The malevolent dead, discussed in Chapter 1, presented a menace to all through ‘hauntings’, causing crop failure, and inflicting disease, but were a particular threat to the vulnerable including pregnant women, young children, and the recently deceased. Propitiation of the dead through offerings to discourage unwanted behaviour is common in a range of societies both ancient and modern.904 According to Willems, Coffin Texts Spells 38-41 were aimed at appeasing the deceased ‘who might adopt a hostile attitude to his surviving relatives. He is accused of endangering his household, but ultimately also himself.’905 In Spell 38, a hierarchy in the netherworld is indicated when a son asks his father to prevent his death since it would involve the father having to yield his place to his son, thereby pushing the older deceased man into the realm of the more remote ancestors.906
Any dead person who left the tomb to ‘go forth by day’ was a potentially malevolent entity. Coffin Texts Spell 38, for example, is an incantation to ‘cause the heart of a dweller in the necropolis to be friendly to a man’,907 with the implication that he may otherwise not be, and The Book of Good and Bad Days specifically mentions a day when the ‘dead walk about in the necropolis... in order to spread fear’ among the living.908 CT 39 deals with the fear of being summoned by a dead relative before completing one’s life on earth, while CT 40 expresses anxiety regarding dying before reaching old age, as well as mentioning the fear of attack by the dead.909 Fear of premature death is also mentioned in Book of the Dead Spell 175,910 and may be alluded to in the Middle Kingdom text known as the Dialogue Between a Man and His Ba.911 Execration rituals as a means of warding off malicious spirits from both the living and dead are discussed in Chapter 1.
World History
