tive than others who claimed actually to have seen this demon-a great bird-like creature with huge black wings and a tongue of fire.

The familiar Reaper and Death-angel are relics of these old, old myths. The Bible speaks of the Death-angel who stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thy hand. (II Samuel, XXIV, 16.)

And again:

I looked, and behold, a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death And power was given to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death. (Revelations, VI, 8.)

Even the poet Longfellow was faithful to the old superstitious notion that attributed death to a grim and unseen Reaper. He tells us:

There is a Reaper whose name is Death

And with his sickle keen

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath

And the flowers that grow between.

Among the ancients, death was the great Evil before which the strongest tribesman quailed. Our savage ancestors were fully convinced that when death claimed one of their number an evil spirit entered the body and dwelt there. Thus they feared not only the unknown Evil which caused death, but the dead body in which this Evil was supposed to linger.

O'Brien says:

Afraid of no living enemy, nor of the sea, meeting the shark in his own element and worsting him, fearlessly enduring the thrust of the fatal spear when an accident of battle left him defenseless, the Marquesan warrior, as much as the youngest child, had an unutterable horror of their own dead and of burial places, and of the demons who hovered about them.

The Veddahs desert their homes whenever any one dies, returning only when they feel that the demon or demons

have gone. Sometimes they do not return at all. The Australian Blackfellows show their fear of the dead by burning all his property and running away. Evidently they believe that the demon resides not only in the dead body, but in the property belonging to the dead man.

At Batta funerals natives march behind the body brandishing swords, to drive away the demons. The members of a Zulu kraal eat "medicine" in time of death to protect themselves from the evil influences. The Greenlanders throw out of the house everything belonging to the dead man. The Galibis of Guiana dance on the newly covered grave to "stamp down the spirits."

Since the earliest times the corpse has been an object of superstitious dread. As Elsie Parsons indicates, "The dead have become alien to the living, and hence formidable." Even we are encumbered with fear of the dead. Who will with perfect ease spend a night in the cemetery? Who will sit at night beside a dead body without being conscious of a vague and disquieting nervousness?

To avoid the evil influences of the dead, primitive man developed a system of precautions; and upon these precautions are modern burial customs based.

Disposing of the Body.-In the beginning man did not bury his dead. If a tribe were on the march and one of their number died, they deserted the body-left it to rot or be devoured by animals where it fell. Or if a tribe were squatting at the foot of a mountain and one of their number died, they moved on a little, found another squatting place a little way off, and the body was left to bleach its bones in the sun.

Jensen tells us in "The Long Journey" of the life and death of the Man-he who was strong of body and of voice, he who marched at the head of the tribe, leader of his little band. Brutal and powerful was the Man in youth, wise and cruel in age. Then feebleness overtook him and he became weaker, weaker.

Finally the Man lay down all the time and had people brought

to him, felt his way with closed eyes until he found a fleshy spot and then dug his fingers in. Ah, at one time he had had such strength in his thumbs that he could pluck a piece of flesh out of a man's body, but now his claws scarcely left a blue mark.

And thus he lay one morning, with scarcely a sign of change, but without movement and without breath, white-haired, long and thin, with stupid eyes open to the sky. He was cold; they brought a child to his hand, but he pinched no more. It was he and yet not he― in silent wonder and fear the tribe stood around him.

.

When they realized that he would move no more, one of the men stretched out his hand and took the staff, swung it above his head with a roar, and instinctively all the rest fell on their knees-now he was the Man.

For years afterwards, when the tribe passed the spot where the Old Man had lain down, he was still there; they reverently turned aside, but stole a glance and saw him lying in the same position, a long whitened skeleton in the grass and the dreaded head turned to the sky with gaping teeth and great empty eye-sockets.

It was fear of the dead body that led early man to dispose of it. Since demons and evil spirits caused the "long sleep" they must still be lurking about the victim, and man was afraid of falling into the "long sleep" himself. The thing to do, consequently, was to dispose of the body, demons and all. This originated customs of burning, burying, and otherwise disposing of the dead.

Burying would appeal particularly to the primitive mind seeking to shake off a superstitious fear. A body buried five or six feet below the ground could do no harm. But a body lying on the surface of the ground could shed its evil influence upon the living.

The custom of burying the dead can be traced back even to the Neanderthal men. Wells says:

The later Neanderthal men seem to have buried their dead, and apparently with food and weapons.

Writing later of Neolithic man, Wells says:

They buried their dead, but before they buried them they cut up the bodies and apparently ate portions of the flesh. They seem to have done this out of a feeling of reverence for the departed; the dead were "eaten with honour" according to the phrase of Mr.

Flinders Petrie. It may have been that the survivors hoped to retain 'thereby some vestige of the strength and virtue that had died. Traces of similar savage customs have been found in the long barrows that were scattered over western Europe before the spreading of the Aryan peoples, and they have pervaded Negro Africa, where they are only dying out at the present time.

It is difficult to decide just when man began to bury his dead. We have record of the custom as far back as it is possible for us to have definite record of anything concerning man. Recent discoveries in South France indicate that man not only buried his dead 15,000 years ago, but actually had tombstones to indicate the graves. In reporting the discoveries, the New York World published a cable from France, part of which we quote here:

Dean Charles Deperet of the Faculté des Sciences at Lyons has been excavating in the famous prehistoric deposits at Solutre in South France and has uncovered two carefully buried skeletons, in quaternary layers, judged to be at least 15,000 years old.

Above the head of each skeleton Dean Deperet found a cut stone placed vertically, so it would have been above ground, in the epoch when the Cro-Magnon hunters buried these two with their feet toward the rising ground and their heads toward the setting sun. It is considered the first authentic palæolithic sepulchre.

Customs of Burial.-At first the burial of a dead body was very crude. A hole was dug in the ground and the body dropped into it and covered with earth. Or if there happened to be a handy ravine or crater in which to drop the body, so much the better. It obviated the need for digging a hole.

But gradually death came to be looked upon as the last great event in man's life, and like all great events was duly celebrated. The breaking of the earth and preparing of the grave became a cermony. The body was lowered carefully and with a certain reverence. And when the hole was filled with earth again, there were dancing and feastinginevitable accompaniments of primitive ceremony.

The natives of Guiana dance upon graves even to-day. The Congo Kaffirs bury their dead amid elaborate cere