DEATH
AND CREMATION
The
extraordinary decision to cremate a man of high caste immediately
became possible only because the festival that the community
was preparing for, their greatest in a decade, could not
have taken place had there been an important uncremated
corpse in the village. The family was in difficult financial
circumstances and they welcomed the decision.
A Brahmanic priest is essential to a proper cremation, and
only the destitute would call upon a lesser priest. The
quality of the ceremonies the priest performs is determined
by the fee paid to him. There is a choice of three kinds
of cremation: utama, the highest, costing an average of
fifty dollars in fees for the priest alone; madia, the medium-class
cremation, for about twenty-five dollars; and nista, the
low, for about five dollars. The rites for each are about
the same, the difference consisting in the quality and power
of the magic formulas and symbols and the sort of holy water
used, the credentials given by the priest to the soul entering
heaven, and the more or less thorough purification of the
soul.
It
is always a good resource, in a great cremation of a prince,
to provide a retinue of souls for his trip into the beyond
and to profit at the same time by the magical and social
advantages of a more elegant cremation. In Krobokan we witnessed
the release of two hundred and fifty souls of commoners
who accompanied a member of the royal family. It is of extreme
importance, however, to keep within the rules prescribed
for each caste, the breach of which would bring dreadful
punishment upon guilty relatives who in their craving for
ostentation should use rites or materials for the accessories
allotted to a higher caste.
These
rules are at times infringed and it becomes the source of
malicious gossip if a family use a cow instead of a lion
to burn their deceased, or if they have more roofs in their
tower than is their right. In a few cases the right of cremation
is denied, as in the death of exiles from the island. Lepers
are buried in hidden places and their redemption is carried
out by pious persons, secretly and through an effigy.
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