sin-eating is a very widely-found burial custom. aubrey mentions it in his Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme--folklore collected in the late 17th century, mostly from wiltshire and surrounding counties. but it's also found among southern african-americans and other american ethnic groups--if you can read german, look in the Handworterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens; wayland hand's Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina has good comparative notes for international cognates; the publications of the British Folklore society in the late 19th century contain large quantities of folk belief and practice collected in various parts of the country, organized by county (but not all counties are covered). a lot of eastern european cognate practices can be found in paul barber's Vampires, Burial, and Death (published 1990 or so, i think). finally (yes, i know, more information than anyone wants and all in english too) newbell niles puckett's Beliefs from Ohio, which is a massive 2- vol. work with a third vol. of index, has many beliefs collected between about 1920-1960 from welsh descendants living in ohio--but you have to read each belief and look at the ethnicity attribution at the end. still, a valuable resource for welsh--and those of any other ethnicity--beliefs carried over to america. leslie jones ljones@law.uoregon.edu