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The Chinese have a singular superstition with regard to the burial of their dead; for they will upon no occasion open the ground a second time, where a body has been interred. Their burying grounds, therefore, in the neighbourhood of Batavia, cover many hundred acres, and the Dutch, grudging, the waste of so much land, will not sell any for this purpose but at the most exorbitant price. The Chinese, however, contrive to raise the purchase money, and afford another instance of the folly and weakness of human nature, in transferring a regard for the living to the dead, and making that the object of solicitude and expence, which cannot receive the least benefit from either. Under the influence of this universal prejudice, they take an uncommon method to preserve the body intire, and prevent the remains of it from being mixed with the earth that surrounds it. They inclose it in a large thick coffin of wood, not made of planks joined together, but hollowed out of the solid timber like, a canoe; this being covered, and let down into the grave, is surrounded with a coat of their mortar, called Chinam, about eight or ten inches thick, which in a short time becomes as hard as a stone. The relations of the deceased attend the funeral, ceremony, with a considerable number of women that are hired to weep: it might reasonably be supposed that the hired appearance of sorrow could no more flatter the living than benefit the dead; yet the appearance of sorrow is known to be hired among people much more reflective and enlightened than the Chinese. In Batavia, the law requires that every man should be buried according to his rank, which is in no case dispensed with; so that if the deceased has not left sufficient to pay his debts, an officer takes an inventory of what was in his possession when he died, and out of the produce buries him in the manner prescribed, leaving only the overplus to his creditors. Thus in many instances are the living sacrificed to the dead, and money that should discharge a debt, or feed an orphan, lavished in idle processions, or deposited in the earth to rot.
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© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 761 - 762, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/761.html