Mr. H. O. Forbes gives an interesting instance of such a transitional stage in Timorlaut. “The bodies of those who die in war or by a violent death are buried,” he says; “and if the head has been captured [by the enemy], a cocoanut is placed in the grave to represent the missing member, and to deceive and satisfy his spirit.” There is abundant evidence that such makeshift limbs or bodies amply suffice for the use of the soul, when the actual corpse has been destroyed or mutilated. Sometimes, indeed, the substitution of parts is deliberate and intentional. Landa says of the Yucatanese that they cut oft the heads of the ancient lords of Cocom when they died, and cleared them from flesh by cooking them (very probably to eat at a sacrificial feast, of which more hereafter); then they sawed { 081}off the top of the skull, filled in the rest of the head with cement, and, making the face as like as possible to the original possessor, kept these images along with the statues and the ashes. Note here the usual preservation of the head as exceptionally sacred. In other cases, they made for their fathers wooden statues, put in the ashes of the burnt body, and attached the skin of the occiput taken off the corpse. These images, half mummy, half idol, were kept in the oratories of their houses, and were greatly reverenced and assiduously cared for. On all the festivals, food and drink were offered to them.
Mr. Spencer has collected other interesting instances of this transitional stage between the corpse or mummy and the mere idol. The Mexicans, who were cremationists, used to burn a dead lord, and collect the ashes; “and after kneading them with human blood, they made of them an image of the deceased, which was kept in memory of him.” Sometimes, as in Yucatan, the ashes were placed in a man-shaped receptacle of clay, and temples or oratories were erected over them. “In yet other cases,” says Mr. Spencer, “there is worship of the relics, joined with the representative figure, not by inclusion, but only by proximity.” Thus Gomara tells us that the Mexicans having burnt the body of their deceased king, gathered up the ashes, bones, jewels, and gold in cloths, and made a figure dressed as a man, before which, as well as before the relics, offerings were placed. It is clear that cremation specially lends itself to such substitution of an image for the actual dead body. Among burying races it is the severed skull, on the contrary, that is oftenest preserved and worshipped.
