y, and the motive for this custom is said to be to
render themselves more conspicuous, so that the ghost may see and be
satisfied that he is being properly mourned for.[242] Thus the fear of
the ghost, who, at least among the Australian aborigines, is commonly of
a jealous temper and stands very firmly on his supposed rights, may
suffice to explain the practice of self-mutilation at mourning.

[Sidenote: Custom of allowing the blood of mourners to drip on the
corpse or into the grave.]

But it is possible that another motive underlies the drawing of blood on
these occasions. For it is to be observed that the blood of the mourners
is often allowed to drop directly either on the dead body or into the
grave. Thus, for example, among the tribes on the River Darling several
men used to stand by the open grave and cut each other's heads with a
boomerang; then they held their bleeding heads over the grave so that
the blood dripped on the corpse lying in it. If the deceased was highly
esteemed, the bleeding was repeated after some earth had been thrown on
the body.[243] Among the Arunta it is customary for the women kinsfolk
of the dead to cut their own and each other's heads so severely with
clubs and digging-sticks that blood streams from them on the grave.[244]
Again, at a burial on the Vasse River, in Western Australia, a writer
describes how, when the grave was dug, the natives placed the corpse
beside it, then "gashed their thighs, and at the flowing of the blood
they all said, 'I have brought blood,' and they stamped the foot
forcibly on the ground, sprinkling the blood around them; then wiping
the wounds with a wisp of leaves, they threw it, bloody as it was, on
the dead man."[245] With these Australian practices we may compare a
custom observed by the civilised Greeks of antiquity. Every year the
Peloponnesian lads lashed themselves on the grave of Pelops at Olympia,
till the blood ran down their backs as a libation in honour of the dead
man.[246]

[Sidenote: The blood intended to strengthen the dead.]

Now what is the intention of thus applying the blood of the living to
the dead or pouring it into the grave? So far as the ancient Greeks are
concerned the answer is not doubtful. We know from Homer that the ghosts
of the dead were supposed to drink the blood that was offered to them
and to be strengthened by the draught.[247] Similarly with the
Australian savages, their object can hardly be any other than that of
s