Cole
wrote that in a family consisting of six sisters, five died in quick
succession of galloping consumption. "The old superstition in such
cases is that the vital organs of the dead still retain a certain
flicker of vitality and by some strange process absorb the vital
forces of the living." To back up their belief, residents told of
"instances wherein exhumation has revealed a heart and lungs still
fresh and living, encased in rottening and slimy integuments, and
in which, after burning these portions of the defunct, a living
relative, else doomed and hastening to the grave, has suddenly and
miraculously recovered." To be effective, they asserted, the ceremony
must be conducted at night by a single individual at the open grave.
Text © Dr.
Michael Bell |