(M93) If a custom of putting kings to death at the end of a set term has
prevailed in many lands, it is natural enough that reminiscences of it
should survive in tradition long after the custom itself has been
abolished. In the _High History of the Holy Graal_ we read how Lancelot
roamed through strange lands and forests seeking adventures till he came
to a fair and wide plain lying without a city that seemed of right great
lordship. As he rode across the plain the people came forth from the city
to welcome him with the sound of flutes and viols and many instruments of
music. When he asked them what meant all this joy, “ ‘Sir,’ said they,
‘all this joy is made along of you, and all these instruments of music are
moved to joy and sound of gladness for your coming.’ ‘But wherefore for
me?’ saith Lancelot. ‘That shall you know well betimes,’ say they. ‘This
city began to burn and to melt in one of the houses from the very same
hour that our king was dead, nor might the fire be quenched, nor ever will
be quenched until such time as we have a king that shall be lord of the
city and of the honour thereunto belonging, and on New Year’s Day behoveth
him to be crowned in the midst of the fire, and then shall the fire be
quenched, for otherwise may it never be put out nor extinguished.
Wherefore have we come to meet you to give you the royalty, for we have
been told that you are a good knight.’ ‘Lords,’ saith Lancelot, ‘of such a
kingdom have I no need, and God defend me from it.’ ‘Sir,’ say they, ‘you
may not be defended thereof, for you come into this land at hazard, and
great grief would it be that so good a land as you see this is were burnt
and melted away by the default of one single man, and the lordship is
right great, and this will be right great worship to yourself, that on New
Year’s Day you should be crowned in the fire and thus save this city and
this great people, and thereof shall you have great praise.’ Much
marvelleth Lancelot of this that they say. They come round about him on
all sides and lead him into the city. The ladies and damsels are mounted
to the windows of the great houses and make great joy, and say the one to
another, ‘Look at the new king here that they are leading in. Now will he
quench the fire on New Year’s Day.’ ‘Lord!’ say the most part, ‘what great
pity is it of so comely a knight that he shall end on such-wise!’ ‘Be
still!’ say the others. ‘Rather should there be great joy that so fair
city as is this should be saved by his death, for prayer will be made
throughout all the kingdom for his soul for ever!’ Therewith they lead him
to the palace with right great joy and say that they will crown him.
Lancelot found the palace all strown with rushes and hung about with
curtains of rich cloths of silk, and the lords of the city all apparelled
to do him homage. But he refuseth right stoutly, and saith that their king
nor their lord will he never be in no such sort. Thereupon behold you a
dwarf that entereth into the city, leading one of the fairest dames that
be in any kingdom, and asketh whereof this joy and this murmuring may be.
They tell him they are fain to make the knight king, but that he is not
minded to allow them, and they tell him the whole manner of the fire. The
dwarf and the damsel are alighted, then they mount up to the palace. The
dwarf calleth the provosts of the city and the greater lords. ‘Lords,’
saith he, ‘sith that this knight is not willing to be king, I will be so
willingly, and I will govern the city at your pleasure and do whatsoever
you have devised to do.’ ‘In faith, sith that the knight refuseth this
honour and you desire to have it, willingly will we grant it you, and he
may go his way and his road, for herein do we declare him wholly quit.’
Therewithal they set the crown on the dwarf’s head, and Lancelot maketh
great joy thereof. He taketh his leave, and they commend him to God, and
so remounteth he on his horse and goeth his way through the midst of the
city all armed. The dames and damsels say that he would not be king for
that he had no mind to die so soon.”(361)
(M94) A story of the same sort is told of Ujjain, the ancient capital of
Malwa in western India, where the renowned King Vikramaditya is said to
have held his court, gathering about him a circle of poets and
scholars.(362) Tradition has it that once on a time an arch-fiend, with a
legion of devils at his command, took up his abode in Ujjain, the
inhabitants of which he vexed and devoured. Many had fallen a prey to him,
and others had abandoned the country to save their lives. The once
populous city was fast being converted into a desert. At last the
principal citizens, meeting in council, besought the fiend to reduce his
rations to one man a day, who would be duly delivered up to him in order
that the rest might enjoy a day’s repose. The demon closed with the offer,
but required that the man whose turn it was to be sacrificed should mount
the throne and exercise the royal power for a single day, all the grandees
of the kingdom submitting to his commands, and everybody yielding him the
most absolute obedience. Necessity obliged the citizens to accept these
hard terms; their names were entered on a list; every day one of them in
his turn ruled from morning to night, and was then devoured by the demon.
(M95) Now it happened by great good luck that a caravan of merchants from
Gujerat halted on the banks of a river not far from the city. They were
attended by a servant who was no other than Vikramaditya. At nightfall the
jackals began to howl as usual, and one of them said in his own tongue,
“In two hours a human corpse will shortly float down this river, with four
rubies of great price at his belt, and a turquois ring on his finger. He
who will give me that corpse to devour will bear sway over the seven
lands.” Vikramaditya, knowing the language of birds and beasts, understood
what the jackal said, gave the corpse to the beast to devour, and took
possession of the ring and the rubies. Next day he entered the town, and,
traversing the streets, observed a troop of horse under arms, forming a
royal escort, at the door of a potter’s house. The grandees of the city
were there, and with them was the garrison. They were in the act of
inducing the son of the potter to mount an elephant and proceed in state
to the palace. But strange to say, instead of being pleased at the honour
conferred on their son, the potter and his wife stood on the threshold
weeping and sobbing most bitterly. Learning how things stood, the
chivalrous Vikramaditya was touched with pity, and offered to accept the
fatal sovereignty instead of the potter’s son, saying that he would either
deliver the people from the tyranny of the demon or perish in the attempt.
Accordingly he donned the kingly robes, assumed all the badges of
sovereignty, and, mounting the elephant, rode in great pomp to the palace,
where he seated himself on the throne, while the dignitaries of the
kingdom discharged their duties in his presence. At night the fiend
arrived as usual to eat him up. But Vikramaditya was more than a match for
him, and after a terrific combat the fiend capitulated and agreed to quit
the city. Next morning the people on coming to the palace were astonished
to find Vikramaditya still alive. They thought he must be no common
mortal, but some superhuman being, or the descendant of a great king.
Grateful to him for their deliverance they bestowed the kingdom on him,
and he reigned happily over them.(363)
(M96) According to one account, the dreadful being who ravaged Ujjain and
devoured a king every day was the bloodthirsty goddess Kali. When she
quitted the city she left behind her two sisters, whose quaint images
still frown on the spectator from the pillared portal known as
Vikramaditya’s Gate at Ujjain. To these her sisters she granted the
privilege of devouring as many human beings as they pleased once every
twelve years. That tribute they still exact, though the European in his
blindness attributes the deaths to cholera. But in addition seven girls
and five buffaloes were to be sacrificed to them every year, and these
sacrifices used to be offered regularly until the practice was put down by
the English Government. It is said that the men who gave their
five-year-old daughters to be slain received grants of land as a reward of
their piety. Nowadays only buffaloes are killed at the Daçaratha festival,
which is held in October on the ninth day of the month Açvina. The heads
of the animals are buried at Vikramaditya’s gateway, and those of the last
year’s victims are taken up. The girls who would formerly have been
sacrificed are now released, but they are not allowed to marry, and their
fathers still receive grants of lands just as if the cruel sacrifice had
been consummated.(364) The persistence of these bloody rites at Ujjain
down to recent times raises a presumption that the tradition of the daily
sacrifice of a king in the same city was not purely mythical.
(M97) It is worth while to consider another of the stories which are told
of King Vikramaditya. His birth is said to have been miraculous, for his
father was Gandharva-Sena, who was the son of the great god Indra. One day
Gandharva-Sena had the misfortune to offend his divine father, who was so
angry that he cursed his son and banished him from heaven to earth, there
to remain under the form of an ass by day and of a man by night until a
powerful king should burn his ass’s body, after which Gandharva-Sena would
regain his proper shape and return to the upper world. All this happened
according to the divine word. In the shape of an ass the son of the god
rendered an important service to the King of Dhara, and received the hand
of the king’s daughter as his reward. By day he was an ass and ate hay in
the stables; by night he was a man and enjoyed the company of the princess
his wife. But the king grew tired of the taunts of his enemies, as well as
of the gibes which were levelled by unfeeling wits at his asinine
son-in-law. So one night, while Gandharva-Sena in human shape was with his
wife, the king got hold of the ass’s body which his son-in-law had
temporarily quitted, and throwing it on a fire burned it to ashes. On the
instant Gandharva-Sena appeared to him, and thanking him for undoing the
spell announced that he was about to return to heaven, but that his wife
was with child by him, and that she would bring forth a son who would bear
the name of Vikramaditya and be endowed with the strength of a thousand
elephants. The deserted wife was filled with sorrow at his departure, and
died in giving birth to Vikramaditya.(365)
(M98) This story belongs to a widely diffused type of tale which in
England is known by the name of Beauty and the Beast. It relates how a
beast, doffing its animal shape, lives as a human husband or wife with a
human spouse. Often, though not always, their marriage has a tragic
ending. The couple live lovingly together for years and children are born
to them. But it is a condition of their union that the transformed husband
or wife should never be reminded of his or her old life in furry,
feathered, or finny form. At last one unhappy day the fairy spouse finds
his or her beast skin, which had been carefully hidden away by her or his
loving partner; or husband and wife quarrel and the real man or woman
taunts the other with her or his kinship with the beasts. The sight of the
once familiar skin awakens old memories and stirs yearnings that had been
long suppressed: the cruel words undo the kindness of years. The sometime
animal resumes its native shape and disappears, and the human husband or
wife is left lamenting. Sometimes, as in the story of Gandharva-Sena, the
destruction of the beast’s skin causes the fairy mate to vanish for ever;
sometimes it enables him or her to remain thenceforth in human form with
the human wife or husband. Tales of this sort are told by savages in many
parts of the world, and many of them have survived in the folk-lore of
civilised peoples. With their implied belief that beasts can turn into men
or men into beasts, they must clearly have originated among savages who
see nothing incredible in such transformations.
(M99) Now it is to be observed that stories of this sort are told by
savage tribes to explain why they abstain from eating certain creatures.
The reason they assign for the abstinence is that they themselves are
descended from a creature of that sort, who was changed for a time into
human shape and married a human husband or wife. Thus in the rivers of
Sarawak there is a certain fish called a _puttin_, which some of the Dyaks
will on no account eat, saying that if they did so they would be eating
their relations. Tradition runs that a solitary old man went out fishing
and caught a _puttin_, which he dragged out of the water and laid down in
his boat. On turning round he perceived that it had changed into a very
pretty girl. He thought she would make a charming wife for his son, so he
took her home and brought her up till she was of an age to marry. She
consented to be his son’s wife, but cautioned her husband to use her well.
Some time after marriage, however, he was angry and struck her. She
screamed and rushed away into the water, leaving behind her a beautiful
daughter who became the mother of the race. Other Dyak tribes tell similar
stories of their ancestors.(366) Thus the Sea Dyaks relate how the
white-headed hawk married a Sea Dyak woman, and how he gave all his
daughters in marriage to the various omen-birds. Hence if a Sea Dyak kills
an omen-bird by mistake, he wraps it in a cloth and buries it carefully in
the earth along with rice, flesh, and money, entreating the bird not to be
vexed, and to forgive him, because it was all an accident.(367) Again, a
Kalamantan chief and all his people refrain from killing and eating deer
of a certain species (_cervulus muntjac_), because one of their ancestors
became a deer of that kind, and as they cannot distinguish his incarnation
from common deer they spare them all.(368) In these latter cases the
legends explaining the kinship of the men with the animals are not given
in full; we can only conjecture, therefore, that they conform to the type
here discussed.
(M100) The Sea Dyaks also tell a story of the same sort to explain how
they first came to plant rice and to revere the omen-birds which play so
important a part in Dyak life. Long, long ago, so runs the tale, when rice
was yet unknown, and the Dyaks lived on tapioca, yams, potatoes, and such
fruits as they could procure, a handsome young chief named Siu went out
into the forest with his blow-pipe to shoot birds. He wandered without
seeing a bird or meeting an animal till the sun was sinking in the west.
Then he came to a wild fig-tree covered with ripe fruit, which a swarm of
birds of all kinds were busy pecking at. Never in his life had he seen so
many birds together! It seemed as if all the fowls of the forest were
gathered in the boughs of that tree. He killed a great many with the
poisoned darts of his blow-pipe, and putting them in his basket started
for home. But he lost his way in the wood, and the night had fallen before
he saw the lights and heard the usual sounds of a Dyak house. Hiding his
blow-pipe and the dead birds in the jungle, he went up the ladder into the
house, but what was his surprise to find it apparently deserted. There was
no one in the long verandah, and of the people whose voices he had heard a
minute before not one was to be seen. Only in one of the many rooms, dimly
lighted, he found a beautiful girl, who prepared for him his evening meal.
Now though Siu did not know it, the house was the house of the great
Singalang Burong, the Ruler of the Spirit World. He could turn himself and
his followers into any shape. When they went forth against an enemy they
took the form of birds for the sake of speed, and flew over the tall
trees, the broad rivers, and even the sea. But in his own house and among
his own people Singalang Burong appeared as a man. He had eight daughters,
and the girl who cooked Siu’s food for him was the youngest. The reason
why the house was so still and deserted was that the people were in
mourning for some of their relatives who had just been killed, and the men
had gone out to take human heads in revenge. Siu stayed in the house for a
week, and then the girl, whose pet name was Bunsu Burong or “the youngest
of the bird family,” agreed to marry him; but she said he must promise
never to kill or hurt a bird or even to hold one in his hands; for if he
did, she would be his wife no more. Siu promised, and together they
returned to his people.
(M101) There they lived happily, and in time Siu’s wife bore him a son
whom they named Seragunting. One day when the boy had grown wonderfully
tall and strong for his years and was playing with his fellows, a man
brought some birds which he had caught in a trap. Forgetting the promise
he had made to his wife, Siu asked the man to shew him the birds, and
taking one of them in his hand he stroked it. His wife saw it and was sad
at heart. She took the pitchers and went as though she would fetch water
from the well. But she never came back. Siu and his son sought her,
sorrowing, for days. At last after many adventures they came to the house
of the boy’s grandfather, Singalang Burong, the Ruler of the Spirit World.
There they found the lost wife and mother, and there they stayed for a
time. But the heart of Siu yearned to his old home. He would fain have
persuaded his wife to return with him, but she would not. So at last he
and his son went back alone. But before he went he learned from his
father-in-law how to plant rice, and how to revere the sacred birds and to
draw omens from them. These birds were named after the sons-in-law of the
Ruler of the Spirit World and were the appointed means whereby he made
known his wishes to mankind. That is how the Sea Dyaks learned to plant
rice and to honour the omen-birds.(369)
(M102) Stories of the same kind meet us on the west coast of Africa. Thus
the Tshi-speaking negroes of the Gold Coast are divided into a number of
great families or clans, mostly named after animals or plants, and the
members of a clan refrain from eating animals of the species whose name
they bear. In short, the various animals or plants are the totems of their
respective clans. Now some of the more recent of these clans possess
traditions of their origin, and in such cases the founder of the family,
from whom the name is derived, is always represented as having been a
beast, bird, or fish, which possessed the power of assuming human shape at
will. Thus, for instance, at the town of Chama there resides a family or
clan who take their name from the _sarfu_ or horse-mackerel, which they
may not eat because they are descended from a horse-mackerel. One day, so
runs the story, a native of Chama who had lost his wife was walking sadly
on the beach, when he met a beautiful young woman whom he persuaded to be
his wife. She consented, but told him that her home lay in the sea, that
her people were fishes, and that she herself was a fish, and she made him
swear that he would never allude to her old home and kinsfolk. All went
well for a time till her husband took a second wife, who quarrelled with
the first wife and taunted her with being a fish. That grieved her so that
she bade her husband good-bye and plunged into the sea with her youngest
child in her arms. But she left her two elder children behind, and from
them are descended the Horse-mackerel people of Chama. A similar story is
told of another family in the town of Appam. Their ancestor caught a fine
fish of the sort called _appei_, which turned into a beautiful woman and
became his wife. But she told him that in future neither they nor their
descendants might eat the _appei_ fish or else they would at once return
to the sea. The family, duly observing the prohibition, increased and
multiplied till they occupied the whole country, which was named after
them Appeim or Appam.(370)
(M103) We may surmise that stories of this sort, wherever found, had a
similar origin; in other words, that they reflect and are intended to
explain a real belief in the kinship of certain families with certain
species of animals. Hence if the name totemism may be used to include all
such beliefs and the practices based on them, the origin of this type of
story may be said to be totemic.(371) Now, wherever the totemic clans have
become exogamous, that is, wherever a man is always obliged to marry a
woman of a totem different from his own, it is obvious that husband and
wife will always have to observe different totemic taboos, and that a want
of respect shewn by one of them for the sacred animal or plant of the
other would tend to domestic jars, which might often lead to the permanent
separation of the spouses, the offended wife or husband returning to her
or his native clan of the fish-people, the bird-people, or what not. That,
I take it, was the origin of the sad story of the man or woman happily
mated with a transformed animal and then parted for ever. Such tales, if I
am right, were not wholly fictitious. Totemism may have broken many loving
hearts. But when that ancient system of society had fallen into disuse,
and the ideas on which it was based had ceased to be understood, the
quaint stories of mixed marriages to which it had given birth would not be
at once forgotten. They would continue to be told, no longer indeed as
myths explanatory of custom, but merely as fairy tales for the amusement
of the listeners. The barbarous features of the old legends, which now
appeared too monstrously incredible even for story-tellers, would be
gradually discarded and replaced by others which fitted in better with the
changed beliefs of the time. Thus in particular the animal husband or
animal wife of the story might drop the character of a beast to assume
that of a fairy. This is the stage of decay exhibited by the two most
famous tales of the class in question, the Greek fable of Cupid and Psyche
and the Indian story of King Pururavas and the nymph Urvasi, though in the
latter we can still detect hints that the fairy wife was once a
bird-woman.(372)
(M104) It would, no doubt, be a mistake to suppose that totemism, or a
system of taboos resembling it, must have existed wherever such stories
are told; for it is certain that popular tales spread by diffusion from
tribe to tribe and nation to nation, till they may be handed down by oral
tradition among people who neither practise nor even understand the
customs in which the stories originated. Yet the legend of the miraculous
parentage of Vikramaditya may very well have been based on the existence
at Ujjain of a line of rajahs who had the ass for their crest or
totem.(373) Such a custom is not without analogy in India. The crest of
the Maharajah of Nagpur is a cobra with a human face under its expanded
hood, surrounded by all the insignia of royalty. Moreover, the Rajah and
the chief members of his family always wear turbans so arranged that they
resemble a coiled serpent with its head projecting over the wearer’s brow.
To explain this serpent badge a tale is told which conforms to the type of
Beauty and the Beast. Once upon a time a Nag or serpent named Pundarika
took upon himself the likeness of a Brahman, and repaired in that guise to
the house of a real Brahman at Benares, in order to perfect himself in a
knowledge of the sacred books. The teacher was so pleased with the
progress made by his pupil that he gave him his only child, the beautiful
Parvati, to wife. But the subtle serpent, though he could assume any form
at pleasure, was unable to rid himself of his forked tongue and foul
breath. To conceal these personal blemishes from his wife he always slept
with his back to her. One night, however, she got round him and discovered
his unpleasant peculiarities. She questioned him sharply, and to divert
her attention he proposed that they should make a pilgrimage to
Juggernaut. The idea of visiting that fashionable watering-place so raised
the lady’s spirits that she quite forgot to pursue the enquiry. However,
on their way home her curiosity revived, and she repeated her questions
under circumstances which rendered it impossible for the serpent, as a
tender husband, to evade them, though well he knew that the disclosure he
was about to make would sever him, the immortal, at once and for ever from
his mortal wife. He related the wondrous tale, and, plunging into a pool,
disappeared from sight. His poor wife was inconsolable at his hurried
departure, and in the midst of her grief and remorse her child was born.
But instead of rejoicing at the birth, she made for herself a funeral pyre
and perished in the flames. At that moment a Brahman appeared on the
scene, and perceived the forsaken babe lying sheltered and guarded by a
great hooded snake. It was the serpent father protecting his child.
Addressing the Brahman, he narrated his history, and foretold that the
child should be called Phani-Makuta Raya, that is, “the snake crowned,”
and that he should reign as rajah over the country to be called Nagpur.
That is why the rajahs of Nagpur have the serpent for their crest.(374)
Again, the rajahs of Manipur trace their descent from a divine snake. At
his installation a rajah of Manipur used to have to pass with great
solemnity between two massive dragons of stone which stood in front of the
coronation house. Somewhere inside the building was a mysterious chamber,
and in the chamber was a pipe, which, according to the popular belief, led
down to the depths of a cavern where dwells the snake god, the ancestor of
the royal family. The length and prosperity of the rajah’s reign were
believed to depend on the length of time he could sit on the pipe enduring
the fiery breath of his serpentine forefather in the place below. Women
are specially devoted to the worship of the ancestral snake, and great
reverence is paid them in virtue of their sacred office.(375)
The parallelism between the legends of Nagpur and Ujjain may be allowed to
strengthen my conjecture that, if we have a race of royal serpents in the
one place, there may well have been a race of royal asses in the other;
indeed such dynasties have perhaps not been so rare as might be supposed.