erworld was
without pursuits; the shades sat motionless, in the dress and according
to the rank of the upper world, without emotions or aims (except a
sparkle of malicious satisfaction when some great man came down from
earth), and without religious worship.[139] A similar view was held by
the Greeks and the Romans. Certain Egyptian documents speak of mundane
occupations for the dead, but these documents belong to a comparatively
late stage of culture, and what the earlier view was we do not
know.[140] Of Hindu ideas, also, on this point we have only relatively
late notices.

+71+. 5. A radical transformation in the conception of the state of the
dead was effected by the introduction of the idea of moral retribution
into the life of the Underworld.[141] The basis of the movement was the
natural conception of life as determined by ethical considerations, but
the process of transformation has extended over thousands of years and
has hardly yet reached its completion. In the lowest eschatological
systems known to us there is no marked difference in the status of
departed souls; so among the Central Australians, the tribes of New
Guinea and the Torres Straits islands, the Zulus, the Malagasy, the West
African peoples, and some North American tribes.[142]

+72+. The earliest grounds of distinction are ritualistic and social;
these occur among the higher savages and survive in some civilized
peoples. The Fijians assign punishment in the other world to bachelors,
men unaccompanied by their wives and children, cowards, and untattooed
women.[143] Where circumcision was a tribal mark, the uncircumcised, as
having no social status, were consigned to inferior places in hades: so
among the Hebrews.[144] The omission of proper funeral ceremonies was
held in like manner to entail deprivation of privilege in hades: the
shade had an undesirable place below, as among the Babylonians and the
Hebrews,[145] or was unable to enter the abode of the dead, and wandered
forlorn on the earth or on the border of the Underworld, as was the
Greek belief.[146] Exposure of the corpse to beasts and birds, making
funeral ceremonies impossible, was regarded as a terrible misfortune for
the dead.[147]

+73+. Such of these beliefs as relate to violations of ritual appear to
spring from the view that the tribal customs are sacred, and from the
consequent distinction between tribesmen and foreigners. All persons
without the tribal mark were shut out from