Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

BURIAL—T^f' HOUSE OF THE DEAD 385shade, ran the common belief, could not reach Arallu, butwandered disconsolately about the earth. When driven bypangs of hunger it perforce ate the offal or leavings of the street.As the Egyptians, to ensure the continued existence of thedead and his ka, provided sepulchral offerings (the depictmentsof which included fish i),so did the Babylonians, not only fora similar but also for the additional purpose of preserving themselvesfrom torments.To leave a body unburied was not unattended with dangerto the living. The shade of the dead man might bewitch anyperson it met and cause him grievous sickness. The wanderingshade of a man was called ekimmu, i.e. spectre. Only sorcererspossessed the power of casting a spell whereby the ekimmumight be made to harass a man. On the other hand, the spectresometimes settled on a man of its own accord, in the hope thatits victim would be driven to give it burial to free himself fromits clutches. 2The Babylonian conception of the condition of the deadwas an utterly joyless one. Arallu, or the House of the Dead,was dark and gloomy. Its dwellers never beheld the light of thesun, but sat in unchanging gloom. The Babylonians possessedno hope of a joyous Hfe beyond the grave, nor did they imaginea paradise in which the deceased would live a life similar tothat on earth.The nature ofthe under-world can be gathered from thedescription given to Gilgamesh by the spirit of Enkidu risenhardly warranted, at any rate by the O.T. passages which he adduces in supportof this statement, in attributing to Israel the idea of the unburied dead beingcondemned to miserable wandering. For the Greek conception see inter aliathe Antigone of Sophocles.1See Egyptian Book of the Dead (London, 1910). ch. LIII., with referenceto the deceased being obliged, from lack of proper food in the under-world, toeat filth—" Let me not be obliged to eat thereof in place of the sepulchralofferings." To provide food for the dead, asphodel was planted neartombs [Odyssey, XL 539 and 573) by the Greeks. From Hesiod {Op. 41) welearn that the roots of the asphodel were eaten as a common vegetable, as wasthe mallow. Merry states that in the Greek islands, where customs hngerlonger than on the mainland, this " kind of squill is still planted on graves."'If the Homeric mead of asphodel turns out, as some editors maintain, to'have had a strictly utilitarian significance, how many poets and poetasters'have mistaken greens for greenery ' ' ' !« King, Babylonian Religion {op. cit.), p. 45, and Babylonian Magic andSorcery (London, 1896), pp. 119 ft., where the incantation appropriate forexorcising demons is set out.