Tv*i* CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021569086 THE GOLDEN BOUGH THE GOLDEN BOUGH A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION BY J. G. FRAZER, M.A. FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II ILonbon MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK I 890 A U rights reserved f i [yl | \' T/ ; [ , / f / CONTENTS CHAPTER III {contmued) KILLING THE GOD, pp. 1-2 2 2 10. The corn-spirit as an animal 11. Eating the god 12. KiUing the divine animal 13. Transference of evil 14. ' Expulsion of evils 15. Scapegoats . 16. Killing the god in Mexico I 67 90 148 157 182 218 CHAPTER IV THE GOLDEN BOUGH, pp. 2 2 3-3 7 1 1. Between heaven and earth . 2. Balder 3. The external soul in folk-tales 4. The external soul in folk-custom . 5. Conclusion .... 223 244 296 327 359 NOTE / Offerings of first-fruits Index 373 385 CHAPTER III —{continued) \ lo. — The corn-spirit as an animal In some of the examples cited above to establish the meaning of the term "neck" as applied to the last sheaf, the corn-spirit appears in animal form as a gander, a goat, a hare, a cat, and a fox. This intro- duces us to a new aspect of the corn-spirit, which we must now examine. By doing so we shall not only- have fresh examples of killing the god, but may hope also to clear up some points which remain obscure in the^ myths and worship of Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Dionysus, Demeter, and Virbius. Amongst the many animals whose forms the corn- spirit is supposed to take are the wolf, dog, hare, cock, goose, cat, goat, cow (ox, bull), pig, and horse. In on? or other of these forms the corn-spirit is believed to be present in the corn, and to be caught or killed in the last sheaf As the corn is being cut the animal flees before the reapers, and if a reaper is taken ill on the field, he is supposed to have stumbled un- wittingly on the corn-spirit, who has thus punished the profane intruder. It is said " The Rye-wolf has got hold of him," "the Harvest-goat has given him a push." The person who cuts the last corn or binds the last sheaf gets the name of the animal, as the Rye- VOL. II B THE CORN-SPIRIT chap. wolf, the Rye-sow, the Oats-goat, etc., and retains the name sometimes for a year. Also the animal is fre- quently represented by a puppet made out of the last sheaf or of wood, flowers, etc., which is carried home amid rejoicings on the last harvest waggon. Even where the last sheaf is not made up in animal shape, it is often called the Rye-wolf, the Hare, Goat, and so on. Generally each kind of crop is supposed to have its special animal, which is caught in the last sheaf, and called the Rye-wolf, the Barley-wolf, the Oats-wolf, the Pea-wolf, or the Potato-wolf, according to the crop ; but sometimes the figure of the animal is only made up once for all at getting in the last crop of the whole harvest. Sometimes the animal is believed; to be killed by the last stroke of the sickle or scythe. But oftener it is thought to live so long as there is corn still unthreshed, and to be caught in the last sheaf threshed. Hence the man who gives the last stroke with the flail is told that he has got the Corn-sow, the Threshing-dog, etc. When the threshing is finished, a puppet is made in the form of the animal, and this is carried by the thresher of the last sheaf to a neighbouring farm, where the threshing is still going on. This again shows that the corn-spirit is believed to live wherever the corn is still being threshed. Sorngtimes the thresher of the last sheaf himself repre- sents the animal ; and if the people of the next farm, who are still threshing, catch him, they treat him like the animal he represents, by shutting him up in the pig - sty, calling him with the cries commonly addressed to pigs, and so forth. ^ These general statements will now be illustrated by examples. We begin with the corn -spirit con- 1 W. Mannhardt, Die Kornddmonen, pp. 1-6. Ill AS A BOG OR WOLF 3 ceived as a wolf or a dog. This conception is common in France, Germany, and Slavonic coun- tries. Thus, when the wind sets the corn in wave- like motion, the peasants often say, " The Wolf is going over, or through, the corn," "the Rye-wolf is rushing over the field," " the Wolf is in the corn," " the mad Dog is in the corn," " the big Dog is there." ^ When children wish to go into the corn- fields to pluck ears or gather the blue corn-flowers, they are warned not to do so, for " the big Dog sits in the corn," or " the Wolf sits in the corn, and will tear you in pieces," " the Wolf will eat you." The wplf against whom the children are warned is not a common wolf, for he is often spoken of as the Corn-wolf, Rye-wolf, etc. ; thus they say, "The Rye- wolf will come and eat you up, children," "the Rye- wolf will carry you off," and so forth.^ Still he has all the outward appearance of a wolf. For in the, neigh- bourhood of Feilenhof (East Prussia), when a wolf was seen running through a field, the peasants used to watch whether he carried his tail in the air or dragged it on the ground. If he dragged it on the ground, they went , after him, and thanked him for bringing them a blessing, and even set tit-bits before him. But if he carried his tail high, they cursed him and tried to kill him. Here the wolf is the corn- spirit, whose fertilising power is in his tail.^ Both dog and wolf appear as embodiments of the corn -spirit in harvest- customs. Thus in some parts 1 W. Mannhardt, Roggemvolf und ^ W. Mannhardt, Roggenwolfu. Rog- Roggenhund ^&xvL\g, 1865), p. S! ^'^'j gcnhund, p. 7 sqq.; id., A. W. F. p. Antike Wald-und Feldkulte, p. 3 1 8 jy. ; 319. id.,, Mythol. Forsch. p. 103 ; Witz- 3 VV. Mannhardt, Roggenwolf, etc. p. schel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebrduche aus 10. ThUringen, p. 213. THE CORN-SPIRIT chap. of Silesia the person who binds the last sheaf is called the Wheat-dog or the Peas-pug.^ But it is in the harvest-customs of the north-east of France that the idea of the Corn -dog comes out most clearly. Thus when a harvester, through sickness, weariness, or laziness, cannot or will not keep up with the reaper in front of him, they say, " The White Dog passed near him," "he has the White Bitch," or "the White Bitch has bitten him."^ In the Vosges 1 the Harvest-May is called the "Dog of the har- vest."^ About Lons-le-Saulnier, in the Jura, the last sheaf is called the Bitch. In the neighbourhood of Verdun the regular expression for finishing the reaping is, "They are going to kill the Dog;" and at Epinal they say, according to the crop, " We will kill the Wheat-dog, or the Rye-dog, or the Potato- dog."* In Lorraine it is said of the man who cuts the last cqrn, " He is killing the Dog of the harvest."' At Dux, in the Tyrol, the man who gives the last stroke at threshing is said to " strike down the Dog;"^ and at Ahnebergen, near Stade, he is called, according to the crop, Corn-pug, Rye-pug, Wheat-pug.^ So with the wolf In Germany it is said that " The Wolf sits in the last sheaf" ^ In some places they call out to the reaper, " Beware of the Wolf;" or they say, " He is chasing the Wolf out of the corn."^ The last bunch of standing corn is called the Wolf, and the man who cuts it " has the Wolf" The last sheaf is also called the Wolf ; and of the woman who binds it they say, " The Wolf is biting her," "she has-the . 1 W. Mannhardt, RI. F. p. 104. * lb. p. 105. ^ /^, p_ ^q. ^ Jb. " lb. pp. 30, 105. ' lb. p. 105 sq. 3 lb. p. 104 sq. On the Hai-vest- « A. W. F. p. 320 ; Roggenwolf, p. May, see above, vol. i. p. 68. 24. ' Roggenwolf, p. 24. Ill AS A WOLF Wolf," "she must fetch the Wolf" (out of the corn).^ Moreover, she is herself called Wolf and has to bear the name for a whole year ; sometimes, according to the crop, she is called the Rye -wolf or the Potato- wolf.^ In the island of Rugen they call out to the woman who binds the last sheaf, " You're Wolf;" and when she comes home she bites the lady of the house and the stewardess, for which she receives a large piece of meat. The same woman may be- Rye-wolf, Wheat-wolf, and Oats-wolf, if she happens to bind the last sheaf of rye, wheat, and oats.^ At Buir, in the district of Cologne, it was formerly the custom to give to the last sheaf the shape of a wolf. It was kept in the barn till all the corn was threshed. Then it was brought to the farmer, and he had to sprinkle it with beer or brandy.* In many places the sheaf called the Wolf is made up in human form and dressed in clothes. This indicates a confusion between the conceptions of the corn - spirit as theriomorphic (in animal form) and as anthropomorphic (in human form).^ Generally the Wolf is brought home on the last waggon, with joyful cries.^ Again, the Wolf is supposed to hide himself amongst the cut corn in the granary, until he is driven out of the last bundle by the strokes of the flail. Hence at Wanzleben, near Magdeburg, after the threshing the peasants go in procession, leading by a chain a man, who is enveloped in the threshed out straw and is called the Wolf.*^ He represents the corn -spirit who has been caught escaping from the threshed corn. In Trier it is believed that the Corn- 1 Roggenwolf, p. 24. ^ Roggenwolf, p. 25. ^ lb. p. 26. 2 lb. p. 25. 6 /^. p. 26 ; A. W. F. p. 320. 3 lb. p. 28; A. W. F. p. 320. '' A. W. F. p. 321. 6 THE CORN-SPIRIT chap. wolf is killed at threshing. The men thresh the last sheaf till it is reduced to chopped straw. In this way they think that the Corn-wolf who was lurking in the last sheaf, has been certainly killed.^ In France also the Corn -wolf appears at harvest. Thus, they call out to the reaper of the last corn, " You will catch the Wolf" Near Chambdry they form a ring round the last standing corn, and cry, " The , , , Wolf is in there." In Finisterre, when the reaping \\\\\" draws near an end, the harvesters cry, "There is the Wolf; we will catch him." Each takes a swatlf to reap, and he who finishes first calls out, "I've caught the Wolf." ^ In Guyenne, when the last corn has been reaped, they lead a wether all round the field. It is called "the Wolf of the field." Its horns are decked with a wreath of flowers and corn -ears, and its neck and body are also encircled with gar- lands and ribbons. All the reapers march, singing, behind it. Then it is killed on the field. In this part of France the last sheaf is called the coujoulage, which, in the patois, means a wether. Hence the killing of the wether represents the death of the corn- spirit, considered as present in the last sheaf; but two different conceptions of the corn-spirit — as a wolf and as a wether — are mixed up together.^ Sometimes it appears to be thought that the Wolf, caught in the last corn, lives during the winter in the farmhouse, ready to renew his activity as corn-spirit in the spring. Hence at midwinter, when the lengthening days begin to herald the approach of spring, the Wolf makes his appearance once more. In Poland a man, with a wolf's skin thrown over his head, is led about at Christmas ; or a stuffed wolf is carried about by ^ A. W. F. p. 321 sq. 2 ^. lY, F_ p. 320. 3 A. W. F. p. 320 sq. Ill AS A COCK persons who collect money. ^ There are facts which point to an old custom of leading about a man enveloped in leaves and called the Wolf, while his conductors collected money.^ Another form which the corn -spirit often assumes is that of a cock. In Austria children are warned against straying in the corn-fields, because the Corn- cock sits there, and will peck their eyes out.^ In North Germany they say that " the Cock sits in the last sheaf ; " and at cutting the last corn the reapers cry, " Now we will chase out the Cock." When it is cut they say, " We have caught the Cock." Then a cock is made of flowers, fastened on a pole, and carried home by the reapers, singing as they go.* At Braller, in Transylvania, when the reapers come to the last patch of corn, they cry, " Here we shall catch the Cock." ^ At Fiirstenwalde, when the last sheaf is about to be bound, the master lets loose a cock, which he has brought in a basket, and lets it run over the field. All the harvesters chase it till they catch it. Elsewhere the harvesters all try to seize the last corn cut ; he who succeeds in grasping it must crow, and is called Cock.® The last sheaf is called Cock, Cock-sheaf, Harvest-cock, Harvest-hen, Autumn-hen. A distinction is made between a Wheat-cock, Bean- cock, etc., according to the crop.'' At Wunschensuhl, in Thiiringen, the last sheaf is made into the shape of acock, and called Harvest-cock.^ A figure of a cock. 1 A. W. F. p. 322. 2 /^_ p 223. 6 G. A. Heinrich, Agrarische Sitten 3 Die Kornddmonen, p. 13. und Gebrduche unter den Sachsen * lb.; Schmitz, Si/ten und Sagen des Siebenhiirgens, p. 21. EiflerVolke5,\.^.^<,;'^x^Ti^Westfdlische ^ Die Kornddmonen, p. 13. Cp. Sagen, Mdrchen und Gebrduche, ii. p. Kuhn and Schwartz, I.e. 181 ; Kuhn und Schwartz, Norddeutsche ' Die Kornddmonen, p. 13. Sagen, Mdrchen und Gebrduche, p. ^ Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Ge- 398. brduche aus Thiiringen, p. 220. THE CORN- SPIRIT chap. made of wood, pasteboard, or ears of corn, is borne in front of the harvest-waggon, especially in Westphalia, where the cock carries in his beak fruits of the earth of all kinds. Sometimes the image of the cock is fastened to the top of a May-tree on the last harvest- waggon. Elsewhere a live cock, or a figure of one, is attached to a harvest-crown and carried on a pole. In Galicia and elsewhere this live cock is fastened to the garland of corn-ears or flowers, which the leader of the women-reapers carries on her head as she marches in front of the harvest procession.^ In Silesia a live cock is presented to the master on a plate. The- harvest supper is called Harvest-cock, Stubble-cock, etc., and a chief dish at it, at least in some places, is a cock.^ If a waggoner upsets a harvest -waggon, it is said that "he has spilt the Harvest-cock," and he loses the cock^ — that is, the harvest supper.^ The harvest- waggon, with the figure of the cock on it, is driven round the farmhouse before it is taken to the barn. Then the cock is nailed over, or at the side of the house dpor, or on the gable, and remains ■ there till next harvest.* In East Friesland the person who gives the last stroke at threshing is called the Clucking -hen, and grain is strewed before him as if he were a hen.^ Again, the corn -spirit is killed in the form of ^ Die Komdamonen, p. 13 sq.; overthrowing a load at harvest is "to Kuhn, Westfdlische Sagen, Mdrchen und lose the goose," and the penalty used Cebrduche, ii. p. 180 sq.; Pfannen- to be the loss of the goose at the hai-ve|i: sthxaii, Germanische Erntefeste,'p. no. supper (Burne and Jackson, Shrof shire 2 DieKornddmonen, p! 14; Pfannen- ^f:^<"-\' P- 375) ; and in some parts schmid, op. cit. pp. 1 1 1, 419 sq. °^, ^"g'^" form appears to be both widespread and, to the primi- i 1 B. K. p. 138 sq.; A. W. F. p. 145. ^ Servius on Virgil, Georg. i. 10. 3 Above, p. 12 sqq. * A. W. F. ch. iii. 6 Above, vol. i. p. 379 sq. Ill THE BULL-DIONYSUS 37 tive mind, natural. Therefore when we find, as we have done, that Dionysus — a tree-god — is sometimes represented in goat form,^ we can hardly avoid con- cluding that this representation is simply a part of his proper character as a tree-god and is not to be explained by the fusion of two distinct and independent cults, in one of which he originally appeared as a tree-god and in the other as a goat. If such a fusion took place in the case of Dionysus, it must equally have taken place in the case of the Pans and Satyrs of Greece, the Fauns of Italy, and t\i& LJesckie of Russia. That such a fusion of two wholly disconnected cults should have occurred once is possible ; that it should have occurred twice independently is improbable ; that it should have occurred thrice independently is so unlikely as to be practically incredible. Dionysus was also represented, as we have seen,^ in theform of a bull. After what has gone before we are naturally led to expect that his bull form must have been only another expression for his character as a deity of vegetation, especially as the bull is a common embodiment of the corn-spirit in Northern Europe;' and the close association of Dionysus with Demeter and Proserpine in the mysteries of Eleusis shows that he had at least strong agricultural affinities. The other possible explanation of the bull-shaped Dionysus would be that the conception of him as a bull was originally entirely distinct from the conception of him as a deity of vegetation, and that the fusion of the two conceptions was due to some such circumstance as the union of two tribes, one of which had previously worshipped a bull- god and the other a tree-god. This appears to be the view taken by Mr. Andrew Lang, who suggests that 1 Above, vol. i. p. 326 sq. 2 Above, vol. i. p. 325 sq. 3 Above, p. 19 sqq. 38 OX REPRESENTS chap. the bull-formed Dionysus " had either been developed out of, or had succeeded to the worship of a bull-totem."^ Of course this is possible. But it is not yet certain that the Aryans ever had totemism. On the other hand, it is quite certain that many Aryan peoples have conceived deities of vegetation as embodied in animal forms. Therefore when we find amongst an Aryan people like the Greeks a deity of vegetation represented as an animal, the presumption must be in favour of explaining this by a principle which is certainly known to have influenced the Aryan race rather than by one which is not certainly known to have done so. In the present state of our knowledge, therefore, it is safer to regard the bull form of Dionysus as being, like his goat form, an expression of his proper character as a deity, of vegetation. The probability of this view will be somewhat increased if it can be shown that in other rites than those of Dionysus the ancients slew an ox as a repre- sentative of the spirit of vegetation. This they appear to have done in the Athenian sacrifice known as " the murder of the ox " {bouphonia). It took place about the end of June or beginning of July, that is, about the time when the threshing is nearly over in Attica. According to tradition the sacrifice was instituted to procure a cessation of drought and barrenness which had afflicted the land. The ritual was as follows. Barley mixed with wheat, or cakes made of them, were laid upon the bronze altar of Zeus Polieus on the Acropolis. Oxen were driven round the altar, and the ox which went up to the altar and ate the offering on it was sacri- ficed. The axe and knife with which the beast was slain had been previously wetted with water brought 1 A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, ii. 232. in THE SPIRIT OF VEGETATION 39 by maidens called " water-carriers." The weapons were then sharpened and handed to the butchers, one of whom felled the ox with the axe and another cut its throat with the knife. As soon as he had felled the ox, the former threw the axe from him and fled ; and the man who cut the beast's throat apparently imitated his example. Meantime the ox was skinned and all present partook of its flesh. Then the hide was stuffed with straw and sewed up ; next the stuffed animal was set on its feet and yoked to a plough as if it were ploughing. A trial then took place in an ancient law- court presided over by the King (as he was called) to determine who had murdered the ox. The maidens who had brought the water accused the men who had sharpened the axe and knife ; the men who had sharpened the axe and knife blamed the men who had handed these implements to the butchers ; the men who had handed the implements to the butchers blamed the butchers ; and the butchers laid the blame on the axe and knife, which were accordingly found guilty, condemned, and cast into the sea.^ The name of this sacrifice, — " the murder of the ox,"^ — the pains taken by each person who had a hand in the slaughter to lay the blame on some one else, Pausanias, i. 24, 4 ; id., i. 28, 10 ; of the knife. But from Porphyry's Porphyry, De abstinentia, ii. 29 sq. ; description it is clear that the slaughter Aehan, Var. Hist. viii. 3 ; Schol. on was carried out by two men, one Aristophanes, Peace, 419; Hesychius, wielding an axe and the other a knife, Smdas, and Etymol. Magnum, s.v. and that the former laid the blame on ^oi'«' or dra5oe,,.ai. At the spring t. Rohde, Unedirte Lucians- and autumn festivals of Isis at Tithorea schohen die attischen Thesmophorien geese and goats were thrown into the und Haloen betreffend," m Rhemisches adyton and left there till the following Museum, N. F. xxv. (1870) 548 festival, when the remains were "e^ sqq Two passages of classical writers moved and buried at a certain spot a (Clemens Alex Protrept. li. § 1 7 and little way from the temple. Pausanias Pausanias, IX. 8, i) refer to the rites x. 32, 14 (9). This analogy supp^rte and h d y! ' ^tf'"-"' °" ^"f ""' *^ "^^ *^' *^ P'g= thrown into the t1 w J'TJ''^^"^ interpreted by caverns at the Thesmophoria were left Lobeck {Aglaophavius, p. 827 sqq.) there till the next festival 46 DE METER AND PROSERPINE chap. remains of the pigs, the cakes, and the pine-branches were fetched by women called " drawers," who, after observing rules of ceremonial purity for three days, descended into the caverns, and, frightening away the serpents by clapping their hands, brought up the remains and placed them on the altar. Whoever got a piece of the decayed flesh and cakes, and sowed it with the seed-corn in his field, was believed to be sure of a good crop. To explain this rude and ancient rite the follow- ing legend was told. At the moment that Pluto carried off Proserpine, a swineherd called Eubuleus was herding his swine on the spot, and his herd was engulfed in the chasm down which Pluto vanished with Proserpine. Accordingly at the Thesmophoria pigs were annually thrown into caverns in order to commemorate the disappearance of the swine of Eubuleus. It follows from this that the casting of the pigs into the vaults at the Thesmophoria formed part of the dramatic representation of Proserpine's descent into the lower world ; and as no image of Proserpine appears to have been thrown in, it follows that the descent of the pigs must have been, not an accompani- ment of her descent, but the descent itself; in short, the pigs were Proserpine. Afterwards when Proser- pine or Demeter (for the two are equivalent) became anthropomorphic, a reason had to be found for the custom of throwing pigs into caverns at her festival ; and this was done by saying that when Proserpine was carried off, there happened to be some swine browsing near, which were swallowed up along with her. The story is obviously a forced and awkward attempt to bridge over the gulf between the old conception of the corn-spirit as a pig and the new conception of her as „i AS PIGS 47 an anthropomorphic goddess. A trace of the older conception survived in the legend that when Demeter was looking for the lost Proserpine, the footprints of the latter were obliterated by the footprints of a pig ; ^ originally, no doubt, the footprints of the pig were the footprints of Proserpine and of Demeter herself A consciousness of the intimate connection of the pig with the corn lurks in the tradition that the swineherd Eubuleus was a brother of Triptolemus, to whom Demeter first imparted the secret of the corn. Indeed, according to one version of the story, Eubuleus him- self received, jointly with his brother Triptolemus, the gift of the corn from Demeter as a reward for revealing to her the fate of Proserpine.^ Further, it is to be noted that at the Thesmophoria the women appear to have eaten swine's flesh.^ The meal, if I am right, must have been a solemn sacrament or communion, the worshippers partaking of the body of the god. As thus explained, the Thesmophoria has its ana- logies in the folk-customs of Northern Europe which have been already described. As at the Thesmo- phoria — an autumn festival in honour of the corn- goddess — swine's flesh was partly eaten, partly kept in caverns till the following year, when it was taken up to be sown with the seed-corn in the fields for the purpose of securing a good crop ; so in the neighbour- hood of Grenoble the goat killed on the harvest-field is partly eaten at the harvest supper, partly pickled and kept till the next harvest ;* so at Pouilly the ox killed on the harvest-field is partly eaten by the har- vesters, partly pickled and kept till the first day of 1 Ovid, Fasti, iv. 461-466, upon ^ Pausanias, i. 14, 3. .which Gierig remarks, ' ' Stus melms ^ gchol. on Aristophanes, Frogs, poeta omisisset in hoc narratione." Such 338. is the wisdom of the commentator. * Above, p. 1 5 sq. 48 DE METER AND PROSERPINE chap. sowing in spring ^ — probably to be then mixed with the seed, or eaten by the ploughmen, or both ; so at Udvarhely the feathers of the cock which is killed in the last sheaf at harvest are kept till spring, and then sown with the seed on the field ;^ so in Hesseh and Meiningen the flesh of pigs is eaten on Ash Wednesday or Candlemas, and the bones are kept till sowing-time, when they are put into the field sown or mixed with the seed in the bag ;^ so, lastly, the corn from the last sheaf is kept till Christmas, made into the Yule Boar, and afterwards broken and mixed with the seed-corn at sowing in spring.* Thus, to put it generally, the corn-spirit is killed in animal form in autumn ; part of his flesh is eaten as a sacrament by his worshippers ; and part of it is kept till next sowing-time or harvest as a pledge and security for the continuance or renewal of the corn-spirit's energies. Whether in the interval between autumn and spring he is conceived as dead, or whether, like the ox in the bouphonia, he is supposed to come to life again immediately after being killed, is not clear. At the Thesmophoria, according to Clem- ent and Pausanias, as emended by Lobeck,^ the pigs were thrown in alive, and were supposed to reappear at the festival of the following year. Here, therefore, if we accept Lobeck's emendations, the corn-spirit is conceived as alive throughout the year ; he lives and works under ground, but is brought up each autumn to be renewed and then replaced in his subterranean abode.^ 1 Above, p. 20 sq. ^ Above, p. 9. 6 Jt is worth noting that in Crete, 3 Above, p. 29. '' Above, p. 29 sq. which was an ancient seat of Demeter 5 In Clemens Alex., Protrept. ii. 17, worship (see above, vol. i. p. 331), the for fj.eyapit;'ovTes x°''-P°^^ iK^oKKovai. pig was esteemed very sacred and was Lobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 831) would not eaten, Athenaeus, 375 F-376 A. read /lejdpoi.! ffivras x"'/""" i/i^dWouai. This would not exclude the possibility For his emendation of Pausanias, see of its being eaten sacramentally, as at above, p. 45. the Thesmophoria. Ill AS PIGS 49 If it is objected that the Greeks never could have conceived Demeter and Proserpine to be embodied in the form of pigs, it may be answered that in the cave of Phigalia in Arcadia the Black Demeter was represented with the head and mane of a horse on the body of a woman.-* Between the representation of a goddess as a pig, and the representation of her as a woman with a horse's head, there is little to choose in respect of barbarism. The legend told of the Phi- galian Demeter indicates that the horse was one of the animal forms assumed in ancient Greece, as in modern Europe,^ by the corn-spirit. It was said that in her search for her daughter, Demeter assumed the form of a mare to escape the addresses of Poseidon, and that, offended at his importunity, she withdrew to the cave of Phigalia. There, robed in black, she stayed so long that the fruits of the earth were perishing, and man- kind would have died of famine if Pan had not soothed the angry goddess and persuaded her to quit the cave. In memory of this event, the Phigalians set up an image of the Black Demeter in the cave ; it represented a woman dressed in a long robe, with the head and mane of a horse.^ The Black Demeter, in whose absence the fruits of the earth perish, is plainly a mythical expression for the state of vegetation in winter. Passing now to Attis and Adonis, we may note a few facts which seem to show that these deities of vegetation had also, like other deities of vegetation, their animal embodiments. The worshippers of Attis abstained from eating the flesh of swine.* This fact is Pausanias, viii. 42. Phigalian Demeter, see W. Mannhardt, 2 Above, p. 24 sc/^. M. F. p. 244 sqq. 3 Pausanias, viii. 25 and 42. On the * Above, vol. i. p. 296 so. VOL. II 2 50 ATTIS AND ADONIS chap. certainly in favour of supposing that the pig was regarded as an embodiment of Attis. And the legend that Attis was killed by a boar^ points in the same direction. For after the. examples of the goat Diony- sus and the pig Demeter it may almost be laid down as a rule that an animal which is said to have injured a god was originally the god himself. Perhaps the cry of " Hyes Attes ! Hyes Attes !"^ which was raised by the worshippers of Attis, may be neither more nor less than " Pig Attis ! Pig Attis ! " — hyes being possibly a Phry- gian form of the Greek hys, " a pig." In regard to Adonis, his connection with the boar was not always explained by the story that he was killed by a boar. According to another story, a boar rent with his tusk the bark of the tree in which the infant Adonis was born.^ According to another story, he was killed by Hephaestus on Mount Lebanon while he was hunting wild boars.* These variations in the legend serve to show that, while the connection of the boar with Adonis was certain, the reason of the connection was not understood, and that consequently different stories were devised to explain it. Certainly the pig was one of the sacred animals of the Syrians. At the great religious metropolis of Hierapolis pigs were neither sacrificed nor 'eaten, and if a man touched a pig he was unclean for the rest of the day. Some people said this was because the pigs were unclean ; others said it was because the pigs were sacred.° This differ- ence of opinion points to a state of religious thought and feeling in which the ideas of sanctity and unclean- ness are not yet differentiated, and which is best 1 Above, vol. i. p. 296. * Cureton, Spicikgium Syriacuni, p. 2 Demosthenes, De corona, p. 313. 44. 2 Above, vol. i. p. 281. ^ Lucian, Ve dea Syria, 54. AS PIGS 51 indicated by the word taboo. It is quite consistent with this that the pig should have been held to be an embodiment of the divine Adonis, and the analogies of Dionysus and Demeter make it probable that the story of the hostility of the animal to the god was only a modern misunderstanding of the old view of the god as embodied in a pig. The rule that pigs were not sacrificed or eaten by worshippers of Attis and pre- sumably of Adonis, does not exclude the possibility that in these cults the pig was slain on solemn occa- sions as a representative of the god and consumed sacramentally by the worshippers. Indeed, the sacra- mental killing and eating of an animal, that is the killing and eating it as a god, implies that the artimal is sacred, and is, as a general rule, not killed.^ The attitude of the Jews to the pig was as ambiguous as that of the heathen Syrians towards the same animal. The Greeks could not decide whether the Jews worshipped swine or abominated them. On the one hand they might not eat swine ; but on the other hand they might not kill them.^ And if the former rule speaks for the uncleanness, the latter speaks still more strongly for the sanctity of the animal. For whereas both rules may, and one rule must, be explained on the supposition that the pig was sacred ; neither rule must, and one rule cannot, be explained on the supposition that the pig was unclean. If, therefore, we prefer the former supposition, we must conclude ^ The heathen Harranians sacrificed sacrificed in Cyprus on 2d April swine once a year and ate the flesh ; (Joannes Lydus, De mensibus, iv. 45) En-Nedim, in Chwolsohn's Die Ssabiei- represented Adonis himself. See his und der Ssabismus, ii. 42. My firiend Religion of t/ie Semites, i. 272 sg. Professor W. Robertson Smith has con- 392. ' ' jectured that the wild boars annually 2 piutarch. Quaes/. Conviv. iv. 5. 52 OS/R/S that, originally at least, the pig was held to be sacred rather than unclean by the Israelites. This is confirmed by the fact that down to the time of Isaiah some of the Jews used to meet secretly in gardens to eat the flesh of swine and mice as a religious rite.^ Doubtless this was a very ancient rite, dating from a time when both the pig and the mouse were venerated as divine, and when their flesh was partaken of sacramentally on rare and solemn occasions as the body and blood of gods. And in general it may be said that all so-called unclean animals were originally sacred ; the reason why they were not eaten was that they were divine. I'n ancient Egypt, within historical times, the pig occupied the same dubious position as in Syria and Palestine, though at first sight its uncleanness is more prominent than its sanctity. The Egyptians are generally said by Greek writers to have abhorred the pig as a foul and loathsome animal.^ If a man so much as touched a pig in passing, he stepped into the river with all his clothes on, to wash off the taint;^ To drink pig's milk was believed to cause leprosy to the drinker.* Swineherds, though natives of Egypt, were forbidden to enter any temple, and they were the only men who were thus excluded. No one would give his daughter in marriage to a swineherd, or marry a swineherd's daughter ; the swineherds married among themselves.' Yet once a year the Egyptians sacrificed pigs to the moon and to Osiris, and not only sacrificed them, but ate of their flesh, though on any other day of the year 1 Isaiah Ixv. 3, 4, Ixvi. 3, 17. ^ Herodotus, /..:. 2 Herodotus, ii. 47 ; Plutarch, /sis * Plutarch and Aelian, //.«. et Osiris, 8; Aelian, JVat. Anim. x. 16. ^ Herodotus, I.e. Ill AS A PIG 53 they would neither sacrifice them nor taste of their flesh. Those who were too poor to offer a pig on this day baked calces of dough, and offered them instead.^ This can hardly be explained except by the supposition that the pig was a sacred animal which was eaten sacramentally by his worshippers once a year. The view that in Egypt the pig was a sacred animal is borne out by the very facts which, to moderns, might seem to prove the contrary. Thus the Egyptians thought, as we have seen, that to drink pig's milk produced leprosy. But- exactly analogous views are held by savages about the animals and plants which they deem most sacred. Thus in the island of Wetar (between New Guinea and Celebes) people believe themselves to be variously descended from wild pigs, serpents, crocodiles, turtles, dogs, and eels ; a man may not eat an animal of the kind from which he is descended ; if he does so, he will become a leper, and go mad.^ Amongst the Omaha Indians of North America men whose totem (sacred animal or plant) is the elk, believe that if they ate the flesh of the male elk they would break out in boils and white spots in different parts of their' bodies.'^ In the same tribe men whose totem is the red maize, think that if they ate red maize they would have running sores all round their mouths.* The Bush negroes of Surinam, who have totemism, believe that if they ate the capiat ^ Herodotus, ii. 47 sq.\ Aelian and the sacrifice to Osiris toolc place. Plutarch, //.<■(-. Herodotus distinguishes Each man slew a pig before his door, the sacrifice to the moon from that to then gave it to the swineherd, from Osiris. According to him, at the whom he had bought it, to take away, sacrifice to the moon, the extremity of ^ Riedel, De sluik-en kroesharige the pig's tail, together with the spleen rassen tusschen Sekbes en Papua, pp. and the caul, were covered with fat 432, 452. and burned; the rest of the flesh was 3 Third Annual Report of the Bureau eaten. On the evening (not the eve, o/"£^^»o/()gc (Washington), p. 225. see Stein on the passage) of the festival * //;. p. 231. 54 OS/R/S CHAP. (an animal like a pig) it would give them leprosy ;^ probably the capiat is one of their totems. In Samoa each man had generally his god in the shape of some species of animal ; and if he ate one of these divine animals, it was supposed that the god avenged himself by taking up his abode in the eater's body, and there generating an animal of the kind he had eaten till it caused his death. For example, if a man whose god was the prickly sea-urchin,, ate one of these creatures, a prickly sea-urchin grew in his stomach and killed him. If his god was an eel, and he ate an eel, he became very ill, and before he died the voice of the god was heard from his stomach saying, " I am killing this man ; he ate my incarnation." ^ These examples prove that the eating of a sacred animal is often believed to produce skin -disease or even death ; so far, therefore, they support the view that the pig must have been sacred in Egypt, since the effect of drinking its milk was believed, to be leprosy. Again, the rule that, after touching a pig, a man had to wash himself and his clothes, also favours the view of the sanctity of the pig. For it is a common belief that the effect of contact with a sacred object must be removed, by washing or otherwise, before a man is free to mingle with his fellows. Thus the Jews wash their hands after reading the sacred scriptures. Before coming forth from the tabernacle after the sin-offering, the high priest had to wash himself, and put off the garments which he had worn in the holy place.' It was a rule of Greek ritual that, in offering an expiatory sacrifice, the sacrlficer should not touch the sacrifice, and that, after the 1 J. Crevaux, Voyages dans VAmiri- ^ Turner, Samoa, pp. 17 sq., 50 sq. que au Sud, p. 59. ^ Leviticus xvi. 23 sq. in AS A PIG 55 offering was made, he must wash his body and his clothes in a river or spring before he could enter a city or his own house.-^ The Polynesians felt strongly the need of ridding themselves of the sacred contagion, if it may be so called, which they caught by touching sacred objects. Various ceremonies were performed for the purpose of removing this sacred contagion. For example, in Tonga a man who happened to touch a sacred chief, or anything per- sonally belonging to him, as his clothes or his mat, was obliged to go through the ceremony of touching the soles of the chief's (or of any chief's) feet with his hands, first applying the palm and then the back of each hand ; next he had to rinse his hands in water, or, if there was no water near, the sap of the plantain or banana-tree might be used as a substitute. If he were to feed himself with his hands before he per- formed this ceremony, it was believed that he would swell up and die, or at least be afflicted with scrofula or some other disease.^ We have already seen what fatal effects are supposed to follow, and do actually follow, from contact with a sacred object in New Zealand.^ In short, primitive man believes that what is sacred is dangerous ; it is pervaded by a sort of electrical sanctity which communicates a shock to, even if it does not kill, whatever comes in contact with it. Hence the savage is unwilling to touch or even to see that which he deems peculiarly holy. Thus Bechuanas, of the Crocodile clan, think it " hateful and unlucky " to meet or see a crocodile ; the sight is thought to cause inflammation of the ' Porphyry, De abstin. ii. 44. For ^ Mariner, Tonga Islands, i. 434, this and the Jewish examples I am note ; ii. 82, 222 sq. indebted to my friend Prof. W. Robert- ^ Above, vol. i. p. 167 sqq. son Smith 56 OSJRIS CHAP. eyes. Yet the crocodile is their most sacred object ; they call it their father, swear by it, and celebrate it in their festivals.^ The goat is the sacred animal of the Madenassana Bushmen; yet "to look upon it would be to render the man for the time impure, as well as to cause him undefined uneasiness."^ The Elk clan, among the Omaha Indians, believe that even to touch the male elk would be followed by an eruption of boils and white spots on the body.^ Members of the Reptile clan in the same tribe think that if one of them touches or smells a snake, it will make his hair white.* In Samoa people whose god was a butterfly believed that if they caught a butterfly it would strike them dead.^ Again, in Samoa the reddish -seared leaves of the banana-tree were com- monly used as plates for handing food ; but if any member of the Wild Pigeon clan had used banana leaves for this purpose, it was believed that he would have suffered from rheumatic swellings or an eruption all over the body like chicken-pox." In the light of these parallels the beliefs and customs of the Egyptians touching the pig are prob- ably to be explained as based upon an opinion of the extreme sanctity rather than of the extreme uncleanness of the animal ; or rather, to put it more correctly, they imply that the animal was looked on, not simply as a filthy and disgusting creature, but as a being endowed with high supernatural powers, and that as such it was regarded with that primitive 1 Casalis, The Basutos, p. 211 ; ^ Third Annual Report of the Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Bureau of Ethnology (Washington), p. Researches in South Africa, p. 255 ; 225. John Mackenzie, Ten Years north of * /*. p. 275. the Orange River, p. 1 35 note: ^ Turner, Samoa, p. 76. 2 J. Maclienzie, /..". " lb. V- 7°- Ill AS A PIG 57 sentiment ■ of religious awe and fear in which the feelings of reverence and abhorrence are almost equally blended. The ancients themselves seem to have been aware that there was another side to the horror with which swine seemed to inspire the Egyptians. For the Greek astronomer and mathematician Eudoxus, who resided fourteen months in Egypt and con- versed with the priests/ was of opinion that the Egyptians spared the pig, not out of abhorrence, but from a regard to its utility in agriculture ; for, accord- ing to him, when the Nile had subsided, herds of swine were turned loose over the fields to tread the seed down into the moist earth." But when a being is thus the object of mixed and implicitly contradictory feel- ings, he may be said to occupy a position of unstable equilibrium. In course of time one of the contradictory feelings is likely to prevail over the other, and accord- ing as the feeling which finally predominates is that of reverence or abhorrence, the being who is the object of it will rise into a god or sink into a devil. The latter, on the whole, was the fate of the pig in Egypt. For in historical times the fear and horror of the pig seem certainly to have outweighed the reverence and worship of which he must once have been the object, and of which, even in his fallen state, he never quite lost trace. He came to be looked on as an embodi- ment of Set or Typhon, the Egyptian devil and enemy of Osiris. For it was in the shape of a boar that Typhon menaced the eye of the god Horus, who burned him and instituted the sacrifice of the pig, the sun -god Ra having declared the pig abominable.^ 1 Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philos. story is repeated by Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 8. xviii. i68. 2 Aelian, Nat. Anim. x. i6. Tlie ^ Lefebure, Le mythe Osiriev, i. 44. 58 OSIRIS Again, the story that Typhon was hunting a boar when he discovered and mangled the body of Osiris, and that this was the reason why the pig was sacrificed once a year,^ is a transparent modernisation of an older story that Osiris, like Adonis and Attis, was slain or mangled by a boar, or by Typhon in the form of a boar. Thus, the annual sacrifice of a pig to Osiris might naturally be interpreted as vengeance inflicted on the hostile animal that had slain or mangled the god. But, in the first place, when an animal is thus killed as a solemn sacrifice once and once only in the year, it generally or always means that the animal is divine — that he is spared and respected the rest of the year as a god and slain, when he is slain, also in the character of a god.2 In the second place, the examples of Dionysus and Demeter, if not of Attis and Adonis, have taught us that the animal which is sacrificed to a god on the ground that he is the god's enemy may have been, and probably was, originally the god himself Therefore, the fact that the pig was sacrificed once a year to Osiris, and the fact that he appears to have been sacri- ficed on the ground that he was the god's enemy, go to show, first, that originally the pig was a god, and, second, that he wats Osiris. At a later age the pig was distinguished from Osiris when the latter became anthropomorphic and his original relation to the pig was forgotten ; later still, the pig was opposed as an enemy to Osiris by mythologists who could think of no reason for killing an animal in connection with the worship of a god except that the animal was the god's ^ Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 8. Lefe- recognised by Prof. W. Robertson bure {op. cit. p. 46) recognises that in Smith. See his article " Sacrifice," this story the boar is Typhon himself. Encycl. Briiann. 9th ed. xxi. 137 sq. Cp. his Religion of the Semites, 2 This important principle was first pp. 353 sq., 391 sq. Til AS A PIG 59 enemy ; or, as Plutarch puts it, not that which is dear to the gods, but that which is the contrary, is fit to be sacrificed.^ At this later stage the havoc which a wild boar notoriously makes amongst the corn would supply a plausible reason for regarding him as an enemy of the corn -spirit, though originally, if I am right, the very fact that the boar was found ranging at will through the corn was the reason for identifying him with the corn -spirit, to whom he was afterwards opposed as an enemy. The view which identifies the pig with Osiris derives not a little support from the fact that the day on which the pigs were sacrificed to him was the day on which, according to tradition, Osiris was killed ; ^ for thus the killing of the pig was the annual representation of the killing of Osiris, just as the throwing of the pigs into the caverns at the Thesmophoria was an annual representation of the descent of Proserpine into the lower world ; and both customs are parallel to the European practice of killing a goat, cock, etc., at harvest as a representative of the corn-spirit. Again, the view that the pig, originally Osiris himself, afterwards came to be regarded as an embodi- ment of his enemy Typhon, is supported by the similar relation of red-haired men and red oxen to Typhon. For in regard to the red-haired men who were burned and whose ashes were scattered with winnowing-fans, we have seen fair grounds for believing that originally, like the red-haired puppies killed at Rome in spring, they were representatives of the corn -spirit himself, that is, of Osiris, and were slain for the express purpose of making the corn turn red or golden. ^ Plutarch, Isis et Osiris^ 3 1 . ^ Lefebure, Le niythe Osirien, p. 48 sq. 6o SACRED CATTLE chap. Yet at a later time these men were explained to be representatives, not of Osiris, but of his enemy Typhon,^ and the killing of them was regarded as an act of vengeance inflicted on the enemy of the god. Similarly, the red oxen sacrificed by the Egyptians were said to be sacrificed on the ground of their resemblance to Typhon ; "- though it is more likely that originally they were slain on the ground of their resemblance to the corn-spirit Osiris. We have seen that the ox is a common representative of the corn- spirit and is slain as such on the harvest-field. Osiris was regularly identified with the bull Apis of Memphis and the bull Mnevis of Heliopohs.^ But it is hard to say whether these bulls were embodiments of him as the cOrn-spirit, as the red oxen appear to have been, or whether they were not rather entirely distinct deities which got fused with Osiris by syn- cretism. The fact that these two bulls were worshipped by all the Egyptians,* seems to put them on a different footing from the ordinary sacred animals whose cults were purely local. Hence, if the latter were evolved from totems, as they probably were, some other origin would have to be found for the worship of Apis and Mnevis. If these bulls were not originally embodiments of the corn-god Osiris, they may possibly be descendants of the sacred cattle 1 Plutarch, his et Osiris, 33, 73; Pliny, iVa^. .ffi'rf. viii. 184 ji?;/. ; Solinus, Diodorus, i. 88. xxxii. 17-21 ; Cicero, De nat. deot 2 Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 31 ; Dio- i. 29; Aelian, Nat. Aiiim. xi. \o sq. dorus, i. 88. Cp. Herodotus, ii. 38. Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. viii. i, 3 3 Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 20, id., Isis et Osiris, 5, 35 ; Eusebius, 29. 33. 43; Strabo, xvii. i, 31; Praepar. Evaiig. iii. 13, i sq. Diodorus, i. 21, 85 ; Duncker, Pausanias, i. 18, 4, vii. 22, 3 sq. Geschichte des Altert/mms,° i. 55 sqq. Both Apis and Mnevis were blacl< On Apis and Mnevis, see also bulls, but Apis had certain white Herodotus, ii. 153, iii. 27 sq.; Am- spots. mianus MarceUinus, xxii. 14, 7; ^ Diodorus, i. 21. Ill IN EGYPT 6i worshipped by a pastoral people.^ If this were so, ancient Egypt would exhibit a stratification of the three great types of religion corresponding to the three great stages of society. Totemism or (roughly speak- ing) the worship of wild animals — the religion of society in the hunting stage — would be represented by the worship of the local sacred animals ; the worship of cattle — the religion of society in the pastoral stage — would be represented by the cults of Apis and Mnevis; and the worship of cultivated plants, especially of corn — the religion of society in the agricultural stage — would be represented by the worship of Osiris and I sis. The Egyptian reverence for cows, which were ' never killed,^ might belong either to the second or third of these stages. The fact that cows were regarded as sacred to, that is, as embodiments of I sis, who was represented with cow's horns, would indicate that they, like the red oxen, were embodiments of the corn-spirit. However, this identification of Isis with the cow, like that of Osiris with the bulls Apis and Mnevis, may be only an effect of syncretism. But, whatever the original relation of Apis to Osiris may have been, there is one fact about the former which ought not to be passed over in a chapter dealing with the custom of killing the god. Although the bull Apis was worshipped as a god with much pomp and profound reverence, he was not suffered to live beyond a certain length of time which was prescribed by the sacred books, and on the expiry of which he was drowned in a holy spring.^ The limit, according to Plutarch, was twenty- 1 On the religious reverence of pas- ^ Herodotus, ii. 41. toral peoples for their cattle, and the ^ Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 184 ; possible derivation of the Apis and Isis- Solinus, xxxii. 18; Ammianus Mar- Hathor worship from the pastoral stage cellinus, xxii. 14, 7. The sprino- or of society, see W. Robertson Smith, well in which he was drowned was Religion of the Semites, i. 277 sqq. perhaps the one from which his drink- 62 HORSES AND VIRBIUS chap. five years -^ but it cannot always have been enforced, for the tombs of the Apis bulls have been discovered in the present century, and from the inscriptions on them it appears that in the twenty-second dynasty two bulls lived more than twenty-six years.^ We are now in a position to hazard a conjecture — for it can be little more — as to the meaning of the tradition that Virbius, the first of the divine Kings of the Wood at Aricia, was killed by horses. Having found, first, that spirits of vegetation are not infre- quently represented in the form of horses \^ and, second, that the animal which in later legends is said to have injured the god was sometimes originally the god himself, we may conjecture that the horses by which Virbius was said to have been slain were really embodiments of him as a deity of vegetation. The myth that Virbius had been killed by horses was probably invented to explain certain features in his cult, amongst others the custom of excluding horses from his sacred grove. For myth changes while custom remains constant ; men continue to do what their fathers did before them, though the reasons on which their fathers acted have been long forgotten. The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason ; to find a sound theory for an absurd practice. In the case before us we may be sure that the myth is more modern than the custom and by no means represents the original reason for excluding horses from the grove. From the fact that horses were so excluded it might be inferred that they could not be the sacred animals or embodiments of the ing water was procured ; he might not ^ Maspero, Histoire ancienne,^ p. 31. drink the water of the Nile. Plutarch, Cp. Duncker, Geschichte des AlUr- Isis et Osiris, 5. thumsf i. 56. 1 Plutarch, his et Osiris, 56. ^ See above, p. 24 sqq. in HORSES AND VIRBIUS 63 god of the grove. But the inference would be rash. The goat was at one time a sacred animal or embodi- ment of Athene; as may be inferred from the practice of representing her clad in a goat-skin {aegis). Yet the goat was neither sacrificed to her as a rule, nor allowed to enter her great sanctuary, the Acropolis at Athens. The reason alleged for this was that the goat injured the olive, the sacred tree of Athene.^ ■ So far, therefore, the relation of the goat to Athene is parallel to the relation of the horse to Virbius, both animals being excluded from the sanctuary on the ground of injury done by them to the god. But from Varro we learn that there was an exception to the rule which excluded the goat from the Acropolis. Once a year, he says, the goat was driven on to the Acropolis for a necessary sacrifice.^ Now, as has been remarked before, when an animal is sacrificed once and once only in the year, it is probably slain, not as a victim offered to the god, but as a representative of the god himself Therefore we may infer that if a goat was sacrificed on the Acropolis once a year, it was sacrificed in the character of Athene herself; and it may be con- jectured that the skin of the sacrificed animal was placed on the statue of the goddess and formed the aegis, which would thus be renewed annually. Similarly at Thebes in Egypt rams were sacred and were not sacrificed. But on one day in the year a ram was killed, and its skin was placed on the statue of the god Ammon.^ Now, if we knew the ritual of the Arician grove better, we might find the rule of excluding horses from it, like the rule of excluding goats from 1 Athenaeus, 587 a; Pliny, A-at. ^ Varro, De agri cult. i. 2, 19 sq. Hist. viii. 204. Cp. Encycl. Britaim. 3 Herodotus, ii. 42. 9th ed. art. "Sacrifice," xxi. 135. 64 THE OCTOBER HORSE chap. the Acropolis at Athens, was subject to an annual exception, a horse being once a year taken into the grove and sacrificed as an embodiment of the god Virbius. By the usual misunderstanding the horse thus killed would come in time to be regarded as an enemy offered up in sacrifice to the god ^whom he had injured, like the pig which was sacrificed to Demeter and Osiris or the goat which was sacrificed to Athene and Dionysus. It is so easy for a writer to record a rule without noticing an exception that we need not wonder at finding the rule of the Arician grove recorded without any mention of an exception such as I suppose. If we had had only the statements of Athenaeus and Pliny, we should have known only the rule which forbade the sacrifice of goats to Athene and excluded them from the Acropolis, without being aware of the important exception which the fortunate pre- servation of Varro's work has revealed to us. The conjecture that once a year a horse may have been sacrificed in the Arician grove as a representative of the deity of the grove derives some support from the fact that a horse sacrifice of a similar character took place once a year at Rome. On the 15th of October in each year a chariot-race took place on the Field of Mars. The right-hand horse of the victorious team was sacrificed to Mars by being stabbed with a spear. The object of the sacrifice was to ensure good crops. The animal's head was cut off and adorned with a string of loaves. The inhabitants of two wards — the Sacred Way and the Subura — then contended with each other who should get the head. If the people of the Sacred Way got it, they fastened it to a wall of the king's house ; if the people of the Subura got it, they fastened it to the Mamilian tower. The horse's ni THE OCTOBER HORSE 65 tail was cut off and carried to the king's house with such speed that the blood dripped on the hearth of the house.^ Further, it appears that the blood of the horse was caught and preserved till the 21st of April, when it was mixed by the Vestal virgins with the blood of the unborn calves which had been sacrificed six days before. The mixture was then distributed to shepherds, and used by them for fumigating their flocks.^ In this ceremony the decoration of the horse's head with a string of loaves, and the alleged object of the sacrifice, namely, to procure a good harvest, clearly indicate that the horse was killed as one of those animal representatives of the corn-spirit of which we have seen so many examples. The custom of cutting off the horse's tail is like the African custom of cutting off the tails of the oxen and sacrificing them to obtain a good crop.^ In both the Roman and the African custom the animal represents the corn -spirit, and its fructifying power is supposed to reside especially in its tail. The latter idea occurs, as we have seen, in European folk-lore.* Again, the custom of fumigating the cattle in spring with the blood of the horse may be compared with the custom of giving the Maiden as fodder to the cattle at Christmas, and giving the Yule Boar to the ploughing oxen or horses to eat in spring.^ All these customs aim at ensuring the blessing of the corn -spirit on the homestead and its inmates and storing it up for another year. The Roman sacrifice of the October horse, as it 1 Festus, ed. Miiller, pp. 178, 179, ^ Ovid, Fasti, w. 731 sqq., cp. 629 220; Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 97; sqq.; Propertius, v. I, 19 jy. Polybius, xii. 4 B. The sacrifice is ^ Above, p. 41 sq. referred to by Juhan, Orat. 176 D. * Above, vol. i. p. 40S, vol. ii. p. 3. 5 Above, p. 30. VOL. II F 66 THE OCTOBER HORSE chap. was called, carries us back to the early days when the Subura, afterwards a low and crowded quarter of the great metropolis, was still a separate village, whose inhabitants engaged in a friendly contest on the harvest- field with their neighbours of Rome, then a little rural town. The Field of Mars on which the ceremony took place lay beside the Tiber, and formed part of the king's domain down to the abolition of the monarchy. For tradition ran that at the time when the last of the kings was driven from Rome, the corn stood ripe for the sickle on the crown lands beside the river ; but no one would eat the accursed grain and it was flung into the river in such heaps that, the water being low with the summer heat, it formed the nucleus of an island. '^ The horse sacrifice was thus an old autumn custom observed upon the king's corn-fields at the end of the harvest. The tail and blood of the horse, as the chief parts of the corn-spirit's representative, were taken to the king's house and kept there ; just as in Germany the harvest -cock is nailed on the gable or over the door of the farmhouse ; and as the last sheaf, in the form of the Maiden, is carried home and kept over the fireplace in the Highlands of Scotland. Thus the blessing of the corn-spirit was brought to the king's house and hearth and, through them, to the community of which he was the head. Similarly in the spring and autumn customs of Northern Europe the May- pole is sometimes set up in front of the house of the mayor or burgomaster, and the last sheaf at harvest is brought to him as the head of the village. But while the tail and blood fell to the king, the neighbouring village of the Subura, which no doubt once had a similar ceremony of its own, was gratified ^ Livy, ii. 5. Ill THE OCTOBER HORSE 67 by being allowed to compete for the prize of the horse's head. The Mamilian tower to which the Suburans nailed the horse's head when they succeeded in carrying it off, appears to have been a peel-tower or keep of the old Mamilian family, the magnates of the village.^ The ceremony thus performed on the king's fields and- at his house on behalf of the whole town and of the neighbouring village presupposes a time when each commune performed a similar ceremony on its own fields. In the rural districts of Latium the villages may have continued to observe the custom, each on its own land, long after the Roman hamlets had merged their separate harvest - homes in the common celebration on the king's lands. ^ There is no intrinsic improbability in the supposition that the sacred grove of Aricia, like the Field of Mars at Rome, may have been the scene of a common harvest celebra- tion, at which a horse was sacrificed with the same rude rites on behalf of the neighbouring villages. The horse would represent the fructifying spirit both of the tree and of the corn, for the two ideas melt into each other, as we see in customs like the Harvest-May. § 1 1. — Eating the god We have now seen that the corn - spirit is re- presented sometimes in human, sometimes in animal form, and that in both cases he is killed in the person of his representative and eaten sacramentally. To find examples of actually killing the human representative of the corn -spirit we had of course to go to savage 1 Festus, ed. Miiller, pp. 130, of an essay by Mannhardt (Mytholog. 131. Forsch. pp. 156-201), of which the ^ The October horse is the subject above account is a summary. 68 SACRAMENTAL EATING chap. races ; but the harvest suppers of our European peasants have furnished unmistakable examples of the sacramental eating of animals as representatives of the corn-spirit. But further, as might have been antici- pated, the new corn is itself eaten sacramentally, that is, as the body of the corn -spirit. In Wermland, Sweden, the farmer's wife uses the grain of the last sheaf to bake a loaf in the shape of a little girl ; this loaf is divided amongst the whole household and eaten by them.^ Here the loaf represents the corn -spirit conceived as a maiden ; just as in Scotland the corn- spirit is similarly conceived and represented by the last sheaf made up in the form of a woman and bearing the name of the Maiden. As usual, the corn-spirit is believed to reside in the last sheaf; and to eat a loaf made from the last sheaf is, therefore, to eat the corn-spirit itself. Similarly at La Palisse in France a man made of dough is hung upon the fir-tree which is carried on the last harvest-waggon. The tree and the dough-man are taken to the mayor's house and kept there till the vintage is over. Then the close of the harvest is celebrated by a feast at which the mayor breaks the dough-man in pieces and gives the pieces to the people to eat.^ In these examples the corn-spirit is represented and eaten in human shape. In other cases, though the new corn is not baked in loaves of human shape, still the solemn ceremonies with which it is eaten suffice to indicate that it is partaken of sacra- mentally, that is, as the body of the corn-spirit. For example, the following ceremonies used to be 1 M. F. p. 1 79. the dough - man is made of the new corn ; but probably this is, or once 2 B. K. p. 205. It is not said that was, the case. Ill OF NEW CROPS 69 observed by Lithuanian peasants at eating the new corn. When the harvest and the sowing of the new corn were over, each farmer held a festival called Sa^barios, that is, "the mixing or throwing together." He took a handful of each kind of grain — wheat, barley, oats, flax, beans, lentils, etc. ; and each handful he divided into three parts. The twenty -seven portions of each grain were then thrown on a heap and all mixed up together. The grain used had to be the grain which was first threshed and winnowed and which had been set aside and kept for this purpose. A part of the grain thus mixed was used to bake little loaves, one for each of the household ; the rest was mixed with more barley or oats and made into beer. The first beer brewed from this mixture was for the drinking of the farmer, his wife, and children ; the second brew was for the servants. The beer being ready, the farmer chose an evening when no stranger was expected. Then he knelt down before the barrel of beer, drew a jugful of the liquor and poured it on the bung of the barrel, saying, " O fruitful earth, make rye and barley and all kinds of corn to flourish." Next he took the jug to the parlour, where his wife and child- ren awaited him. On the floor of the parlour lay bound a black or white or speckled (not a red) cock and a hen of the same colour and of the same brood, which must have been hatched within the year. Then the farmer knelt down, with the jug in his hand, and thanked God for the harvest and prayed for a good crop next year. Then all lifted up their hands and said, " O God, and thou, O earth, we give you this cock and hen as a free-will offering." With that the farmer killed the fowls with the blows of a wooden spoon, for he might not cut their heads oft. After the first prayer 70 SACRAMENTAL EATING chap. and after killing each of the birds he poured out a third of the beer. Then his wife boiled the fowls in a new pot which had never been used before. A bushel was then set, bottom upwards, on the floor, and on it were placed the little loaves mentioned above and the boiled fowls. Next the new beer was fetched, together with a ladle and three mugs, none of which was used except on this occasion. When the farmer had ladled the beer into the mugs, the family knelt down round the bushel. The father then uttered a prayer and drank off the three mugs of beer. The rest followed his example. Then the loaves and the flesh of the fowls were eaten, after which the beer went round again, till every one had emptied each of the three mugs nine times. None of the food should remain over ; but if anything did happen to be left, it was consumed next morning with the same cere- monies. The bones were then given to the dog to eat ; if he did not eat them all up, the remains were buried under the dung in the cattle - stall. This ceremony was observed at the beginning of December. On the day on which it occurred no bad word might be spoken.^ Such was the custom about two hundred years ago. At the present day in Lithuania, when new po- tatoes or loaves made from the new corn are being eaten, all the people at table pull each other's hair.^ The meaning of the latter custom is obscure, but a similar custom was certainly observed by the heathen Lithuanians at their solemn sacrifices.^ Many of the Esthonians of the island of Oesel will not eat bread 1 Praetorius, Deliciae Prussicae, pp. en (Gottingen, 1882), p. 89. 60-64 ; A. W. F. p. 249 sqq. ^ Simon Grunau, Preussische Chroii- 2 iezze.ribexgex,LitmiischeForschung- ik, ed. Perlbach, i. gi. Ill OF NEW CROPS 71 baked of the new corn till they have first taken a bite at a piece of iron.^ The iron is here plainly a charm, intended to render harmless the spirit that is in the corn.^ In Sutherlandshire at the present day, when the new potatoes are dug all the family must taste them, otherwise " the spirits in them [the potatoes] take offence, and the potatoes would not keep."* In one part of Yorkshire it is still the custom for the clergyman to cut the first corn ; and my informant believes that the corn so cut is used to make the communion bread.* If the latter part of the custom is correctly reported (and analogy is all in its favour), it shows how the Christian com- munion has absorbed within itself a sacrament which is doubtless far older than Christianity. At the close of the rice harvest in Boeroe, East Indies, each clan {feftna) meets at a common sacra- mental meal, to which every member of the clan is bound to contribute a little of the new rice. This meal is called " eating the soul of the rice," a name which clearly indicates the sacramental character of the repast. Some of the rice is also set apart and offered to the spirits.'* Amongst the Alfoers of Celebes the priest sows the first rice- seed and plucks the first ripe rice in each field. This rice he roasts and grinds into meal, and gives some of it to each of the household.'' Shortly before the rice harvest in Bolang Mongondo, Celebes, an offering is made 1 Holzmayer, Osiliana, p. 108. ^ G. A. Wilken, Bijdrage tot de 2 On iron as a charm against spirits, t^""" ^"'^ fV"'-'-^"- ^«« f^'t eiland see above, vol. i. p. 175 sq. ^"f"'' P- ^S. , ^„, , ^ ,.. 6 p. N. Wilken, " Biidragen tot de Folk-lore Journal, vu. 54. ^^^^^^ ^^„ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ gewoonten der * Communicated by the Rev. J. J. C. Alfoeren in de Minahassa," in Mede- Yarborough, of Chislehurst, Kent. See deelingen van wege het Nederlandsche Folk-lore Journal, vii. 50. Zendelinggenootschap,y\\.{\%(>'^-^.\2'j. 72 SACRAMENTAL EATING chap. of a small pig or a fowl. Then the priest plucks a little rice, first on his own field and then on those of his neighbours. All the rice thus plucked by him he dries along with his own, and then gives it back to the respective owners, who have it ground and boiled. When it is boiled the women take it back, with an egg, to the priest, who offers the ^'gg in sacrifice and returns the rice to the women. Of this rice every member of the family, down to the youngest child, must partake. After this ceremony every one is free to get in his rice.^ Amongst the Burghers, a tribe of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern India, the first handful of seed is sown and the first sheaf reaped by a Curumbar — a man of a different tribe, whom the Burghers regard as sorcerers. The grain contained in the first sheaf "is that day reduced to meal, made into cakes, and, being offered as a first-fruit oblation, is, together with the remainder of the sacrificed animal, partaken of by the Burgher and the whole of his family as the meat of a federal offering and sacrifice."^ Amongst the Coorgs of Southern India the man who is to cut the first sheaf of rice at harvest is chosen by an astrologer. At sunset the whole house- hold takes a hot bath and then goes to the rice- field, where the chosen reaper cuts an armful of rice with a new sickle, and distributes two or more stalks to all present. Then all return to the thresh- ing-floor. A bundle of leaves is adorned with a stalk of rice and fastened to the post in the centre of the threshing-floor. Enough of the new rice 1 N. P. Wilken en J. A. Schwarz, ^ H. Harkness, Description of a " AUerlei over het land en volk van Singular Aboriginal Race inhabiting Bolaang Mongondou," in Mededeel. v. the Summit of the Neilgherry Hills, p. w. h. Nederl. Zendelinggen. xi. 369 sq. 56 sq. in OF NEW CROPS 73 is now threshed, cleaned, and ground to provide flour for the dough cakes which each member of the household is to eat. Then they go to the door of the house, where the mistress washes the feet of the sheaf- cutter, and presents to him, and after him to all the rest, a brass vessel full of milk, honey, and sugar, from which each person takes a draught. Then the man who cut the sheaf kneads a cake of rice meal, plantains, milk, honey, seven new rice corns, seven pieces of cocoa-nut, etc. Every one receives a little of this cake on an Ashvatha leaf, and eats it. The ceremony is then over and the sheaf- cutter mixes with the company. When he was engaged in cutting the rice no one might touch him.-' Among the Hindoos of Southern India the eating of the new rice is the occasion of a family festival called Pongol. The new rice is boiled in a new pot on a fire which is kindled at noon on the day when, according to Hindoo astrologers, the sun enters the tropic of Capricorn. The boiling of the pot is watched with great anxiety by the whole family, for as the milk boils, so will the coming year be. If the milk boils rapidly, the year will be prosperous ; but it will be the reverse if the milk boils slowly. Some of the new boiled rice is offered to the image of Ganesa ; then every one partakes of it.^ At Gilgit, in the Hindoo Koosh, before wheat -harvest begins, a member of every household gathers a handful of ears of corn secretly at dusk. A few of the ears are hung up over the door of the house, and the rest are roasted next morning, ^ Gover, Folk - songs of Southern ^ Cover, ' ' The Pongol Festival in India, p. 105 sqq.; Folk-lore Journal, Southern India," Journ. R. Asiatic vii. 302 sqq. Society, N. S. v. (1871) p. 91 sqq. 74 SACRAMENTAL EATING chap. and eaten steeped in milk. The day is spent in rejoicings, and next morning the harvest begins.^ The ceremony of eating the new yams at Onitsha, on the Quorra River, Guinea, is thus described : " Each headman brought out six yams, and cut down young branches of palm -leaves and placed them before his gate, roasted three of the yams, and got some kola- nuts and fish. After the yam is roasted, the Libia, or country doctor, takes the yam, scrapes it with a sort of meal, and divides it into halves ; he then takes one piece, and places it on the lips of the person who is going to eat the new yam. The eater then blows up the steam from the hot yam, and afterwards pokes the whole into his mouth, and says, ' I thank God for being permitted to eat the new yam ; ' he then begins to chew it heartily, with fish likewise." ^ Amongst the Kafirs of Natal and Zululand, no one may eat of the new fruits till after a festival which marks the beginning of the Kafir year. All the people assemble at the king's kraal, where they feast and dance. Before they separate the " dedi- cation of the people " takes place. Various fruits of the earth, as corn, mealies, and pumpkins, mixed with the flesh of a sacrificed animal and with "medicine," are boiled in great pots, and a little of this food is placed in each man's mouth by the king himself. After thus partaking of the sanctified fruits, a man is himself sanctified for the whole year, and may immediately get in his crops.^ 1 Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo West African Countries and Peoples, by Koosh, p. 103. J. AfricanusB. Horton (London, 1868), 2 Crowther and Taylor, The Gospel p. 180 sq. on the Banks of the Niger, p. 287 sq. ^ Speckmann, Die Hermannsburger Mr. Taylor's information is repeated in Missioit in Afrika, p. 150 sq. On the Ill OF NEW CROPS 75 Amongst the Creek Indians of North America, the busk or festival of first-fruits was the chief ceremony of the year.^ It was held in July or August, when the corn was ripe, and marked the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one. Before it took place none of the Indians would eat or even handle any part of the new harvest. Sometimes each town had its own busk ; sometimes several towns united to hold one in common. Before cele- brating the busk, the people provided themselves with new clothes and new household utensils and fur- niture ; they collected their old clothes and rubbish, together with all the remaining grain and other old provisions, cast them together in one common heap, and consumed them with fire.^ As a preparation for the ceremony, all the fires in the village were extin- guished, and the ashes swept clean away. In particular, the hearth or altar of the temple was dug up and the Zulu feast of first-fruits, see also N. American Indians {^anisya., 17 75), pp. Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in 96-1 n; W. Bartram, Travels through Mastern Africa^ ii. 291 sq.; Arbousset North and South Carolina, Georgia, at Daumas, Voyage d' exploration, etc. £ast and IVest J^lorida (L,ondon; lygz), p. 308 sq. ; Callaway, Religiotis System p. 507 sq. ; B. Hawkins, " Sketch of the of the Amazulu, p. 389 note ; South Creek country," in Collections of the African Folk-lore Journal, i. 135 sqq.; GeorgiaHistorical Society, in.{Sa.V2i'an2ii, ¥n\sc\i. Die Eingeborenen SUd-Afrikas, 1848), pp. 75-78; A. A. M'Gillivray, p. 143; Lewis Grout, Zululand, p. in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, v. 267 1 60 sqq. From Mr. Grout's description sq. Adair's description is the fullest it appears that a bull is killed and its and has been chiefly followed in the gall drunk by the king and people. text. In Obsei'vations on the Creek and In killing it the men must use nothing Cherokee Indians, by William Bartram but their naked hands. The flesh of (1789), with prefatory and supple- the bull is given to the boys to eat mentary notes, by E. G. Squier, p. what they like and burn the rest; the 75, there is a description — extracted men may not taste it. As a final cere- from an MS. of J. H. Payne (author mony the king breaks a green calabash of Home, Sweet IIo7ne) — of the similar in presence of the people, "thereby ceremony observed by the Cherokees. signifying that he opens the new year, I possess a copy of this work in and grants the people leave to eat of pamphlet foim, but it appears to be the fruits of the season." If a man an extract from the transactions or eats the new fruits before the festival, proceedings of a society, probably an he will die or is actually put to death. American one. Mr. Squier's preface 1 The ceremony is described inde- is dated New York, 1 851. pendently by James Adair, iyzrforj/o/'rte ^ W. Bartram, Travels, y. 507. 76 SACRAMENTAL EATING chap. ashes carried out. Then the chief priest put some roots of the button-snake plant, with some green tobacco leaves and a little of the new fruits, at the bottom of the fireplace, which he afterwards ordered to be covered up with white clay, and wetted over with clean water. A thick arbour of green branches of young trees was then made over the altar.^ Meanwhile the women at home were cleaning out their houses, renewing the old hearths, and scouring all the cooking vessels that they might be ready to receive the new fire and the new fruits.^ The public or sacred square was carefully swept of even the smallest crumbs of previous feasts, "for fear of polluting the first -fruit offerings." Also every vessel that had contained or had been used about any food during the expiring year was removed from the temple before sunset. Then all the men who were not known to have violated the law of the first-fruit offering and that of marriage during the year were summoned by a crier to enter the holy square and observe a solemn fast. But the women (except six old ones), the children, and all who had not attained the rank of warriors were forbidden to enter the square. Sentinels were also posted at the corners of the square to keep out all persons deemed impure and all animals. A strict fast was then observed for two nights and a day, the devotees drinking a bitter decoc- tion of button-snake root " in order to vomit and purge their sinful bodies." That the people outside the square might also be purified, one of the old men laid down a 1 So amongst the Cherokees, accord- sacred square. Every man then pro- ing to J. H. Payne, an arbour of green vided himself with a green bough." boughs was made in the sacred square ; * So Adair. Bartram, on the other then "a beautiful bushy-topped shade- hand, as we have seen, says that the tree was cut down close to the roots, old vessels were burned and new ones and planted in the very centre of the prepared for the festival. Ill OF NEW CROPS 77 quantity of green tobacco at a corner of the square ; this was carried off by an old woman and distributed to the people without, who chewed and swallowed it " in order to afflict their souls." During this general fast, the women, children, and men of weak constitution were allowed to eat after mid-day, but not before. On the morning when the fast ended, the women brought a quantity of the old year's food to the outside of the sacred square. These provisions were then brought in and set before the famished multitude, but all traces of them had to be removed before noon. When the sun was declining from the meridian, all the people were commanded by the voice of a crier to stay within doors, to do no bad act, and to be sure to extinguish and throw away every spark of the old fire. Universal silence now reigned. Then the high priest made the new fire by the friction of two pieces of wood, and placed it on the altar under the green arbour. This new fire was believed to atone for all past crimes except murder. Then a basket of new fruits was brought ; the high priest took out a little of each sort of fruit, rubbed it with bear's oil, and offered it, together with some flesh, " to the bountiful holy spirit of fire, as a first- fruit offering, and an annual oblation for sin." He also consecrated the sacred emetics (the button- snake root and the cassina or black-drink) by pouring a little of them into the fire. The persons who had remained outside now approached, without entering, the sacred square ; and the chief priest thereupon made a speech, exhorting the people to observe their old rites and customs, announcing that the new divine fire had purged away the sins of the past year, and ear- nestly warning the women that, if any of them had not extinguished the old fire, or had contracted any im- 78 SACRAMENTS chap. purity, they must forthwith depart, "lest the divine fire should spoil both them and the people." Some of the new fire was then laid down outside the holy square ; the women carried it home joyfully, and laid it on their unpolluted hearths. When several towns had united to celebrate the festival, the new fire might thus be carried for several miles. The new fruits were then dressed on the new fires and eaten with bear's oil, which was deemed indispensable. At one point of the festival the men rubbed the new corn between their hands, then on their faces and breasts.^ During the festival, which followed, the warriors, dressed in their wild martial array, their heads covered with white down and carrying white feathers in their hands, danced round the sacred arbour, under which burned the new fire. The ceremonies lasted eight days, dur- ing which the strictest continence was practised. To- wards the conclusion of the festival the warriors fought a mock battle ; then the men and women together, in three circles, danced round the sacred fire. Lastly, all the people smeared themselves with white clay and bathed in running water. They came out of the water " believing themselves out of the reach of temporal evil for their past vicious conduct." So they departed in joy and peace. The solemn preparations thus made for eating the new corn prove that it was eaten as a sacrament. In the Boeroe and Creek customs, this sacrament is com- bined with a sacrifice, and in course of time the sacri- fice of first-fruits tends to throw the sacrament into the shade, if not to supersede it. The mere fact of having offered the first-fruits to the gods or ancestral spirits comes now to be thought a sufficient prepara- 1 B. Hawkins, "Sketch," etc., p. 76. Ill IN ANCIENT MEXICO 79 tlon for eating the new corn ; the gods having received their share, man is free to enjoy the rest. This mode of viewing the new fruits impHes that they are regarded no longer as themselves instinct with divine life, but merely as a gift bestowed by the gods upon man, who is bound to express his gratitude and hom- age to his divine benefactors by presenting them with a portion of the fruits of the earth. But with sacrifice, as distinct from sacrament, we are not here concerned.^ The custom of eating bread sacramentally as the body of a god was practised by the Aztecs before the discovery and conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. Twice a year, in May and December, an image of the great Mexican god Huitzilopochtli or Vitzilipuztli was made of dough, then broken in pieces, and solemnly eaten by his worshippers. The May ceremony is thus described by the historian Acosta. " Two dales before this feast, the virgins whereof I have spoken (the which were shut up and secluded in the same temple and were as it were religious women) did mingle a quantitie of the seede of beetes with roasted Mays [maize], and then they did mould it with honie, making an idol of that paste in bignesse like to that of wood, putting insteede of eyes graines of greene glasse, of blue or white ; and for teeth graines of Mays set forth with all the ornament and furniture that I have said. This being finished, all the Noblemen came and brought it an exquisite and rich garment, like unto that of the idol, wherewith they did attyre it. Being thus clad and deckt, they did set it in an azured chaire and in a litter to carry it on their shoulders. The morning of this feast being come, an houre before day all the maidens came forth attired in white, with new orna- 1 See Note on " Offerings of first-fruits " at the end of the volume. 8o MEXICAN SACRAMENTS chap. ments, the which that day were called the Sisters of their god Vitzilipuztli, they came crowned with garlands of Mays rosted and parched, being like unto azahar or the flower of orange ; and about their neckes they had great chaines of the same, which went bauldricke- wise under their left arme. Their cheekes were died with Vermillion, their armes from the elbow to the wrist were covered with red parrots' feathers." Young men, crowned like the virgins with maize, then carried the idol in its litter to the foot of the great pyramid- shaped temple, up the steep and narrow steps of which it was drawn to the music of flutes, trumpets, cornets, and drums. "While they mounted up the idoll all the people stoode in the Court with much reverence and feare. Being mounted to the top, and that they had placed it in a little lodge of roses which they held readie, presently came the yong men, which strawed many flowers of sundrie kindes, wherewith they filled the temple both within and without. This done, all the virgins came out of their convent, bringing peeces of paste compounded of beetes and rosted Mays, which was of the same paste whereof their idol was made and compounded, and they were of the fashion of great bones. They delivered them to the yong men, who carried them up and laide them at the idoll's feete, wherewith they filled the whole place that it could receive no more. They called these morcells of paste the flesh and bones of Vitzilipuztli." Then the priests came in their robes of office, " and putting themselves in order about these morsells and peeces of paste, they used certaine ceremonies with singing and dauncing. By means whereof they were blessed and consecrated for the flesh and bones of this idoll. . . . The ceremonies, dauncing, and sacrifice ended, they went in MEXICAN SACRAMENTS to unclothe themselves, and the priests and superiors of the temple tooke the idoll of paste, which they spoyled of all the ornaments it had, and made many peeces, as well of the idoll itselfe as of the tronchons which were consecrated, and then they gave them to the people in maner of a communion, beginning with the greater, and continuing unto the rest, both men, women, and little children, who received it with such teares, feare, and reverence as it was an admirable thing, saying that they did eate the flesh and bones of God, wherewith they were grieved. Such as had any sicke folkes demaunded thereof for them, and carried it with great reverence and veneration."^ Before the festival in December, which took place at the winter solstice, an image of the god Huitzilo- pochtli was made of seeds of various sorts kneaded into a dough with the blood of children. The bones of the god were represented by pieces of acacia wood. This image was placed on the chief altar of the temple, and on the day of the festival the king offered incense to it. Early next day it was taken down and set on its feet in a great hall. Then a priest took a flint- tipped dart and hurled it into the breast of the dough- image, piercing it through and through. This was called "killing the god Huitzilopochtli so that his body might be eaten." One of the priests cut out the heart of the image and gave it to the king to eat. The rest of the image was divided into minute pieces, of which every man great and small, down to the male children in the cradle, received one to eat. But no woman might taste a morsel. The ceremony was called teoqiialo, that is, " god is eaten." ^ 1 Acosta, Natural and Moral His- pp. 356-360 (Hakluyt Society, 1S80). tory of the Indies, bk. v. c. 24, vol. ii. 2 Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacif.c VOL. II G 82 MEXICAN SACRAMENTS chap. At another festival the Mexicans made Httle images in human shape to represent the cloud-capped mountains. These images were made of paste of various seeds and were dressed in paper ornaments. Some people made five, others ten, others as many as fifteen of these paste images. They were placed in the oratory of each house and worshipped. Four times in the course of the night offerings of food were made to them in tiny vessels ; and people sang and played the flute before them all night. At break of day the priests stabbed the images with a weaver's instrument, cut off their heads, and tore out their hearts, which they presented to the master of the house on a green saucer. The bodies of the images wei'e then eaten by all the family, especially by the servants, " in order that by eating them they might be preserved from certain distempers, to which those persons who were negligent of worship to those deities conceived themselves to be subject." ^ We are now able to suggest an explanation of the proverb "there are many Manii at Aricia."^ Certain loaves made in the shape of men were called by the Romans maniae, and it appears that this kind of loaf was especially made at Aricia.^ Now, Mania, the name of one of these loaves, was also the name of the Mother or Grandmother of Ghosts,* to whom woollen 5toto, iii. 297-300 (after Torquemada) ; extended from 23d December to nth Clavigero, History of Mexico, trans, by Jamiary). At another festival the Mexi- Cullen, i. 309 ajq. ; Sahagun, Histoire cans made the semblance of a bone out i,\, ^. 2(1. sistently the Canadian Indians used to ^ Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelh kill every elan they could overtake in France, v. 443. Ill OF THE FISH 119 named Heaven) gave birth to all other fish of that species, and took care to send them plenty of its children to sustain their tribe. For this reason they worshipped sardines in one region, where they killed more of them than of any other fish ; in others, the skate ; in others, the dogfish ; in others, the golden fish for its beauty ; in others, the crawfish ; in others, for want of larger gods, the crabs, where they had no other fish, or where they knew not how to catch and kill them. In short, they had whatever fish was most serviceable to them as their gods."-^ The Otawa Indians of Canada, believing that the souls of dead fish passed into other bodies of fish, never burned fish bones, for fear of displeasing the souls of the fish, who would come no more to the nets.^ The Hurons also refrained from throwing fish bones into the fire, lest the souls of the fish should go and warn the other fish not to let themselves be caught, since the Hurons would burn their bones. Moreover, they had men who preached to the fish and persuaded them to come and be caught. A good preacher was much sought after, for they thought that the exhortations of a clever man had a great effect in drawing the fish to the nets. In the Huron fishing village where the French missionary Sagard stayed, the preacher to the fish prided himself very much on his eloquence, which was of a florid order. Every evening after supper, having seen that all the people were in their places and that a strict silence was observed, he preached to the fish. His text was that the Hurons did not burn fish bones. " Then enlarging on his theme 1 Garcilasso de la Vega, Royal Co7n- Society. Cp. id., ii. p. 148. mentaries of the Yncas, First Part, bk. ^ Relations des JSsitites, 1667, p. i. ch. 10, vol. i. p. 49 sq., Hakluyt 12. I20 PROPITIATION CHAP. with extraordinary unction, he exhorted and conjured and invited and implored the fish to come and be caught and to be of good courage and to fear nothing, for it was all to serve their friends who honoured them and did not burn their bones." ^ The disappearance of herring from the sea about Heligoland in 1530 was attributed by the fishermen to the fact that two lads had whipped a freshly- caught hernng and then flung it back into the sea.^ The natives of the Duke of York Island annually decorate a canoe with flowers and ferns, lade it, or are supposed to lade it, with shell-money, and set it adrift to pay the fish for those they lose by being caught.^ It is especially necessary to treat the first fish caught with consideration in order to conciliate the rest of the fish, for their conduct may be supposed to be influenced by the reception given to the first of their kind which is taken. Ac- cordingly the Maoris always put back into the sea the first fish caught, " with a prayer that it may tempt other fish to come and be caught." * Still more stringent are the precautions taken when the fish are the first of the season. On salmon rivers, when the fish begin to run up the stream in spring, they are received with much deference by tribes who, like the Indians of the Pacific Coast of North America, subsist largely upon a fish diet. In British Columbia the Indians used to go out to meet the first fish as they came up the river. " They paid 1 Sagard, Le Grand Voyage du Pays * R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui; or. New des Hurons, p. 255 sqq. (p. 178 sqq. Zealand and its Inhabitants, p. 200; of the Paris reprint). A. S. Thomson, The Story of New 2 Schleiden, j9flj ^a/z, p. 47- For Zealand, i. 202; E. Tregear, "The this reference I am indebted to my Maoris of New Zealand," yi7«r«a/^«- friend Piof W. Robertson Smith. throp. Inst. xix. 109. 3 W. Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. (>(> sq. in OF THE FISH 121 court to them, and would address them thus. ' You fish, you fish ; you are all chiefs, you are ; you are all chiefs.' "1 Amongst the Thlinket of Alaska the first halibut of the season is carefully handled, addressed as a chief, and a festival is given in his honour, after which the fishing goes on.^ In spring, when the winds blow soft from the south and the salmon begin to run up the Klamath river, the Karoks of California dance for salmon, to ensure a good catch. One of the Indians, called the Kareya or God-man, retires to the mountains and fasts for ten days. On his return the people flee, while he goes to the river, takes the first salmon of the catch, eats some of it, and with the rest kindles the sacred fire in the sweating -house. "No Indian may take a salmon before this dance is held, nor for ten days after it, even if his family are starving." The Karoks also believe that a fisherman will take no salmon if the poles of which his spearing- booth is made were gathered on the river-side, where the salmon might have seen them. The poles must be brought from the top of the highest mountain. The fisherman will also labour in vain if he uses the same poles a second year in booths or weirs, " because the old salmon will have told the young ones about them."^ Among the Indians of the Columbia River, "when the salmon make their first appearance in the river, they are never allowed to be cut crosswise, nor boiled, but roasted ; nor are they allowed to be sold without the heart being first taken out, nor to be kept over night, but must be all consumed* or eaten the day they are taken out of the water. All these ' Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation,'^ ■^. 277, Q^^alixig Metlahkatlah, p. 96. 2 W. Dall, Alaska and its Resources, p. 413. ^ Stephen Powers, Tribes of California, p. 3 1 sq. 122 THE RESURRECTION chap. rules are observed for about ten days." ^ They think that if the heart of a fish were eaten by a stranger at the beginning of the season, they would catch no more fish. Hence, they roast and eat the hearts themselves.^ There is a favourite fish of the Ainos which appears in their rivers about May and June. They prepare for the fishing by observing rules of ceremonial purity, and when they have gone out to fish, the women at home must keep strict silence or the fish would hear them and disappear. When the first fish is caught he is brought home and passed through a small opening at the end of the hut, but not through the door; for if he were passed through the door, " the other fish would certainly see him and disappear."^ This explains the custom observed by other savages of bringing game into their huts, not by the door, but by the window, the smoke-hole, or by a special opening at the back of the hut.* With some savages a special reason for respecting the bones of game, and generally of the animals which they eat, is a belief that, if the bones are preserved, they will in course of time be reclothed with flesh, and thus the animal will come to life again. It is, there- fore, clearly for the interest of the hunter to leave the bones intact, since to destroy them would be to diminish the future supply of game. Many of the Min- netaree Indians " believe that the bones of those bisons which they have slain and divested of flesh rise again 1 Alex. Ross, Adventures of the First the heart of the fish out before they sell Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia it." River p. 97. ^ H. C. St. John, "The Ainos," in Joiirn. Anthrop. Inst. ii. 253 ; id, 2 Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the U.S. Notes and Sketches fro7n the Wild Coasts Exploring Expedition, iv. 324, v. 119, of Nipon, p. 27 sq. where it is said, " a dog must never be ■* Scheffer, Lapponia, p. 242 sq.; permitted to eat the heart of a salmon ; Jourti. Anthrop. Inst. vii. 207 ; Revue and in order to prevent this, they cut d'Ethnographie, ii. 308 sq. OF ANIMALS 123 clothed with renewed flesh, and quickened with Hfe, and become fat, and fit for slaughter the succeeding June."^ Hence on the western prairies of America, the skulls of buffalos may be seen arranged in circles and symmetrical piles, awaiting the resurrection.^ After feasting on a dog, the Dacotas carefully collect the bones, scrape, wash, and bury them, "partly, as it is said, to testify to the dog-species, that in feasting upon one of their number no disrespect was meant to the species itself, and partly also from a belief that the bones of the animal will rise and reproduce another."^ In sacrificing an animal the Lapps regularly put aside the bones, eyes, ears, heart, lungs, sexual parts (if the animal was a male), and a morsel of flesh from each limb. Then, after eating the rest of the flesh, they laid the bones etc. in anatomical order in a coffin and buried them with the usual rites, believing that the god to whom the animal was sacrificed would reclothe the bones with flesh and restore the animal to life in Jabme-Aimo, the subterranean world of the dead. Sometimes, as after feasting on a bear, they seem to have contented themselves with thus burying the bones.* Thus the Lapps expected the resurrection of the slain animal to take place in another world, resem- bling in this respect the Kamtchatkans, who believed that every creature, down to the smallest fly, would rise from the dead and live underground.^ On the 1 James, Expedition from Pittsburgh up (paged separately) with the work of to the Rocky Moimtains^ i. 257- C* Leem, De Lapponihus Finmarchiae ^ -Bxinion, Myths of the New World, ^ort'mque lingua, vita,^ et religione p. 278, pristina co7nmentatioiJL?itm 2iwAT>?iW\^), „ ,^ . ^ ,. . , „ Copenhagen, 1767. Compare Leem's 3 Keating, Expedition to the Source ^^^^ g (Latin), 428 sq., of St. Peters River, 1. 452- also Acerbi, Travels through Sweden, * E. J. Jessen, De Fhuiorum Lap- Finnland, and Lapland, ii. 302. ponumque Norwegicorum religione pa- 6 Steller, Beschreihmig von dem gana tractatus singularis, pp. 46 sq., 52 Lande Kamtschatka, p. 269 ; Kraschen- sq., 65. The work of Jessen is bound nikow, Kamtschatka, p. 246. 124 RESURRECTION CHAP. Other hand, the North American Indians looked for the resurrection of the animals in the present world. The habit, observed especially by Mongolian peoples, of stuffing the skin of a sacrificed animal, or stretching it on a framework,^ points rather to a belief in a resur- rection of the latter sort. The objection commonly entertained by primitive peoples to break the bones of the animals which they have eaten or sacrificed ^ may be based either on a belief in the resurrection of the animals, or on a fear of intimidating the other creatures ^ See Erman, referred to above, p. Ill sq. ', Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien^ i. 274, ii. 182 sq., 214; Vambery, Das Tiirkenvolk, p. 118 sq. When a fox, the sacred animal of the Conchucos in Peru, had been killed, its skin was stuffed and set up. Bastian, Die Cul- turldnder des alten Amerika, i. 443. Cp. the botiphonia, above, p. 38 sq. ^ At the annual sacrifice of the White Dog, the Iroquois were careful to strangle the animal without shedding its blood or breaking its bones. The dog was afterwards burned. L. H. Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 210. It is a rule with some of the Australian blacks that in killing the native bear they must not break his bones. They say that the native bear once stole all the water of the river, and that if they were to break his bones or take off his skin before roasting him, he would do so again. Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 447 sqq. When the Tartars whom Carpini visited killed animals for eating, they might not break their bones but burned them with fire. Carpini, Historia Mongalorum (Paris, 1838), cap. iii. § i. 2, p. 620. North American Indians might not break the bones of the animals which they ate at feasts. Charlevoix, Histoire de la Non- ■velle France, vi. 72. In the warfeast held by Indian warriors after leaving home, a whole animal was cooked and had to be all eaten. No bone of it might be broken. After being stripped of the flesh the bones were hung on a tree. Narrative of the Captivity and Adven- tures of John Tanner, p. 287. On St. Olaf's Day (29th July) the Karels of Finland kill a lamb, without using a knife, and roast it whole. None of its bones may be broken. The lamb has not been shorn since spring. Some of the flesh is placed in a corner of the room for the house - spirits, some is deposited on the field and beside the birch - trees which are destined to be used as May-trees next year. W. Mann- hardt, A. W. F. p. 160 sq. note. The Innuit (Esquimaux) of Point Barrow, Alaska, carefully preserve unbroken the bones of the seals which they have caught and return them to the sea, either leaving them in an ice-crack far out from the land or dropping them through a hole in the ice. By doing so they think they secure good fortune in the pursuit of seals. Report of the International Expedition to Point Bar- row, Alaska (Washington, 1885), p. 40. In this last custom the idea prob- ably is that the bones will be reclothed with flesh and the seals come to life again. The Mosquito Indians of Central America carefully preserved the bones of deer and the shells of eggs, lest the deer or chickens should die or disappear. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 741. The Yurucares of Bolivia "carefully put by even small fish bones, saying that unless this is done the fish and game will disappear from the country." Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 278. Ill IN FOLK-TALES 125 of the same species and offending the ghosts of the slain animals. The reluctance of North American Indians to let dogs gnaw the bones of animals^ is per- haps only a precaution to prevent the bones from being broken. There are traces in folk- tales of the same primitive belief that animals or men may come to life again, if only their bones are preserved ; not un- commonly the animal or man in the story comes to life lame of a limb, because one of his bones has been eaten, broken, or lost.^ In a Magyar tale, the hero is cut in pieces, but the serpent-king lays the bones together in their proper order, and washes them with water, whereupon the hero comes to life again. His shoulder-blade, however, had been lost, so the serpent- king supplied its place with one of gold and ivory.' Such stories, as Mannhardt has seen, explain why Pythagoras, who claimed to have lived many lives, one after the other, was said to have exhibited his golden leg as a proof of his supernatural pretensions.* Doubt- less he was reported to have explained that at one of his resurrections a leg had been broken or mislaid, 1 Relations des Jesuites, 1634, p. be a way of transmitting the bones 25, ed. 1858; A. Mackenzie, Voyages to the spirit-land. The aborigines of ^h the Continent of America, civ; Australia burn the bones of the animals J. Dunn, History of the Oregon Terri- which they eat, but for a different t07y, p. 99 ; Whymper mjourn. Royal reason ; they think that if an enemy Geogr. Soc. xxxviii. (1868) p. 228 ; id. got hold of the bones and burned them in Transact. Ethnolog. Soc. vii. 1 74 ; with charms, it would cause the death A. P. Reid, "Religious Belief of the of the person who had eaten the animal. Ojibois Indians," in Journ. Anthrop. Native Tribes of Sottth Australia, pp. Inst. iii. III. After a meal the In- 24, 196. dians of Costa Rica gather all the bones ^ Mannhardt, Germanische Mytketi, carefully and either burn them or put pp. 57-74; id., B. K. p. Ii6; Cosquin, them out of reach of the dogs. W. M. Contes populaires de Lorraine, ii. 25 ; Gabb, On the Indian Tribes a7id Lan- Hartland, " The physicians of Myddfai,'* guages of Costa Rica (read before the Archaeological Review, i. 30 sq. In American Philosophical Society, 20th folk-tales, as in primitive custom, the Aug. 1875), p. 520 (Philadelphia, blood is sometimes not allowed to fall 1875). The fact that the bones on the ground. See Cosquin, I.e. are often burned to prevent the dogs ^ \v. Mannhardt, Germ. Myth. p. 66, getting them does not contradict the ^ Jamblichus, Vita Pythag. §§ 92, view suggested in the text. It may 135, 140; Porphyry, Vit. Pythag.%2%. 126 ABSTINENCE FROM chap. and that it had been replaced with one of gold. Similarly, when the murdered Pelops was restored to life, the shoulder which Demeter had eaten was replaced with one of ivory/ The story that one of the members of the mangled Osiris was eaten by fish, and that, when I sis collected his scattered limbs, she replaced the missing member with one of wood,^ rnay perhaps belong to the same circle of beliefs. There is a certain rule observed by savage hunters and fishers which, obscure at first sight, may be explained by this savage belief in resurrection. A traveller in America in the early part of this century was told by a half-breed Choctaw that the Indians " had an obscure story, somewhat resembling that of Jacob wrestling with an angel; and that the full-blooded Indians always separate the sinew which shrank, and that it is never seen in the venison exposed for sale ; he did not know what they did with it. His elder brother, whom I afterwards met, told me that they eat it as a rarity ; but I have also heard, though on less respectable authority, that they refrain from it, like the ancient Jews. A gentleman, who had lived on the Indian frontier, or in the nation, for ten or fifteen years, told me that he had often been surprised that the Indians always detatched the sinew ; but it had never occurred to him to inquire the reason."^ James Adair, who knew the Indians of the South Eastern States intimately, and whose theories appear not to have dis- torted his view of the facts, observes that "when in the woods, the Indians cut a small piece out of the lower part of the thighs of the deer they kill, length- 1 Pindar, Olymp. i. 37 sqq., with pious Herodotus (ii. 48) concealed and the Scholiast. the pious Plutarch divulged. 2 Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 18. This ^ hAzxa.\io&giOTi, Letters from North is one of the sacred stories which the America, i. 244. Ill THE SINEW OF THE THIGH 127 ways and pretty deep. Among the great number of venison -hams they bring to our trading houses, I do not remember to have observed one without it. . . . And I have been assured by a gentleman of character, who is now an inhabitant of South Carolina, and well acquainted with the customs of the Northern Indians, that they also cut a piece out of the thigh of every deer they kill, and throw it away ; and reckon it such a dangerous pollution to eat it as to occasion sickness and other misfortunes of sundry kinds, especially by spoiling their guns from shooting with proper force and direction."'' In recent years the statement of Adair's informant has been confirmed by the French missionary Petitot, who has also published the "obscure story" to which Hodgson refers. The Loucheux and Hare -skin Indians who roam the bleak steppes and forests that stretch from Hudson's Bay to the Rocky Mountains, and northward to the frozen sea, are forbidden by custom to eat the sinew of the legs of animals. To explain this custom they tell the following " sacred story." Once upon a time a man found a burrow of porcupines, and going down into it after the porcupines he lost his way in the darkness, till a kind giant called "He who sees before and behind " released him by cleaving open the earth. So the man, whose name was " Fireless and Homeless," lived with the kind giant, and the giant hunted elans and beavers for him, and carried him about in the sheath of his flint knife. "But know, my son," said the giant, "that he who uses the sky as his head is angry with me, and has sworn my destruction. If he slays me the clouds will be tinged with my blood ; they will be red with it, prob- ably." Then he gave the man an axe made of the ^ Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 137 sq. 128 THE SINEW OF THE THIGH chap. tooth of a gigantic beaver, and went forth to meet his enemy. But from under the ice the man heard a dull muffled sound. It was a whale which was making this noise because it was naked and cold. Warned by the man, the giant went toward the whale, which took human shape, and rushed upon the giant. It was the wicked giant, the kind giant's enemy. The two struggled together for a long time, till the kind giant cried, "Oh, my son! cut, cut the sinew of the leg." The man cut the sinew, and the wicked giant fell down and was slain. That is why the Indians do not eat the sinew of the leg. Afterwards, one day the sky suddenly grew red, so Fireless and Homeless knew that the kind giant was dead, and he wept.'- This myth, it is almost needless to observe, does not really explain the custom. No people ever observed a custom because a mythical being was said to have once acted in a certain way. But, on the contrary, all peoples have invented myths to explain why they observed certain customs. Dismissing, therefore, the story of Fireless and Homeless as a myth invented to explain why the Indians abstain from eating a particular sinew, it may be suggested ^ that the original reason for observ- ing the custom was a belief that the sinew in question was necessary to reproduction, and that deprived of it the slain animals could not come to life again and stock the steppes and prairies either of the present world or of the spirit land. We have seen that the resurrection 1 Petitot, Monographie des Dini- of the Semites, first series, p. 360, note Dindjie (Paris, 1867), pp. 77, 81 sq.; 2. The Faleshas, a Jewish sect of id. Traditions indiennes du Canada Abyssinia, after lulling an animal for Nord-ouest (Paris, 1886), p. 132 sqq., food, " carefully remove the vein from cp. pp. 41, 76, 213, 264. the thighs with its surrounding flesh." Halevy, "Travels in Abyssinia," in ^ The first part of this suggestion is Publications of the Society of Hebrew that of my friend Prof. W. Robertson Literature, second series, vol. ii. p. Smith. Seehis Lectures on the Religion 220. Ill VERMIN RESPECTED 139 of animals is a common article of savage faith, and that when the Lapps bury the skeleton of the male bear in the hope of its resurrection they are careful to bury the genital parts along with it.^ Besides the animals which primitive man dreads for their strength and ferocity, and those which he reveres on account of the benefits which he expects from them, there is another class of creatures which he sometimes deems it necessary to conciliate by worship and sacrifice. These are the vermin that infest the crops. To rid himself of these deadly foes the farmer has recourse to a thousand superstitious devices, of which, though many are meant to destroy or intimidate the vermin, others aim at propitiating them and per- suading them by fair means to spare the fruits of the earth. Thus Esthonian peasants, in the Island of Oesel, stand in great awe of the weevil, an insect which is exceedingly destructive to the grain. They give it a euphemistic title, and if a child is about to kill a ' It seems to be a common custom slain and preserves it as a token. The with hunters to cut out the tongues of incident serves to show that the custom the animals which they kill. Omaha was a common one, since folk-tales hunters remove the tongue of a slain reflect with accuracy the customs and buffalo through an opening made in the beliefs of a primitive age. For examples animal's throat. The tongues thus re- of the incident, see Blade, Contes moved are sacred and may not touch populaires recueillis en Agenais^ \t^. 12, any tool or metal except when they are 14; Dasent, Tales from the Norse, p. 133 boiling in the kettles at the sacred tent. sq. ('Shortshanks ') ; Schleicher, Liiau- They are eaten as sacred food. Third ische Mdrchen, p. 58; Sepp, Altbayer- Report of the Bureau of Ethnology ischer Sagenschatz, p. 114; Kbhler on (Washington), p. 289 sq. Indian bear- Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Mdrchen, ii. hunters cut out what they call the bear's 230 ; Apollodorus, iii. 13,3; Mannhardt, little tongue (a fleshy mass under the A.W. F.-^. (,■!,•, Yo^%\\o-a,Lappldndische real tongue) and keep it for good luck Mdrchen, p. 23 1 sq. It may be sug- in hunting or burn it to determine from gested that the cutting out of the tongues its crackling, etc., whether the soul of is a precaution to prevent the slain the slain bear is angry with them or animals from telling their fate to the not. Kohl, Kitschi-Gami, ii. 251 sq.\ live animals and thus frightening away Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle the latter. At least this explanation France, v. 173 ; Chateaubriand, Voyage harmonises with the primitive modes en Amirique,^^. !•]<) sq.,i%\. In folk- of thought revealed in the foregoing tales the hero commonly cuts out the customs, tongue of the wild beast which he has VOL. II K '3° VERMIN RESPECTED chap. weevil they say, " Don't do it ; the more we hurt him, the more he hurts us." If they find a weevil they bury it in the earth instead of killing it. Some even put the weevil under a stone in the field and offer corn to it. They think that thus it is appeased and does less harm.^ Amongst the Saxons of Transylvania, in order to keep sparrows from the corn, the sower begins by throwing the first handful of seed backwards over his head, saying, "That is for you, sparrows." To guard the corn against the attacks of leaf-flies {Erdflohe) he shuts his eyes and scatters three handfuls of oats in different directions. Having made this offering to the leaf-flies he feels sure that they will spare the corn. A Transylvanian way of securing the crops against all birds, beasts, and insects, is this : After he has finished sowing, the sower goes once more from end to end of the field imitating the gesture of sowing, but with an empty hand. As he does so he says, " I sow this for the animals ; I sow it for everything that flies and creeps, that walks and stands, that sings and springs, in the name of God the Father, etc."^ The following is a German way of freeing a garden from caterpillars. After sunset or at midnight the mistress of the house, or another female member of the family, walks all round the garden dragging a broom after her. She must not look behind her, and must keep murmuring, "Good evening. Mother Caterpillar, you shall come with your husband to church." The garden gate is left open till the following morning.^ Sometimes in dealing with vermin the farm.er 1 Holzmayer, Osiliana, p, lOJ note. ^ E. Krause, " Aberglaubische Kuren 2 Heinrich, Agrarische Siiten und und sonstiger Aberglaube in Berlin," Gehrduche iinfer den Sachsen Sieben- Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, xv. (1S83) biirgens, p. 15 sq. P- 9Z- Ill VERMIN RESPECTED 131 resorts neither to unmitigated severity nor to un- bounded indulgence, but aims at adopting a judicious compromise between the two ; kind but firm, he tempers severity with mercy. An ancient Greek treatise on farming advises the husbandman who would rid his lands of mice to act thus : " Take a sheet of paper and write on it as follows : ' I adjure you, ye mice here present, that ye neither injure me nor suffer another mouse to do so. I give you yonder field ' (here you specify the field) ; ' but if ever I catch you here again, by the Mother of the Gods I will rend you in seven pieces.' Write this, and stick the paper on an unhewn stone in the field before sunrise, taking care to keep the written side uppermost." ^ Sometimes the desired object is supposed to be attained by treating with high distinction one or two chosen individuals of the obnoxious species, while the rest are pursued with relentless rigour. In the East Indian island of Bali, the mice which ravage the rice -fields are caught in great numbers, and burned in the same way that corpses are burned. But two of the captured mice are allowed to live, and receive a little packet of white linen. Then the people bow down before them, as before gods, and let them go.^ In some parts of Bohemia the peasant, though he kills field mice and gray mice without scruple, always spares white mice. If he finds a white mouse he takes it up carefully, and makes a comfortable bed for it in the window ; for if it died the luck of the house would be gone, and the gray mice would 1 Geoponica, xiii. 5. According to farmer's own land, the commentator, the field assigned to - R. van Eck, " Schetsen van het the mice is a neighbour's, but it may eiland Bali," in Tijdschrift voor Neder- be a patch of waste ground on the landsch Indie, N.S. viii. (1879) p. 125. 132 VERMIN RESPECTED chap. multiply fearfully in the house.'' When caterpillars invaded a vineyard or field in Syria, the virgins were gathered, and one of the caterpillars was taken and a girl made its mother. Then they bewailed and buried it. Thereafter they conducted the " mother " to the place where the caterpillars were, consoling her, in order that all the caterpillars might leave the garden.^ On the ist of September, Russian girls "make small coffins of turnips and other vege- tables, enclose flies and other insects in them, and then bury them with a great show of mourning."^ In these latter examples the deference shown to a few chosen individuals of the species is apparently regarded as entitling a person to exterminate with impunity all the rest of the species upon which he can lay hands. This principle perhaps explains the attitude, at first sight puzzling and contradictory, of the Ainos towards the bear. The flesh and skin of the bear regularly afford them food and clothing ; but since the bear is an intelligent and powerful animal, it is necessary to offer some satisfaction or atonement to the bear species for the loss which it sustains in the death of so many of its members. This satis- faction or atonement is made by rearing young bears, treating them, so long as they live, with respect, and killing them with extraordinary marks of sorrow and devotion. Thus the other bears are appeased, and do not resent the slaughter of their kind by attacking the slayers or deserting the country, and thus depriving the Ainos of one of their means of subsistence. 1 Grohmann, Aberglauien und Ge- I am indebted to my friend Prof. W. hrduihe aus Bohmen und Mdhren, § Robertson Smith, who kindly translated 405. it for me from the Syriac. ^ 'L.^gzx&t, Reliquiae juris eoclesiastici ^ Ralston, Songs of the Russian antiqtiissimae,'p. \^S- For this passage Peofle, ^. 2^^. Ill TYPES OF ANIMAL WORSHIP 133 Thus the primitive worship of animals assumes two forms, which are in some respects the converse of each other. On the one hand animals are respected, and are therefore neither killed nor eaten. Totemism is a form of this worship, if worship it can be called ; but it is not the only form, for we have seen that dangerous and useless animals, like the crocodile, are commonly revered and spared by men who do not regard the animal in question as their totem. On the other hand animals are worshipped because they are habitually killed and eaten. In both forms of worship the animal is revered on account of some benefit, positive or negative, which the savage hopes to receive from it. In the former worship the benefit comes either in the positive form of protection, advice, and help which the animal affords the man, or in the negative one of abstinence from injuries which it is in the power of the animal to inflict. In the latter worship the benefit takes the material form of the animal's flesh and skin. The two forms of worship are in some measure antithetical : in the one, the animal is not eaten because it is revered ; in the other, it is revered because it is eaten. But both may be practised by the same people, as we see in the case of the North American Indians, who, while they revere and spare their totem animals, also revere the animals and fish upon which they subsist. The aborigines of Australia have totemism in the most primitive form known to us, but, so far as I am aware, there is no evidence that they at- tempt, like the North American Indians, to con- ciliate the animals which they kill and eat. The means which the Australians adopt to secure a plentiful supply of game appear to be based not on 134 TYPES OF ANIMAL WORSHIP conciliation, but on sympathetic magic,^ a principle to which the North American Indians also resort for the same purpose.^ If this is so, it would appear that the totemistic respect for animals is older than the other, and that, before hunters think of wor- shipping the game as a means of ensuring an abundant supply of it, they seek to attain the same end by sympathetic magic. This, again, would show — what there is good reason for believing — that sympathetic magic is one of the earliest means by which man endeavours to adapt the agencies of nature to his needs. Corresponding to the two distinct types of animal worship, there are two distinct types of the custom of killing the animal' god. On the one hand, when the revered animal is habitually spared, it is nevertheless killed — and sometimes eaten — ^on rare and solemn occasions. Examples of this custom have been already given and an explanation of them offered. On the other hand, when the revered animal is habitually killed, the slaughter of any one of the species involves the killing of the god, and is atoned for on the spot by apologies and sacrifices, especially when the animal is a powerful and dangerous one ; and, in addition to this ordinary and everyday atone- ment, there is a special annual atonement, at which a select individual of the species is slain with extra- ordinary marks of respect and devotion. Clearly the two types of sacramental killing — the Egyptian and the Aino types, as we may call them for distinction — are liable to be confounded by an observer ; and, 1 Compare Native Tribes of South ^ Catlin, 0-Kee-pa, Folium reser- Australia, p. 280, with the customs vatum ; Lewis and Clarke, Travels to referred to in the following note. the Source of the Missouri River {IjOxAaa, 1815), i. 205 sq. Ill PASTORAL SACRAMENTS 135 before we can say to which type any particular example belongs, it is necessary to ascertain whether the animal sacramentally slain belongs to a species which is habitually spared, or to one which is habitually killed by the tribe. In the former case the example belongs to the -Egyptian type of sacra- ment, in the latter to the Aino type. The practice of pastoral tribes appears to furnish examples of both types of sacrament. " Pastoral tribes," says the most learned ethnologist of the day, "being sometimes obliged to sell their herds to strangers who may handle the bones disrespectfully, seek to avert the danger which such a sacrilege would entail by consecrating one of the herd as an object of worship, eating it sacramentally in the family circle with closed doors, and afterwards treating the bones with all the ceremonious respect which, strictly speak- ing, should be accorded to every head of cattle, but which, being punctually paid to the representative animal, is deemed to be paid to all. Such family meals are found among various peoples, especially those of the Caucasus. When amongst the Abchases the shepherds in spring eat their common meal with their loins girt and their staffs in their hands, this may be looked upon both as a sacrament and as an oath of mutual help and support. For the strongest of all oaths is that which is accompanied with the eating of a sacred substance, since the perjured person cannot possibly escape the avenging god whom he has taken into his body and assimilated."^ This kind of sacra- 1 A. Bastian, in Verhandlungen der Abghazses (Abchases). It takes place Berliner Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologic, in the middle of autumn. A white ox Ethnologie, and Urgeschichte, 1870-71, called Ogginn appears from a holy p. 59. Reinegg (Beschreibung des cave, which is also called Ogginn. It Kaukasus, ii. 12 sq.) describes what is caught and led about amongst the seems to be a sacrament of the assembled men (women are excluded); 136 PASTORAL SACRAMENTS chap. ment is of the Aino or expiatory type, since it is meant to atone to the species for the possible ill-usage of individuals. An expiation, similar in principle but different in details, is offered by the Kalmucks to the sheep whose flesh is one of their staple foods. Rich Kalmucks are in the habit of consecrating a white ram under the title of " the ram of heaven" or "the ram of the spirit." The animal is never shorn and never sold ; but when it grows old and its owner wishes to consecrate a new one, the old ram must be killed and eaten at a feast to which the neighbours are invited. On a lucky day, generally in autumn when the sheep are fat, a sorcerer kills the old ram, after sprinkling it with milk. Its flesh is eaten; the skeleton, with a portion of the fat, is burned on a turf altar ; and the skin, with the head and feet, is hung up.^ An example of a sacrament of the Egyptian type is furnished by the Todas, a pastoral people of Southern India, who subsist largely upon the milk of their buffaloes. Amongst them " the buffalo is to a certain degree held sacred " and " is treated with great kindness, even with a degree of adoration, by the people." ^ They never eat the flesh of the cow buffalo, and as a rule abstain from the flesh of the male. But amid joyful cries. Tlien it is killed Kalmiicken, ii. 80 sqq., 122 ; Pallas, and eaten. Any man who did not get Reise durch vei'schiedene Provinzen cxs at least a scrap of the sacred flesh russischen Reichs,\. '^\'),'^2.<^. Accord- would deem himself most unfortunate. ing to Pallas, it is only rich Kalmucks The bones are then carefully collected, who commonly kill their sheep or burned in a great hole, and the ashes cattle for eating ; ordinary Kalmucks buried there. do not usually kill them except in case 1 Bastian, Die Volker des bstlichen of necessity or at great merry-makings. Asien, vi. 632 note. On the Kalmucks It is, therefore, especially the rich who as a people of shepherds and on their need to make expiation, diet of mutton, see Georgi, Beschreibung alter Nationen des 7'ussischen Reichs, ^ W. E. Marshall, Travels amo7igst p. 406 sq., cp. 207 ; B. Bergmann, the Todas., p. 129 sq. On the Todas, Nomadische Streifereien unter den see also above, vol. i. p. 41. Ill PASTORAL SACRAMENTS i37 to the latter rule there is a single exception. Once a year all the adult males of the village join in the ceremony of killing and eating a very young male calf, — seemingly under a month old. They take the animal into the dark recesses of the village wood, where it is killed with a club made from the sacred tree of the Todas (the tude or Millingtonia). A sacred fire having been made by the rubbing of sticks, the flesh of the calf is roasted on the embers of certain trees, and is eaten by the men alone, women being excluded from the assembly. This is the only occasion on which the Todas eat buffalo flesh.^ The Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa, whose chief wealth is their cattle, though they also practice agriculture, appear to kill a lamb sacramentally on certain solemn occasions. The custom is thus described by Dr. Felkin. " A remarkable custom is observed at stated times — once a year, I am led to believe. I have not been able to ascertain what exact meaningf is attached to it. It appears, however, to relieve the people's minds, for beforehand they evince much sadness, and seem very joyful when the ceremony is duly accom- plished. The following is what takes place : A large concourse of people of all ages assemble, and sit down round a circle of stones, which is erected by the side of a road (really a narrow path). A very choice lamb is then fetched by a boy, who leads it four times round the assembled people. As it passes they pluck off little bits of its fleece and place them in their hair, or on to some other part of their body. The lamb is then led up to the stones, and there killed by a man belong- ing to a kind of priestly order, who takes some of the blood and sprinkles it four times over the people. He 1 Marshall, op. cit. pp. So sq. 130. 138 PASTORAL SACRAMENTS chap. then applies it individually. On the children he makes a small ring of blood over the lower end of the breast bone, on women and girls he makes a mark above the breasts, and the men he touches on each shoulder. He then proceeds to explain the ceremony, and to exhort the people to show kindness. . . . When this discourse, wTiich is at times of great length, is over, the people rise, each places a leaf on or by the circle of stones, and then they depart with signs of great joy. The lamb's skull is hung on a tree near the stones, and its flesh is eaten by the poor. This ceremony is observed on a small scale at other times. If a family is in any great trouble, through illness or bereavement, their friends and neighbours come together and a lamb is killed : this is thought to avert further evil. The same custom prevails at the grave of departed friends, and also on joyful occasions, such as the return of a son home after a very prolonged absence."' The sorrow thus manifested by the people at the annual slaughter of the lamb clearly indicates that the lamb slain is a divine animal, whose death is mourned by his worshippers,^ just as the death of the sacred buzzard was mourned by the Californians and the death of the Theban ram by the Egyptians. .The smearing each of the worshippers with the blood of the lamb is a form of communion with the divinity ; ^ the vehicle of the divine life is applied externally instead of being taken internally, as when the blood is drunk or the flesh eaten. ' R. W. Felkin, " Notes on the as a regular article of food (Felkin, op. Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa," cit. p. 307), is not inconsistent with Proceedings of the Royal Society of the original sanctity of the sheep. Edinburgh, xii. (1882-84) p. 336 sq. 1 2 The fact that the flesh of sheep 3 See W. R. Smith, Religion of the appears to be now eaten by the tribe Semites, i. p. 325 sq. ^ Ill COMMUNION WITH SNAKE I39 The form of communion in which the sacred animal is taken from house to house, that all may- enjoy a share of its divine influence, has been exemplified by the Gilyak custom of promenading the bear through the village before it is slain. A similar form of communion with the sacred snake is observed by a Snake tribe in the Punjaub. Once a year in the month of September the snake is worshipped by all castes and religions fou nine days only. At the end of August the Mirasans, especially those of the Snake tribe, make a snake of dough which they paint black and red, and place on a winnowing basket. This basket they carry round the village, and on entering any house they say — " God be with you all ! May every ill be far ! May our patron's (Gugga's) word thrive ! " They then present the basket with the snake, saying — " A small cake of flour : A little bit of butter : If you obey the snake, You and yours shall thrive !" Strictly speaking, a cake and butter should be given, but it is seldom done. Every one, however, gives something, generally a handful of dough or some corn. In houses where there is a new bride or whence a bride has gone, or where a son has been born, it is usual to give a rupee and a quarter, or some cloth. Sometimes the bearers of the snake also sing — " Give the snake a piece of cloth. And he will send a lively bride." When every house has been thus visited, the dough snake is buried and a small grave is erected over it. Hither during the nine days of September the women I40 HUNTING THE WREN come to worship. They bring a basin of curds, a small portion of which they offer at the snake's grave, kneeling on the ground and touching the earth with their foreheads. Then they go home and divide the rest of the curds among the children. Here the dough snake is clearly a substitute for a real snake. This is proved by the fact that in districts where snakes abound the worship is offered, not at the grave of the dough snake, but in the jungles where snakes are known to be. Besides this yearly worship performed by all the people, the members of the Snake tribe worship in the same way every morning after a new moon. The Snake tribe is not uncommon in the Punjaub. Members of it will not kill a snake and they say that its bite does not hurt them. If they find a dead snake, they put clothes on it and give it a regular funeral.^ Ceremonies closely analogous to this Indian worship of the snake have survived in Europe into recent times, and doubtless date from a very primitive paganism. The best-known example is the " hunting of the wren." By many European peoples — the ancient Greeks and Romans, the modern Italians, Spaniards, French, Germans, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, English, and Welsh — the wren has been designated ^ the king, the little king, the king of birds, the hedge king, etc.,^ and has been reckoned amongst those birds which it is extremely unlucky to kill. In England it is thought that if any one kills a wren or harries its nest, he will infallibly break a bone or 1 Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. No. Faune populaire de la France, ii. 288 555. sjg. The names for it are l3ae\oxe&en," in Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie, xvii. (1885) i6o OCCASIONAL EXPULSION chap. In the Key Islands, south of New Guinea, when sickness prevails, the people erect a stage on the shore and load it with meat and drink. Then the priest in presence of the people bans the spirits which are causing the disease, whereupon the people run back to the village at full speed, like fugitives.-' In the island of Nias, when a man is seriously ill and other remedies have been tried in vain, the sorcerer proceeds to exorcise the devil who is causing the ill- ness. A pole is set up in front of the house, and from the top of the pole a rope of palm-leaves is stretched to the roof of the house. Then the sorcerer mounts the roof with a pig, which he kills and allows to roll from the roof to the ground. The devil, anxious to get the pig, lets himself down hastily from the roof by the rope of palm-leaves, and a good spirit, invoked by the sorcerer, prevents him from climbing up again. If this remedy fails, it is believed that other devils must still be lurking in the house. So a general hunt is made after them. All the doors and windows in the house are closed, except a single dormer-window in the roof. The men, shut up in the house, hew and slash with their swords right and left to the clash of gongs and the rub-a-dub of drums. Terrified at this onslaught the devils escape by the dormer-window, and sliding down the rope of palm-leaves take themselves off. As all the doors and windows, except the one in the roof, are shut, the devils cannot get into the house again. In the case of an epidemic the proceedings are similar. All the gates of the village, except one, are closed ; every voice is raised, every gong and drum beaten. 82; G. A. Wilken, Het Shamanisme ^ Riedel, De sluik-en kroesharige bij de Vblken van de Indischen Archipel, rassen tusschen Selebes en Paftia, p. p. 58. 239- Ill OF EVILS i6i every sword brandished. Thus the devils are driven out and the last gate is shut behind them. For eight days thereafter the village is in a state of siege, no one being allowed to enter it.^ When cholera has broken out in a Burmese village the able-bodied men scramble on the roofs and lay about them with bamboos and bil- lets of wood, while all the rest of the population, old and young, stand below and thump drums, blow trumpets, yell, scream, beat floors, walls, tin-pans, everything to make a din. This uproar, repeated on three successive nights, is thought to be very effective in driving away the cholera demons.^ When small-pox first appeared amongst the Kumis of South- Eastern India, they thought it was a devil come from Arracan. The vil- lages were placed in a state of siege, no one being allowed to leave or enter them. A monkey was killed by being dashed on the ground, and its body was hung at the village gate. Its blood, mixed with small river pebbles, was sprinkled on the houses, the threshold of every house was swept with the monkey's tail, and the fiend was adjured to depart.^ At Great Bassam, in Guinea, the French traveller Hecquard witnessed the exorcism of the evil spirit who was believed to make women barren. The women who wished to become mothers offered to the fetish wine-vessels or statuettes representing women suckling children. Then being assembled in the fetish hut, they were sprinkled with 1 Nieuwenhuisen en Rosenberg, over de godsdienst, zeden, enz. der Verslag omtrent het eiland Nias^ Dajakkers " in Tijdschrift voor NeSr- p. il6 sq.; Rosenberg, Der Malayische land's Indie, viii. (1846) dl. iii. p. 149. Archipel, p. 174 sq. Cp. Chatelin, j Yot\,e.5 British Burma p 251 • " Godsdienst en Bijgeloof der Niassers," „, t ' -t^i d • o ■■' _.., , ..^ .■'=. , „ , . ,' Snway \ oe. The Burman, 1. 2S2, 11. Iiidschrift voor Indische J aal-l^ana-en ^ ■' r> \- /-. • tz-h. j ■■ ^t i t/,, , , . _, „ , \o l«t death be laid in New England and New York, iv. "P°° '^'^ "=°<=''' 1^"' ^ '^''PPy 'i^ be- 202. stowed on me and on all Israel." 3 Ah ific Then he cuts its throat and dashes the ' "' i "• bird violently on the ground. The * Leviticus xvi. Modern Jews intestines are thrown on the roof of the sacrifice a white cock on the eve of the house. The flesh of the cock was Festival of Expiation, nine days after formerly given to the poor. Buxtorf, the beginning of their New Year. The Synagoga Judaica, ^. y.y.s . 196 HUMAN SCAPEGOA TS chap. interior of the country and expended in the purchase of two sickly persons "to be offered as a sacrifice for all these abominable crimes — one for the land and one for the river." A man from a neighbouring town is hired to put them to death. The sacrifice of one of these victims was witnessed by the Rev. J. C. Taylor on 27th February 1858. The sufferer was a woman, about nineteen or twenty years of age. She was dragged alive along the ground, face downwards, from the king's house to the river, a distance of two miles. The crowds who accompanied her cried "Wickedness! wickedness !" The intention was " to take away the iniquities of the land. The body was dragged along in a merciless manner, as if the weight of all their wickedness was thus carried away."^ In Siam it was formerly the custom on one day of the year to single out a woman broken down by debauchery, and carry her on a litter through all the streets to the music of drums and hautboys. The mob insulted her and pelted her with dirt ; and after having carried her through the whole city, they threw her on a dunghill or a hedge of thorns outside the ramparts, forbidding her ever to enter the walls again. They believed that the woman thus drew upon herself all the malign influences of the air and of evil spirits.^ The people of Nias offer either a red horse or a buffalo as a public sacrifice to purify the land and obtain the favour of the gods. Formerly, it is said, a man was bound to the same stake as the buffalo, and when the animal was killed, the man was driven away ; no one might ^ S. Crowther and J. C. Taylor, The (West African Coimiries and Peoples Gospel on the Banks of the Niger, yg. 343- p. 185 sq.) is entirely from Taylor. 345. Cp. J. F. Schon and S. Crowther, ^ Turpin, "History of Siam," in Journals, p. 48 sq. The account of the Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, ix. custom by J. Africanus B. Horton 579. HUMAN SCAPEGOATS I97 receive him, converse with him, or give him food.^ Doubtless he was supposed to carry away the sins and misfortunes of the people. In Tibet the ceremony of the scapegoat is marked by some pecuHar features. The Tibetan New Year begins with the new moon, which appears about 15 th February. For twenty -three days afterwards the government of Lhdsa, the capital, is taken out of the hands of the ordinary rulers and entrusted to the monk of the Debang monastery who offers to pay the highest sum for the privilege. The suc- cessful bidder is called the Jalno, and he announces the fact in person through the streets of Lhasa, bearing a silver stick. Monks from all the neigh- bouring monasteries and temples assemble to pay him homage. The Jalno exercises his authority in the most arbitrary manner for his own benefit, as all the fines which he exacts are his by purchase. The profit he makes is about ten times the amount of the purchase money. His men go about the streets in order to discover any conduct on the part of the inhabitants that can be found fault with. Every house in Lhdsd is taxed at this time, and the slightest fault is punished with unsparing rigour by fines. This severity of the Jalno drives all working classes out of the city till the twenty- three days are over. Meantime, all the priests flock from the neighbourhood to the Mdchindrdndth temple, where they perform religious ceremonies. The temple is a very large one, standing in the centre of the city, surrounded by bazaars and shops. The idols in it are richly inlaid with gold and precious stones. Twenty -four days ^ Kodding, "Die Bataksche Gbtter,'' Attgememe Missions -Zeitschrift, xii. (1885) pp. 476, 478. igS HUMAN SCAPEGOATS chap. after the Jalno has ceased to have authority, he assumes it again, and for ten days acts in the same arbitrary manner as before. On the first of the ten days the priests assemble as before at the Mdchin- drandth temple, pray to the gods to prevent sickness and other evils among the people, "and, as a peace- offering, sacrifice one man. The man is not killed purposely, but the ceremony he undergoes often proves fatal.^ Grain is thrown against his head, and his face is painted half white, half black." On the tenth day, all the troops in Lhdsd march to the temple and form in line before it. The victim is brought forth from the temple and receives small donations from the assembled multitude. He then throws dice with the Jalno. If the victim wins, much evil is foreboded ; but if the Jalno wins, there is great rejoicing, for it is then believed that the victim has been accepted by the gods to bear all the sins of the people of Lhasd. Thereupon his face is painted half white and half black, a leathern coat is put on him, and he is marched to the walls of the city, followed by the whole populace, hooting, shouting, and firing volleys after him. When he is driven outside the city, the people return, and the victim is carried to the Sdme monastery. Should he die shortly afterwards, the people say it is an auspicious sign ; but if not, he is kept a prisoner at the monastery for a whole year, after which he is allowed to return to Lhdsd.^ Human scapegoats, as we shall see presently, were 1 The ceremony referred to is prob- Journal Royal Geogr. Soc. xxxviii. ably the one performed on the tenth (1868) pp. 167, 170^-^. ; "Four Years' day, as described in the text. Journeying throught Great Tibet, by one of the Trans -Himalayan Ex- 2 "Report of a Route Survey by plorers," Proceed, lioyal Geogr. Soc. Pundit— from Nepal to Lhasa," etc., N.S. vii. (1885) p. 67 sq. HUMAN SCAPEGOA TS 199 well known in classical antiquity, and even in mediseval Europe the custom seems not to have been wholly extinct. In the town of Halberstadt in Thiiringen there was a church which was said to have been founded by Charlemagne. In this church every year a man was chosen, who was believed to be stained with heinous sins. On the first day of Lent he was brought to the church, dressed in mourning garb, with his head muffled up. At the close of the service he was turned out of the church. During the forty days of Lent he perambulated the city barefoot, neither entering the churches nor speaking to any one. The canons took it in turn to feed him. After midnight he was allowed to sleep on the streets. On the day before Good Friday, after the consecration of the holy oil, he was readmitted to the church and absolved from his sins. The people gave him money. He was called Adam, and was now believed to be in a state of innocence.^ At Entlebuch in Switzerland, down to the close of last century, the custom of annually expelling a scapegoat was preserved in the ceremony of driving " Posterli " from the village into the lands of the neighbouring village. " Posterli " was represented by a lad disguised as an old witch or as a goat or an ass. Amid a deafening noise of horns, clarionets, bells, whips, etc. he was driven out. Some- times " Posterli " was represented by a puppet, which was drawn in a sledge and left in a corner of the neighbouring village. The ceremony took place on the Thursday evening of the last week but one before Christmas.^. Sometimes the scapegoat is a divine animal. The 1 AeneasSylvius, 0/«ra (Bale, 1571), 2 Usener, " Italische Mythen," p. 423 s^. Rheinisches Museum, N.F. xxx. iq8. 200 SCAPEGOATS chap. people of Malabar share the Hindu reverence for the cow, to kill and eat which " they esteem to be a crime as heinous as homicide or wilful murder." Never- theless " the Bramans transfer the sins of the people into one or more Cows, which are then carry'd away, both the Cows and the Sins wherewith these Beasts are charged, to what place the Braman shall appoint." ^ When the ancient Egyptians sacrificed a bull, they invoked upon its head all the evils that might other- wise befall themselves and the land of Egypt, and thereupon they either sold the bull's head to the Greeks or cast it into the river.^ Now, it cannot be said that in the times known to us the Egyptians worshipped bulls in general, for they seem to have commonly killed and eaten them.^ But a good many circumstances point to the conclusion that originally all cattle, bulls as well as cows, were held sacred by the Egyptians. For not only were all cows esteemed holy by them and never sacrificed, but even bulls might not be sacrificed unless they had certain natural marks ; a priest examined every bull before it was sacrificed ; if it had the proper marks, he put his seal on the animal in token that it might be sacrificed ; and if a man sacrificed a bull which had not been sealed, he was put to death. Moreover, the worship of the black bulls Apis and Mnevis, especially the former, played an important part in Egyptian religion ; all bulls that died a natural death were carefully buried in the suburbs of the cities, and their bones were after- wards collected from all parts of Egypt and buried in a single spot ; and at the sacrifice of a bull in the great 1 J. Thomas Phillips, Account of the ^ Herodotus, ii. 38-41 ; Wilkinson, Religion, Manners, and Learning of the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Feople of Malabar, pp. 6, 12 sq. Egyptians, iii. 403 sqq. (ed. 1878). ^ Herodotus, ii. 39. Ill SCAPEGOATS 201 rites of I sis all the worshippers beat their breasts and mourned.^ On the whole, then, we are perhaps entided to infer that bulls were originally, as cows were always, esteemed sacred by the Egyptians, and that the slain bull upon whose head they laid the misfortunes of the people was once a divine scapegoat. It seems not improbable that the lamb annually slain by the Madis of Central Africa is a divine scapegoat, and the same supposition may partly explain the Zuni sacrifice of the turtle.^ Lastly, the scapegoat may be a divine man. Thus, in November the Gonds of India worship Ghansyam Deo, the protector of the crops, and at the festival the god himself is said to descend on the head of one of the worshippers, who is suddenly seized with a kind of fit and, after staggering about, rushes off into the jungle, where it is believed that, if left to himself, he would die mad. As it is, he is brought back, but does not recover his senses for one or two days. " The idea is, that one man is thus singled out as a scapegoat for the sins of the rest of the village."^ In the temple of the Moon the Albanians of the Eastern Caucasus kept a number of sacred slaves, of whom many were inspired and prophesied. When one of these men exhibited more than usual symptoms of inspiration and wandered solitary up and down the woods, like the Gond in the jungle, the high priest had him bound with a sacred chain and maintained him in luxury for a year. At the end of the year he was anointed with unguents and led forth to be sacrificed. A man whose business it was to slay these human victims and to whom practice had 1 Herodotus, I.e. 3 Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. No. 2 See above, pp. 95 sqq., 137 sq. 335. 202 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON chap. given dexterity, advanced from the crowd and thrust a sacred spear into the victim's side, piercing his heart. From the manner in which the slain man fell, omens were drawn as to the welfare of the common- wealth. Then the body was carried to a certain spot where all the people stood upon it as a purificatory ceremony.^ This last circumstance clearly indicates that the sins of the people were transferred to the victim, just as the Jewish priest transferred the sins of the people to the scapegoat by laying his hand on the animal's head ; and since the man was believed to be possessed by the divine spirit, we have here an undoubted example of a man -god slain to take away the sins and misfortunes of the people. The foregoing survey of the custom of publicly expelling the accumulated evils of a village or district suggests a few general observations. In the first place, it will not be disputed that what I have called the immediate and the mediate expulsions of evil are identical in intention ; in other words, that whether the evils are conceived of as invisible or as embodied in a material form, is a circumstance entirely sub- ordinate to the main object of the ceremony, which is simply to effect a total clearance of all the ills that have been infesting a people. If any link were wanting to connect the two kinds of expulsion, it would be furnished by such a practice as that of sending the evils away in a boat. For here, on the one hand, the evils are invisible and intangible ; and, on the other hand, there is a visible and tangible vehicle to convey them away. And a scapegoat is nothing more than such a vehicle. ' Strabo, xi. 4, 7. For the custom of standing upon a sacrificed victim, cp. Demosthenes, p. 642 ; Pausanias, iii. 20, 9. 1 1 1 EXP ULSION OF E VIES 203 In the second place, when a general clearance of evils is resorted to periodically, the interval between the celebrations of the ceremony is commonly a year, and the time of year when the ceremony takes place usually coincides with some well-marked change of season — such as the close of winter in the arctic and temperate zones, and the beginning or end of the rainy season in the tropics. . The increased mortality which such climatic changes are apt to produce, especially amongst ill -fed, ill -clothed, and ill -housed savages, is set down by primitive man to the agency of demons, who must accordingly be expelled. Hence, in New Britain and Peru, the devils are or were driven out at the beginning of the rainy season. When a tribe has taken to agriculture, the time for the general expulsion of devils is naturally made to agree with one of the great epochs of the agricultural year, as sowing or harvest ; but, as these epochs themselves often coincide with changes of season, it does not follow that the transition from the hunting or pastoral to the agricultural life involves any alteration in the time of celebrating this great annual rite. Some of the agricultural communities of India and the Hindoo Koosh, as we have seen, hold their general clearance of demons at harvest, others at sowing-time. But, at whatever season of the year it is held, the general expulsion of devils commonly marks the beginning of the new year. For, before entering on a new year, people are anxious to rid themselves of the troubles that have harassed them in the past ; hence the fact that amongst so many people — Iroquois, Tonquinese, Siamese, Tibetans, etc. — the beginning of the new year is inaugurated with a solemn and public banishment of evil spirits. 204 PERIODS OF LICENCE chap. In the third place, it is to be observed that this public and periodic expulsion of devils is commonly preceded or followed by a period of general licence, during which the ordinary restraints of society are thrown aside, and all offences, short of the gravest, are allowed to pass unpunished. In Guinea and Tonquin the period of licence precedes the public expulsion of demons ; and the suspension of the ordinary government in Lhdsd previous to the expulsion of the scapegoat is perhaps a relic of a similar period of universal licence. Amongst the Hos the period of licence follows the expulsion of the devil. Amongst the Iroquois it hardly appears whether it preceded or followed the banishment of evils. In any case, the extraordinary relaxation of all ordinary rules of con- duct on such occasions is doubtless to be explained by the general clearance of evils which precedes or follows it. On the one hand, when a general riddance of evil and absolution from all sin is in immediate prospect, men are encouraged to give the rein to their passions, trusting that the coming ceremony will wipe out the score which they are running up so fast. On the other hand, when the ceremony has just taken place, men's minds are freed from the oppressive sense, under which they generally labour, of an atmosphere surcharged with devils ; and in the first revulsion of joy they overleap the limits commonly imposed by custom and morality. When the ceremony takes . place at harvest -time, the elation of feeling which it excites is further stimulated by the state of physical wellbeing produced by an abundant supply of food.-' 1 In the Dassera festival, as cele- another instance of the annual expulsion brated in Nepaul, we seem to have of demons preceded by a time of licence. Ill DIVINE SCAPEGOATS 205 Fourthly, the employment of a divine man or animal as a scapegoat is especially to be noted ; indeed, we are here directly concerned with the custom of banishing evils only in so far as these evils are believed to be transferred to a god who is afterwards slain. It may be suspected that the custom of employing a divine man or animal as a public scapegoat is much more widely diffused than appears from the examples cited. For, as has already been pointed out, the custom of killing a god dates from so early a period of human history that in later ages, even when the custom continues to be practised, it is liable to be misinterpreted. The divine character of the animal or man is forgotten, and he comes to be regarded merely as an ordinary victim. This is especially likely to be the case when it is a divine man who is killed. For when a nation becomes The festival occurs at the beginning of October and lasts ten days. "During its continuance there is a general holi- day among all classes of the people. The city of Kathmandu at this time is required to be purified, but the puri- fication is effected rather by prayer than by water-cleansing. All the courts of law are closed, and all prisoners in jail are removed from the precincts of the city. . . . The Kalendar is cleared, or there is a jail-delivery always at the Dassera of all prisoners." This seems a trace of a period of licence. At this time "it is a general custom for masters to make an annual present, either of money, clothes, buffaloes, goats, etc., to such servants as have given satisfac- tion during the past year. It is in this respect, as well as in the feasting and drinking which goes on, something like our 'boxing-time' at Christmas." On the seventh day at sunset there is a parade of all the troops in the capital, including the artillery. At a given signal the regiments commence firing. the artillery takes it up, and a general firing goes on for about twenty minutes, when it suddenly ceases. This prob- ably represents the expulsion of the demons. "The grand cutting of the rice-crops is always postponed till the Dassera is over, and commences all over the valley the very day afterwards. " See the description of the festival in Oldfield's Sketches from Nipal, ii. 342- 351. On the Dassera in India, see Dubois, Moeurs, Institutions et Cere- monies des Peuples de Plnde, ii. 329 sqq. Amongst the Wasuahili of East Africa New Year's Day was formerly a day of general licence, "every man did as he pleased. Old quarrels were settled, men were found dead on the following day, and no inquiry was instituted about the matter. " Ch. New Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 65. In Ashantee the annual festival of the new yams is a time of general licence. See the Note on " Offerings of first fruits " at the end of the volume. 2o6 DIVINE SCAPEGOATS chap. civilised, if it does not drop human sacrifices altogether, it at least selects as victims only such criminals as would be put to death at any rate. Thus, as in the Sacaean festival at Babylon, the killing of a god may come to be confounded with the execution of a criminal. If we ask why a dying god should be selected to take upon himself and carry away the sins and sorrows of the people, it may be suggested that in the practice of using the divinity as a scapegoat we have a combina- tion of two customs which were at one time distinct and independent. On the one hand we have seen that it has been customary to kill the human or animal god in order to save his divine life from being weakened by the inroads of age. On the other hand we have seen that it has been customary to have a general expulsion of evils and sins once a year. Now, if it occurred to people to combine these two customs, the result would be the employment of the dying god as a scapegoat. He was killed, not originally to take away sin, but to save the divine life from the degeneracy of old age ; but, since he had to be killed at any rate, people may have thought that they might as well seize the opportunity to lay upon him the burden of their sufferings and sins, in order that he might bear it away with him to the unknown world beyond the grave. The use of the divinity as a scapegoat clears up the ambiguity which, as we saw, appeared to hang about the European folk - custom of "carrying out Death." ^ Grounds have been shown for believing that in this ceremony the so - called Death was originally the spirit of vegetation, who was annually 1 See above, vol. i. p. 275 sq. DIVINE SCAPEGOA TS 207 slain in spring, in order that he might come to Hfe again with all the vigour of youth. But, as we saw, there are certain features in the ceremony which are not explicable on this hypothesis alone. Such are the marks of joy with which the effigy of Death is carried out to be buried or burnt, and the fear and abhorrence of it manifested by the bearers. But these features become at once intelligible if we suppose that the Death was not merely the dying god of vegeta- tion, but also a public scapegoat, upon whom were laid all the evils that had afflicted the people during the past year. Joy on such an occasion is natural and appropriate ; and if the dying god appears to be the object of that fear and abhorrence which are properly due not to himself, but to the sins and misfortunes with which he is laden, this arises merely from the difficulty of distinguishing or at least of marking the distinction between the bearer and the burden. When the burden is of a baleful character, the bearer of it will be feared and shunned just as much as if he were himself instinct with those dangerous properties of which, as it happens, he is only the vehicle. Similarly we have seen that disease-laden and sin- laden boats are dreaded and shunned by East Indian peoples.^ -Again, the view that in these popular customs the Death is a scapegoat as well as a repre- sentative of the divine spirit of vegetation derives some support from the circumstance that its expulsion is always celebrated in spring and chiefly by Slavonic peoples. For the Slavonic year began in spring •,^ and thus, in one of its aspects, the ceremony of "carrying out Death " would be an example of the widespread ' Above, pp. 186 sq., 192. ^ H. Usener, "Italische Mythen,'' Rheinisches Museum, N. F. {1875) xxx. 194. 2o8 THE OLD MARS chap. custom of expelling the accumulated evils of the past year before entering on a new one. We are now prepared to notice the use of the scape- goat in classical antiquity. Every year on the 14th of March a man clad in skins was led in procession through the streets of Rome, beaten with long white rods, and driven out of the city. He was called Mamurius Veturius,^ that is, "the old Mars," ^ and as the ceremony took place on the day preceding the first full moon of the old Roman year (which began on ist March), the skin-clad man must have represented the Mars of the past year, who was driven out at the beginning of a new one. Now Mars was originally not a god of war but of vegetation. For it was to Mars that the Roman husbandman prayed for the prosperity of his corn and his vines, his fruit-trees and his copses ; ^ it was to Mars that the priestly college of the Arval Brothers, whose business it was to sacrifice for the growth of the crops,* addressed their petitions almost exclusively ; ° and it was to Mars, as we saw," that a horse was sacrificed in October to secure an abundant harvest. Moreover, it was to Mars, under his title of 1 Joannes Lydus, De mensibus, iii. scher, Apollon und Mars, p. 27 ; 29, iv. 36. Lydus places the expul- Preller, Romische Mythologie,^ i. 360 ; sion on the Ides of March, that is 15th Vanicek, Griechisch-lateinisches etymo- March. But this seems to be a mis- logisches Worterbuch, p. 715. The take. See Usener, "Italische Mythen," three latter scholars take Veturius Rheinisches Museum, xxx. 209 sqq. as = annuits, because vetus is etymo- Again, Lydus does not expressly say logically equivalent to ?tos. But, as that Mamurius Veturius was driven Usener argues, it seems quite unallow- out of the city, but he implies it able to take the Greek meaning of the by mentioning the legend that his word instead of the Latin. mythical prototype was beaten with 3 QsXo, De agri cult. 141. rods and expelled the city. Lastly, 4 ^ ^^ ^ ^^ Lydus only mentions the name Mamu- . „ , r , . rius But the full name Mamurius '' See the song of the Arval Brothers Veturius is preserved by Varro, Ling. '" ^''^ Fratrum Arvalium, ed. Henzen, Lat vi 4^; Festus, ed. Miiller, p. P- 26 sq.; Wordsworth, Fragments 131'; Plutarch, Numa, 13. and Specimens of Early Latin, p. 158. 2 Usener, op. cit. p. 2\2 sq.; Ros- " Above, p. 64. THE OLD MARS 209 " Mars of the woods " [Mars Silvanus) that farmers offered sacrifice for the welfare of their cattle.^ We have already seen that cattle are commonly supposed to be under the special patronage of tree-gods.^ Once more, the fact that the vernal month of March was dedicated to Mars seems to point him out as the deity of the sprouting vegetation. Thus the Roman custom of expelling the old Mars at the beginning of the New Year in spring is identical with the Slavonic custom of "carrying out Death," if the view here taken of the latter custom is correct. The simil- arity of the Roman and Slavonic customs has been already remarked by scholars, who appear, however, to have taken Mamurius Veturius and the corresponding figures in the Slavonic ceremonies to be representatives of the old year rather than of the old god of vegeta- tion.' It is possible that ceremonies of this kind may have come to be thus interpreted in later times even by the people who practised them. But the personifi- cation of a period of time is too abstract an idea to be primitive. However, in the Roman, as in the Slavonic, ceremony, the representative of the god appears to have been treated not only as a deity of vegetation but also as a scapegoat. His expulsion implies this ; for there is no reason why the god of vege- tation, as such, should be expelled the city. But it is otherwise if he is also a scapegoat ; it then becomes necessary to drive him beyond the boundaries, that he may carry his sorrowful burden away to other lands. And, in fact, Mamurius Veturius appears to have been 1 Cato, De agri cult. 83. 49 ; Usener, op. cit. The ceremony 2 Above, vol. i. p. 70 sqq. p. 105 sq. also closely resembles the Highland 3 Preller, Romische Mythologie,^ i. New Year ceremony described above, 360; Rosscher, Apollon und Mars, p. p. 145 sq. VOL. II p 210 HUMAN SCAPEGOATS CHAP. driven away to the land of the Oscans, the enemies of Rome.^ The ancient Greeks were also familiar with the use of a human scapegoat. At Plutarch's native town of Chaeronea in Boeotia, there was a ceremony of this kind performed by the chief magistrate at the Town Hall, and by each householder at his own home. It was called the "expulsion of hunger." A slave was beaten with ' Propertius, v. 2, 61 sq. ; Usener, op. cit. p. 210. One of the functions of the Salii or dancing priests, who during March went up and down tire city dancing, singing, and clashing their swords against tlieir shields (Livy, i. 20 ; Plutarch, Numa, 1 3 ; Dionysius Halicarn. Antiq. ii. 70) may have been to rout out the evils or demons from all parts of the city, as a prepara- tion for transferring them to the scape- goat Mamurius Veturius. Similarly, as we have seen (above, p. 194 sq.), among the Iroquois, men in fantastic costume went about collecting the sins of the people as a preliminary to trans- ferring them to the scapegoat dogs. We have had many examples of armed men rushing about the streets and houses to drive out demons and evils of all kinds. The blows which were showered on Mamurius Veturius seem to have been administered by the Salii (Servius on Virgil, Aen. vii. 188; Minucius Felix, 24, 3 ; Preller, Riim. Myth.^ i. 360, note I ; Rosscher, Apollon und Mars, p. 49). The reason for beating the scapegoat will be explained pre- sently. As priests of Mars, the god of agriculture, the Salii probably had also certain agricultural functions. They were named from the remarkable leaps which they made. Now dancing and leaping high are common sympathetic charms to make the crops grow high. See Peter, Volksthiimliches aus Oester- reichisch Schlesien, ii. 266 ; E. Meier, Deutsche Sa,^en, Sitten imJ Gebrdiiche aus Schwaben, p. 499, No. 333 ; Reins- berg-I)uriiigsfeld, Fest - Kalender aus Bdhmen, p. 49 ; O. Knoop, Volkssai;cn, etc. , atis dem ostlichen Hinterpommem, p. 176, No. 197; E. Sommer, Sagen, Mdrchen und Gebrduche aus Sachsen und Thuringen, p. 148 ; Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebrduche aus Thur- ingen, p. 1 90, No. 1 3 ; Woeste, Volks- iiberlieferungen iji der Grafschaft Mark, p. 56 ; Bavaria, ii. 298 ; id., iv. Abth. ii. pp. 379, 382 ; Heinrich, Agrarische Sitten u. Gebrduche unter den Sachsen Siebenbilrgens, p. 1 1 sq. ; Schulenberg, Wendische Volkssagen und Gebriiuche, p. 252 ; Wuttke, Der deutsche Volks- aberglaube,'^ § 657 ; Jahn, Die deutsche Opfergebrduche bei Ackerbau und Vieh- zucht, p. 194 sq. ; cp. Schott, Walach- ische Mdhrchen, p. 301 sq. ; Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, i. 264 ; Cieza de Leon, Travels (Hakluyt Soc. 1864), p. 413. Was it one of the functions of the Salii to dance and leap on the fields at the spring or autumn sowing, or at both? The dancing pro- cessions of the Salii took place in October as well as in March (Mar- quardt, Sacralwesen,^ p. 436 sq.\ and the Romans sowed both in spring and autumn (Columella, ii. 9, 6 .ry). In their song the Salii mentioned Saturnus or Saeturnus the god of sowing (Festus, p. 325, ed. Muller. Saeturnus is an emendation of Ritschl's. See Words- worth, Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin, p. 405). The weapons borne by the Salii, while effective against demons in general, may have been especially directed against the demons who steal the seed corn or the ripe grain. Compare the Khond and Hindoo Koosh customs described above, p. 173. In Western Africa the field labours of tilling and sowing are sometimes accompanied by dances of AV ANCIENT GREECE 21 r rods of the agiius castus, and turned out of doors with the words, " Out with hunger, and in with wealth and health." When Plutarch held the office of chief magis- trate of his native town he performed this ceremony at the Town Hall, and he has recorded the discussion to which the custom afterwards gave rise.^ The ceremony closely resembles the Japanese, Hindoo, and Highland customs already described.^ armed men on the field. See Labat, Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guijiie, Isles voisines, et ^ Cayenne, ii. p. 99 of the Paris ed. , p. 80 of the Amsterdam ed. ; Olivier de Sanderval, De VAtla7itique an Niger par le Foulah- Djallon (Paris, 1883), p. 230. In Calicut (Southern India) "they plough the land with oxen as we do, and when they sow the rice in the field they have all the instruments of the city continu- ally sounding and making merry. They also have ten or twelve men clothed like devils, and these unite in making great rejoicing with the players on the instruments, in order that the devil may make that rice very productive." Varthema, Travels (Hakluyt Soc. 1863), p. 166 sq. The resemblance of the Salii to the sword -dancers of northern Europe has been pointed out by K. MUIIenhoff, "Ueber den Schwert- tanz," in Festgaben fiir Gustav Homeyer ( Berlin, 1 87 1 ). In England the Morris Dancers who accompanied the proces- sion of the plough through the streets on Plough Monday (the first Monday after Twelfth Day) sometimes wore swords (Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. 505, Bohn's ed.), and sometimes they " wore small bunches of corn in their hats, from which the wheat was soon shaken out by the ungainly jump- ing which they called dancing. . . . Bessy rattled his box and danced so high that he showed his worsted stock- ings and corduroy breeches." Chambers, Book of Days, i. 94. It is to be observed that in the "Lord of Misrule," who reigned from Christmas till Twelfth Night (see Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. 497 sqq.), we have a clear trace of one of those periods of general licence and suspension of ordinary government which so commonly occur at the end of the old year or beginning of the new one in connection with a general expulsion of evils. The fact that this period of licence immediately preceded the procession of the Morris Dancers on Plough Monday seems to indicate that the functions of these dancers were like those which I have attributed to the Salii. But the parallel cannot be drawn out here. Cp. meantime Dyer, British Popular Customs, pp. 31, 39. The Salii were said to have been founded by Morrius, King of Veil (Servius on Virgil, Aen. viii. 285). Morrius seems to be etymologically the same with Maniurius^^d. Mars{\}stntr, Italische Mythe7i, p. 213). Can the English Morris (in Morris dancers) be the same ? Analogy suggests that at Rome the Saturnalia, which fell in December when the Roman year began in January, may have been cele- brated in February when the Roman year began in March. Thus at Rome, as in so many places, the public ex- pulsion of evils at the New Year would be preceded by a period of general licence, such as the Saturnalia was. A trace of the former celebration of the Saturnalia in February or the beginning of March may perhaps be seen in the Malronalia, celebrated on 1st March, at which mistresses feasted their slaves, just as masters feasted theirs at the Sa- turnalia. Macrobius, Saturn, i. 12, 7 ; Solinus, i. 35, p. 13, ed. Mommsen ; Joannes Lydus, De ineiisibus, iii. 15. ^ Plutarch, Qttaest. Conviv. vi. 8. 2 See above, pp. 176, 194. 212 HUMAN SCAPEGOATS chap. But in civilised Greece the custom of the scapegoat took darker forms than the innocent rite over w^hich the amiable and pious Plutarch presided. Whenever Marseilles, one of the busiest and most brilliant of Greek colonies, was ravaged by a plague, a man of the poorer classes used to offer himself as a scapegoat. For a whole year he was maintained at the public expense, being fed on choice and pure food. At the expiry of the year he was dressed in sacred garments, decked with holybranches, and led through the whole city, while prayers were uttered that all the evils of the people might fall on his head. He was then cast out of the city.-' The Athenians regularly maintained a number of degraded and useless beings at the public expense ; and when any calamity, such as plague, drought, or famine befell the city, they sacrificed two of these out- casts as scapegoats. One of the victims was sacrificed for the men and the other for the women. The former wore round his neck a string of black, the latter a string of white figs. Sometimes, it seems, the victim slain on behalf of the women was a woman. They were led about the city and then sacrificed, apparently by being stoned to death outside the city.^ But such sacrifices were not confined to extraordinary occasions of public calamity ; it appears that every year, at the festival of the Thargelia in May, two victims, one for the men and one for the women, were led out of Athens and stoned to death.^ 1 Servius on Virgil, Aen. iii. 57, That they were stoned is an inference from Petronius. from Harpocration. See next note. '' Helladius, in Photius, Bibliotheca, ^ Harpocration, s.v. where for (pap/^dKov we should Pictorial, Historical, and Descriptive, perhaps read (papfiaKov with Schneide- p. 354) has for saying that the priests win {Poetae lyr. Gr.^ ed. Bergk, ii. of Apollo, whose temple stood near 763). 214 BEATING THE chap. beat him with. The true meaning of this part of the ceremony has been explained by W. Mannhardt.^ He points out that the ancients attributed to squills a magical power of averting evil influences, and accord- ingly hung them up at the doors of their houses and made use of them in purificatory rites.^ Hence the Arcadian custom of beating the image of Pan with squills at a festival or whenever the hunters returned empty-handed,^ must have been meant, not to punish the god, but to purify him from the harmful influences which were impeding him in the exercise of his divine functions as a god who should supply the hunter with game. Similarly the object of beating the human scapegoat on the genital organs with squills, etc., must have been to release his reproductive energies from any restraint or spell under which they might be laid by demoniacal or other malignant agency ; and as the Thargelia at which he was annually sacrificed was an early harvest festival,^ we must recognise in him a representative of the creative and fertilising god of vegetation. The representative of the god was annually slain for the purpose I have indicated, that of maintaining the divine life in perpetual vigour, untainted by the weakness of age ; and before he was put to death it was not unnatural to stimulate his reproductive powers in order that these might be transmitted in full activity to his successor, the new god or new embodiment of the old god, who was doubtless supposed immediately to take the place of 1 See his Mytholog. Forschungen, p. ^ Theocritus, vii. io6 sqq. with the 113 sqq., especially 123 sq. 133, scholiast. ^ Pliny, Nat. Hist. xx. 10 1 ; Dioscorides, De mat. med. ii. 202 ; ^ Cp. Aug. Mommsen, Heortologie, Lucian, Necyom. 7; id., Alexander, 1^14. sqq.; W. Mannhardt, A. IK F. p. 47; Theophrastus, Superstitious A/an. 215. Ill DIVINE SCAPEGOAT 21 ; the one slain.^ Similar reasoning would lead to a similar treatment of the scapegoat on special occasions, such as drought or famine. If the crops did not answer to the expectation of the husbandman, this would be attributed to some failure in the generative powers of the god whose function it was to produce the fruits of the earth. It might be thought he was under a spell or was growing old and feeble. Accord- ingly he was slain in the person of his representative, with all the ceremonies already described, in order that, born young again, he might infuse his own youthful vigour into the stagnant energies of nature. On the same principle we can understand why Mamurius Veturius was beaten with rods, why the slave at the Chaeronean ceremony was beaten with the agnus castus (a tree to which magical properties were ascribed),^ why the effigy of Death in north Europe Is assailed with sticks and stones, and why at Babylon the criminal who played the god was scourged before he was crucified. The purpose of the scourg- ing was not to intensify the agony of the divine sufferer, but on the contrary to dispel any malignant influences by which at the supreme moment he might conceivably be beset. The interpretation here given to the custom of beating the human scapegoat with certain plants is supported by many analogies. With the same Intention some of the Brazilian Indians beat them- selves on the genital organs with an aquatic plant, the white aninga, three days before or after the new 1 At certain sacrifices in Yucatan Bourbourg (Paris, 1864) p. 167. Was blood was drawn from the genitals of a the original intention of this rite to human victim and smeared on the face transfuse into the god a fresh supply of of the idol. De Landa, Relation des reproductive energy ? choses de Yucatan, ed. Brasseur de ^ Aelian, Nat. Aniin. ix. 26. •2i6 BEATING PEOPLE chap. moon.^ We have already had examples of the custom of beating sick people with the leaves of certain plants or with branches in order to rid them of the noxious influences.^ At the autumn festival in Peru people used to strike each other with torches saying, " Let all harm go away."' Indians of the Quixos, in South America, before they set out on a long hunting expedition, cause their wives to whip them with nettles, believing that this renders them fleeter and helps them to overtake the peccaries. They resort to the same proceeding as a cure for sickness.* At Mowat in New Guinea small boys are beaten lightly with sticks during December "to make them grow strong and hardy."* In Central Europe a similar custom is very commonly observed in spring. On the ist of March the Albanians strike men and beasts with cornel branches, believing that this is very good for their health.^ On Good Friday and the two previous days people in Croatia and Slavonia take rods with them to church, and when the service is over they beat each other "fresh and healthy."'' In some parts of Russia people returning from the church on Palm Sunday beat the children and servants who have stayed at home with palm branches, saying, " Sickness into the forest, health into the bones." ^ In Germany the custom is widely known as Schmeckostern, being observed at Eastertide. People beat each other, 1 De Santa- Anna Nery, Folk-lore equatoriali lungo il Napo ed il Jimne Brisilien (Paris, i88g) p. 253. delle Amazzoni (Milan, 1854), p. 118. 2 Above, pp. 148 sq. 187. Compare ^ Ed. Beardmore, Anthropological Plutarch, Paralkla, 35, where a woman Notes collected at Mowat, Dandai, New is represented as going from house to Guinea (1888) (in manuscript), housestriking sick people with a hammer ^ Hahn, Albanesische Studien, i. and bidding them be whole. 155. ^ Acosta, ■ History of the Indies, ii. ^ F. S. Krauss, Kroatien itnil 375 (Hakluyt Soc. ) See above, p. i6g. Slavonien (Vis-nm., 1889), p. 108. ^ Osculati, Esplorazione delle regioni * W. Mannhardt, B. K. p. 257. Ill AS A CHARM 217 especially with fresh green twigs of the birch. The beating is supposed to bring good luck ; the person beaten will, it is believed, be free of vermin during the summer, or will have no pains in his back or his legs for a year.^ If the view here taken of the Greek scapegoat is correct, it obviates an objection which might other- wise be brought against the main argument of this chapter. To the theory that the priest of Nemi was slain as a representative of the spirit of the grove, it might have been objected that such a custom has no analogy in classical antiquity. But reasons have now been given for believing that the human being periodically and occasionally slain by the Asiatic Greeks was regularly treated as an embodiment of a divinity. Probably the persons whom the Athenians kept to be sacrificed were similarly treated as divine. That they were social outcasts did not matter. On the primitive view a man is not chosen to be the mouth-piece or embodiment of a god on account of his high moral qualities or social standing. The divine afflatus descends equally on the good and the bad, the lofty and the lowly. If then the civilised Greeks of Asia and Athens habitually sacrificed men whom they regarded as incarnate gods, there can be no inherent improbability in the supposition that at the dawn of history a similar custom was observed by the semi- barbarous Latins in the Arician Grove. 1 W. Mannhardt, B. K. p. 258-263. pp. 251-303, and Myth. Forsch. pp. See hiswhole discussion of such customs, 1 1 3- 1 53. 2i8 INCARNATE GODS chap. § 1 6. — Killing the god in Mexico But the religion of ancient Mexico, as it was found and described by the Spanish conquerors in the six- teenth century, offers perhaps the closest parallels to the rule of the Arician priesthood, as I conceive that rule to have been originally observed. Certainly nowhere does the custom of killing the human repre- sentative of a god appear to have been carried out so systematically and on so extensive a scale as in Mexico. "They tooke a captive," says Acosta, "such as they thought good; and afore they did sacrifice him unto their idolls, they gave him the name of the idoll, to whom hee should be sacrificed, and apparelled him with the same ornaments like their idoll, saying that he did represent the same idoll. And during the time that this representation lasted, which was for a yeere in some feasts, in others six moneths, and in others lesse, they reverenced and worshipped him in the same maner as the proper idoll ; and in the meane time he did eate, drincke, and was merry. When hee went through the streetes the people came forth to worship him, and every one brought him an almes, with children and sicke folkes, that he might cure them, and bless them, suffering him to doe all things at his pleasure, onely hee was accom- panied with tenne or twelve men lest he should flie. And he (to the end he might be reverenced as he passed) sometimes sounded upon a small flute, that the people might prepare to worship him. The feast being come,, and hee growne fatte, they killed him, opened him, and eat him, making a solempne sacrifice Ill SLAIN IN MEXICO 2I9 of him."' For example, at the annual festival of the great god Tezcatlipoca, which fell about Easter or a few days later, a young man was chosen to be the living image of Tezcatlipoca for a whole year. He had to be of unblemished body, and he was carefully trained to sustain his lofty role with becoming grace and dignity. During the year he was lapped in luxury, and the king himself took care that the future victim was apparelled in gorgeous attire, "for already he esteemed him as a god." Attended by eight pages clad in the royal livery, the young man roamed the streets of the capital day and night at his pleasure, carrying flowers and playing the flute. All who saw him fell on their knees before him and adored him, and he graciously acknowledged their homage. Twenty days before the festival at which he was to be sacrificed, four damsels, delicately nurtured, and bearing the names of four goddesses, were given him to be his brides. For five days before the sacrifice divine honours were showered on him more abundantly than ever. The king remained in his palace, while the whole court went after the destined victim. Everywhere there were solemn banquets and balls. On the last day the young man, still attended by his pages, was ferried across the lake in a covered barge to a small and lonely temple, which, like the Mexican temples in general, rose in the form of a pyramid. As he ascended the stairs of the temple he broke at every step one of the flutes on which he had played in the days of his glory. On reaching the summit he was seized and held down on a block of stone, while a priest cut open his breast with a stone knife, and plucking out his heart, offered it to the sun. 1 Acosta, Histoiy of the Indies, ii. 323 (Hakluyt Soc. 1880). INCARNATE GODS chap. His head was hung among the skulls of previous victims, and his legs and arms were cooked and pre- pared for the table of the lords. His place was immediately filled up by another young man, who for a year was treated with the same profound respect, and at the end of it shared the same fate.^ The idea that the god thus slain in the person of his representative comes to life again immediately, was graphically represented in the Mexican ritual by skinning the slain man-god and clothing in his skin a living man, who thus became the new representative of the godhead. Thus at an annual festival a woman was sacrificed who represented Toci or the Mother of the Gods. She was dressed with the ornaments, and bore the name of the goddess, whose living image she was believed to be. After being feasted and diverted with sham fights for several days, she was taken at midnight to the summit of a temple, and beheaded on the shoulders of a man. The body was immediately flayed, and one of the priests, clothing himself in the skin, became the representative of the goddess Toci. The skin of the woman's thigh was removed separately, and a young man who represented the god Cinteotl, the son of the goddess Toci, wrapt it round his face like a mask. Various ceremonies then followed, in which the two men, clad in the woman's skin, played the parts respectively of the god and goddess.^ Again, at the annual festival of the 1 Sahagun, Histoire des choses de la senting deities and slain in that char- Nouvelle Espagne (Paris, 1880), pp. acter, see Sahagun, pp. 75, 116 sq., 61 sq., 96-99, 103; Acosta, History 123, 158 sq., 164 sq., 585 sqq., 589; of the Indies, ii. 350 sq.; Clavigero, Acosta, ii. 384 sqq.; Clavigero, i. History of Mexico, trans, by CuUen, i. 312 ; Bancroft, ii. 325 sqq., 337 sq. 300 ; Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, ii. 319 sq. For other ^ Sahagun, pp. 18 sq., 68 sq., 133. Mexican instances of persons repre- 139; Bancroft, iii. 353-359. in SLAIN IN MEXICO 22 1 god Totec, a number of captives having been killed and skinned, a priest clothed himself in one of their skins, and thus became the image of the god Totec. Then wearing the ornaments of the god — a crown of feathers, golden necklaces and ear-rings, scariet shoes, etc. — he was enthroned, and received offerings of the first fruits and first flowers of the season, together with bunches of the maize which had been kept for seed.^ Every fourth year the Quauhtitlans offered sacrifices in honour of the god of fire. On the eve of the festival they sacrificed two slaves, skinned them, and took out their thigh bones. Next day two priests clothed themselves in the skins, took the bones in their hands, and with solemn steps and dismal bowl- ings descended the stairs of the temple. The people, who were assembled in crowds below, called out, " Behold, there come our gods."^ Thus it appears that human sacrifices of the sort I suppose to have prevailed at Aricia were, as a matter of fact, systematically offered on a large scale by a people whose level of culture was probably not inferior, if indeed it was not distinctly superior, to that occupied by the Italian races at the early period to which the origin of the Arician priesthood must be referred. The positive and indubitable evidence of the prevalence of such sacrifices in one part of the world may reasonably be allowed to strengthen the probability of their prevalence in places for which the evidence is less full and trustworthy. Taken all together, the evidence affords a fair presumption that the custom of killing men whom their worshippers 1 Sahagun, p. 584 sq. For this festival see also id. pp. 37 sq. 58 sq. 60, 87 sqq. 93 ; Clavigero, i. 297 ; Bancroft, ii. 306 sqq. 2 Clavigero, i. 283. 222 KILLING THE GOD chap, m regard as divine has prevailed in many parts of the world. Whether the general explanation which I have offered of that custom is adequate, and whether the rule that the priest of Aricia had to die a violent death is, as I have tried to show, a particular instance of the general custom, are questions which I must now leave to the judgment of the reader. CHAPTER IV THE GOLDEN BOUGH " Und griin des Lebens goldner Baum.'' — Faust. ^ I. — Between heaven and earth At the outset of this book two questions were proposed for answer ; Why had the priest of Nemi (Aricia) to slay his predecessor ? And why, before doing so, had he to pluck the Golden Bough ? Of these two questions the first has now been answered. The priest of Nemi, if I am right, embodied in himself the spirit, primarily, of the woods and, secondarily, of vegetable life in general. Hence, according as he was well or ill, the woods, the flowers, and the fields were believed to flourish or fade ; and if he were to die of sickness or old age, the plant world, it was supposed, would simultaneously perish. Therefore it was necessary that this priest of the woodlands, this sylvan deity incarnate in a man, should be put to death while he was still in the full bloom of his divine manhood, in order that his sacred life, trans- mitted in unabated force to his successor, might renew its youth, and thus by successive transmissions through a perpetual line of vigorous incarnations might remain eternally fresh and young, a pledge and security that 224 NOT TO TOUCH THE GROUND chap. the buds and blossoms of spring, the verdure of sum- mer woods, and the mellow glories of autumn would never fail. But we have still to ask. What was the Golden Bough ? and why had each candidate for the Arician priesthood to pluck it before he could slay the priest ? These questions I will now try to answer. It will be well to begin by noticing two of those rules or taboos by which, as we have seen, the life of divine kings or priests is regulated. The first of the rules to which I desire to call the reader's attention is that the divine personage may not touch the ground with his foot. This rule was observed by the Mikado of Japan and by the supreme pontiff of the Zapotecs in Mexico. The latter "profaned his sanctity if he so much as touched the ground with his foot."^ For the Mikado to touch the ground with his foot was a shameful degradation ; indeed, in the sixteenth century, it was enough to deprive him of his office. Outside his palace he was carried on men's shoulders ; within it he walked on exquisitely wrought mats.^ The king and queen of Tahiti might not touch the ground anywhere but within their hereditary domains ; for the ground on which they trod became sacred. In travelling from place to place they were carried on the shoulders of sacred men. They were always accompanied by several pairs of these sacred men ; and when it became necessary to change their bearers, the king and queen vaulted on to the shoulders of their new bearers without letting their feet touch the 1 Bancroft, Native Races of the Descriptio regnijaponiae, p. 1 1 ; Caron, Pacific States, '-a. 142. "Account of Japan," in Pinkerton's Veyages and Travels, vii. 613 ; ''■Memorials of Japan (Hakluyt Kaempfer, " History of Japan," in ?a'., Society, 1850), pp. 14, 141 5 Varenius, vii. 716. IV NOT TO SEE THE SUN 225 to ground.' It was an evil omen if the kingf of Dosuma touched the ground, and he had to perform an expiatory ceremony.^ The king of Persia was never seen on foot outside his palace.^ The second rule to be here noted is that the sun may not shine upon the divine person. This rule was ob- served both by the Mikado and by the pontiff of the Zapotecs. The latter "was looked upon as a god whom the earth was not worthy to hold, nor the sun to shine upon."* The Japanese would not allow that the Mikado "should expose his sacred person to the open air, and the sun is not thought worthy to shine on his head." * The heir to the throne of Bogota in Colombia, South America, had to undergo a severe training from the age of sixteen ; he lived in complete retirement in a temple, where he might not see the sun nor eat salt nor converse with a woman.* The heir to the kingdom of Sogamoso in Colombia, before succeeding to the crown, had to fast for seven years in the temple, being shut up in the dark and not allowed to see the sun or light. '^ The prince who was to become Inca of Peru had to fast for a month without seeing light.^ Now it is remarkable that these two rules — not to touch the ground and not to see the sun — are observed either separately or conjointly by girls at puberty in 1 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. nunquam illustrabatur : in apertum 102 sq. ed. 1836 ; James Wilson, a'erem non procedebat." Missionary Voyage to the Southern ^ Waitz, Anthropologie der Natur- Pacific Ocean, p. 329. volker, iv. 359. 2 Bastian, Der Mensch in der ' Alonzo de Zurita, " Rapport sur Geschichte, iii. 81. les differentes classes de chefs de la 3 Athenaeus, 514 C. Nouvelle-Espagne," p. 30, in Teinaux- 4 r> ft / Compans s Voyages, Relations et uancroit, i.e. Mimoires originaux (Paris, 1840) ; 6 Kaempfer, " History of Japan," in Waitz, I.e.; Bastian, Die Cttlturldnder Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, vii. des alien Amerika, ii. 204. 717; Caron, "Account of Japan," '^ Ckzs^ ie "Leon, Second Part of the id. vii. 613 ; Varenius, Descriptio regni Chronicle of Peru (Hakluyt Soc. 1883), Japoniai, p. 11, " Radiis solis caput p. i VOL. II Q 226 GIRLS SECLUDED chap. many parts of the world. Thus amongst the negroes of Loango girls at puberty are confined in separate huts, and' they may not touch the ground with any part of their bare body.^ Amongst the Zulus and kindred tribes of South Africa, when the first signs of puberty show themselves " while a girl is walking, gathering wood, or working in the field, she runs to the river and hides herself among the reeds for the day so as not to be seen by men. She covers her head carefully with her blanket that the sun may not shine on it and shrivel her up into a withered skeleton, assured result from exposure to the sun's beams. After dark she returns to her home and is secluded " in a hut for some time.^ In New Ireland girls are confined for four or five years in small cages, being kept in the dark and not allowed to set foot on the ground. The custom has been thus described by an eye-witness. " I heard from a teacher about some strange custom connected with some of the young girls here, so I asked the chief to take me to the house where they were. The house was about twenty-five feet in length, and stood in a reed and bamboo enclosure, across the entrance to which a bundle of dried grass was suspended to show that it was strictly 'tabu! Inside the house were three conical structures about seven or eight feet in height, and about ten or twelve feet in cir- cumference at the bottom, and for about four feet from the ground, at which point they tapered off to a point at the top. These cages were made of the broad leaves of the pandanus-tree, sewn quite close 1 Pechuel-Loesche, " Indiscretes aus * Rev. James Macdonald (Reay Free Loango," Zeitschrift fur Ethrwlogie, a. Manse, Caithness), Manners, Customs, (1878) 23. Superstitions, and Religions of South African Tribes (in manuscript). IV AT PUBERTY 227 together so that no light, and little or no air could enter. On one side of each is an opening which is closed by a double door of plaited cocoa-nut tree and pandanus-tree leaves. About three feet from the ground there is a stage of bamboos which forms the floor. In each of these cages we were told there was a young woman confined, each of whom had to remain for at least four or five years, without ever being allowed to go outside the house. I could scarcely credit the story when I heard it ; the whole thing seemed too horrible to be true. I spoke to the chief, and told him that I wished to see the inside of the cages, and also to see the girls that I might make them a present of a few beads. He told me that it was ' tabu' forbidden for any men but their own relations to look at them ; but I suppose the promised beads acted as an inducement, and so he sent away for some old lady who had charge, and who alone is allowed to open the doors. . . . She had to undo the door when the chief told her to do so, and then the girls peeped out at us, and, when told to do so, they held out their hands for the beads. I, however, purposely sat at some distance away and merely held out the beads to them, as I wished to draw them quite outside, that I might inspect the inside of the cages. This desire of mine gave rise to another difficulty, as these girls were not allowed to put their feet to the ground all the time they were confined in these places. However, they wished to get the beads, and so the old lady had to go outside and collect a lot of pieces of wood and bamboo, which she placed on the ground, and then going to one of the girls, she helped her down and held her hand as she stepped from one piece of wood to another until she came near enough to get the beads I held out to 228 GIRLS SECLUDED her. I then went to inspect the inside of the cage out of which she had come, but could scarcely put my head inside of it, the atmosphere was so hot and stifling. It was clean and contained nothing but a few short lengths of bamboo for holding water. There was only room for the girl to sit or lie down in a crouched position on the bamboo platform, and when the doors are shut it must be nearly or quite dark inside. The girls are never allowed to come out except once a day to bathe in a dish or wooden bowl placed close to each cage. They say that they perspire profusely. They are placed in these stifling cages when quite young, and must remain there until they are young women, when they are taken out and have each a great marriage feast provided for them." ^ In some parts of New Guinea " daughters of chiefs, when they are about twelve or thirteen years of age, are kept indoors for two or three years, never being allowed, under any pretence, to descend from the house, and the house is so shaded that the sun cannot 1 The Rev. G. Brown, quoted by idle. This distinction is sometimes the Rev. B. Danks, "Marriage Customs expressly stated; for example, among of the New Britain Group," Joum. the Goajiras of Colombia rich people Anthrop. Institute, xviii. 284 sq.; cp. keep their daughters shut up in Rev. G. Brown, "Notes on the Duke separate huts at puberty for periods of York Group, New Britain, and New varying from one to four years, but Ireland," Journ. Royal Geogr. Soc. poor people cannot afford to do so for xlvii. (1877) p. 142 sq. Powell's more than a fortnight or ' a month, description of the New Ireland cus- F. A. Simons, " An exploration of the ^.om \% %vca\\zx (Wanderings in a Wild Goajira Peninsula," Proceed. Royal Country, p. 249). According to him Geogr. Soc. N.S. vii. {1885) p. 791. the girls wear wreaths of scented herbs In Fiji, brides who were being tattooed round the waist and neck ; an old were kept from the sun. Williams, woman or a little child occupies the Fiji and the Fijians, i. 170. This lower floor of the cage : and the con- was perhaps a modification of the finement lasts only a month. Probably Melanesian custom of secluding girls the long period mentioned by Mr. at puberty. The reason mentioned Brown is that prescribed for chiefs' by Mr. Williams, "to improve her daughters. Poor people could not complexion," can hardly have been the afford to keep their children so long original one. AT PUBERTY 229 shine on them."^ Among the Ot Danoms of Borneo girls at the age of eight or ten years are shut up in a little room or cell of the house and cut off from all intercourse with the world for a long time. The cell, like the rest of the house, is raised on piles above the ground, and is lit by a single small window opening on a lonely place, so that the girl is in almost total dark- ness. She may not leave the room on any pretext whatever, not even for the most necessary purposes. None of her family may see her all the time she is shut up, but a single slave woman is appointed to wait on her. During her lonely confinement, which often lasts seven years, the girl occupies herself in weaving mats or with other handiwork. Her bodily growth is stunted by the long want of exercise, and when, on attaining womanhood, she is brought out, her com- plexion is pale and wax-like. She is now shown the sun, the earth, the water, the trees, and the flowers, as if she were newly born. Then a great feast is made, a slave is killed, and the girl is smeared with his blood.^ In Ceram girls at puberty were formerly shut up by themselves in a hut which was kept dark.^ Amongst the Aht Indians of Vancouver Island, when girls reach puberty they are placed in a sort of gallery in the house " and are there surrounded completely with mats, so that neither the sun nor any fire can be seen. In this cage they remain for several days. Water is given them, but no food. The longer a girl remains in this retirement the greater 1 Chalmers and Gill, Work and 632 j^.; Otto Vinsch, JVeu Guinea und Adventure in New Guinea, p. 159. seine Bewohner, p. 116. ^ Schwaner, Borneo, Beschrijving van het stroomgeiied van den Barito, 3 Riedel, De shtik-ett kroesharige etc. ii. 77 sq. ; Zimmerman, Die Inseln rassen lusschen Selebes en Papua, p. des Indischen und Stillen Meeres, ii. 138. 230 GIRLS SECLUDED chap. honour is it to the parents ; but she is disgraced for Hfe if it is known that she has seen fire or the sun during this initiatory ordeal."^ Amongst the Thhnkeet or Kolosh Indians of Alaska, when a girl shows signs of womanhood she is shut up in a little hut or cage, which is completely blocked up with the exception of a small air-hole. In this dark and filthy abode she had formerly to remain a year, without fire, exercise, or associates. Her food was put in at the small window ; she had to drink out of the wing-bone of a white-headed eagle. The time has now been reduced, at least in some places, to six months. The girl has to wear a sort of hat with long flaps, that her gaze may not pollute the sky ; for she is thought unfit for the sun to shine upon.^ Amongst the Koniags, an Esquimaux people of Alaska, girls at puberty were placed in small huts in which they had to remain on their hands and knees for six months; then the hut was enlarged enough to let them kneel upright, and they had to remain in this posture for six months more.' When symptoms of puberty appeared on a girl for the first time, the Indians of the Rio de la Plata 1 Sproat, Scenes and Studies of of American Folk-lore, i. 169. For Savage Life, p. 93 sq. caps, hoods, and veils worn by girls at 2 Erman, " Ethnographische Wahr- such seasons, compare G. H. Loslviel, nehmungen u. Erfahrungen an den History of the Mission of the United Kiisten des Berings-Meeres," Z«te/5n/? Brethren among the Indians, i. 56; / Ethnologie, ii. 318 sq.; Langsdorfif, Journal Anthrop. Instittite, vii. 206; Reise um die Welt,K\. \\\sq.; Holm- G. M. Dawson, Report of the Queen berg, " Ethnogr. Skizzen liber die Charlotte Islands, 1878 (Geological Volker d. russischen Amerika," Acta Survey of Canada), p. 130 B; Petitot, Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae, iv. Monographie des Dini-Dindjii, pp. (i856)p. 320^^.; 'Z&nzxoi'i, Native Races 72, 75; id.. Traditions indiennes du of the Pacific States, i. 1 10 sq. ; Krause, Canada Nord-Ouest, p. 258. Die Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 21'J sq.; Rev. Sheldon Jackson, "Alaska and its ^ Holmberg, op. cit. p. 401; Ban- Inhabitants," American Antiquarian, croft, i. 82 ; Petroff, Report on Ike ii. Ill sq.; W. M. Grant, m Journal Population, etc. of Alaska, p. 143. AT PUBERTY , 231 used to sew her up in her hammock as if she were dead, leaving only a small hole for her mouth to allow her to breathe. In this state she continued so long as the symptoms lasted/ In similar circumstances the Chiriguanos of Bolivia hoisted the girl in her hammock to the roof, where she stayed for a month ; the second month the hammock was let half way down from the roof; and in the third month old women, armed with sticks, entered the hut and ran about striking everything they met, saying they were hunting the snake that had wounded the girl. This they did till one of the women gave out that she had killed the snake.^ Amongst some of the Brazilian Indians, when a girl attained to puberty, her hair was burned or shaved off close to the head. Then she was placed on a flat stone and cut with the tooth of an animal from the shoulders all down the back, till she ran with blood. Then the ashes of a wild gourd were rubbed into the wounds ; the girl was bound hand and foot, and hung in a hammock, being enveloped in it so closely that no one could see her. Here she had to stay for three days without eating or drinking. When the three days were over, she stepped out of the hammock upon the flat stone, for her feet might not touch the ground. If she had a call of nature, a female relation took the girl on her back and carried her out, taking with her a live coal to prevent evil influences from entering the girl's body. Being replaced in her hammock she was now allowed to get some flour, boiled roots, and water, but might not taste salt or flesh. Thus she continued to the end ^ Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages 333. On the Chiriguanos see Von aineriquains, i. 262 sq. Martius, Zur Ethnographic Amerika's 2 Lettres edifiantes et ciirieuses, viii. zuinal Brasi liens, p. 212 sqq. 232 GIRLS SECLUDED chap. of the first monthly period, at the expiry of which she was gashed on the breast and belly as well as all down the back. During the second month she still stayed in her hammock, but her rule of abstinence was less rigid, and she was allowed to spin. The third month she was blackened with a certain pigment and began to go about as usual.^ Amongst the Macusis of British Guiana, when a girl shows the first signs of puberty, she is hung in a hammock at the highest point of the hut. For the first few days she may not leave the hammock by day, but at night she must come down, light a fire, and spend the night beside it, else she would break out in sores on her neck, throat, etc. So long as the symptoms are at their height, she must fast rigorously. When they have abated, she may come down and take up her abode in a little com- partment that is made for her in the darkest corner of the hut. In the morning she may cook her food, but it must be at a separate fire and in a vessel of her own. In about ten days the magician comes and undoes the spell by muttering charms and breath- ing on her and on the more valuable of the things with which she has come in contact. The pots and drinking vessels which she used are broken and the fragments buried. After her first bath, the girl must submit to be beaten by her mother with thin rods without uttering a cry. At the end of the second period she is again beaten, but not afterwards. She is now "clean," and can mix again with people.^ Other Indians of Guiana, after keeping the girl in her 1 Thevet, Cosmographie Universelle ^ Schomburgk, Jieisen in Britisch (Paris, 1575) ii. 946 B sq. ; Lafitau, Guiana, ii. 315 sq.; Martins, Zur op. cit. i. 290 sqq. Ethnographic Amerika's, p. 644. AT PUBERTY 233 hammock at the top of the hut for a month, expose her to certain large ants, whose bite is very painful.^ The custom of stinging the girl with ants or beating her with rods is intended, we may be sure, not as a punishment or a test of endurance, but as a purifica- tion, the object being to drive away the malignant influences with which a girl at such times is believed to be beset and enveloped. Examples of purification, both by beating and by stinging with ants, have already come before us.^ Probably, beating or scourg- ing as a religious or ceremonial rite always originated with a similar intention. It was meant to wipe off and drive away a dangerous contagion (whether personified as demoniacal or not) which was sup- posed to be adhering physically, though invisibly, to the body of the sufferer.' The pain inflicted on ^ Labat, Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en GuirUCf Isles voisines, et a Cayenne, iv. p. 365 sq. (Paris ed.), p. 17 sq. (Amsterdam ed.) 2 Above, p. 2\T,sq., vol. i. p. 153 sq. 3 This interpretation of the custom is supported by the fact that beating or scourging is inflicted on inanimate objects expressly for the purpose in- dicated in the text. Thus the Indians of Costa Rica hold that there are two kinds of ceremonial uncleanness, nya and bu-ku-ru. Anything that has been connected with a death is nya. But bu-ku-ril is much more virulent. It can not only make one sick but kill. "The worst bu-ku-ru of all is that of a. young woman in her first pregnancy. She infects the whole neighbourhood. Persons going from the house where she lives carry the infection with them to a distance, and all the deaths or other serious misfortunes in the vicinity are laid to her charge. In the old times, when the savage laws and customs were in full force, it was not an un- common thing for the husband of such a woman to pay damages for casualities thus caused by his unfortunate wife. . . . Bu - ku-ru emanates in a variety of ways ; arms, utensils, even houses become affected by it after long disuse, and before they can be used again must be purified. In the case of portable objects left undisturbed for a long time, the custom is to beat them with a stick before touching them. I have seen a woman take a long walking stick and beat a basket hanging from the roof of a house by a cord. On asking what that was for, I was told that the basket contained her treasures, that she would probably want to take something out the next day, and that she was driving off the bu-ku-rti. A house long unused must be swept, and then the person who is purifying it must take a stick and beat not only the movable objects, but the beds, posts, and in short every accessible part of the interior. The next day it is fit for occupation. A place not visited for a long time or reached for the first time is bu-ku-ru. On our return from the ascent of Pico Blanco, nearly all the party suflfered from little calenturas. 234 GIRLS SECLUDED chap. the person beaten was no more the object of the beating than it is of a surgical operation with us ; it was a necessary accident, that was all. In later times such customs were interpreted otherwise, and the pain, from being an accident, became the prime object of the ceremony, which was now regarded either as a test of endurance imposed upon persons at critical epochs of life, or as a mortification of the flesh well pleasing to the god. But asceticism, under any shape or form, is never primitive. Amongst the Uaupes of Brazil a girl at puberty is secluded in the house for a month, and allowed only a small quantity of bread and water. Then she is taken out into the midst of her relations and friends, each of whom gives her four or five blows with pieces of sipo (an elastic climber), till she falls senseless or dead. If she recovers, the operation is repeated four times at intervals of six hours, and it is considered an offence to the parents not to strike hard. Meantime, pots of meats and fish have been made ready ; the sipos are dipped into them and then given to the girl to lick, who is now considered a marriageable woman.^ When a Hindoo maiden reaches maturity she is kept in a dark room for four days, and is forbidden to see the sun. She is regarded as unclean ; no one is the result of extraordinary exposure to object, and resents being disturbed ; wet and cold and want of food. The .but I have never been able to learn Indians said that the peak was especi- from the Indians that they consider it ally bu-ku-ril, since nobody had ever so. They seem to think of it as a been on it before." One day Mr. Gabb property the objects acquires." W. took down some dusty blow-guns amid M. Gabb, Indian Tribes and Lan- cries of bu - hi - nl from the Indians, gi^ages of Costa Rica (read before the Some weeks afterwards a boy died, and American Philosophical Society, 20th the Indians firmly believed that the August 1875), p. 504 sq. bu-ku-ril of the blow-guns had killed him. " From all the foregoing, it ' A. R. Wallace, Narrative of would seem that bu-hi-rii is a sort of Travels on the Amazon and Rio IVegro, evil spirit that takes possession of the p. 496. AT PUBERTY 235 allowed to touch her. Her diet is restricted to boiled rice, milk, sugar, curd, and tamarind without salt.-' In Cambodia a girl at puberty is put to bed under a mosquito curtain, where she should stay a hundred days. Usually, however, four, five, ten, or twenty days are thought enough ; and even this, in a hot climate and under the close meshes of the curtain, is sufficiently trying.^ According to another account, a Cambodian maiden at puberty is said to "enter into the shade." During her retirement, which, according to the rank and position of her family, may last any time from a few days to several years, she has to observe a number of rules, such as not to be seen by a strange man, not to eat flesh or fish, and so on. She goes nowhere, not even to the pagoda. But this state of retirement is discontinued during eclipses ; at such times she goes forth and pays her devotions to the monster who is supposed to cause eclipses by catching the heavenly bodies between his teeth.^ The fact that her retirement is discontinued during an eclipse seems to show how literally the injunction is interpreted which forbids maidens entering on womanhood to look upon the sun. A superstition so widely diffused as this might be expected to leave traces in legends and folk -tales. And it has done so. In a modern Greek folk-tale 1 Bose, The Hindoos as they are, p. " Schetsen van het eiland Bali," 86. Similarly, after a Brahman boy Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie, has been invested with the sacred N. S. ix. (1880) 428 sq. thread, he is for three days strictly , ,, „ , ^ , , . forbidden to see the sun. He may not " ^°""' Royaume du Cambodge, 1. eat salt, and he is enjoined to sleep ■'''■ either on a carpet or a deer's skin, ' Aymonier, "Notes surlescoutumes without a mattress or mosquito curtain. et croyances superstitieuses des Cam- Ib. p. 186. In Bali, boys who have bodgiens," Cochinchitie Frati^aise, Ex- had their teeth filed, as a preliminary cursions et Reconnaissances, No. 16 to marriage, are kept shut up in a dark (Saigon, 1883), p. 193 sq. Cp. id. room for three days. Van Eck, Notice sitr k Cambodge, p. 50. 236 NOT TO SEE THE SUN chap. the Fates predict that in her fifteenth year a princess must be careful not to let the sun shine on her, for if this were to happen she would be turned into a lizard.^ A Tyrolese story tells how it was the doom of a lovely maiden to be transported into the belly of a whale if ever a sunbeam fell on her.^ In another modern Greek tale the Sun bestows a daughter upon a childless woman on condition of taking the child back to himself when she is twelve years old. So, when the child was twelve, the mother closed the doors and windows, and stopped up all the chinks and crannies, to prevent the Sun from coming to fetch away her daughter. But she forgot to stop up the key -hole, and a sunbeam streamed through it and carried off the girl.^ In a Sicilian story a seer foretells that a king will have a daughter who, in her fourteenth year, will conceive a child by the Sun. So, when the child was born, the king shut her up in a lonely tower which had no window, lest a sunbeam should fall on her. When she was nearly fourteen years old, it happened that her parents sent her a piece of roasted kid, in which she found a sharp bone. With this bone she scraped a hole in the wall, and a sunbeam shot through the hole and impregnated her.'' 1 B. Schmidt, Griechische Mdrchen, princess have no bones with her meat. Sagen tind Volkslieder, p. 98. Hahn, op. cit. No. 15; Gonzenbach, ^ Schneller, Mdrchen und Sagen mis Nos. 26, 27 ; Pentamei-one, No. 23. Wdlschtirol, No. 22. From this we should infer that it is a 3 J. G. von Hahn, Griechische und rule with savages not to let women albanesische Mdrchen, No. 41. handle the bones of animals during * Gonztnha.da,Siciliamsche Mdrchen, their monthly seclusions. We have al- No. 28. The incident of the bone ready seen the great respect with which occurs in other folk -tales. A prince the savage treats the bones of game or princess is shut up for safety in a (see above, p. 116 sqt;. ) ; and women tower and makes his or her escape by in their courses are specially forbidden scraping a hole in the wall with a bone to meddle with the hunter or fisher, as which has been accidentally conveyed their contact or neighbourhood would into the tower ; sometimes it is expressly spoil his sport (see below, p. 238 sqq.) said that care was taken to let the In folk-tales the hero who uses the bone IV NOT TO SEE THE SUN 237 The old Greek story of Danae, who was confined by her father in a subterranean chamber or a brazen tower, but impregnated by Zeus, who reached her in the shape of a shower of gold, perhaps belongs to the same class of tales. It has its counterpart in the legend which the Kirgis of Siberia tell of their ancestry. A certain Khan had a fair daughter, whom he kept in a dark iron house, that no man might see her. An old woman tended her ; and when the girl was grown to maidenhood she asked the old woman, " Where do you go so often ? " — " My child," said the old dame, "there is a bright world. In that bright world your father and mother live, and all sorts of people live there. That is where I go." The maiden said, " Good mother, I will tell nobody, but show me that bright world." So the old woman took the girl out of the iron house. But when she saw the bright world, the girl tottered and fainted ; and the eye of God fell upon her, and she conceived. Her angry father put her in a golden chest and sent her floating away (fairy gold can float in fairyland) over the wide sea.^ The shower of gold in the Greek story, and the eye of God in the Kirgis legend, probably stand for sunlight and the sun. The idea that women may be impregnated by the sun is not uncommon in legends,^ and there are even traces of it in marriage customs.^ is sometimes a boy ; but the incident circumstances used to drink out of the might easily be transferred from a girl wing-bone of a white-headed eagle to a boy after its real meaning had been (Langsdorff, Reise urn die Welt, ii. forgotten. Amongst the Hare -skin 114). Indians a girl at puberty is forbidden 1 W. Radloff, Proben der Volks- to break the bones of hares. Petitot, litteratur der tilrkischen Stdmme Siid- Traditions indiennes du Canada No7'd- Sibiriens^ iii. 82 sq. ouest, p. 258. On the other hand, she ^ Bastian, Die Vdlker des bstlichen drinks out of a tube made of a swan's Asien, i. 416, vi. 25 ; Turne bone (Petitot, /.f. and z'rf., A/b^o^ra/AzV p. 200; Panjai Notes and Queries des D^ni-Dindji^, p. 76), and we have ii. No. 797. seen that a Thlinkeet girl in the same ' Amongst the Chaco Indians of 238 WOMEN SECLUDED chap. The ground of this seclusion of girls at puberty lies in the deeply engrained dread which primitive man universally entertains of menstruous blood. , Evidence of this has already been adduced, ^ but a few more facts may here be added. Amongst the Australian blacks " the boys are told from their infancy that, if they see the blood, they will early become gray -headed, and their strength will fail prematurely." Hence a woman lives apart at these times ; and if a young man or boy approaches her she calls out, and he immediately makes a circuit to avoid her. The men go out of their way to avoid even crossing the tracks made by women at such times. Similarly the woman may not walk on any path frequented by men, nor touch anything used by men ; she may not eat fish, or go near water at all, much less cross it ; for if she did, the fish would be frightened, and the fishers would have no luck ; she may not even fetch water for the camp ; it is sufficient for her to say Thama to ensure; her husband fetching the water himself. A severe beat- ing, or even death, is the punishment inflicted on an Australian woman who breaks these rules.^ The Bushmen think that, by a glance of a girl's eye South America a newly-tnanied couple morning after marriage to lead the sleep the first night on a skin with young couple out of the hut to greet their heads towards the west ; " for the the rising sun. The same custom is marriage is not considered as ratified said to be still practised in Iran and till the rising sun shines on their feet Central Asia, the belief being that the the succeeding morning." T. J. Hutch- beams of the rising sun are the surest inson, "The Chaco Indians," Transact. means of impregnating the new bride. Ethnohg. Soc.m. ^2^. At old Hindoo V&mhery, Das Tiirkenvolk, -p. 112. marriages, the first ceremony was the ^ Above, vol. i. p. 170. " Impregnation - rite " [Garbhddhdna]. ^ Native Tribes of South Australia, "During the previous day the young p. 186; E. J. Y.yie, Journals, ii. 295, married woman was made to look 304 ; W. Ridley, Kamilaroi, p. 157; towards the sun, or in some way ex- Journ. Anthrop. Inst. ii. 268, ix. 459 posed to its rays." Monier Williams, sq. ; Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Vic- Religious Life and Thought in India, toria, i. 65, 236. Cp. Sir George p. 354. Amongst the Turks of Siberia Grey, Journals, ii. 344 ; J. Dawson, it was formerly the custom on the Australian Aborigines, ci. sq. IV WOMEN SECLUDED 239 at the time when she ought to be kept in strict retirement, men become fixed in whatever position they happen to occupy, with whatever they were holding in their hands, and are changed into trees which talk.^ The Guayquiries of the Orinoco think that, when a woman has her courses, everything upon which she steps will die, and that if a man treads on the place where she has passed, his legs will immediately swell up.^ The Creek and kindred Indians of the United States compelled women at menstruation to live in separate huts at some distance from the village. There the women had to stay, at the risk of being surprised and cut off by enemies. It was thought "a most horrid and dangerous pollu- tion " to go near the women at such times ; and the danger extended to enemies who, if they slew the women, had to cleanse themselves from the pollution by means of certain sacred herbs and roots.^ Similarly, among the Chippeways and other Indians of the Hudson Bay Territory, women at such seasons are excluded from the camp, and take up their abode in huts of branches. They wear long hoods, which effectually conceal the head and breast. They may not touch the household furniture nor any objects used by men ; for their touch " is supposed to defile them, so that their subsequent use would be followed by certain mischief or misfortune," such as disease or death. They may not walk on the common paths nor cross the tracks of animals. They " are never permitted to walk on the ice of rivers or lakes, or near the part where the men are hunting beaver, or where ' Bleek, Brief Account of Bushman Folk-lore, p. 14; cp. ib. p. 10. ^ Gumilla, Ilistoire de f Orinoque, i. 249. 2 James Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 123 sq. 240 WOMEN SECLUDED chap. a fishing- net is set, for fear of averting their success. They are also prohibited at those times from partaking of the head of any animal, and even from walking in or crossing the track where the head of a deer, moose, beaver, and many other animals have lately been carried, either on a sledge or on the back. To be guilty of a violation of this custom is considered as of the greatest importance ; because they firmly believe that it would be a means of preventing the hunter from having an equal success in his future excursions."^ So the Lapps forbid women at menstruation to walk on that part of the shore where the fishers are in the habit of setting out their fish.^ Amongst the civilised nations of Europe the super- stitions which have prevailed on this subject are not less extravagant. In the oldest existing cyclopaedia — the Natural History of Pliny — the list of dangers apprehended from menstruation is longer than any furnished by savages. According to Pliny, the touch of a menstruous woman turned wine to vinegar, blighted crops, killed seedlings, blasted gardens, brought down the fruit from trees, dimmed mirrors, blunted razors, rusted iron and brass (especially at the waning of the moon), killed bees, or at least drove them from their hives, caused mares to miscarry, and so forth.* Similarly, in various parts of Europe, it is still believed that if a woman in her courses enters a brewery the beer will turn sour ; if she touches beer, wine, vinegar, or milk, it will go bad ; if she makes 1 S. 'Heaxne, Journey to the Northern marchiaeeorumquelinguavitaeireligione Ocean, p. 314 sq.; Alex. Mackenzie, /^jftwa (Copenhagen, 1767), p. 494. Voyages through the Continent of North 3. Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. § 64 sq., America, cxxiii. ; Petitot, Monographic xxviii. § 77 sqq. Cp. Geoponica, xii. iies Dini-Dindjii, p. 75 sq. ... 20, 5, and c. 25, 2 ; Columella, xi. 2 C. Leemius, De Lapponibus Fin- 3, 50. WOMEN SECLUDED 241 jam, it will not keep ; if she mounts a mare, it will miscarry ; if she touches buds, they will wither ; if she climbs a cherry-tree, it will die/ Thus the object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralise the dangerous influences which are sup- posed to emanate from them at such times. That the danger is believed to be especially great at the first men- struation appears from the unusual precautions taken to isolate girls at this crisis. Two of these precautions have been illustrated above, namely, the rules that the girl may not touch the ground nor see the sun. The general effect of these rules is to keep the girl suspended, so to say, between heaven and earth. Whether en- veloped in her hammock and slung up to the roof, as in South America, or elevated above the ground in a dark and narrow cage, as in New Ireland, she may be con- sidered to be out of the way of doing mischief, since, being shut off both from the earth and from the sun, she can poison neither of these great sources of life by her deadly contagion. In short, she is rendered harm- less by being, in electrical language, insulated. But the precautions thus taken to isolate or insulate the girl are dictated by a regard for her own safety as well as for the safety of others. For it is thought that the girl herself would suffer if she were to neglect the prescribed 1 A. Schleicher, Volkstilmliches aus 35, 3 : Geoponica, xii. 8, 5 sq.; AeUan, Sonnenberg, p. 134; B. Souche, Cray- Nat. Anim. vi. 36. A similar remedy ances, Prisages et Traditions divsrses, p. is employed for the same purpose by II; v. Fossel, Volksmedicin und North American Indians and European medicinischer Aherglattbe in Steier- peasants. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, mark (Graz, 1886), p. 124. The v. 70; Wiedemann, Aus dem inneren Greeks and Romans thought that a und dussern Leben der Ehsten, p. 484. field was completely protected against Cp. Haltrich, Zur Volkskunde der insects if a menstruous woman walked Siebenhiirger Sachsen, p. 280 ; Hein- round it with bare feet and streaming rich, Agrarische Sitten tmd Gebrduche hair. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvii. 266, unter den Sachsen Siebenbiirgens, p. xxviii. 78; Columella, x. 358 sq., 14; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,^ m.. xi. 3, 64 ; Palladius, De re rustica, i. 468. VOL. II R 242 SECLUSION OF chap. regimen. Thus Zulu girls, as we have seen, believe that they would shrivel to skeletons if the sun were to shine on them at puberty, and in some Brazilian tribes the girls think that a transgression of the rules would entail sores on the neck and throat. In short, the girl is viewed as charged with a powerful force which, if not kept within bounds, may prove the destruction both of the girl herself and of all with whom she comes in contact. To repress this force within the limits neces- sary for the safety of all concerned is the object of the taboos in question. The same explanation applies to the observance of the same rules by divine kings and priests. The un- cleanness, as it is called, of girls at puberty and the sanctity of holy men do not, to the primitive mind, differ from each other. They are only different mani- festations of the same supernatural energy which, like energy in general, is in itself neither good nor bad, but becomes beneficent or maleficent according to its application.^ Accordingly, if, like girls at puberty, divine personages may neither touch the ground nor see the sun, the reason is, on the one hand, a fear lest their divinity might, at contact with earth or heaven, dis- charge itself with fatal violence on either ; and, on the other hand, an apprehension, that the divine being, thus drained of his ethereal virtue, might thereby be incapacitated for the future performance of those super- natural functions, upon the proper discharge of which the safety of the people and even of the world is be- lieved to hang. Thus the rules in question fall under the head of the taboos which we examined in the second chapter ; they are intended to preserve the life 1 For an example of the beneficent application of the menstrual energy, see note on p. 241. IV DIVINE PERSONS 243 of the divine person and with it the Hfe of his subjects and worshippers. Nowhere, it is thought, can his precious yet dangerous Hfe be at once so safe and so harmless as when it is neither in heaven nor in earth, but, as far as possible, suspended between the two.^ 1 The rules just discussed do not hold exclusively of the persons men- tioned in the text, but are applicable in certain circumstances to other tabooed persons and things. Whatever, in fact, is permeated by the mysterious virtue of taboo may need to be isolated from earth and heaven. Mourners are taboo all the world over ; accordingly in mourning the Ainos wear peculiar caps in order that the sun may not shine upon their heads. Bastian, Die VSlker des ostlichen Asien, v. 366. During a solemn fast of three days the Indians of Costa Rica eat no salt, speak as little as possible, light no fires, and stay strictly indoors, or if they go out during the day they carefully cover themselves from the light of the sun, believing that exposure to the sun's rays would turn them black. W. M. Gabb, Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa Rica, p. 510. On Yule night it has been customary in parts of Sweden from time immemorial to go on pilgrimage, whereby people learn many secret things and know what is to happen in the coming year. As a preparation for this pilgrimage, "some secrete them- selves for three days previously in a dark cellar, so as to be shut out alto- gether from the light of heaven. Others retire at an early hour of the preceding morning to some out-of-the way place, such as a hayloft, where they bury themselves in the hay, that they may neither hear nor see any living creature ; and here they remain, in silence and fasting, until after sundown ; whilst there are those who think it sufficient if they rigidly abstain from food on the day before commencing their wander- ings. During this period of probation a man ought not to see fire. " L. Lloyd, Peasant Life in Sweden, p. 194. Dur- ing the sixteen days that a Pima Indian is undergoing purification for killing an Apache he may not see a blazing fire. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 553. Again warriors on the war - path are strictly taboo ; hence Indians may not sit on the bare ground the whole time they are out on a war- like expedition. J. Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 382 ; Narra- tive of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tamur, p. 123. The holy ark of the North American Indians is deemed "so sacred and dangerous to be touched" that no one, except the war chief and his attendant, will touch it "under the penalty of incurring great evil. Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods for the very same reason." In carrying it against the enemy they never place it on the ground, but rest it on stones or logs. Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 162 sq. The sacred clam shell of the Elk clan among the Omahas is kept in a sacred bag, which is never allowed to touch the ground. E. James, Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, ii. 47; J. Owen Dorsey, " Omaha Sociology," Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1884), p. 226. Newly born infants are strongly taboo ; accordingly in Loango they are not allowed to touch the earth. Pechuel-Loesche, "Indis- cretes aus Loango," Zeitsckrift fiir Ethnologic, A. (1878) p. 29 sq. In Laos the hunting of elephants gives rise to many taboos ; one of them is that the chief hunter may not touch the earth with his foot. Accordingly when he alights from his elephant, the others spread a carpet of leaves for him to step upon. E. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos, p. 26. In some parts of Aber- deenshire, the last bit of standing corn (which, as we have seen, is very sacred) is not allowed to touch the ground ; but as it is cut, it is placed on the lap 244 BALDER chap. § 2. — Balder A god whose life might in a sense be said to be neither in heaven nor earth but between the two, was the Norse Balder, the good and beautiful god. The story of his death is as follows : Once on a time Balder dreamed heavy dreams which seemed to fore- bode his death. Thereupon the gods held a council and resolved to make him secure against every danger. So the goddess Frigg took an oath from fire and water, iron and all metals, stones and earth, from trees, sick- nesses and poisons, and from all four-footed beasts, birds, and creeping things, that they would not hurt Balder. When this was done Balder was deemed invulnerable; so the gods amused themselves by setting him in their midst, while some shot at him, others hewed at him, and others threw stones at him. But whatever they did, nothing could hurt him ; and at this they were all glad. Only Loki, the mischief-maker, was displeased, and he went in the guise of an old woman to Frigg, who told him that the weapons of the gods could not wound Balder, since she had made them all swear not to hurt him. Then Loki asked, " Have all things sworn to spare Balder ? " She answered, " East of Wal- halla grows a plant called mistletoe ; it seemed to me too of the "gueedman." W. Gregor, Prof. J. E. Nourse (Washington, 1879), "Quelques coutumes du Nord-Est du p. no; Gerard, The Land beyond the Comte d' Aberdeen," Revue des Tradi- Forest, ii. 7. In Scotland, when water iions populaires, iii. (1888) 485 B. was carried from sacred wells to sick Sacred food may not, in certain cir- people, the water-vessel might not touch cumstances, touch the ground. F. the ground. C. F. Gordon Gumming, Grabowsky, " Der Distrikt Dusson In the Hebrides, ■^. -iw. On the rela- Timor in Siidost - Borneo und seine tion of spirits to the ground, compare Bewohner," Ausland {1884), No. 24, Denzil Ibbetson in Panjab Notes and p. 474 ; Ch. F. Hall, Narrative of the Queries, i. No. 5. Second Arctic Expedition, edited by IV BALDER' S DEATH 245 young to swear." So Loki went and pulled the mistle- toe and took it to the assembly of the gods. There he found the blind god Hodur standing at the outside of the circle. Loki asked him, "Why do you not shoot at Balder ? " Hodur answered, " Because I do not see where he stands ; besides I have no weapon." Then said Loki, " Do like the rest and show Balder honour, as they all do. I will show you where he stands, and do you shoot at him with this twig." Hodur took the mistletoe and threw it at Balder, as Loki directed him. The mistletoe struck Balder and pierced him through and through, and he fell down dead. And that was the greatest misfortune that ever befel gods and men. For a while the gods stood speechless, then they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. They took Balder's body and brought it to the sea-shore. There stood Balder's ship ; it was called Ringhorn, and was the hugest of all ships. The gods wished to launch the ship and to burn Balder's body on it, but the ship would not stir. So they sent for a giantess called Hyrrockin. She came riding on a wolf and gave the ship such a push that fire flashed from the rollers and all the earth shook. Then Balder's body was taken and placed on the funeral pile upon his ship. When his wife Nanna saw that, her heart burst for sorrow and she died. So she was laid on the funeral pile with her husband, and fire was put to it. Balder's horse, too, with all its trappings, was burned on the pile.^ The circumstantiality of this story suggests that it belongs to the extensive class of myths which are in- 1 Die Edda, iibersetzt von K. Sim- length by Prof. Rhys, Celtic Heathen- rock,* pp. 286-288, cp. pp. 8, 34, 264. dom, p. 529 sqq. In English the Balder story is told at 246 FIRE FESTIVALS chap. vented to explain ritual. For a myth is never so graphic and precise in its details as when it is a simple transcript of a ceremony which the author of the myth witnessed with his eyes. At all events, if it can be made probable that rites like those described in the Balder myth have been practised by Norsemen and by other European peoples, we shall be justified in infer- ring that the ritual gave birth to the myth, not the myth to the ritual. For while many cases can be shown in which a myth has been invented to explain a rite, it would be hard to point to a single case in I which a myth has given rise to a rite. Ritual may be the parent of myth, but can never be its child.-' The main incidents in the myth of Balder's death are two ; first, the pulling of the mistletoe, and second, the death and burning of the god. Now both these incidents appear to have formed parts of an annual ceremony once observed by Celts and Norsemen, probably also by Germans and Slavs. In most parts of Europe the peasants have been accustomed from time immemorial to kindle bonfires on certain days of the year, and to dance round them or leap over them. Customs of this kind can be traced back on historical evidence to the Middle Ages," and their analogy to similar customs observed in anti- quity goes with strong internal evidence to prove that their origin must be sought in a period long 1 It is strange to find so learned and myth. "ItalischeMythen,"i?/z«;«Mcto judicious a student of custom and myth Musetim, N. F. xxx. 228 sq. Surely as H. Usener exactly inverting their the myth is the reflection of the custom, true relation to each other. After Men not only fashion gods in their showing that the essential features of own likeness (as Xenophanes long ago the myth of the marriage of Mars and remarked) but make them think and Nerio have their counterpart in the act like themselves. Heaven is a copy marriage customs of peasants at the of earth, not earth of heaven, present day, he proceeds to infer that ^ See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,'^ these customs are the reflection of the i. 502, 510, 516. IN EUROPE 247 prior to the spread of Christianity. Indeed the earliest evidence of their observance in Northern Europe is furnished by the attempts made by Christian synods in the eighth century to put them down as heathenish rites.^ Not uncommonly effigies are burned in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living person in them ; and there are grounds for believing that anciently human beings were actually burned on these occasions. A brief review of the customs in ques- tion will bring out the traces of human sacrifice, and will serve at the same time to throw light on theii meaning.^ The seasons of the year at which these bonfires are most commonly lit are spring and midsummer, but in some places they are kindled at Hallow E'en (October 31st) and Christmas. In spring the first Sunday in Lent (Quadragesima) and Easter Eve are the days on which in different places the ceremony is observed. Thus in the Eifel Mountains, Rhenish Prussia, on the first Sunday in Lent young people used to collect straw and brushwood from house to house. These they carried to an eminence and piled them up round a tall, slim, beech-tree, to which a piece of wood was fastened at right angles to form a cross. The structure was known as the "hut" or "castle." Fire was set to it and the young people marched round the blazing "castle" bareheaded, each carrying a lighted torch and praying aloud. Sometimes a straw man was burned in the "hut." People observed the direction in which the smoke blew from the fire. If it blew towards the corn-fields, it was a sign that the 1 Mannhardt,-5a«(OTfetej,p. 518 j^. hardt, Baumkultus, kap. vi. p. 497 2 In the following survey of these sqq. Compare also Grimm, Deutsche fire-customs I follow chiefly W. Mann- Mythologie,'^ i. 500 sqq. 248 FIRE FESTIVALS chap. harvest would be abundant. On the same day, in some parts of the Eifel, a great wheel was made of straw and dragged by three horses to the top of a hill. Thither the village boys marched at nightfall, set fire to the wheel, and sent it rolling down the slope. Two lads followed it with levers to set it in motion again, in case it should anywhere meet with a check.^ About Echternach the same ceremony is called "burning the witch. "^ At Voralberg in the Tyrol on the first Sunday in Lent a slender young fir-tree is surrounded with a pile of straw and fire -wood. At the top of the tree is fastened a human figure called the "witch"; it is made of old clothes and stuffed with gunpowder. At night the whole is set on fire and boys and girls dance round it, swinging torches and singing rhymes in which the words " corn in the winnowing-basket, the plough in the earth " may be distinguished.^ In Swabia on the first Sunday in Lent a figure called the " witch " or the "old wife" or "winter's grandmother" is made up of clothes and fastened to a pole. This is stuck in the middle of a pile of wood, to which fire is applied. While the " witch " is burning the young people throw blazing discs into the air. The discs are thin round pieces of wood, a few inches in diameter, with notched edges to imitate the rays of the sun or stars. They have a hole in the middle, by which they are attached to the end of a wand. Before the disc is thrown it is set on fire, the wand is swung to and fro, and the impetus thus communicated to the disc is augmented by dashing the rod sharply against a sloping board. The burning disc is thus thrown off, and mounting 1 Schmitz, Sitten und Sagen etc. des '^ B. K. -f. <^oi. Eifler Volkes, i. pp. 21-25 ; ^. j?! p. ^ Vonbun, Beitrcige zur deutschen 501. Mythologie, p. 20; B. K. p. 501. IN LENT 249 high into the air, describes a long curve before it reaches the ground. A single lad may fling up forty or fifty of these discs, one after the other. The object is to throw them as high as possible. The wand by which they are hurled must, at least in some parts of Swabia, be of hazel. Sometimes the lads also leap over the fire brandishing blazing torches of pine-wood. The charred embers of the burned "witch" and discs are taken home and planted in the flax-fields the same night, in the belief that they will keep vermin from the fields.^ In the Rhon Mountains, Bavaria, on the first Sunday in Lent the people used to march to the top of a hill or eminence. Children and lads carried torches, brooms daubed with tar, and poles swathed in straw. A wheel, wrapt in combustibles, was kindled and rolled down the hill ; and the young people rushed about the fields with their burning torches and brooms, till at last they flung them in a heap, and standing round them, struck up a hymn or a popular song. The object of running about the fields with the blazing torches was to "drive away the wicked sower." Or it was done in honour of the Virgin, that she might preserve the fruits of the earth throughout the year and bless them.^ It seems hardly possible to separate from these bonfires, kindled on the first Sunday in Lent, the fires in which, about the same season, the effigy called Death is burned as part of the ceremony of "carry- ing out Death." We have seen that at Spachendorf, ' E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten deutscken Mythologie, i. p. 211, No. zmd Gebrduche aus Schwaben^ p. 380 232, B. IC, p. 501 sq^ sqq.; Birlinger, Volksthumliches aus 2 witzschel, Sagen, Sitten mid Ge- Schwaben, ii. 59 sq., 66 sq.; Bavaria, brducheaus Thiiringen,^. 189; Panzer, ii. 2, p. 838 sq. ; Panzer, Beitrag :Mr Beitrag zur deutscken Mythologie, ii. 207 ; B. K. p. 500 sq. 250 FIRE FESTIVALS chap. Austrian Silesia, on the morning of Rupert's Day {Shrove Tuesday ?) a straw-man, dressed in a fur coat and a fur cap, is laid in a hole outside the village and there burned, and that while it is blazing every one seeks to snatch a fragment of it, which he fastens to a branch of the highest tree in his garden or buries in his field, believing that this will make the crops to grow better. The ceremony is known as the " burying of Death."^ Even when the straw-man is not desig- nated as Death, the meaning of the observance is probably the same ; for the name Death, as I have tried to show, does not express the original in- tention of the ceremony. At Cobern in the Eifel Mountains the lads make up a straw-man on Shrove Tuesday. The efifigy is formally tried and accused of having perpetrated all the thefts that have been committed in the neighbourhood throughout the year. Being condemned to death, the straw-man is led through the village, shot, and burned upon a pyre. They dance round the blazing pile, and the last bride must leap over it.^ In Oldenburg on the evening of Shrove Tuesday people used to make long bundles of straw, which they set on fire, and then ran about the fields waving them, shrieking, and singing wild songs. Finally they burnt a straw-man on the field.^ In the district of Dusseldorf the straw-man burned on Shrove Tuesday was made of an unthreshed sheaf of corn.* On the first Monday after the spring equinox the urchins of Zurich drag a straw-man on a little cart through the streets, while at the same time the girls 1 Th. Vernalcken, Mythen mid Eifier Volkes, i. p. 20 ; B. K. p. 499. Brmtche des Volkes in Oesterreich, p. 293 3 Strackerjan, Aberglauh u. Sagen sq. ; B. JC. 'p. 498. See above, vol. i. az(s dem Herzogthum Oldenburg, ii. p. 267. 39> No. 306 ; B. K. p. 499. 2 Schmitz, Sitten, tt. Sagen des ^ B. K. p. 499. AT EASTER 251 carry about a May-tree. When vespers ring, the straw-man is burned.^ In the district of Aachen on Ash Wednesday a man used to be encased in peas- straw and taken to an appointed place. Here he slipped quietly out of his straw casing, which was then burned, the children thinking that it was the man who was being burned.^ In the Val di Ledro (Tyrol) on the last day of the Carnival a figure is made up of straw and brushwood and then burned. The figure is called the Old Woman, and the ceremony " burning the Old Woman."^ Another occasion on which these fire-festivals are held is Easter Eve, the Saturday before Easter Sun- day. On that day it has been customary in Catholic countries to extinguish all the lights in the churches, and then to make a new fire, sometimes with flint and steel, sometimes with a burning-glass. At this fire is lit the Easter candle, which is then used to rekindle all the extinguished lights in the church. In many parts of Germany a bonfire is also kindled, by means of the new fire, on some open space near the church. It is consecrated, and the people bring sticks of oak, walnut, and beech, which they char in the fire, and then take home with them. Some of these charred sticks are thereupon burned at home in a newly-kindled fire, with a prayer that God will preserve the homestead from fire, lightning, and hail. Thus every house receives " new fire." Some of the sticks are placed in the fields, gardens, and meadows, with a prayer that God will keep them from blight and hail. Such fields and gardens are thought to thrive more than others ; the corn and the plants that grow in them are not beaten '^ B. K. ^. 498 sq. 2 s. K. p. 499. ' Schneller, Mdrchen u. Sagen aus Wdlschtirol, p. 234 sq. ; B. K. p. 499 sq. 252 FIRE FESTIVALS chap. down by hail, nor devoured by mice, vermin, and beetles, no witch harms them, and the ears of corn stand close and full. The charred sticks are also applied to the plough. The ashes of the Easter bon- fire, together with the ashes of the consecrated palm- branches, are mixed with the seed at sowing. A wooden figure called Judas is sometimes burned in the consecrated bonfire.^ Sometimes instead of the consecrated bonfire a profane fire used to be kindled on Easter Eve. In the afternoon the lads of the village collected firewood and carried it to a corn-field or to the top of a hill. Here they piled it together and fastened in the midst of it a pole with a cross-piece, all wrapt in straw, so that it looked like a man with outstretched arms. This figure was called the Easter-man, or the Judas. In the evening the lads lit their lanterns at the new holy fire in the church, and ran at full speed to the pile. The one who reached it first set fire to it and to the effigy. No women or girls might be present, though they were allowed to watch the scene from a distance. Great was the joy while the effigy was burning. The ashes were collected and thrown at sunrise into run- ning water, or were scattered over the fields on Easter Monday. At the same time the palm branches which had been consecrated on Palm Sunday, and sticks which had been charred in the fire and consecrated on Good Friday, were also stuck up in the fields. The object was to preserve the fields from hail.^ In Mun- sterland, these Easter fires are always kindled upon ^ B. JC. pp. 502-505 ; Wuttke, 1289; Bavaria, i. i, p. 371. Der deutsche Volksaberglauhe? § 81 ; ^ Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen Zingerle, Sitten, Brduche und Meinun- Mythologie, i. p. 212 sq., ii. p. 78 sq. ; gendes Tiroler Volkes,^ p. 149, §§ 1286- B. K. p. 505. AT EASTER 253 certain definite hills, which are hence known as Easter or Pascal Mountains. The whole community assembles about the fire. Fathers of families form an inner circle round it. An outer circle is formed by the young men and maidens, who, singing Easter hymns, march round and round the fire in the direction of the sun, till the blaze dies down. Then the girls jump over the fire in a line, one after the other, each supported by two young men who hold her hands and run beside her. When the fire has burned out, the whole assemblage marches in solemn procession to the church, singing hymns. They march thrice round the church, and then break up. In the twilight boys with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make them fruitful. 1 In Holland, also, Easter fires used to be kindled on the highest eminences, the people danced round them, and leaped through the flames.^ In Schaumburg, the Easter bonfires may be seen blazing on all the mountains around for miles. They are made with a tar barrel fastened to a pine-tree, which is wrapt in straw. The people dance singing round them.^ Easter bonfires are also common in the Harz Mountains and in Brunswick, Hanover, and Westphalia. They are generally lit upon particular heights and moun- tains which are hence called Easter Mountains. In the Harz the fire is commonly made by piling brush- wood about a tree and setting it on fire, and blazing tar barrels are often rolled down into the valley. In Osterode, every one tries to snatch a brand from the bonfire and rushes about with it ; the better it burns, the more lucky it is. In Grund there are torch 1 Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen 2 -Wolf, Beitrdge ziir deutscken aus dem Herzogthum Oldenbtirg, ii. p. Mythologie, i. 75 sq.; B. A', p. 506. 43 sq., No. 313 ; B. K. p. 505 sq. 3 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,'^ i. 512 ; B. K. p. 506 sq. 254 EASTER BONFIRES chap. races.^ In the Altmark, the Easter bonfires are com- posed of tar barrels, bee-hives, etc., piled round a pole. The young folk dance round the fire ; and when it has died out, the old folk come and collect the ashes, which they preserve as a remedy for the ailments of bees. It is also believed that as far as the blaze of the bon- fire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year, and no conflagration will break out.^ In some parts of Bavaria, bonfires were kindled at Easter upon steep mountains, and burning arrows or discs of wood were shot high into the air, as in the Swabian custom already described. Sometimes, instead of the discs, an old waggon wheel was wrapt in straw, set on fire, and sent rolling down the mountain. The lads who hurled the discs received painted Easter eggs from the girls.' In some parts of Swabia the Easter fires might not be kindled with iron or flint or steel ; but only by the friction of wood.* At Braunrode in the Harz Mountains it was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire.^ In the Altmark, bones were burned in it." In the central Highlands of Scotland bonfires, known as the Beltane fires, were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the ist of May, and the traces of human sacrifices at them were particularly clear and unequivocal. In the neighbourhood of Callander, in Perthshire, the custom lasted down to 1 H. VmhXe., Harzbilder, p. 63 ; Kuhn Schwahen, ii. p. 82, No. 106 ; B. K. p. und Schwartz, Norddeutsche Sagen, 508. Mdrchen und Gehrauche, p. 373 ; B. K. ,^ B. K. p. 508 ; cp. Wolf, Beitragc uir p. 507. deutsch. Myth. i. 74; Grimm, Deutsche 2 Kuhn, Mdrkische Sagen und Myth^ \. 512. The two latter writers Miin-hen, p. 312 J;/.; B. K. p. 507. only state that before the fires were 3 Panzer, Beitrag zur detitschen My- kindled it was customary to hunt thologie, i. p. 211 sq.; B. K. p. 507 sq. squirrels in the woods. 4 Birlinger, Volksthiimliches aus ^ Kuhn, I.e.; B. K. p. 50S. BELTANE FIRES 255 the close of last century. The fires were lit by the people of each hamlet on a hill or knoll round which their cattle were pasturing. Hence various eminences in the Highlands are known as "the hill of the fires," just as in Germany some mountains take their name from the Easter fires which are kindled upon them. On the morning, of May Day the people repaired to a hill or knoll and cut a round trench in the green sod, leaving in the centre a platform of turf large enough to contain the whole company. On this turf they seated themselves, and in the middle was placed a pile of wood or other fuel, which of old they kindled with tein-eigin — that is, forced fire or need -fire. The way of making the need -fire was this : "The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully extinguished, and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well- seasoned plank of oak was procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in some parts of the mainland the machinery was different. They used a frame of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree. In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were required for turning round, by turns, the axle-tree or wimble. If any of them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime, it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old birch- 2s6 BELTANE FIRES trees, and is very combustible. This fire had the appearance of being immediately derived from heaven, and manifold were the virtues ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative against witchcraft, and a sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the human species and in cattle ; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their nature changed." For many years, however, before the close of last century, the Beltane fires were kindled in the usual way. The fire being lit, the company prepared a custard of eggs and milk, which they ate. Afterwards they amused themselves a while by singing and dancing round the fire. Then "they knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions all over with charcoal until it be perfectly black. They put all the bits of cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favour they mean to implore, in rendering the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast." The victim thus selected "was called cailleach bealtine — i.e. the Beltane carline, a term of great reproach. Upon his being known, part of the company laid hold of him, and made a show of putting him into the fire ; but, the majority inter- posing, he was rescued. And in some places they laid him flat on the ground, making as if they would quarter him. Afterwards he was pelted with egg- shells, and retained the odious appellation during the IV BELTANE FIRES 257 whole year. And, while the feast was fresh in people's memory, they affected to speak of the cailleach bealtine as dead." He had to leap thrice through the flames, and this concluded the ceremony.^ Another account of the Beltane festival, written in the latter half of last century, is as follows : " On the ist of May the herdsmen of every village hold their Bel- tien, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square trench on the ground, leaving the turf in the middle ; on that they make a fire of wood, on which they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal, and milk, and bring, besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer and whisky ; for each of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation ; on that every one takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them ; each person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and, flinging it over his shoulder, says, ' This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses ; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep ; and so on.' After that they use the same ceremony to the noxious animals : ' This I give to thee, O fox ! spare thou my lambs ; this to thee, O hooded crow ! this to thee, O eagle ! ' When the ceremony is over they dine on the caudle ; and, after the feast is finished, what is left is hid by two persons deputed for that purpose ; but on the next Sunday they reassemble, and finish the reliques of the 1 Brand, Popular Antiqtiities, i. 224 Eighteenth Century, from the MSS. of sq. , Bohn's ed. , quoting Sinclair's John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, edited by Statistical Account of Scotland, 1 794, Alex. AUardyce, ii. 439-445 ; B. K. xi. 620 ; Scotland and Scotsmen in the p. 508. VOL. II S 258 MIDSUMMER FIRES chap. first entertainment." ^ The ist of May is a great popular festival in the more midland and southern parts of Sweden. On the preceding evening huge bonfires, which should be lighted by striking two flints together, blaze on all the hills and knolls. Every large hamlet has its own fire, round which the young people dance in a ring. The old folk notice whether the flames incline to the north or to the south. In the former case the spring will be cold and back- ward ; in the latter mild and genial.^ But the season at which these fire -festivals are most generally held all over Europe is the summer solstice, that is. Midsummer Eve (23d June) or Mid- summer Day (24th June). According to a mediaeval writer the three great features of this festival were the bonfires, the procession with torches round the fields, and the custom of rolling a wheel. The writer adds that the smoke drives away harmful dragons which cause sickness, and he explains the custom of rolling the wheel to mean that the sun has now reached the highest point in the ecliptic, and begins thence- forward to descend.^ From his description, which is still applicable, we see that the main features of the midsummer fire-festival are identical with those which characterise the spring festivals. In Swabia lads and lasses, hand in hand, leap over the midsummer bonfire, praying that the hemp may grow three ells high, and they set fire to wheels of straw and send them rolling down the hill.* In Lechrain bonfires are kindled on 1 Pennant, "Tour in Scotland," ^ B. K.^. 509; Brand, Pop. Antiq. Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, iii. i. 2^% sq.; Grimm,/), yl/.* i. rig. 49 ; Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. * Birlinger, Volksthiiniliches aus 226. Schwaben, ii. p. 96 sqq. Ko. 128, p. 103 sq. No. 129; E. Meier, Detitsc/ie 2 L. Lloyd, Peasant Life in Sweden, Sagen, Sitten imd Gebrduche aus p. 233 sq. Schwaben, p. 423 sqq.; B. K. p. 510. IV MIDSUMMER FIRES 259 the mountains on Midsummer Day ; and besides the bonfire a tall beam, thickly wrapt in straw, and sur- mounted by a cross-piece, is burned in many places. Round this cross, as it burns, the lads dance ; and when the flames have subsided, the young people leap over the fire in pairs, a young man and a young woman together. It is believed that the flax will grow that year as high as they leap over the fire ; and that if a charred billet be taken from the fire and stuck in a flax field it will promote the growth of the flax.^ At Def- fingen, as they jumped over the midsummer bonfire, they cried out, " Flax, flax ! may the flax this year grow seven ells high !" ^ In Bohemia bonfires are kindled on many of the mountains on Midsummer Eve ; boys and girls, hand in hand, leap over them ; cart-wheels smeared with resin are ignited and sent rolling down the hill ; and brooms covered with tar and set on fire are swung about or thrown high into the air. The handles of the brooms or embers from the fire are preserved and stuck in gardens to protect the vegetables from caterpillars and gnats. Sometimes the boys run down the hillside in troops, brandishing the blazing brooms and shouting. The bonfire is sometimes made by stacking wood and branches round the trunk of a tree and setting the whole on fire.'* In old farm-houses of the Surenthal and Winenthal a couple of holes or a whole row of them may some- times be seen facing each other in the door-posts of the barn or stable. Sometimes the holes are smooth and round ; sometimes they are deeply burnt and blackened. 1 Leoprechting, Aus dem Leckrain, 3 Reinsberg-Diiringsfeld, Fest - Kal- p. 182 sq.; B. K. p. 510. Cp. Panzer, ender aus Bihnien, pp. 306-311 ; B. K. Beitrag zur deutschcn Mythologie, i. p. 510. For the custom of burning 210; Bavaria, iii. 956. a tree in the midsummer bonfires, see 2 Panzer, op. cit. ii. 549. vol. i. p. 79. 26o MIDSUMMER FIRES chap. The explanation of them is this. About midsummer, but especially on Midsummer Day, two such holes are bored opposite each other, into which the extremities of a strong pole are fixed. The holes are then stuffed with tow steeped in resin and oil ; a rope is looped round the pole, and two young men, who must be brothers or must have the same baptismal name, and must be of the same age, pull the ends of the rope backwards and forwards so as to make the pole revolve rapidly, till smoke and sparks issue from the two holes in the door-posts. The sparks are caught and blown up with tinder, and this is the new and pure fire, the appearance of which is greeted with cries of joy. Heaps of combustible materials are now ignited with the new fire, and blazing bundles are placed on boards and sent floating down the brook. The boys light torches at the new fire and run to fumigate the pas- tures. This is believed to drive away all the demons and witches that molest the cattle. Finally the torches are thrown in a heap on the meadow and allowed to burn out. On their way back the boys strew the ashes over the fields : this is supposed to make them fertile. I f a farmer has taken possession of a new house, or if ser- vants have changed masters, the boys fumigate the new abode and are rewarded by the farmer with a supper.^ At Konz, on the Moselle, the midsummer fire- festival used to be celebrated as follows. A quantity of straw, contributed jointly by every house, was collected on the top of the Stromberg Hill. Here, towards evening, the men and boys assembled, while the women and girls took up their position at a certain well down below. On the top of the hill a huge wheel was completely covered with a portion of the 1 Rochholz, Deutscher Glaube imd Branch, ii. 144 sqq. IV MIDSUMMER FIRES 261 collected straw, the remainder of which was made into torches. The mayor of Sierk, who always received a basket of cherries for his services, gave the signal, the wheel was ignited with a torch, and sent rolling down the hill amid shouts of joy. All the men and boys swung their torches in the air, some of them remained on the top of the hill, while others followed the fiery wheel on its course down the hillside to the Moselle. As it passed the women and girls at the well they raised cries of joy which were answered by the men on the top of the hill. The inhabitants of the neighbouring villages also stood on the banks of the river and mingled their voices with the general shout of jubilation. The wheel was often extinguished before it reached the water, but if it plunged blazing into the river the people expected an abundant vintage, and the inhabitants of Konz had the right to exact a waggon-load of white wine from the surrounding vineyards.-' In France the midsummer customs are similar. In Poitou a wheel enveloped in straw is set on fire, and people run with it through the fields, which are supposed to be fertilised thereby ; also, the people leap thrice over the fire, holding in their hands branches of nut-trees, which are afterwards hung over the door of the cattle- stall. At Brest torches are brandished, and hundreds of them flung up into the air together.' In Britanny mid- summer fires blaze on the hills, the people dance round them, singing and leaping over the glowing embers. The bonfire is made by piling wood round a pole which is surmounted by a nosegay or crown.' 1 Grimm, B. MM. si 5 ^'li B. K. 3 SebiUot, CmUumes populaires de la ^' f'XZ^t „ • -^""^^ Bretagne, p. 193 sq.; Wolf, op. vlo\\,HeitragezurdiutschenMytho- cit. ii. y)2 sq. logic, ii. 393; Grimm, D. M.^ i. 517; B. K. p. 511. 262 MIDSUMMER FIRES chap. Sometimes, instead of rolling fiery wheels, discs of wood are ignited in the midsummer fires and thrown into the air in the manner already described.^ At Edersleben, near Sangerhausen, a high pole was planted in the ground and a tar barrel was hung from it by a chain which reached to the ground. The barrel was then set on fire and swung round the pole amid shouts of joy. - In our own country the custom of lighting bonfires at midsummer has prevailed extensively. In the North of England these fires used to be lit in the open streets. Young and old gathered round them ; the former leaped over the fires and engaged in games, while the old people looked on. Sometimes the fires were kindled on the tops of high hills. The people also carried firebrands about the fields.^ In Herefordshire and Somersetshire people used to make fires in the fields on Midsummer Eve "to bless the apples."* In Devonshire the custom of leaping over the mid- summer fires was also observed.' In Cornwall bonfires were lit on Midsummer Eve and the people marched round them with lighted torches, which they also carried from village to village. On Whiteborough, a large tumulus near Launceston, a huge bonfire used to be kindled on Midsummer Eve ; a tall summer pole with a large bush at the top was fixed in the centre of the bonfire." At Darowen in Wales small bonfires were lit on Midsummer Eve.'^ On the same 1 Zingerle, Sitten, etc. des Tinier sq., 318, cp. pp. 305, 306, 308 sg.; Volkes? p. 159, No. 1354; Panzer, B. IC p. 512. Beitrag, i. 210 ; 5. A", p. 511. * Aubrey, Reniames of Gejitilisme ^ ICuhn u. Schwann NorMeut.ke "'l-^^:;^'^, f,,:'' P" ^'■ Mdrchen und Gebrduche, p. , ^^_ ;' 3^3/ 3' g^ 3^^. ^^^^.^ 390; B. K. 511. British Popular Customs, p. 315. 5 Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. 300 ' Brand, op. cit. i. 318. IV MIDSUMMER FIRES 263 day people in the Isle of Man used to light fires to the windward of every field, so that the smoke might pass over the corn ; and they folded their cattle and carried blazing furze or gorse round them several times.' In Ireland, "on the Eves of St. John Baptist and St. Peter, they always have in every town a bonfire late in the evening, and carry about bundles of reeds fast tied and fired ; these being dry, will last long, and flame better than a torch, and be a pleasing divertive prospect to the distant beholder ; a stranger would go near to imagine the whole country was on fire." ^ Another writer says of the South of Ireland : " On Midsummer's Eve, every eminence, near which is a habitation, blazes with bonfires ; and round these they carry numerous torches, shouting and dancing."^ An author who described Ireland in the first quarter of last century says : " On the vigil of St. John the Baptist's nativity, they make bonfires, and run along the streets and fields with wisps of straw blazing on long poles to purify the air, which they think infectious by believing all the devils, spirits, ghosts, and hobgoblins fly abroad this night to hurt mankind." * Another writer states that he witnessed the festival in Ireland in 1782 : " Exactly at midnight the fires began to appear, and taking advantage of going up to the leads of the house, which had a widely extended view, I saw on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the fires burning on every eminence which the country afforded. I had a further satisfaction in learn- ing, from undoubted authority, that the people danced 1 J. Train, Account of the Isle of ^ Brand, I.e., quoting the author of Man, a. 120. 'Cos Survey of the South of Ireland. * Brand, i. 305, quoting the author 2 Brand, i. 303, quoting Sir Henry of the Comical Pilgrim's Pilgrimage Piers's Description of Westmeath. into Ireland. 264 MIDSUMMER FIRES chap. roimd the fires, and at the close went through these fires, and made their sons and daughters, together with their cattle, pass through the fire ; and the whole was conducted with religious solemnity."/ That the custom prevailed in fiill force as late as 1867 appears from a notice in the Liverpool Mercury, 29th June 1867, which runs thus : "The old pagan fire-worship still survives in Ireland, though nominally in honour of St. John. On Sunday night bonfires were observed throughout nearly every county in the province of Leinster. In Kilkenny fires blazed on every hillside at intervals of about a mile. There were very many in the Queen's county, also in Kildare and Wexford. The effect in the rich sunset appeared to travellers very grand. The people assemble and dance round the fires, the children jump through the flames, and in former times live coals were carried into the corn-fields to prevent blight." 2 In Scotland the traces of midsummer fires are few. In reference to the parish of Mongahitter it is said: "The Midsummer Eve fire, a relic of Druidism, was kindled in some parts of this country."* Moresin states that on St. Peter's Day (29th June) the Scotch, ran about with lighted torches on mountains and high grounds ; * and at Loudon in Ayrshire it appears that down to the close of last century the custom still pre- vailed for herdsmen and young people to kindle fires on high grounds on St. Peter's Day.^ In the Perth- shire Highlands on Midsummer Day the cowherd used to go three times round the fold, according to the 1 Brand, i. 304, quoting The Gentle- ^ Brand, i. 311, quoting Statistical man^s Magazine, February 1795, p. Account of Scotland,' xxi. 145. 124- „ ■ ■ , T, 7 ^ B.K.-a. 512. 2 Quoted by Dyer, British Popular . Customs, p. 321 sq. " Brand,!. 337. IV MIDSUMMER FIRES 265 course of the sun, with a burning torch in his hand. This was believed to purify the flocks and herds and prevent diseases.^ In Slavonic countries also the midsummer festival is celebrated with similar rites. In Russia fires are lighted and young people, crowned with flowers, jump through them and drive their cattle through them. In Little Russia a stake is driven into the ground on St. John's Night, wrapt in straw, and set on fire. As the flames rise the peasant women throw birch-tree boughs into them, saying, " May my flax be as tall as this bough ! " 2 "In Ruthenia the bonfires are lighted by a flame procured from wood by friction, the operation being performed by the elders of the party, amid the respectful silence of the rest. But as soon as the fire is 'churned,' the bystanders break forth with joyous songs, and when the bonfires are lit the young people take hands, and spring in couples through the smoke, if not through the flames, and after that the cattle in their turn are driven through it."^ In many parts of Prussia and Lithuania great fires are kindled on the Eve of St. John (Midsummer Eve). All the heights are ablaze with them, as far as the eye can see. The fires are supposed to be a protection against thunder, hail, and cattle disease, especially if next morning the cattle are driven over the places where the fires burned.* In some parts of Masuren it is the custom on the evening of Midsummer Day to put out all the fires in the village. Then an oaken stake is driven into the ground, a wheel is fixed on it as on an axle ' J. Ramsay and A. AUardyce, Scot- 3 Ralston. I.e. land and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth * Tettau und Temme, Die Volks- Century, ii. 436. sagen Ostprezissens, Litthauens und ^ Ralston, Songs of the Russian Westpreussens, p. 277 ; Grimm, D. yl/.* */(", p. 240; Grimm,/). M.^\. 519. i. 519. 266 MIDSUMMER FIRES chap. and is made to revolve rapidly, till the friction produces fire. Every one takes home a light from the new fire and rekindles the fire on the domestic hearth.-^ In Bohemia the cows used to be driven over the midsummer fires to protect them from witchcraft.^ In Servia on Midsummer Eve herdsmen light torches of birch bark and march round the sheepfolds and cattle-stalls ; then they climb the hills and there allow the torches to burn out.^ In Greece the women light fires on St. John's Eve and jump over them crying, " I leave my sins behind me."* Italy must also have had its midsummer bon- fires, since at Orvieto they were specially excepted from the prohibition directed against bonfires in general." We have seen that they are still lighted in Sardinia.^ In Corsica on the Eve of St. John the people set fire to the trunk of a tree or to a whole tree, and the young men and maidens dance round the blaze, which is called fttcaraja!' Midsummer fires are, or were formerly, lighted in Spain.^ Even the Mohammedans of Algeria and Morocco are reported to have kindled great midsummer bonfires of straw, into which they kept throwing incense and spices the whole night, invoking the divine blessing on their fruit-trees.* It remains to show that the burning of effigies of human beings in the midsummer fires was not uncommon. At Rottenburg in Wurtemberg, down 1 Tio^^tn, Abei-glaubenaus Masiiren,^ ' Q>v}oe.xra.t\%, MytJiologhdes Plantes, p. 71. i- 185. 2 Grimm, I.e.; Reinsberg-Diirings- * '&xts.r\i, Poptdar Antiquities, \. ■^i'] ; feld, Fest-Kaknder aus Bohnien, p. 307 Grimm, I.e. note. ^ G. Ferraro, Superstizioni, itsi e 3 Grimm, I.e. * Grimm, I.e. promrbi Monferrini,'^. 34 jy. , referring 6 Grimm, D. J\f.* i. 518. to Alvise da Cadamosto, Relasion dei " Above, vol. i. p. 291. viaggi d' Africa, in Ramusio. IV MIDSUMMER FIRES 267 to the beginning of the present century, a ceremony was observed on Midsummer Day which was called "beheading the angel -man." A stump was driven into the ground, wrapt with straw, and fashioned into the rude likeness of a human figure, with arms, head, and face. This was the angel-man ; round about him wood was piled up. The boys, armed with swords, assembled in crowds, covered the figure completely over with flowers, and eagerly awaited the signal. When the pile of wood was fired and the angel -man burst into a blaze, the word was given and all the boys fell upon him with their swords and hewed the burning figure in pieces. Then they leaped backwards and forwards over the fire.^ In some parts of the Tyrol a straw-man is carted about the village on Midsummer Day and then burned. He is called the Lotte7', which has been corrupted into Luther.^ In French Flanders down to 1789 a straw figure representing a man was always burned in the midsummer bonfire, and the figure of a woman was burned on St. Peter's Day, 29th June.^ At Gratz on the 23d June the common people used to make a puppet called the Tatermann, which they dragged to the bleaching-ground, and pelted with burning besoms till it took fire.* In some parts of Russia a figure of Kupalo is burned or thrown into a stream on St. John's Night.^ The Russian custom of carrying the straw efiigy of Kupalo over the mid- summer bonfire has been already described." The best general explanation of these European 1 Birlinger, Volksthumliches aus 3 Wolf, Beitrdge zur deutschen My- Schwabeizr, ii. 100 sq.; B. K. p. 513 thologie, ii. 392; B. JC. ^. 513. sq- ^ B. K. -p. 513. 2 Zingerle, Sitten, etc., cies Tiroler 5 Ralston, Songs of the Russian Volkes,- p. 159, No. 1353, cp. No. People, p. 240. 1355 ; B. K. f. 513. Above, vol. i. p. 272 sj. 268 FIRES AS chap. fire-festivals seems to be the one given by Mannhardt, namely, that they are sun-charms or magical ceremonies intended to ensure a proper supply of sunshine for men, animals, and plants. We have seen that savages resort to charms for making sunshine,-' and we need not wonder that primitive man in Europe has done the same. Indeed, considering the cold and cloudy climate of Europe during a considerable part of the year, it is natural that sun-charms should have played a much more prominent part among the superstitious practices of European peoples than among those of savages who live nearer the equator. This view of the festivals in question is supported by various con- siderations drawn partly from the rites themselves, partly from the influence which they are believed to exert upon the weather and on vegetation. For example, the custom of rolling a burning wheel down a hillside, which is often observed on these occasions, seems a very natural imitation of the sun's course in the sky, and the imitation is especially appropriate on Midsummer Day when the sun's annual declension begins. Not less graphic is the imitation of his apparent revolution by swinging a burning tar-barrel round a pole.^ The custom of throwing blazing discs, shaped like suns, into the air. is probably also a piece of imitative magic. In these, as in so many cases, the magic force is supposed to take effect through mimicry or sympathy ; by imitating the desired result you actually produce it ; by counterfeiting the sun's pro- gress through the heavens you really help the luminary to pursue his celestial journey with punctuality and despatch. The name " fire of heaven," by which the 1 Above, vol. i. p. 22 sqq. ^ Above, p. 262. IV SUN-CHARMS 269 midsummer fire is sometimes popularly known/ clearly indicates a consciousness of the connection between the earthly and the heavenly flame. Again, the manner in which the fire appears to have been originally kindled on these occasions favours the view that it was intended to be a mock-sun. For, as various scholars have seen,^ it is highly probable that originally at these festivals fire was universally obtained by the friction of two pieces of wood. We have seen that this is still the case in some places both at the Easter and midsummer fires, and that it is expressly stated to have been formerly the case at the Beltane fires.* But what makes it almost certain that this was once the invariable mode of kindling the fire at these periodic festivals is the analogy of the need -fires. Need-fires are kindled, not at fixed periods, but on occasions of special distress, particularly at the out- break of a murrain, and the cattle are driven through the need-fire, just as they are sometimes driven through the midsummer fires.* Now, the need-fire has always been produced by the friction of wood and sometimes by the revolution of a wheel; in Mull, for example, it was made by turning an oaken wheel over nine oaken spindles from east to west, that is, in the direction of the sun. It is a plausible conjecture that the wheel employed to produce the need-fire represents the sun ; '•" and if the spring and midsummer fires were originally produced in the same way, it would be a confirmation 1 Birlinger, Volksthiimliches aus * On the need -fires, see Grimm, Schwaben, ii. 57, 97; B. K. p. 510; D. M. i. 501 sqq.; Wolf, op. at. i. cp. V3.n2.ex, Beitrag,ii. 240. 116 sq., ii. 378 sqq.; Kuhn, op. cit. 2 Cp. Grimm, D. /J/.* i. 521; Wolf, p. 41 sqq.; B. K. p. 518 sqq.; Elton, Beitrdge zur detUschen Mythologie, ii. Origins of English History, p. 293 sq.; 389 ; Ad. Kuhn, Herahkimft des Jahn, Die deutschen Opfergebrduche Feuers;^ pp. 41 sq., 47 ; W. Mannhardt, bei Ackerbau tend Viehziuht, p. 26 sqq. B. IC y. e,zi. 6 This is the view of Grimm, Wolf, 3 See above, pp. 254, 255, 260, 265. Kuhn, and Mannhardt. 270 FIRES AS of the view that they were originally sun-charms. In point of fact there is, as Kuhn has pointed out,^ some evidence to show that the midsummer fire was originally thus produced. For at Obermedlingen in Swabia the "fire of heaven," as it was called, was made on St. Vitus's Day (15th June) by igniting a cart-wheel, which, smeared with pitch and plaited with straw, was fastened on a pole twelve feet high, the top of the pole being inserted in the nave of the wheel. This fire was made on the summit of the mountain, and as the flame ascended, the people uttered a set form of words, with eyes and arms directed heaven- ward.^ Here the fact of a wheel being fixed on the top of a pole and ignited makes it probable that originally the fire was produced, as in the need-fire, by the revolution of a wheel. The day on which the ceremony takes place (15th June) is near midsummer ; and we have seen that in Masuren fire is (or was) actually made on Midsummer Day by turning a wheel rapidly about an oaken pole, though it is not said that the new fire so produced is used to light a bonfire. Once more, the influence which these bonfires are supposed to exert on the weather and on vegetation, goes to show that they are sun -charms, since the effects ascribed to them are identical with those of sunshine. Thus, in Sweden the warmth or cold of the coming season is inferred from the direction in which the flames of the bonfire are blown ; if they blow to the south, it will be warm, if to the north, cold. No doubt at present the direction of the flames is regarded merely as an augury of the weather, not as a mode of influencing it. But we may be pretty sure that this is one of the cases in which magic has 1 Herabkunft des Feue?-!,'^ p. 47. ^ Panzer, Beitrag, ii. 240. IV SUN-CHARMS 271 dwindled into divination. So in the Eifel Mountains, when the smoke blows towards the corn-fields, this is an omen that the harvest will be abundant. But doubtless the older view was, not merely that the smoke and flames prognosticated, but that they actually produced an abundant harvest, the heat of the flames acting like sunshine on the corn. Indeed, this older view must still have been held by people in the Isle of Man when they lit fires to windward of their fields in order that the smoke might blow over them. Again, the idea that the corn will grow well as far as the blaze of the bonfire is visible, is certainly a remnant of the belief in the quickening and fertilising power of the bonfires. The same belief reappears in the notion that embers taken from the bonfires and inserted in the fields will promote the growth of the crops, and again it plainly underlies the custom of mixing the ashes of the bonfire with the seed-corn at sowing, or of scatter- ing the ashes by themselves over the field. The belief that the flax will grow as high as the people leap over the bonfire belongs clearly to the same class of ideas. Once more, we saw that at Konz, on the banks of the Moselle, if the blazing wheel which was trundled down the hillside reached the river without being extinguished, this was hailed as a proof that the vintage would be abundant. So firmly was this belief held that the successful performance of the ceremony entitled the villagers to levy a tax upon the owners of the neio-h- bouring vineyards. Here the unextinguished wheel meant an unclouded sun, and this in turn meant an abundant vintage. So the waggon-load of white wine which the villagers received from the vineyards round about was in fact a payment for the sunshine which they had procured for the grapes. 272 FIRES AS CHAP. The interpretation of tiiese fire-customs as charms for making sunshine is confirmed by a parallel custom observed by the Hindoos of Southern India at the Pongol or Feast of Ingathering. The festival is cele- brated in the early part of January, when, according to Hindoo astrologers, the sun enters the tropic of Capricorn, and the chief event of the festival coin- cides with the passage of the sun. For some days previously the boys gather heaps of sticks, straw, dead leaves, and everything that will burn. On the morning of the first day of the festival the heaps are fired. Every street and lane has its bonfire. The young folk leap over the fire or pile on fresh fuel. This fire is an offering to Surya, the sun-god, or to Agni, the deity of fife; it "wakes him from his sleep, calling on him again to gladden the earth with his light and heat."^ To say that the fires awaken the sun -god from his sleep is only a metaphorical and perhaps modernised expression of the belief that they actually help to rekindle the sun's light and heat. The custom of leaping over the fire and driving cattle through it may be intended, on the one hand, to secure for man and beast a share of the vital energy of the sun, and, on the other hand, to purify them from all evil influences ; for to the primitive mind fire is the most powerful of all purificatory agents. The latter idea is obviously uppermost in the minds of Greek women when they leap over the midsummer fire, saying, " I leave my sins behind me." So in Yucatan at a New Year's festival the people used to light a huge bonfire and pass through it, in the belief that this was a means of 1 Ch. E. Cover, "The Pongol Royal Asiatic Society,'^.?,, v. (1870) festival in Southern India," Jojirn. p. 96 si;. ■ IV SUN-CHARMS 273 ridding themselves of their troubles.^ The custom of driving cattle through a fire is not confined to Europe. At certain times the Hottentots make a fire of chips, dry branches, and green twigs, so as to raise a great smoke. Through this fire they drive their sheep, dragging them through by force, if necessary. If the sheep make their escape without passing through the fire, it is reckoned a heavy disgrace and a very bad omen. But if they pass readily through or over the fire, the joy of the Hottentots is indescribable.^ The procession or race with burning torches, which so often forms a part of these fire - festivals, appears to be simply a means of diffusing far and wide the genial influence of the bonfire or of the sun- shine which it represents. Hence on these occasions lighted torches are very frequently carried over the fields, sometimes with the avowed intention of fer- tilising them ; * and with the same intention live coals from the bonfire are sometimes placed in the field "to prevent blight." The custom of trundling a burning wheel over the fields, which is practised for the express purpose of fertilising them, embodies the same idea in a still more graphic form ; since in this way the mock- sun itself, not merely its light and heat represented by torches, is made actually to pass over the ground which is to receive its quicken- ing and kindly influence. Again, the custom of carrying lighted brands round the cattle is plainly 1 Diego de Landa, Relation des on the monuments, are perhaps to be -rtejo'e yMOT/a« (Paris, i864),_p. 233. explained by this custom. To regard, ^ Kolben, Present State of the Cape with Mannhardt {B. K. p. 536), the of Good Hope, i. 12<) sqq. torches in the modern European' cus- 2 P. 253. The torches of Demeter, toms as imitations of lightning seems which figure so largely in her myth and unnecessary. VOL. II -p 274 TREE-SPIRIT chap. equivalent to driving the animals through the fire. It is quite possible that in these customs the idea of the quickening power of fire may be combined v^^ith the conception of it as a purgative agent for the expulsion or destruction of evil beings. It is cer- tainly sometimes interpreted in the latter way by persons who practise the customs ; and this purgative use of fire comes out very prominently, as we have seen, in the general expulsion of demons from towns and villages. But in the present class of cases this aspect of it is perhaps secondary, if indeed it is more than a later misinterpretation of the custom. It remains to ask, What is the meaning of burning an effigy in these bonfires ? The effigies so burned, as was remarked above, can hardly be separated from the effigies of Death which are burned or otherwise destroyed in spring ; and grounds have been already given for regarding the so-called effigies of Death as really representations of the tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation. Are the other effigies, which are burned in the spring and midsummer bonfires, susceptible of the same explanation? It would seem so. For just as the fragments of the so-called Death are stuck in the fields to make the crops grow, so the charred embers of the figure burned in the spring bonfires are sometimes placed in the fields in the belief that they will keep vermin from the crop. Again, the rule that the last married bride must leap over the fire in which the straw- man is burned on Shrove Tuesday, is probably intended to make her fruitful. But, as we have seen, the power of blessing women with offspring is a special attribute of tree - spirits ; ^ it is therefore a fair presumption that the burning 1 Above, vol. i. p. 70 sqq. B URNT IN EFFIG Y 275 effigy over which the bride must leap is a repre- sentative of the fertilising tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation. This character of the effigy, as repre- sentative of the spirit of vegetation, is almost unmis- takable when the effigy is composed of an unthreshed sheaf of corn or is covered from head to foot with flowers.^ Again, it is to be noted that instead of an effigy living trees are sometimes burned both in the spring and midsummer bonfires.^ Now, considering the frequency with which the tree-spirit is represented in human shape, it is hardly rash to suppose that when sometimes a tree and sometimes an effigy is burned in these fires, the effigy and the tree are regarded as equivalent to each other, each being a representative of the tree-spirit. This, again, is con- firmed by observing, first, that sometimes the effigy which is to be burned is carried about simultaneously with a May-tree, the former being carried by the boys, the latter by the girls ; ' and, second, that the effigy is sometimes tied to a living tree and burned with it.* In these cases, we can scarcely doubt, the tree- spirit is represented, as we have found it represented before, in duplicate, both by the tree and by the effigy. That the true character of the effigy as a representative of the beneficent spirit of vegetation should sometimes be forgotten, is natural. The cus- tom of burning a beneficent god is too foreign to later modes of thought to escape misinterpretation. Naturally enough the people who continued to burn his image came in time to identify it as the effigy of per- sons, whom, on various grounds, they considered objec- tionable, such as Judas Iscariot, Luther, and a witch. The general reasons for killing a god or his 1 Pp. 250, 267. 2 Pp. 247, 248, 253, 259, 266. 3 p. 250 sq. 4 Pp. 247, 248. 276 TREE-SPIRIT BURNT chap. representative have been examined in the preceding chapter. But when the god happens to be a deity of vegetation, there are special reasons why he should die by fire. For light and heat are necessary to vegetable growth ; and, on the principle of sympathetic magic, by subjecting the personal representative of vegetation to their influence, you secure a supply of these necessaries for trees and crops. In other words, by burning the spirit of vegetation in a fire which represents the sun, you make sure that, for a time at least, vegetation shall have plenty of sun. It may be objected that, if the intention is simply to secure enough sunshine for vegetation, this end would be better attained, on the principles of sympathetic magic, by merely passing the representative of vege- tation through the fire instead of burning him. In point of fact this is sometimes done. In Russia, as we have seen, the straw figure of Kupalo is not burned in the midsummer fire, but merely carried backwards and forwards across it.^ But, for the reasons already given, it is necessary that the god should die ; so next day Kupalo is stripped of her ornaments and thrown into a stream. In this Russian custom, therefore, the passage of the image through the fire is a sun -charm pure and simple ; the killing of the god is a separate act, and the mode of killing him — ■ by drowning — is probably a rain-charm. But usually people have not thought it necessary to draw this fine distinction ; for the various reasons already assigned, it is advantageous, they think, to expose the god of vegetation to a considerable degree of heat, and it is also advantageous to kill him, and they combine these advantages in a rough-and-ready way by burning him. ^ Vol. i. p. 272. IV TREE-SPIRIT BURNT 277 Finally, we have to ask, were human beings formerly burned as representatives of the tree-spirit or deity of vegetation ? We have seen reasons for believing that living persons have often acted as representatives of the tree -spirit, and have suffered death as such. There is no reason, therefore, why they should not have been burned, if any special advantages were likely to be attained by putting them to death in that way. The consideration of human suffering is not one which enters into the calculations of primitive man. It would have been surprising if it did, when we remember the record of Christian Europe. Now, in the fire-festivals which we are discussing, the pretence of burning people is sometimes carried so far that it seems reasonable to regard it as a mitigated survival of an older custom of actually burning them. Thus in Aachen, as we saw, the man clad in peas- straw acts so cleverly that the children really believe he is being burned. And at the Beltane fires the pretended victim was seized, and a show made of throwing him into the fire, and for some time afterwards people affected to speak of him as dead. In the following customs Mannhardt is probably right in recognising traces of an old custom of burning a leaf- clad representative of the spirit of vegetation. At Wolfeck, in Austria, on Midsummer Day, a boy completely clad in green fir branches goes from house to house, accompanied by a noisy crew, collecting wood for the bonfire. As he gets the wood he sings — " Forest trees I want, No sour milk for me. But beer and wine. So can the wood-man be jolly and gay."i 1 B. K. p. 524. 2/8 BURNT SACRIFICES chap. In some parts of Bavaria, also, the boys who go from house to house collecting fuel for the midsummer bonfire envelop one of their number from head to foot in green branches of firs, and lead him by a rope through the whole village.^ At Moosheim, in Wurtemberg, the festival of St. John's Fire usually lasted for fourteen days, ending on the second Sunday after Midsummer Day. On this last day the bonfire was left in charge of the children, while the older people retired to a wood. Here they encased a young fellow in leaves and twigs, who, thus disguised, went to the fire, scattered it, and trod it out. All the people present fled at the sight of him.^ But it seems possible to go farther than this. Of human sacrifices offered on these occasions the most unequivocal traces, as we have seen, are those which, about a hundred years ago, still lingered at the Beltane fires in the Highlands of Scotland, that is, among a Celtic people who, situated in a remote corner of Europe, enjoying practical independence, and almost completely isolated from foreign influence, had till then conserved their old heathenism better than any other people in the West of Europe. It is significant, therefore, that human sacrifices by fire are known, on unquestionable evidence, to have been systematically practised by the Celts. The earliest description of these sacrifices is by Julius Caesar. As conqueror of the hitherto independent Celts of Gaul, Caesar had ample opportunity of observing the national Celtic religion and manners, while these were still fresh and crisp from the native mint and had not yet been fused in the melting-pot of Roman civilisation. With 1 Bavaria, iii. 956 ; B. A', p. 524. Schwaben, ii. 121 sq., No. 146 ; B. K. 2 Birlinger, Volksthiimliches aus p. 524 sq. IV AMONG THE CELTS 279 his own notes Caesar appears to have incorporated the observations of a Greek explorer, by name Posidonius, who travelled in Gaul about fifty years before Caesar carried the Roman arms to the English Channel. The Greek geographer Strabo and the historian Diodorus seem also to have derived their descriptions of the Celtic sacrifices from the work of Posidonius, but independently of each other and of Caesar, for each of the three derivative accounts contains some details which are not to be found in either of the others. By combining them, therefore, we can restore the original account of Posidonius with some certainty, and thus obtain a picture of the sacrifices offered by the Celts of Gaul at the close of the second century b.c.^ The following seem to have been the main outlines of the custom. Condemned criminals were reserved by the Celts in order to be sacrificed to the gods at a great festival which took place once in every five years. The more there were of such victims, the greater was believed to be the fertility of the land.^ When there were not enough criminals to furnish victims, captives taken in war were sacrificed to supply the deficiency. When the time came the victims were sacrificed by the Druids or priests. Some were shot down with arrows, some were impaled, and some were burned alive in the following manner. Colossal images of wicker-work or of wood and grass were constructed ; these were filled with live men, cattle, and animals of other kinds ; fire was then applied to the images, and they were burned with their living contents. 1 Caesar, ^e//. Gall. wi. 15; Strabo, 0ocik4s SLkcls fiAKicra tovtois [i.e. the "■■ 4. S> P- 198 Casaubon ; Diodorus, IJruids] iireTiTpnirTo StKi-^eiv, Srav tc V. 32. See Mannhardt, B. K. p. 525 0opa toiJtuv J, ipofav Kal ttjs xw/)as ^S?- ^ voiiiiovsLv Wdpxeiv. On this passage Strabo, iv. 4, 4, p. 197, tos Se see Mannhardt, B. K. p. 529 sqq. 28o MODERN TRACES OF chap. Such were the great festivals held once every five years. But besides these quinquennial festivals, cele- brated on so grand a scale and with, apparently, so large an expenditure of human life, it seems reasonable to suppose that festivals of the same sort, only on a lesser scale, were held annually, and that from these annual festivals are lineally descended some at least of the fire-festivals which, with their traces of human sacrifices, are still celebrated year by year in many parts of Europe. The gigantic images constructed of osiers or covered with grass in which the Druids en- closed their victims remind us of the leafy framework in which the human representative of the tree-spirit is still so often encased.^ Considering, therefore, that the fertility of the land was apparently supposed to depend upon the due performance of these sacrifices, Mannhardt is probably right in viewing the Celtic victims, cased in osiers and grass, as representatives of the tree -spirit or spirit of vegetation. These wicker giants of the Druids seem to have still their representatives at the spring and midsummer festivals of modern Europe. At Douay a procession takes place annually on the Sunday nearest to the 7th of July. The great feature of the procession is a colossal figure made of osiers, and called "the giant," which is moved through the streets by means of rollers and ropes worked by men who are enclosed within the figure. The wooden head of the giant is said to have been carved and painted by Rubens. The figure is armed as a knight with lance and sword, helmet and shield. Behind him march his wife and his three chil- dren, all constructed of osiers on the same principle, but on a smaller scale.^ At Dunkirk the giant is forty 1 See vol. i. p. 88 sqq. 2 jj j^_ p_ ^23, note. IV OLD CELTIC SACRIFICES 281 to fifty feet high, being made of basket - work and canvas, properly painted and dressed. It contains a great many Hving men within it, who move it about. Wicker giants of this sort are common in the towns of Belgium and French Flanders ; they are led about at the Carnival in spring. The people, it is said, are much attached to these grotesque figures, speak of them with patriotic enthusiasm, and never weary of gazing at them.^ In England artificial giants seem to have been a standing feature of the midsummer festival. A writer of the sixteenth century speaks of " Midsommer pageants in London, where, to make the people wonder, are set forth great and uglie gyants, marching as if they were alive, and armed at all points, but within they are stuffed full of browne paper and tow, which the shrewd boyes, underpeeping, do guilefully discover, and turne to a greate derision." ^ The Mayor of Chester in 1599 "altered many antient customs, as the shooting for the sheriff's breakfast ; the going of the Giants at Midsommer, etc."^ In these cases the giants only figure in the processions. But sometimes they are burned in the spring or summer bonfires. Thus the people of the Rue aux Ours in Paris used annually •to make a great wicker-work figure, dressed as a soldier, which they promenaded up and down the streets for several days, and solemnly burned on the 3d of July, the crowd of spectators singing Salve Regina. The burning fragments of the image were scattered among the people, who eagerly scrambled for them. The ' B. K. p. 523, note; John Milner, 2 Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie, TheHistoiy, Civil and Ecclesiastical, and 1 589, p. 128, quoted by Brand, Popular Survey of the Antiquities of Winchester, Antiquities, i. 323. i. 8 sq. ; Brand, Popular Aittiquities, i. 325 -f?-; James Logan, 7%«.&o«w,^ Gael, s King's Vale Royal of England, p. ii. 358(newed.); Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, 208, quoted by Brand, I.e. Calendrier Beige, p. 123 sqq. 282 MODERN TRACES OF chap. custom was abolished in 1743.^ In Brie, Isle de France, a wicker-work giant, eighteen feet high, was annually burned on Midsummer Eve.^ Again, the Druidical custom of burning live animals, enclosed in wicker-work, has its counterpart at the spring and midsummer festivals. At Luchon in the Pyrenees on Midsummer Eve "a hollow column, com- posed of strong wicker-work, is raised to the height of about sixty feet in the centre of the principal suburb, and interlaced with green foliage up to the very top ; while the most beautiful flowers and shrubs procurable are artistically arranged in groups below, so as to form a sort of background to the scene. The column is then filled with combustible materials, ready for igni- tion. At an appointed hour — about 8 p.m. — a grand procession, composed of the clergy, followed by young men and maidens in holiday attire, pour forth from the town chanting hymns, and take up their position around the column. Meanwhile, bonfires are lit, with beautiful effect, in the surrounding hills. As many living ser- pents as could be collected are now thrown into the column, which is set on fire at the base by means of torches, armed with which about fifty boys and men dance around with frantic gestures. The serpents, to avoid the flames, wriggle their way to the top, whence they are seen lashing out laterally until finally obliged to drop, their struggles for life giving rise to enthusi- astic delight among the surrounding spectators. This is a favourite annual ceremony for the inhabitants of Luchon and its neighbourhood, and local tradition assigns to it a heathen origin."^ In the midsummer ' Liebrecht, Gervasius von Tilbury, ^ Athenaeum, 24th July 1869, p. p. 212 sq.; B. K. p. 514. 115 ; B. JiT. p. 515 sg. 2 B. K. pp. 514, 523- OLD CELTIC SACRIFICES 283 fires formerly kindled on the Place de Greve at Paris it was the custom to burn a basket, barrel, or sack full of live cats ; sometimes a fox was burned. The people collected the embers and ashes of the fire and took them home, believing that they brought good luck.^ At Metz midsummer fires were lighted on the Esplan- ade, and six cats were burned in them.^ In Russia a white cock was sometimes burned in the midsunimer bonfire;^ in Meissen or Thliringen a horse's head used to be thrown into it.* Sometimes animals are burned in the spring bonfires. In the Vosges cats were burned on Shrove Tuesday ; in Elsass they were thrown into the Easter bonfire.^ We have seen that squirrels were sometimes burned in the Easter fire. If the men who were burned in wicker frames by the Druids represented the spirit of vegetation, the animals burned along with them must have had the same meaning. Amongst the animals burned by the Druids or in modern bonfires have been, as we saw, cattle, cats, foxes, and cocks ; and all of these creatures are variously regarded by European peoples as embodi- ments of the corn-spirit.^ I am not aware of any certain evidence that in Europe serpents have been regarded as representatives of the tree-spirit or corn-spirit ; '' as victims at the midsummer festival in Luchon they may 1 "^ o\i, Beitrdge zur deutschen Myth- Simon Grunau, Preussische Chronik, ologie, ii. 388 ; B. K. p. 515. ed. Perlbach, i. p. 89 ; Hartknoch, Alt- ^ B. K, p. 515. und Neues Preussen, pp. 143, 163. ^ Grimm, Deutsche Mytliologie,'^ i. Serpents, again, played an important 519 ; B. K. p. 515. part in the worship of Demeter, as we * B. K. p. 515. have seen. But that they were regarded ^ lb. as embodiments of her can hardly be ^ Above, vol. i. p. 408, vol. ii. p. I sqq. assumed. In Siam the spirit of the ' Some of the serpents worshipped takhien tree is believed to appear, by the old Prussians lived in hollow sometimes in the form of a woman, oaks, and as oaks were sacred among sometimes in the form of a serpent. the Prussians, the serpents may have Bastian, £>?« V'dlker dss ostlichen Asien, been regarded as genii of the trees. iii. 251. 284 CELTIC SACRIFICES chap. have replaced animals which really had this representa- tive character. When the meaning of the custom was forgotten, utility and humanity might unite in suggest- ing the substitution of noxious reptiles as victims in room of harmless and useful animals. Thus it appears that the sacrificial rites of the Celts of ancient Gaul can be traced in the popular festivals of modern Europe. Naturally it is in France, or rather in the wider area comprised within the limits of ancient Gaul, that these rites have left the clearest traces in the customs of burning giants of wicker-work and animals enclosed in wicker-work or baskets. These customs, it will have been remarked, are gener- ally observed at or about midsummer. From this we may infer that the original rites of which these are the degenerate successors were solemnised at midsummer. This inference harmonises with the conclusion sug- gested by a general survey of European folk-custom, that the midsummer festival must on the whole have been the most widely diffused and the most solemn of all the yearly festivals celebrated by the primitive Aryans in Europe. And in its application to the Celts this general conclusion is corroborated by the more or less perfect vestiges of midsummer fire-festivals which we have found lingering in all those westernmost pro- montories and islands which are the last strongholds of the Celtic race in Europe — Britanny, Cornwall, Wales, the Isle of Man, Scotland, and Ireland. In Scotland, it is true, the chief Celtic fire -festivals certainly appear to have been held at Beltane (ist May) and Hallow E'en ; but this was exceptional. To sum up : the combined evidence of ancient writers and of modern folk-custom points to the con- clusion that amongst the Celts of Gaul an annual AND WORSHIP OF MISTLETOE 285 festival was celebrated at midsummer, at which living men, representing the tree -spirit or spirit of vegeta- tion, were enclosed in wicker - frames and burned. The whole rite was designed as a charm to make the sun to shine and the crops to grow. But another great feature of the Celtic midsummer festival appears to have been the gathering of the sacred mistletoe by the Druids. The ceremony has been thus described by Pliny in a passage which has often been quoted. After enumerating the different kinds of mistletoe he proceeds : "In treating of this subject, the admiration in which the mistletoe is held throughout Gaul ought not to pass unnoticed. The Druids, for so they call their wizards, esteem nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows, provided only that the tree is an oak. But apart from this they choose oak-woods for their sacred groves and perform no sacred rites without oak-leaves ; so that the very name of Druids may be regarded as a Greek appellation derived from their worship of the oak.^ For they believe that whatever grows on these trees is sent from heaven, and is a sign that the tree has been chosen by the god himself The mistletoe is very rarely to be met with ; but when it is found, they gather it with solemn ceremony. This they do especially in the sixth month (the beginnings of their months and years are determined by the moon) and' after the tree has passed the thirtieth year of its age, ^ Pliny derives the name Druid from Griechisch - lateinisches etymolog. Wor- the Greek c??-5j, "oak." He did not terbuch, p. 368 sqq. ; Rhys, Celtic know that the Celtic word for oak was Heathendom, p. 221 sqq. In the High- the same (daur), and that therefore lands of Scotland the word is found Druid, in the sense of priest of the in place-names like Bendarroch (the oak, was genuine Celtic, not borrowed mountain of the oak), Craigandarroch, from the Greek. See Curtius, Griech. etc. Etymologie,^ p. 238 sq.; Vani&k, 286 PLANTS GATHERED ON chap. because by that time it has plenty of vigour, though it has not attained half its full size. After due prepara- tions have been made for a sacrifice and a feast under the tree, they hail it as the universal healer and bring to the spot two white bulls, whose horns have never been bound before. A priest clad in a white robe climbs the tree and with a golden^ sickle cuts the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloth. Then they sacrifice the victims, praying that God may make his own gift to prosper with those upon whom he has bestowed it. They believe that a potion prepared from mistletoe will make barren animals to bring forth, and that the plant is a remedy against all poison."^ In saying that the Druids cut the mistletoe in the sixth month Pliny must have had in his mind the Roman calendar, in which the sixth month was June. Now, if the cutting of the mistletoe took place in June, we may be almost certain that the day which witnessed the ceremony was Midsummer Eve. For in many places Midsummer Eve, a day redolent of a thousand decaying fancies of yore, is still the time for culling certain magic plants, whose evanescent virtue can be secured at this mystic season alone. For example, on Midsummer Eve the fern is believed to burst into a wondrous bloom, like fire or burnished gold. Who- 1 It is still a folk-lore rule not to cut In Cambodia when a man perceives a the mistletoe with iron ; some say it certain parasitic plant growing on a should be cut with gold. Grimm, tamarind-tree, he dresses in white and Detitsche Mythologie,^ \\. looi. On the taking a new earthen pot climbs the objection to the use of iron in such cases, tree at mid-day. He puts the plant in see Liebrecht, Gervasius von Tilbury, the pot and lets the whole fall to the p. 103 ; and above, vol. i. p. 177 ^■!, glauben und Gebrduche aus Bbhmen 286 ; Friend, Flowers and Flown- Lore z(K(^jtfa/5?-««, §§ 673-677; Gubernatis, pp. 147, 149, 150, 540; Wuttke] Mythologie des Plantes, ii. 144 sqq.; § 134. Friend, Flowers and Flower Lore, p. 362 ; Brand, Popular Antiquities, j. 3 Grimm, D. MA i. 514 so., ii. 3x4 m- i Vonbun, Beiti-dge zur 1013 sq., iii. 356; Grohmann,' 0/. deutschen Mythologie, p. 133 sqq.; «V., § 635-637 ; Friend, 0/. aV. p. 75 ; Burne and Jackson, Shropshire Folk- Gubernatis, Myth, des Plantes, i. 189 &?■«, p. 242. Cg. Archaeological Review, sq.,\\. 16 sqq. i. 1 64 sqq. MISTLETOE GATHERED Men, because It has been customary to gather it on Midsummer Eve for the purpose of using it to ascer- tain the fate of lovers ;^ and in England sprigs of red sage are sometimes gathered on Midsummer Eve for the same purpose.^ In Bohemia poachers fancy they can make themselves invulnerable by means of fir- cones gathered before sunrise on St. John's Day.' Again, in Bohemia wild thyme gathered on Mid- summer Day is used to fumigate the trees on Christmas Eve, in order that they may grow well* In Germany and Bohemia a plant called St. John's Flower or St. John's Blood {Hieracium piloselld) is gathered on Mid- summer Eve. It should be rooted up with a gold coin. The plant is supposed to bring luck and to be especially good for sick cattle.^ These facts by themselves would suffice to raise a strong presumption that, if the Druids cut the mistletoe in June, as we learn from Pliny that they did, the day on which they cut it could have been no other than Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day. This presumption is converted into practical cer- tainty when we find it to be still a rule of folk- lore that the mistletoe should be cut on Midsummer Eve.^ Further, the peasants of Piedmont and Lom- bardy still go out on Midsummer morning to search the oak -leaves for the "oil of St. John," which is supposed to heal all wounds made with cutting instruments.'^ Originally no doubt the "oil of St. John " was simply the mistletoe, or a decoction made 1 Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme ^ Grohmann, § 68i ; Wuttke, § 134; and Judaisme, p. 25 sg. ; Brand, I'oJ>. Rochholz, Deutscher Glatibe und Ant. i. 329^^1;'.; Friend, p. 136. Branch, i. 9; Gubernatis, Mythologie 2 Brand, i. SS3- '^^' Plantes, i. 190. " Grimm, D. MA iii. 78, 353. Grohmann, § 1426. 7 o^\izx-syi.\h, Mythologie des Plantes, * Grohmann, § 64S. ii. 73. IV ON MIDSUMMER EVE 289 from it. For in Holstein the mistletoe, especially oak- mistletoe, is still regarded as a panacea for green wounds;^ and if, as is alleged, "all-healer" is an epithet of the mistletoe in the modern Celtic speech of Britanny, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland,^ this can be nothing but a survival of the name by which, as we have seen, the Druids addressed the oak, or rather, perhaps, the mistletoe. Thus it appears that the two main features of the Balder myth — the pulling of the mistletoe and the burning of the god — were reproduced in the great midsummer festival of the Celts. But in Scandinavia itself, the home of Balder, both these features of his myth can still be traced in the popular celebration of midsummer. For in Sweden on Midsummer Eve mistletoe is " diligently sought after, they believing it to be, in a high degree, possessed of mystic qualities ; and that if a sprig of it be attached to the ceiling of the dwelling-house, the horse's stall, or the cow's crib, the ' Troll ' will then be powerless to injure either man or beast."^ And in Sweden, Norway, and Den- mark huge bonfires are kindled on hills and eminences on Midsummer Eve.* It does not appear, indeed, that any effigy is burned in these bonfires ; but the burning of an effigy is a feature which might easily drop out after its meaning was forgotten. And the name of Balder's bale-fires {Balder s Bdlar), by which these midsummer fires were formerly known in Sweden,* puts their connection with Balder beyond the reach of doubt, and makes it certain that in 1 Friend, Flowers and Flower Lore, 2 Grimm, D. MA ii. 1009. p. 378. Hunters believe that the ^ 'L. UayA, Peasant Life in Sweden, mistletoe heals all wounds and brings p. 269. luck in hunting. Kuhn, .Herabkunft * Lloyd, op. cit. p. 259 ; Grimm des Feuers,'^ ■p. 206. D. MM. $1"] sq. "' Lloyd, I.e. VOL. II U 290 BALDER A TREE-SPIRIT chap. former times either a living representative or an effigy of Balder must have been annually burned in them. Midsummer was the season sacred to Balder, and the fact that the Swedish poet Tegner, in his Frithiofssaga, places the burning of Balder at midsummer^ may per- haps be allowed as evidence of a Swedish tradition to that effect. From' this double coincidence of the Balder myth, on the one hand with the midsummer festival of Celtic Gaul and on the other with the mid- summer festival in Scandinavia, we may safely con- clude that the myth is not a myth pure and simple, that is, a mere description of physical phenomena in imagery borrowed from human life ; it must un- doubtedly be a ritualistic myth, that is a myth based on actual observation of religious ceremonies and pur- porting to explain them. Now, the standing explana- tion which myth gives of ritual is that the ritual in question is a periodic commemoration of some remark- able transaction in the past, the actors in which may have been either gods or men. Such an explanation the Balder myth would seem to offer of the annual fire-festivals which, as we saw, must have played so prominent a part in the primitive religion of the Aryan race in Europe. Balder must have been the 'Norse representative of the being who was burnt in effigy or in the person of a living man at the fire-festivals in question. But if, as I have tried to show, the being so burnt was the tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation, it follows that Balder also must have been a tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation. But it is desirable to determine, if we can, the 1 Grimm, D. M.^ iii. 78, who adds, the whole myth, has been quite lost on " Mahnen die Johannisfeuer an Baldrs the mythologists who since Grimm's Leichenbrand?" This pregnant hint, day have enveloped the subject in a, which contains in germ the solution of cloud of learned dust. IV OAK-WORSHIP 291 particular kind of tree or trees, of which a personal representative was burned at the fire -festivals. For we may be quite sure that It was not as a representa- tive of vegetation in general that the victim suffered death. The conception of vegetation in general is too abstract to be primitive. Most probably the victim at first represented a particular kind of sacred tree. Now of all European trees none has such claims as the oak to be considered as pre-eminently the sacred tree of the Aryans. Its worship is attested for all the great branches of the Aryan stock in Europe. We have seen that it was not only the- sacred tree, but the principal object of worship of both Celts and Slavs.^ According to Grimm, the oak ranked first among the holy trees of the Germans, and was indeed their chief god. It is certainly known to have been adored by them in the age of heathendom, and traces of its worship have survived in various parts of Germany almost to the present day.^ Amongst the ancient Italians, according to Preller, the oak was sacred above all other trees.* The image of Jupiter on' the Capitol at Rome seems to have been originally nothing but a. natural oak-tree.* At Dodona, perhaps the oldest of all Greek sanctuaries, Zeus was worshipped as immanent in the sacred oak, and the rustling of its leaves in the wind was his voice.^ If, then, the great god of both Greeks and Romans was repre- sented in some of his oldest shrines under the form of an oak, and if the oak was the principal object of worship of Celts, Germans, and Slavs, we may 1 Above, p. 285, and vol. i. pp. 58, 64. Der Baumlmltus der Hellenen, p. 2 Grimm, D. MA i. 55 sq., 58 sq., 133 sq. ii. 542, iii. 1%T sq. ^ Botticher, op. cit. p. iii sqq.\ 2 Preller, Rom. Mythol.^ i. 108. Preller, Griech. Mythol.'^ ed. C. Robert, * Livy, i. 10. Cp. C. Botticher, i. 122 sqq. 292 SACRED FIRES MADE chap. certainly conclude that this tree was one of the chief, if not the very chief divinity of the Aryans before the dispersion ; and that their primitive home must have lain in a land which was clothed with forests of oak.-^ Now, considering the primitive character and re- markable similarity of the fire-festivals observed by all the branches of the Aryan race in Europe, we may infer that these festivals form part of the common stock of religious observances which the various peoples carried with them in their wanderings from their ori- ginal home. But, if I am right, an essential feature of those primitive fire-festivals was the burning of a man who represented the tree -spirit. In view, then, of the place occupied by the oak in the religion of the Aryans, the presumption is that the tree so repre- sented at the fire-festivals must originally have been the oak. So far as the Celts and Slavs are concerned, this conclusion will perhaps hardly be contested. But both for them and for the Germans it is confirmed by a remarkable piece of religious conservatism. The most primitive method known to man of producing fire is by rubbing two pieces of wood against each other till they ignite ; and we have seen that this method is still used in Europe for kindling sacred fires such as the 1 Without hazarding an opinion on (Jena, 1890), p. 394. In prehistoric the vexed question of the primitive times the oak appears to have been the home of the Aryans, I may observe chief tree in the forests which clothed that in various parts of Europe the oali the valley of the Po ; the piles on which seems to have been formerly more com- the pile villages rested were of oak. mon than it is now. In Denmark the W. Helbig, Die Italiker in der Poebene, present beech woods were preceded by p. 25 sq. The classical tradition that oak woods and these by the Scotch fir. in the olden time men subsisted largely Lyell, Atiiiqtdty of Man, p. 9 ; J. on acorns is borne out by the evidence Geikie, Prehistoric Europe, p. 486 sq. of the pile villages in Northern Italy, In parts of North Germany it appears in which great quantities of acorns have from the evidence of archives that the been discovered. See Helbig, op. cil. fir has ousted the oak. O. Schrader, pp. 16 sq., 26, 72 sq. Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte,'^ IV WITH OAK-WOOD 293 need-fire, and that most probably it was formerly resorted to at all' the fire-festivals under discussion. Now it is sometimes prescribed that the need-fire, or other sacred fire, must be made by the friction of a particular kind of wood ; and wherever the kind of wood is prescribed, whether among Celts, Germans, or Slavs, that wood is always the oak. Thus we have seen that amongst the Slavs of Masuren the new fire for the village is made on Midsummer Day by causing a wheel to revolve rapidly round an axle of oak till the axle takes fire.^ When the perpetual fire which the ancient Slavs used to maintain chanced to go out, it was rekindled by the friction of a piece of oak-wood, which had been previously heated by being struck with a gray (not a red) stone.^ In Germany the need- fire was regularly kindled by the friction of oak-wood ;^ and in the Highlands of Scotland, both the Beltane and the need-fires were lighted by similar means.* Now, if the sacred fire was regularly kindled by the friction of oak-wood, we may infer that originally the fire was also fed with the same material. In point of fact, the per- petual fire which burned under the sacred oak at the great Slavonian sanctuary of Romove was fed with oak-wood ; ^ and that oak-wood was formerly the fuel 1 Above, p. 265 sq. The writer who styles himself Mon- ^ Vxzetmms, Deliciae Priissicae, 19 i3.Tmi s,z.ys(DiedeutschenVolksfesie, etc., sq. Mr. Ralston states (on what p. 127) that the need-fire was made by authority I do not know) that if the the friction of oak and fir. Sometimes fire maintained in honour of the Lithu- it is said that the need-fire should be anian god Perkunas went out, it was made with nine different kinds of wood rekindled by sparks struck from a stone (Grimm, D. MA i. 503, 505 ; Wolf, which the image of the god held in his Beitrdge zur deutschen Mythologie, ii. hand. Songs of the Russian People, 380 ; Jahn, Die deutschen Opferge- p. 88. brduche, p. 27) ; but the kinds of wood 3 Grimm, D. MA i. 502, 503 ; are not specified. Kuhn, Herahkimft des Feuers,'' P- 43 ; * John Ramsay, Scotland aiid Scots- Prohle, Harzbilder, p. 75 ; . Bartsch, men in the Eighteenth Century, \i. ^^2; Sagen, Mdrchen und Gebrduche atcs Grimm, D. MA i. 506. See above, p. Mecklenburg, ii. 150; Rochholz, 255. Deuischer Glaube und Brauch, ii. 148. * Above, vol. i. p. 58. 294 MAN BURNT AS chap. burned in the midsummer fires may perhaps be inferred from the circumstance that in many mountain districts of Germany peasants are still in the habit of making up their cottage fire on Midsummer Day with a heavy block of oak-wood. The block is so arranged that it smoulders slowly and is not finally reduced to charcoal till the expiry of a year. Then upon next Midsummer Day the charred embers of the old log are removed to make room for the new one, and are mixed with the seed-corn or scattered about the garden. This is believed to promote the growth of the crops and to preserve them from blight and vermin.-' It may be remembered that at the Boeotian festival of the Daedala, the analogy of which to the spring and mid- summer festivals of modern Europe has been already pointed out, the great feature was the felling and burn- ing of an oak.^ The general conclusion is, that at those periodic or occasional ceremonies, of which the object was to cause the sun to shine, and the fruits of the earth to grow, the ancient Aryans both kindled and fed the fire with the sacred oak-wood. But if at these solemn rites the fire was regularly made of oak-wood, it follows that the man who was burned in it as a personification of the tree-spirit could have represented no tree but the oak. The sacred oak was thus burned in duplicate ; the wood of the tree was consumed in the fire, and along with it was consumed a living man as a personification of the oak- spirit. The conclusion thus drawn for the European Aryans in general is confirmed in its special application to the Celts and Scandinavians by the relation in which, amongst these peoples, the mistletoe stood to the burn- ing of the victim in the midsummer fire. We have 1 Montanus, Die deutscken Volksfeste, etc., p. 127. ^ Above, vol. i. p. 100. IV REPRESENTATIVE OF THE OAK 295 seen that among Celts and Scandinavians it has been customary to gather the mistletoe at midsummer. But so far as appears on the face of this custom, there is nothingr to connect it with the midsummer fires in which human victims or effigies of them were burned. Even if the fire, as seems probable, was originally always made with oak-wood, why should it have been necessary to pull the mistletoe 1 The last link between the midsummer customs of gathering the mistletoe and lighting the bonfires is supplied by Balder's myth, which certainly cannot be disjoined from the customs in question. The myth shows that a vital connection must once have been believed to subsist between the mistletoe and the human representative of the oak who was burned in the fire. According to the myth. Balder could be killed by nothing in heaven or earth except the mistletoe ; and so long as the mistletoe remained on the oak, he was not only immortal, but invulnerable. Now, as soon as we see that Balder was the oak, the origin of the myth becomes plain. The mistletoe was viewed as the seat of life of the oak, and so long as it was uninjured nothing could kill or even wound the oak. The conception of the mistletoe as the seat of life of the oak would naturally be sug- gested to primitive people by the observation that while the oak is deciduous, the mistletoe which grows on it is evergreen. In winter the sight of its fresh foliage among the bare branches must have been hailed by the worshippers of the tree as a sign that the divine life which had ceased to animate the branches yet / survived in the mistletoe, as the heart of a sleeper still beats when his body is motionless. Hence when the god had to be killed— when the sacred tree had to be burnt — it was necessary to begin by breaking off" 296 THE MISTLETOE CHAP. the mistletoe. For so long as the mistletoe remained intact, the oak (so people thought) was invulnerable ; all the blows of their knives and axes would glance harmless from its surface. But once tear from the oak its sacred heart — the mistletoe — and the tree nodded to its fall. And when in later times the spirit of the oak came to be represented by a living man, it was logically necessary to suppose that, like the tree he personated, he could neither be killed nor wounded so long as the mistletoe remained uninjured. The pulling of the mistletoe was thus at once the signal and the cause of his death. But since the idea of a being whose life is thus, in a sense, outside itself, must be strange to many readers, and has, indeed, not yet been recognised in its full bearing on primitive superstition, it will be worth while to devote a couple of sections to the subject. The result will be to show that, in assuming this idea as the explanation of the relation of Balder to the mistletoe, I assume a principle which is deeply engraved on the mind of primitive man. o- - The external soul in folk-tales In a former chapter we saw that, in the opinion of primitive people, the soul may temporarily absent itself from the body without causing death. Such temporary absences of the soul are often believed to involve con- siderable risk, since the wandering soul is liable to a variety of mishaps at the hands of enemies, and so forth. But there is another aspect to this power of externalising the soul. If only the safety of the soul can be ensured during its absence from the body, there IV THE EXTERNAL SOUL 297 is no reason why the soul should not continue absent for an indefinite time ; indeed a man may, on a pure calculation of personal safety, desire that his soul should never return to his body. Unable to conceive of life abstractly as a " permanent possibility of sensation " or a "continuous adjustment of internal arrangements to external relations," the savage thinks of it as a concrete material thing of a definite bulk, capable of being seen and handled, kept in a box or jar, and liable to be bruised, fractured, or smashed in pieces. It is not needful that the life, so conceived, should be in the man ; it may be absent from his body and still con- tinue to animate him, by virtue of a sort of sympathy or "action at a distance." So long' as this object which he calls his life or soul remains unharmed, the man is well ; if it is injured, he suffers ; if it is destroyed, he dies. Or, to put it otherwise, when a man is ill or dies, the fact is explained by saying that the material object called his life or soul, whether it be in his body or out of it, has either sustained injury or been destroyed. But there may be circumstances in which, if the life or soul remains in the man, it stands a greater chance of sustaining injury than if it were stowed away in some safe and secret place. Accord- ingly, in such circumstances, primitive man takes his soul out of his body and deposits it for security in some safe place, intending to replace it in his body when the danger is past. Or if he should discover some place of absolute security, he may be content to leave his soul there permanently. The advantage of this is that, so long as the soul remains unharmed in the place where he has deposited it, the man himself is immortal ; nothing can kill his body, since his life is not in it. 298 THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. Evidence of this primitive belief is furnished by a class of folk-tales of which the Norse story of " The giant who had no heart in his body " is perhaps the best- known example. Stories of this kind are widely diffused over the world, and from their number and the variety of incident and of details in which the leading idea is embodied, we may infer that the conception of an external soul is one which has had a powerful hold on the minds of men at an early stage of history. For folk-tales are a faithful reflection of the world as it appeared to the primitive mind ; and we may be sure that any idea which commonly occurs in them, however absurd it may seem to us, must once have been an ordinary article of belief This assurance, so far as it concerns the supposed power of externalising the soul for a longer or shorter time, is amply corrobo- rated by a comparison of the folk- tales in question with the actual beliefs and practices of savages. To this we shall return after some specimens of the tales have been given. The specimens will be .selected with a view of illustrating both the characteristic features and the wide diffusion of this class of tales. In the first place, the story of the external soul is told, in various forms, by all Aryan peoples from Hindustan to the Hebrides. A very common form of it is this : A warlock, giant, or other fairyland being is invulnerable and immortal because he keeps his soul hidden far away in some secret place ; but a fair princess, whom he holds enthralled in his enchanted castle, wiles his secret from him and reveals it to the hero, who seeks out the warlock's soul, heart, life, or death (as it is variously called), and, by destroying it, simultaneously kills the warlock. Thus a Hindoo story tells how a magician called Punchkin held a IV IN HINDOO STORIES 299 queen captive for twelve years, ,and would fain marry her, but she would not have him. At last the queen's son came to rescue her, and the two plotted together to kill Punchkin. So the queen spoke the magician fair, and pretended that she had at last made up her mind to marry him. " 'And do tell me,' she said, 'are you quite immortal ? Can death never touch you ? And are you too great an enchanter ever to feel human suffering ? ' . . . ' It is true,' he said, ' that I am not as others. Far, far away — hundreds of thousands of miles from this — there lies a desolate country covered with thick jungle. In the midst of the jungle grows a circle of palm-trees, and in the centre of the circle stand six chattees full of water, piled one above another ; below the sixth chattee is a small cage, which contains a little green parrot — on the life of the parrot depends my life — and if the parrot is killed I must die. It is, however,' he added, ' impossible that the parrot should sustain any injury, both on account of the inaccessibility of the country, and because, by my appointment, many thousand genii surround the palm-trees, and kill all who approach the place.' " But the queen's young son overcame all difficulties, and got possession of the parrot. He brought it to the door of the magi- cian's palace, and began playing with it. Punchkin, the magician, saw him, and, coming " out, tried to persuade the boy to give him the parrot. " ' Give me my parrot ! ' cried Punchkin. Then the boy took hold of the parrot and tore off one of his wings ; and as he did so the magician's right arm fell off. Punchkin then stretched out his left arm, crying, ' Give me my parrot ! ' The prince pulled off the parrot's second wing, and the magician's left arm tumbled off. ' Give me my parrot ! ' cried he, and fell on his knees. The 300 THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. prince pulled off the parrot's right leg, the magician's right leg fell off ; the prince pulled off the parrot's left leg, down fell the magician's left. Nothing remained of him except the lifeless body and the head ; but still he rolled his eyes, and cried, ' Give me my parrot ! ' ' Take your parrot, then,' cried the boy ; and with that he wrung the bird's neck, and threw it at the magician; and, as he did so, Punchkin's head twisted round, and, with a fearful groan, he died!"^ In another Hindoo tale an ogre is asked by his daughter, " ' Papa, where do you keep your soul ? ' ' Sixteen miles away from this place,' said he, ' is a tree. Round the tree are tigers, and bears, and scorpions, and snakes ; on the top of the tree is a very great fat snake ; on his head is a little cage ; in the cage is a bird ; and my soul is in that bird.' " The end of the ogre is like that of the magician in the previous tale. As the bird's wings and legs are torn off, the ogre's arms and legs drop off; and when its neck is wrung he falls down dead.^ In another Hindoo story a princess called Sodewa Bai is born with' a golden necklace about her neck, and the astrologer told her parents, "This is no common child ; the necklace of gold about her neck contains your daughter's soul ; let it, therefore, be guarded with the utmost care ; for if it were taken off and worn by another person, she would die.'' So her mother caused it to be firmly fastened round the child's neck, and, as soon as the child was old enough to under- stand, she told her its value, and warned her never to let it be taken off. In course of time Sodewa Bai was married to a prince who had another wife living. The 1 Mary Frere, Old Deccan Days, p. p. .187 sq.; Lai Behaii Day, Folk-tales 12 sqq. of Bengal, p. 121 sq.; F. A. Steel and ^ Maive Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, R. C. Temple, Wide-aivake Stories, p. p. 58 sqq. For similar stories, see id. 58 sqq. IN HINDOO STORIES 3oi first wife, jealous of her young rival, persuaded a negress to steal from Sodewa Bai the golden necklace which contained her soul. The negress did so, and, as soon as she put the necklace round her own neck, Sodewa Bai died. All day long the negress used to wear the necklace ; but late at night, on going to bed, she would take it off and put it by till morning ; and whenever she took it off, Sodewa Bai's soul returned to her and she lived. But when morning came, and the negress put on the necklace, Sodewa Bai died again. At last the prince discovered the treachery of his elder wife and restored the golden necklace to Sodewa Bai.^ In another Hindoo story a holy mendicant tells a queen that she will bear a son, adding, " As enemies will try to take away the life of your son, I may as well tell you that the life of the boy will be bound up in the life of a big boal-hs\i which is in your tank in front of the palace. In the heart of the fish is a small box of wood, in the box is a necklace of gold, that necklace is the life of your son." The boy was born and received the name of Dalim. His mother was the Suo or younger queen. But the Duo or elder queen hated the child, and learning the secret of his life, she caused the boal-^sh, with which his life was bound up, to be caught. Dalim was playing near the tank at the time, but " the moment the boal-hsh. was caught in the net, that moment Dalim felt unwell ; and when the fish was brought up to land, Dalim fell down on the ground, and made as if he was about to breathe his last. He was immediately taken into his mother's room, and the king was astonished on hearing of the sudden illness of his son and heir. The fish was by the order of the physician taken into the room of the Duo queen, and 1 Old Deccan Days, p. 239 sqq. 302 THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. as it lay on the floor striking its fins on the ground, Dalim in his mother's room was given up for lost. When the fish was cut open, a casket was found in it ; and in the casket lay a necklace of gold. The moment the necklace was worn by the queen, that very moment Dalim died in his mother's room." The queen used to put off the necklace every night, and whenever she did so, the boy came to life again. But every morning when the queen put on the necklace, he died again. ^ In a Cashmeer story a lad visits an old ogress, pretending to be her grandson, the son of her daughter who had married a king. So the old ogress took him into her confidence and showed him seven cocks, a spinning wheel, a pigeon, and a starling. "These seven cocks," said she, "contain the lives of your seven uncles, who are away for a few days. Only as long as the cocks live can your uncles hope to live ; no power can hurt them as long as the seven cocks are safe and sound. The spinning-wheel contains my life; if it is broken, I too shall be broken, and must die ; but otherwise I shall live on for ever. The pigeon contains your grandfather's life, and the starling your mother's ; as long as these live, nothing can harm your grandfather or your mother." So the lad killed the seven cocks and the pigeon and the starling, and smashed the spinning-wheel ; and at the moment he did so the ogres and ogresses perished.^ In another story from Cashmeer an ogre cannot die unless a particular pillar in the verandah of his palace be broken. Learning the secret, a prince struck the 1 Lai Behari Day, op. cit. p. I sqq. awake Stories, p. 83 sqq. For similar stories of necklaces, see ^ J. H. Knowles, Folk - tales of Old Deccan Days, p. 233 sq.; Wide- Kashmir (LanAon, 1888), p. 49 j^. IN CASHMEER STORIES 303 pillar again and again till it was broken in pieces. And it was as if each stroke had fallen on the ogre, for he howled lamentably and shook like an aspen every time the prince hit the pillar, until at last, when , the pillar fell down, the ogre also fell down and gave up the ghost.^ In another Cashmeer tale an ogre is represented as laughing very heartily at the idea that he might possibly die. He said that "he should never die. No power could oppose him ; no years could age him ; he should remain ever strong and ever young, for the thing wherein his life dwelt was most difficult to obtain." It was in a queen bee, which was in a honeycomb on a tree. But the bees in the honeycomb were many and fierce, and it was only at the greatest risk that any one could catch the queen. But the hero achieved the enterprise and crushed the queen bee ; and immediately the ogre fell stone dead to the ground, so that the whole land trembled with the shock. ^ In some Bengalee tales the life of a whole tribe of ogres is described as con- centrated in two bees. The secret was thus revealed by an old ogress to a captive princess who pretended to fear lest the ogress should die. " Know, foolish girl," said the ogress, " that we ogres never die. We are not naturally immortal, but our life depends on a secret which no human being can unravel. Let me tell you what it is that you may be comforted. You know yonder tank ; there is in the middle of it a crystal pillar, on the top of which in deep water are two bees. If any human being can dive into the water and bring up the two bees from the pillar in one breath, and destroy them so that not a drop of their 1 J. H. ICnowles, Folk-tales of Kashmir (London, 1888), p. 134. ^ Id. p. 382 sqq. 304 THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. blood falls to the ground, then we ogres shall certainly die ; but if a single drop of blood falls to the ground, then from it will start up a thousand ogres. But what human being will find out this secret, or, finding it, will be able to achieve the feat ? You need not, there- fore, darling, be sad; I am practically immortal." As usual, the princess reveals the secret to the hero, who kills the bees, and that same moment all the ogres drop down dead, each on the spot where he happened to be standing.^ In another Bengalee story it is said that all the ogres dwell in Ceylon, and that all their lives are in a single lemon. A boy cuts the lemon in pieces, and all the ogres die.^ In a Siamese or Cambodian story, probably de- rived from India, we are told that Thossakan or Ravana, the King of Ceylon, was able by magic art to take his soul out of his body and leave it in a box at home, while he went to the wars. Thus he was invulnerable in battle. When he was about to give battle to Rama, he deposited his soul with a hermit called Fire-eye, who was to keep it safe for him. So in the fight Rama was astounded to see that his arrows struck the king without wounding him. But one of Rama's allies, knowing the secret of the king's invulnerability, transformed himself by magic into the likeness of the king, and going to the hermit asked back his soul. On receiving it he soared up into the air and flew to Rama, brandishing the box and squeezing it so hard that all the breath left the King of Ceylon's body, and he died.^ In a Bengalee 1 Lai Behari Day, op. cit. p. 85 sq., see Clouston, Popular Tales and cp. id. p. 253 sqq.\ Indian Antiquary, Fidioiis, i. 350. i. (1872) 117. For an Indian stoiy in ^ Indian Antiquary, i. 171. wliich a giant's life is in five black bees, ^ A. Bastian, Die Volker des ostlichen Asien, iv. 340 sq. IV IN GREEK STORIES 305 Story a prince going into a far country planted with his own hands a tree in the courtyard of his father's palace, and said to his parents, " This tree is my life. When you see the tree green and fresh, then know that it is well with me ; when you see the tree fade in some parts, then know that I am in an ill case ; and when you see the whole tree fade, then know that I am dead and gone."^ In another Indian tale a prince, setting forth on his travels, left behind him a- barley plant with instructions that it should be carefully tended and watched, for if it flourished, he would be ahve and well, but if it drooped, then some mischance was about to happen to him. And so it fell out. For the prince was beheaded, and as his head rolled off, the barley plant snapped in two and the ear of barley fell to the ground.^ In the legend of the origin of Gilgit there figures a fairy king whose soul is in the snows and who can only perish by fire.' In Greek tales, ancient and modern, the idea of an external soul is not uncommon. When Meleager was seven days old, the Fates appeared to his mother and told her that Meleager would die when the brand which was blazing on the hearth had burnt down. So his mother snatched the brand from the fire and kept it in a box. But in after years, being enraged at her son for slaying her brothers, she burnt the brand in the fire and Meleager at once expired.* Again, Nisus King of Megara, had a purple or golden hair on the middle of his head, and it was fated that whenever the hair was pulled out the king should die. When Megara was besieged by the Cretans, the kincr's 1 Lai Behari Day, op. cit. p. 189. 4 ApoUodorus, i. 8 ; Diodorus, iv Wide-awake Stories, T^-^. 52,64. 34; Pausanias, x. 31, 4; Aeschylus ^ G. W. Leitner, The Languages and Choeph. 604 sqq. ' Rcu:es of Dardistan, p. 9. VOL. II V 3o6 THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. daughter Scylla fell in love with Minos, their King, and pulled out the fatal hair from her father's head. So he died.^ Similarly Poseidon made Pterelaus immortal by giving him a golden hair on his head. But when Taphos, the home of Pterelaus, was be- sieged by Amphitryon, the daughter of Pterelaus fell in love with Amphitryon and killed her father by plucking out the golden hair with which his life was bound up.^ In a modern Greek folk -tale a man's strength lies in three golden hairs on his head. When his mother pulls them out, he grows weak and timid and is slain by his enemies.^ In another modern Greek story the life of an enchanter is bound up with three doves which are in the belly of a wild boar. When the first dove is killed, the magician grows sick, when the second is killed, he grows very sick, and when the third is killed, he dies.^ In another Greek story of the same sort an ogre's strength is in three singing birds which are in a wild boar. The hero kills two of the birds, and then coming to the ogre's house finds him lying on the ground in great pain. He shows the third bird to the ogre, who begs that the hero will either let it fly away or give it to him to eat. But the hero wrings the bird's neck and the ogre dies on the spot.^ In a variant of the latter story the 1 Apollodorus, iii. 15, 8; Aeschylus, esisehe Mdrchen, i. p. 217 ; a similar Choeph. 612 sqq. ; Pausanias, i. 19, story, id. ii. p. 282. 4. According to Tzetzes (Schol. on * Hahn, op. cit. ii. p. 215 sq. Lycophron, 650) not the life but the ^ Id. ii. p. 275 sq. Similar stories, strength of Nisus was in his golden id. ii. pp. 204, 294 sq. In an Albanian hair ; when it was pulled out, he became story a monster's strength is in three weak and was slain by Minos. Accord- pigeons, which are in a hare, which is ing to Hyginus {Fab. 198) Nisus was in the silver tusk of a wild boar. When destined to reign only so long as he kept the boar is killed, the monster feels ill ; the purple lock on his head. when the hare is cut open, he can hardly „ . ,, , .. 00 „ _ stand on his feet ; when the three pigeons 2 Apollodorus, n. 4, §§ 5. 7- „e killed, he expires, ^ozor., Contes 3 Hahn, Crieckische und Alban- albanazs, p. 132 sq. IV IN GREEK STORIES 30/ monster's strength is in two doves, and when the hero kills one of them, the monster cries out, " Ah, woe is me ! Half my life is gone. Something must have happened to one of the doves." When the second dove is killed, he dies.^ In another Greek story the incidents of the three golden hairs and the three doves are artificially combined. A monster has three golden hairs on his head which open the door of a chamber in which are three doves ; when the first dove is killed, the monster grows sick, when the second is killed, he grows worse, and when the third is killed, he dies.^ In another Greek tale an old man's strength is in a ten-headed serpent. When the serpent's heads are being cut off, he feels unwell, and when the last head is struck off, he expires.' In another Greek story a dervish tells a queen that she will have three sons, that at the birth of each she must plant a pumpkin in the garden, and that in the fruit borne by the pumpkins will reside the strength of the children. In due time the infants are born and the pumpkins planted. As the children grow up the pumpkins grow with them. One morning the eldest son feels sick, and on going into the garden they find that the largest pumpkin is gone. Next night the second son keeps watch in a summer-house in the garden. At midnight a negro appears and cuts the second pump- kin. At once the boy's strength goes out of him and he is unable to pursue the negro. The youngest son, however, succeeds in slaying the negro and recovering the lost pumpkins.* Ancient Italian legend furnishes a close parallel to the Greek story of Meleager. Silvia, the young wife 1 Hahn, op. cit. ii. p. 260 sqq. 2 /(/, \ p^ ^'^^_ 3 /^^ j;^ p_ 23 sq. * Legrand, ConUs populaires grecs, p. 191 sqq. 3o8 THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. of Septimius Marcellus, had a child by the god Mars. The god gave her a spear, with which he said that the fate of the child would be bound up. When the boy grew up he quarrelled with his maternal uncles and slew them. So in revenge his mother burned the spear on which his life depended.^ In one of the stories of the Pentatnerone a certain queen has a twin brother, a dragon. The astrologers declared at her birth that she would live just as long as the dragon and no longer, the death of the one involving the death of the other. If the dragon were killed, the only way to restore the queen to life would be to smear her temples, breast, pulses, and nostrils with the blood of the dragon.^ In a modern Roman version of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," the magician tells the princess whom he holds captive in a floating rock in mid -ocean that he will never die. The princess reports this to the prince her husband, who has come to rescue her. The prince replies, " It is impossible but that there should be some one thing or other that is fatal to him ; ask him what that one fatal thing is." So the princess asked the magician and he told her that in the wood was a hydra with seven heads ; in the middle head of the hydra was a leveret, in the head of the leveret was a bird, in the bird's head was a precious stone, and if this stone were put under his pillow he would die. The prince procured the stone and the princess laid it under the magician's pillow. No sooner did the enchanter lay his head on the pillow than he gave 1 Plutarch, Parallela, 26. In both the nephew presented to his lady-love the Greek and Italian stories the sub- and which his uncles took from her. ject of quarrel between nephew and 2 Basile, Pentainerone, ii. p. 60 sq. uncles is the skin of a boar, which (Liebrecht's German trans.) IN SLA VONIC STORIES 309 three terrible yells, turned himself round and round three times, and died.^ Stories of the same sort are current among Slavonic peoples. Thus in a Russian tale a warlock called Koshchei the Deathless is asked where his death is. " My death," he answered, " is in such and such a place. There stands an oak, and under the oak is a casket, and in the casket is a hare, and in the hare is a duck, and in the duck is an ^'g^, and in the 0.^% is my death." A prince obtained the egg and squeezed it, whereupon Koshchei the Deathless bent double. But when the prince shivered the egg in pieces, the warlock died.^ "In one of the descriptions of Koshchei's death, he is said to be killed by a blow on the forehead inflicted by the mysterious egg — that last link in the magic chain by which his life is darkly bound. In another version of the same story, but told of a snake, the fatal blow is struck by a small stone found in the yolk of an egg, which is inside a duck, which is inside a hare, which is inside a stone, which is on an island."^ In another variant the prince shifts the fatal egg from one hand to the other, and as he does so Koshchei rushes wildly from side to side of the room. At last the prince smashes the egg, and Koshchei drops dead.* In another Russian story the death of an enchantress is in a blue rose-tree in a blue forest. Prince Ivan uproots the rose-tree, whereupon the enchantress straightway sickens. He brings the rose-tree to her house and finds her at the point of death. Then he throws it into the cellar, crying, " Behold her death ! " and at once the whole building 1 R. H. Busk, FoUi-lore of Rome, p. 103 sq.\ so Dietrich, Russian Popular 164 m- Tales, p. 23 sq. 2 Ralston, Russian Folk -tales, p. ^ Ralston, op. cit. p. 109. ^ lb. 3IO THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. shakes, "and becomes an island, on which are people who had been sitting in Hell, and who offer up thanks to Prince Ivan."^ In another Russian story a prince is grievously tormented by a witch who has got hold of his heart, and keeps it seething in a magic cauldron.^ In a Bohemian tale a warlock's strength lies in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a stag, which is under a tree. A seer finds the egg and sucks it. Then the warlock grows as weak as a child, "for all his strength had passed into the seer."^ In a Serbian story a fabulous being called True Steel declares, " Far away from this place there is a very high mountain, in the mountain there is a fox, in the fox there is a heart, in the heart there is a bird, and in this bird is my strength." The fox is caught and killed and its heart is taken out. Out of the fox's heart is taken the bird, which is then burnt, and that very moment True Steel falls dead.* In a South Slavonian story a dragon tells an old woman, "My strength is a long way off, and you cannot go thither. Far in another empire under the emperor's city is a lake, in that lake is a dragon, and in the dragon a boar, and in the boar a pigeon, and in that is my strength." ^ Amongst peoples of the Teutonic stock stories of the external soul are not wanting. In a tale told by the Saxons of Transylvania it is said that a young man shot at a witch again and again. The bullets went clean through her but did her no harm, and she only laughed and mocked at him. " Silly earthworm," ' Ralston, Russian Folk -tales, p. F. S. Krauss, Sagen mid Mdrchen der 113 sq. Sudslaven, i. (No. 34) p. 168 sq. ^ /Ta\\.h, Kinship a}td Marriage Kabylie du Djurdjura, p. 191. in Early Arabia, p. 149 ; and for the ^ W. H. Jones and L. L. Kropf, same mode of creating kinship among The Folk-tales of the Magyar (London, other races, see D'Abbadie, Douze ans 1889), p. 205 sq. IV A S AMOVED STORY 321 of the Dwarf- king resides in a golden cockchafer, inside a golden cock, inside a golden sheep, inside a golden stag, in the ninety- ninth island. The hero overcomes all these golden animals and so recovers his bride, whom the Dwarf- king had carried off/ A Samoyed story tells how seven warlocks killed a certain man's mother and carried off his sister, whom they kept to serve them. Every night when they came home the seven warlocks used to take out their hearts and place them in a dish, which the woman hung on the tent-poles. But the wife of the man whom they had wronged stole the hearts of the warlocks while they slept, and took them to her husband. By break of day he went with the hearts to the warlocks, and found them at the point of death. They all begged for their hearts ; but he threw six of their hearts to the ground, and six of the warlocks died. The seventh and eldest warlock begged hard for his heart, and the man said, " You killed my mother. Make her alive again, and I will give you back your heart.'' The warlock said to his wife, " Go to the place where the dead woman lies. You will find a bag there. Bring it to me. The woman's spirit is in the bag." So his wife brought the bag ; and the warlock said to the man, " Go to your dead mother, shake the bag and let the spirit breathe over her bones ; so she will come to life again." The man did as he was bid, and his mother was restored to life. Then he hurled the seventh heart to the ground, and the seventh warlock died.^ In a Tartar poem two heroes named Ak Molot and Bulat engage in mortal combat. Ak Molot pierces his foe through and through with an arrow, grapples 1 R. H. Busk, The Folk-lore of Home, ^ Castren, Ethnologische Vorlesungen V- l6S- iiber die Altaischeti Volker, p. 173 sqq. VOL. II Y 322 THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. with him, and dashes him to the ground, but all in vain, Bulat could not die. At last when the combat has lasted three years, a friend of Ak Molot sees a golden casket hanging by a white thread from the sky, and bethinks him that perhaps this casket contains Bulat's soul. So he shot through the white thread with an arrow, and down fell the casket. He opened it, and in the casket sat ten white birds, and one of the birds was Bulat's soul. Bulat wept when he saw that his soul was found in the casket. But one after the other the birds were killed, and then Ak Molot easily slew his foe.^ In another Tartar poem, two brothers going to fight two other brothers take out their souls and hide them in the form of a white herb with six stalks in a deep pit. But one of their foes sees them doing so and digs up their souls, which he puts into a golden ram's horn, and then puts the ram's horn in his quiver. The two warriors whose souls have thus been stolen know that they have no chance of victory, and accordingly make peace with their enemies.^ In another Tartar poem a terrible demon sets all the gods and heroes at defiance. At last a valiant youth fights the demon, binds him hand and foot, and slices him with his sword. But still the demon is not slain. So the youth asked him, " Tell me, where is your soul hidden ? For if your soul had been hidden in your body, you must have been dead long ago." The demon replied, " On the saddle of my horse is a bag. In the bag is a serpent with twelve heads. In the serpent is my soul. When you have killed the serpent, you have killed me also." So the youth took the saddle-bag from the horse and killed the twelve-headed serpent, whereupon the demon 1 Schxtinst, Heldensagen der Minussinschen Tataren, pp. 172-176. ^ Schiefner, op. cit. pp. 108- 112. IV IN TARTAR POEMS 323 expired.^ In another Tartar poem a hero called Kbk Chan deposits with a maiden a golden ring, in which is half his strength. Afterwards when Kok Chan is wrestling long with a hero and cannot kill him, a woman drops into his mouth the ring which contains half his strength. Thus inspired with fresh force he slays his enemy.^ In a Mongolian story the hero Joro gets the better of his enemy the lama Tschoridong in the following way. The lama, who is an enchanter, sends out his soul in the form of a wasp to sting Joro's eyes. But Joro catches the wasp in his hand, and by alternately shutting and opening his hand he causes the lama alternately to lose and recover consciousness.® In a Tartar poem two youths cut open the body of an old witch and tear out her bowels, but all to no pur- pose, she still lives. On being asked where her soul is, she answers that it is in the middle of her shoe-sole in the form of a seven- headed speckled snake. So one of the youths slices her shoe -sole with his sword, takes out the speckled snake, and cuts off its seven heads. Then the witch dies.* Another Tartar poem describes how the hero Kartaga grappled with the Swan-woman. Long they wrestled. Moons waxed and waned and still they wrestled ; years came and went, and still the struggle went on. But the piebald horse and the black horse knew that the Swan-woman's 1 Schiefner, op. cit. pp. 360-364 ; because it is feared the owner of the Castren, Vorlesungen iiber die finnische horse will become the greatest hero on Mythologie, p. 186 sq. earth. But these cases are, to some 2 Schiefner, op. cit. pp. 189-193. extent, the converse of those in the text. In another Tartar poem (Scliiefner, d/. ^ Schott, "Ueber die Sage von cit. p. 390 sq.) a boy's soul is shut up Geser Chan," Abhandlmtgen d. Konigl. by his enemies in a box. While the Akad.d. Wissensch. zu Berlin, 1851, p. soul is in the box, the boy is dead ; 269. when it is taken out, he is restored to * W. Radloff, Proben der Volks- life. In the same poem (p. 384) the litteraiur der tilrkischen Stdmme Siid- soul of a horse is kept shut up in a box, Sibiriens, ii. 237 sq. 324 THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. soul was not in her. Under the black earth flow nine seas ; where the seas meet and form one, the sea comes to the surface of the earth. At the mouth of the nine seas rises a rock of copper ; it rises to the surface of the ground, it rises up between heaven and earth, this rock of copper. At the foot of the copper rock is a black chest, in the black chest is a golden casket, and in the golden casket is the soul of the Swan-woman. Seven little birds are the soul of the Swan-woman ; if the birds are killed the Swan-woman will die straightway. So the horses ran to the foot of the copper rock, opened the black chest, and brought back the golden casket. Then the piebald horse turned himself into a bald-headed man, opened the golden casket, and cut off the heads of the seven birds. So the Swan-woman died.^ In a Tartar story a chief called Tash Kan is asked where his soul is. He answers that there are seven great poplars, and under the poplars a golden well ; seven Maralen (?) come to drink the water of the well, and the belly of one of them trails on the ground ; in this Maral is a golden box, in the golden box is a silver box, in the silver box are seven quails, the head of one of the quails is golden and its tail silver ; that quail is Tash Kan's soul. The hero of the story gets possession of the seven quails and wrings the necks of six of them. Then Tash Kan comes running and begs the hero to let his soul go free. But the hero wrings the quail's neck, and Tash Kan drops dead.^ In another Tartar poem the hero, pursuing his sister who has driven away his cattle, is warned to desist from the pursuit because his sister has carried away his soul in a golden sword and a golden arrow, and if he pursues 1 W. Radloff, op. cit. ii. 531 sqq. ^ Id., iv. 88 sq. IV IN A MALA Y POEM 325 her she will kill him by throwing the golden sword or shooting the golden arrow at him/ A Malay poem relates how once upon a time in the city of Indrapoera there was a certain merchant who was rich and prosperous, but he had no children. One day as he walked with his wife by the river they found a baby girl, fair as an angel. So they adopted the child and called her Bidasari. The merchant caused a golden fish to be made, and into this fish he transferred the soul of his adopted daughter. Then he put the golden fish in a golden box full of water, and hid it in a pond in the midst of his garden. In time the girl grew to be a lovely woman. Now the King of Indrapoera had a fair young queen, who lived in fear that the king might take to himself a second wife. So, hearing of the charms of Bidasari, the queen resolved to put her out of the way. So she lured the girl to the palace and tortured her cruelly ; but Bidasari could not die, because her soul was not in her. At last she could stand the torture no longer and said to the queen, " If you wish me to die, you must bring the box which is in the pond in my father's garden." So the box was brought and opened, and there was the golden fish in the water. The girl said, " My soul is in that fish. In the morning you must take the fish out of the water, and in the evening you must put it back into the water. Do not let the fish lie about, but bind it round your neck. If you do this, I shall soon die." So the queen took the fish out of the box and fastened it round her neck ; and no sooner had she done so, than Bidasari fell into a swoon. But in the evening, when the fish was put back into the water, Bidasari came to herself again. Seeing that she thus 1 W. Radloff, op. cit. i. 345 sq. 326 THE EXTERNAL SOUL chap. had the girl in her power, the queen sent her home to her adopted parents. To save her from further persecu- tion her parents resolved to remove their daughter from the city. So in a lonely and desolate spot they built a house and brought Bidasari thither. Here she dwelt alone, undergoing vicissitudes that corresponded with the vicissitudes of the golden fish in which was her soul. All day long, while the fish was out of the water, she remained unconscious ; but in the evening, when the fish was put into the water, she revived. One day the king was out hunting, and coming to the house where Bidasari lay unconscious, was smitten with her beauty. He tried to waken her, but in vain. Next day, towards evening, he repeated his visit, but still found her unconscious. However, when darkness fell, she came to herself and told the king the secret of her life. So the king returned to the palace, took the fish from the queen, and put it in water. Immediately Bidasari revived, and the king took her to wife.^ The last story of an external soul which I shall notice comes from Nias, an island to the west of Sumatra, which we have visited more than once in the course of this book. Once on a time a chief was captured by his enemies, who tried to put him to death but failed. Water would not drown him nor fire burn him nor steel pierce him. At last his wife revealed the secret. On his head he had a hair as hard as a copper wire ; and with this wire his life was bound up. So the hair was plucked out, and with it his spirit fled.^ 1 G. A. Wilken, "De Simsonsage,'' Verhandel. van het Batav. Genootsch. u. De Gids, 1888, No. 5, p. 6 sqq. (of Kunslen en Wetenschappen, xxx. p. the separate reprint). Cp. Backer, in; Sundermann, "Die Insel Nias," L'A7-chipel Indien, yp. 144-149. Allgenieine Missions - Zdtschrift, xi. 2 Nieuwenhuisen en Rosenberg, (1884) p. 453. " Verslag omtrent het eiland Nias," IN FOLK-CUSTOM 3V § 4. — The external soul in folk-ctistom Thus the idea that the soul may be deposited for a longer or shorter time in some place of security outside the body, or at all events in the hair, is found in the popular tales of many races. It remains to show- that the idea is not a mere figment devised to adorn a tale, but is a real article of primitive faith, which has given rise to a corresponding set of customs. We have seen that in the tales the hero, as a preparation for battle, sometimes removes his soul from his body, in order that his body may be in- vulnerable and immortal in the combat. With a like intention the savage removes his soul from his body on various occasions of real or imaginary danger. Thus we have seen that among the Minahassa of Celebes, when a family moves into a new house, a priest collects the souls of the whole family in a bag, and afterwards restores them to their owners, because the moment of entering a new house is supposed to be fraught with supernatural danger.^ In Southern Celebes when a woman is brought to bed the mes- senger who fetches the doctor or the midwife always carries with him a piece of iron, which he delivers to the doctor. The doctor must keep it in his house till the confinement is over, when he gives it back, receiving a fixed sum of money for doing so. The piece of iron represents the woman's soul, which at this critical time is believed to be safer out of her body than in it. Hence the doctor must take great care of 1 Above, vol. i. p. 134. 328 STRENGTH IN HAIR chap. the piece of iron ; for if it were lost, the woman's soul would assuredly, it is supposed, be lost with it.-' Again, we have seen that in folk-tales a man's soul or strength is sometimes represented as bound up with his hair, and that when his hair is cut off he dies or grows weak. So the natives of Amboina used to think that their strength was in their hair and would desert them if it were shorn. A criminal under tor- ture in a Dutch Court of that island persisted in denying his guilt till his hair was cut off, when he immediately confessed. One man who was tried for murder endured without flinching the utmost ingenuity of his torturers till he saw the surgeon standing with a pair of shears. On asking what this was for, and being told that it was to cut his hair, he begged they would not do it, and made a clean breast. In subsequent cases, when torture failed to wring a confession from a prisoner, the Dutch authorities made a practice of cutting off his hair.^ In Ceram it is still believed that if young people have their hair cut they will be weakened and enervated thereby.^ In Zacynthus people think that the whole strength of the ancient Greeks resided in three hairs on their breasts, and vanished whenever these hairs were cut ; but if the hairs were allowed to grow again, their strength returned.* Again, we have seen that in folk- tales the life of a person is sometimes so bound up with the life of a plant that the withering of the plant will immediately follow or be followed by the death of the person.^ Similarly among the M'Bengas in Western Africa, about the 1 B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de ^ Riedel, De sluik-en kroesharige Ethnologie van Zuid-Celeb^s, p. 54. rassen tusschen Seiches en Papua^ p. 137. ^ F. Valentyn, Oiui en Nieuw Oost- * B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Indiin, ii. 143 sq.; G. A. Wilken, De Neugriechen, p. 206. Simsonsage, p. 15 sq. ^ Above, pp. 305, 307, 309, 311. LIFE-PLANTS 329 Gaboon, when two children are born on the same day, the people plant two trees of the same kind and dance round them. The life of each of the children is be- lieved to be bound up with the life of one of the trees ; and if the tree dies or is thrown down, they are sure that the child will soon die.^ In the Cameroons, also, the life of a person is believed to be sympathetically bound up with that of a tree.^ Some of the Papuans unite the life of a new-born child sympathetically with that of a tree by driving a pebble into the bark of the tree. This is supposed to give them complete mastery over the child's life ; if the tree is cut down, the child will die.^ After a birth the Maoris used to bury the navel-string in a sacred place and plant a young sapling over it. As the tree grew, it was a tohu oranga or sign of life for the child; if it flourished, the child would prosper ; if it withered and died, the parents augured the worst for their child.* In Southern Celebes, when a child is born, a cocoa-nut is planted, and is watered with the water in which the after-birth and navel-string have been washed. As it grows up, the tree is called the " contemporary " of the child.^ So in Bali a cocoa- palm is planted at the birth of a child. It is believed to grow up equally with the child, and is called its "life-plant."" On certain occasions the Dyaks of Borneo plant a palm-tree, which is believed to be a complete index of their fate. If it flourishes, they reckon on good fortune ; but if it withers or dies, they an 1 Revue d Ethnographie, ii. 223. 184 ; Dumont D'Urville, Voyage autour 2 Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition du monde et h la recherche de La Perouse n der Loango-Ktiste, i. 165. sur la corvette Astrolabe, ii. 444. 3 Bastian, Ein Besuch in San Salva- 6 Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Ethno- dor, p. 103 sq.; id., Der Mensch in logie van Zuid- Celebes, p. 59. der Geschichte, iii. 193. 6 Van Eck, "Schetsen van het eiland R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui ; or, Bali," Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch New Zealaiid and its Inhabitants,"^ p. Indie, N. S. ix. (1880) p. 417 sq. 330 LIFE-PLANTS chap. expect misfortune.^ It is said that there are still families in Russia, Germany, England, France, and Italy who are accustomed to plant a tree at the birth of a child. The tree, it is hoped, will grow with the child, and it is tended with special care.^ The custom is still pretty general in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland ; an apple-tree is planted for a boy and a pear-tree for a girl, and the people think that the child will flourish or dwindle with the tree.^ In Mecklenburg the after-birth is thrown out at the foot of a young tree, and the child is then believed to grow with the tree.* In England persons are sometimes passed through a cleft tree as a cure for rupture, and thenceforward a sympathetic connection is believed to exist between them and the tree. " Thomas Chilling- worth, son of the owner of an adjoining farm, now about thirty -four years of age, was, when an infant of a year old, passed through a similar tree, now perfectly sound, which he preserves with so much care that he will not suffer a single branch to be touched, for it is believed that the life of the patient depends on the life of the tree ; and the moment that it is cut down, be the patient ever so distant, the rupture returns, and a mortification ensues."^ When Lord Byron first visited his ancestral estate of Newstead " he planted, it seems, a young oak in some part of the grounds, and had an idea that as it flourished so should he." ^ But in practice, as in folk -tales, it is not merely 1 G. A. Wilken, De Simsonsage, p. Gebrduche aus Mecklenburg, ii. 43, No. 26. 63. 2 Gubernatis, Mythologie des Plantes, ^ Gentleman's Magazine, October i. xxviii. sq. 1 804, p. 909, quoted by Brand, 3 W. Mannhardt, .S. A", p. 50; Ploss, Popular Antiquities, iii. 289; W. G. Das ICind,^ i. 79. Black, Folk-medicine, pp. 31 sq., 67. * K. Bartsch, Sagen, Mdrchen tmd ° yioote's Life of Lord Byron,i. loi. IV THE TAMANIU 33 1 with trees and plants that the hfe of an individual is occasionally believed to be united by a bond of physical sympathy. The same bond, it is supposed, may exist between a man and an animal or a thing, so that the death or destruction of the animal or thing is immediately followed by the death of the man. The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus was once informed by an astronomer that the life of Simeon prince of Bulgaria was bound up with a certain column in Constantinople, so that if the capital of the column were removed Simeon would immediately die. The Emperor took the hint and removed the capital, and at the same hour, as the emperor learned by inquiry, Simeon died of heart disease in Bulgaria.-^ Amongst the Karens of Burma "the knife with which the navel- string is cut is carefully preserved for the child. The life of the child is supposed to be in some way con- nected with it, for if lost or destroyed it is said the child will not be long-lived." ^ The Malays believe that "the soul of a person may pass into another person or into an animal, or rather that such a mysterious relation can arise between the two that the fate of the one is wholly dependent on that of the other." ^ In the Banks Islands " some people connect themselves with an object, generally an animal, as a lizard or a snake, or with a stone, which they imagine to have a certain very close natural relation to themselves. This, at Mota, is called tamaniu — likeness. This word at Aurora is used for the ' atai ' \i.e. soul] of Mota. Some fancy dictates, the choice of a tamaniu ; or it may be ^ Cedrenus, Compeiid. Histor. p. ^ Matthes, Makassarscli-Hollatidsch 625 B, vol. ii. p. 308, ed. Bekker. Woordenboek, s.v. soemailgd, p. 569 ; ^ F. Mason, " Physical Character of G. A. Wilken, " Het animisme bij de the Karens," Journal of the Asiatic volken van den Indischen Archipel," Society of Bengal, 1866, pt. ii. p. 9. De Indische Gids, June 1884, p. 933. 332 THE IHLOZI chap. found by drinking the infusion of certain herbs and heaping together the dregs. Whatever living thing is first seen in or upon the heap is the tamaniu. It is watched, but not fed or worshipped. The natives believe that it comes at call. The life of the man is bound up with the life of his tamaniu. If it dies, gets broken or lost, the man will die. In sickness they send to see how the tamaniu is, and judge the issue accordingly. This is only the fancy of some." ^ But what among the Banks Islanders and the Malays is irregular and occasional, among other peoples is systematic and universal. The Zulus believe that every man has his ihlozi, a kind of mysterious serpent, " which specially guards and helps him, lives with him, wakes with him, sleeps and travels with him, but always under ground. If it ever makes its appearance, great is the joy, and the man must seek to discover the meaning of its appearance. He who has no ihlozi must die. Therefore if any one unintention- ally kills an ihlozi serpent, the man whose ihlozi it was dies, but the serpent comes to life again." ^ Amongst the Zapotecs of Central America, when a woman was about to be confined, her relations assembled in the hut, and began to draw on the floor figures of different animals, rubbing each one out as soon as it was com- pleted. This went on till the moment of birth, and the figure that then remained sketched upon the ground was called the child's tona or second self "When the child grew old enough he procured the animal that represented him and took care of it, as it 1 R. H. Codrington, ' ' Notes on the ^ F. Speckmann, Die Hermanns- Customs of Mota, Banks Islands" burger Mission in Afrika (Hermanns- (communicated by the Rev. Lofimer burg, 1876), p. 167. Fison), Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria, xvi. 136. IV THE NAGUAL 333 was believed that health and existence were bound up with that of the animal's, in fact that the death of both would occur simultaneously," or rather that when the animal died the man would die.^ Among the Indians of Guatemala the nagual or naual is an " animate or inanimate object, generally an animal, which stands in a parallel relation to a particular man, so that the weal and woe of the man depend on the fate of the animal." Among the Chontal Indians who inhabit the part of Honduras bordering on Guatemala and in point of social culture stand very close to the Pipil Indians of Guatemala, the nagual used to be obtained as follows. The young Indian went into the forest to a lonely place by a river or to the top of a mountain, and prayed with tears to the gods that they would vouch- safe to him what his forefathers had possessed before him. After sacrificing a dog or a bird he laid himself down to sleep. Then in a dream or after awakening from sleep there appeared to him a jaguar, puma, coyote (prairie-wolf), crocodile, serpent, or bird. To this visionary animal the Indian offered blood drawn from his tongue, his ears, and other parts of his body, and prayed for an abundant yield of salt and cacao. Then the animal said to him, " On such and such a day you shall go out hunting, and the first animal that meets you will be myself, who will always be your companion and nagual." A man who had no nagual zo\AA never grow rich. The Indians were persuaded that the death of their nagual would entail their own. Legend affirms that in the first battles with the Spaniards on 1 'hz.-a.ao^i, Native Races of the Pacific forzoso que mueran ellos cuatido iste Coast, i. 661. The words quoted by muere," are not quite accurately repre- Bancroft (p. 662, note) " Consirvase sented by the statement of Bancroft entre ellos la creencia de que su vida in the text. estd unida d la de nu anivialy y que es 334 SEX-TOTEMS chap. the plateau of Quetzaltenango the naguals of the Indian chiefs fought in the form of serpents. The nagual of the highest chief was especially conspicuous, because it had the form of a great bird, resplendent in green plumage. The Spanish general Pedro de Alvarado killed the bird with his lance, and at the same moment the Indian chief fell dead to the ground.^ In many of the Australian tribes each sex regards a particular species of animals in the same way that a Central American Indian regards his nagual, but with this difference, that whereas the Indian apparently knows the individual animal with which his life is bound up, the Australians only know that each of their lives is bound up with some one animal of the species, but they cannot say with which. The result naturally is that every man spares and protects all the animals of the species with which the lives of the men are bound up ; and every woman spares and protects all the animals of the species with which the lives of the women are bound up ; because no one knows but that the death of any animal of the respective species might entail his or her own ; just as the killing of the green bird was immediately followed by the death of the Indian chief, and the killing of the parrot by the death of Punchkin in the fairy tale. Thus, for example, the Wotjobaluk tribe of South Eastern Australia " held that ' the life of Ngunungunut (the Bat) is the life of a man and the life of Ydrtatgiirk (the Nightjar) is the life of a woman,' and that when either of these creatures is killed the life of some man or of some woman is shortened. In such a case every man or every woman 1 Otto StoU, Die Ethnologic der Races of the Pacific States, i. 740 sq.; Indianerstdmme von Guatemala (Ley- Bastian, Die Culturlander des alien den, 1889), p. 57 sq,; Bancroft, Native Amerika, ii. 282. IV IN AUSTRALIA 335 in the camp feared that he or she might be the victim, and from this cause great fights arose in this tribe. I learn that in these fights, men on one side and women on the other, it was not at all certain which would be victorious, for at times the women gave the men a severe drubbing with their yamsticks while often women were injured or killed by spears."^ The particular species of animals with which the lives of the sexes were believed to be respectively bound up varied somewhat from tribe to tribe. Thus whereas among the Wotjobaluk the bat was the animal of the men, at Gunbower Creek on the lower Murray the bat seems to have been the animal of the women, for the natives would not kill it for the reason that "if it was killed, one of their lubras [women] would be sure to die in consequence."^ But the belief itself and the fights to which it gave rise are known to have extended over a large part of South Eastern Australia, and probably they extended much farther.^ The belief is a very serious one, and so consequently are the fights which spring from it. Thus where the bat is the men's animal they "protect it against injury, even to the half- killing of their wives for its sake;" and where the fern owl or large goatsucker (a night bird) is the women's animal, " it is jealously protected by them. If a man kills one, they are as much enraged as if it was one of their children, and will strike him with their long poles." * The jealous protection thus afforded by Australian men and women to bats and owls respectively (for bats 1 A. W. Howitt, "Further Notes Soc. New South Wales, 1862-65, p. on the Austrahan Class Systems," 359 sq. lozirn. Anthrop. Inst, xviii. i^S. „ . __^ ^^ . 2 Gerard Krefft, "Manners and ^- ^- ^°^'"' ^■'- Customs of the Aborigines of the Lower * Dawson, Australian Aborigines, Murray and Darlitig," Transact. Philos. p. 52. 336 SEX-TOTEMS and owls seem to be the creatures usually allotted to men and women respectively) is not based upon purely selfish considerations. For each man believes that not only his own life, but the lives of his father, brothers, sons, etc., are bound up with the lives of particular bats, and that therefore in protecting the bat species he is protecting the lives of all his male relations as well as his own. Similarly, each woman believes that the lives of her mother, sisters, daughters, etc., equally with her own, are bound up with the lives of particular owls, and that in guarding the owl species she is guard- ing the lives of all her female relations in addition to her own. Now, when men's lives are thus supposed to be contained in certain animals, it is obvious that the animals can hardly be distinguished from the men, or the men from the animals. If my brother John's life is in a bat, then, on the one hand, the bat is my brother as well as John ; and, on the other hand, John is in a sense a bat, since his life is in a bat. Similarly, if my sister Mary's life is in an owl, then the owl is my sister and Mary is an owl. This is a natural enough conclusion, and the Australians have not failed to draw it. When the bat is the man's animal, it is called his brother ; and when the owl is the woman's animal, it is called her sister. And conversely a man addresses a woman as an owl, and she addresses him as a bat.-' So with the other animals allotted to the sexes respectively in other tribes. For example, among the Kurnai all Emu Wrens were "brothers" of the men, and all the men were Emu Wrens ; all Superb Warblers were "sisters" of the women, and all the women were Superb Warblers.^ '^ Journ. Anthrop. Inst, xiv. 350, ^ Fison and Howitt, Aa;«z7arOT a«(^ XV. 416, xviii. 57 (the "nightjar" is Kurnai, -f^. 1<)H, 201 sq., 21 1, ; /ourn. apparently an owl). Anthrop. hist. xv. 416, xviii. 56 sq. ro TEMISM 337 But when a savage names himself after an animal, calls it his brother, and refuses to kill it, the animal is said to be his totem. Accordingly the bat and the owl, the Emu Wren and the Superb Warbler, may properly be described as totems of the sexes. But the assig- nation of a totem to a sex is comparatively rare, and has hitherto been discovered nowhere but in Australia. Far more commonly the totem is appropriated not to a sex, but to a tribe or clan, and is hereditary either in the male or female line. The relation of an individual to the tribal totem does not differ in kind from his relation to the sex totem ; he will not kill it, he speaks of it as his brother, and he calls himself by its name.^ Now if the relations are similar, the explanation which holds good of the one ought equally to hold good of the other. Therefore the reason why a tribe revere a particular species of animals or plants (for the tribal totem may be a plant) and call themselves after it, must be a belief that the life of each individual of the tribe is bound up with some one animal or plant of the species, and that his or her death would be the consequence of killing that particular animal, or destroying that particular plant. This explanation of totemism squares very well with Sir George Grey's definition of a totem or /&c^c>«^ in Western Australia. He says, "A certain mysterious connection exists between a family and its kobong, so that a member of the family will never kill an animal of the species to which his kobong belongs, should he find it asleep ; indeed he always kills it reluctantly, and never without affording it a chance to escape. This arises from the family belief that some one individual of the species is their nearest friend, to 1 The chief facts of totemism have a little work, Totemism (Edinburgh, A. been collected by the present writer in and C. Black, 1887). VOL. II Z TOTEMISM CHAP. kill whom would be a great crime, and to be carefully avoided. Similarly, a native who has a vegetable for his kobong may not gather it under certain circum- stances, and at a particular period of the year."^ Here it will be observed that though each man spares all the animals or plants of the species, they are not all equally precious to him ; far from it, out of the whole species there is only one which is specially dear to him ; but as he does not know which the dear one is, he is obliged to spare them all from fear of injuring the one. Again, this explanation of the tribal totem harmonises with the supposed effect of killing one of the totem species. " One day one of the blacks killed a crow. Three or four days afterwards a Boortwa (crow) \i.e. a man of the Crow clan or tribe] named Larry died. He had been ailing for some days, but the killing of his wingong [totem] hastened his death." ^ Here the kill- ing of the crow caused the death of a man of the Crow clan, exactly as, in the case of the sex totems, the killing of a bat causes the death of a Bat man, or the killing of an owl causes the death of an Owl woman. Similarly, the killing of his nagual causes the death of a Central American Indian, the killing of his ihlozi causes the death of a Zulu, the killing of his tamaniu causes the death of a Banks Islander, and the killing of the animal in which his life is stowed away causes the death of the giant or warlock in the fairy tale. Thus it appears that the story of " The giant who had no heart in his body " furnishes the key to the religious aspect of totemism, that is, to the relation which is supposed to subsist between a man and his totem. The totem, if I am right, is simply the recep- ^ (Sir) George Grey, Journals of ^ Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Two Expeditions of Discovery in North- Kurnai, "p. 169. West and Western Atistrhlia, ii. 22S sq. TOTE MIS M 339 tacle in which a man keeps his Hfe, as Punchkin kept his Hfe in a parrot, and Bidasari kept her soul in a golden fish. It is no valid objection to this view that when a savage has both a sex totem and a tribal totem his life must be bound up with two different animals, the death of either of which would entail his own. If a man has more vital places than one in his body, why, the savage may think, should he not have more vital places than one outside it .'' Why, since he can exter- nalise his life, should he not transfer one portion of it to one animal and another to another ? The divisi- bility of life, or, to put it otherwise, the plurality of souls, is an idea suggested by many familiar facts, and has commended itself to philosophers like Plato as well as to savages. It is only when the notion of a soul, from being a quasi-scientific hypothesis, becomes a theological dogma that its unity and indi- visibility are insisted upon as essential. The savage, unshackled by dogma, is free to explain the facts of life by the assumption of as many souls as he thinks necessary. Hence, for example, the Caribs supposed that there was one soul in the head, another in the heart, and other souls at all the places where an artery is felt pulsating.^ Some of the Hidatsa Indians explain the phenomena of gradual death, when the extremities appear dead first, by supposing that man has four souls, and that they quit the body, not simultaneously, but one after the other, dissolution being only complete when all four have departed.^ The Laos suppose that the body is the seat of thirty spirits, which reside in the hands, the feet, the mouth, the eyes, etc.^ Hence, 1 De la Borde, "Relation de ^ ^^ !i&h\ng^an^lM\itv;%, The ffidatsa rOngine, etc. des Caraibes," p. 15, in Indians, p. 50. Hecueil de divers Voyages fails en Afri- 3 Bastian, Die VSlker des ostlichen que el en I'Amirique (Paris, 1684). Asieit, iii. 248. 340 TOTEM ISM irom the primitive point of view, it is perfectly possible that a savage should have one soul in his sex totem, and another in his tribal totem. However, as I have observed, sex totems occur nowhere but in Australia ; so that as a rule the savage who practises totemism need not have more than one soul out of his body at a time. If this explanation of the totem as a receptacle in which a man keeps his soul or one of his souls is correct, we should expect to find some totemistic tribes of whom it is expressly stated that every man amongst them is believed to keep at least one soul permanently out of his body, and that the destruction of this external soul is supposed to entail the death of its owner. Such a tribe are the Battas of Sumatra. The Battas are divided into exogamous clans [inargas] with descent in the male line ; and each clan is for- bidden to eat the flesh of a particular animal. One clan may not eat the tiger, another the ape, another the crocodile, another the dog, another the cat, another the dove, another the white buffalo. The reason given by members of a clan for abstaining from the flesh of the particular animal is either that they are descended from animals of that species, and that their souls after death may transmigrate into the animals, or that they or their forefathers have been under certain obligations to the animals. Sometimes, but not always, the clan bears the name of the animal.^ Thus the Battas have 1 I. B. Neamann, " Het Pane- en Wilken, Over de verwantschap en het Bila - stroomgebied op het eiland huwelijks-en erfrecht bij de volkeii van .Sumatra," Tydschiift van het Neder- het nialeische ras^ pp. 20 sq.^ 36; id.^ la?idsch Aardrijks. Genootsch., Tvveede lets ewer de Papoewas van de Geel- Serie, dl. iii. Afdeeling : meer uitge- vinkshaai, p. 27 sq. (reprint from lireide artikelen, No. 2, p. 311 sq.; Bijdragen tot de Taal-Land-en Volke7i- iV/., dl. iv. No. i,p. 8 i^.; Vnn Hoevell, kiinde van Ned.- Indie, 5e Volgreeks " lets over 't oorlogvoeren der Batta's," W.) \ Journal Anthrop. Inst. ix. 295; Tijdschrift voor Ncderlandsck Indie, Backer, LArchipel Indien, p. 470. N. ,S. vii. (1878) p. 434.; G. A. TOTEM ISM 341 totemism in full. But, further, each Batta believes that he has seven or, on a more moderate computation, three souls. One of these souls is always outside the body, but nevertheless whenever it dies, however far away it may be at the time, that same moment the man dies also.' The writer who mentions this belief says nothing about the Batta totems ; but on the analogy of the Australian and Central American evidence we can scarcely avoid concluding that the external soul, whose death entails the death of the man, must be housed in the totem animal or plant. Against this view it can hardly be thought to mili- tate that the Batta does not in set terms affirm his external soul to be in his totem, but alleges other, though hardly contradictory, grounds for respecting the sacred animal or plant of his clan. For if a savage seriously believes that his life is bound up with an external object, it is in the last degree unlikely that he will let any stranger into the secret. In all that touches his inmost life and beliefs the savage is exceed- ingly suspicious and reserved ; Europeans have resided among savages for years without discovering some of their capital articles of faith, and in the end the dis- covery has often been the result of accident. Above all, the savage lives in an intense and perpetual dread of assassination by sorcery ; the most trifling relics of his person — the clippings of his hair and nails, his spittle, the remnants of his food, his very name — all these may, he fancies, be turned by the sorcerer to his destruction, and he is therefore anxiously careful to conceal or destroy them. But if in matters such as ^ B. Hagen, " Beitrage zur Kennt- kunde, xxviii. 514. J. B. Neumann niss der Battareligion," Tijdschrift {op. cit. dl. iii. No. 2, p. 299) is the Toor Indische Taal-Land-en Volken- authority for tlie seven souls. 342 DEATH AND RESURRECTION chap. these, which are but the outposts and outworks of his Hfe, he is shy and secretive to a degree, how close must be the concealment, how impenetrable the reserve in which he enshrouds the inner keep and citadel of his being ! When the princess in the fairy tale asks the giant where he keeps his soul, he generally gives false or evasive answers, and it is only after much coaxing and wheedling that the secret is at last wrung from him. In his jealous reticence the giant resembles the timid and furtive savage ; but whereas the exigencies of the story demand that the giant should at last reveal his secret, no such obligation is laid on the savage ; and no inducement that can be offered is likely to tempt him to imperil his soul by revealing its hiding-place to a stranger. It is there- fore no matter for surprise that the central mystery of the savage's life should so long have remained a secret, and that we should be left to piece it together from scattered hints and fragments and from the recol- lections of it which linger in fairy tales. This view of totemism throws light on a class of religious rites of which no adequate explanation, so far as I am aware, has yet been offered. Amongst many savage tribes, especially such as are known to practise totemism, it is customary for lads at puberty to undergo certain initiatory rites, of which one of the commonest is a pretence of killing the lad and bringing him to life again. Such rites become intelligible if we suppose that their substance consists in extracting the youth's soul in order to transfer it to his totem. For the extraction of his soul would naturally be supposed to kill the youth or, at least, to throw him into a death- like trance, which the savage hardly distinguishes from death. His recovery would then be attributed either IV A T INITIA TION 343 to the gradual recovery of his system from the violent shock which it had received, or, more probably, to the infusion into him of fresh life drawn from the totem. Thus the essence of these initiatory rites, so far as they consist in a simulation of death and resurrection, would be an (exchange of life or souls between the man and his totemTl The primitive belief in the possi- bility of such an exchange of souls comes clearly out in the story of the Basque hunter who affirmed that he had been killed by a bear, but that the bear had, after killing him, breathed its own soul into him, so that the bear's body was now dead, but he himself was a bear, being animated by the bear's soul.^ This revival of the dead hunter as a bear is exactly analo- gous to what, if I am right, is supposed to take place in the totemistic ceremony of killing a lad at puberty and bringing him to life again. The lad dies as a man and comes to life again as an animal ; the animal's soul is now in him, and his human soul is in the animal. With good right, therefore, does he call him- self a Bear or a Wolf, etc., according to his totem ; and with good right does he treat the bears or the wolves, etc., as his brethren, since in these animals are lodged the souls of himself and his kindred. Examples of this supposed death and resurrection at initiation are the following. Among some of the Australian tribes of New South Wales, when lads are initiated, it is thought that a being called Thuremlin takes each lad to a distance, kills him, and sometimes cuts him up, after which he restores him to life and knocks out a tooth. ^ In one part of Queensland the ' Th. Benfey, Pantschatantra, i. 128 some Tribes of New South Wales,' sq. Jourii. Anthrop. Instit, xiv. 358. ^ A. L. P. Cameron, "Notes on 344 DEATH AND RESURRECTION citAP. humming sound of the Bullroarer, which is swung at the initiatory rites, is said to be the noise made by the wizards in swallowing the boys and bringing them up again as young men. " The Ualaroi of the Upper Darling River say that the boy meets a ghost which kills him and brings him to life again as a man."' This resurrection appears to be represented at the initiatory rites by the following ceremony. An old man, disguised with stringy bark fibre, lies down in a grave, and is lightly covered up with sticks and earth, and as far as possible the natural appearance of the ground is restored, the excavated earth being carried away. The buried man holds a small bush in his hand ; it appears to be growing in the soil, and other bushes are stuck in the soil to heighten the effect. The novices are then brought to the edge of the grave, and a song is sung, in which the only words used are the "class -name " of the buried man and the word for stringy bark fibre. Gradually, as the song continues, the bush held by the buried man begins to quiver and then to move more and more, and finally the man him- self starts up from the grave.^ Similarly, Fijian lads at Initiation were shown a row of apparently dead men, covered with blood, their bodies seemingly cut open, and their entrails protruding. But at a yell from the 1 A. W. Howitt, " On Australian religious mysteries. As a sacred in- Medicine M.en," Journ. Anthrop. Inst. strument it also occurs in \Vestern x\i. 47 sq. On the Bullroarer (a piece Africa (R. F. Burton, Alieokuta and the of wood fastened to a cord or thong and Cameroons Mountains, i. 197 sq.; swung round so as to produce a boom- Bouche, La Cote des JEsclaves, p. 124), ing sound), see A. Lang, Custom and and in New Guinea (J. Chalmers, Myth, p. 29 sqq. The religious use of Pioneermg in New Guinea, p. 85). the Bullroarer is best known in Aus- ^ A. W. Howitt, " On some Aus- tralia, but in the essay just referred to tralian ceremonies of initiation, "_/»w«. Mr. Andrew Lang has shown that Anthrop. Inst. xiii. 453 sq. The the instrument has been similarly "class -name" is the name of the employed not only in South Africa totemic division to which the man and by the Zunis of New IVIexico, but belongs, also by the ancient Greeks in their A T INITIA TION 34 5 priest the pretended dead men sprang to their feet and ran to the river to cleanse themselves from the blood and entrails of pigs with which they had been be- smeared.^ In the valley of the Congo initiatory rites of this sort are common. In some places they are called Ndembo. " In the practice of Ndembo the initiating doctors get some one to fall down in a pretended fit, and in that state he is carried away to an enclosed place outside the town. This is called ' dying Ndembo.' Others follow suit, generally boys and girls, but often young men and women. . . . They are supposed to have died. But the parents and friends supply food, and after a period varying, according to custom, from three months to three years, it is arranged that the doctor shall bring them to life again. . . . When the doctor's fee has been paid, and money (goods) saved for a feast, the Ndembo people are brought to life. At first they pretend to know no one and nothing ; they do not even know how to masticate food, and friends have to perform that office for them. They want everything nice that any one uninitiated may have, and beat them if it is not granted, or even strangle and kill people. They do not get into trouble for this, because it is thought that they do not know better. Some- times they carry on the pretence of talking gibberish, and behaving as if they had returned from the spirit- world. After this they are known by another name, peculiar to those who have ' died Ndembo.' . . . We hear of the custom far along on the upper river, as well as in the cataract region." " The following account of 1 L. Fison, "The Nanga, or sacred ''- W. H. Bentley, Life on the Congo stone enclosure of Wainimala, Fiji," (London, 1887), p. 78 sq. Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xiv. 22. 346 DEATH AND RESURRECTION chap. the rites, as practised in this part of Africa, was given to Bastian by an interpreter. " In the land of Ambamba every one must die once, and when the fetish priest shakes his calabash against a village, all the men and lads whose hour is come fall into a state of lifeless torpidity, from which they generally awake after three days. But if the fetish loves a man he carries him away into the bush and buries him in the fetish house, often for many years. When he comes to life again, he begins to eat and drink as before, but his under- standing is gone and the fetish man must teach him and direct him in every motion, like the smallest child. At first this can only be done with a stick, but gradually his senses return, so that it is possible to talk with him, and when his education is complete, the priest brings him back to his parents. They would seldom recognise their son but for the express assurances of the fetish priest, who moreover recalls previous events to their memory. He who has not gone through the ceremony of the new birth in Ambamba is universally looked down upon and is not admitted to the dances." During the period of initiation the novice is sym- pathetically united to the fetish by which his life is henceforward determined.^ The novice, plunged in the magic sleep or death-like trance within the sacred hut, " beholds a bird or other object with which his existence is thenceforward sympathetically bound up, just as the life of the young Indian is bound up with the animal which he sees in his dreams at puberty." ^ 1 A. Bastian, Ein Besuch in San H. H. Johnston in Proceed. Royal Salvador, pp. 82 sq. 86. Geogr. Soc. N. S. v. (1883) p. 572 sq., ^ Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition and in Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xiii. an der Loango-Kiiste, ii. 183 ; cp. id., 472; E. Delmar Morgan, in Proceed. pp. 15-18, 30 sq. On these initiatory Royal Geogr, Soc. N. S. vi. 193. rites in the Congo region see also IV AT INITIA TION 347 Rites of this sort were formerly observed in Ouoja, on the west coast of Africa, to the north of the Congo. They are thus described by an old writer : — " They have another ceremony which they call Belli-Paaro, but it is not for everybody. For it is an incorporation in the assembly of the spirits, and confers the right of entering their groves, that is to say, of going and eat- ing the offerings which the simple folk bring thither. The initiation or admission to the Belli-Paaro is celebrated every twenty or twenty -five years. The initiated recount marvels of the ceremony, saying that they are roasted, that they entirely change their habits and life, and that they receive a spirit quite different from that of other people and quite new lights. The badge of membership consists in some lines traced on the neck between the shoulders ; the lines seem to be pricked with a needle. Those who have this mark pass for persons of spirit, and when they have attained a certain age they are allowed a voice in all public assemblies ; whereas the uninitiated are regarded as profane, impure, and ignorant persons, who dare not express an opinion on any subject of importance. When the time for the ceremony has come, it is celebrated as follows : By order of the king a place is appointed in the forest, whither they bring the youths who have not been marked, not without much crying and weeping ; for it is impressed upon the youths that in order to undergo this change it is necessary to suffer death. So they dispose of their property, as if it were all over with them. There are always some of the initiated beside the novices to instruct them. They teach them to dance a certain dance called killing, and to sing verses in praise of Belli. Above all, they are very careful not to let them die of hunger. 348 DEATH AND RESURRECTION chap. because if they did so, it is much to be feared that the spiritual resurrection would profit them nothing. This manner of life lasts five or six years, and is comfortable enough, for there is a village in the forest, and they amuse themselves with hunting and fishing. Other lads are brought thither from time to time, so that the last comers have not long to stay. No woman or uninitiated person is suffered to pass within four or five leagues of the sacred wood. When their instruction is completed, they are taken from the wood and shut up in small huts made for the purpose. Here they begin once more to hold communion with mankind and to talk with the women who bring them their food. It is amusing to see their affected simplicity. They pre- tend to know no one, and to be ignorant of all the customs of the country, such as the customs of washing themselves, rubbing themselves with oil, etc. When they enter these huts, their bodies are all covered with the feathers of birds, and they wear caps of bark which hang down before their faces. But after a time they are dressed in clothes and taken to a great open place, where all the people of the neighbourhood are assembled. Here the novices give the first proof of their capacity by dancing a dance which is called the dance of Belli. After the dance is over, the novices are taken to the houses of their parents by their instructors." ^ Among the Indians of Virginia, an initiatory cere- mony, called Huskanaw, took place every sixteen or twenty years, or oftener, as the young men happened to grow up. The youths were kept in solitary confinement in the woods for several months, ^ Dapper, Description de PAfriqtte, p. 268 S(^. Dapper's account has been abbreviated in tiie text. A T INITIA TION 349 receiving no food but an infusion of some intoxicating roots, so that they went raving mad, and continued in this state eighteen or twenty days. " Upon this occasion it is pretended that these poor creatures drink so much of the water of Lethe that they perfectly lose the remembrance of all former things, even of their parents, their treasure, and their language. When the doctors find that they have drank sufficiently of the Wysoccan (so they call this mad potion), they gradually restore them to their senses again by lessening the intoxication of their diet ; but before they are perfectly well they bring them back into their towns, while they are still wild and crazy through the violence of the medicine. After this they are very fearful of dis- covering anything of their former remembrance ; for if such a thing should happen to any of them, they must immediately be Huskanawd again ; and the second time the usage is so severe that seldom any one escapes with life. Thus they must pretend to have forgot the very use of their tongues, so as not to be able to speak, nor understand anything that is spoken, till they learn it again. Now, whether this be real or counterfeit, I don't know ; but certain it is that they will not for some time take notice of any body nor any thing with which they were before acquainted, being still under, the guard of their keepers, who constantly wait upon them everywhere till they have learnt all things perfectly over again. Thus they unhve their former lives, and commence men by forgetting that they ever have been boys."^ Among some of the Indian tribes of North America there are certain religious associations which are only open to candidates who have gone through a pretence ' (Beverley's) History of Virginia (London, 1722), p. 177 sq. 350 DEATH AND RESURRECTION chap. of being killed and brought to life again. Captain Carver witnessed the admission of a candidate to an association called " the friendly society of the Spirit " among the Naudowessies. The candidate knelt before the chief, who told him that " he himself was now agitated by the same spirit which he should in a few moments communicate to him ; that it would strike him dead, but that' he would instantly be re- stored again to life. . . . As he spoke this, he appeared to be greatly agitated, till at last his emotions became so violent that his countenance was distorted and his whole frame convulsed. At this juncture he threw something that appeared both in shape and colour like a small bean at the young man, which seemed to enter his mouth, and he instantly fell as motionless as if he had been shot." For a time the man lay like dead, but under a shower of blows he showed signs of conscious- ness, and finally, discharging from his mouth the bean, or whatever it was the chief had thrown at him, he came to life.^ In other tribes the instrument by which the candidate is apparently slain is the medicine-bag. The bag is made of the skin of an animal (such as the otter, wild cat, serpent, bear, racoon, wolf, owl, weasel), of which it roughly preserves the shape. Each mem- ber of the society has one of these bags, in which he keeps the odds and ends that make up his " medicine" or charms. "They believe that from the miscellaneous contents in the belly of the skin bag or animal there issues a spirit or breath, which has the power, not only to knock down and kill a man, but also to set him up and restore him to life." The mode of killing a man with one of these medicine-bags is to thrust it at him ; ^ J, Carver, Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, pp. 271-275. IV AT INITIATION 351 he falls like dead, but a second thrust of the bag restores him to life.^ A ceremony witnessed by Jewitt during his captivity among the Indians of Nootka Sound doubt- less belongs to this class of customs. The Indian king or chief " discharged a pistol close to his son's ear, who immediately fell down as if killed, upon which all the women of the house set up a most lamentable cry, tearing handfuls of hair from their heads, and exclaiming that the prince was dead ; at the same time a great number of the inhabitants rushed into the house armed with their daggers, muskets, etc., inquiring the cause of their outcry. These were im- mediately followed by two others dressed in wolf skins, with masks over their faces representing the head of that animal. The latter came in on their hands and feet in the manner of a beast, and taking up the prince, carried him off upon their backs, retiring in the same manner as they entered."^ In another place Jewitt mentions that the young prince — a lad of about eleven years of age — wore a mask in imitation of a wolf's head.^ Now, as the Indians of this part of America are divided into totem clans, of which the Wolf clan is one of the principal, and as the members of each clan are in the habit of wearing some portion of the totem animal about their person,* it is probable that the prince belonged to the Wolf clan, and that the ceremony described by Jewitt represented the killing 1 Carver, op. cit. p. 277 sq.\ School- * Holmberg, " Ueber die Vblker des craft, Indian Tribes, iii. 287, v. 430 russischen Amerika," Acta Soc. Scient. sqq.; Kohl, Kitschi-Gami, i. 64-70. Fennicae, iv. (Helsingfors, 1856) pp. 2 Narrative of the Adventures and ^^2 sqq., 328 ; Petroff, Report on the Sufferings of John R. Jewitt (Middle- {"t^i"'""'' ''"■, of Alaska, p. 165 sq.; town, 1820), p. 119. A- K^^se^e. Tltnht-Indianer, p. 112; K. C. Mayne, Four years in 3 Id., p. 44. For the age of the British Columbia and Vancouver Is- prince, see id., p. 35. land, p. 257 sq., 268. 352 DEATH AND RESURRECTION chap. of the lad in order that he might be born anew as a wolf, much in the same way that the Basque hunter supposed himself to have been killed and to have come to life again as a bear. The Toukaway Indians of Texas, one of whose totems is the wolf, have a ceremony in which men, dressed in wolf skins, run about on all fours, howling and mimicking wolves. At last they scratch up a living tribesman, who has been buried on purpose, and putting a bow and arrows in his hands, bid him do as the wolves do — rob, kill, and murder.^ The ceremony probably forms part of an initiatory rite like the resurrection from the grave of the old man in the Australian rites. The people of Rook, an island east of New Guinea, hold festivals at which one or two disguised men, their heads covered with wooden masks, go dancing through the village, followed by all the other men. They demand that the circumcised boys who have not yet been swallowed by Marsaba (the devil) shall be given up to them. The boys, trembling and shrieking, are delivered to them, and must creep be- tween the legs of the disguised men. Then the pro- cession moves through the village again, and announces that Marsaba has eaten up the boys, and will not dis- gorge them till he receives a present of pigs, taro, etc. So all the villagers, according to their means, contri- bute provisions, which are then consumed in the name of Marsaba.^ In New Britain all males are members 1 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, v. 683. mythological signification, ' holding the In a letter dated i6th Dec. 1887, Mr. earth' {hatch). He forms one of their A. S. Gatschet, of the Bureau of totem clans, and they have had a dance Ethnology, Washington, writes to me : in his honor, danced by the males only, "Among the Toukawe whom in 1884 who carried sticks." I found at Fort Griffin [?], Texas, I ^ Reina, " Ueber die Bewohner der noticed that they never kill the big or Insel Rook," Zeitschrift fUr allgemeine gray wolf, hatchukundn, which has a Erdkunde, N. F. iv. (1858) p. 356 sq. AT INITIATION 353 of an association called the Duk-duk. The boys are admitted to it very young, but are not fully initiated till their fourteenth year, when they receive from the Tubuvan a terrible blow with a cane, which is sup- posed to kill them. The Tubuvan and the Duk-duk are two disguised men who represent cassowaries. They dance with a short hopping step in imitation of the cassowary. Each of them wears a huge hat like an extinguisher, woven of grass or palm -fibres ; it is six feet high, and descends to the wearer's shoulders, completely concealing his head and face. From the neck to the knees the man's body is hidden by a crino- line made of the leaves of a certain tree fastened on hoops, one above the other. The Tubuvan is regarded as a female, the Duk-duk as a male. No woman may see these disguised men. The institution of the Duk- duk is common to the neighbouring islands of New Ireland and the Duke of York.^ Amongst the Galela and Tobelorese of Halmahera, an island to the west of New Guinea, boys go through a form of initiation, part of which seems to consist in a pretence of begetting them anew. When a number of boys have reached the proper age, their parents agree to celebrate the ceremony at their common expense, and they invite others to be present at it. A shed is erected, and two long tables are placed ■ in it, with ^ R. Parkinson, Im Bismarck der Bismarck Archipel, pp. 115 -128. Archipel, pp. 129-134; Rev. G. The inhabitants of these islands are Brown, " Notes on the Duke of York divided into two exogamous classes Group, New Britain, and New Ire- which in the Duke of York Island have \xaA," Journ. Royal Geogr. Soc. xlvii. two insects for their totems. One of (1878) p. 148 sq.; H. H. Romilly, the insects is the ?«a«^zj ydA^oraj-y the " The Islands of the New Britain other is an insect that mimicks the leaf Group," Proceed. Royal Geogr. Soc. of the horse-chestnut tree very closely. N. S. ix. (1887) p. II sq.; Rev. G. Rev. B. Danks, "Marriage customs of Brown, ib. p. 17; W. Powell, Wander- the New Britain Gioup," /our?i. An- ings ht a Wild Country, pp. 60-66 ; throp. Inst xviii. 281 sq. C. Hager, Kaiser Wilhelm^s Land und VOL. II 2 A 354 DEATH AND RESURRECTION chap. benches to match, one for the men and one for the women. When all the preparations have been made for a feast, a great many skins of the rayfish, and some pieces of a wood which imparts a red colour to water, are taken to the shed. A priest or elder causes a vessel to be placed in the sight of all the people, and then begins, with significant gestures, to rub a piece of the wood with the ray-skin. The powder so produced is put in the vessel, and at the same time the name of one of the boys is called out. The same proceeding is repeated for each boy. Then the vessels are filled with water, after which the feast begins. At the third cock-crow the priest smears the faces and bodies of the boys with the red water, which represents the blood shed at the perforation of the hymen. Towards daybreak the boys are taken to the wood, and must hide behind the largest trees. The men, armed with sword and shield, accompany them, dancing and singing. The priest knocks thrice on each of the trees behind which a boy is hiding. All day the boys stay in the wood, exposing themselves to the heat of the sun as much as possible. In the evening they bathe and return to the shed, where the women supply them with food.^ In the west of Ceram boys at puberty are ad- mitted to the Kakian association.^ Modern writers 1 J. G. F. Riedel, " Galela und Tobel- with slight changes in Tijdschrift v. oresen," Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie, xvii. Indische Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde, (1885) p. 81 sq. xvi. 1866, pp. 290-315); F. Fournier, 2 The Kakian association and its "De Zuidljust van Ceram," TY^i/nr^^-y? initiatory ceremonies have often been v. Indische Taal-Land-en Volketiktinde, described. See Valentyn, Otid en xvi. 154 sqg.; Van Rees, Die Pion- nieww Oost - Indien, iii. 3 sq. ; Von niers der Beschaving in Neerlatids Schmid, " Het Kakihansch Verbond Indie, pp. 92-106; Van Hoevell, op het eiland Ceram," Tijdschrift v. Ambon en tneer bepaaldelijk de Oeliasers, Neirlands Indie, v. dl. ii. (1843)25- p. 153 sqq.; Schulze, " Ueber Ceram 38 ; Van Ekris, " Het Ceramsche und seine Bewohner," Verhandl. d. Kakianverbond, " Mededeelingen van Berliner Gesell. f. Anihropologie, etc. -wege het Nederland. Zendelinggenoot- (1877) p. 117; W. Joest, "Beitrage schap, (1865) ix. 205-226 (repeated zur Kenntniss der Eingebornen der IV AT INITIATION 355 have commonly regarded this association as primarily a political league instituted to resist foreign domina- tion. In reality its objects are purely religious and social, though it is possible that the priests may have occasionally used their powerful influence for political ends. The society is in fact merely one of those widely-diffused primitive institutions, of which a chief object is the initiation of young men. In recent years the true nature of the association has been duly recog- nised by the distinguished Dutch ethnologist, J. G. F. Riedel. The Kakian house is an oblong wooden shed, situated under the darkest trees in the depth of the forest, and is built to admit so little light that it is impossible to see what goes on in it. Every village has such a house. Thither the boys who are to be initiated are conducted blindfolded, followed by their parents and relations. Each boy is led by the hand by two men, who act as his sponsors or guardians, looking after him during the period of initiation. When all are assembled before the shed, the high priest calls aloud upon the devils. Immediately a hideous uproar is heard to proceed from the shed. It is made by men with bamboo trumpets, who have been secretly introduced into the building by a back door, but the women and children think it is made by the devils, and are much terrified. Then the priests enter the shed, followed by the boys, one at a time. As soon as each boy has disappeared within the precincts, a dull chopping sound is heard, a fearful cry rings out, and a sword or spear, dripping with blood, is thrust Insel Formosa und Ceram,"z(/. (1882), pp. 107-111. The best accounts are p. 64 ; Rosenberg, Der Malayische those of Valentyn, Von Schmid, Van Archipel, p. 318; Bastian, /«(&««««, Ekris, Van Rees, and Riedel, which i. 145-148 ; Riedel, De sluik-en kroes- are accordingly followed in the 'text. harige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, 356 DEATH AND RESURRECTION chap. through the roof of the shed. This is a token that the boy's head has been cut off, and that the devil has carried him away to the other world, there to regener- ate and transform him. So at sight of the bloody sword the mothers weep and wail, crying that the devil has murdered their children. In some places, it would seem, the boys are pushed through an opening made in the shape of a crocodile's jaws or a cassowary's beak, and it is then said that the devil has swallowed them. The boys remain in the shed for five or nine days. Sitting in the dark, they hear the blast of the bamboo trumpets, and from time to time the sound of musket shots and the clash of swords. Every day they bathe, and their faces and bodies are smeared with a yellow dye, to give them the appearance of having been swallowed by the devil. During his stay in the Kakian house each boy has one or two crosses tattooed with thorns on his breast or arm. When they are not sleeping, the lads must sit in a crouching pos- ture without moving a muscle. As they sit in a row cross-legged, with their hands stretched out, the chief takes his trumpet, and placing the mouth of it on the hands of each lad, speaks through it in strange tones, imitating the voice of the spirits. He warns the lads, under pain of death, to observe the rules of the Kakian society, and never to reveal what has passed in the Kakian house. The novices are also told by the priests to behave well to their blood relations, and are taught the traditions and secrets of the tribe. Meantime the mothers and sisters of the lads have gone home to weep and mourn. But in a day or two the men who acted as guardians or sponsors to the novices return to the village with the glad tidings that the devil, at the intercession of the priests, has restored IV AT INITIA TION 3 5 7 the lads to life. The men who bring this news come in a fainting state and daubed with mud, like mes- sengers freshly arrived from the nether world. Before leaving the Kakian house, each lad receives from the priest a stick adorned at both ends with cock's or cassowary's feathers. The sticks are supposed to have been given to the lads by the devil at the time when he restored them to life, and they serve as a token that the lads have been in the spirit -land. When they return to their homes they totter in their walk, and enter the house backward, as if they had forgotten how to walk properly ; or they enter the house by the back door. If a plate of food is given to them, they hold it upside down. They remain dumb, indicating their wants by signs only. All this is to show that they are still under the influence of the devil or the spirits. Their sponsors have to teach them all the common acts of life, as if they were new-born children. Further, upon leaving the Kakian house the boys are strictly forbidden to eat of certain fruits until the next celebration of the rites has taken place. And for twenty or thirty days their hair may not be combed by their mothers or sisters. At the end of that time the high priest takes them to a lonely place in the forest, and cuts off a lock of hair from the crown of each of their heads. After these initiatory rites the lads are deemed men, and may marry ; it would be a scandal if they married before. The simulation of death and resurrection or of a new birth at initiation appears to have lingered on, or at least to have left traces of itself, among peoples who have advanced far beyond the stage of savagery. Thus, after his investiture with the sacred thread the symbol of his order — a Brahman is called "twice- 358 TOTEMISM: chap. born." Manu says, "According to the injunction of the revealed texts the first birth of an Aryan is from his natural mother, the second happens on the tying of the girdle of Munga grass, and the third on the initiation to the performance of a Srauta sacrifice."^ A pretence of killing the candidate appears to have formed part of the initiation to the Mithraic mysteries.^ Thus, if I am right, wherever totemism is found, and wherever a pretence is made of killing and bringing to life again at initiation, there must exist or have existed not only a belief in the possibility of perman- ently depositing the soul in some external object — animal, plant, or what not — but an actual intention of so depositing it. If the question is put, why do men desire to deposit their life outside their bodies ? the answer can only be that, like the giant in the fairy tale, they think it safer to do so than to carry it about with them, just as people deposit their money with a banker rather than carry it on their persons. We have seen that at critical periods the life or soul is sometimes temporarily deposited in a safe place till the danger is past. But institutions like totemism are not resorted to merely on special occasions of danger ; they are systems into which every one, or at least every male, is obliged to be initiated at a certain period of life. Now the period of life at which initiation takes place is regularly puberty ; and this fact suggests that the special danger which totemism and systems like it are intended to obviate is supposed not to arise till sexual maturity has been attained, in fact, that the danger 1 Laws of Manu, ii. 169, trans, by and Thought in India, pp. 360 sq. Biihler ; Dubois, Moeurs, Institutions 366 sq. et Cerimonies des Peuples de TInde, i. ^ Lampridius, Commodus, 9 ; C. 125 ; Monier Williams, Religious Life W. King, The Gnostics and their Remai/is,'^ pp. 127, 129. ITS MOTIVE 359 apprehended is believed to attend the relation of the sexes to each other. It would be easy to prove by a long array of facts that the sexual relation is associated in the primitive mind with many super- natural perils ; but the exact nature of the danger apprehended is still obscure. We may hope that a more exact acquaintance with savage modes of thought will in time disclose this central mystery of primitive society, and will thereby furnish the clue, not only to the social aspect of totem ism (the prohibition of sexual union between persons of the same totem), but to the origin of the marriage system. § ^.—Conclusion Thus the view that Balder's life was in the mistletoe is entirely in harmony with primitive modes of thought. It may indeed sound like a contradiction that, if his life was in the mistletoe, he should nevertheless have been killed by a blow from it. But when a person's life is conceived as embodied in a particular object, with the existence of which his own existence is inseparably bound up, and the destruction of which involves his own, the object in question may be regarded and spoken of indifferently as the person's life or as his death, as happens in the fairy tales. Hence if a man's death is in an object, it is perfectly natural that he should be killed by a blow from it. In the fairy tales Koshchei the Deathless is killed by a blow from the egg or the stone in which his life or death is ; ^ the ogres burst when a certain grain of sand — doubtless containing their life or death — is carried over their ^ Above, p. 309. 36o LIFE OF THE OAK chap. heads ; ^ the magician dies when the stone in which his Hfe or death is contained is put under his pillow ; ^ and the Tartar hero is warned that he may be killed by the golden arrow or golden sword in which his soul has been stowed away.^ The idea that the life of the oak was in the mistletoe was probably suggested, as I have said, by the obser- vation that in winter the mistletoe growing on the oak remains green, while the oak itself is leafless. But the position of the plant — growing, not from the ground, but from the trunk or branches of the tree — might confirm this idea. Primitive man might think that, like himself, the oak-spirit had sought to deposit his life in some safe place, and for this purpose had pitched on the mistletoe, which, being in a sense neither on earth nor in heaven, was as secure a place as could be found. At the beginning of this chapter we saw that primitive man seeks to preserve the life of his human divinities by keeping them In a sort of intermediate position between earth and heaven, as the place where they are least likely to be assailed by the dangers that encompass the life of man on earth. We can there- 1 Above, p. 312 j^. ^ Above, p. 308 jy. British Popular Customs, p. 68. ^ Above, p. 324 i^. In the myth the Mannhardt {Die Korndcimonen , p. 16 throwing of the weapons and of the sq.) has made it probable that such mistletoe at Balder and the blindness of sports are directly derived from the Hodur who slew him remind us of the custom of killing a cock upon the custom of the Irish reapers who kill the harvest-field as a representative of the corn-spirit in the last sheaf by throwing corn-spirit (see above, p. 9). These their sickles blindfold at it. (See above, customs, therefore, combined with the vol. i. p. 339). In Mecklenburg a cock blindness of Hodur in the myth suggest is sometimes buried in the ground and that the man who killed the human a man who is blindfolded strikes at it representative of the oak - spirit was with a flail. If he misses it, another blindfolded, and threw his weapon or tries, and so on till the cock is killed. the mistletoe from a little distance. Bartsch, Sagen, Mdrchen und Ge- After the Lapps had killed a bear brduche aus Mecklenburg, ii. 280. In — which was the occasion of many England on Shrove Tuesday a hen superstitious ceremonies — the bear's used to be tied upon a man's back, and skin was hung on a post, and the other men blindfolded struck at it with women, blindfolded, shot arrows at branches till they killed it. Dyer, it. Scheffer, Lapfonia, p. 240. IV IN THE MISTLETOE 361 fore understand why in modern folk - medicine the mistletoe is not allowed to touch the ground ; if it touches the ground, its healing virtue is supposed to be gone/ This may be a survival of the old supersti- tion that the plant in which the life of the sacred tree was concentrated should not be exposed to the risk incurred by contact with the ground. In an Indian legend, which offers a parallel to the Balder myth, Indra promised the demon Namuci not to kill him by day or by night, nor with what was wet or what was dry. But he killed him in the morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea.^ The foam of the sea is just such an object as a savage might choose to put his life in, because it occupies that sort of intermediate or nondescript position between earth and sky or sea and sky in which primitive man sees safety. It is therefore not surprising that the foam of the river should be the totem of a clan in India.' Again, the view that the mistletoe owes its mystic character partly to the fact of its not growing on the ground is confirmed by a parallel superstition about the mountain-ash or rowan-tree. In Jutland a rowan that is found growing out of the top of another tree is esteemed " exceedingly effective against witchcraft : since it does not grow on the ground witches have no power over it ; if it is to have its full effect it must be cut on Ascension Day."* Hence it is placed over doors to prevent the ingress of witches. ° Similarly the mistletoe in Germany is still 1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythobgie,'^ ii. over Jyske Almuesmal, Fjerde hefte looi, loio. (Copenhagen, 1888), p. 320. For a 2 Folk-lore Journal, vii. 61. sight of Feilberg's worlc I am indebted 3 Col. E. T. Dalton, "The Kols of to the kindness of the Rev. Walter Chota-Nagpore," Trans. Ethnol Soc. Gregor, M.A., Pitsligo, who pointed "■ 3d- out the passage to me, * Jens Kamp, Danske Folkeminder 6 g. T. Kristensen, lydske Folke- (Odense, 1877), pp. 172, 65^5?. referred minder, vi. 380262, referred to by to in Feilberg's Bidrag til en Ordbog Feilberg, I.e. 362 THE MISTLETOE IS chap. universally considered a protection against witchcraft, and in Sweden, as we saw, the mistletoe which is gathered on Midsummer Eve is attached to the ceiling of the house, the horse stall, or the cow's crib, in the belief that this renders the Troll powerless to injure man or beast.-' The view that the mistletoe was not merely the instrument of Balder's death, but that it contained his life, is countenanced by the analogy of a Scottish superstition. Tradition ran that the fate of the family of Hay was bound up with the mistletoe of a certain oak. " While the mistletoe bats on Errol's oak, And that oak stands fast, The Hays shall flourish, and their good gray hawk Shall not flinch before the blast. " But when the root of the oak decays, And the mistletoe dwines on its withered breast, The grass shall grow on the Earl's hearthstone, And the corbies craw in the falcon's nest." "A large oak with the mistletoe growing on it was long pointed out as the tree referred to. A piece of the mistletoe cut by a Hay was believed to have magical virtues. ' The oak is gone and the estate is lost to the family,' as a local historian says."^ The idea that the fate of a family, as distinct from the lives of its members, is bound up with a particular plant or tree, is no doubt comparatively modern. The older view probably was that the lives of all the Hays were in this particular mistletoe, just as in the Indian story the lives of all the ogres are in a lemon ; to break a twig of the mistletoe would then have been to kill one ^ Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaber- and sent to me by the Rev. Walter glaube,''-%\2%; !_,. lAoyi, Peasant Life Gregor, M.A., Pitsligo. Mr. Gregor /« Sweden, p. 269. does not mention the name of the - Extract from a newspaper, copied newspaper. IV THE GOLDEN BOUGH 363 of the Hays. Similarly in the island of Rum, whose bold mountains the voyager from Oban to Skye observes to seaward, it was thought that if one of the family of Lachlin shot a deer on the mountain of Finchra, he would die suddenly or contract a dis- temper which would soon prove fatal.^ Probably the life of the Lachlins was bound up with the deer on Finchra, as the life of the Hays was bound up with the mistletoe on Errol's oak. It is not a new opinion that the Golden Bough was the mistletoe.^ True, Virgil does not identify but only compares it with the mistletoe. But this may be only a poetical device to cast a mystic glamour over the humble plant. Or, more probably, his description was based on a popular superstition that at certain times the mistletoe blazed out into a supernatural golden glory. The poet tells how two doves, guiding Aeneas to the gloomy vale in whose depth grew the Golden Bough, alighted upon a tree, "whence shone a flickering gleam of gold. As in the woods in winter cold the mistletoe — a plant not native to its tree — is green with fresh leaves and twines its yellow berries about the boles ; such seemed upon the shady oak the leafy gold, so rustled in the gentle breeze the golden leaf" ^ Here Virgil definitely describes the Golden Bough as growing on an oak, and compares it with the mistletoe. The inference is almost inevitable that the Golden Bough was nothing but the mistletoe seen through the haze of poetry or of popular superstition. Now grounds have been shown for believing that 1 Martin, "Description of the 2 Rochholz, Deutscher Glaube mid Western Islands of Scotland," in Branch, i. 9. Pinlcerton's Voyages ajid Travels, iii. 3 Virgil, Aen. vi. 203 sqq., cp. 136 ^6'- sqq. On the mistletoe (viscum) see Pliny, A'at. Hist. xvi. 245 sqq. 364 THE KING OF THE WOOD chap. the priest of the Arician grove — the King of the Wood — personified the tree on which grew the Golden Bough.-' Hence, if that tree was the oak, the King of the Wood must have been a personification of the oak- spirit. It is, therefore, easy to understand why, before he could be slain, it was necessary to break the Golden Bough. As an oak -spirit, his life or death was in the mistletoe on the oak, and so long as the mistletoe re- mained intact, he, like Balder, could not die. To slay him, therefore, it was necessary to break the mistletoe, and probably, as in the case of Balder, to throw it at him. And to complete the parallel, it is only necessary to suppose that the King of the Wood was formerly burned, dead or alive, at the midsummer fire festival which, as we have seen, was annually celebrated in the Arician grove. ^ The perpetual fire which btirned in the grove, like the perpetual fire under the oak at Romove, was probably fed with the sacred oak-wood ; and thus it would be in a great fire of oak that the King of the Wood formerly met his end. At a later time, as I have suggested, his annual tenure of office was lengthened or shortened, as the case might be, by the rule which allowed him to live so long as he could prove his divine right by the strong hand. But he only escaped the fire to fall by the sword. Thus it seems that at a remote age in the heart of Italy, beside the sweet lake of Nemi, the same fiery tragedy was annually enacted which Italian merchants and soldiers were afterwards to witness among their rude kindred, the Celts of Gaul, and which, if the ■^ Virgil (Aen. vi. 201 sqq.) places infernal world. Italian tradition, as we the Golden Bough in the neighbourhood learn from Servius, placed the Golden of Lake Avernus. But this was prob- Bough in the grove at Nemi. ably a poetical liberty, adopted for the convenience of Aeneas's descent to the ^ See above, vol. i. p. 4 sq. IV BURNT IN OAK FIRE 365 Roman eagles had ever swooped on Norway, might have been found repeated with Httle difference among the barbarous Aryans of the North. The rite was probably an essential feature in the primitive Aryan worship of the oak.^ It only remains to ask, Why was the mistletoe called the Golden Bough ? The name was not simply a poet's fancy, nor even peculiarly Italian ; for in Welsh also the mistletoe is known as " the tree of pure gold." ^ The whitish-yellow of the mistletoe berries is hardly enough to account for the name. For Virgil says that the Bough was altogether golden, stem as well as leaves,' and the same is implied in the Welsh name, "the tree of pure gold." A clue to the real meaning of the name is furnished by the mythical fern-seed or fern-bloom. We saw that fern -seed is popularly supposed to bloom like gold or fire on Midsummer Eve. Thus in Bohemia it is said that " on St. John's Day fern- seed blooms with golden blossoms that gleam like fire."* Now it is a property of this mythical fern- seed that whoever has it, or will ascend a mountain holding it in his hand on Midsummer Eve, will discover a vein of gold or will see the treasures of the earth shining with a bluish flame.'' And if you place fern- 1 A custom of annually burning a Druids seem to have eaten portions of human representative of the corn-spirit the human victim. Pliny, Nat. Hist. . has .been noted among the Egyptians, xxx. §13. Perhaps portions of the flesh Pawnees, and Khonds. See above, vol. of the King of the Wood were eaten by i. pp. 382, 387, 401 sq. In Semitic his worshippers as a sacrament. We lands there are traces of n practice of have seen traces ofthe use of sacramental annually burning a human god. For the bread at Nemi. See above, p. 82 j^j. image of Hercules (that is, of Baal) 2 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,'^ ii. which was periodically burned on a pyre 1 009, fren ptiraur. at Tarsus, must have been a substitute ^ Virgil, Aeti. vi. 137 sq. for a human representative of the god. ^ Grohmann, Aberglauben mid Ge- See Dio Chrysostom, Orat. 33, vol. ii. brducheaus Bohmemmd Mdhren,%6-]-\ p. 16, ed. Dindorf ; W. R. Smith, The ^ Grohmann, op. cit. % 676; Wuttke' Religion ofthe Semites, i. -i^i-isq. The Der deutsche Volksaberglaube] % \2i. 366 WHY THE MISTLETOE chap. seed among money, the money will never decrease, however much of it you spend.^ Sometimes the fern -seed is supposed to bloom at Christmas, and whoever catches it will become very rich.^ Thus, on the principle of like by like, fern -seed is supposed to discover gold because it is itself golden ; and for a similar reason it enriches its possessor with an un- failing supply of gold. But while the fern -seed is described as golden, it is equally described as glowing and fiery.^ Hence, when we consider that two great days for gathering the fabulous seed are Midsummer Eve and Christmas — that is, the two solstices (for Christmas is nothing but an old heathen celebration of the winter solstice) — we are led to regard the fiery aspect of the fern - seed as primary, and its golden aspect as secondary and derivative. Fern - seed, in fact, would seem to be an emanation of the sun's fire at the two turning-points of its course, the summer and winter solstices. This view is confirmed by a German story in which a hunter is said to have procured fern -seed by shooting at the sun on Mid- summer Day at noon ; three drops of blood fell down, which he caught in a white cloth, and these blood -drops were the fern -seed.* Here the blood is clearly the blood of the sun, from which the fern- seed is thus directly derived. Thus it may be taken as certain that fern -seed is golden, because it is believed to be an emanation of the sun's golden fire. Now, like fern- seed, the mistletoe is gathered ^ Zingerle, Sitten, Brduche und Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, Meintmgen des Tiroler Volkes,''' § p. 98. 882. * L. Bechstein, Deutsches Sagenbuch 2 Zingerle op. cit. § 1573. No. 500; id., Thiiringer Sagenbuch ' Grohmann, op. cit. § 675 ; (Leipzig, 1885), ii. No. 161. IV IVAS CALLED GOLDEN 367 either at Midsummer or Christmas ^ — that is, at the summer and winter solstices — and, like fern -seed, it is supposed to possess the power of revealing treasures in the earth. On Midsummer Eve people in Sweden make divining-rods of mistletoe or of four different kinds of wood, one of which must be mistletoe. The treasure-seeker places the rod on the ground after sun- down, and when it rests directly over treasure, the rod begins to move as if it were alive.^ Now, if the mistletoe discovers gold, it must be in its character of the Golden Bough ; and if it is gathered at the sol- stices, must not the Golden Bough, like the golden fern- seed, be an emanation of the sun's fire } The question cannot be answered with a simple affirmative. We have seen that the primitive Aryans probably kindled the midsummer bonfires as sun -charms, that is, with the intention of supplying the sun with fresh fire. But as this fire was always elicited by the friction of oak wood,^ it must have appeared to the primitive Aryan that the sun was periodically recruited from the fire which resided in the sacred oak. In other words, the oak must have seemed to him the original storehouse or reservoir of the fire which was from time to time drawn out to feed the sun. But the life of the oak was conceived to be in the mistletoe ; therefore the mistletoe must have contained the seed or germ of the 1 For gathering it at midsummer, Medallic History of Carausius, quoted see above, p. 289. The custom of by Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. 525. gathering it at Christmas still survives This last custom is of course now among ourselves. At York "on the obselete. eve of Christmas Day they carry 9 .<■ ,• ^^ „ mistletoe to the high altar of the / ^fzelms Volkssagen mtd Volks- cathedral, and proclaim a public and ''^^'ir aus Schwedens alterer u,td neuerer universal liberty, pardon, and freedom ,f\]'M..^'^''' G"""™. Deutsche to all sorts of inferior and even wicked f^'^'^f^J^. "i- 289 5 L- Lloyd, Peasant people at the gates of the city, towards ^V' "' Swedeti, p. 266 sq. the four quarters of heaven." Stukeley, ^ Above, p. 293. 368 THE OAK A STORE chap. fire which was elicited by friction from the wood of the oak. Thus, instead of saying that the mistletoe was an emanation of the sun's fire, It would be more correct to say that the sun's fire was regarded as an emanation of the mistletoe. No wonder, then, that the mistletoe shone with a golden splendour, and was called the Golden Bough. Probably, however, like fern-seed, it was thought to assume its golden aspect only at those stated times, especially midsummer, when fire was drawn from the oak to light up the sun.^ At Pulverbatch, in Shropshire, it was believed within living memory that the oak-tree blooms on Mid- summer Eve and the blossom withers before daylight.^ This fleeting bloom of the oak, if I am right, could originally have been nothing but the mistletoe in its character of the Golden Bough. As Shropshire borders on Wales, the superstition may be Welsh in its immediate origin, though probably the belief is a fragment of the primitive Aryan creed. In some parts of Italy, as we saw,^ peasants still go out on Midsummer morning to search the oak-trees for the " oil of St. John," which, like the mistletoe, heals all wounds, and is doubtless the mistletoe itself in its glorified aspect. Thus it is easy to understand how a title like the Golden Bough or the " tree of pure gold," so little descriptive of the real appearance of the plant, should have held its ground as a name for the mistletoe in Italy and Wales, and probably in other parts of the Aryan world.* 1 Fern-seed is supposed to bloom at Folk-lore, p. 242. ' p^ 288. Easter as well as at midsummer and * The reason why Virgil represents Q\a\.'!,\-'avz.'i,^z\s,'ion,Songsof the Russian Aeneas as taking the mistletoe with People, p. 98 sq. ) ; and Easter, as we him to Hades is perhaps that the have seen, is one of the times when sun- mistletoe was supposed to repel evil fires are kindled. ' spirits (see above, p. 362). Hence ^ Burne and Jackson, Shropshire when Charon is disposed to bluster at OF SOLAR FIRE 369 Now, too, we can fully understand why Virbius came to be confounded with the sun. If Virbius was, as I have tried to show, a tree-spirit, he must have been the spirit of the oak on which grew the Golden Bough ; for tradition represented him as the first of the Kings of the Wood. As an oak-spirit he must have been supposed periodically to rekindle the sun's fire, and might therefore easily be confounded with the sun itself. Similarly we can explain why Balder, an oak-spirit, was described as " so fair of face and so shining that alight went forth from him," ^ and why he should have been so often taken to be the sun. And in general we may say that in primitive society, when the only known way of making fire is by the friction of wood, the savage must necessarily conceive fire as a property stored away, like sap or juice, in trees, from which he has laboriously to extract it. Thus all trees, or at least the particular sorts of trees whose wood he employs in fire -making, must be regarded by him as reservoirs of hidden fire, and it is natural that he should describe them by epithets like golden, shining, or bright. May not this have been the origin of the name, " the Bright or Shining One " (Zeus, Jove) by which the ancient Greeks and Italians designated their supreme god ? ^ It is at least highly significant that, amongst Aeneas, the sight of the Golden Bough "shining," "bright," see Curtius, quiets him (Aen. vi. 406 sq.) Perhaps Griech. Etymologief p. 236 ; Vanicek, also the power ascribed to the mistletoe Griech. -Latein. Etymolog. Wbrterbuch, of laying bare the secrets of the earth p. 353 sqq. On the relation of Jove may have suggested its use as a kind of to the oak, compare Pliny, Nat. Hist. "open Sesame" to the lower world. xii. § 3, arborum genera numinibus Compare Aen. vi. 140 sq. — suis dicata perpetuo servantur, ut Jovi ^^ Sed non ante datur telluris operta subire^ aesculus \ Servius on Virgil, Georg. iii. Auricomosquam qui decerpserit arbore -^2, omnis quercus Jovi est consecrata. ,^'"-'-'' ,, .., ,, Zeus and Jupiter have commonly been c- v8 fi' "''^''^'^' ^°^ ^^- regarded as sky gods, because their bimrock, p. 264. ^ jiames are etymologically connected On the derivation of the names ^ith the Sanscrit word for sky. The Zeus and Jove from a root meaning reason seems insufficient. VOL. II -2 B 370 THE OAK THE CHIEF GOD chap. both Greeks and Italians, the oak should have been the tree of the supreme god, that at his most ancient shrines, both in Greece and Italy, this supreme god should have been actually represented by an oak, and that so soon as the barbarous Aryans of Northern Europe appear in the light of history, they should be found, amid all diversities of language, of character, and of country, nevertheless at one in worshipping the oak as the chief object of their religious reverence, and extracting their sacred fire from its wood. If we are to judge of the primitive religion of the European Aryans by comparing the religions of the different branches of the stock, the highest place in their pantheon must certainly be assigned to the oak. The result, then, of our inquiry is to make it probable that, down to the time of the Roman Empire and the be- ginning of our era, the primitive worship of the Aryans was maintained nearly in its original form in the sacred grove at Nemi, as in the oak woods of Gaul, of Prussia, and of Scandinavia ; and that the King of the Wood lived and died as an incar- nation of the supreme Aryan god, whose life was in the mistletoe or Golden Bough. If, in bidding farewell to Nemi, we look around us for the last time, we shall find the lake and its sur- roundings not much changed from what they were in the days when Diana and Virbius still received the homage of their worshippers in the sacred grove. The temple of Diana, indeed, has disappeared, and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the IV LE ROI EST MORT 371 Golden Bough. But Nemi's woods are still green, and at evening you may hear the church bells of Albano, and perhaps, if the air be still, of Rome itself, ringing the Angelus. Sweet and solemn they chime out from the distant city, and die lingeringly away across the wide Campagnan marshes. Le roi est mort, vive le roi ! NOTE O^erings of first-fruits We have seen (vol. ii. p. 68 sqq!) that primitive peoples often partake of the new corn sacramentally, because they suppose it to be instinct with a divine spirit or life. At a later age, when the fruits of the earth are conceived as produced rather than as animated by a divinity, the new fruits are no longer partaken of sacramentally as the body and blood of a god ; but a portion of them is presented as a thank- offering to the divine beings who are believed to have produced them. Sometimes the first-fruits are presented to the king, probably in his character of a god. Till the first-fruits have been offered to the deity or the king, people are not at liberty to eat of the new crops. But, as it is not always possible to draw a sharp line between the sacrament and the sacrifice of first-fruits, it may be well to round oiF this part of the subject by appending some miscellaneous examples of the latter. Among the Basutos, when the corn has been threshed and winnowed, it is left in a heap on the threshing-floor. Before it can be touched a religious ceremony must be performed. The persons to whom the corn belongs bring a new vessel to the spot, in which they boil some of the grain. When it is boiled they throw a few handfuls of it on the heap of corn, saying, " Thank you, gods ; give us bread to-morrow also ! " When this is done the rest is eaten, and the provision for the year is considered pure and fit to eat.^ Here the sacrifice of the first-fruits to the gods is the prominent idea, which comes out again in the custom of leaving in the threshing- floor a little hollow filled with grain, as a thank-offering to the gods.^ ^ Casalis, The Basutos, p. 251 sj. 2 /^_ p_ 252. 374 OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS note Still the Basutos retain a lively sense of the sanctity of the corn in itself; for, so long as it is exposed to view, all defiled persons are carefully kept from it. If it is necessary to employ a defiled person in carrying home the harvest, he remains at some distance while the sacks are being filled, and only approaches to place them upon the draught oxen. As soon as the load is deposited at the dwelling he retires, and under no pretext may he help to pour the corn into the baskets in which it is kept.^ In Ashantee a harvest festival is held in September when the yams are ripe. During the festival the king eats the new yams, but none of the people may eat them till the close of the festival, which lasts a fortnight. During its continuance the grossest liberty prevails ; theft, intrigue, and assault go unpunished, and each sex abandons itself to its passions.^ The Hovas of Madagascar present the first sheaves of the new grain to the sovereign. The sheaves are carried in procession to the palace from time to time as the grain ripens.^ So in Burma, when thtpangati fruits ripen, some of them used to be taken to the king's palace that he might eat of them ; no one might partake of them before the king.* Every year, when they gather their first crops, the Kochs of Assam offer some of the first-fruits to their ancestors, calling to them by name and clapping their hands.' In August, when the rice ripens, the Hos offer the first-fruits of the harvest to Sing Bonga, who dwells in the sun. Along with the new rice a white cock is sacrificed ; and till the sacrifice has been offered no one may eat the new rice.* Among the hill tribes near Rajamahall, in India, when the kosarane grain is being reaped in November or early in December, a festival is held as a thanksgiving before the new grain is eaten. On a day appointed by the chief a goat is sacrificed by two men to a god called Chitariah Gossaih, after which the chief himself sacrifices a fowl. Then the vassals repair to their fields, offer thanksgiving, make an oblation to Kull Gossaih (who is described as the Ceres of these mountaineers), and then return to their houses to eat of the new kosarane. As soon as the ^ Casalis, The Basittos, p. 252 sq. 7iarivo Annual and Madagascar Maga- ^ A. B. Ellis, TAe Tshi-speaking ziiie, iii. 263. Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 229 sq.; * Bastian, Die Volker des bstlichen T. E. Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, Asien, ii. 105. p. 226 sq. (ed. 1873.) * Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. ^ J. Cameron, "On the Early In- 91. habitants of Madagascar," Antana- " Dalton, op. cit. p. 198. NOTE OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS 375 inhabitants have assembled at the chiefs house — the men sitting on one side and the women on the other — a hog, a measure of kosarane, and a pot of spirits are presented to the chief, who in return blesses his vassals, and exhorts them to industry and good behaviour ; " after which, making a libation in the names of all their gods, and of their dead, he drinks, and also throws a little of the kosarane away, repeating the same pious exclamations." Drinking and festivity then begin, and are kept up for several days. The same tribes have another festival at reaping the Indian corn in August or September. Every man repairs to his fields with a hog, a goat, or a fowl, which he sacrifices to KuU Gossaih. Then, having feasted, he returns home, where another repast is prepared. On this day it is customary for every family in the village to distribute to every house a little of what they have prepared for their feast. Should any person eat of the new kosarane or the new Indian corn before the festival and public thanksgiving at the reaping of these crops, the chief fines him a white cock, which is sacrificed to Chitariah.-'- In the Central Provinces of India the first grain of the season is always offered to the god Bhimsen or Bhim Deo.^ In the Punjaub, when sugar-cane is planted, a woman puts on a necklace and walks round the field, winding thread on to a spindle ;^ and when the sugar-cane is cut the first-fruits are offered on an altar, which is built close to the press and is sacred to the sugar-cane god. Afterwards the first-fruits are given to Brahmans. Also, when the women begin to pick the cotton, they go round the field eating rice- milk, the first mouthful of which they spit upon the field toward the west ; and the first cotton picked is exchanged at the village shop for its weight in salt, which is prayed over and kept in the house till the picking is finished.* In the island of Tjumba, East Indies, a festival is held after harvest. Vessels filled with rice are presented as a thank-offering to the gods. Then the sacred stone at the foot of a palm-tree is sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed animal ; and rice, with some of 1 Thomas Shaw, "The Inhabitants women were forbidden by law to wallc of the Hills near Rajamahall," Asiatic on the highroads twirling a spindle, Researches, iv. 56 sq. because this was supposed to injure 2 Panjai Notes and Queries, i. No. *e "ops. Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxviii. §2S * D. C. J. Ibbetson, Outlines of 3 This is curiously unlike the custom Panjab Ethnography (Calcutta, 1883), 502 3 of ancient Italy, in most parts of which p. i ig 376 OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS note the flesh, is laid on the stone for the gods. The palm-tree is hung with lances and shields.^ The Dyaks of Borneo hold a feast of first-fruits when the paddy (unhusked rice) is ripe. The priestesses, accom- panied by a gong and drum, go in procession to the farms and gather several bunches of the ripe paddy. These are brought back to the village, washed in cocoa-nut water, and laid round a bamboo altar, which at the harvest festivals is erected in the common room of the largest house. The altar is gaily decorated with white and red streamers, and is hung with the sweet-smelling blossom of the areca palm. The feast lasts two days, during which the village is tabooed ; no one may leave it. Only fowls are killed, and dancing and gong- beating go on day and night. When the festival is over the people are free to get in their crops.^ The pounding of the new paddy is the occasion of a harvest festival which is celebrated all over Celebes. The religious cere- monies which accompany the feast were witnessed by Dr. B. F. Matthes in July 1857. Two mats were spread on the ground, each with a pillow on it. On one of the pillows were placed a man's clothes and a sword, on the other a woman's clothes. These were seemingly intended to represent the deceased ancestors. Rice and water were placed before the two dummy figures, and they were sprinkled with the new paddy. Also dishes of rice were set down for the rest of the family and the slaves of the deceased. This was the end of the ceremony.^ The Minahassa of Celebes have a festival of "eating the new rice.'' Fowls or pigs are killed; some of the flesh, with rice and palm-wine, is set apart for the gods, and then the eating and drinking begin.* The people of Kobi and Sariputi, two villages on the north-east coast of Ceram, offer the first-fruits of the paddy, in the form of cooked rice, with tobacco, etc., to their ancestors, as a token of gratitude. The ceremony is called " feeding the dead."^ In the Tenimber and Timorlaut Islands, East Indies, 1 Fr. Junghuhn, Die Battalander 165 sq.; E. Tregear, "The Maoris of auf Sumatra, ii. 312. New Zealand," yoanz. Anthrop, Inst. ^ Spenser St. John, Life in the xix. 110. Forests of the Far East, i. igi. On ^ B. F. Matthes, Beknoft Verslag .taboos observed at agricultural opera- mijner reizen in de Binnenlanden van tions, see id. i. 185; R. G. Wood- Celebes, in de jaren 1857 en 1861, p. thorpe, "Wild Tribes Inhabiting the 5. so-called Naga Hills, "yo2«72. ^K//^ra/. ^ N. Graafland, De Minahassa, i. Inst. xi. 71 ; Old New Zealand, by a 165. Pakeha Maori (London, 1884), p. 103 ^ J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik-en sq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui ; or, kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en New Zealand and its hihabitants^ p. Papua, p. 107. NOTE OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS 377 the first-fruits of the paddy, along with live fowls and pigs, are offered ,to the matmate. The matmate are the spirits of their ancestors, which are worshipped as guardian-spirits or household gods. They are supposed to enter the house through an opening in the roof, and to take up their abode temporarily in their skulls, or in images of wood or ivory, in order to partake of the offerings and to help the family. They also take the form of birds, pigs, crocodiles, turtles, sharks, etc.^ In Amboina, after the rice or other harvest has been gathered in, some of the new fruits are offered to the gods, and till this is done, the priests may not eat of them. A portion of the new rice, or whatever it may be, is boiled, and milk of the cocoa-nut is poured on it, mixed with Indian saffron. It is then taken to the place of sacrifice and offered to the god. Some people also pour out oil before the deity ; and if any of the oil is left over, they take it home as a holy and priceless treasure, wherewith they smear the forehead and breast of sick people and whole people, in the firm conviction that the oil confers all kinds of blessings.^ The Irayas and Catalangans of Luzon, tribes of the Malay stock, but of mixed blood, worship chiefly the souls of their ancestors under the name of anitos, to whom they offer the first-fruits of the harvest. The anttos are household deities ; some of them reside in pots in the corners of the houses ; and miniature houses, standing near the dwelling-house, are especially sacred to them.^ In certain tribes of Fiji "the first-fruits of the yam harvest are presented to the ancestors in the Nanga [sacred stone enclosure] with great ceremony, before the bulk of the crop is dug for the people's use, and no man may taste of the new yams until the presentation has been made. The yams thus offered are piled in the Great Nanga, and are allowed to rot there. If any one were impiously bold enough to appropriate them to his own use, ' he would be smitten with madness. The mission teacher before mentioned told me that when he visited the Nanga he saw among the weeds with which it was overgrown numerous yam vines which had sprung up out of the piles of decayed offerings. Great feasts are made at the presentations of the first-fruits, which are times of public rejoicing, and the Nanga itself is frequently spoken of as the Mbakt, or Har- ^ Riedel, op. cit. pp. 281, 296 sq. ' C. Semper, Die Philipfinen und ^ Fr. Valentyn, Oud en nieuw Oost- ihre Bewohner, p. 56. Indien, iii. 10. 378 OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS note vest." 1 In other parts of Fiji the practice with regard to the first- fruits seems to have been different, for we are told by another observer that "the first-fruits of the yams, which are always pre- sented at the principal temple of the district, become the property of the priests, and form their revenue, although the pretence of their being required for the use of the god is generally kept up."^ In Tana, one of the New Hebrides, the general name for gods appeared to be aremha, which meant "a dead man.'' The spirits of departed ancestors were among the gods of the people. Chiefs who reached an advanced age were deified after their death, addressed by name, and prayed to on various occasions. They were supposed to pre- side especially over the growth of the yams and fruit-trees. The first-fruits were presented to them. A little of the new fruit was laid on a stone, or on a shelving branch of the tree, or on a rude tem- porary altar, made of a few sticks lashed together with strips of bark, in the form of a table, with its four feet stuck in the ground. All being quiet, the chief acted as high priest, and prayed aloud as follows : " Compassionate father ! here is some food for you ; eat it ; be kind to us on account of it." Then all the people shouted. This took place about noon, and afterwards the assembled people feasted and danced till midnight or morning.^ In some of the Kingsmill Islands the god most commonly wor- shipped was called Tubu^riki. He was represented by a flat coral stone, of irregular shape, about three feet long by eighteen inches wide, set up on one end in the open air. Leaves of the cocoa-nut palm were tied about it, considerably increasing its size and height. The leaves were changed every month, that they might be always fresh. The worship paid to the god consisted in repeating prayers before the stone, and laying beside it a portion of the food prepared by the people for their own use. This they did at their daily meals, at festivals, and whenever they specially wished to propitiate the favour of the god. The first-fruits of the season were always offered to him. Every family of distinction had one of these stones which was considered rather in the light of a family altar than as an idol.* ^ Rev. Lorimer Fison, "TheNanga, among the Islands of the Western Pacific, or sacred stone enclosure, of Waini- p. 252. ^ Turner, Samoa, p. 318 sq. mala, Viyi," Journ. Anthrof. Inst. xiv. * Horatio Hale, United States Ex- 27. flaring Expedition, Ethnology and 2 J. E. 'Eis\dns, Journal of a Cruise Philology, p. 97. NOTE OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS 379 The following is a description of the festival of first-fruits as it was celebrated in Tonga in the days when a European flag rarely floated among the islands of the Pacific. " Inachi. This word means literally a share or portion of any thing that is to be, or has been, distributed out : but in the sense here mentioned it means that por- tion of the fruits of the earth, and other eatables, which is offered to the gods in the person of the divine chief Tooitonga, which allotment is made once a year, just before the yams in general are arrived at a state of maturity; those which are used in this ceremony being planted sooner than others, and, consequently, they are the first-fruits of the yam season. The object of this offering is to insure the pro- tection of the gods, that their favour may be extended to the welfare of the nation generally, and in particular to the productions of the earth, of which yams are the most important. " The time for planting most kinds of yams is about the latter end of July, but the species called caho-caho, which is always used in this ceremony, is put in the ground about a month before, when, on each plantation, there is a small piece of land chosen and fenced in, for the purpose of growing a couple of yams of the above description. As soon as they have arrived at a state of maturity, the How [King] sends a messenger to Tooitonga, stating that the yams for the inachi are fit to be taken up, and requesting that he would appoint a day for the ceremony ; -he generally fixes on the tenth day afterwards, reckoning the following day for the first. There are no particular preparations made till the day before the ceremony ; at night, how- ever, the sound of the conch is heard occasionally in different parts of the islands, and as the day of the ceremony approaches, it becomes more frequent, so that the people of almost every plantation sound the conch three or four times, which, breaking in upon the silence of the night, has a pleasing eff'ect, particularly at Vavaoo, where the number of woods and hills send back repeated echoes, adding greatly to the eff'ect. The day before the ceremony the yams are dug up, and ornamented with a kind of ribbon prepared from the inner membrane of the leaf of a species of pandanus, and dyed red. . . . " The sun has scarcely set When the sound of the conch begins again to echo through the island, increasing as the night advances. At the Mooa [capital] and all the plantations the voices of men and women are heard singing Nbfo boa tegger gnaobe, booa gnaobe, Rest thou, doing no work ; thou shalt not work. This increases till mid- night, men generally singing the first part of the sentence, and the 38o OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS note women the last : it then subsides for three or four hours, and again increases as the sun rises. Nobody, however, is seen stirring out in the public roads till about eight o'clock, when the people from all quarters of the island are seen advancing towards the Mooa, and canoes from all the other islands are landing their men ; so that all the inhabitants of Tonga seem approaching by sea and land, singing and sounding the conch. At the Mooa itself the universal bustle of preparation is seen and heard ; and the different processions entering from various quarters of men and women, all dressed up in new gnatoos, ornamented with red ribbons and wreaths of flowers, and the men armed with spears and clubs, betoken the importance of the ceremony about to be performed. Each party brings in its yams in a basket, which is carried in the arms with great care by the principal vassal of the chief to whom the plantation may belong. The baskets are deposited in the maldi^ (in the Mooa), and some of them begin to employ themselves in slinging the yams, each upon the centre of a pole about eight or nine feet long, and four inches diameter. The proceedings are regulated by attending matabooles.^ The yams being all slung, each pole is carried by two men upon their shoulders, one walking before the other, and the yam hanging between them, orna- mented with red ribbons. The procession begins to move towards the grave of the last Tooitonga (which is generally in the neighbour- hood, or the grave of one of his family will do), the men advancing in a single line, every two bearing a yam, with a slow and measured pace, sinking at every step, as if their burden were of immense weight. In the meantime the chiefs and matabooles are seated in a semicircle before the grave, with their heads bowed down, and their hands clasped before them." The procession then marched round the grave twice or thrice in a great circle, the conchs blowing and the men singing. Next the yams, still suspended from the poles, were deposited before the grave, and their bearers sat down beside them. One of the matabooles of Tooitonga now addressed the gods generally, and afterwards particularly, mentioning the late Tooitonga, and the names of several others. He thanked them for their divine bounty in favouring the land with the prospect of so good a harvest, and prayed that their beneficence might be continued in future. 1 The vialai is " a piece of ground, are principally held." Mariner, Tonga generally before a large house, or Islands, Vocabulary. chief's grave, where public ceremonies ^ The mataboole is "a rank next below chiefs or nobles." lb. NOTE OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS 381 When he had finished, the men rose and resumed their loads, and after parading two or three times round the grave, marched back to the maldi, singing and blowing the conchs as before. The chiefs and matabooles soon followed to the same place, where the yams had been again deposited. Here the company sat down in a great circle, presided over by Tooitonga. Then the other articles that formed part of the Inachi were brought forward, consisting of dried fish, mats, etc., which, with the yams, were divided into shares. About a fourth was allotted to the gods, and appropriated by the priests ; about a half fell to the king ; and the remainder belonged to Tooitonga. The materials of the Inachi having been carried away, the company set themselves to drink cava, and a mataboole addressed them, saying that the gods would protect them, and grant them long lives, if they continued to observe the religious ceremonies and to pay respect to the chiefs.^ The Samoans used to present the first-fruits to the spirits (aitus) and chiefs.^ For example, a family whose god was in the form of an eel presented the first-fruits of their taro plantations to the eel.' In Tahiti " the first fish taken periodically on their shores, together with a number of kinds regarded as sacred, were conveyed to the altar. The first-fruits of their orchards and gardens were also taumaha, or offered, with a portion of their live stock, which con- sisted of pigs, dogs, and fowls, as it was supposed death would be inflicted on the owner or the occupant of the land from which the god should not receive such acknowledgment."* In Huahine, one of the Society Islands, the first-fruits were presented to the god Tani. A poor person was expected to bring two of the earliest fruits gathered, of whatever kind ; a raatira had to bring ten, and chiefs and princes had to bring more, according to their rank and riches. They brought the fruits to the temple, where they threw them down on the ground, with the words, " Here, Tani, I have brought you something to eat." ^ The chief gods of the Easter Islanders were Make-Make and Haua. To these they offered the first of all the produce of the ground. « Amongst the Maoris the offering of the first-fruits of the ' W. Mariner, Account of the Natives * Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. of the Tonga Islands (London, i8i8), 350. ii. 196-203. 6 Tyerman and Bennet, Journal of 2 Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United Voyages and Travels, i. 284. States Exploring Expedition, \\. 133. 6 Geiseler, Z>« Oester-Insel IfiexYm ^ Turner, Samoa, p. 70 sq. 1 883), p. 31. 382 OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS note sweet potatoes to Pani, son of Rongo, the god of sweet potatoes, was a solemn religious ceremony. ^ It has been afifirmed that the old Prussians offered the first-fruits of their crops and of their fishing to the god Curcho, but doubt rests on the statement.^ The Romans sacrificed the first ears of corn to Ceres, and the first of the new wine to Liber ; and until the priests had offered these sacrifices, the people might not eat the new corn nor drink the new wine.^ The chief solemnity of the Natchez, an Indian tribe on the Lower Mississippi, was the Harvest Festival or the Festival of New Fire. When the time for the festival drew near, a crier went through the villages calling upon the people to prepare new vessels and new garments, to wash their houses, and to burn the old grain, the old garments, and the old utensils in a common fire. He also pro- claimed an amnesty to criminals. Next day he appeared again, commanding the people to fast for three days, to abstain from all pleasures, and to make use of the medicine of purification. There- upon all the people took some drops- extracted from a root which they called the " root of blood." It was a kind of plantain and distilled a red liquor which acted as a violent emetic. During their three days' fast the people kept silence. At the end of it the crier proclaimed that the festival would begin on the following day. So next morning, as soon as it began to grow light in the sky, the people streamed from all quarters towards the temple of the Sun. The temple was a large building with two doors, one opening to the east, the other to the west. On this morning the eastern door of the temple stood open. Facing the eastern door was an altar, placed so as to catch the first beams of the rising sun. An image of a chouchouacha (a small marsupial) stood upon the altar ; on its right was an image of a rattlesnake, on its left an image of a marmoset. Before these images a fire of oak bark burned perpetually. Once a year only, on the eve of the Harvest Festival, was the sacred flame suffered to die out. To the right of the altar, on " this pious morn," stood the great chief, who took his title and traced his descent from the Sun. To the 1 E. Tregear, " The Maoris of New pended to his 'edition of Dusburg's Zealand," Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xix. Chronicon Prussiae). Cp. W. Mann- no. hardt, Die Koniddvionen^ p. 27. 2 Hartknoch, Alt und neues Preussen, p. 161 ; id., Dissertationes historical ^ Festus, s.v. sacrima, p. 319, ed. de variis rebus Prussicis, p. 163 (ap- Miiller ; Pliny, Nat. Hist, xviii. § 8. NOTE OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS 383 left of the altar stood his wife. Round them were grouped, according to their ranks, the war chiefs, the sachems, the heralds, and the young braves. In front of the altar were piled bundles of dry reeds, stacked in concentric rings. The high priest, standing on the threshold of the temple, kept his eyes fixed on the eastern horizon. Before presiding at the festival he had to plunge thrice into the Mississippi. In his hands he held two pieces of dry wood which he kept rubbing slowly against each other, muttering magic words. At his side two acolytes held two cups filled with a kind of black sherbet. All the women, their backs turned to the east, each leaning with one hand on her rude mattock and supporting her infant with the other, stood in a great semicircle at the gate of the temple. Profound silence reigned throughout the multitude while the priest watched attentively the growing light in the east. As soon as the diffused light of dawn began to be shot with beams of fire, he quickened the motion of the two pieces of wood which he held in his hands ; and at the moment when the upper edge of the sun's disc appeared above the horizon, fire flashed from the wood and was caught in tinder. At the same instant the women outside the temple faced round and held up their infants and their mattocks to the rising sun. The great chief and his wife now drank the black liquor. The priests kindled the circle of dried reeds ; fire was set to the heap of oak bark on the altar, and from this sacred flame all the hearths of the village were rekindled. No sooner were the circles of reeds consumed than the chiefs wife came forth from the temple and placing herself at the head of the women marched in procession to the harvest fields, whither the men were not allowed to follow them. They went to gather the first sheaves of maize and returned to the temple bearing them on theii" heads. Some of the sheaves they presented to the high priest, who laid them on the altar. Others they used to bake the unleavened bread which was to be eaten in the evening. The eastern door of the sanctuary was now closed, and the western door was opened. When the day began to decline, the multitude assembled once more at the temple, this time at its western gate, where they formed a great crescent, with the horns turned toward the west. The unleavened bread was held up and presented to the setting sun, and a priest struck up a hymn in praise of his descending light. 384 OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS NOTE When darkness had fallen the whole plain twinkled with fires, round which the people feasted ; and the sounds of music and revelry broke the silence of night.^ ^ Chateaubriand, Voyage en Amiri- que, pp. 130-136 (Michel Levy, Paris, 1870). Chateaubriand's description is probably based on earlier accounts, which I have been unable to trace. Compare, however, Le Petit, " Relation des Natchez," in Recueil de voiages au Nord, ix. 13 sq. (Amsterdam edition) ; De Tonti, " Relation de la Louisiane et du Mississippi," ib. v. 122; Char- levoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France^ vi. 183; Lettres idifiantes et curieuses, vii, 18 sq. INDEX Aachen, fire festival at, ii. 251 Aargau, trees planted at births in, ii. 330 Aberdeenshire, ceremony at the cutting of the last sheaf in, i. 345 Abyssinia, rain - making on the out- skirts of, i. 53 Abyssinian festivals, ii. 171 Acagchemen tribe, adoration of the buzzard by the, ii. 90, 91 Adonis, myth and worship of, i. 279- 282, 296 ; connection with vegeta- tion, i. 281 ; gardens of, i. 284-296 ; rites of, similar to those of Osiris, i. 319, 320; probable origin of the cult I of, i. 363 ; lament of, i. 280, 399 ; as -:' a pig, ii. 49, 50 ' Aegira, blood drunk at, before pro- •; phesying, i. 34 Aethiopian kings confined to their palaces, i. 164 Afghan Boundary Mission, reception of the, by the natives, i. 1 55 Afghanistan, reception of strangers in, i- 15s Africa, weather kings common in, i. 44 ; reluctance to accept the crown in some parts of West, i. 118, 119 ; priestly kings on the west coast of, i. 112 ; human heart eaten in the Shire Highlands of, ii. 89 Ague, cure for, ii. 153 Aht Indians, seclusion of girls amongst the, ii. 229, 230 Ain, May-day customs in the Departe- ment de 1', i. 88 Aino type of sacrament, ii. 134-136 Ainos, bear festival of the, ii. 101-105 ; preparation for fishing, ii. 122 ; treat- ment of the bear, ii. 132 Alaskan sable hunters, ii. 116 Alban hills, i. i ; mount, i. 2 Albania, Easter Eve custom in, i. 276 ; VOL. II ii. 181 ; scapegoat in, ii. 201, 202 ; beating in, ii. 216 Alexandria, commemoration of the death of Adonis and Aphrodite at, i. 279, 280 Alfoers, function of their high priest Leleen, i. 166 ; ceremony for restor- ing the soul, i. 134, 135 ; priest's hair uncut, i. 194 ; priest sows the first rice seed and plucks the first ripe rice, ii. 71 J driving away the devil by the, ii. 159 Algeria, midsummer fires in, ii. 266 Alligator, the man-eating, ii. 109 Alps, May-day custom in the, i. 104 Altisheim, harvest custom in, i. 337 Altmark, Whitsuntide customs in, i. 98 ; Easter bonfires, ii. 254 Amboina, soul - abstracting in, i. 139, 140 ; sprinkhng the sick with spices in, i. 154 ; hair burying in, i. 201 ; disease boats in, ii. 188 ; strength thought to be in the hair in, ii. 328 ; offerings of first-fruits in, ii. 377 ^ Amenhotep IV and the sun -god, i. 314. 315 America, belief in the resurrection of the buffalo in the western prairies of, ii. 123 Ammon, rage of the sun - god Ra against, i. 315 ; rams held sacred by the worshippers of, ii. 92, 93 Andamanese belief in the reflection as the soul, i. 145 Anderida, wealds of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, remnants of the forest of, i. 57 Angel-man, beheading the, ii. 267 Angouleme, custom of burning a poplar on St. Peter's Day in, i. loi Angoy, king of, must have no bodily defects, i. 221 2 C 386 INDEX Animal worship, two types of, ii. 133, 134 ; sacred carried in procession, ii. I39"I47 ; employed as a scapegoat, ii. 189-191, 194, 195 ; eaten to obtain its quality, ii. 86, 87 ; spared by savages from fear of the vengeance of other animals of the same kind, ii. 107 - 1 10 ; respect shown by the savage for the animal he kills, ii. 110-132 ; Savage belief in the resur- rection of the, ii. 122-125 ; burnt as representative of the spirit of vegeta- tion, ii. 282-284 Annamites, soul superstition amongst the, i. 132 Antaymour kings responsible for the general welfare, i. 46 Antrim, harvest custom in, i. 339 Apache Indians, rain-making by the, '■ '5 . Apalai Indians, ceremony on the arrival of a stranger by the, i. 153, 154 Aphrodite, i. 279 Apis the sacred Egyptian bull drowned, ii. 61 sq. Apollo Diradiotes, blood of sacrificial lamb drunk in the temple of, i. 34 Apple-tree, superstition with regard to the, by barren women, i. 73 Arabia, belief concerning a man's shadow in, i. 143 Arabian stories, the external soul in, ii. 318, 319 Arabic belief in the properties of lion's fat, ii. 86 Arabs, rain-making by the heathen, i. 20 Arcadia, rain-charm in, i. 21 ; beating the scapegoat, ii. 214 Archon of Plataeae, the, may not touch iron, i. 173 Arden, forest of, i. 57 Argive tradition concerning Dionysus, i. 324, 325 ■ Ariadne, marriage of, i. 104 Aricia, "there are many Manii at," explanation of the proverb, ii. 82, 83 Arician Grove, the, i. 1-6 ; ritual, ii. 63, 64 ; harvest celebration, ii. 67 ; Manius the traditional founder of the, ii. 84 ; sacrament, ii. 83, 84 Aru Islands, soul superstition in the, i. 125, 126; custom after a death in the, i. 147 ; hair cutting, i. 201 ; dog's flesh eaten, ii. 87 Arval Brothers, priestly college of the, and the sacred grove, i. 65 ; sacred grove of the, and iron, i. 172 Aryans, the, tree worshippers, i. 56-59, 99 ; totemism and the, ii. 38 ; oak the sacred tree of the, ii. 291 ; primi- tive worship, ii. 370 Ascension Day custom, i. 265 Aschbach, harvest custom in, i. 368 Ash Wednesday customs, i. 254-257 ; ii. 29, 48, 251 Ashantee, royal blood not shed in, i. 181 ; harvest festival in, ii. 374 Asia Minor, Pontiifs of, i. 7, 8 Athene, relation of the goat to, ii. 63 Athens, annual marriage of the queen to Dionysus at, i. 103, 104 ; rites of Adonis observed in, i. 284, 285 ; scapegoats in, ii. 212 ; ritual at the sacrifice of the ox in, ii. 38, 39, 41 Attis, myth and festival of, i. 296-298 ; ii. 50 ; a tree-spirit or corn-spirit, i. 298-300 ; probability that the high priest of, was slain in the character of the god, i. 300 ; probable origin of the cult of, i. 363 ; relation to Lityerses, i. 396, 397 ; as a pig, ii. 49. 50 Australia, rain-making in, i. 20, 21 ; ceremony on entering strange terri- tory by the Australians, i. 1 56 ; seclu- sion of women in, i. 1 70 ; blood may not be spilt on the ground in some parts of, i. 181, 182 ; hair burning after child-birth in, i. 206 ; totemism, ii- I33> 334-336 Australian blacks' charm for staying the sun, i. 25 ; attack the dust columns of red sand, i. 29, 30; fear of women's blood, i. 185, 186 ; ii. 238 ; remedy for toothache, ii. 149 ; annual. expulsion of ghosts, ii. 163 Kamilaroi, cannibalism by the, ii. 88 ■ medicine man and recall of the soul, i. 131, 132 Wotjobaluk, rain-making by the, i. 14 Austria, charm for lulling the wind in, i. 28 ; old peasant belief in the souls ', of trees in, i. 61 Auxerre, reaping custom at, i. 335 Axim, annual expulsion of devils at, ii. 170 Aymara Indians, scapegoat used by the, in times of plague, ii. 191 Aztecs, the, and the reflection-soul, i. 145 ; aversion to wine, i. 185 Baea, a name given to the last sheaf, i- 339, 340 Babar Islands, restoration of the soul in the, i. 137 ; the soul believed to be in the shadow, i. 142 Babylon, Sacaea festival at, i. 226 Babylonian legend concerning the god- dess Istar, i. 287 INDEX 387 Baffin Land, expulsion of evil by the Eskimo of, ii. 165 Bagota, restrictions on the heir to the throne in, ii. 225 Balder killed by the mistletoe, ii. 244 sq. ; the oak, ii. 295 ; life of, in the mistletoe, ii. 359-362 Balder's bale-fires, ii. 289 sq. Bali, mice and the - rice fields of the island of, ii. 131 ; periodic expulsion of devils, ii. 174, 175; custom at a birth, ii. 329 Balquhidder, harvest custom in, i. 344 Banjar kings held responsible for the weather, i. 46, 47 Banks Islanders, the tamaniu of the, ii- 33l> 332 Baranton, fountain of, i. 15 Barcelona, Mid-Lent custom in, i. 262 Bari tribe, rain kings of the, i. 52, 53 Barotse, the chief a demigod in, i. 46 Barren women's superstition regarding the apple-tree, i. 73 Bassam, Great, sacrifice of oxen at, ii. 41, 42 ; ceremony of driving out the evil spirit, ii. 16 1, 162 Basutos, the, and- the reflection-soul, i. 14S ; cannibalism by the, ii. 89 ; offerings of first-fruits, ii. 373 Bat, the, ii. 334-337 Battambang, rain-charm in, i. 19 Battas, the, fighting the wind, i. 28, 29 ; refuse to fell trees, i. 64, 65 ; soul , superstition, i. 124, 125, 135, 136 ; soul straying, i. 160 ; ceremony of making the curse to fly away by the, ii. 150, 151 ; totemism amongst the, ii. 340, 341 ; belief in plurality of souls, ii. 341 Bavaria, May custom in,, i. 84 ; ^Vhit- suntide representative of the tree- spirit in, i. 242 ; harvest custom in, i. 342 ; ii. 27, 28 ; cure for fever, ii. 153 ; Easter bonfires in, ii. 254 ; mid- summer bonfires in, ii. 278 Bear, Shrovetide, i. 254, 255 ; sacrifice of the, ii. 99 - 108 ; ceremony at killing a, ii. 1 11- 113, 115; ceremony before a bear-hunt, ii. 112, 113 Bears, dead, treated with respect, ii. 111-113 Beasts, divine, held responsible for the course of nature, i. 48 Beating as a ceremonial purification, ii. 213-217, 232-234 Beauce, straw man in, ii. 40 Beavers, superstition about killing, ii. 116 Bechuanaland, rain-charm in, i. 18 ; sun superstition in, i. 23 ; hack-thorn held sacred in, i. 69 ; purification after travel, i. 157; crocodile super- stition in, ii. 55, 56 ; transference of ills in, ii. 149 Bedouins, pursuing the wind, i. 29 Belfast, harvest custom at, i. 336, 337 Belgium, procession with wicker giant in, ii. 281 Belli-Paaro, ceremony of, in Quoja, ii. 347> 348 Beltane fires, ii. 254-258 Bengal, Gardens of Adonis in, i. 288, 289 Bernkastel, reaping custom in, ii. 1 5 Berry, belief regarding the birth of the corn-spirit in, ii. 23 ; harvest custom, ii. 26 Bhagats, mock human sacrifices by the, i. 252, 253 Bhotan, man worshippers in, i. 42 Biajas of Borneo, expulsion of diseases to sea by the, ii. 192 Bidasari, ii. 325 sq. Bilaspur, custom at, on the death of a Rajah, i. 232 Birch-tree dressed in women's clothes in Russia at Whitsuntide, i. 77 Births, trees planted at, ii. 229, 230 Bison, resurrection of the, ii. 122, 123 Bithynia, lament by the reapers in, i. 36S Black Lake, i. 15 Blankenfelde, harvest custom in, i. 370 Bleeding trees, i. 61 Blekinge, midsummer ceremonies in, i. 292 Blood, the soul thought to be in the, i. 178, 179 ; not eaten, ib. ; royal blood not spilt upon the ground, i. 179-183; ill effect of seeing, i. 185, 186 ; dread of contact with, i. 185-187 ; primitive dread of men- struous, ii. 238-241 Blood-drinking, inspiration by, i. 34, 35 Boba, a name given to the last sheaf, i. 34°; 341 Boeotians of Plataea, festival of the, i. 100-103 Boeroe, ceremony at the rice harvest in, ii. 71 Bohemian midsummer custom, i. 79 ; ii. 259; Mid -Lent custom, i. 82; Whit Monday custom, i. 91, 244-247 ; ceremony of carrying out Death, i. 258-260 ; superstition regarding death, i. 260 ; ceremony of bringing back summer, i. 263 ; harvest custom, i. 340 ; white mice spared in Bohemia, ii. 131, 132; superstition held by poachers in Bohemia, ii. 288 Bbhmer Wald Mountains, custom of the reapers in the, ii. 15 388 INDEX Bolang Mongondo, recapture of the soul in, i. 131 ; preservation of cut hair, i. 203 ; ceremony at rice harvest in, ii. 71, 72 Bombay, soul superstition in, i. 127 Bones of animals not broken by savages, ii. 124 Boni, king of, and his courtiers, i. 222, 223 Booandik tribe superstition concerning the blood of women, i. 186 Book of the Dead, i. 312 Bormus, the name given to the lament of the Bithynian reapers, i. 365, 398 Borneo, custom in, regarding infested persons, i. 154 Bouphonia, the, ii. 38-41 Brabant, North, Whitsuntide custom in, i. 88 Brahman soul story, i. 128, 129; sin eaters, ii. 156 Brahmans, temple of the, i. 230; transference of sins by the, ii. 200 Brandy, North American Indian theory about, ii. 87 Brazilian Indians, self-beating by the, ii. 215, 216 ; treatment of girls at the age of puberty by the, ii. 231, 232 Bresse, May customs in, i. 98 ; cere- mony regarding the last sheaf, i. 408 Brest, fire festival at, ii. 261 Breton peasant and the wind, i. 30 Brianfon, May-day in the neighbour- hood of, i. 95 ; harvest ceremony at, ii. II Bride, a name given to the binder of the last sheaf, i. 345 Brie, May-day custom in, i. 84 ; harvest custom in, i. 370, 375 ; burning of mock giant in, ii. 282 Britanny, reaping custom in, i. 335, 336 ; midsummer fires in, ii. 261 British Columbia, fish ceremony by the Indians of, ii. 121 Bruck, harvest custom in, i. 333, 334 Briid's bed in the Highlands, i. 97 Brunnen, Twelfth Night custom at, ii. 182 Brunswick, Whitsuntide customs in, i. 90 Buddhist animism, i. 59 Tartar worship, i. 42, 43 Buffalo, belief in the resurrection of the, ii. 123 ; held sacred by the Todas, ii. 136, 137 bull, ii. 19 Bulgarian rain -charm, i. 16; custom at the laying of a foundation stone, i. 144 ; harvest custom, i. 341 Bull, Dionysus as a, i. 325, 326 ; ii. 37-44 ; the corn-spirit as a, ii. 19-24 ; Osiris and the, ii. 59-61 ; sacred, ii. 60 ; as a scapegoat, ii. 200, 201 Burghers, first seed sowing and reaping amongst the, ii. 72 ; transference of sins by the, ii. 151, 152 Burgundian kings deposed in times of scarcity, i. 47 Burma, mode of executing princes of the blood in, i. 180; head-washing in, i. 188, 189 ; mock burial in time of sickness in, ii. 84 ; ceremony of driving away cholera in, ii. 161 ; offering of first-fruits in, ii. 374 Burmese and the soul, i. 130 Burnt sacrifices among the Celts, ii. 278-280 Buro Islands, dog's flesh eaten in the, ii. 87 ; disease boats, ii. 187 Burying alive, i. 217 Busiris, legend of, i. 400, 401 Butterfly, the Samoans and the, ii. 56 Buzzard, sacrifice of the sacred, ii. 90- 92 Byblus, lamentation for the death of Adonis at, i. 280 Calabria, expulsion of witches in, ii. 181 Calcutta, iron-charm used in, i. 1 76 Calf, the corn-spirit as a, ii. 19-24 Calicut, kings killed at the expiry of twelve years in, i. 224, 225 Californian Indians, their opinion of the dust columns, i. 30 sacrifice of the buzzard, ii, 90, 91 Caligula, i. 4 Callander, Beltane .fires in, ii. 254, 25s Cambodia, search for inspired man m time of epidemic in, i. 36 ; kings of fire and water in, i. S3-56 ; its sacred tree, i. 67; kings of, i. n8 ; touch- ing the king's body in, i. 172 ; man's head not touched in, i. 189; ceremony at the cutting of the king's hair in, i. 197 ; temporary kings of, i. 228 ; the Stiens of Cambodia and the kiUing of animals, ii. 115; expulsion of evil spirits, etc. in, ii. 178, 184; seclusion of girls in, ii. 235 Cambridgeshire, harvest custom in, i. 341, 342 Cameroons, the life of a person sup- posed to be bound up with that of a tree by the, ii. 329 Canadian Indians, detention of the soul amongst the, i. 139; beaver hunting by the, ii. 116, 117 Candlemas Day customs, i. 97 ; ii. 29, INDEX 389 Canelos Indians, their belief of the soul in the portrait, i. 148 Cannibalism, ii. 88, 89 Capital offences, i. 162, 190 Carcassonne, hunting the wren in, ii. I43> 144 Caribs, the, belief in the plurality of souls, ii. 339 Carinthia, ceremonies on St. George's Day in, i. 84, 85 ; ceremony at the installation of a prince of, i. 232, 233 Carmona, custom in, ii. 184, 185 Carnival, ceremony of burying the, i. 244, 252-257, 270, 272 Carnival Fool, i. 256 Carpathus islanders, reluctance to have their hkenesses drawn, i. 148, 149 ; transference of sickness by the, ii. 154 Cashmere stories, the external soul in, ii. 302-304 Cat, the corn-spirit as a., ii. 11, 12; burnt, ii. 283 Caterpillars, method of freeing a garden from, ii. 130 Cattle, trees and, i. 72 sq. ; driven through the fire, ii. 273 Cedar, the sacred, of Gilgit, i. 69 Celebes, the, and the soul, i. 123-125 ; custom regarding infested persons, i. 154 ; superstition regarding the knife, i. 177 ; blood not spilt on the ground by the, i. 182 ; custom at a ' birth, ii. 329 ; harvest festival, ii. 376 Celtic human sacrifices, ii. 278-284 ; the external soul in Celtic stories, ii. 3i3> 314 Ceram, rain-making in, i. 13; super- stition regarding the blood of women in, i. 1S7 ; hair cutting superstition in, i. 194 ; ii. 328 ; disease boats in, ii. 185, 186 ; ceremony in epidemic, ii. 187; seclusion of girls in, ii. 229; initiation ceremony, ii. 354-356 Chaeronea, human scapegoat in, ii. 210, 211 Chambery, threshing ceremony at, ii. 23 Chedooba, ceremony on felling a tree in the island of, i. 64 Cheremiss, expulsion of Satan by the, ii. 180, 181 Cherokee Indians, purification festival of the, ii. i65, 167 Chester, procession of mock giant at ii. 281 Chibchas, weather kings of the, i. 44 Children sacrificed by their parents, i 235-237 Chile, preservation of cut hair in, i. 204 China, emperors of, offer public sacri- fices, i. 8 ; rain-charm in, i. 18 ; em- peror held responsible for drought, etc. , i. 49 ; abstention from knives after a death in, i. 177 ; ceremony to welcome the return of spring in, ii. 42, 43 ; special seat of courage amongst the Chinese, ii. 87 ; cannibalism in, ii. 89 ; human scapegoat in, ii. 191 ; festival of the aboriginal tribes of, ii. 193 Chios, rites of Dionysus at, i. 329 Chippeways, seclusion of women amongst the, ii. 239, 240 Chiriguanos, seclusion of girls by the, ii. 231 Chitome, the, i. 113-115; not allowed to die a natural death, i. 217, 218 Cholera, driving away, ii. 161, 189, 191 Chontal Indians, the nagual amongst the, ii. 333 Christian, Captain, shooting of, i. 181 Christmas customs, i. 60, 334 ; ii. 6, 7, 29-31. 141. 142, 144 Chrudim, ceremony of carrying out Death at, i. 259, 260 Chuwash, the, test of a suitable sacri- ficial victim, i. 36 Circassians, the pear-tree believed to be the protector of cattle by the, i. 73 Circumcision, i. 171 Clucking-hen, ii. 8 Cobern, fire festival at, ii. 250 Cobra Capella, sacrifice of the, ii. 94, Cock, the corn-spirit as a, ii. 7-10 Columbia River, Indians of the, and the salmon, ii. 121, 122 Comanches, rain-charm used by the, i. 18 Compitalia, festival of the, ii. 83 Congo belief in the souls of trees, i. 60 ; the Chitome in the kingdom of, i. 113; nepoes and soul selling, i. 139; initiatory rit«s in the valley of the, ii. 345, 346 Coorg rice -harvest ceremonies, ii. 72, 73 Corea, kings of, confined to their palaces, i. 164 ; may not be touched, i. 172 ; tigers' bones valuable in, ii. 87 Corn drenched as a rain-charm, i. 286 ; double personification of the, i. 358, 359 ; reaper, binder, or thresher wrapt up in corn, i. 370, 371 baby,'ii. 23 ■ goat, ii. 13, 14 mother, i. 232, 233 ; a prototype of Demeter, i. 356 390 INDEX Corn queen, i. 341 spirit, the, as the grandmother, etc., i. 336-343 ; as youthful, i. 343- 346 ; death of, i. 363, 364 ; binding persons in sheaves as representatives of the, i. 367-372 ; pretence of kill- ing the, or its representative, i. 372- 380 ; represented by a stranger, i. 375-380 ; represented by a human victim, i. 390-395 ; how the repre- sentative is chosen, i. 393 ; as an animal, ii. 1-67; as a cock, ii. 7-10; as a hare, ii. 11 ; as a cat, ii. 11, 12 ; as a goat, ii. 12-17; ^s a bull, ii. 19-24 ; as a calf, ib. \ as a cow, ii. 20, 21 ; as a mare, ii. 24, 25 ; as a horse, ii. 26; as a pig, ii. 26-31; parallelism between the anthropo- morphic and theriomorphic concep- tions of the, ii. 32 ; death of the, ii. 33 ; suggested explanation of the embodiment of the, in animal form, ii. 34 ; the ox as the embodiment of the, ii. 41-43 wolf, ii. 3-7, 30 woman, i. 342, 343 Cornwall, May-day custom in, i. 75 ; midsummer bonfires in, i. loi ; ii. 262 ; reaping cries in, i. 407 Corsica, midsummer fires in, ii. 266 Cough, cure for, ii. 154 Court ceremonies, i. 22, 23 ; ii. 88 Cow, the corn-spirit as a, ii. 20, 21 ; sacred, ii. 61 ; man in cow's hide, ii. 145, 146 ; cow as a, scapegoat, ii. 200, 201 Cracow, harvest customs in, i. 340 Crannon, rain-charm at, i. 21 Creek Indians, festival of the first- fruits amongst the, ii. 75-78 ; opinions held regarding the properties of vari- ous foods amongst the, ii. 85, 86 ; se- clusion of women by the, ii. 239 Crete, sacrifices in, i. 173 ; festival of Dionysus in, i. 324 ; worship of Demeter in, i. 331 Croatia, beating in, ii. 216 Crocodiles spared from fear of the vengeance of other crocodiles, ii. 109 Crops, kings and priests punished for the failure of the, i. 46-48 ; human sacrifices for the, i. 383, 384 ; cere- monies at the eating of the new, ii. 69, 71 ; sacramental eating of the new, ii. 68-77 Crying the Neck, i. 405-408 Curka Coles of India, their belief that the tops of trees are inhabited, i. 65 Curse, ceremony of making the curse to fly away, ii. 150, 151 Cyzicus, construction of the council chamber of, i. 174 Dacotas and the resurrection of the dog, ii. 123 Daedala, festival of the, i. 100-103 Dahomey, king of, a capital offence to see him eat, i. 162 Damaras, custom of the, after travel, i. 158 ; blood of cattle not shed by the, i. 182 Danae, ii. 237 Danger Islanders, soul snare used by the, i. 138, 139 Danzig, burying of cut hair in, i. 202 ; reaping custom, i. 333 ; harvest ceremony, i. 367, 368 Dards, the, rain-charm, i. 19 Darfur, veiling the sultan of, i. 162 ; the sultans and their courtiers, i. 222 ; the liver thought to be the seat of the soul in, ii. 88 Darowen, midsummer bonfires at, ii. 262 Dead Sunday, i. 254, 260 Death, preference for a violent, i. 216, 217 ; superstition concerning, i. 260; "carrying out," i. 257-261, 264-271 ; ii. 207 ; driving out, i. 258, 259, 272, 276 ; in the custom of " carrying , out" Death is probably a divine', scapegoat, ii. 206-208 ; ceremonies at the burying of, ii. 250 ; effigy of, i. 257 sq. Debden, May Day custom in, i. 76 Deer, regard for, ii. 117, 118 Deities, reduplication of, i. 360-362 Demeter, the corn mother, i. 331, 332 ; festivals of, ii. 44-47 ; as a pig, ii. 44- 49 ; legend of the Phigalian, ii. 49 ; representation of the black, ii. afy ; and Proserpine, myth of, i. 330, 331 ; probable origin of, i. 355 sq. ; proto- types of, i. 356, 357 Demons, the soul carried off by, i. 132- 135 Denderah, tree of Osiris at, i. 308 Denmark Christmas customs, ii. 29, 30 ; midsummer bonfires, ii. 289 Devils, ceremony at the expulsion of, ii. 151, 158, 159-162, 170-185, 192, 193, 203 ; represented by men and expelled, ii. 183-185 Devonshire reaping cries, i. 405, 406 ; rain-charm, i. 408 ; cure for cough, ii. 154 Diana, rule of the priesthood of, i. 2, 3, 6 ; ceremonies at the festival of, i. 5 ; Arician Grove said to be first consecrated to her by Manius Egeri- us, i. 5 ; a tree goddess, i. 105 Diana's mirror, i. 1 INDEX 391 Dieyerie of South Australia, rain-mak- ing by the, i. 20 ; tree superstition amongst the, i. 62 Dingelstedt, harvest custom at, i. 371 Dionysus, marriage of, i. 104 ; titles of, i. 320, 321 ; myth of, i. 322-325 ; rites of, i. 324, 329; ii. 43-46, 90 ; rites of, similar to those of Osiris, i. 319, 320; as an animal, i. 325-327, ii. 34-38 ; association of, with Demeter and Proserpine, ii. 37 Diseases sent away in boats, ii. 185- 189, 192 sq. Divine beasts, i. 48 king, dependence oi nature upon the, i. 109 kings, i. 49 ; care taken of, i. 115; cease to govern, i. 118, 119 kings and priests, burdensome observances placed upon, i. 110-118 ; effects of these burdens, i. 118-120 Man as scapegoat, ii. 201, 205 persons, seclusion of, ii. 242, 243 spirit, transmigration of, i. 42-44 Divining rods made from the mistletoe, Dog, the corn-spirit as a, ii. 3-7 ; the flesh of the, eaten, ii. 87 ; resurrection of the, ii. 123 ; used as a scapegoat, ii. 194. 195 Domalde, ICing of Sweden, sacrificed, i. 47 Douai, annual procession at, ii. 280 Dreams, festival of, ii. 165, 166 Druids, oak-worship of tlje, i. 58 , Dublin, May Day custom in, i. loi Duk-duk, the, ii. 352 sq. Duke of York Island, fishing ceremony by the natives of, ii. 120 't)ulyn, i. 15 Dunkirk, annual processionat, ii. 280,281 Dust columns, i. 30 Dutch criminals, cutting the hair of, to enforce confession, ii. 328 Dyaks, belief in the souls of trees amongst the, i. 59, 60 ; abduction of the soul, i. 132, 133; restoration of the soul, i. 138 ; harvest custom, i. 68, 69. 353., 354 ; the Dyaks and bad omens, ii. 151 J custom in epidemic, ii. 84 ; may not eat venison, ii. 86, 87 ; spare the crocodile, ii. 109 ; Dyaks and the palm-tree, ii. 329 ; festival of first-fruits, ii. 376 East Indian Islands, supposed cure for epilepsy in the, ii. 148, 149 Easter customs, i. 272, 276, 334 ; ii. 29, 181, 216, 217 fires, ii. 251, 252 Islanders, blood of an animal not shed by the, i. 182, 183 ; offer- ings of first fruits, ii. 381 Eating animals to get their qualities, ii. 85-89 the god, ii. 67-90 arid drinking, precautions taken at, i. 160-162 Edersleben, midsummer fire festival in, ii. 262 Efugaos, cannibalism by the, ii. 88 Egeria, i. 5 Egypt, beasts responsible for the course of nature in Upper, i. 48 ; Egyptian kings deified, i. 49, 50 ; Egyptian kings blamed for failure of crops, i. 50 ; ancient Egyptian kings did not drink wine, i. 184, 185 ; temporary rulers in Upper Egypt, i. 231 ; cus- tom of burning red-haired men by the ancient Egyptians, i. 307 ; religion of ancient Egypt, i. 313 ; Egyptians and the pig, ii. 52, 53, 56, 57 ; the bulls Apis and Mnevis worshipped, ii. 60 ; sacred cattle in Egypt, ii. 60, 61 ; sacrifice of the ram in, ii. 92, 93 ; Egyptian type of sacrament, ii. 134- 136 ; Egyptian scapegoat, ii. 200 ; the external soul in Egyptian story, ii. 315-318 Eifel mountains, fire festival in the, ii. 247, 248 ; harvest omens in the, ii. 271 Eisenach, ceremony of bringing back summer in, i. 263 ; ceremony of carrying out death in, ib. Elan, regard for the, ii. 117, 118 Elephant, ceremony at the killing of an, ii. 113-115 Eleusis, mysteries of, ii. 37 Elk, regard for the, ii. 117, 118 Ellwangen, harvest ceremony in, ii. 17 Emin Pasha's reception in a, Central African village, i. 155 Emu wren, ii. 336, 337 Encounter Bay tribe, their dread of women's blood, i. 186 EngUsh tradition concerning the killing of the wren, ii. 140, 141 Entlebuch, human scapegoat in, ii. 199 Entraigues, hunting the wren in, ii. 144 Epidemic, ceremony in time of, i. 36 ; ii. 84, 187-189 Epilepsy, supposed cure for, ii. 148, 149 Erfurt, harvest custom in, i. 336 Ertingen, midsummer custom in, i. 89 Erzgebirge, Shrovetide custom in the, i. 244 Eskimos, charm for lulling the wind, i. 28 ; Eskimos and the soul, i. 122 ; reception of strangers, i. 155; Es- kimo women, i. 170 392 INDEX Essex, hunting the wren in, ii. 143 Esthonian superstition regarding the welfare of cattle, i. 72 sq. ; blood not tasted by the Esthonians, i. 178, 179; belief concerning women's blood, i. 187 ; preservation of the parings of nails by the Esthonians, i. 204 ; carrying out the effigy of Death, i. 270 ; ceremony at the eating of the new corn, ii. 69, 70 ; dread of the weevil by the Esthonian peasants, ii. 129, 130 Ethiopian kings and their courtiers, i. 222 Etruscan wizards, i. 22 European rain-charm, i. 18 ; forests, i. 57 ; fire festivals, ii. 246-285 Evils, expulsion of, ii. 145 sq. ; occa- sional, ii. 158-162; periodic, ii. 162- 182 ; two kinds of expulsion of evils, the direct or immediate, and the in- direct or mediate, ii. 1 58 ; general observations on, ii. 202-206 ; trans- ference of, ii. 145 sq. Fauns, representation of the, ii. 35 ; the Fauns wood and corn-spirits, ii. 35. 36 Feilenhof, the wolf a corn-spirit in, ii. 3 Feloupes of Senegambia, charm for rain-making, i. 18 Fern seed, midsummer, ii. 365, 366 Fernando Po, restrictions on the food of the king of, i. 208 Fever, cure for, ii. 152, 153 Fida, no one to drink out of the king's glass in, i. 166 Field of Mars, chariot race on the, ii. 64-66 Fiji, charm used for staying the sun in, i. 24 ; gods of, i. 39 ; soul extraction in, i. 138; belief in two souls in, i. 145 ; eating in the presence of sus- pected persons avoided in, i. 160; self-immolation at old age in, i. 216 ; expulsion of devils in, ii. 175, 176 ; initiatory rites in, ii. 344, 345 ; offer- ings of first-fruits in, ii. 377, 378 Finland, wind selling in, i. 27 ; cattle protected by the wood god in, i. 105, 106 ; ceremony at the killing of a bear in, ii. 112 Fire festivals, human sacrifices offered at, i. 251 festivals in Europe, ii. 246-285 ; they were charms to make the sun shine, ii. 267, 274 kings, i. 53-56 sacred, made by the friction of wood, ii. 269 ; made with oak wood, ii. 292, 293 Fire spirit, expulsion of the, ii. 178 Firstborn sacrificed, i. 236, 237 First-fruits, festival of the, ii. 75-78 ; offerings of, ii. 373-384 Fish, respect shown by savages to, ii. 118-122; fish preachers, ii. 119, 120 Fladda's chapel and wind-making, i. 26, 27 Flamen Dialis, rules of life, i. 117 ; not allowed to walk under a trellis6d vine, i. 183, 184 ; cuttings from the hair and nails buried, i. 200 ; restric- tion on the food of the, i. 207 Virbialis, i. 6 Flaminica, rules of life for the, i. 117, 118 Flanders, midsummer bonfires in, ii. 267 ; Flemish cure for ague, ii. 153 Flax-pullers, custom of the, i. 375 Florence, " sawing the old woman " in, i. 261 Florida, sacrifice of the firstborn by the Indians of, i. 236, 237 Folk tales, resurrection in, ii. 125 Food, unconsumed, buried, i. 166 ; prohibited food, i. 207, 208 ; strong food, ii. 85 Forests, Europe covered with, in pre- historic times, i. 56 Fors, the, of Central Africa, preserva- ', tion of nail parings by the, i. 204, 205 J Forsaken sleeper, i. 96 1 Foulahs of Senegambia spare the croco-'j dile, ii. no f* France, harvest customs in the north-, east of, ii. 4 Franche Comte, harvest customs in, ii. 1 7 Frankish kings not allowed to cut their hair, i. 193 Friedingen, harvest custom in, ii. 27 Friesland, harvest customs in East, ii. 8 Frog-flayer, i. 92 Funeral custom, i. 129, 130 Furstenwalde, harvest ceremonies in, ii. 7 Gablingen, harvest customs in, ii. 13 Galela, ceremony at the initiation of boys amongst the, ii. 353 Galicia, harvest customs in, ii. 8 Gall-bladder the special seat of courage amongst the Chinese, ii. 87 Gareloch, Dumbartonshire, harvest cus- toms on some farms on the, i. 345 Garos, rain-charm used by the, i. 18 Georgia, rain-charm in, i. 17 Germany — German peasants and a whirlwind, i. 30; sacred groves common amongst the ancient Ger- mans, i. 58 ; ceremony on felling a tree, i. 64 ; rain-charm, i. 93 ; custom INDEX 393 after a death, i. 147 ; superstition re- garding the knife, i. 177; superstition concerning hair cutting, i. 196, 199 ; harvest custom, i. 337, 345, 374, 375 ; ii. 9 ; harvest cries, i. 408, 409 ; way to free a garden from caterpillars, ii. 130; beating as a charm, ii. 21 5, 217 ; oak the sacred tree, ii. 291 ; oak log burnt on Midsummer Day, ii. 294 ; the external soul in German stories, ii. 310-312 Gervasius, rain spring mentioned by, i. 19 Ghosts, the soul carried off by, i. 129- 132 ; annual expulsion of the ghosts of the dead, ii. 163 Giant, sham, procession and burning of the, ii. 280-282 Gilgit, ceremony on felling a tree in, i. 65 ," sacred cedar of, i. 69 sq. ; har- vest custom at, ii. 73, 74 Gilyak sacrifice of the bear, ii. 105-107 Girls secluded at puberty, ii. 225-247 ; reason for, ii. 238-242 ; not allowed to touch the ground or see the sun, ii. 225-253 ; traces in folk tales of the rule which forbids girls at puberty to see the sun, ii. 235-237 Goat, the, sacred, ii. 56, 63 ; Diony- sus as a, i. 326-328 ; ii. 34-37 ; the corn-spirit as a, ii. 12-19 God, killing the, i. 213; ii. 218-222; killing a god in animal form, i. 327, 328 ; motives for killing the god, i. 214-216 God's Mouth, the name of the supreme ruler of the old Prussians, i. 223 Gods die and are buried, i. 213, 214 incarnate, slain, ii. 218-222 Gold Coast, sacrifices of the negroes of the, i. 67 ; their superstition with re- gard to iron, i. 173 Golden Bough, Turner's picture of the, i. I ; legend of the, i. 4 ; the repre- sentative of the tree-spirit, i. 107 ; between heaven and earth, ii. 223- 243 ; what was it, ii. 224 ; the Golden Bough is the mistletoe, ii. 363, 368 ; why was the mistletoe called the Golden Bough, ii. 365 ; the Golden Bough an emanation of the sun's fire, ii. 367 Goldi sacrifice of the bear, ii. 107, 108 Gommern, harvest festival at, i. 370 Gonds, human sacrifices by the, i. 252, 384 ; mock-human sacrifices, i. 252 ; scapegoats amongst the, ii. 200 Good Friday custom, ii. 216 Gout transferred from a man to a tree, ii- 153 Grand Lama, death and reappearance of the, i. 42, 43 ; and the shadow of Sankara, i. 142 Grandmother, a name given to the last sheaf, i. 336 Granny, a name given to the last sheaf, i- 336 Grass kmg, 1. 91-93, 247 Gratz, midsummer custom in, ii. 267 Greece, rain -making in, i. 16; tree worship in, i. 58, 59, 99 ; festivals of the Greeks, i. 99, 100, 103 ; cere- mony at the laying of a foundation stone in, i. 144 ; sacrificial ritual in, ii. 54, 55 ; human scapegoats in, ii. 210- 217; midsummier fires in, ii. 266; the external soul in Greek stories, ii. 305-307 Green George, i. 84-86 Grenoble, May Day in, i. 94 ; harvest custom in, ii. 15, 47 Grihya-Sutras, provision in the, for the burning of cut hair, i. 202 Grossvargula, Whitsuntide custom in, i. 91 Ground, sacred persons not allowed to touch the, ii. 224, 243 7iote ; girls at puberty not allowed to touch the, ii. 225 - 253 ; sacred things may not touch the, ii. 243 note Griineberg, harvest ceremony in, ii. 1 1 Guanches, rain-charm in, i. 19 Guatemala, the nagual amongst the, ii. 333, 334 Guaycurus and storms, i. 28 Guinea, secreting of cut hair and nails in, i. 203 ; annual expulsion of the devil by the negroes of, ii. 1 70 ; time of licence in, ii. 204 Guyenne, harvest ceremony in, ii. 6 Hack-thorn, sacred, i. 69 Hadeln, reaping custom in the district of. i- 333 Ilaida Indian wind-charm, i. 26 Hair, burning of loose, i. 205 ; burning after child-birth, i. 206 ; cut hau: de- posited in a safe place, i. 200-205 ! cutting, i. 193 sq. ; most sacred day of the year appointed for hair cutting, i. 197 ; superstition concerning the cutting of the, i. 196, 198, 199 ; cut only during a storm, i. 199 ; hair- cutting as a disinfectant, i. 206, 207 ; magic use of cut hair, i. 198, 199 ; strength supposed to be in the, ii. 328 ; hair not cut, i. 193-195; superstition about cutting the hair and nails, i. 193-207 Halberstadt, human scapegoats in, ii. 199 Halibut, festival in honour of the, ii. 121 394 INDEX Halmahera, rain-making in, i. 13, 21 Hampstead, forest of, i. 57 Hare, the corn-spirit as a, ii. 10 sq. Harran, ritual observed by the heathen Syrians of, i. 283 Harvest child, a name given to the last sheaf, i. 344 cock, a name given to the last sheaf, ii. 7, 8 cries, i. 404-409 customs, i. 333-347, 352. 353. 367- 381, 408 ; ii. 4-27, 32, 47, 48, 68-73, 213 festival, i. 169 ; ii. 171, 172, 374- 376, 382-384 goat, ii. 13 maiden, a prototype of Proserpine, i- 356 May, i. 68, 69, 8l, 82 ; ii. 4 omens, ii. 271 queen, i. 344 songs and cries, ii. 364-366, 404- 409 Harz Mountains, Easter fires in the, ii. 253 Hawaii, detention of the soul in, i. 139; capital offences in, i. igo Hay family, the, and the mistletoe, ii. 362 Head, sanctity of the, i. 187 - 193 ; ceremony at the vi^ashing of the, i. 188 Headache, transference of, ii. 149 Headington, May-day custom at, i. 94, 95 Heaven, the Golden Bough between heaven and earth, ii. 223-243 Hebrides, representation of spring in the, i. 97 Heligoland, disappearance of the herring from, ii. 120 Herbrechtingen, threshing custom in, ii. 22 Hercynian forest, i. 56, 57 Hereford, sin eaters in, ii. 154, 155 Herefordshire, midsummer fires in, ii. 262 Hermsdorf, harvest custom in, i. 338 Herodotus, story by, of the wind fighters of Psylli, i. 29 Herring, disappearance of the, from Heligoland, ii. 120 Hertfordshire harvest custom, ii. 24 Hessen, Ash Wednesday custom in, ii. 29 ; sowing-time customs in, ii. 48 Hidatsa Indians, belief in the plurality of souls amongst the, ii. 339 Hierapolis, pigs sacred at, ii. 50 Himalayas, scapegoats in the Western, ii. 194 Hindoo cure for the murrain, ii. 191 ; festival of Ingathering, ii. 272 ; girls and puberty, ii. 234, 235 ; the ex- ternal soul in Hindoo stories, ii. 298- 302 Hindoos, the, test of a suitable sacri- ficial victim, i. 36 ; Hindoos and yawning, i. 123 ; custom of nail cutting by the, i. 196 ; festival at the eating of the new rice by the, ii. 73 ' Hindoo Koosh, smoke from the sacred tree inhaled by the sybil, i. 35 ; blood sucking the test of a diviner amongst the, ib. ; expulsion of devils amongst the, ii. 173 Hippolytus, i. 6 Holland, Whitsuntide custom in, i. 88 ; Easter fires, ii. 253 Holstein, reaping custom in, i. 333 ; healing effects of the mistletoe in, ii. 289 Hornkampe, harvest custom in, i. 337 Horse, the corn-spirit as a, ii. 24-26 ; sacrifice of the, ii. 64 Horses excluded from the Arician grove, i. 6 ■ and Virbius, ii. 62-64 Hos, harvest festival amongst the, ii. 171, 172 ; time of licence with the, ii. 204 ; offering of first-fruits by the, ii- 374 Hottentot priests do not use iron, i. 173 ; wind-charm, i. 27, 28 ; sheep driven through the fire by the, ii. 273 Hovas of Madagascar, offerings of first- fruits by the, ii. 374 How, coffer of Osiris at, i. 309 Huahine, offerings of first-fruits in, ii. 381 Huitzilopochtli, dough image of the Mexican god, made and eaten, ii. 81 Human sacrifices, i. 235-237, 251, 252, 381 ; replaced by mock sacrifices, i. 250-253 victim represents the corn-spirit, i- 390-395 Hungary, Whitsuntide custom in, i. 93 ; the external soul in Hungarian stories, ii. 320, 321 Hunger, expulsion of, ii. 210, 211 Hunting the wren, ii. 140-144 Hurons, the, and fish bones, ii. 119; their idea of the soul, i. 122 ; driving away sickness amongst the, ii. 162 Huskanaw, the name of an initiatory ceremony amongst the Indians of Virginia, ii. 348 Hylse, sacred men inspired by the image of Apollo at, i. 37 IBO, king of, confined to his premises, i. 164 INDEX 395 Iddah, king of, asserts that he is god, i. 41, 42 Ihlozi, the, of the Zulus, ii. 332 Incarnate gods, i. 30-54 Incarnation, temporary and permanent, i. 32, 37-42 Incas of Peru revered as gods, i. 49 ; preservation of cut hair and parings of the nails of the, i. 203 ; restrictions upon the prince who is to become Inca of Peru, ii. 225 ; ceremony for the expulsion of diseases, etc. by the, ii. 167-169 Indersdorf, harvest custom in, ii. 17, 18 India, devil dancer drinks sacrificial blood in Southern, i. 34 ; human gods in, i. 41, 42 ; marriage of shrubs and trees in, i. 60 ; sin eating in, ii. 15S1 156 ; iron used as a charm in, i. 175. 176; harvest custom in the Central Provinces of, i. 371, 372 ; custom during cholera in Central Provinces of, ii. 189 ; offerings of first-fruits in, ii. 374, 375 Indians of Alaska, preservation of cut hair by the, i. 201, 202 • of Arizona offer human sacrifices, i. 251 ■ of Guayaquil sacrifice human beings at seed time, i. 381 of Guiana, treatment of girls at puberty by the, ii. 232-234 of Peru and their fish gods, ii. "8, 119 of Virginia, initiatory ceremony amongst the, ii. 348, 349 Influenza, ii. 190 Initiatory rites, simulation of death and resurrection at, ii. 342-358 Innuit of Alaska, custom after a death amongst the, i. 177 Inspiration, i. 33 ; by blood drinking, i- 34) 35 ; by use of sacred tree, i. 35. 36 Inspired men, i. 36, 37 victims, i. 36 Irayas of Luzon, offerings of first-fruits by the, ii. 377 Ireland, May Day in the south-east of, i. 94 ; hunting the wren at Christmas in, ii. 142, 143 ; midsummer fires in, ii. 263, 264 Iron, superstitious aversion to, i. 172- 1 74 ; as a charm, i. 175 Iron-Beard, Dr., i. 249, 257 Iroquois, ceremony at the festival of dreams by the, ii. 165, 166 ; scape- goat used by the, ii. 194, 195 ; time of licence amongst the, ii. 204 Isis, a corn goddess, i. 310, 311 ; named the moon by the aboriginal inhabi- tants of Egypt, i. 311 ; as a covif, ii. 61 Isle of Man, wind selling in the, i. 27 ; hunting the wren at Christmas in the, ii. 142 ; midsummer bonfires, ii. 263 Issapoo, the cobra capella the guardian deity of the negroes of, ii. 94, 95 Istar, legend concerning the goddess, i. 287 Italones, cannibalism by the, ii. 88 Italy, tree worship in ancient, i. 58, 59 ; custom of ' ' sawing the old woman " in, i. 261, 262; gardens of Adonis in, i. 294 ; midsummer fires in, ii. 266 ; oak the sacred tree in, ii. 291 ; the external soul in Italian stories, ii. 307. 308 Itonamas, the, and the soul, i. 123 Itzgrund, harvest custom in, i. 338 Ivy girl, i. 344 Jack-in-the-green, i. 88, 89, 247 Jambi, temporary kings in, i. 231, 232 Japanese, expulsion of evil spirits by the, ii. 176 Jarkino, belief in animate trees in, i. 61 Javanese and rice bloom, i. 60, 61 ; ceremony at rice harvest, i. 355 ; Javanese and the soul, i. 124, 125 Jerome of Prague, i. 24 Jeypur, scapegoat used in cases of smallpox in, ii. 190, 191 Jubilee, i. 225 Jupiter represented by an oak on the Capitol at Rome, ii. 291 Kaffa, worship of human god in, i. 42 Kafir boys at circumcision, i. 171 ; New Year festival, ii. 74 ; elephant hunters, ii. 113, 114; burying of cut hair and nails by the Kafirs, i. 202, 203 Kakian Association, ii. 354-357 Kakongo, king of, not allowed to touch certain European goods, i. 160 ; not seen eating, i. 162 Kalamba, ceremonies on a visit to, by subject chiefs, i. 159 Kalmucks, consecration of the white ram by the, ii. 136 Kamant tribe do not allow a natural death, i. 217 Kamtchatkans excuse themselves before killing land or sea animals, ii. no, III; respect the seal and sea lion, ii. Ill Kanagra, spring custom in, i. 276, 277^ Kangra, custom at, on the death of a Rajah, i. 232 : sin eaters in, ii. 156 396 INDEX Karens, funeral custom by the, i. 1 29, 1 30 ; transference of the soul in Karen, i. 140 ; dread of women's blood by the, 1. 186 ; belief concern- ing the head, i. 187 ; custom at rice sowing, i. 354, 355 Karma tree, i. 289 Karoks of California and salmon catch- ing, ii. 121 Kasyas, expulsion of devils by the, ii. 184 Katodis, ceremony before felling a tree by the, i. 63 Kent, the ivy girl in, i. 344 Keramin tribe of New South Wales, rain-making by the, i. 15 Key Islanders, soul superstition amongst the, i. 130, 131 ; expulsion of sick- ness by the, ii. 160 Khonds, human sacrifices by the, i. 384-390 ; rain-charm, ii. 42 ; expul- sion of devils by the, ii. 173, 174 Kibanga, kings killed in, i. 218 Kilema, ceremony in, before a stranger is allowed to see the king, i. 159 Kilimanjaro Mount, believed to be tenanted by demons, i, 151 Kimbunda, cannibalism amongst the, ii. 88, 89 King Hop, the title of a temporary king, i. 230 of the calf, ii. 21 of the May, i. 247 of the sacred rites, i. 7 of the Wood, i. 1-108; why so called, i. 7 ; never a temporal sove- reign, i. 51 ; an incarnation of the tree spirit, i. 106-108; probabihty that he was formerly slain annually, i. 240, 241 ; similarity to North European personages, i. 249, 250 ; a personification of the oak, ii. 364 ; probably burned in a fire of oak wood, ii. 363-365 Kings — as gods, i. 8 ; supposed to con- trol the weather, i. 44-46 ; punished for the failure of crops, i. 46-48 ; killed, i. 48 ; divine, i. 49 ; of nature, i. 52 ; of fire, i. 53-56 ; of rain, i, 52, 53 ; of water, i. 53-56 ; divine, cease to govern, i. 118, 119; abdicate, i. 120; guarded against strangers, i. 158, 159; veiled, i. 162, 163; at meals, i. 162; confined to their palaces, i. 164, 165 ; killed when they show signs of decay, i. 217-223 ; killed at expiry of fixed term, i. 223 ; mitiga- tion of the above rule, kings allowed to defend themselves, i. 224 ; killed annually, i. 225-227 ; temporary, i. 228-234 ; temporary kings sometimes hereditary, i. 228, 232; sons sacrificed in times of great danger, i. 235 Kingsmill Islands, offerings of first- fruits in, ii. 378 Kirn, the name of a harvest supper, i. 345 Klausenburg, harvest custom at, 11. 9 Kloxin, harvest ceremony in, i. 369 Knives, reluctance to use, after a death, i. 176, 177 Kobi, offering of first-fruits by the, ii. 376 Kochs of Assam, offerings of first-firuits by the, ii. 374 Kohlerwinkel, harvest ceremony at, ii. 27 Kolosh Indians, seclusion of girls amongst the, ii. 230 Koniags, seclusion of girls amongst the, ii. 230 Konigshain, driving out Death in, i. 276 Konkan, scapegoat used in Southern, in cases of cholera, ii. 191 Konz, midsummer fire festival in, ii. 260, 261 Kostroma, fimeral of, i. 273 Kostrubonko, i. 272 Kukulu, the priest king, i. 112, 113 Kumis, driving away small-pox by the, ii. 161 Kupalo, fimeral of, i. 272 ; representa- tion of, i. 292 Kupole's festival, i. 294 Lachlin family and the deer, ii. 363 La Ciotat, hunting the wren in, ii. 144 Lada, funeral of, i. 273 Lagos, human sacrifices at, i. 383 Lakor, expulsion of diseases to sea in, ii. 192 Lamas, Grand, i. 42, 43 ; the chief of the, i. 43, 44 Lamb killed sacramentally by the Madi tribe of Central Africa, ii. 137, 138 Lamps, festival of, ii. 176 Laos, precautions against strangers in, i. 152 ; belief in plurality of souls amongst the, ii. 339 Laosia, women worshippers in, i. 42 La Palisse, harvest custom in, ii. 68 Lapis manalis, i. 22 Lappland, wind selling in, i. 27 ; cere- mony at the sacrifice of an animal in, ii. 123 ; seclusion of women in, ii. 240 Larch-tree, sacred, i. 61, 62 Lazy man, the, i. 89 Lechrain, midsummer fires in, ii. 258, 259 INDEX 397 Leipzig, carrying out the effigy of Death in, i. 268 Lent customs, ii. 247-249 Leopard, ceremony at the killing of a, ii. 114 Leper, custom at the cleansing of a, ii. Lerwick wind-sellers, 1. 27 Leti, expulsion of diseases to sea by the, ii. 92 Leucadian scapegoat, ii. 213 Lewis, wind selling in the island of, i. 27 Lhoosai, harvest festival of the, i. 69 Libchowic, Mid -Lent custom in the neighbourhood of, i. 93 Licence, periods of, ii. 204 Life of a person bound up with that of a plant, ii. 328-330 Life plants, ii. 329, 330 Lille, harvest ceremonies at, ii. 25, 26 Linus, the name given to the Phoenician lament at vintage time, i. 365 ■ song, i. 398, 399 identified with Adonis, i. 399 Lion, ceremony at the killing of a, ii. 114; Arabic belief in the properties of lion's fat, ii. 85 Lithuania, sun worshippers in, i. 24, 25 ; tree worshippers in, i. 58 ; super- stition concerning the felling of sacred groves in, i. 65, 67 ; May cus- toms in, i. 83, 84 ; custom after a funeral in, i. 177 ; harvest custom in, i. 340, 341 ; ceremony at threshing time in, i. 372, 373 ; ceremonies by the peasants at the eating of the new corn in, ii. 59, 70 Little leaf man, i. 88 Lityerses compared with harvest cus- toms, i. 355, 367 ; story of, i. 392- 395 ; relation of, to Attis, i. 396, 397 the name given to a song by the Phrygian reapers, i. 365, 356 Liver, the, thought to be the seat of the soul, ii. 88 Livonia, sacred grove in, i. 65 Llandebie, sin eating in, ii. 155 Loango, Idng of, deposed when the harvest fails, i. 47 ; supernaturally endowed kings of, i. 116; a capital offence to see the king eat, i. 161 ; the king confined to his palace after coronation, i. 164 ; food left by the king buried, i. i56 ; food restrictions in, i. 207, 208 ; girls secluded at puberty in, ii. 226 London, midsummer pageants in, ii. 281 Longnor, harvest custom at, ii. 25 Lost children, superstition concerning, i. 63 Loucheux Indians, abstinence from the sinew of the thigh by the, ii. 127, 128 Luchon, midsummer fire ceremony at, ii. 282 Lumley, Sir J., excavation of the site of the Diana Nemorensis by, i. 2 note LUneberg, harvest custom in, i. 377 Lusatia, ceremony of carrying out Death in, i. 259, 264 M'Bengas, life of a child supposed to be bound up with that of a tree by the, ii. 328, 329 Macusis of British Guiana, treatment of girls at the age of puberty by the, ii. 232 sq. Madagascar, power ascribed to the souls of the dead in, i. 132 ; blood of nobles may not be shed in, i. 181 ; crocodile not killed in, ii. 109, no Madenassana bushmen, the goat sacred to the, ii. 55 Madi tribe, burying of the parings of the nails by the, i. 202 ; lamb killed sacramentally by the, ii. 137, 138 Magic, sympathetic, i. 9-12 use of cut hair, i. 198-200 Maiden, a name given to the last handful of corn, i. 344, 345 Maize, mother of the, i. 350-352 Makololo, burning or burying of cut hair by the, i. 205 Malabar, reverence for the cow in, ii. 200 Malagasy, vehicle used by the, for the transference of ills, ii. 149, 150 Malay'poem, the external soul in a, ii. 325. 326 Malays and the soul, i. 124 ; ii. 331 ; do not touch a man's head, i. 189 Maldives, cuttings firom the hair and nails buried by the natives of the, i. 200 Mamilian tower, ii. 67 Mamurius Veturius or the old Mars, ii. 208-210 Man in cow-skin, ii. 145, 146 gods in the South Sea Islands, i. 38. 39 Mandan Indians, and their portraits, i. 148 ; expulsion of devils by the, ii. 183, 184 Maneros, the name given to the lament of the Egyptian reapers at the cutting of the first sheaf, i. 364 Mangaia, priests called gods in, i. 33 ; spiritual and temporal government 398 INDEX in, i. 120 ; story of a warrior's shadow, i. 142, 143 Man-god, two types of, i. 12 Mania, i. 6 "Manii, there are many at Aricia," explanation of the proverb, ii. 82, 83 Manius Egerius, traditional founder of the Arician Grove, etc. , i. 5 ; ii. 84 Maori ceremonies on entering strange territory, i. 156 ; the Maoris and dead bodies, i. 169 ; fear of the blood of women, i. 186 ; sacredness of the head amongst the, i. 191, 192 ; ceremony at hair cutting, i. 196, 197 ; fishing custom, ii. 120 ; offerings of first-fruits, ii. 381, 382 Mare, the corn-spirit as a, ii. 24-26 Marimos, human sacrifices by the, i. 383, 384 Marktl, harvest ceremonies in the neighbourhood of, ii. 16, 17 Marquesas Islands, men deified in their life-time in the, i. 37, 38 ; the Mar- quesans and the soul, i. 123 ; shaving of the head in the, i. 195 Mars, chariot race on the field of, ii. 64-66 the old, ii. 208-210 Marseilles, human scapegoat in, ii. 212 Masuren, midsummer fire festival in, ii. 265, 266 May bride, i. 98 ■ Day carols, i. 75i 76 Day customs, i. 72-86, 88, 89, 94, 95, 98-101 ; ii. 181, 182, 254, 255, 257, 258 king, i. 90, 91 poles, i. 78 sq. , 230, 308 ; ii. 66 queen, i. 93, 94 sleeping bridegroom of, i. 95 trees, i. 74-82, 90, 91, 243, 247, 268, 269 ; ii. 8, 251 Mayenne, May Day custom in, i. 76 Mecklenburg, reaping custom in, i. 376 Meiningen, Ash Wednesday custom in, ii. 29 ; sowing time custom, ii. 48 Melanesia, sunshine making in, i. 24 ; bringing back the soul in, i. 136 ; Melanesian stones and a man's shadow, i. 142 Meleager, ii. 305 Men eaten to obtain their qualities, ii. 88,89 Menstruation, seclusion of women at periods of, ii. 238-242 Menstruous blood, primitive dread of, ii. 238, 241 Mentawej Islands, precautions against strangers in the, i. 152 Meroe, Ethiopian kings of, killed, i. 218 Metz, midsummer fires in, ii. 283 Mexican sacraments, paste images of the god eaten, ii. 79-82 ; festivals, ii. 80-84 Mexico, oath of kings at accession in, i. 49 ; sacrifice of new-born babes in, i. 307 : human sacrifice at harvest festival in, i. 381 ; incarnate gods slain in, ii. 218-222 Miaotse, ceremony of driving away the devil by the, ii. 151 Mice, charm for ridding lands irom, ii. 131 Mid-Lent customs, i. 82, 93, 254, 261- 263, 268, 269 Midsummer customs, i. 78 sq., 89, lOI, 272, 290-294 ; ii. 366, 367 European fire festivals at, ii. 258- 267, 282, 283 ; burning of effigies in the midsummer fires, ii. 266, 267 ■ Eve superstitions, ii. 286, 287 ; magic plants gathered on Midsummer Eve, ii. 286-288 omens, i. 294 Mikado, description of the life of the, i. 110-112; cooking of his food, i. i65, 167 ; effects of wearing his clothes without leave, i. 167 ; cutting his hair and nails, i. 197 ; not allowed to touch the ground, ii. 224, 225 Miklucho-Maclay, Baron, ceremony on his entering a village on the Maclay coast, i. 156 Milkmen worshipped by the Todas, i. 41 Minahassa, rain-charm used by the, i. 1 7 ; blood drinking at festivals by the, i. 35 ; custom in time of sickness, ii. 84 ; driving away devils by the, ii. .'58. 159 Mingrelia, rain-getting in, i. 15 Minnetaree Indians and the resurrec- tion of the bison, ii. 122, 123 Miris, tree superstition of the, i. 63 ; tiger's flesh eaten by the, ii. 85 Mirrors, covering up of, i. 147 Mistletoe, the, worshipped by the Celts and gathered by the Druids, ii. 285, 286, 288, 289, 295 ; gathered on Midsummer Eve, ii. 286 sq. ; qualities of, ii. 289 ; viewed as the seat of life, ii. 295 ; life of the oak in the, ii. 360, 361 ; not allowed to touch the ground, ii. 361 ; a protection against witchcraft, ii. 362 ; the Golden Bough the, ii. 363, 368 ; reason it was called the Golden Bough, ii. 365 ; why called golden, ii. 366, 367 ; divining rods made from, in INDEX 399 Sweden, ii. 367 ; gathered at mid- summer and Christmas, ii. 367 Mithraic mysteries, ii. 358 Mnevis, the bull, ii. 60, 61 Moa, expulsion of diseases to sea by the, ii. 192 Mock executions, i. 261 . human sacrifices, i. 250-253 Mole, Le, i. 5 Moluccas, festivals in the, i. 40 ; treat- ment of clove-trees in blossom in the, i. 60 ; soul abduction in the, i. 133, 134 ; ceremony in the, after a journey, i. 158 Mondard, the great, n. 40 Mongolians, stuffing the skin of a sacrificed animal by the, ii. 124 Mongols, the, and the soul, i. 128 Monomotapa, precautions taken for the king, of, i. 159 Montalto, Mid Lent custom in, i. 262 Mooris, custom at births by the, ii. Moosheim, fire festival at, ii. 278 Moqui Indians, belief in the trans- migration of human souls into turtles held by the, ii. 98, 99 ; totem clans of the, ii. 99 Moresby, Captain, at Shepherd's Isle, i. 152. 153 Morocco, iron a protection agamst demons in, i. 175; ants eaten in, ii. 87 ; diverting evil spirits in, ii. 151 Mother-cotton, the, i. 353 • of the maize, i. 350-352 Motumotu theory of storms, i. 27 , the soul believed to be in the reflection by the, i. 145 Mowat, the chief of, supposed to have power of affecting crops, etc. , i. 46 ; boys beaten to make them grow in, ii. 216 , Mozcas, weather kings of the, i. 44 Muato Jamwo, a capital offence to see him eat, i. 162 Mundaris, sacred groves of the, i. 63 ; superstition concerning the felling of sacred groves, i. 67 ; harvest festival, ii. 172 Mundas, ceremony at the planting of the rice by the, i. 288, 289 Munster, rain fountain in, i. 19 Miinsterland, Easter fires in, ii. 252, 253 Murrain, cure for the, ii. 191 Murrams of Manipur, restrictions of food among the, i. 208 Muyscas, weather kings of the, i. 44 Nagual, the, of the Indians of Guate- mala, ii. 333, 334 Nails, cutting the, i. 195, 196 ; burying the first cuttings of a child's, i. 201 ; cuttings of, preserved, i. 202-205 Namaquas, foods eaten and rejected by the, ii. 86 Nanumea, precautions against strangers in the island of, i. 151 Narrinyeri and their totems, i. 165, 166 Nass River, Indians of the, and the recall of the soul, i. 140, 141 Natchez, harvest festival by the," ii. 382-384 Nature, kings of, i. 52 ; dependence of, upon the divine king, i. 109 Nauders, sacred larch-tree at, i. 61, 62 Naudowessies, initiatory ceremony amongst the, ii. 350 Navarre, rain-making in, i. 15 Ndembo, the, ii. 345 Need fires, ii. 269, 293 Negro idea of the soul, i. 125 Nemi, lake of, i. i ; tree within the sanctuary, i. 4 ; priest of, i. 249, 253, ii. 223 ; unchanged, ii. 370, 371 Nerechta, Whitsuntide customs in, i. 96 Neuautz, custom at barley sowing in, ii. 28 Neuhausen, harvest custom in, i. 370 Neusaass, harvest custom in, i. 337 New Britain, rain-making in, i. 13, 14 ; wind - charm, i. 26 ; driving away evil in, ii. 158; expulsion of devils in, ii. 203 ; initiation ceremony in, ii- 352, 353 New Caledonia, rain-making in, i. 16 ; charm for making sunshine in, i. 22- 24 New firuits etc. eaten sacramentally, ii. 68-79 New Guinea, seclusion of girls in, ii. 228, 229 New Ireland, seclusion of girls in, ii. 226-228 New South Wales, ceremony of initia- tion in, i. 163 ; first-born eaten in, i. 236 New Year's Day customs, ii. 170, 171, 179. 193. 194, 272, 273 New Zealand, sacredness of blood in, i. 183 ; superstition concerning the head, i. 192 ; Jiair cutting in, i. 197, 199 ; clippings from the hair buried in, i. 200 ; effects of sacred contagion in, ii. 55 ; gods, ii. 89 Nias, the people of, and the soul, i. 122, 138; precautions against strangers in, i. 154; succession in, i. 238; slaves sacrificed at the funeral 400 INDEX of a chief in, i. 251 ; exorcising the devil in, ii. 160, 161 ; scapegoats in, ii. 196, 197 Nicobar Islands, ceremony in cases of epidemic in the, ii. 188, 189; expul- sion of devils in the, ii. 192 Nightjar, the, ii. 334, 335 Nisus, King of Megara, ii. 305 Nootka Indians, ceremony by the, at the killing of a bear, ii. 113 ; initia- tory ceremony by the, ii. 351 Nordlingen, threshing custom in, i. 371 Norse stories, the external soul in, ii. 3I2> 313 North American Indians, their idea with regard to strangers, i. 153 ; re- strictions upon women at certain times, i. 1 70 ; cleansing after the slaying of enemies, i. 170, 171 ; ab- stinence firom blood, i. 179; nail cutting amongst the, i. 196; belief concerning the various properties of food, ii. 85, 86 ; spare the rattle- snake, ii. no; ceremony at bear killing, ii. 115 ; respect for the elan, deer and elk, ii. 117, 118 ; regard for the bones of animals, ii. 125 Northamptonshire, May - day custom in, i. 75 ; cure for cough, ii. 1 54 Norway, cut hair and nails buried or burned in, i. 205 ; midsummer bon- fires in, ii. 289 Niirnberg, ceremony of carrying out Death in, i. 259 Oak worship, ii. 291 ; the chief sacred tree of the European Aryans, ii. 291- 370 ; sacred fires made of, ii. 292 ; oak wood burnt on Midsummer Day, ii. 294 ; Balder is the, ii. 295 ; human representative of the, slain, ii. 294- 296 ; life of, in the mistletoe, ii. 360, 361 ; superstition concerning the oak tree, ii. 368 ; a store of solar fire, ii. 369 Oats-goat, ii. 13-15 Obermedlingen, threshing custom in, ii. 21, 22 ; midsummer fires in, ii. 270 Oberpfalz, threshing custom in, i. 371 October horse, ii. 64-67 Offerings of first-fruits, ii. 373-384 Oil of St. John, ii. 288, 289 Ojebways, sunshine charm used by the, i. 22 ; seldom fell living trees, i. 61 Olaf, King of Sweden, sacrificed, i. 47, 48 Old Calabar, revellings at the expulsion of devils in, ii. 193 Old man, a name given to the last sheaf, i. 337, 338 Old woman, a name given to the last sheaf, i. 337, 338 Oldenburg, superstition regarding the reflection in, i. 147 ; custom with regard to clippings from the hair in, i. 201 ; fire festival in, ii. 250 Omaha Indians, rain-making .by the, i. 14 ; wind.clan of the Omahas, i. 26 ; their totems, ii. 53, 56 Omens, neutralising bad, ii. 151 Onitsha, ceremony of eating the new yams at, ii. 74 ; New Year festival in, ii. 170, 171 ; human scapegoats in, ii. 195, 196 Oraon festival, i. 85, 86 Oraons, ceremony at rice planting by the, i. 288 Orchomenus, human sacrifice at the rites of Dionysus in, i. 329 Oregon, belief in the recall of the soul by the Salish Indians of, i. 136, 137 Orestes, the originator of the worship of Diana, i. 3 Orinoco rain-charm, i. 18, 93 ; sunshine charm, i. 22 Orissa, worshippers of the Queen of England in, i. 41 ; rice growing in, i. 61 Orkney Islands, transference of sick- ness in the, ii. 153 Osiris, myth of, i. 301 sq. ; ritual of, i. 303-305 ; representation of the dead ; body of, in the temple of Isis, i. 305 ; a corn-spirit, i. 305 - 307 ; a tree- , spirit, i. 307-309 ; grave of, at Philae, ,' i. 309 ; arguments for and against his , being the sun-god, i. 311-313, 316, 317, 318, 320; a god of vegetation, i. 319; rites of, similar to those of Dionysus and Adonis, i. 319, 320;. probable origin of the cult of, i. 363 ; once represented by a human victim, i. 400-404 ; on monuments, i. 403 ; , key to the mysteries of, i. 404 ; as a i pig, ii. 52-60 ; death of, ii. 58, 59 ; annual sacrifice of a pig to, ii. 58, 59 ; as a bull, ii. 59-61 Osnabriick, harvest custom in, i. 336 Osterode, Easter fires in, ii. 253 Ostiaks, ceremony by the, at the killing of a bear, ii. in, 112 Ot Damons, custom with regard to strangers by the, i. 151, 152; seclu- sion of girls amongst the, ii. 229 Otawa Indians, ceremony at the killing of a bear by the, ii. 113 ; do not burn fish bones, ii. 119 Oude, sin eating in, ii. 156 Owl, the, ii. 335, 336 Ox, ritual at the Athenian sacrifice of the, ii. 38, 39, 41 ; as an embodi- INDEX 401 ment of the corn - spirit, ii. 41-43; Osiris and the, ii. 59-61 Ozieri, Gardens of Adonis at, i. 290 Pacific, human gods in the, i. 38, 39 Padams of Assam, superstition concern- ing lost children by the, i. 63 Palermo, " sawing the old woman " in, i. 261 Palm-tree, the Dyaks and the, ii. 329 Sunday custom, ii. 216 Pan, representation of, ii. 34, 35 ; the Lord of the Wood, ii. 35 Panes, festival of the, ii. 90, 91 Papuans, foods eaten by the, ii. 87 ; belief in a child's life being bound up with that of a tree, ii. 329 Paris, procession of mock giant in, ii. 281 Parthian monarchs worshipped as deities, i. 49 Patagonians, burning of loose hair by the, i. 205 Pawnees, human sacrifices by the, at sowing, i. 381, 382 Payaguas, method of fighting the wind by the, i. 28 Pear-tree, the protector of cattle, i. 73 Pelew Islanders, god of the, i. 39, 40 ; custom at tree-felling by the, i. 62, 63 ; ceremony on the killing of a man by » the, i. 178 Pembrokeshire, Twelfth Day custom in, ii. 143 Pepper Coast, high priest held respon- sible for the general welfare, i. 47 Permanent incarnation, i. 37-42 Persian kings not seen eating, i. 162 '■'Peru, rain-charm in, i. 17; charm for f, staying the sun in, i. 24 ; preservation H^ of the representative corn -spirit by the ancient Peruvians, i. 350, 351 ; expulsion of devils in, ii. 203 ; self- beating in, ii. 216. See also under Incas. Philippine Islands, belief in the souls of trees in the, i. 62 ; cannibalism in the, ii. 88 Philosophy, primitive, defect of, i. 210- 212 ; rules of life of sacred men are the outcome of, ib. Phoenician custom at vintage, i. 365 ; Linus song, i. 398, 399 Phrygia, mock human sacrifices in, i. 300 ; reapers' song in, i. 365, 366 Piedmont, midsummer peasant custom in, i. 288 Pig, the corn -spirit as a, ii. 26-31; sacred, ii. 50-57 ; Osiris as a, ii. 52- 60 Pigs, Demeter and Proserpine as, ii. VOL. II 44-49 ; Attis and Adonis as, ii. 49, 50 Pilsen, Whitsuntide custom near, i. 92 Pine-tree sacred to Dionysus, i. 321 Pinsk, Whit Monday customs by Russian girls in, i. 87, ZZ Plas, Whitsuntide custom in the neigh- bourhood of, i. 92 Po, excavations in the valley of the, i. 57 Poachers and the fir-cones, ii. 288 Point Barrow, hunting the evil spirit by the Eskimo of, ii. 164, 165 Poitou, midsummer fire festival in, ii. 261 Poland, ceremony of carrying out Death in, i. 261 ; harvest custom in, i. 339, 340, 342, 343 ; Christmas custom in, ii. 6, 7 Polynesians, superstition held by the, concerning the head, i. 189, 190; and sacred contagion, ii. 55 Pomerania, cut hair buried in, i. 205 ; reaping custom in, i. 205 Pomos of California, expulsions of devils by the, ii. 183 Pongol festival, ii. 73 Pont k Mousson, harvest ceremony at, ii. 21 Poplar, burning of a, on St. Peter's Day, i. 101 Portrait, the soul in the, i. 148, 149 Portraits, life in, i. 148 Potato-dog, ii. 4 wolf, ii. 2, 5 Potatoes, custom at the digging of new, in Sutherlandshire, ii. 71 Potniae, rites of Dionysus at, i. 329 Pouilly, harvest ceremony at, ii. 20, 21, 47 Preacher to the fish, ii. 119, 120 Pregnancy, i. 239 Priestly kings, i. 7, 8 Priests, Roman and Sabine, not shaved with iron razors, i. 172 Primitive man and the supernatural, i. 6-30 philosophy, rules of life are the outcome of, i. 208-210 Prophesying, drinking blood before, i. 34, 35 Propitiation of the fish, ii. 118, 119 Proserpine and the pig, ii. 44-49 Prussia, reverence for the oak in, i. 58 ; high trees worshipped by the ancient Prussians, i. 64 ; custom after a funeral by the old Prussians, i. 177 ; self-immolation of the supreme ruler of the old Prussians, i. 223 ; cere- mony at spring ploughing in, i. 286 ; corn drenching in, i. 287 ; gardens of 2 D 402 INDEX Adonis in, i. 294, 295 ; harvest custom in, i. 336, 338, 343 ; ceremony at the sowing of the winter corn by the Prussian Slavs, ii. 18, 19 ; mid- summer fire festival in, ii. 265 Puberty, girls at, not allowed to touch the ground or see the sun, ii. 225- 253 ; girls secluded at, ii. 225 ; reasons for the seclusion, ii. 238 sq. Pulverbatch, oak tree superstition at, ii. 368 Punjaub, Gen. Nicholson worshipped by a sect in the, i. 41 ; ceremony at the bursting of the cotton boles in the, i. 353 ; custom at the festival of lamps, ii. 176 Purification after travel, i. 157, 158 Pyrenees, customs in the, i. 101 QUAUHTITLANS, human sacrifices by the, ii. 221 Queen of the sacred rites, i. 7 Queensland, initiatory rites in, ii. 343, 344 Quilacare, self-immolation of the king of, i. 224 Quoja, initiatory rites in, ii. 347 Ra, the sun-god, i. 313-316 Rain-charm, i. 93, 199, 287, 289, 299, 333. 374. 390. 400 ; ii. 42 kmgs of, 1. 52, S3 making, i. 13-22 Rajah, custom at the death of a, i. 232 Rajah Vijyanagram, his aversion to iron, i. 174 Rajamahall, offerings of first-firuits in, ii- 374, 375 Rali fair, the, i. 276, 277 Ram, sacred, ii. 63 ; Egyptian sacrifice of the, ii. 92-94 ; consecration of the white ram by the Kalmucks, ii. 136 Ramin, harvest custom in, i. 377 Raskolniks, the, and mirrors, i. 147 Rattlesnake not killed, ii. no Ratzeburg, harvest custom in, i. 376, 377 Red cock, ii. 9 haired victims, i. 306, 307 Reflection, the soul in the, i. 145-148 Religion, marks of a primitive, i. 348, 349 and magic, relation of, i. 30-32 Religious aspect of Peruvian, Parthian and Egyptian sovereigns, i. 48-50 Resurrection, the, of animals, ii. 123- 125; traces in folk-tales of the belief in, ii. 125 ; simulation of death and resurrection at initiatory rites, ii. 342-358 Rhetra, priest tastes the sacrificial blood at, i. 35 Rhon mountains, fire festivals in the, ii. 249 Rice-bride, the, i. 355 Rice harvest, ceremonies at the, ii. 71, 72 Rio de la Plata, seclusion of girls amongst the Indians of, ii. 230, 231 Roman cure for fever, ii. 152 haircutting custom, i. 1 99 Romans, tree worship by the, i. 99 Rome, ceremony of driving out the old Mars from, ii. 208-210 Remove, sacred oak at, i. 58, 64 Rook, expulsion of evil in the island of, ii. 158 ; initiation festival, ii. 352 Rosenheim, harvest custom in, ii. 20 Roti, haircutting ceremony in the island of, i. 201, 205, 206 Rottenburg, midsummer ceremony in, ii. 266, 267 Roumanians, rain-making by the, i. 16 ; custom after a death by the, i. 176; corn-drenching by the, i. 286 Rowan, the, effective against witch- craft, ii. 361 Royal and priestly taboos, i. 109-120, 149-209 blood not spilt upon the . ground, i i. 179-183 Ruhla, springtide custom in, i. %% Rupture, cure for, ii. 330 Russia, Whitsuntide customs in, i. 76, 77 ; first - born sacrificed by the heathen in, i. 237 ; Eastertide customs in Little Russia, i. 272, 273 ; harvest custom in, i. 341 ; ceremony on the cutting of the first sheaf in, i. 364 ; Easter custom in White Russia,^ ii. 29 ; Russian wood-spirits, ii. 35, , 36 ; Russian corn - spirits, ii. 36 ; beating as a charm in, ii. 216 ; mid-, summer customs in, ii. 265, 267 Ruthenia, fire festival in, ii. 265 Rye-boar, ii. 26, 27 goat, ii. 12 ^— wolf, ii. 1-3, 5 Sabaea, kings of, not allowed out of their palaces, i. 164 Sabarios, festival of, ii. 69 Sables, superstition about killing, ii. "5 Sacaea festival at Babylon, i. 226, 400 Sacramental bread, traces of the use of, at Aricia, ii. 82-84 character of the harvest supper, corn-spirit eaten in animal form, ii. 31 • killing of an animal, two types of the, ii. 134 J-?. INDEX 403 Sacramental killing of sacred animal by pastoral peoples, ii. 135-138 Sacraments in ancient Mexico, ii. 78, 79 Sacred cattle in Egypt, ii. 60, 61 persons' vessels not to be used by others, i. 166; sacred persons are dangerous, i. 166, 167 : not allowed to see the sun, ii. 225, 243 note ; not allowed to touch the ground, ii. 224, 243 note Sacredness and uncleanness not dis- tinguished by primitive man, i. 169- 172 Sacrifices, human, i. 235-237, 251, 252 Sacrificial king, i. 7 Saddle Island, the reflection and the soul in the, i. 145 Saffron Walden, May- day custom in, i. 76 Sagar, influenza in, ii. 189, 190 Saligne, 'harvest custom in, i. 343 Salii, the, ii. 210 note Salmon-catching, ii. 121, 122 Salza district. Shrove Tuesday custom in the, ii. 29 Salzwedel, Whitsuntide custom in, i. 90 Samoan gods, i. 39 ; ii. 54 Samoans, the, and bleeding trees, i. 61; recall of the soul amongst the, i. 135 ; turtle not eaten by the, i. 163 ; Samoans and the butterfly, ii. 56 ; presentation of first-fruits by the, ii. 381 Samogitians, tree superstition amongst the, i. 65 ; birds and beasts of the wood held sacred by the, i. 105 Samorin kings, i. 225 Samoyed story, the external soul in a, ii; 321 Sankara and his shadow, i. 142 Santals, story of a soul by the, i. 126 Sardinia, Gardens of Adonis in, i. 290 Satyrs, representation of the, ii. 35 Savage, our debt to the, i. 210-212 Savage Island, kings killed in the, i. 48; collapse of the monarchy in the, i. 118; killing of strangers in the, i. 158 Savages and the soul, i. 121, 122 " Sawing the old woman," i. 261, 262 Saxon villages, Whitsuntide custom in, i- 95 Saxons of Transylvania, charm for keep- ing sparrows from the corn used by the, ii. 130 Saxony, Whitsuntide ceremonies in, i. ^43. Scandinavian Christmas custom, ii. 29 Scapegoat, ii. 182-217; animal em- ployed as a,, ii. 189-191, 194 sq. ; human, ii. 191 sq. ; dog used as a, ii. 194, 195 ; Tibetan ceremony of the, ii. 197, 198 ; divine, ii. 199-201, 205 ; cow and bull as, ii. 201, 202 ; use of, in classical antiquity, ii. 208- 217 ; reason for beating the, ii. 213- 215 Schaumburg, Easter fires in, ii. 253 Schluckenau, Shrovetide custom in, i. 244 Scotland, representation of spring in the Highlands of, i. 97 ; iron as a charm in, i. 175, 176; harvest custom in, '• 339> 345 ; cowherd clothed in cow's hide in the Highlands of, ii. 145, 146 ; midsummer fires in, ii. 264, 265 Scythian kings put in bonds in times of scarcity, i. 46 Sea-lion, respect for the, ii. 1 1 1 Seal, respect for the, ii. 1 1 1 Self-immolation, i. 216, 224 Semites, sacrifice of children by the, i. 235 ; the king's son sacrificed, ib. ; worship of Adonis, i. 279 Senegambia, the Python clan in, ii. 95 ; soul detention among the Sereres of, i- 139 Senjero, first-born sacrificed in, i. 236, 237 Servia, rain -making in, i. 16; torch- light procession in, ii. 266 Seven Oaks, May-day custom in, i. 76 Sex-totems in Australia, ii. 334-337 Shadow, the soul in the, i. 141 -149 Shamans, the, sacrifice their chief on account of pestilence, i. 48 Shans, expulsion of the fire-spirit by the, ii. 178, 179 Shark Point the home of the priestly Iving Kukulu, i. 112 Sharp instruments supposed to wound spirits, i. 176, 177 Sheaf, the last, various names given to, and ceremonies in connection with, i- 336-338, 340-346, 408 ; ii. 4, 7, 8, 68 Shepherd's Isle, precautions taken against strangers in, i. 152, 153 Shetland seamen and wind buying, i. 27 Shropshire, " Neck " the name given to the last handful of corn in, i. 407, 408 ; harvest custom, ii. 24, 25 ; sin- eating in, ii. 155 Shrovetide Bear, i. 254, 255 customs, i. 96, 244, 270; ii. 29, 250, 254-257, 283 Siam, soul superstition in, i. 59 ; mode of royal executions in, i. 179, 180 ; superstition concerning the head, i. 187, 188 ; temporary king of, i. 229 ; 404 INDEX banishment of demons in, ii. 178 ; human scapegoats in, ii. 196 ; the external soul in Siamese story, ii. .304, 30s Siberian sable hunters, ii. 115, 116 Sicily, Gardens of Adonis in, i. 294, .295 Silenus both a wood and corn spirit, ii. 35 ; representation of, ib. Silesia, driving out Death in, i. 260 ; "carrying out Death" in, i. 267; bringing back summer in, i. 263 ; har- vest custom in, i. 336, 346 ; ii. 8 Silvanus both a wood and corn spirit, ."• 35 Sin-bearers, ii. 151, 152 Sin-eating, ii. 154-157 " Sinew which shrank," abstinence from the, ii. 126-128 Skye, harvest festival in, ii. 14 ; Beltane fires in, ii. 255, 256 Slaves sacrificed, i. 251, 252 Slavonia,' " carrying out Death" in, i. 260 ; ii. 209 ; custom of " sawing the old woman " amongst the Slavs, i. 262 ; reaping custom amongst the Slavs, i. 334, 355; beating in, ii. 216 ; midsummer iires in, ii. 265 ; perpetual fire of the Slavs, ii. 293 ; the external soul in Slavonic stories, ii. 309, 310 Slovenes of Oberkram, Shrove Tuesday custom amongst the, i. 96 Small-pox, driving away the, ii. 161 ; scapegoat used for, ii. 190, 191 Snake, communion with the, ii. 139 — — tribe, ii. 95 ; ceremony performed with a dough snake by the, ii. 139, 140 Soest, custom of flax pullers at, i. 375 Sofala, kings of, killed, i. 219, 220 Sogamoso, restrictions on the heir to the throne in, ii. 225 Solor, harvest custom in, i. 375 Somersetshire, midsummer fires in, ii. 262 Sorcerers, the soul extracted or detained by, i. 135-141 Soul, perils of the, i. 109 sq. ; a minia- ture of the body, i. 121-123 ; precau- tions to prevent its escape, i. 123 ; conceived as a bird, i. 124 ; its flight, i. 124, 125 ; absent in sleep, i. 125- 129 ; its departure not always volun- tary, i. 129 ; carried off by ghosts, i. 129-132; recall of the, i. 129-141 ; stolen by demons, i. 132-135; brought back in visible shape, i. 136-138; extracted or detained by sorcerers, i. 138-141 ; transference of the, i. 140 ; the soul thought to be in the portrait, i. 148, 149 ; in the shadow, i. 141-149; in the reflection, i. 145- 148; in the blood, i. 178, 179; transmigration of the human soul into that of a turtle, ii. 98 ; the external soul in folk tales, ii. 296-326 ; in folk custom, ii. 327-359 Souls, of trees, i. 59-61 ; of divine per- sons transmitted to successors, i. 237- 239 ; plurality of, ii. 339 South American Indians, foods eaten and avoided by the, ii. 86 ; beating by the, ii. 216 South Sea Islands, man-gods in the, i. 38, 39 Sowing-time custom, ii. 28-30, 32, 48 Spachendorf, fire festivals in, ii. 249, 250 Spain, custom of "sawing the old woman " in, i. 261, 262 ; midsummer fires in, ii. 266 Sparrows, the, and the corn, ii. 130 Sparta, state sacrifices offered by the kings of, i. 7 Spices, sprinkling the sick with, i. 154 Spirit, of vegetation, in human shape, i. 87, 88 robbing the, i. 380 Spirits, sharp instruments supposed to wound, i. 176, 177 Spitting as a protective charm, i. 205 Spring and harvest customs compared, i. 346, 347 .. . ceremony in, in China, ii. 42, 43 ; European fire festivals in, ii. 247-254 Storms, Motumotu theory of, i. 27 Strangers, precautions against the magic arts of, i. 150-160; tied up in the sheaves by the reapers as repre- . ' sentatives of the corn-spirit, i. 374- ' 380 Straw goats, ii. 16 '^ Sucla-Tirtha, expulsion of sins to sea \ by the, ii. 192 {' Suicide of Fijians at old age, i. 216 Sumatra, rain-charm in, i. 17 ; tree- superstition in, i. 63 ; reluctaijce to wound a tiger in, ii. no Summer, bringing back, i. 263, 268 tree, i. 268, 269 Sun, staying the, i. 24 ; sacred person not allowed to see the, ii. 225, 243 note ; girls at puberty not allowed to see the, ii. 225-253 ; traces in folk- tales of the rule which forbids girls at puberty to see the sun, ii. 235-237 ; belief that the sun can impregnate women, ii. 236 ; tabooed persons may not see the, ii. 243 note ; fires as sun charms, ii. 267-274 INDEX 405 Suni Mohammedans, covering up mirrors by the, i. 147 Sunshine, making, i. 22-24 Superb warbler, ii. 336, 337 Surenthal, midsummer fire ceremony in the, ii. 259, 260 Surinam, the bush negroes of, and their totems, ii. 53, 54 Sutherland, cure for cough in, ii. 154 Sutherlandshire, custom at the digging of new potatoes in, ii. 71 .Swabia, burying of cut hair in, i. 202 ; burying the carnival in, i. 254-257 ; harvest custom, ii. 27 ; fire festival, ii. 248-249 ; Easter fires in, ii. 254 ; midsummer fires in, ii. 258 Sweden, harvest superstition in, i. (iZ ; King Domalde sacrificed on account of famine, i. 47, 48 ; May Eve customs in, i. 78 ; midsummer cere- monies, i. 78, 79 ; Christmas customs in, ii. 29-31 ; superstitious use of Yule straw in, ii. 30, 31 ; May Day fires in, ii. 258 ; midsummer bonfires in, ii. 289 ; mistletoe superstition in, ib. ; divining rods made firom the mistletoe in, ii. 367 Swineherds, restrictions on, in Egypt, ii. 52 Syleus, legend of, i. 398 Sympathetic eating. Savage belief that a man acquires the character of the animal or man whose flesh he eats, ii. 85-89 magic, i. 9-12 Syria, caterpillars in, ii. 132 Taboo, i. 121, 178 ; fatal effects of, i. 167-170; seclusion of tabooed persons, 1 i. 170, 171 ; the object of, is to pre- 5 serve life, i. 149 ; royal and priestly taboos, i. 109-120, 149-150, 209 Tabor, in Bohemia, ceremony of carrying out Death in, i. 258 Tahiti, abdication of kings of, i. 120 ; the bodies of the king and queen not allowed to be touched, i. 172 ; super- stition concerning the head in, i. 190, 191 ; burying of cut hair in, i. 200 Taif, hair cut on returning from a journey in, i. 194 Tamaniu, the, of the Bank Islanders, ii. 331, 332 Tana, disposal of unconsumed food by the islanders, i. 166; offerings of first- firuits in, ii. 378 Tarnow, reaping custom in, i. 335 Tartar I