These severe measures are resorted to in order to maintain a high standard of morality and honour, and there is little doubt that, primitive as these methods may seem, the good results obtained more than justify them. There are very few illegitimate births, with the exception of occasional Rambang children, and their arrival is a matter of such disgrace that they cannot be looked upon as seriously discrediting the social value of the Rambang.
Rambang Girls with Ornaments
CHAPTER XVII
FUNERAL RITES
Departure of the Soul—Cremation—Amusement of the dead man's soul—The lay figure—Feasting—Doleful dance—Transmigration of the soul—Expensive ceremonies—Offerings before the lay figure—Dancing and contortions—Martial dances—Solo dances—The animal to be sacrificed and the lay figure—Chasing the animal from the village—Tearing out its heart—The yak driven over a precipice—Head shaving—A sacred cave.
The Shokas ascribe death to the departure of the soul from the body, and to this notion is due the curious reverence they show for the spirit or memory of their dead. I witnessed a funeral ceremony quaint enough to deserve record.
A man had died a painful death, the result of an accident. His friends were immediately sent for, and the corpse, having been smeared with butter (ghi), was dressed in his best clothes. They bent his body double before the rigor set in, and placed him on a hurriedly constructed wooden hearse. He was covered with a blue-and-gold embroidered cloth, and a white one over it. At sunrise, the funeral procession left the house for the place of cremation. First came a row of ten women, their heads covered with a long strip of white cotton cloth, one end of which was tied to the hearse. Among these were the near relations of the deceased, including his wife and daughters, crying and wailing the words, "Oh bajo! Oh bajo!" (Oh father! oh father!), the rest of them sobbing and making great show of grief. The deceased having been somewhat of a favourite in Garbyang, the villagers turned out in force to render him this last tribute, and they took their place in the procession as it slowly wound down the cliff towards the river. The hearse was carried by two men, and each male Shoka following bore a log or bundle of firewood. We reached the Kali. The body was temporarily laid on the bank of the stream, while all the men, with heads uncovered, collected large stones and pieces of wood. With the stones a circular crematory oven, five feet high, six feet in diameter, with an opening on the side facing the wind, was erected by the water-side. The wife and daughters of the departed, with their hoods turned inside out and with covered faces, squatted down meanwhile by the hearse, moaning and keeping a small fire alight. When all preparations were made, the oven being heaped up with logs of wood, the body was untied from the stretcher and lifted by two intimates of the departed on to the funeral pile.
Weeping Women under White Cloth
All valuables were removed, his gold earrings, his silver locket and bracelets; and a large knife was used for some purpose or other which I could not quite see, except in slitting the lobes of the corpse's ears to remove his earrings more quickly. Branches of pine-tree were deposited on the body, and a large pot of butter was set by its side. A brass bowl of chökti (wine) was poured on the head, and then, in profound silence, fire was set to the pile.
A few white puffs showed that it had caught fire, and then a dense column of black smoke rose from it, filling the atmosphere with a sickening smell of singed hair and burning flesh. The wind blew the smoke towards me, and I was enveloped in it for some moments, during which I could see nothing of what was going on, and I felt my eyes smart and my nostrils fill with the smoke and the stench. Gradually a tall flame, over twenty feet high, leaked out, consuming the body and showing me, as the atmosphere cleared, the Shokas down by the river washing their hands and faces to cleanse themselves of what they look upon as unclean, the contact with a corpse. Retracing their steps to the village, the women cried and moaned, carrying back to the house the clothes of the deceased and his brass bowls.
Shoka Funeral Pile
Reaching home, it was incumbent on them to provide lavishly for the amusement of the dead man's soul. A lay figure crudely constructed of straw and sticks was attired by them in the clothes of the departed, and covered over with Indian fabrics embroidered in gold and red and blue, and a turban was stuck on the head, with a panache made of a branch of fir-tree. The Kalihé was at the side of the image. When the fire was extinguished, a visit was paid to the cremation spot by the relatives of the deceased, and such pieces of bone as the knee-joints, elbows, and the larger vertebræ of the spine, usually left undestroyed by the flames, were collected and deposited inside the clothes of the image.
Women Dusting and Caressing the Lay Figure
Wheat, rice, and flour were purchased in large quantities and cooked to provide food for the multitude of friends who remained the guests of the family during the whole time of the funeral. A sheep a day is usually killed and eaten on such occasions, and cask after cask of chökti (wine), zahn (a liquor distilled from barley, rice and wheat), and anag (from fermented grain of various kinds) are emptied by the mourning crowd. The women folk of the dead man mourned round the effigy, resting their heads on it, crying and imploring the beloved one to return to life. Other rows of women, with their hoods turned inside out in sign of mourning, danced gracefully in circles round the dressed-up figure, left the house by one door in the basement, described an arc in the open, and returned by another door, while men were dancing a doleful dance outside the house. Beating of drums went on the whole day—languid and sad at moments; excited, violent and rowdy at others, according to the mood of the musicians and the quantity of liquor consumed by them. On each day of these proceedings, which lasted for three or four days, rice, baked wheat, and wine were placed before the effigy, until, when it was assumed that the soul of the dead had had a sufficiently amusing time, arrangements were made for its transmigration from the lay figure into a live sheep or yak. If the deceased is a man, the animal chosen to represent him is a male; if a woman, a female; but no ceremony of this sort follows the cremation of children under ten or twelve. In the case of the old man whose funeral I witnessed, a sheep was chosen, instead of the time-hallowed yak, the procuring of which from Tibet used to be a very costly business. The use of a sheep for these sacrifices is quite a recent innovation, brought into fashion by the greatest Shoka trader in Garbyang, called Gobaria, whose intention it was to put down the unnecessary waste of these ceremonies; but many pious Shokas, I was assured, are not satisfied with so small an offering as a single sheep, and slaughter two or even more on these occasions.
Women Dancing Round the Lay Figure
After several days' dancing and gorging indoors, a crowd collects, to the sound of the drums, outside the habitation.
Dance in Front of Deceased Man's House
The lay figure is from the room transported either directly outside the dwelling or to some picturesque spot in the woods. This