetter_, i., 402). The bards in Marwar have a legend that Bhoj raja, the great puar chief of Ujaini, in anger drove away his son Chandrabhan, who sailed to Java (_Ib._, i., 448).

“Evidence brought forward by Mr. Kennedy (_J. R. A. S._, April, 1898) shows that a great sea-borne trade was carried on from Indian ports by Dravidian merchants as early as the seventh century B.C. The beginnings of Dravidian navigation, however, were probably much earlier than this.

“We have seen that the sea-borne commerce of the Solar or Naga tribes of Western India had become important at a very early period. Of this the legend of ‘the churning of the ocean’ already referred to is an allegorical description, but we have no detailed account of ocean voyages until a much later period. Sakya Buddha himself, however, refers to such voyages. He says: ‘Long ago ocean going merchants were wont to plunge forth upon the sea, taking with them a shore-sighting bird. When the ship was out of sight of land they would set the shore-sighting bird free. And it would go to the east and to the south and to the west and to the north and to the intermediate points and rise aloft. If on the horizon it caught sight of land, thither it would go. But if not then it would come back to the ship again’ (Rhys Davids, _J. R. A. S._, April, 1899, 432).

“It will be observed that this mode of finding the position of the ship at sea, which recalls the sending out of the birds from the Ark, is said to have been the custom ‘long ago.’ It would seem therefore, that in the fifth century B.C. other and probably more scientific methods were in use. It would also appear that the navigation of the ocean was even then an ancient institution.

“In the time of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fah Hian (about 406 A.D.) there was a regular and evidently old-established trade between India and China and with the islands of the Archipelago.

“Fah Hian sailed from Tamalitti, or Tamralipti, at the mouth of the Ganges, in a great merchant ship, and in fourteen days reached Ceylon (Fo-Kwo-ki, Beal., I, lxxi, lxxii.). From thence he sailed in a great ship which carried about two hundred men, and which was navigated by observing the sun, moon and stars. In this ship Fah Hian reached Ye-po-ti (probably Java) in which country heretics and Brahmans flourished, but the law of Buddha was not much known (_Ib._, I, lxxx.). Here the pilgrim embarked for China on board another ship carrying two hundred men, amongst whom were Brahmans. These proposed to treat the sramana as Jonah was treated, and for the same reason, but some of those on board took his part. At length when their provisions were nearly exhausted, they reached China (_Ib._, I, lxxxi., lxxxii.). All these ships appear to have been Indian and not Chinese.

“Fah Hian mentions that pirates were numerous in those seas (_Ib._, I, lxxx.), which shows that the commerce must have been considerable” (p. 171).

“It seems in the highest degree improbable that this close connection between the Sun and the serpent could have originated, independently, in countries so far apart as China and the West of Africa, or India and Peru. And it seems scarcely possible that, in addition to this, the same forms of worship of these deities, and the same ritual, could have arisen, spontaneously, amongst each of these far distant peoples. The alternative appears to be that the combined worship of the Sun and serpent-gods must have spread from a common centre, by the migration of, or communication with, the people who claimed Solar descent.

“So universally was the Naga held sacred, that it would seem to have been the earliest totem of the people who claimed descent from the Sun-god” (p. 183).

I have quoted so extensively from Oldham’s fascinating work because the conclusions at which he arrived from a study of the ancient literature of India is confirmed by evidence derived from utterly different sources, not only from India itself but also from other countries. For, scattered throughout the length and breadth of India, are to be found thousands of indications (in traditions, beliefs, customs, social organisation and material relics) that the complete “heliolithic” culture had reached India not later than the beginning of the seventh century B.C.

Moreover the evidence which I have culled from Oldham bears out the conclusions my own investigations lead up to, namely, that the “heliolithic” culture spread from India to Malaysia soon after it reached India itself. It is surely something more than a mere coincidence that the period of the greatest maritime exploits of the Phœnicians, in the course of which, according to many authorities, they reached India or even further east, should coincide with that of the great pre-Aryan maritime race of India, whose great expeditions, as the above quotations indicate, were primarily for purposes of commerce between the Persian Gulf and the West Coast of India. There is gradually accumulating a considerable mass of evidence to suggest that, if the Asuras were not themselves Phœnicians, they acquired their maritime skill from these famous sailors and traders. The same hardy mariners who brought the new knowledge and practices from the Persian Gulf to India and Ceylon also carried it further, to Burma and Indonesia.

That this is so is clearly shown by the fact that these customs spread to Indonesia and the Pacific _before_ cremation was introduced; and it has been indicated above that the introduction of the practice of cremation into India may have taken place within a century of the arrival of the “heliolithic” civilization there. Hence it is obvious that the latter must have spread to the far east soon after it reached India; and the completeness of the transmission of the distinctive culture-complex can be explained only by supposing that the same people who brought it to India also carried it further east.

All the other evidence at our disposal is in full harmony with this view. The advancing wave of western culture swept past India into Indonesia, carrying into the isles of the Pacific and on to the American littoral the products of the older civilizations at first almost, but not altogether, untainted by Indian influence; but for centuries afterwards, as this same ferment gradually leavened the vast bulk of India, the stream of western culture continued to percolate eastwards and carried with it in succession the influence of the Brahmanical, Buddhist and, within in a more restricted area, Mahometan cults.

It is an interesting confirmation of the general accuracy of the scheme that has now been sketched out that the dates at which the influence of Egypt began to be exerted in the east, that to which Rhys Davids assigns the definite influencing of India by Babylonia, that at which India influenced Malaysia, and finally that assigned by students of the Polynesian problem to the inauguration of the great Indonesian migration into the Pacific (=60= and =98=), all fit into one consecutive series, though each was determined from different kinds of evidence and independently of the rest.

It is not my intention to discuss the evidence for the coming of the “heliolithic” culture to Indonesia, for the complex problems of this region have been analysed and interpreted in a masterly fashion by W. J. Perry in a book which is shortly to be published. The form which my present communication has assumed is largely the outcome of the reading of Perry’s manuscript and of discussions with him of the new lines of investigation which it suggested; and I am satisfied to leave this region for him to elucidate in detail. It will suffice to say here that the traditions of the inhabitants of the various islands of Malaysia, no less than their heterogeneous customs and beliefs, provided him with very precise evidence in demonstration of the complex constitution of the “heliolithic” culture, and of the fact that it was brought to the islands by an immigration from the west.

There is less need for me to analyse the vast literature relating to the burial practices in the islands of the Malay Archipelago since this useful service has already been accomplished by Hertz (=33=). Although I dissent from the main contention in his interpretation of the facts, his accurate record is none the less valuable on that account—perhaps indeed it is more useful, as it certainly cannot be accused of bias in favour of the views I am expounding.

A great variety of burial customs, in most respects closely analogous to the practices of the Naga tribes of India, is found in Indonesia;—exposing the dead on trees or platforms, burial in hollow trees, smoking and other methods of preservation, temporary burial, and cremation.

Apart from the definite evidence of preservation of the dead found in scattered islands from one end of the Archipelago to the other, there are much more generally diffused practices which are unquestionably derived from the former custom of mummification.

In the account of mummification as practised in the more savage African tribes, it was seen that the practice was restricted in most cases to the bodies of kings; and even then the failure to preserve the body in a permanent manner compelled these peoples to modify the Egyptian methods. Realising that the corpse, even when preserved as efficiently as they were able to perform the work of embalming, would undergo a process of disintegration within a few months, it became the practice to rescue the skull, to which special importance was attached (for the definite reasons explained by the early Egyptian evidence).

In his survey Hertz (=33=, p. 66) calls attention to the widespread custom of temporary burial throughout Indonesia, but, instead of recognising that such procedures have come into vogue as a degradation of the full rites incidental to mummification, he regards it as part of a widespread “notion que les derniers rites funéraires ne peuvent pas être célébrés de suite après la mort, mais seulement à l’expiration d’une période plus on moins longue” (p. 66); and regards mummification simply as a specialised form of this rite which is almost universal (p. 67):—“il paraît légitime de considérer la momification comme un cas particulier et dérivé de la sépulture provisoire.” (p. 69). This is a remarkable inversion of the true explanation. For the enormous mass of evidence which is now available makes it quite certain that the practice of temporary burial was adopted only when failure (or the risk of failure) to preserve the body compelled less cultured people to desist from the complete process.

I am in full agreement with Hertz when he says:—“L’homologie entre la préservation artificielle du cadavre et la simple exposition temporaire paraîtra moins difficile à admettre si l’on tient compte du fait qui sera mis en lumière plus bas: les ossements secs, résidu de la décomposition, constituent pour le mort un corps incorruptible, absolument comme la momie.” (p. 69). But does not this entirely bear out my contention? It is quite inconceivable that the practice of mummification could have been derived from the custom of preparing the skeleton; but the reverse is quite a natural transition, for even in the hands of skilled embalmers (see especially =39=), not to mention untutored savage peoples, the measures taken for preserving the body may fail and the skeleton alone may be spared. If this contention be conceded, the demonstration given by Hertz of the remarkable geographical distribution of customs of temporary burial affords a most valuable confirmation of the general scheme of the present communication. “Au point de vue où, nous sommes placés, il y a homologie rigoureuse entre l’exposition du cadavre sur les branches d’un arbre, telle que la pratiquent les tribus du centre de l’Australie, ou à l’intèrieur de la maison des vivants, comme cela se rencontre chez certains Papous et chez quelques peuples Bantous, ou sur une plateforme élevée à dessein, ainsi que le font en général les Polynésiens et de nombreuses tribus indiennes de l’Amérique du Nord, ou enfin l’enterrement provisoire, observé en particulier par la plupart des Indiens de l’Amérique du Sud” (p. 67). There can be no doubt whatever of the justice of this “homology,” for in every one of the areas mentioned these customs exist side by side with the practice of mummification; and in many cases there is definite evidence to show that the other methods of treatment have been derived from it by a process of degradation. In his excellent bibliography, and especially the illuminating footnotes, Hertz gives a number of references to the practice of desiccation by smoking or simple forms of embalming, which had escaped me in my search for information on these matters. He refers especially to further instances of such practices in Australia, New Guinea, various parts of West Africa, Madagascar and America (p. 68).

An interesting reference in the same note (p. 68, footnote 5) is to the practice of simple embalming among the Ainos of Sakhalin (Preuss, _Begräbnisarten der Amerikaner_, p. 190). This seems to supply an important link between the Eastern Asiatic littoral and the Aleutian Islands, where mummification is practised. In Saghalien, according to St. John (“The Ainos,” _Journ. Anthropol. Inst._, Vol. II., 1873, p. 253), “when the chief of a tribe or village died, his body was laid out on a table close to the door of his hut; his entrails were then removed, and daily for twelve months his wife and daughters wash him thoroughly. He is allowed ... to dry in the sun.”

In a recent article on the customs of the people of Laos (G. Maupetit, “Moeurs laotiennes,” _Bull. et Mem. de la Soc. d’ Anthropol. de Paris_, 1913), an account is given of the practice of mummification in this far south-eastern corner of the Asiatic mainland. Cremation is the regular means adopted for disposal of the dead: but it is also “the Laotian’s ideal to be able to preserve the corpse in his house, for as long a time as possible, before incinerating it: in the same way the Siamese and Chinese keep their dead in the house for several months, often for several years” (p. 549).