of the Ossetes. The funeral oration by a relative of the deceased, in which the All-merciful Barastyr (a kind of Pluto) is invoked to take him under his care, that he may for ever partake of the bliss of Paradise, where his horse may pasture near him, and he may taste of joys such as no earthly lord had, and become the object of envy of those who had no such pleasures, either because of their sins or the poverty of their relatives preventing them from celebrating the sacrifices, and therefore leaving their departed to charity or stolen crusts. All this evidently indicates their belief that the future wellbeing of the dead depends on the quantity of food and drink supplied them by their descendants; this is why the relatives provide the departed with a bottle of arrack and some cakes, lest he should hunger and thirst on his way to the other world; breaking the bottle, and pouring the contents over his grave, and throwing the cakes on one side of it, pronouncing the words, "May this food and this drink last thee till thou reachest paradise (dzeneta)!" Fear lest the deceased should have nothing to eat in the next world haunts the Ossete for a whole year after the death of a near relative. Weekly on Fridays at sunset the widow visits her husband's grave, taking with her meat and drink. The first week of the new year a special service is held in his honour, and a gigantic loaf, large enough to last a man a whole month, is baked. Two sticks are crossed, and upon these are set the clothes of the departed, his weapons being also attached. This dummy figure is set upon a bench specially constructed for the purpose, and around it are scattered the favourite objects of the dead person; in front of the bench are placed a bowl of porridge and a bottle of arrack, specially designed for the departed. For a few minutes the assembled family retire from the spot to give him time to taste the food, in accordance with the custom according to which the elders partake of food apart from the younger members of the family. Among Muhammadans these ceremonies are observed on the first week of the New Year, while Christians celebrate them on Good Friday (sixth week in Lent). The only difference is that in the latter case the food offered to VOL. XX.-[NEW SERIES.]

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the dummy figure is of a Lenten kind. One of the old men or one of the old women proclaiming a toast, either in arrack or beer, says as follows: "May he (the deceased) be serene, and may his tomb be serene; may he be famous among the dead, that none may have command over his food, and that it may reach him intact, and be his for ever; that increasing it may multiply as long as the rocks roll down our hills, and the wheels roll over the plains, neither growing mouldy in summer, nor freezing in winter; and that he may divide it according to his good will among such of the dead as have no food!"

The same idea of the necessity of feeding the dead explains those frequent memorial ceremonies which have been estimated to cost each family at least 2000 rubles a year, and lead sometimes to their complete ruin. Christians celebrate no less than ten of them, Muhammadans seven, some lasting several days. On these occasions, says V. Miller, the food eaten is said not to benefit him who eats, but the dead in whose honour the feast is held, so that a person after a substantial meal at one of these feasts, on returning home has the right to demand that his usual dinner be served to him. There is no greater insult for an Ossete than to tell him that his dead are hungry. The dead too require firing besides food and drink, and it is for this reason that at the New Year, or strictly speaking on the last Friday in December, the house-owner stacks bundles of straw in his yard and sets them alight, with the words, "May our dead be serene, may their fire not be extinguished!" and he believes that in this way he supplies the dead with new fire for the coming year. From all that precedes we cannot but come to the conclusion that, like the ancient Hindus, Greeks and Romans, the Ossetes liken the life beyond the grave to that on earth. This appears not only from the practice of feeding the dead by the living, but from the care taken by Ossetes to supply the dead on burial with all the requisites for the future life. They bury him in his best clothes, in order that he may present a respectable appearance in the next world, however poorly he has been obliged to live in

this.

And though at present under Muhammadan and Christian influences they only place with the corpse the food already mentioned, there was a time when, judging from the excavations made by Miller and Kovalefsky, it was customary to bury with the deceased his arms and ornaments, his horse-trappings, his domestic utensils, his three-legged table, or 'fing,' and a variety of other articles. We know that the fear of leaving the deceased without a wife in the future life gave rise to the Indian custom of burning widows (Suttee), fire which, as we have seen, is the means of transmitting food to the departed, being made in this case to render him a further service. In Ossetia, though there is no trace of widow-burning, it is to this day customary for the widow to cut off her tress of hair and lay it upon the deceased, signifying by this act her sincere wish to belong to her husband in the life to come. The slaughter of the horse over the grave of the deceased is, we know, not unusual in the funeral rites of Aryan nations. Of this custom all that survives in Ossetia is the participation of the horse in the funeral ceremony; the eldest relative of the dead person leading it, being called 'bakh-faldisag,' literally horse dedicator'; and the allusion in the funeral oration to the belief that the departed will gallop his horse safely across the bridge separating Paradise from Hell. These, however, are sure indications of an earlier transmission of the horse to the deceased, probably by slaughtering it over his grave. The custom now is to strike the horse three times with the tress of hair which the widow takes from her husband's breast, where she had previously laid it, and handing it to the 'bakh-faldisag,' or horse dedicator, says, "Here is a whip for the deceased." In striking the horse the relative says, "May you both, horse and whip, be dedicated to the deceased!" 1

This identification of the future life with the present induces the conviction that the dead in the life beyond the

1 Some interesting particulars of the sacrificial horse in the Hindu funeral rites will be found in the article already referred to. Cf. The first Mandala of the Rig Veda, Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc. Vol. XIX. Pt. 4, pp. 621 seqq.

grave continue to exert themselves for the welfare of their families. The popular tales frequently speak of this or that dead person asking and obtaining leave of Barastyr, the king of the dead, to visit his relations on earth. Having met them, he assists in their raids, and before taking his departure gives up his share of the spoil, at the same time disclosing his identity. From these tales it appears that the souls of the departed may only remain on earth till sunrise, when they must return to their abode beyond the grave. The Ossetes hold communion with them in the evening with lighted candles. For a whole year the widow continues to expect the nightly visits of her husband; every evening she prepares the couch, placing beneath it a copper basin and ewer of water, lights a whole candle and sits patiently waiting his arrival till cock-crow. In the morning she rises from her bed and taking the ewer and basin with soap and other appurtenances of toilet, proceeds to the spot where he usually performed his ablutions, and stands several minutes in an expectant attitude as though waiting on him. Departed ancestors are supposed to participate in all the family ceremonies and festivals, whether at births, marriages, or attestation of oaths, the Lares and Penates being always invoked on these occasions, and the force of the oath depends in a great measure on the fulfilment by the witnessing parties of those funeral obsequies in honour of their departed whose names are invoked at such ceremonies. While the souls of the dead are supposed to leave their bodies by night and visit their friends, the living are in like manner believed to be capable during sleep of riding off on horseback or on benches to a field dedicated to the departed, and known by the name of 'Kuris.' Here it is said grow all kinds of seeds, including those of happiness and misfortune. This field is jealously guarded by the dead, and may only be visited with impunity by the souls of the worthy, who may take the seeds they require, a sure pledge of a good harvest and

1 There is a strange similarity between this name and that given by the natives in some districts of India to the prehistoric graves. Cf. Mr. Bidie's account of his visit to the graves near Pallavaram in Notes of the Quarter, Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc. Vol. XIX. Pt. 4, p. 693.