ABSTRACT
In certain respects burial customs can be taken as a measure of value for the culture of a people. Many funeral rites and mourning customs must be explained from this fear of mysterious disease- and death-spirits which are vaguely identified with the soul of the departed. The difficulty of permanently preserving even such parts of the body as the skull and bones, in conflict with the desire to keep a material substratum for the soul, has given rise to another burial practice—the burning of the body. Two kinds of urn-burial can be distinguished. In the one we find very large urns, very seldom painted, in which the whole of the dead body is placed—even that of an adult. The other kind of urn-burial consists in laying the bones or the ashes only in smaller urns, often beautifully painted; these are specially characteristic of the Arawaks living in the north of South America.
