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Ask what animal stands guard where the living end and the dead begin, and traditions that never traded a single word with each other give the same answer.

Five Regions, One Post

In Egypt, Anubis presides over embalming and weighs the heart against the feather of Maat, and the dog cemeteries at Saqqara held the animal by the million. In Greece, Cerberus guards the gate of the underworld so the dead cannot leave it, and Hecate, goddess of the crossroads, is attended by dogs and received them in sacrifice.

In Zoroastrian Persia the dog holds an unusually high legal status, and the rite called sagdid, the gaze of the dog, requires a dog to look on a corpse to confirm death and drive off the demon that attends it. In Mesoamerica, the hairless xoloitzcuintli was buried alongside its owner to guide the dead across the water on the road to Mictlan. In the Mahabharata, a dog follows a king to the gate of heaven itself and turns out to be Dharma in disguise.

Why a Dog

Mesoamerica had no contact with Egypt, Greece or Persia, so the resemblance cannot be borrowing. It is closer to convergent evolution than to influence. Dogs scavenge at the edges of settlements, they guard, and they are the one animal that chose to live alongside humans rather than being hunted or herded into service. A culture that watches a dog stand between the safety of the camp and the danger outside it has an obvious reason to imagine the same animal standing between life and whatever comes after.

Where To Read More

• DogMammalsThe animal itself, and the page every regional account below is attached to
• AnubisEgyptian DeitiesEgypt's dog headed guide of the dead, who weighs the heart at judgement
• CerberusHoundsThe three headed hound that keeps the dead from leaving the Greek underworld
• ZoroastrianismMonotheistic DualistHolds the sagdid rite, in which a dog's gaze is required to confirm a death
• XolotlAztec DeitiesMesoamerica's dog headed guide across the underworld's waters