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Updated: May 11, 2025
Though, in the present state of our knowledge, the evolution in Japan of these three stages of ancestor-worship is but faintly traceable, we can divine tolerably well, from various records, how the permanent forms of the cult were first developed out of the earlier funeral-rites.
The peculiar character of the early human sacrifices at graves, the character of the funeral-rites, the abandonment of the house in which death had occurred. all prove that the early ancestor-worship was of a decidedly primitive kind.
The domestic cult proper may not have been established until about the eighth century, when the spirit-tablet is supposed to have been introduced from China. The earliest ancestor-cult, as we shall presently see, was developed out of the primitive funeral-rites and propitiatory ceremonies.
But, gradually, out of the primal funeral-rites, a higher cult was evolved. The mourning-house, or moya, became transformed into the Shinto temple, which still retains the shape of the primitive hut. Then under Chinese influence, the ancestral cult became established in the home; and Buddhism at a later day maintained this domestic cult.
The other Part of the Funeral-Rites are thus, As soon as the Party is dead, they lay the Corps upon a Piece of Bark in the Sun, seasoning or embalming it with a small Root beaten to Powder, which looks as red as Vermilion; the same is mix'd with Bear's Oil, to beautify the Hair, and preserve their Heads from being lousy, it growing plentifully in these Parts of America.
In various Buddhist funeral-rites, the dead are actually addressed as Gaki, beings to be pitied but also to be feared, much needing human sympathy and succour, but able to recompense the food-giver by ghostly help. One particular attraction of Buddhist teaching was its simple and ingenious interpretation of nature.
Be this as it may, we have documentary evidence, of an unmistakable sort, concerning the early funeral-rites as they existed when the custom of burying had become established, rites weird and strange, and having nothing in common with the practices of settled civilization.
After the ceremonies of his father's funeral-rites and his own inauguration were over, the new sultan, as well from inclination as duty, went out one evening attended by his grand vizier, disguised like himself, to observe what was transacting in the city.
No persistent form of ancestor-worship is primitive; and every established domestic cult has been developed out of some irregular and non-domestic family-cult, which, again, must have grown out of still more ancient funeral-rites. Our knowledge of ancestor-worship, as regards the early European civilizations, cannot be said to extend to the primitive form of the cult.
He went, but his health never came back to him. His quarters were in the same house where Barnard had died, and in a few days, on the 5th of December, he followed him. He was tended in his sickness by the negroes, and one day, having asked that his pillow might be turned, he uttered the words, "Thank God," and died. There was the same grief as at Barnard's death, the same funeral-rites at the St.
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