from the East, among the Malays a pair of betel-nut scissors, or a short weapon, is laid upon the breast of a corpse, its use being explained as due to a belief that "The 'contact with iron' prevents the dead body from rising again should . . . a cat . . . enter unawares and brush against it";[1] and in Korea there is an idea that "It is terribly unlucky for a cat to jump over a corpse. It may even cause it to stand upright."[2] And in Scotland—to turn to the extreme West of the great Euro-Asiatic land-mass—it is believed to be extremely ominous for a cat to pass over a corpse, and cats are therefore not permitted to come near to a dead body. It is, however, in China that, as we should naturally expect, we find the closest parallels to the Japanese beliefs regarding the effects of cats on human corpses. There great precautions are taken, as soon as a person has died, to send all cats out of the house or to tie them fast until the coffining has been accomplished, lest it might occur to one of them "to leap or walk over the death-bed, and so cause the corpse to rise up at once. A long pole would, in this case, be required to push it down into its former position, or a piece of furniture would have to be used as a projectile, though nothing can serve the purpose so well as a broom. The handle, namely, renders it eminently fit for being grasped with the hands, so that the corpse, frantic with rage, will pull the broom at once against its breast to cool its wrath upon it, and by this vehement motion sink down into its inert state . . . the danger of being seized instead of the broom . . . [is that of] a horrible death in a ferocious embrace."[3] We may observe in passing, and as possibly helping to explain some of the very numerous beliefs that are to be found among European peoples concerning the magical powers of brooms, that the Chinese
- ↑ W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 398.
- ↑ Mrs. Bishop, Korea and her Neighbours, 1898, vol. ii. p. 87.
- ↑ de Groot, op. cit. vol. i. bk. i. p. 43.
