{161}
Ælian, writing of the boldness of the Celts, relates that many of
them await the overflowing sea, some throwing themselves armed into
the waves and receiving their onset with drawn swords and threatening
spears, just as if they could scare back or wound them.[161.1] This
report seems to have come to him in the shape of gossip; nor does he
assign it to any tribe or definite locality. That there was some
ground for it, however, is to be inferred from the existence in the
Book of Ballymote, an Irish manuscript of the end of the fourteenth
century, of a short tradition, obviously of much earlier date,
concerning Tuirbhe Trághmar, the father of Gobán Saer, who owned
Tráigh Tuirbhi. “’Tis from that heritage he, standing on Telach Bela
(the Hill of the Axe), would hurl a cast of his axe in the face of the
flood-tide, so that he forbade the sea, which then would not come over
the axe.”[161.2]
The rhetorician perhaps regarded this Celtic practice as a useless
piece of bravado, and only cited it by way of climax to his
illustrations of Celtic daring and recklessness. There is little doubt
that to the Celts themselves it was quite different. The sea and the
waves were looked upon as personal beings with whom it was possible
literally to fight, and who might even be overcome. {162} Such a view
is common to many seaboard peoples. A curiously parallel tradition is
found among the Malays at Jugra on the Selangor coast concerning the
bore of the Langat River. This bore was conceived to be caused by the
passage of a gigantic animal, probably a dragon. When it came up the
river the Malays used to go out in small canoes or dug-outs to “sport
amongst the breakers,” frequently getting upset for their pains.
Eventually however, as Mr Skeat was told, the bore was killed by a
Malay, who struck it upon the head with a stick. Whether from this
cause or from the diversion of the stream into a new channel to the
sea, there is no longer a bore in the river.[162.1] We may conclude
that the Malays who went out to sport among the breakers really went
to assail the bore in force, and that when the bore ceased to flow the
belief arose that one of them had attacked it successfully and killed
it.
European folk-tales have been found recording a similar belief. Among
the Basques we are told that a witch once determined to sink a certain
fishing-boat and drown its crew. Her plan was to overwhelm it with
three immense waves, the first of milk, the second of tears, and the
third of blood. The boat might ride in safety over the first two; but
the third wave would be herself in person, and the only way to escape
would be to launch a harpoon into the midst of it: the weapon would
pierce her heart, and the boat with its crew would be saved. With the
want of caution which, fortunately for the heroes of folk-tales, is so
remarkable a characteristic of cunning and malevolent beings, the plot
was laid in the hearing of the cabin-boy. At the critical moment he
nerved his arm to fling the harpoon, and struck the wave in the midst.
It divided and dashed upon the shore, {163} covering all the strand
with a bloody foam. The bark was saved; but on his return the master
found his wife dying of her wound, for she was the witch who had
planned the destruction of her husband and his craft.[163.1] This
Basque story, though only recorded in a literary version, appears to
be a genuine folk-tale, since it is also found substantially the same
among the traditions of the Frisian Islands and Norway.[163.2]
Other waters than the sea have likewise been endowed with personality.
Rivers and streams have everywhere been regarded as conscious beings,
or (in a later stage of animism) as the haunt of such beings. Usually
they have been reckoned as endowed with a might too mystical and too
tremendous to be attacked by man; but occasionally men of heroic mould
have been supposed to fight and overcome them. Professor Frazer has
argued with probability that the angel who wrestled with Jacob at the
ford of the Jabbok was in the original tale the river-god himself, the
awful spirit of the Jabbok.[163.3] He has not adduced any direct
parallel in support of the conjecture, though the examples of
offerings to streams for leave to cross them, of which he has
collected a number from various parts of the world, do show that these
waters are inhabited by supernatural beings, who must be treated with
respect and whose goodwill must be obtained. Where he has failed to
find parallels it is not likely that another can succeed. Yet it is
curious that he should have overlooked the {164} traditions of the
water-kelpie current in his native Scotland. Take one story told by Dr
Gregor concerning a water-kelpie who used to come out of the stream
and visit the sheeling where a certain blacksmith’s family and cow
spent the summer. His visits, as was natural, caused terror and
annoyance. At last the wife told the husband, who resolved to kill the
creature. The wife took fright at the proposal and tried to dissuade
him, under the fear that the kelpie would carry him off to his pool.
He was deaf to her appeals. Preparing two long, sharp-pointed spits of
iron, he repaired to the sheeling. He made a large fire on the hearth,
and laid the two spits in it. In a short time the kelpie made his
appearance as usual. The smith waited his opportunity, and with all
his might drove the red-hot spits into the creature’s sides. It fell
on the ground like a heap of starch.[164.1]
In this case the kelpie was killed. More numerous are the tales in
which he approaches a traveller in the shape of a horse and induces
him to mount; then he rushes to the pool, carrying the unwary man to
his death. Often, however, he can be caught and made to work, by
throwing over his head a bridle on which had been made the sign of the
cross. When this was done, the creature became quiet and might be
employed in labour needing strength and endurance, like that of
carrying stones to build a mill or a farm-steading. When set free
again, he took his leave, repeating the words:
“Sehr back an’ sehr behns,
Cairrit a’ ----s’ stanes.”[164.2]
In Sweden the corresponding water-spirit--if that may be called a
spirit which, as in all these cases, is regarded {165} as essentially
corporeal--is called the Neck, a word connected with Hnikarr, the Old
Norse appellation of Odin regarded as a water-god, and with the
Nicors, or water-monsters referred to in _Beowulf_. The Neck is said
to appear in various forms. Sometimes he is a grown man, and then
“particularly dangerous to haughty and pert damsels”; sometimes he is
a comely youth with his lower extremities like those of a horse;
sometimes he is an old man with a long beard; occasionally a handsome
youth with yellow locks flowing over his shoulders and a red cap,
sitting in a summer evening on the surface of the water with a golden
harp in his hand. In return for a black lamb he is not unwilling to
communicate his skill in music; and if the offering be accompanied by
the expression of a hope of his salvation, he is rendered especially
gracious. For above all things he longs for eternal happiness; nor can
deeper distress be inflicted upon him than by denying this
possibility. A Neck who takes up his abode under a bridge, or in a
stream, is commonly called a _Strömkarl_. He usually plays not on the
harp but on the viol. Near Hornborgabro in West Gothland a Strömkarl
was once heard singing to a pleasant melody these words thrice
repeated: “I know--and I know--and I know--that my Redeemer liveth.”
He is acquainted with a measure which, if played, will cause even
inanimate things, as trees and stones, to dance; so powerful is his
music.
But he appears in other forms. A favourite is that of a horse,
sometimes described as with hoofs reversed. At Bohuus in West Gothland
he was caught by means of a cunningly contrived halter, from which he
could not break loose. His captor kept him all the spring and made him
plough his fields. Only when once the halter accidentally slipped off
was the Neck able to escape this {166} slavery. He sprang like
lightning into the water, dragging the harrow after him. The Neck also
causes disease. His appearance forbodes tempest. He haunts wells and
must be propitiated with offerings, or measures must be taken to
render him innocuous.[166.1]
Without pausing to analyse the complex character assigned to the Neck,
it will be abundantly clear that he belongs to the same category as
the foregoing, and may be subdued by similar means. To fetch parallels
to the spirit of the Jabbok from Scotland and Sweden may be thought
going far afield. It is going no farther than Dr Frazer himself goes
for examples of the custom of propitiating river-spirits. The protest
often uttered by cautious anthropologists against those who would cast
the net so widely has its reason. When we are dealing with customs it
is well to remember that customs superficially alike may spring from
quite different social organizations, and their real intentions may be
divergent or even opposite: in short, they may have nothing in common
but external resemblance. They cannot be understood without taking
into account the sequences of which they are often part, and the
social organization and cultural condition from which they spring. It
is otherwise when those great products of human imagination that
animate the world about us are concerned. The personalities believed
to haunt mountain and stream, air and water, heaven and earth, are
elemental conceptions, the inevitable offspring of the human mind in
its intercourse with nature. Analogies discovered between them are
real analogies; they are the proofs of the essential oneness of
mankind in the snow-hut of an arctic winter and the tree-shelter of a
tropical forest. And when we find the relations believed to exist
between such personalities {167} and human beings, the need of their
conciliation or coercion in order to obtain benefits for their human
worshipper or antagonist, and the means taken for this purpose, the
same, with only such variations as may be accounted for by differences
of environment, then we may with confidence appeal to them as mutually
illustrative.
For these reasons it would appear that we must regard such tales as
those of the kelpie and the water-bull of Scotland and the Isle of
Man, or the Neck of Sweden, as illuminating the legend of Jacob’s
struggle at the ford of the Jabbok. Professor Frazer rightly adduces
as in some degree analogous the story of Menelaus catching the shy
sea-god Proteus sleeping on the sands, and compelling him to say his
sooth, as Jacob compels the angel to pronounce a blessing, and that of
Peleus catching and conquering the sea-goddess Thetis to be his bride.
Here we are reminded of a cycle of traditions found all over the
world, and known as the Swan-maiden cycle. The heroine of the tale is
a supernatural being, usually in the form of a bird which casts its
feathers like a robe and becomes human. The hero, possessing himself
of the robe, acquires power over her and makes her his wife, only to
lose her again when she recovers it. As told in Scotland and the
adjacent isles, in the Faeroe Islands and Iceland, the lady is a
seal.[167.1] It may be doubtful whether Thetis was ever so
represented; but it is certainly most suggestive that Proteus was
discovered sleeping among the seals. For it is not only for
matrimonial purposes that these supernatural beings are caught in
modern _märchen_. In a Tamil tale the hero {168} steals the dress of
one of a band of divine maidens, and thereby compels her to bring him
a certain divine parijata, or flower of the coral tree, which was
demanded by another lady as the price of her hand.[168.1] In the
Spanish tale of The Marquis of the Sun, the Marquis is a great
gamester. A man who played with him lost all he had, and then staked
his soul and lost it. To get it back he was advised to watch on the
banks of a river. Three princesses would come in the guise of doves,
cast their feathers and bathe. He was to take the dress of the
smallest and thus compel her to show him the road to the Marquis her
father’s castle.[168.2] It is true that both these adventures do
result in the hero’s union with the bird-maiden. Such union is,
however, incidental. In a Samoyed Swan-maiden story the heroine,
captured in the usual way, flings the hearts of herself and her
husband, as well as of other members of his family, into the air; and
their owners in consequence remain neither living nor dead. The
husband’s father’s sister goes in search of the hearts to the lake
where the bride was captured, and finds her six sisters there swimming
as before. She takes possession of the clothes of one of them, and
thus compels her to restore the hearts of her relatives.[168.3] So
the hero of a tale told by a tribe on Vancouver Island is sent in
search of his daughter, who has eloped with a wolf. He sees a number
of young wolves playing at ball, having laid aside their mantles. He
sets himself down beside the mantles, and in this way putting their
owners to shame at being found naked, compels them to bring him to his
son-in-law’s abode.[168.4] The mantles are obviously the wolf-skins,
laid aside to enable their owners to appear in human form.
{169}
Wolves are of course not water-spirits, like swans or seals; but they
obey the same law as that imagined for the latter. The man who seizes
something which is at once the symbol of their supernatural character
and the source of their power, renders them helpless and compels them
to his will. The contest is in these cases one of trickery and
determination, rather than of strength. The captures of Proteus and of
Thetis, however, seem to have been effected by main force and a
wrestler’s skill. This is often the case with the capture of mermaids
in the west of Europe. Hugh Miller long ago translated into literature
a local legend of Cromarty which told how John Reid captured on the
shores of the Firth a mermaid, from whom he extracted as a ransom the
grant of three wishes, including prosperity and union with the maiden
of his choice.[169.1] Mermaid-stories thus agree with kelpie-stories
and with those of Proteus and the spirit of the Jabbok in assigning
victory to the strength and skill of the human wrestler.
Water-spirits are not the only supernatural beings with whom men are
represented in story as matching themselves. The Lushei clans of Assam
believe in various demons that inhabit hills, streams and trees. They
are called Huai, those inhabiting the water being known as Tui-huai,
and those residing on the land as Rām-huai. A certain sacrifice,
generally of a big sow, is offered to the Rām-huai. It is called
Sakhua. One night, towards morning, it is related, a Rām-huai
appeared to a man who had unwittingly neglected his Sakhua sacrifice.
It came into the straw where he was sleeping and wrestled with him
until daylight. Even then it followed him and wrestled with him again;
nor does the man seem to have been loth. At last he conquered the
Rām-huai, {170} who then told him that his Sakhua sacrifice was
over-due; and he performed it at once. Sometimes the Rām-huai appears
as a tiger and sometimes as a man. On this occasion he seems to have
been in human form.[170.1]
Yet even in such a contest the skill displayed may be much more than a
trick of _jiu-jitsu_. An example or two will suffice. In the Wild
Huntsman of Teutonic lands anthropologists agree in recognizing
traditions of the god Woden. He is well known to the German rustic as
Wod. A tale from Mecklenburg represents a peasant as encountering him
one dark night in the form of a tall man on a white horse. The peasant
accepts the stranger’s challenge to pull against him, and grasps one
end of a heavy chain, while the stranger ascends into the clouds with
the other end. The peasant knows that, if he lose, he is himself lost.
He quickly twists the end around a stalwart oak, and the Huntsman tugs
in vain. A second and a third time the contest is renewed, after he
has persuaded the stranger that he is holding the chain, and it is
only his own strength that is being put forth. The oak-tree creaks and
crackles to its roots, but finally holds its ground. Wod owns himself
vanquished, and rewards his courageous antagonist with a share of his
game--a haunch of venison, which turns to a rich booty of gold and
silver ere he reaches home.[170.2] We are indebted to Ovid for
another example. He tells us how Numa by the advice of Egeria
entrapped Picus and Faunus, two ancient rustic deities who were wont
to drink of a certain stream. The king tempted them by means of wine
placed beside the fountain; and when they had fallen into the slumber
of intoxication he issued from his ambush and put them in chains. As
the price of freedom he compelled them to bring down Jupiter from the
sky, to give him the famous {171} formula for averting the
thunderbolt.[171.1] Innocents like these are of course easily caught
with strong drink. In Greek tradition Silenus, who as the son of a
nymph was described as of condition inferior to the gods, but superior
to mortals and to death, was not superior to some mortal weaknesses.
Indeed, he was notoriously convivial. Hence he fell victim to a
similar wile on the part of Midas, the Phrygian king. Nor was he
released before he had revealed some astounding geographical and
ethnological information, that staggered the sceptical Ælian when he
found it placed on record in the now lost pages of Theopompus.[171.2]
Such legends of contest are not confined to merely second-rate
personages like these subordinate or superseded divinities. When in
the _Iliad_ Diomed attacks and wounds Aphrodite, she goes crying to
her mother. Dione by way of consolation recounts a list of Olympian
gods who have grievously suffered in fight with headstrong and violent
men. It includes Ares, Hera, and Hades, all of them potent figures in
Greek mythology. Ares was bound by Otus and Ephialtes, the sons of
Aloeus, and kept in durance vile for thirteen moons, until Hermes came
to his rescue. Even he, it seems, was obliged to have recourse to
secret means to steal him away. The arrows of Herakles inflicted
grievous wounds on Hera and Pluto. And though naturally Dione
denounces untimely death as the penalty for such presumption, the
injuries received in the conflict are not all on one side.[171.3]
Odin himself fights more than once in the Scandinavian lays and sagas
against human antagonists. Nay, if M. A. J. Reinach’s interpretation
be accepted, Jacob’s {172} opponent at the ford of the Jabbok was no
other than “Elohim in person.” The growth of religious feeling, on
this theory, found this coarse representation abhorrent; and while the
incident, being part of the sacred legends, could not be ignored or
repudiated, it was so altered as to obscure its real
significance.[172.1]
However this may be, tales like these are echoes of belief in the
possibility of a successful corporeal struggle with the mysterious
powers. They are blurred memories of the practice of threatening and
even attacking what we call supernatural beings under their material
manifestations. Those beings were conceived, if not always in human
form, at least as human in their wills and passions, hence in their
motives and modes of action. The only way in which they differed from
humanity was in their vaster and undefined powers. They were, to adopt
Matthew Arnold’s phrase, magnified, non-natural--that is to say,
mysterious--men.[172.2] Thus conceived, they were accessible to every
sort of influence that affected mankind, including coercion. But it
took a bold man to coerce them, though the task might be attempted
upon occasion, even by ordinary mortals--not always with success.
Sometimes the contest is of a more distinctly intellectual character.
The trial of musical skill between Apollo and Marsyas will occur to
everyone. The Egyptian king called by Herodotus Rhampsinitus is said
to have penetrated to Hades and there played at dice with Demeter.
Varying fortune attended him; but he was so far successful that he
returned with a golden handkerchief, the gift of the goddess. And the
Egyptians {173} still in the historian’s time celebrated a feast in
memory of the adventure.[173.1]
If we turn from legend to fact, we find the belief translated into
action, into the attempt to control the supernatural by force. Thus
did Xerxes when he lashed the Hellespont and let down fetters into it,
for destroying the bridge he had endeavoured to build.[173.2] Thus
did the ancient priestesses of the Canary Islands when rain was too
long in coming: they beat the sea with rods to punish the spirit of
the waters for withholding the boon they needed.[173.3] In the same
way (the tale is probably at least founded on fact), when the Nile had
risen to the height of eighteen cubits--higher than it had ever risen
before--Pheros, the son and successor of Sesostris, is declared to
have taken a spear and driven it into the midst of the whirling
waters. It is added--and here we have a testimony to the recognition
by the ancient Egyptians of the awful divinity whom the king had thus
challenged--that he was thereupon struck with a disease of the eyes
and made blind.[173.4] The vengeance mentioned by Dr Frazer as taken
by the Kakhyeen of Upper Burmah points distinctly to the same
intention. “If some friend or relative has been drowned in crossing a
river, the avenger repairs once a year to the banks, and, filling a
bamboo vessel with the water, hews it through with his _dah_ [sword]
as if he were despatching {174} a living enemy.”[174.1] The Korwas of
Chota Nagpur on a similar occasion shoot arrows into the
river.[174.2]
After comparing these cases there can be little doubt that the Celtic
practice of fighting the waves reported by Ælian was not undertaken
as a foolhardy piece of presumption, but literally as a combat with a
foe susceptible to such attacks, or (as the Irish text suggests) a
necessary proceeding in self-defence, lest otherwise the sea should
encroach upon the land. The _orenda_ of the land-dwellers was pitted
against that of the waters.
The conclusion will be confirmed by considering a few examples of the
treatment of divinities other than those of sea or river. The tribe of
the Getai, the bravest of the Thracians, were in the habit, during
thunderstorms, of shooting arrows up to the sky and threatening their
god. It is indeed not clear what god they threatened. Usually it is
understood to be the god Zalmoxis, pre-eminently the god of the Getai.
But he seems to have been a chthonic divinity; and as the text of
Herodotus stands they recognized no other god. The historian’s account
of him is rationalized; and there is reason to think that he failed to
grasp all the essentials of the Getic religion: his own doubts on the
subject are more than hinted at. In shooting upwards, however, and
uttering threats, the Getai must have menaced some being conceived
more or less in personal terms. This is sufficient for our present
purpose.[174.3] The Atarantes, who dwelt ten days’ journey from Mount
Atlas, in like {175} manner cursed the sun when he was at his height
and reviled him with all manner of foul terms, because he oppressed
both themselves and their land by his burning heat.[175.1] Among the
Bayaka of the Kasai district in the Congo State it is common to hear
people running about at night and shouting insults to Moloki, a
malignant spirit who has made them ill, or caused the death of a
relation.[175.2] The Bechuana, on the great central plain of South
Africa, ascribe changes of weather to the influence of the _manes_ of
deceased members of the tribe. They are called by the generic term
_Barimo_, of which the singular form, _Morimo_, was adopted by the
early missionaries to translate God; and it is now frequently used
with that meaning. When hail damaged the crops, or rain fell
unseasonably, Moffat tells us, Morimo would be cursed in the vilest
language. “Would that I could catch it, I would transfix it with my
spear!” exclaimed in the missionary’s hearing a chief whose judgement
on other subjects would command attention.[175.3] On the occasion of
an earthquake a traveller saw the Bakwena women in an instant rushing
out of their huts, with clubs and hoes in their hands, holding them up
at the sky, and cursing God with most awful imprecations and demoniac
yells.[175.4] The proceedings of the Zulus, neighbours of the
Bakwena, during a thunderstorm were thus described by a native to
Bishop Callaway: “When it thunders the doctors go out and scold it;
they take a stick and say they are going to beat the lightning of
heaven. They say they can overcome the lightning. They shout and take
shields and sticks; they strike on their shields and shout. And when
it clears away again {176} they say, ‘We have conquered it.’ They say
they can overcome the heaven.”[176.1] The Hottentots curse the
thunder and shoot their poisoned arrows at the lightning, telling him
to be off. Some of them, however, adopt a milder course, assembling to
dance and sing an incantation. Two specimens of these incantations
have been preserved. The thunder is thus addressed:
“Son of the Thunder-cloud,
Thou brave loud-speaking Guru!
Talk softly, please,
For I have no guilt!
Leave me alone (Forgive me)!
For I have become quite weak (= I am quite stunned, perplexed).
Thou, O Guru,
Son of the Thunder-cloud!”
The other incantation is addressed to the lightning. It is a dramatic
performance, the lightning being played by one person, the chorus
representing the appeal of the inhabitants of the kraal.
_Chorus._
“Thou, Thunder-cloud’s daughter, daughter-in-law of the Fire!
Thou who hast killed my brother!
Therefore thou liest now so nicely in a hole!
_Solo._
(Yes) indeed, I have killed thy brother so well!
_Chorus._
(Well) therefore thou liest (now) in a hole.
Thou who hast painted thy body red, like Goro!
Thou who dost not drop the menses,
Thou wife of the Copper-bodied man (the mythical ancestor of the
Hottentots)!”[176.2]
{177}
Perhaps the sex of the lightning here may render it more amenable to
the softer arts of persuasion. The Bushmen used to look steadily at
the quarter whence the lightning came. They believed its object was to
kill them by stealth, and that if they looked towards it they would
cause the thunderbolts to turn back. It appears, they said, “to fear
our eye, when it feels that we quickly look towards it.… Therefore
it goes over us; it goes to sit on the ground yonder, while it does
not kill us.”[177.1] In other words, they believed themselves so
powerful that the lightning quailed before them and did not dare to
strike. Among the Nandi, a Nilotic tribe of East Africa, it is the
duty of the Toiyoi, or Thunder-clan, when a heavy thunderstorm occurs,
to seize an axe and, having rubbed it in the ashes of the fire, to
throw it outside the hut, crying out: “Thunder, be silent in our
village!”[177.2] Among their neighbours (but not kinsfolk), the
Wawanga, an old man was recently found by a government official to
have stuck a curious-looking spear in an ant-hill in his village to
drive off the hail.[177.3]
Similar practices are found in the less advanced cultures of the New
World. The Hurons of Canada were in the habit of sticking their
javelins into the ground point upwards. The explanation they gave, as
reported by the Jesuit Father, was that the thunder had intelligence,
and it would, on seeing these naked javelins, turn aside and be
careful not to come near their cabins.[177.4] The Salinans of
California possess an amulet which will stop the thunder, if it be
held in the hand and pushed out towards a thunder-cloud.[177.5] The
Guaycurus of Paraguay, {178} great and small, on the occasion of a
great storm of wind and rain, issued from their huts armed with clubs
and sticks, and uttering terrible cries, to fight with the hurricane,
persuaded that it was an attack on them by evil spirits, and that they
must defend themselves without showing cowardice.[178.1] According to
legends current at the time of the conquest, “the _hapiñuñu_, or
bosom-clutching spirits, who were believed to have been the original
occupants of the Peruvian valleys, were forcibly expelled by the early
human inhabitants, immigrants from the country of the Guaycurus. When
the ancestors of the Incas arrived in the sierra ‘from beyond
Potosi’--that is, from the Gran Chaco--these spirits, according to a
fragment of an ancient song which has been preserved by an Indian
writer, disappeared with terrible cries, saying:
‘We are conquered! We are conquered!
Alas, for I lose my lands!’”[178.2]
The tribes of the Uaupes River in Brazil, after a funeral, shoot into
the air to chase away, and if possible kill, the evil-disposed spirit
which has caused the death.[178.3]
In tropical surroundings, separated from the Hurons by nearly half the
globe, by the whole breadth of the Pacific Ocean and nearly the whole
breadth of the continent of North America, the Kai-folk of the Kai, or
forest hinterland of the south-eastern coast of German New Guinea,
adopt the very same measure as they for protection against the storms.
Like their surroundings, their culture is widely different from that
of the Hurons. They dwell in frail cabins raised upon posts, in order
to secure them from the intrusion of their half-domesticated swine and
the attacks of the wilder animals. These huts {179} cluster on the
mountain-side in tiny villages of from two to six. Their framework is
of wood, bound together with tough lengths of a climbing plant. The
walls consist of long pandanus leaves; and they are thatched with
leaves of the sago-palm, or with grass. It is obvious that such feeble
structures can offer little resistance to high winds. Happily
wind-storms are of rare occurrence; but when they do come they wield
terrific force, splitting or uprooting powerful trees. Against the
onslaught of such foes, which, it need not be said, are regarded as
personal beings, the Kai-folk have more than one means of defence.
They take one of the jawbones of wild beasts which hang in the hut as
trophies of the chase, put it in the fire and pray the storm-spirit to
accept the soul of the deceased animal and spare the house. But they
do not rely on the chance of placating the spirit; they oppose him
with threats and with weapons. They fasten a pointed stake or spear
before the windward side of the house, its point turned to the wind,
so that it will “prick him in the belly,” and thus compel him to leave
the hut in peace. Or they reply to each gust by striking the threshold
with a club or stone-axe, crying out: “If you tread here on my house,
I will smash your feet!”[179.1]
Almost all nations in the lower culture hold an eclipse to be the
attempt on the part of some evil-disposed being to eat up or destroy
the sun or moon. The custom of terrifying and driving him away is too
well known to need illustration.
In these cases, though the supernatural being may be out of reach,
that does not hinder men and women from pitting their _orenda_ against
his; and as soon as the storm {180} or the eclipse comes to an end
they naturally vaunt their success. In the form of wind indeed he may
be held to descend to actual blows with his human opponents. Professor
Frazer has collected a number of examples of fighting the storm and
the whirlwind.[180.1] Nor are those examples confined to such as
already recounted. Even in Europe eddies and gusts of wind are
attacked without hesitation by peasants, whether Scottish, Breton,
German, Slav, or Esthonian. A small whirlwind of the kind with which
we are all familiar is believed to be caused by a witch, who is
carried along unseen at its centre, and may be revealed and rendered
harmless by launching some object, preferably a knife, into it. In the
Tirol a knife of special form is used for the purpose, on the blade of
which are engraved nine St Andrew’s crosses and nine crescent moons.
It wounds the witch as surely as the harpoon in the Basque tale cited
at the beginning of this essay.[180.2]
Here and in many of the other instances the supernatural being is
regarded as actually hostile. At certain stages of evolution there is,
however, as little hesitation in turning upon a god with whom one is
usually on terms of friendship and submission. We have had some
examples of this. A god may provoke a worshipper, and human nature
will not always put up with the provocation. When he is found in
tangible shape as an idol his {181} aggrieved client may even resort
to corporal chastisement. Dr Farnell refers in this connection to the
passage in the seventh idyll of Theocritus, where the poet mentions
the whipping of the image of Pan with squills when food was scarce,
and to a Breton smith “who threatened the saint’s image with red-hot
pincers to compel him to heal his son.”[181.1] The two practices thus
put together are not strictly parallel. Originally at least they were
widely different in purpose, though they have some outward
resemblance. To beat the image of Pan with squills was not to punish
the god for neglect of duty, but to bring him into touch with the
powers of growth, to drive out the barrenness that possessed him and
to recreate his fructifying forces. It was a magical means of
restoring his life-giving properties. It may have been to some extent,
like punishment, a relief to the feelings of the beater; but the chief
object is unmistakably shown by the ritual requirement to beat with
squills.[181.2] It would seem, however, as if this had been forgotten
by the time of Theocritus; for in the following lines (not cited by Dr
Farnell) the poet goes on to threaten stinging with nettles in case of
the god’s recalcitrance, as if this were the same sort of petty
torment.
On the other hand, means are often taken, like those of the Breton
smith, to compel a god to grant his suppliant’s wishes, and in default
to inflict indignity and injury. Pietro della Valle tells in his
_Voyages_ of an image of Saint Anthony which was thus treated by
Portuguese sailors. First of all, prayers were addressed to the image
for a favourable wind. The wind not being forthcoming, the {182} image
was taken from its shrine and lashed to the mast, in the beginning
with comparatively slack cords. The bonds were progressively tightened
as the saint delayed to accede to his worshippers’ demands. They were
not in a mood to stand any nonsense. The image before which they had
knelt in prayer only a few hours earlier was now the object of curses
and derision; and every day the wind was delayed a new cord was added
to bind the sacred victim more tightly. At last, however, the wind
changed and blew from the quarter desired; the saint was loosed from
his uncomfortable position and replaced respectfully in his niche; the
sailors thanked him, but mingled with their thanks reproaches for the
obstinacy which had forced them to take severe measures with
him.[182.1] Saint Anthony indeed suffers much from his votaries. The
Spanish population of New Mexico do not hesitate to hang his image
head downwards to urge him to his duty of performing miracles. Other
obstinate saints they simply put away or imprison.[182.2] The modern
Aztecs give their sacred images a whipping when their prayers are not
attended to. The Tarascos of Mexico make San Mateo responsible for the
weather and the crops. When it freezes his image is taken from the
church in the early morning and dumped into cold water as a
punishment. On the other hand, he is rewarded for good crops by a
procession, a big feast, and abundance of brandy and tamales.[182.3]
In France, near the village of la Selle, on the highway from Autun to
Château Chinon, is a granite rock, on the top of which rustic piety
has erected a Calvary. Just below it is a little grotto that serves as
a niche to shelter {183} the statue of the good Saint Merri, the
patron of the parish. Saint Merri has a reputation extending far and
wide. Formerly on the stone at his feet might be seen offerings of
eggs and small change; and even yet pilgrimages are made to his shrine
in pursuance of vows or for the cure of certain diseases. Among these,
it would seem, as the offering of eggs may indicate, he was expected
to cure sterility. It is related that a pious woman of a neighbouring
village was in the habit of coming to implore the saint for her
daughter, who had been married for some years, but had had no
children. She had another daughter, who was not married; and the saint
made a mistake: it was her unmarried daughter to whom a child was
granted. The good woman, enraged at a blunder so inexcusable, returned
to the saint. Bitterly reproaching him with his mockery of her
prayers, she took a stick and inflicted on him a sound castigation,
breaking his arm and rolling him over on the ground, where he long
remained, a witness to his own unseemly jest and her righteous
indignation. The inhabitants at last made a collection to buy a new
saint, which is now placed on a pedestal in the foreground of the
grotto, while the old and guilty saint is relegated shamefully to a
corner, and still bears the scornful title of the Weeper.[183.1]
Corporal punishment of saints, otherwise than by way of penance during
their mortal life, has never enjoyed official favour in any form of
Christianity, however gratifying it may be to the feelings of
disappointed worshippers. So far as it is employed as a serious means
of compelling attention to the needs and prayers of {184} their
clients it is by no means confined to Christianity. Savage and
barbaric peoples do not hesitate to punish their idols in this manner.
The practice is reported from the Southern Pacific to the frozen
shores of the Arctic Ocean in both hemispheres. Two or three examples
will suffice. The Eskimo who wander along the inhospitable coasts of
Ungava to the north of Hudson’s Bay are attended each by a guardian
spirit, often in the form of a doll carried somewhere about the
person. These spirits are not naturally benevolent. They must be
abundantly propitiated with offerings of food, water and clothing, to
induce them to confer success and prosperity upon the man who may with
equal propriety be termed their master or their worshipper. If the
spirit prove obdurate and, like Saint Anthony, reluctant to grant the
needful assistance, its owner sometimes becomes angry with it and
inflicts a condign chastisement, deprives it of food, strips it of its
garments, or even palms it off secretly on some unsuspecting friend,
to his discomfort or injury.[184.1] When a chief dies in the district
of Ibouzo, on the Niger, without leaving a son, his _Ikengua_, or
domestic wooden idol of the god of riches, is cut in two and flung
away into the bush, because it has procured no male descendant for its
worshipper.[184.2] A Brahman boy in India attended a mission-school,
and was selected to compete in a tennis tournament. He and his two
younger brothers had each an image of Ganesa, which was kept in a
shrine for worship. Previous to the tournament the images were taken
out and solemnly threatened by the three brothers with something very
disagreeable if the eldest brother lost the match. He lost it. The
brothers returned home, and carried out their threat by pitching the
three {185} images into the well at the back of the house. The next
day they sallied out and bought three new images of the god to replace
the old ones.[185.1] The Paraiyans of Southern India on the occasion
of a drought invoke the dēvata called Kodumpāvi (wicked one). “The
ceremony consists in making a huge figure of Kodumpāvi in clay, which
is placed on a cart and dragged through the streets for seven to ten
days. On the last day the final death ceremonies of the figure are
celebrated.” It is mutilated, and funeral rites are performed by the
grave-diggers. “This procedure is believed to put Kodumpāvi to
shame,” and to get her to induce her paramour Sukra, who has neglected
his duty, to stay the drought.[185.2] If this be so, it is evident
that the figure is not identified with the dēvata, and the punishment
operates by the mental rather than the corporeal annoyance inflicted
upon her. Japan affords an example of righteous indignation expressing
itself in castigation which is passing, or has already passed, into a
spell. When the owner of a tea-house is dissatisfied with the number
of his customers, the wooden pestle of the tub in which various kinds
of meal and salt are mixed for the preparation of a certain dish is
taken out and struck through the uppermost paper panel of the door or
window, so that it falls on the floor with a crash. Out come the
people of the house armed with sticks, brooms, and so forth; and they
scold and thrash the pestle, making him responsible for the fewness of
their guests. He is bound and thrown into a chest. If shortly
afterwards the guests increase, the pestle is taken out of his prison,
his forgiveness is asked, and he is drenched with _saki_. It is hardly
necessary to observe that the pestle is a phallic representative, and
that the business of a tea-house {186} often extends to the
entertainment of a guest in more ways than one.[186.1]
The practice, however, is so well known that it would be waste of time
to multiply illustrations. I will only add that in the valley of the
Nile, in the days when the worship of animals, whatever its exact
origin or meaning, prevailed, the sacred beasts were carefully tended
and trained, and all their wants were provided for. In return they
were expected to grant their worshippers’ wishes. If they “could not
or would not help in emergency they were beaten; and if this measure
failed to prove efficacious, then the creatures were punished by
death;… and it was the priests themselves who condemned and executed
the sacred animal. Afterwards indeed they sought to secure its
immortality by the embalmment of the body, thereby hoping to appease
the wrath of the god, lest he should avenge the killing of the
creature in which he had been incarnate.”[186.2] There is such a
thing as carrying punishment too far, especially when you cannot carry
it far enough to put an end to a being of indefinite but superhuman
power, who will bottle up his anger until he can catch you off your
guard. This inconvenience is incident to the theory evolved by
Egyptian syncretism that the sacred animals were incarnations of the
divinities.
Another method of dealing with a god or any supernatural being is to
bind and imprison him, if you can catch him. This needs but a cursory
mention here. It has been dealt with at some length by Mr William
{187} Crooke, who has ingeniously suggested that the Homeric story,
already referred to, of the binding and imprisonment of Ares by Otus
and Ephialtes owes its origin to this practice.[187.1] In any case it
is a common expedient for the laying of a ghost. I was privileged to
live for some years in a house concerning which one of these
ghost-laying traditions was told; and so far as my experience goes the
expedient was entirely successful. It is still in use by medicine-men
for delivering their clients from the persecution of troublesome
spirits. Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo “sometimes the
witch-doctor will drive the spirit into a saucepan or calabash, and
either kill it or imprison it.”[187.2]
Obviously the adage “First catch your hare” applies here. The
supernatural being cannot always be caught. But he may be driven away.
Dr Frazer has illustrated very fully the widespread practice of
expelling evils considered as personal beings either periodically or
occasionally by ceremonies of violence or of enticement, persuasion
and magical spells.[187.3] The ancient Scandinavians seem to have
instituted solemn legal proceedings against troublesome ghosts. There
is a remarkable story in the _Eyrbyggia Saga_ of a number of malignant
ghosts who haunted the settlement at Frodiswater with disastrous
effects to men and stores. The Christian priest sang the hours there,
manufactured holy water and shrived all folk. This was not enough to
disperse the ghosts, who had audaciously come and sat by the fires, to
the horror of the survivors, and devastated the place with sickness
and misfortune. It was but the preparation for the stringent measures
to follow. The bed-gear of Thorgunna, the deceased stranger-woman who
had started {188} the mischief, was burned. The ghosts were summoned
to a door-doom; “and it was done in all matters even as at a doom of
the Thing: verdicts were delivered, cases summed up and doom given.”
The ghosts attended in obedience to the summons. As each was found
guilty he was sentenced to depart. “But as soon as the sentence on
Thorir Wooden-leg was given out, he rose and said: ‘Here have I sat
while sit I might’”; and thereafter he stumped out by the door
opposite to that before which the court was holding its session. Thus
they were banished one after another; “and each arose as the sentence
fell on him, and all said somewhat at their going forth; but ever it
seemed by the words of each that they were all loth to depart.” Last
of all judgement was given upon Thorod, the recently deceased goodman
of the house, “and when he heard it he stood up and said: ‘Meseems
little peace is here; so get us all gone otherwhere’; and therewith he
went out. Then in walked Kiartan [the heir] and his folk, and the
priest bare hallowed water and the holy things throughout the house;
and on the next day they sang all the hours and mass with great
solemnity; and so there was an end thereafter to all walkings and
hauntings at Frodiswater.”[188.1]
What is important to observe here is the entire respect paid by the
criminal _revenants_ to the formal and deliberate decision of the
society against which they had sinned. They obeyed it as they would
have obeyed it in their lifetime. In heathen times, out of which
Iceland had scarcely emerged, the Thing was the lawful assembly of the
whole community. Its doom outlawed those members who were convicted of
antisocial conduct, and such was undoubtedly the conduct of the dead
who returned to {189} harm the living. Though dead they were still
members of the society and subject to its laws. By those laws it was
their duty to abide in the howe, or grave-mound, and thence watch over
the well-being of the family, receiving in return a cult. The
authority of the Thing extended to all matters interesting the
community, religious as well as political, juridical and
administrative. Under Christianity, and the advancing civilization of
which it was a part, the religious authority was beginning to be
separated from its control, of which perhaps we may see a hint in the
narrative. But the religious officials were acting in unison with the
rest, though hardly now as part of them. On the other hand, the cult
of the dead was no longer officially recognized. It is improbable that
it had ceased; and assuredly the defunct were still charged with the
negative duty of remaining quietly in the howe and abstaining from all
molestation of those whom they had left behind. There may be some
doubt as to the technical status of the assembly which dealt with the
case. If not a local and subordinate Thing, it seems at least to have
been a properly constituted tribunal, proceeding in a perfectly
regular manner, and carrying in its decisions the force of law. It had
probably not yet become entirely divested of spiritual jurisdiction,
or at least of spiritual prestige, which may indeed be taken to be
sanctioned and supported by the countenance and assistance of the
priest of the new religion. The ghostly transgressors recognized its
authority, the propriety of its procedure, the justice and the binding
character of its sentence; and however much they grudged it, they
submitted.
It need not be said that more summary measures were often taken with
those who “walked” after death to the inconvenience of the survivors.
They consisted in {190} digging out and destroying the corpse, or
dealing with it in a way similar to that used with vampires, which are
indeed one species of these troublesome visitors. Examples are not
uncommon in the Norse sagas, and are plentiful in the folklore of the
Scandinavian and other countries.
An alternative to driving away the supernatural being is to threaten
and insult him. Of this I have in previous pages given some examples.
The ancient Greeks had a technical term for formulæ of this kind.
They called them θεῶν ἀνάγκαι, compulsions of the gods. It will be
sufficient to refer to a few cases of insult employed by different
peoples in all seriousness, and often in the sacred ritual. When a
sacrifice is offered to the ancestral _manes_ by the Thonga of
South-Eastern Africa on the occasion of sickness in the family, they
are told: “You are useless, you gods; you only give us trouble! For
although we give you offerings, you do not listen to us! We are
deprived of everything! You [naming the ancestral spirit who is
addressed as the cause of the evil] are full of hatred! You do not
enrich us! All those who succeed do so by the help of their gods!” We
are informed that when some great misfortune is the occasion for a
special sacrifice, the request presented in the prayer is preceded or
followed by a ritual insulting of the gods (_manes_). “There are two
words used to designate this curious part of the prayer: _holobela_,
to scold the gods, or _rukatela_, the real word for _to
insult_.”[190.1] Here it must not be forgotten that the personages
addressed are {191} members of the family. It is true that they have
been divinized by death, but their family relationship has not been
dissolved. They have still their duties to perform, as well as the
survivors; and if they neglect them a family quarrel may reasonably be
the consequence, as it might in their lifetime.
This method of bullying divinities is well known in India. A pair of
examples from the extremities of the peninsula will suffice. Parakutty
is a debased form of Vishnu (or perhaps it may be more correct to say
an aboriginal demon identified with Vishnu), worshipped by some of the
low castes in Cochin. The Nayadis are a jungle tribe reputed to be
skilful hunters. Parakutty is supposed to aid them in hunting. When
they fail to get the expected game they abuse him for his ingratitude,
and for betraying the trust they have reposed in him. He is also the
favourite deity of the Parayans. A Paraya magician is frequently
called in to assist in recovering stolen property. He invokes
Parakutty for the purpose. If the property be not recovered the
magician prays again, this time in a more indignant and abusive form,
and he thinks that then his object is sure to be gained.[191.1] In
_The Legends of the Panjab_, Sir R. C. Temple gives a long poem in
which a woman in trouble expresses her intention of cursing her patron
saint Gorakh Nâth for the misfortunes that have befallen her.[191.2]
In the same spirit Charlemagne, in the romances, is made to threaten
God to throw down his altars and make the churches with all their
priests cease from the land of the Franks.[191.3]
Great and awful as gods may be, they are after all but {192} human.
The most mysterious of them are conceived in quasi-human terms. On the
other hand, human beings are often looked upon as gods and treated
accordingly. But then their treatment is simply that of powerful men,
men possessed of and filled with a greater or less degree of _mana_,
who therefore require to be handled gingerly, like an unexploded bomb.
Such a man-god, if a native ruler or fellow-tribesman, can seldom be
driven away; but he may, especially if his _mana_ be suspected of
departing from him, be attacked and slain. To expound this practice
and the belief on which it is founded, or with which it is bound up,
Dr Frazer’s great work, _The Golden Bough_, has been written. The
white man, like the gods, is to peoples in the lower culture
mysterious, powerful, endowed with _mana_. To that extent he is the
object of wonder and fear, he is a god. Yet he may be fought and
overpowered, killed or driven away. Of the Bangala in the Upper Congo
basin we are told that before the unknown and mysterious the native
“is timid, fearful, and very superstitious. He will regard you as a
_god_, and yet try to fight you; he will superstitiously believe that
you have wonderful occult powers that can stop the rain, cause
pestilence and plagues; and yet he will not attempt to conciliate you,
but he will savagely tell you to clear out of his town and take your
witchcraft elsewhere.”[192.1]
So and not otherwise the savage treats his gods. Where milder means
avail not, and he can get his way by rough treatment of the idols or
other tangible forms in which they are presented, he does not hesitate
to use physical force. As little will he hesitate to use guile to eke
out his inferior strength. It is but another manifestation of his
_orenda_. Hence the tales of audacious heroes {193} who have measured
their strength or their cunning against more tremendous personages.
Hence the threats and insults addressed to powers beyond immediate
reach by peoples all over the world. Hence the punishment inflicted on
the images of gods and saints. Hence the boldness of the Celts.