For many days afterwards the younger brother dwelt alone in the Valley of

the Acacia. By day he hunted the beasts of the field, but at evening he

came and laid him down under the Acacia, on the top of whose flower was

his heart. And many days after that he built himself a house in the Valley

of the Acacia. But the gods were grieved for him; and the Sun said to

Khnum, “Make a wife for Bitiu, that he may not dwell alone.” So Khnum made

him a woman to dwell with him, who was perfect in her limbs more than any

woman on earth, for all the gods were in her. So she dwelt with him. But

one day a lock of her hair fell into the river and floated down to the

land of Egypt, to the house of Pharaoh’s washerwomen. The fragrance of the

lock perfumed Pharaoh’s raiment, and the washerwomen were blamed, for it

was said, “An odour of perfume in the garments of Pharaoh!” So the heart

of Pharaoh’s chief washerman was weary of the complaints that were made

every day, and he went to the quay, and there in the water he saw the lock

of hair. He sent one down into the river to fetch it, and, because it

smelt sweetly, he took it to Pharaoh. Then Pharaoh’s magicians were sent

for and they said, “This lock of hair belongs to a daughter of the Sun,

who has in her the essence of all the gods. Let messengers go forth to all

foreign lands to seek her.” So the woman was brought from the Valley of

the Acacia with chariots and archers and much company, and all the land of

Egypt rejoiced at her coming, and Pharaoh loved her. But when they asked

her of her husband, she said to Pharaoh, “Let them cut down the Acacia and

let them destroy him.” So men were sent with tools to cut down the Acacia.

They came to it and cut the flower upon which was the heart of Bitiu; and

he fell down dead in that evil hour. But the next day, when the elder

brother of Bitiu was entered into his house and had sat down, they brought

him a pot of beer and it bubbled, and they gave him a jug of wine and it

grew turbid. Then he took his staff and his sandals and hied him to the

Valley of the Acacia, and there he found his younger brother lying dead in

his house. So he sought for the heart of his brother under the Acacia. For

three years he sought in vain, but in the fourth year he found it in the

berry of the Acacia. So he threw the heart into a cup of fresh water. And

when it was night and the heart had sucked in much water, Bitiu shook in

all his limbs and revived. Then he drank the cup of water in which his

heart was, and his heart went into its place, and he lived as before.(842)

In the story of Seyf-el-Mulook in the Arabian Nights, the Jinnee declares,

“When I was born, the astrologers declared that the destruction of my soul

would be effected by the hand of one of the sons of the human kings. I

therefore took my soul, and put it into the crop of a sparrow, and I

imprisoned the sparrow in a little box, and put this into another small

box, and this I put within seven other small boxes, and I put these within

seven chests, and the chests I put into a coffer of marble within the

verge of this circumambient ocean; for this part is remote from the

countries of mankind, and none of mankind can gain access to it.” But

Seyf-el-Mulook got possession of the sparrow and strangled it, and the

Jinnee fell upon the ground a heap of black ashes.(843) In a modern

Arabian tale a king marries an ogress, who puts out the eyes of the king’s

forty wives. One of the blinded queens gives birth to a son whom she names

Mohammed the Prudent. But the ogress queen hated him and compassed his

death. So she sent him on an errand to the house of her kinsfolk the

ogres. In the house of the ogres he saw some things hanging from the roof,

and on asking a female slave what they were, she said, “That is the bottle

which contains the life of my lady the queen, and the other bottle beside

it contains the eyes of the queens whom my mistress blinded.” A little

afterwards he spied a beetle and rose to kill it. “Don’t kill it,” cried

the slave, “for that is my life.” But Mohammed the Prudent watched the

beetle till it entered a chink in the wall; and when the female slave had

fallen asleep, he killed the beetle in its hole, and so the slave died.

Then Mohammed took down the two bottles and carried them home to his

father’s palace. There he presented himself before the ogress queen and

said, “See, I have your life in my hand, but I will not kill you till you

have replaced the eyes which you took from the forty queens.” The ogress

did as she was bid, and then Mohammed the Prudent said, “There, take your

life.” But the bottle slipped from his hand and fell, the life of the

ogress escaped from it, and she died.(844)

In a Kabyl story an ogre declares that his fate is far away in an egg,

which is in a pigeon, which is in a camel, which is in the sea. The hero

procures the egg and crushes it between his hands, and the ogre dies.(845)

In a Magyar folk-tale, an old witch detains a young prince called Ambrose

in the bowels of the earth. At last she confided to him that she kept a

wild boar in a silken meadow, and if it were killed, they would find a

hare inside, and inside the hare a pigeon, and inside the pigeon a small

box, and inside the box one black and one shining beetle: the shining

beetle held her life, and the black one held her power; if these two

beetles died, then her life would come to an end also. When the old hag

went out, Ambrose killed the wild boar, took out the hare, from the hare

he took the pigeon, from the pigeon the box, and from the box the two

beetles; he killed the black beetle, but kept the shining one alive. So

the witch’s power left her immediately, and when she came home, she had to

take to her bed. Having learned from her how to escape from his prison to

the upper air, Ambrose killed the shining beetle, and the old hag’s spirit

left her at once.(846) In another Hungarian story the safety 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.(847) 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.(848)

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 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.(849) 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.(850) 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 expired.(851) In another Tartar poem a hero

called Kök Chan deposits with a maiden a golden ring, in which is half his

strength. Afterwards when Kök 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.(852)

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.(853) In a

Tartar poem two youths cut open the body of an old witch and tear out her

bowels, but all to no purpose, 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.(854) 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 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.(855) 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.(856) 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 her she

will kill him by throwing the golden sword or shooting the golden arrow at

him.(857)

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 had the girl in her power, the queen

sent her home to her adopted parents. To save her from further persecution

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.(858)

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.(859)

§ 4.—The external soul in folk-custom.

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

invulnerable 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.(860) In Southern Celebes when a woman is brought to bed the

messenger 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 the piece of iron;

for if it were lost, the woman’s soul would assuredly, it is supposed, be

lost with it.(861)

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 torture 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.(862) In Ceram it is still believed that if young people have their

hair cut they will be weakened and enervated thereby.(863) 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.(864)

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.(865)

Similarly among the M’Bengas in Western Africa, about the 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 believed 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.(866) In the

Cameroons, also, the life of a person is believed to be sympathetically

bound up with that of a tree.(867) 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.(868)

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.(869) 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.(870) 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.”(871) 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 expect misfortune.(872) 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.(873) 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.(874) 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.(875) 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 Chillingworth, 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.”(876) 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_.”(877)

But in practice, as in folk-tales, it is not merely with trees and plants

that the life 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.(878) 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 connected with it, for

if lost or destroyed it is said the child will not be long-lived.”(879)

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.”(880) 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 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.”(881)

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 unintentionally kills an _ihlozi_ serpent, the man whose _ihlozi_

it was dies, but the serpent comes to life again.”(882) 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 completed. 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 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.(883) 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 vouchsafe 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_

could 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 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.(884)

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 Ngŭnŭngŭnŭt (the Bat) is the life of a

man and the life of Yártatgŭrk (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 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.”(885)

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.”(886) 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.(887) 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.”(888)

The jealous protection thus afforded by Australian men and women to bats

and owls respectively (for bats 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 guarding 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.(889) 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.(890)

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 assignation 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.(891) 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 _kobong_ 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 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 circumstances, and at a

particular period of the year.”(892) 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.”(893) Here the killing 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 receptacle in which a man keeps his

life, as Punchkin kept his life 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 externalise his life, should he not transfer one portion of it to one

animal and another to another? The divisibility 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 indivisibility 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.(894) 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.(895) The Laos

suppose that the body is the seat of thirty spirits, which reside in the

hands, the feet, the mouth, the eyes, etc.(896) Hence, from 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 (_margas_) with descent in the male line; and

each clan is forbidden 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.(897) Thus the Battas have 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.(898) 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 militate 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 exceedingly suspicious

and reserved; Europeans have resided among savages for years without

discovering some of their capital articles of faith, and in the end the

discovery 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

these, which are but the outposts and outworks of his life, 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 therefore 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 recollections 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 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 totem. The primitive belief in the possibility 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.(899) This

revival of the dead hunter as a bear is exactly analogous 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

himself 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.(900) In one part of

Queensland the 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.”(901) 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 himself starts up from the

grave.(902) 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 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

besmeared.(903)

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. Sometimes 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.”(904) The following account of 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

understanding 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 sympathetically

united to the fetish by which his life is henceforward determined.(905)

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.”(906)

Rites of this sort were formerly observed in Quoja, 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 eating 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, 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 pretend 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.”(907)

Among the Indians of Virginia, an initiatory ceremony, 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, 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

discovering anything of their former remembrance; for if such a thing

should happen to any of them, they must immediately be _Huskanaw’d_ 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 unlive their former lives, and commence men by forgetting

that they ever have been boys.”(908)

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 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 restored 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 consciousness, and finally, discharging from his

mouth the bean, or whatever it was the chief had thrown at him, he came to

life.(909) 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, raccoon, wolf, owl,

weasel), of which it roughly preserves the shape. Each member 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; he falls

like dead, but a second thrust of the bag restores him to life.(910)

A ceremony witnessed by Jewitt during his captivity among the Indians of

Nootka Sound doubtless 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 immediately 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.”(911) 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.(912) 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,(913) it is

probable that the prince belonged to the Wolf clan, and that the ceremony

described by Jewitt represented the killing 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.(914) 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 between the legs of the disguised men.

Then the procession moves through the village again, and announces that

Marsaba has eaten up the boys, and will not disgorge them till he receives

a present of pigs, taro, etc. So all the villagers, according to their

means, contribute provisions, which are then consumed in the name of

Marsaba.(915) In New Britain all males are members 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 supposed 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 crinoline 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.(916)

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 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.(917)

In the west of Ceram boys at puberty are admitted to the Kakian

association.(918) Modern writers have commonly regarded this association

as primarily a political league instituted to resist foreign domination.

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 recognised 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 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 regenerate 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 posture 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 the lads to life. The men

who bring this news come in a fainting state and daubed with mud, like

messengers 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-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 Muñga grass, and the

third on the initiation to the performance of a Srauta sacrifice.”(919) A

pretence of killing the candidate appears to have formed part of the

initiation to the Mithraic mysteries.(920)

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 permanently

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

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 supernatural

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 totemism (the

prohibition of sexual union between persons of the same totem), but to the

origin of the marriage system.

§ 5.—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;(921) the ogres burst when a certain grain of

sand—doubtless containing their life or death—is carried over their

heads;(922) the magician dies when the stone in which his life or death is

contained is put under his pillow;(923) 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.(924)

The idea that the life of the oak was in the mistletoe was probably

suggested, as I have said, by the observation 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 therefore 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.(925) This

may be a survival of the old superstition 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.(926) 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.(927) 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.”(928) Hence it is placed over doors to prevent the ingress of

witches.(929) Similarly the mistletoe in Germany is still 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.(930)

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.”(931) 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

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 distemper which would soon prove fatal.(932)

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.(933)

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.”(934) 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 the priest of the Arician

grove—the King of the Wood—personified the tree on which grew the Golden

Bough.(935) 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 remained 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.(936) The perpetual fire which burned 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 Roman eagles had ever

swooped on Norway, might have been found repeated with little difference

among the barbarous Aryans of the North. The rite was probably an

essential feature in the primitive Aryan worship of the oak.(937)

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.”(938) 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,(939) 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.”(940) 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.(941) And if you place fern-seed among money, the money will never

decrease, however much of it you spend.(942) Sometimes the fern-seed is

supposed to bloom at Christmas, and whoever catches it will become very

rich.(943) 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 unfailing supply of gold. But while the

fern-seed is described as golden, it is equally described as glowing and

fiery.(944) 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 Midsummer Day at noon; three drops of

blood fell down, which he caught in a white cloth, and these blood-drops

were the fern-seed.(945) 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 either at Midsummer or

Christmas(946)—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 sundown,

and when it rests directly over treasure, the rod begins to move as if it

were alive.(947) Now, if the mistletoe discovers gold, it must be in its

character of the Golden Bough; and if it is gathered at the solstices,

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,(948) 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 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.(949) At Pulverbatch, in Shropshire, it was believed within living

memory that the oak-tree blooms on Midsummer Eve and the blossom withers

before daylight.(950) 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,(951)

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.(952)

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 a light went forth from him,”(953) 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?(954) It is at least highly significant that, amongst 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 beginning 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 incarnation 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 surroundings 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

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. OFFERINGS 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 off 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.(955) 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.(956) 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.(957)

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.(958) 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.(959) So in Burma, when the

_pangati_ 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.(960)

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.(961) 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.(962) 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 inhabitants have assembled at the

chief’s 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 Kull 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.(963) In the Central Provinces of India the first

grain of the season is always offered to the god Bhímsen or Bhím Deo.(964)

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;(965) 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.(966)

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 the flesh, is laid on

the stone for the gods. The palm-tree is hung with lances and

shields.(967) The Dyaks of Borneo hold a feast of first-fruits when the

paddy (unhusked rice) is ripe. The priestesses, accompanied 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.(968)

The pounding of the new paddy is the occasion of a harvest festival which

is celebrated all over Celebes. The religious ceremonies 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.(969) 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.(970) 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.”(971) In the Tenimber

and Timorlaut Islands, East Indies, 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.(972) 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.(973) 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 _anitos_ 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.(974)

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 _Mbaki_, or Harvest.”(975) 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 presented 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.”(976) 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 preside

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 temporary 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.(977)

In some of the Kingsmill Islands the god most commonly worshipped was

called Tubuériki. 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.(978)

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 portion 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 protection 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, however, 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 effect, particularly at Vavaoo,

where the number of woods and hills send back repeated echoes, adding

greatly to the effect. 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 _Nófo óoa tegger gnaoóe, óooa gnaoóe_, Rest thou, doing no work;

thou shalt not work. This increases till midnight, men generally singing

the first part of the sentence, and the 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 _malái_(979) (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.(980) 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, ornamented with red ribbons. The

procession begins to move towards the grave of the last Tooitonga (which

is generally in the neighbourhood, 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.

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 _malái_,

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.(981)

The Samoans used to present the first-fruits to the spirits (_aitus_) and

chiefs.(982) For example, a family whose god was in the form of an eel

presented the first-fruits of their taro plantations to the eel.(983) 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 consisted 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.”(984) 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.”(985) 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.(986) Amongst the Maoris the offering of the first-fruits of

the sweet potatoes to Pani, son of Rongo, the god of sweet potatoes, was a

solemn religious ceremony.(987)

It has been affirmed 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.(988) 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.(989)

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 proclaimed 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. Thereupon 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 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 chief’s

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 their 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. 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.(990)

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 outskirts 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 vegetation, i. 281;

gardens of, i. 284-296;

rites of, similar to those of Osiris, i. 319, 320;

probable origin of the cult of, i. 363;

lament of, i. 280, 399;

as a pig, ii. 49, 50

Aegira, blood drunk at, before prophesying, i. 34

Aethiopian kings confined to their palaces, i. 164

Afghan Boundary Mission, reception of the, by the natives, i. 155

Afghanistan, reception of strangers in, i. 155

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 Département de l’, i. 88

Aino type of sacrament, ii. 134-136

Ainos, bear festival of the, ii. 101-105;

preparation for fishing, ii. 122;

treatment of the bear, ii. 132

Alaskan sable hunters, ii. 116

Alban hills, i. 1;

mount, i. 2

Albania, Easter Eve custom in, i. 276; 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 restoring 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;

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;

sprinkling 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

Amenhôtep 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

Angoulême, custom of burning a poplar on St. Peter’s Day in, i. 101

Angoy, king of, must have no bodily defects, i. 221

Animal worship, two types of, ii. 133, 134;

sacred carried in procession, ii. 139-147;

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. 107-110;

respect shown by the savage for the animal he kills, ii. 110-132;

Savage belief in the resurrection of the, ii. 122-125;

burnt as representative of the spirit of vegetation, 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, i. 15

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;

primitive 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, Pontiffs 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 territory by the Australians, i. 156;

seclusion of women in, i. 170;

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. 133, 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

Baba, 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 goddess Istar, i. 287

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. 331, 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. 161, 162

Basutos, the, and the reflection-soul, i. 145;

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;

Whitsuntide 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;

midsummer bonfires in, ii. 278

Bear, Shrovetide, i. 254, 255;

sacrifice of the, ii. 99-108;

ceremony at killing a, ii. 111-113, 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 superstition 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. 15

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. 365

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 menstruous, ii. 238-241

Blood-drinking, inspiration by, i. 34, 35

Boba, a name given to the last sheaf, i. 340, 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

Böhmer Wald Mountains, custom of the reapers in the, ii. 15

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;

ceremony regarding the last sheaf, i. 408

Brest, fire festival at, ii. 261

Breton peasant and the wind, i. 30

Briançon, May-day in the neighbourhood of, i. 95;

harvest ceremony at, ii. 11

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

Brüd’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. 176

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, 255

Cambodia, search for inspired man in time of epidemic in, i. 36;

kings of fire and water in, i. 53-56;

its sacred tree, i. 67;

kings of, i. 118;

touching 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 killing 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 supposed 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, 48

Canelos Indians, their belief of the soul in the portrait, i. 148

Cannibalism, ii. 88, 89

Capital offences, i. 162, 190