Sometimes the rain-charm operates through the dead. Thus in New

Caledonia the rain-makers blackened themselves all over, dug up a dead

body, took the bones to a cave, jointed them, and hung the skeleton

over some taro leaves. Water was poured over the skeleton to run down

on the leaves. They believed that the soul of the deceased took up the

water, converted it into rain, and showered it down again.​[964] In

some parts of New Caledonia the {p285} ceremony is somewhat different.

A great quantity of provisions is offered to the ancestors, being

laid down before their skulls in the sacred place. In front of the

skulls a number of pots full of water are set in a row, and in each

pot there is deposited a sacred stone which has more or less the shape

of a skull. The rain-maker then prays to the ancestors to send rain.

After that he climbs a tree with a branch in his hand, which he waves

about to hasten the approach of the rain-clouds.​[965] The ceremony

is a mixture of magic and religion; the prayers and offerings to the

ancestors are purely religious, while the placing of the skull-like

stones in water and the waving of the branch are magical. In Russia,

if common report may be believed, it is not long since the peasants

of any district that chanced to be afflicted with drought used to dig

up the corpse of some one who had drunk himself to death and sink it

in the nearest swamp or lake, fully persuaded that this would ensure

the fall of the needed rain. In 1868 the prospect of a bad harvest,

caused by a prolonged drought, induced the inhabitants of a village

in the Tarashchansk district to dig up the body of a Raskolnik, or

Dissenter, who had died in the preceding December. Some of the party

beat the corpse, or what was left of it, about the head, exclaiming,

“Give us rain!” while others poured water on it through a sieve.​[966]

Here the pouring of water through a sieve seems plainly an imitation

of a shower, and reminds us of the manner in which Strepsiades in

Aristophanes imagined that rain was made by Zeus.​[967] An Armenian

rain-charm is to dig up a skull and throw it into running water.​[968]

At Ourfa for this purpose they prefer the skull of a Jew, which they

cast into the Pool of Abraham.​[969] In Mysore people think that if a

leper is buried, instead of being burnt, as he ought to be, rain will

not fall. Hence they have been known to disinter buried lepers in time

of drought.​[970] In Halmahera there is a practice of {p286} throwing

stones on a grave, in order that the ghost may fall into a passion and

avenge the disturbance, as he imagines, by sending heavy rain.​[971]

This may explain a rain-charm which seems to have been practised by

the Mauretanians in antiquity. A mound in the shape of a man lying on

his back was pointed out as the grave of the giant Antaeus; and if

any earth were dug up and removed from it, rain fell till the soil

was replaced.​[972] Perhaps the rain was the revenge the surly giant

took for being wakened from his long sleep. Sometimes, in order to

procure rain, the Toradjas of Central Celebes make an appeal to the

pity of the dead. Thus, in the village of Kalingooa, in Kadombookoo,

there is the grave of a famous chief, the grandfather of the present

ruler. When the land suffers from unseasonable drought, the people go

to this grave, pour water on it, and say, “O grandfather, have pity on

us; if it is your will that this year we should eat, then give rain.”

After that they hang a bamboo full of water over the grave; there is

a small hole in the lower end of the bamboo, so that the water drips

from it continually. The bamboo is always refilled with water until

rain drenches the ground.​[973] Here, as in New Caledonia, we find

religion blent with magic, for the prayer to the dead chief, which is

purely religious, is eked out with a magical imitation of rain at his

grave. We have seen that the Baronga of Delagoa Bay drench the tombs of

their ancestors, especially the tombs of twins, as a rain-charm.​[974]

In Zululand the native girls form a procession and carry large pots of

water to a certain tree which chances to be on a mission station. When

the girls were asked why they did this, they said that an old ancestor

of theirs had been buried under the tree, and as he was a great

rain-maker in his life, they always came and poured water on his grave

in time of drought, in order that he might send them rain.​[975] This

ceremony partakes of the nature of religion, since it implies an appeal

for help to a deceased ancestor. Purely religious, on the other hand,

are {p287} some means adopted by the Herero of south-western Africa to

procure rain. If a drought has lasted long, the whole tribe goes with

its cattle to the grave of some eminent man; it may be the father or

grandfather of the chief. They lay offerings of milk and flesh on the

grave and utter their plaint: “Look, O Father, upon your beloved cattle

and children; they suffer distress, they are so lean, they are dying

of hunger. Give us rain.” The ears of the spectator are deafened by

the lowing and bleating of herds and flocks, the shouts of herdsmen,

the barking of dogs, and the screams of women.​[976] Among some of

the Indian tribes in the region of the Orinoco it was customary for

the relations of a deceased person to disinter his bones a year after

burial, burn them, and scatter the ashes to the winds, because they

believed that the ashes were changed into rain, which the dead man sent

in return for his obsequies.​[977] The Chinese are convinced that when

human bodies remain unburied, the souls of their late owners feel the

discomfort of rain, just as living men would do if they were exposed

without shelter to the inclemency of the weather. These wretched souls,

therefore, do all in their power to prevent the rain from falling, and

often their efforts are only too successful. Then drought ensues, the

most dreaded of all calamities in China, because bad harvests, dearth,

and famine follow in its train. Hence it has been a common practice of

the Chinese authorities in time of drought to inter the dry bones of

the unburied dead for the purpose of putting an end to the scourge and

conjuring down the rain.​[978]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of animals.]

Animals, again, often play an important part in these weather-charms.

The Anula tribe of northern Australia associate the dollar-bird with

rain, and call it the rain-bird. A man who has the bird for his totem

can make rain at a certain pool. He catches a snake, puts it alive into

the pool, and after holding it under water for a time takes it {p288}

out, kills it, and lays it down by the side of the creek. Then he

makes an arched bundle of grass stalks in imitation of a rainbow, and

sets it up over the snake. After that all he does is to sing over the

snake and the mimic rainbow; sooner or later the rain will fall. They

explain this procedure by saying that long ago the dollar-bird had as

a mate at this spot a snake, who lived in the pool and used to make

rain by spitting up into the sky till a rainbow and clouds appeared

and rain fell.​[979] The Tjingilli of northern Australia make rain

in an odd way. One of them will catch a fat bandicoot and carry it

about, singing over it till the animal grows very thin and weak. Then

he lets it go, and rain will follow.​[980] When some of the Blackfoot

Indians were at war in summer and wished to bring on a tempest, they

would take a kit-fox skin and rub it with dirt and water, which never

failed to be followed by a storm of rain.​[981] The Thompson Indians of

British Columbia think that when the loon calls loud and often, it will

soon rain, and that to mimic the cry of the bird may bring the rain

down.​[982] The fish called the small sculpin, which abounds along the

rocky shore of Norton Sound, is called by the Esquimaux the rain-maker;

they say that if a person takes one of these fish in his hand heavy

rain will follow.​[983] If Aino fishermen desire to bring on rain and

wind, they pray to the skulls of racoons and then throw water over

each other. Should they wish the storm to increase they put on gloves

and caps of racoon-skin and dance. Then it blows great guns.​[984] In

Ma-hlaing, a district of Upper Burma, when rain is scarce, the people

pray to a certain fish called _nga-yan_ to send it. They also catch

some fish and put them in a tub, while offerings of plantains and other

food are made to the monks in the name of the fish. After that the

fish are let loose in {p289} a stream or pond, with gold-leaf stuck

on their heads. If live fish are not to be had, wooden ones are used

and answer the purpose just as well.​[985] When the Chirus of Manipur

wish to make rain they catch a crab and put it in a pot of water. Then

the headman goes to the gate of the village and keeps lifting the crab

out of the water and putting it back into it till he is tired.​[986]

An ancient Indian mode of making rain was to throw an otter into the

water.​[987] If the sky refuses rain and the cattle are perishing, an

Arab sheikh will sometimes stand in the middle of the camp and cry,

“Redeem yourselves, O people, redeem yourselves!” At these words every

family sacrifices a sheep, divides it in two, and hanging the pieces on

two poles passes between them. Children too young to walk are carried

by their mother.​[988] But this custom has rather the appearance of

a sacrifice than of a charm. In southern Celebes people try to make

rain by carrying a cat tied in a sedan chair thrice round the parched

fields, while they drench it with water from bamboo squirts. When the

cat begins to miaul, they say, “O lord, let rain fall on us.”​[989] A

common way of making rain in many parts of Java is to bathe a cat or

two cats, a male and a female; sometimes the animals are carried in

procession with music. Even in Batavia you may from time to time see

children going about with a cat for this purpose; when they have ducked

it in a pool, they let it go.​[990] {p290}

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of black animals.]

Often in order to give effect to the rain-charm the animal must be

black. Thus an ancient Indian way of bringing on rain was to set a

black horse with his face to the west and rub him with a black cloth

till he neighed.​[991] In the Beni-Chougran tribe of North Africa women

lead a black cow in procession, while other women sprinkle the whole

group with water as a means of wringing a shower from the sky.​[992]

To procure rain the Peruvian Indians used to set a black sheep in a

field, poured _chica_ over it, and gave the animal nothing to eat

until rain fell.​[993] Once when a drought lasting five months had

burnt up their pastures and withered the corn, the Caffres of Natal

had recourse to a famous witch, who promised to procure rain without

delay. A black sheep having been produced, an incision was made in

the animal near the shoulder and the gall taken out. Part of this the

witch rubbed over her own person, part she drank, part was mixed with

medicine. Some of the medicine was then rubbed on her body; the rest

of it, attached to a stick, was fixed in the fence of a calves’ pen.

The woman next harangued the clouds. When the sheep was to be cooked,

a new fire was procured by the friction of fire-sticks; in ordinary

circumstances a brand would have been taken from one of the huts.​[994]

Among the Wambugwe, a Bantu people of eastern Africa, when the sorcerer

desires to make rain he takes a black sheep and a black calf in bright

sunshine, and has them placed upon the roof of the large common hut

in which the people live together. Then he slits open the stomachs of

the animals and scatters their contents in all directions. After that

he pours water and medicine into a vessel; if the charm has succeeded,

the water boils up and rain follows. On the other hand, if the sorcerer

wishes to prevent rain from falling, he withdraws into the interior of

the hut, and there heats a rock-crystal in a calabash.​[995] In order

to procure rain the Wagogo of German East Africa sacrifice black fowls,

black sheep, and black cattle at the {p291} graves of dead ancestors,

and the rain-maker wears black clothes during the rainy season.​[996]

Among the Matabele the rain-charm employed by sorcerers was made from

the blood and gall of a black ox.​[997] In a district of Sumatra, in

order to procure rain, all the women of the village, scantily clad,

go to the river, wade into it, and splash each other with the water.

A black cat is thrown into the stream and made to swim about for a

while, then allowed to escape to the bank, pursued by the splashing of

the women.​[998] The Garos of Assam offer a black goat on the top of

a very high mountain in time of drought.​[999] In all these cases the

colour of the animal is part of the charm; being black, it will darken

the sky with rain-clouds. So the Bechuanas burn the stomach of an ox

at evening, because they say, “The black smoke will gather the clouds

and cause the rain to come.”​[1000] The Timorese sacrifice a black pig

to the Earth-goddess for rain, a white or red one to the Sun-god for

sunshine.​[1001] The Angoni, a tribe of Zulu descent to the north of

the Zambesi, sacrifice a black ox for rain and a white one for fine

weather.​[1002] Among the high mountains of Japan there is a district

in which, if rain has not fallen for a long time, a party of villagers

goes in procession to the bed of a mountain torrent, headed by a

priest, who leads a black dog. At the chosen spot they tether the beast

to a stone, and make it a target for their bullets and arrows. When its

life-blood bespatters the rocks, the peasants throw down their weapons

and lift up their voices in supplication to the dragon divinity of the

{p292} stream, exhorting him to send down forthwith a shower to cleanse

the spot from its defilement. Custom has prescribed that on these

occasions the colour of the victim shall be black, as an emblem of the

wished-for rain-clouds. But if fine weather is wanted, the victim must

be white, without a spot.​[1003]

[Sidenote: Frogs and toads in relation to rain.

Frogs used in rain-charms.]

The intimate association of frogs and toads with water has earned for

these creatures a widespread reputation as custodians of rain; and

hence they often play a part in charms designed to draw needed showers

from the sky. Some of the Indians of the Orinoco held the toad to be

the god or lord of the waters, and for that reason feared to kill the

creature, even when they were ordered to do so. They have been known

to keep frogs under a pot and to beat them with rods when there was a

drought.​[1004] It is said that the Aymara Indians of Peru and Bolivia

often make little images of frogs and other aquatic animals and place

them on the tops of the hills as a means of bringing down rain.​[1005]

In some parts of south-eastern Australia, where the rainfall is apt to

be excessive, the natives feared to injure Tidelek, the frog, or Bluk,

the bull-frog, because they were said to be full of water instead of

intestines, and great rains would follow if one of them were killed.

The frog family was often referred to as Bunjil Willung or Mr. Rain. A

tradition ran that once upon a time long ago the frog drank up all the

water in the lakes and rivers, and then sat in the dry {p293} reed beds

swollen to an enormous size, saying, “Bluk! bluk!” in a deep gurgling

voice. All the other animals wandered about gaping and gasping for a

drop of moisture, but finding none, they agreed that they must all

die of thirst unless they could contrive to make the frog laugh. So

they tried one after the other, but for a long time in vain. At last

the conger eel and his relations, hung round with lake grass and gay

sea-weed, reared themselves on their tails and pranced round the fire.

This was too much for the frog. He opened his mouth and laughed till

the water ran out and the lakes and streams were full once more.​[1006]

We have seen that some of the Queensland aborigines imitate the

movements and cries of frogs as part of a rain-charm.​[1007] The

Thompson River Indians of British Columbia and some people in Europe

think that to kill a frog brings on rain.​[1008] In order to procure

rain people of low caste in the Central Provinces of India will tie a

frog to a rod covered with green leaves and branches of the _nîm_ tree

(_Azadirachta Indica_) and carry it from door to door singing—

_Send soon, O frog, the jewel of water!_

_And ripen the wheat and millet in the field._​[1009]

In Kumaon, a district of north-western India, one way of bringing on

rain when it is needed is to hang a frog with its mouth up on a tall

bamboo or on a tree for a day or two. The notion is that the god of

rain, seeing the creature in trouble, will take pity on it and send the

rain.​[1010] In the district of Muzaffarpur in India the vulgar believe

that the cry of a frog is most readily heard by the God of {p294} Rain.

Hence in a year of drought the low-caste females of a village assemble

at evening and put a frog in a small earthen pot together with water

taken from five different houses. The pot with the frog is then placed

in the hollow wooden cup into which the lever used for pounding rice

falls. Being raised with the foot and then allowed to drop, the lever

crushes the frog to death; and while the creature emits his dying croak

the women sing songs in a loud voice about the dearth of water.​[1011]

The Kapus or Reddis are a large and prosperous caste of cultivators

and landowners in the Madras Presidency. When rain fails, women of the

caste will catch a frog and tie it alive to a new winnowing fan made

of bamboo. On this fan they spread a few margosa leaves and go from

door to door singing, “Lady frog must have her bath. Oh! rain-god,

give a little water for her at least.” While the Kapu women sing this

song, the woman of the house pours water over the frog and gives an

alms, convinced that by so doing she will soon bring rain down in

torrents.​[1012] Again, in order to procure rain the Malas, who are the

pariahs of the Telugu country in Southern India, tie a live frog to a

mortar and put a mud figure of Gontiyalamma over it. Then they carry

the mortar, frog, and all in procession, singing, “Mother frog, playing

in water, pour rain by pots full,” while the villagers of other castes

pour water over them.​[1013] Beliefs like these might easily develop

into a worship of frogs regarded as personifying the powers of water

and rain. In the Rig Veda there is a hymn about frogs which appears

to be substantially a rain-charm.​[1014] The Newars, the aboriginal

inhabitants of Nepaul, worship the frog as a creature associated with

the demi-god Nagas in the production and control of rain and the

water-supply, on which the welfare of the crops depends. A sacred

character is attributed to the little animal, and every care is taken

not to molest or injure it. The worship of the frog is performed on

the seventh day of the month Kartik (October), usually at a {p295} pool

which is known to be frequented by frogs, although it is not essential

to the efficacy of the rite that a frog should be actually seen at the

time. After carefully washing his face and hands, the priest takes five

brazen bowls and places in them five separate offerings, namely, rice,

flowers, milk and vermilion, ghee and incense, and water. Lighting

the pile of ghee and incense, the priest says, “Hail, Paremêsvara

Bhûmînâtha! I pray you receive these offerings and send us timely rain,

and bless our crops!”​[1015]

[Sidenote: Suggested explanation of connexion of frog with rain.]

Some of these customs and beliefs may be, at least in part, based on

the frog’s habit of storing up water in its body against seasons of

drought; when it is caught at such times, it squirts the water out in

a jet.​[1016] On seeing a frog emit a gush of water when all around

was dry and parched, savages might easily infer that the creature had

caused the drought by swallowing all the water, and that in order to

restore its moisture to the thirsty ground they had only to make the

frog disgorge its secret store of the precious liquid.

[Sidenote: Stopping rain by means of rabbits and serpents.]

Among some tribes of South Africa, when too much rain falls, the

wizard, accompanied by a large crowd, repairs to the house of a

family where there has been no death for a very long time, and there

he burns the skin of a coney. As it burns he shouts, “The rabbit is

burning,” and the cry is taken up by the whole crowd, who continue

shouting till they are exhausted.​[1017] This no doubt is supposed

to stop the rain. Equally effective is a method adopted by gypsies

in Austria. When the rain has continued to pour steadily for a long

time, to the great discomfort of these homeless vagrants, the men of

the band assemble at a river and divide themselves into two parties.

Some of them cut branches with which to make a raft, while the others

collect hazel leaves and cover the raft with them. A witch thereupon

lays a dried serpent, wrapt {p296} in white rags, on the raft, which

is then carried by several men to the river. Women are not allowed to

be present at this part of the ceremony. While the procession moves

towards the river, the witch marches behind the raft singing a song,

of which the burden is a statement that gypsies do not like water, and

have no urgent need of serpents’ milk, coupled with the expression of

a hope that the serpent may see his way to swallow the water, that he

may run to his mother and drink milk from her breasts, and that the

sun may shine out, bringing back mirth and jollity to gypsy hearts.

Transylvanian gypsies will sometimes expose the dried carcase of a

serpent to the pouring rain, “in order that the serpent may convince

himself of the inclemency of the weather, and so grant the people’s

wish.”​[1018]

[Sidenote: Doing violence to the being who controls the weather.]

This last custom is an example of an entirely different mode of

procuring rain, to which people sometimes have recourse in extreme

cases, when the drought is long and their temper short. At such times

they will drop the usual hocus-pocus of imitative magic altogether,

and being far too angry to waste their breath in prayer they seek by

threats and curses or even downright physical force to extort the

waters of heaven from the supernatural being who has, so to say, cut

them off at the main. Thus, in Muzaffarnagar, a town of the Punjaub,

when the rains are excessive, the people draw a figure of a certain

Muni or Rishi Agastya on a loin-cloth and put it out in the rain, or

they paint his figure on the outside of the house and let the rain wash

it off. This Muni or Rishi Agastya is a great personage in the native

folklore, and enjoys the reputation of being able to stop the rain. It

is supposed that he will exercise his power as soon as he is thus made

to feel in effigy the misery of wet weather.​[1019] On the other hand,

when rain is wanted at Chhatarpur, a native state in Bundelcund, they

paint two figures with their legs up and their heads down on a wall

that faces east; one of the figures represents Indra, the other Megha

Raja, the lord of rain. They think that in this uncomfortable position

these powerful beings will soon be glad to send {p297} the much-needed

showers.​[1020] In a Japanese village, when the guardian divinity had

long been deaf to the peasants’ prayers for rain, they at last threw

down his image and, with curses loud and long, hurled it head foremost

into a stinking rice-field. “There,” they said, “you may stay yourself

for a while, to see how _you_ will feel after a few days’ scorching

in this broiling sun that is burning the life from our cracking

fields.”​[1021] In the like circumstances the Feloupes of Senegambia

cast down their fetishes and drag them about the fields, cursing them

till rain falls.​[1022] In Okunomura, a Japanese village not far from

Tokio, when rain is wanted, an artificial dragon is made out of straw,

reeds, bamboos, and magnolia leaves. Preceded by a Shinto priest,

attended by men carrying paper flags, and followed by others beating a

big drum, the dragon is carried in procession from the Buddhist temple

and finally thrown into a waterfall.​[1023] When the spirits withhold

rain or sunshine, the Comanches whip a slave; if the gods prove

obstinate, the victim is almost flayed alive.​[1024]

[Sidenote: Chinese modes of compelling the gods to give rain.

Siamese modes of constraining the gods to give rain.]

The Chinese are adepts in the art of taking the kingdom of heaven by

storm. Thus, when rain is wanted they make a huge dragon of paper or

wood to represent the rain-god, and carry it about in procession;

but if no rain follows, the mock-dragon is execrated and torn to

pieces.​[1025] At other times they threaten and beat the god if he

does not give rain; sometimes they publicly depose him from the rank

of deity. On the other hand, if the wished-for rain falls, the god is

promoted to a higher rank by an imperial decree.​[1026] It is said

that in the reign of Kia-King, fifth emperor of the {p298} Manchu

dynasty, a long drought desolated several provinces of northern China.

Processions were of no avail; the rain-dragon hardened his heart and

would not let a drop fall. At last the emperor lost patience and

condemned the recalcitrant deity to perpetual exile on the banks of

the river Illi in the province of Torgot. The decree was in process

of execution; the divine criminal, with a touching resignation, was

already traversing the deserts of Tartary to work out his sentence on

the borders of Turkestan, when the judges of the High Court of Peking,

moved with compassion, flung themselves at the feet of the emperor and

implored his pardon for the poor devil. The emperor consented to revoke

his doom, and a messenger set off at full gallop to bear the tidings

to the executors of the imperial justice. The dragon was reinstated

in his office on condition of performing his duties a little better

in future.​[1027] About the year 1710 the island of Tsong-ming, which

belongs to the province of Nanking, was afflicted with a drought. The

viceroy of the province, after the usual attempts to soften the heart

of the local deity by burning incense-sticks had been made in vain,

sent word to the idol that if rain did not fall by such and such a day,

he would have him turned out of the city and his temple razed to the

ground. The threat had no effect on the obdurate divinity; the day of

grace came and went, and yet no rain fell. Then the indignant viceroy

forbade the people to make any more offerings at the shrine of this

unfeeling deity, and commanded that the temple should be shut up and

seals placed on the doors. This soon produced the desired effect. Cut

off from his base of supplies, the idol had no choice but to surrender

at discretion. Rain fell in a few days, and thus the god was restored

to the affections of the faithful.​[1028] In some parts of China the

mandarins procure rain or fine weather by shutting the southern or the

northern gates of the city. For the south wind brings drought and the

north wind brings showers. Hence by closing the southern and opening

the northern gates you clearly exclude drought and admit rain; whereas

contrariwise by shutting the northern and opening the {p299} southern

gates you bar out the clouds and the wet and let in sunshine and genial

warmth.​[1029] In April 1888 the mandarins of Canton prayed to the god

Lung-wong to stop the incessant downpour of rain; and when he turned a

deaf ear to their petitions they put him in a lock-up for five days.

This had a salutary effect. The rain ceased and the god was restored to

liberty. Some years before, in time of drought, the same deity had been

chained and exposed to the sun for days in the courtyard of his temple

in order that he might feel for himself the urgent need of rain.​[1030]

So when the Siamese need rain, they set out their idols in the blazing

sun; but if they want dry weather, they unroof the temples and let

the rain pour down on the idols. They think that the inconvenience

to which the gods are thus subjected will induce them to grant the

wishes of their worshippers.​[1031] When the rice-crop is endangered

by long drought, the governor of Battambang, a province of Siam, goes

in great state to a certain pagoda and prays to Buddha for rain. Then,

accompanied by his suite and followed by an enormous crowd, he adjourns

to a plain behind the pagoda. Here a dummy figure has been made up,

dressed in bright colours, and placed in the middle of the plain. A

wild music begins to play; maddened by the din of drums and cymbals and

crackers, and goaded on by their drivers, the elephants charge down on

the dummy and trample it to pieces. After this, Buddha will soon give

rain.​[1032]

[Sidenote: Compelling the saints to give rain in Sicily.]

The reader may smile at the meteorology of the Far East; but precisely

similar modes of procuring rain have been resorted to in Christian

Europe within our own lifetime. By the end of April 1893 there was

great distress in Sicily for lack of water. The drought had lasted six

months. Every day the sun rose and set in a sky of cloudless blue. The

gardens of the Conca d’Oro, which surround Palermo with a magnificent

belt of verdure, were {p300} withering. Food was becoming scarce. The

people were in great alarm. All the most approved methods of procuring

rain had been tried without effect. Processions had traversed the

streets and the fields. Men, women, and children, telling their beads,

had lain whole nights before the holy images. Consecrated candles had

burned day and night in the churches. Palm branches, blessed on Palm

Sunday, had been hung on the trees. At Solaparuta, in accordance with

a very old custom, the dust swept from the churches on Palm Sunday

had been spread on the fields. In ordinary years these holy sweepings

preserve the crops; but that year, if you will believe me, they had no

effect whatever. At Nicosia the inhabitants, bare-headed and bare-foot,

carried the crucifixes through all the wards of the town and scourged

each other with iron whips. It was all in vain. Even the great St.

Francis of Paola himself, who annually performs the miracle of rain

and is carried every spring through the market-gardens, either could

not or would not help. Masses, vespers, concerts, illuminations,

fire-works—nothing could move him. At last the peasants began to lose

patience. Most of the saints were banished. At Palermo they dumped

St. Joseph in a garden to see the state of things for himself, and

they swore to leave him there in the sun till rain fell. Other saints

were turned, like naughty children, with their faces to the wall.

Others again, stripped of their beautiful robes, were exiled far from

their parishes, threatened, grossly insulted, ducked in horse-ponds.

At Caltanisetta the golden wings of St. Michael the Archangel were

torn from his shoulders and replaced with wings of pasteboard; his

purple mantle was taken away and a clout wrapt about him instead. At

Licata the patron saint, St. Angelo, fared even worse, for he was left

without any garments at all; he was reviled, he was put in irons, he

was threatened with drowning or hanging. “Rain or the rope!” roared the

angry people at him, as they shook their fists in his face.​[1033] {p301}

[Sidenote: Disturbing the rain-god in his haunts.]

Another way of constraining the rain-god is to disturb him in his

haunts. This seems to be the reason why rain is supposed to follow

the troubling of a sacred spring. The Dards believe that if a

cow-skin or anything impure is placed in certain springs, storms will

follow.​[1034] In the mountains of Farghana there was a place where

rain began to fall as soon as anything dirty was thrown into a certain

famous well.​[1035] Again, in Tabaristan there was said to be a cave in

the mountain of Tak which had only to be defiled by filth or milk for

the rain to begin to fall, and to continue falling till the cave was

cleansed.​[1036] Gervasius mentions a spring, into which if a stone or

a stick were thrown, rain would at once issue from it and drench the

thrower.​[1037] There was a fountain in Munster such that if it were

touched or even looked at by a human being, it would at once flood the

whole province with rain.​[1038] In Normandy a wizard will sometimes

repair to a spring, sprinkle flour on it, and strike the water with a

hazel rod, while he chants his spell. A mist then rises from the spring

and condenses in the shape of heavy clouds, which discharge volleys

of hail on the orchards and corn-fields.​[1039] When rain was long of

coming in the Canary Islands, the priestesses used to beat the sea with

rods to punish the water-spirit for his niggardliness.​[1040] Among the

natural curiosities of Annam are the caves of Chua-hang {p302} or Troc.

You may sail into them in a boat underground for a distance of half a

mile, and a little way further in you come to the remains of an ancient

altar among magnificent stalactite columns. The Annamites worship

the spirit of the cave and offer sacrifices at its mouth in time of

drought. From all the villages in the neighbourhood come boats, the

boatmen singing, “Let it rain! let it rain!” in time to the measured

dip of their oars in the water. Arrived at the mouth of the cave, they

offer rice and wine to the spirit, prostrating themselves four times

before him. Then the master of the ceremonies recites a prayer, ties a

written copy of it to the neck of a dog, and flings the animal into the

stream which flows from the grotto. This is done in order to provoke

the spirit of the cave to anger by defiling his pure water; for he will

then send abundant rains to sweep far away the carcase of the dead dog

which pollutes the sacred grotto.​[1041]

[Sidenote: Putting compulsion on the rain-god.

Exciting the pity of the beings who control the rain.]

Two hundred miles to the east of the land of the Huichol Indians in

Mexico there is a sacred spring, and away to the west of their country

stretches the Pacific Ocean. To ensure the fall of rain these Indians

carry water from the spring to the sea, and an equal quantity of

sea-water from the sea to the spring. The two waters thus transferred

will, they think, feel strange in their new surroundings and will

seek to return to their old homes. Hence they will pass in the shape

of clouds across the Huichol country and meeting there will descend

as rain.​[1042] Sometimes an appeal is made to the pity of the gods.

When their corn is being burnt up by the sun, the Zulus look out for

a “heaven bird,” kill it, and throw it into a pool. Then the heaven

melts with tenderness for the death of the bird; “it wails for it by

raining, wailing a funeral wail.”​[1043] In Zululand women sometimes

bury their children up to the neck in the ground, and then retiring to

a distance keep up a dismal howl for a long time. The sky is supposed

to melt with pity at the sight. Then the women dig the children out

and feel sure {p303} that rain will soon follow. They say that they

call to “the lord above” and ask him to send rain. If it comes they

declare that “Usondo rains.”​[1044] In times of drought the Guanches of

Teneriffe led their sheep to sacred ground, and there they separated

the lambs from their dams, that their plaintive bleating might touch

the heart of the god.​[1045] In Kumaon a way of stopping rain is to

pour hot oil in the left ear of a dog. The animal howls with pain, his

howls are heard by Indra, and out of pity for the beast’s sufferings

the god stops the rain.​[1046] Sometimes the Toradjas of Central

Celebes attempt to procure rain as follows. They place the stalks of

certain plants in water, saying, “Go and ask for rain, and so long as

no rain falls I will not plant you again, but there shall you die.”

Also they string some fresh-water snails on a cord, and hang the cord

on a tree, and say to the snails, “Go and ask for rain, and so long as

no rain comes, I will not take you back to the water.” Then the snails

go and weep and the gods take pity and send rain.​[1047] However, the

foregoing ceremonies are religious rather than magical, since they

involve an appeal to the compassion of higher powers. A peculiar mode

of making rain was adopted by some of the heathen Arabs. They tied

two sorts of bushes to the tails and hind legs of their cattle, and,

setting fire to the bushes, drove the cattle to the top of a mountain,

praying for rain.​[1048] This may be, as Wellhausen suggests, an

imitation of lightning on the horizon;​[1049] but it may also be a way

of threatening the sky, as some West African rain-makers put a pot of

inflammable materials on the fire and blow up the flames, threatening

that if heaven does not soon give rain they will send up a blaze which

will set the sky on fire.​[1050] In time of drought the priests of the

Muyscas in New Granada ascended a mountain and there burned billets

{p304} of wood smeared with resin. The ashes they scattered in the air,

thinking thus to condense the clouds and bring rain.​[1051]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of stones.

Bezoar stones as instruments of rain.]

Stones are often supposed to possess the property of bringing on rain,

provided they be dipped in water or sprinkled with it, or treated in

some other appropriate manner. In a Samoan village a certain stone

was carefully housed as the representative of the rain-making god,

and in time of drought his priests carried the stone in procession

and dipped it in a stream.​[1052] Among the Ta-ta-thi tribe of New

South Wales, the rain-maker breaks off a piece of quartz-crystal and

spits it towards the sky; the rest of the crystal he wraps in emu

feathers, soaks both crystal and feathers in water, and carefully

hides them.​[1053] In the Keramin tribe of New South Wales the wizard

retires to the bed of a creek, drops water on a round flat stone, then

covers up and conceals it.​[1054] Among some tribes of north-western

Australia the rain-maker repairs to a piece of ground which is set

apart for the purpose of rain-making. There he builds a heap of

stones or sand, places on the top of it his magic stone, and walks

or dances round the pile chanting his incantations for hours, till

sheer exhaustion obliges him to desist, when his place is taken by his

assistant. Water is sprinkled on the stone and huge fires are kindled.

No layman may approach the sacred spot while the mystic ceremony is

being performed.​[1055] When the Sulka of New Britain wish to procure

rain they blacken stones with the ashes of certain fruits and set

them out, along with certain other plants and buds, in the sun. Then

a handful of twigs is dipped in water and weighted with stones, while

a spell is chanted. After that rain should follow.​[1056] In Manipur,

on a lofty hill to the east of the capital, there is a stone which

the popular imagination likens to an umbrella. {p305} When rain is

wanted, the rajah fetches water from a spring below and sprinkles it

on the stone.​[1057] At Sagami in Japan there is a stone which draws

down rain whenever water is poured on it.​[1058] When the Wakondyo, a

tribe of Central Africa, desire rain, they send to the Wawamba, who

dwell at the foot of snowy mountains, and are the happy possessors

of a “rain-stone.” In consideration of a proper payment, the Wawamba

wash the precious stone, anoint it with oil, and put it in a pot full

of water. After that the rain cannot fail to come.​[1059] In Behar

people think to put an end to drought by keeping a holy stone named

Náráyan-chakra in a vessel of water.​[1060] The Turks of Armenia make

rain by throwing pebbles into the water. At Egin the pebbles are hung

in two bags in the Euphrates; there should be seventy thousand and one

of them.​[1061] At Myndus in Asia Minor the number of the stones used

for this purpose is seventy-seven thousand, and each of them should

be licked before it is cast into the sea.​[1062] In some parts of

Mongolia, when the people desire rain, they fasten a bezoar stone to

a willow twig, and place it in pure water, uttering incantations or

prayers at the same time.​[1063] At Yakutsk all classes used firmly to

believe they could make rain by means of one of these bezoar stones,

provided it had really been found in the stomach of an animal, and the

fiercer the beast the more powerful the charm. The rain-maker had to

dip the stone in spring water just as the sun rose, and then holding it

between the thumb and fore-finger of the right hand to present it to

the luminary, after which he made three turns contrary to the direction

of the sun. The virtue of a bezoar stone lasted only nine days.​[1064]

Conversely, when Dr. Radloff’s Mongolian guide wished to stop the rain,

he tied a rock-crystal by a short string to a stick, held the stone

over the fire, and then swung the stick {p306} about in all directions,

while he chanted an incantation.​[1065] Water is scarce with the fierce

Apaches, who roam the arid wastes of Arizona and New Mexico; for

springs are few and far between in these torrid wildernesses, where the

intense heat would be unendurable were it not for the great dryness of

the air. The stony beds of the streams are waterless in the plains; but

if you ascend for some miles the profound cañons that worm their way

into the heart of the wild and rugged mountains, you come in time to a

current trickling over the sand, and a mile or two more will bring you

to a stream of a tolerable size flowing over boulders and screened from

the fierce sun by walls of rock that tower on either hand a thousand

feet into the air, their parched sides matted with the fantastic

forms of the prickly cactus, and their summits crested far overhead

with pine woods, like a black fringe against the burning blue of the

sky. In such a land we need not wonder that the thirsty Indians seek

to procure rain by magic. They take water from a certain spring and

throw it on a particular point high up on a rock; the welcome clouds

then soon gather, and rain begins to fall.​[1066] In the district of

Varanda, in Armenia, there is a rock with a hole in it near a sacred

place. Women light candles on the rock and pour water into the hole

in order to bring on rain. And in the same district there is another

rock on which water is poured and milk boiled as an offering in time of

drought.​[1067]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of stones in Europe.

Dipping images of saints in water as a rain-charm.]

But customs of this sort are not confined to the wilds of Africa and

Asia or the torrid deserts of Australia and the New World. They have

been practised in the cool air and under the grey skies of Europe.

There is a fountain called Barenton, of romantic fame, in those “wild

woods of Broceliande,” where, if legend be true, the wizard Merlin

still sleeps his magic slumber in the hawthorn shade. Thither the

Breton peasants used to resort when they {p307} needed rain. They

caught some of the water in a tankard and threw it on a slab near the

spring.​[1068] On Snowdon there is a lonely tarn called Dulyn, or the

Black Lake, lying “in a dismal dingle surrounded by high and dangerous

rocks.” A row of stepping-stones runs out into the lake, and if any one

steps on the stones and throws water so as to wet the farthest stone,

which is called the Red Altar, “it is but a chance that you do not

get rain before night, even when it is hot weather.”​[1069] In these

cases it appears probable that, as in Samoa, the stone is regarded as

more or less divine. This appears from the custom sometimes observed

of dipping the cross in the Fountain of Barenton to procure rain,

for this is plainly a Christian substitute for the old pagan way of

throwing water on the stone.​[1070] At various places in France it is,

or used till lately to be, the practice to dip the image of a saint

in water as a means of procuring rain. Thus, beside the old priory of

Commagny, a mile or two to the south-west of Moulins-Engilbert, there

is a spring of St. Gervais, whither the inhabitants go in procession

to obtain rain or fine weather according to the needs of the crops.

In times of great drought they throw into the basin of the fountain

an ancient stone image of the saint that stands in a sort of niche

from which the fountain flows.​[1071] At Collobrières and Carpentras,

both in Provence, a similar practice was observed with the images of

St. Pons and St. Gens respectively.​[1072] In several villages of

Navarre prayers for rain used to be offered to St. Peter, and by way

of enforcing them the villagers carried the image of the saint in

procession to the river, where they thrice invited him to reconsider

his resolution and to grant their prayers; then, if he was still

obstinate, they plunged him in the water, despite the remonstrances

of the clergy, who {p308} pleaded with as much truth as piety that a

simple caution or admonition administered to the image would produce

an equally good effect. After this the rain was sure to fall within

twenty-four hours.​[1073] Catholic countries do not enjoy a monopoly

of making rain by ducking holy images in water. In Mingrelia, when the

crops are suffering from want of rain, they take a particularly holy

image and dip it in water every day till a shower falls;​[1074] and in

the Far East the Shans drench the images of Buddha with water when the

rice is perishing of drought.​[1075] In all such cases the practice is

probably at bottom a sympathetic charm, however it may be disguised

under the appearance of a punishment or a threat.

[Sidenote: Various rain-charms by means of stones.]

The application of water to a miraculous stone is not the only way

of securing its good offices in the making of rain. In the island of

Uist, one of the Outer Hebrides, there is a stone cross opposite to

St. Mary’s church, which the natives used to call the Water-cross.

When they needed rain, they set the cross up; and when enough rain

had fallen, they laid it flat on the ground.​[1076] In Aurora, one of

the New Hebrides islands, the rain-maker puts a tuft of leaves of a

certain plant in the hollow of a stone; over it he lays some branches

of a pepper-tree pounded and crushed, and to these he adds a stone

which is believed to possess the property of drawing down showers

from the sky. All this he accompanies with incantations, and finally

covers the whole mass up. In time it ferments, and steam, charged with

magical virtue, goes up and makes clouds and rain. The wizard must

be careful, however, not to pound the pepper too hard, as otherwise

the wind might blow too strong.​[1077] Sometimes the stone derives

its magical virtue from its likeness to a real or imaginary animal.

Thus, at Kota Gadang in Sumatra, there is a stone which, with the

help of a powerful imagination, may perhaps be conceived to bear a

faint and distant resemblance to a cat. {p309} Naturally, therefore,

it possesses the property of eliciting showers from the sky, since in

Sumatra, as we have seen, a real black cat plays a part in ceremonies

for the production of rain. Hence the stone is sometimes smeared with

the blood of fowls, rubbed, and incensed, while a charm is uttered

over it.​[1078] At Eneti, in Washington State, there is an irregular

basaltic rock on which a face, said to be that of the thunder-bird,

has been hammered. The Indians of the neighbourhood long believed

that to shake the rock would cause rain by exciting the wrath of the

thunder-bird.​[1079]

[Sidenote: Rain-charms in classical antiquity.]

Like other peoples, the Greeks and Romans sought to obtain rain by

magic, when prayers and processions​[1080] had proved ineffectual. For

example, in Arcadia, when the corn and trees were parched with drought,

the priest of Zeus dipped an oak branch into a certain spring on Mount

Lycaeus. Thus troubled, the water sent up a misty cloud, from which

rain soon fell upon the land.​[1081] A similar mode of making rain is

still practised, as we have seen, in Halmahera near New Guinea.​[1082]

The people of Crannon in Thessaly had a bronze chariot which they kept

in a temple. When they desired a shower they shook the chariot and the

shower fell.​[1083] Probably the rattling of the chariot was meant to

imitate thunder; we have already seen that mock thunder and lightning

form part of a rain-charm in Russia and {p310} Japan.​[1084] The

legendary Salmoneus, King of Elis, made mock thunder by dragging bronze

kettles behind his chariot, or by driving over a bronze bridge, while

he hurled blazing torches in imitation of lightning. It was his impious

wish to mimic the thundering car of Zeus as it rolled across the vault

of heaven. Indeed he declared that he was actually Zeus, and caused

sacrifices to be offered to himself as such.​[1085] Near a temple of

Mars, outside the walls of Rome, there was kept a certain stone known

as the _lapis manalis_. In time of drought the stone was dragged into

Rome, and this was supposed to bring down rain immediately.​[1086]

There were Etruscan wizards who made rain or discovered springs of

water, it is not certain which. They were thought to bring the rain

or the water out of their bellies.​[1087] The legendary Telchines

in Rhodes are described as magicians who could change their shape

and bring clouds, rain, and snow.​[1088] The Athenians sacrificed

boiled, not roast meat to the Seasons, begging them to avert drought

and dry heat and to send due warmth and timely rain.​[1089] This is

an interesting example of the admixture of religion with sorcery,

of sacrifice with magic. The Athenians dimly conceived that in some

way the water in the pot would be transmitted through the boiled

meat to the deities, and then sent down again by them in the form of

rain.​[1090] In a similar spirit {p311} the prudent Greeks made it

a rule always to pour honey, but never wine, on the altars of the

sun-god, pointing out, with great show of reason, how expedient it was

that a god on whom so much depended should keep strictly sober.​[1091]

§3. _The Magical Control of the Sun_

[Sidenote: Making the sun to shine.

Magical control of the sun.

Attempts to help the sun at an eclipse.

Various charms to cause the sun to shine.]

The rule of total abstinence which Greek prudence and piety imposed

on the sun-god introduces us to a second class of natural phenomena

which primitive man commonly supposes to be in some degree under his

control and dependent on his exertions. As the magician thinks he can

make rain, so he fancies he can cause the sun to shine, and can hasten

or stay its going down. At an eclipse the Ojebways used to imagine

that the sun was being extinguished. So they shot fire-tipped arrows

in the air, hoping thus to rekindle his expiring light.​[1092] The

Sencis of eastern Peru also shot burning arrows at the sun during

an eclipse, but apparently they did this not so much to relight his

lamp as to drive away a savage beast with which they supposed him to

be struggling.​[1093] Conversely during an eclipse of the moon some

Indian tribes of the Orinoco used to bury lighted brands in the ground;

because, said they, if the moon were to be extinguished, all fire on

earth would be extinguished {p312} with her, except such as was hidden

from her sight.​[1094] During an eclipse of the sun the Kamtchatkans

were wont to bring out fire from their huts and pray the great luminary

to shine as before.​[1095] But the prayer addressed to the sun shews

that this ceremony was religious rather than magical. Purely magical,

on the other hand, was the ceremony observed on similar occasions by

the Chilcotin Indians of north-western America. Men and women tucked

up their robes, as they do in travelling, and then leaning on staves,

as if they were heavy laden, they continued to walk in a circle till

the eclipse was over.​[1096] Apparently they thought thus to support

the failing steps of the sun as he trod his weary round in the sky.

Similarly in ancient Egypt the king, as the representative of the

sun, walked solemnly round the walls of a temple in order to ensure

that the sun should perform his daily journey round the sky without

the interruption of an eclipse or other mishap.​[1097] And after the

autumnal equinox the ancient Egyptians held a festival called “the

nativity of the sun’s walking-stick,” because, as the luminary declined

daily in the sky, and his light and heat diminished, he was supposed

to need a staff on which to lean.​[1098] In New Caledonia when a

wizard desires to make sunshine, he takes some plants and corals to

the burial-ground, and fashions them into a bundle, adding two locks

of hair cut from a living child of his family, also two teeth or an

entire jawbone from the skeleton of an ancestor. He then climbs a

mountain whose top catches the first rays of the morning sun. Here he

deposits three sorts of plants on a flat stone, places a branch of

dry coral beside them, and hangs the bundle of charms over the stone.

Next morning he returns to the spot and sets fire to the bundle at the

moment when {p313} the sun rises from the sea. As the smoke curls up,

he rubs the stone with the dry coral, invokes his ancestors and says:

“Sun! I do this that you may be burning hot, and eat up all the clouds

in the sky.” The same ceremony is repeated at sunset.​[1099] The New

Caledonians also make a drought by means of a disc-shaped stone with

a hole in it. At the moment when the sun rises, the wizard holds the

stone in his hand and passes a burning brand repeatedly into the hole,

while he says: “I kindle the sun, in order that he may eat up the

clouds and dry up our land, so that it may produce nothing.”​[1100]

When the sun rises behind clouds—a rare event in the bright sky of

southern Africa—the Sun clan of the Bechuanas say that he is grieving

their heart. All work stands still, and all the food of the previous

day is given to matrons or old women. They may eat it and may share

it with the children they are nursing, but no one else may taste it.

The people go down to the river and wash themselves all over. Each

man throws into the river a stone taken from his domestic hearth,

and replaces it with one picked up in the bed of the river. On their

return to the village the chief kindles a fire in his hut, and all his

subjects come and get a light from it. A general dance follows.​[1101]

In these cases it seems that the lighting of the flame on earth is

supposed to rekindle the solar fire. Such a belief comes naturally to

people who, like the Sun clan of the Bechuanas, deem themselves the

veritable kinsmen of the sun. When the sun is obscured by clouds, the

Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco hold burning sticks towards him to

encourage the luminary,​[1102] or rather perhaps to {p314} rekindle his

seemingly expiring light. The Banks Islanders make sunshine by means

of a mock sun. They take a very round stone, called a _vat loa_ or

sunstone, wind red braid about it, and stick it with owls’ feathers

to represent rays, singing the proper spell in a low voice. Then they

hang it on some high tree, such as a banyan or a casuarina, in a sacred

place. Or the stone is laid on the ground with white rods radiating

from it to imitate sunbeams.​[1103] Sometimes the mode of making

sunshine is the converse of that of making rain. Thus we have seen that

a white or red victim is sacrificed for sunshine, while a black one

is sacrificed for rain.​[1104] Some of the New Caledonians drench a

skeleton to make rain, but burn it to make sunshine.​[1105]

[Sidenote: Sun-charms among the American Indians.

Human sacrifices offered to the sun by the Mexicans.

Greek sacrifices of horses to the sun.]

When the mists lay thick on the Sierras of Peru, the Indian women

used to rattle the silver and copper ornaments which they wore on

their breasts, and they blew against the fog, hoping thus to disperse

it and make the sun shine through. Another way of producing the same

effect was to burn salt or scatter ashes in the air.​[1106] The

Guarayo Indians also threw ashes in the air for the sake of clearing

up the clouded evening sky.​[1107] In Car Nicobar, when it has rained

for several days without stopping, the natives roll long bamboos in

leaves of various kinds and set them up in the middle of the village.

They call these bamboos “rods inviting the sun to shine.”​[1108] The

offering made by the Brahman in the morning is supposed to produce

the sun, and we are told that “assuredly it would not rise, were he

not to make that offering.”​[1109] The ancient Mexicans conceived

the sun as the source of all vital force; hence they named him

Ipalnemohuani, “He by whom men live.” But if he bestowed life on the

world, he needed also to receive {p315} life from it. And as the heart

is the seat and symbol of life, bleeding hearts of men and animals

were presented to the sun to maintain him in vigour and enable him

to run his course across the sky. Thus the Mexican sacrifices to the

sun were magical rather than religious, being designed, not so much

to please and propitiate him, as physically to renew his energies of

heat, light, and motion. The constant demand for human victims to feed

the solar fire was met by waging war every year on the neighbouring

tribes and bringing back troops of captives to be sacrificed on the

altar. Thus the ceaseless wars of the Mexicans and their cruel system

of human sacrifices, the most monstrous on record, sprang in great

measure from a mistaken theory of the solar system. No more striking

illustration could be given of the disastrous consequences that may

flow in practice from a purely speculative error.​[1110] The ancient

Greeks believed that the sun drove in a chariot across the sky; hence

the Rhodians, who worshipped the sun as their chief deity, annually

dedicated a chariot and four horses to him, and flung them into the

sea for his use. Doubtless they thought that after a year’s work his

old horses and chariot would be worn out.​[1111] From a like motive,

probably, the idolatrous kings of Judah dedicated chariots and horses

to the sun,​[1112] and the Spartans,​[1113] Persians,​[1114] and

Massagetae​[1115] sacrificed horses to him. The Spartans performed the

sacrifice on the {p316} top of Mount Taygetus, the beautiful range

behind which they saw the great luminary set every night. It was as

natural for the inhabitants of the valley of Sparta to do this as it

was for the islanders of Rhodes to throw the chariot and horses into

the sea, into which the sun seemed to them to sink at evening. For

thus, whether on the mountain or in the sea, the fresh horses stood

ready for the weary god where they would be most welcome, at the end of

his day’s journey.

[Sidenote: Staying the sun by means of a net or string.

Staying the sun by putting a stone or a clod in the fork of a tree.]

As some people think they can light up the sun or speed him on his way,

so others fancy they can retard or stop him. In a pass of the Peruvian

Andes stand two ruined towers on opposite hills. Iron hooks are clamped

into their walls for the purpose of stretching a net from one tower to

the other. The net is intended to catch the sun.​[1116] On a small hill

in Fiji grew a patch of reeds, and travellers who feared to be belated

used to tie the tops of a handful of reeds together to prevent the sun

from going down.​[1117] As to this my late friend the Rev. Lorimer

Fison wrote to me: “I have often seen the reeds tied together to keep

the sun from going down. The place is on a hill in Lakomba, one of

the eastern islands of the Fijian group. It is on the side—not on the

top—of the hill. The reeds grow on the right side of the path. I asked

an old man the meaning of the practice, and he said, ‘We used to think

the sun would see us, and know we wanted him not to go down till we got

past on our way home again.’”​[1118] But perhaps the original intention

was to entangle the sun in the reeds, just as the Peruvians try to

catch him in the net. Stories of men who have caught the sun in a

noose are widely spread.​[1119] When the sun is going southward in the

autumn, and sinking lower and lower in the Arctic sky, the Esquimaux

of Iglulik play the game of cat’s cradle in order to catch him in the

meshes of the string and so prevent his {p317} disappearance. On the

contrary, when the sun is moving northward in the spring, they play

the game of cup-and-ball to hasten his return.​[1120] Means like those

which the Esquimaux take to stop the departing sun are adopted by the

Ewe negroes of the Slave Coast to catch a runaway slave. They take

two sticks, unite them by a string, and then wind the string round

one of them, while at the same time they pronounce the name of the

fugitive. When the string is quite wound about the stick, the runaway

will be bound fast and unable to stir.​[1121] In New Guinea, when a

Motu man is hunting or travelling late in the afternoon and fears to

be overtaken by darkness, he will sometimes take a piece of twine,

loop it, and look through the loop at the sun. Then he pulls the loop

into a knot and says, “Wait until we get home, and we will give you

the fat of a pig.” After that he passes the string to the man behind

him, and then it is thrown away. In a similar case a Motumotu man of

New Guinea says, “Sun, do not be in a hurry; just wait until I get

to the end.” And the sun waits. The Motumotu do not like to eat in

the dark; so if the food is not yet ready, and the sun is sinking,

they say, “Sun, stop; my food is not ready, and I want to eat by

you.”​[1122] Here the looking at the sinking sun through a loop and

then drawing the loop into a knot appears to be a purely magical

ceremony designed to catch the sun in the mesh; but the request that

the luminary would kindly stand still till home is reached or the

dinner cooked, coupled with the offer of a slice of fat bacon as an

inducement to him to comply with the request, is thoroughly religious.

Jerome of Prague, travelling among the heathen Lithuanians early in the

fifteenth century, found a tribe who worshipped the sun and venerated

a large iron hammer. The priests told him that once the sun had been

invisible for several months, because a powerful king had shut it up

in a strong tower; but the signs of the zodiac {p318} had broken open

the tower with this very hammer and released the sun. Therefore they

adored the hammer.​[1123] When an Australian blackfellow wishes to

stay the sun from going down till he gets home, he puts a sod in the

fork of a tree, exactly facing the setting sun.​[1124] For the same

purpose an Indian of Yucatan, journeying westward, places a stone in

a tree or pulls out some of his eyelashes and blows them towards the

sun.​[1125] When the Golos, a tribe of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, are on the

march, they will sometimes take a stone or a small ant-heap, about the

size of a man’s head, and place it in the fork of a tree in order to

retard the sunset.​[1126] South African natives, in travelling, will

put a stone in a fork of a tree or place some grass on the path with

a stone over it, believing that this will cause their friends to keep

the meal waiting till their arrival.​[1127] In this, as in previous

examples, the purpose apparently is to retard the sun. But why should

the act of putting a stone or a sod in a tree be supposed to effect

this? A partial explanation is suggested by another Australian custom.

In their journeys the natives are accustomed to place stones in trees

at different heights from the ground in order to indicate the height

of the sun in the sky at the moment when they passed the particular

tree. Those who follow are thus made aware of the time of day when

their friends in advance passed the spot.​[1128] Possibly the natives,

thus accustomed to mark the sun’s progress, may have slipped into the

confusion of imagining that to mark the sun’s progress was to arrest

it at the point marked. On the other hand, to make it go {p319} down

faster, the Australians throw sand into the air and blow with their

mouths towards the sun,​[1129] perhaps to waft the lingering orb

westward and bury it under the sands into which it appears to sink at

night.

[Sidenote: Accelerating the moon.]

As some people imagine they can hasten the sun, so others fancy they

can jog the tardy moon. The natives of German New Guinea reckon months

by the moon, and some of them have been known to throw stones and

spears at the moon, in order to accelerate its progress and so to

hasten the return of their friends, who were away from home for twelve

months working on a tobacco plantation.​[1130] The Malays think that a

bright glow at sunset may throw a weak person into a fever. Hence they

attempt to extinguish the glow by spitting out water and throwing ashes

at it.​[1131] The Shuswap Indians of British Columbia believe that they

can bring on cold weather by burning the wood of a tree that has been

struck by lightning. The belief may be based on the observation that

in their country cold follows a thunder-storm. Hence in spring, when

these Indians are travelling over the snow on high ground, they burn

splinters of such wood in the fire in order that the crust of the snow

may not melt.​[1132]

§ 4. _The Magical Control of the Wind_

[Sidenote: Making the wind to blow or be still.]

Once more, the savage thinks he can make the wind to blow or to be

still. When the day is hot and a Yakut has a long way to go, he takes

a stone which he has chanced to find in an animal or fish, winds a

horse-hair several times round it, and ties it to a stick. He then

waves the stick about, uttering a spell. Soon a cool breeze begins to

blow.​[1133] In order to procure a cool wind for nine days the stone

should first be dipped in the blood of a bird or beast and {p320}

then presented to the sun, while the sorcerer makes three turns

contrary to the course of the luminary.​[1134] The Wind clan of the

Omahas flap their blankets to start a breeze which will drive away

the mosquitoes.​[1135] When a Haida Indian wishes to obtain a fair

wind, he fasts, shoots a raven, singes it in the fire, and then going

to the edge of the sea sweeps it over the surface of the water four

times in the direction in which he wishes the wind to blow. He then

throws the raven behind him, but afterwards picks it up and sets it

in a sitting posture at the foot of a spruce-tree, facing towards

the required wind. Propping its beak open with a stick, he requests

a fair wind for a certain number of days; then going away he lies

covered up in his mantle till another Indian asks him for how many

days he has desired the wind, which question he answers.​[1136] When

a sorcerer in New Britain wishes to make a wind blow in a certain

direction, he throws burnt lime in the air, chanting a song all the

time. Then he waves sprigs of ginger and other plants about, throws

them up and catches them. Next he makes a small fire with these sprigs

on the spot where the lime has fallen thickest, and walks round the

fire chanting. Lastly, he takes the ashes and throws them on the

water.​[1137] If a Hottentot desires the wind to drop, he takes one

of his fattest skins and hangs it on the end of a pole, in the belief

that by blowing the skin down the wind will lose all its force and must

itself fall.​[1138] Fuegian wizards throw shells against the wind to

make it drop.​[1139] On the other hand, when a Persian peasant desires

a strong wind to winnow his corn, he rubs a kind of bastard saffron

and throws it up into the air; after that the breeze soon begins to

blow.​[1140] Some of the Indians of Canada believed that the winds

were caused by a fish like a lizard. When one of {p321} these fish

had been caught, the Indians advised the Jesuit missionaries to put

it back into the river as fast as possible in order to calm the wind,

which was contrary.​[1141] If a Cherokee wizard desires to turn aside

an approaching storm, he faces it and recites a spell with outstretched

hand. Then he gently blows towards the quarter to which he wishes it to

go, waving his hand in the same direction as if he were pushing away

the storm.​[1142] The Ottawa Indians fancied they could calm a tempest

by relating the dreams they had dreamed during their fast, or by

throwing tobacco on the troubled water.​[1143] When the Kei Islanders

wish to obtain a favourable wind for their friends at sea, they dance

in a ring, both men and women, swaying their bodies to and fro, while

the men hold handkerchiefs in their hands.​[1144] In Melanesia there

are everywhere weather-doctors who can control the powers of the

air and are willing to supply wind or calm in return for a proper

remuneration. For instance, in Santa Cruz the wizard makes wind by

waving the branch of a tree and chanting the appropriate charm.​[1145]

In another Melanesian island a missionary observed a large shell filled

with earth, in which an oblong stone, covered with red ochre, was set

up, while the whole was surrounded by a fence of sticks strengthened by

a creeper which was twined in and out the uprights. On asking a native

what these things meant, he learned that the wind was here fenced or

bound round, lest it should blow hard; the imprisoned wind would not be

able to blow again until the fence that kept it in should have rotted

away.​[1146] In South Africa, when the Caffres wish to stop a high

wind, they call in a “wind-doctor,” who takes a pot with a spout and

points the spout towards the quarter from which the wind is blowing.

He then places medicines {p322} and some of the dust blown by the wind

in the vessel, and seals up every opening of the pot with damp clay.

Thereupon the doctor declares, “The head of the wind is now in my pot,

and the wind will cease to blow.”​[1147] The natives of the island of

Bibili, off German New Guinea, are reputed to make wind by blowing with

their mouths. In stormy weather the Bogadjim people say, “The Bibili

folk are at it again, blowing away.”​[1148] Another way of making wind

which is practised in New Guinea is to strike a “wind-stone” lightly

with a stick; to strike it hard would bring on a hurricane.​[1149] So

in Scotland witches used to raise the wind by dipping a rag in water

and beating it thrice on a stone, saying:

“_I knok this rag upone this stane_

_To raise the wind in the divellis name,_

_It sall not lye till I please againe._”​[1150]

[Sidenote: Raising the wind.]

At Victoria, the capital of Vancouver’s Island, there are a number of

large stones not far from what is called the Battery. Each of them

represents a certain wind. When an Indian wants any particular wind,

he goes and moves the corresponding stone a little; were he to move

it too much, the wind would blow very hard.​[1151] The natives of

Murray Island in Torres Straits used to make a great wind blow from

the south-east by pointing coco-nut leaves and other plants at two

granitic boulders on the shore. So long as the leaves remained there

the wind sat in that quarter. But, significantly enough, the ceremony

was only performed during the prevalence of the south-east monsoon.

The natives knew better than to try to raise a south-east wind while

the north-west monsoon was blowing.​[1152] On the altar of Fladda’s

chapel, in the island of Fladdahuan (one of the Hebrides), lay a round

bluish stone which was always moist. Windbound fishermen walked sunwise

round the chapel and {p323} then poured water on the stone, whereupon

a favourable breeze was sure to spring up.​[1153] In Gigha, an island

off the western coast of Argyleshire, there is a well named Tobar-rath

Bhuathaig or “The lucky well of Beathag,” which used to be famous for

its power of raising the wind. It lies at the foot of a hill facing

north-east near an isthmus called Tarbat. Six feet above where the

water gushes out there is a heap of stones which forms a cover to the

sacred spring. When a person wished for a fair wind, either to leave

the island or to bring home his absent friends, this part was opened

with great solemnity, the stones were carefully removed, and the well

cleaned with a wooden dish or a clam shell. This being done, the water

was thrown several times in the direction from which the wished-for

wind was to blow, and this action was accompanied by a certain form

of words which the person repeated every time he threw the water.

When the ceremony was over, the well was again carefully shut up to

prevent fatal consequences, it being firmly believed that, were the

place left open, a storm would arise which would overwhelm the whole

island.​[1154] The Esthonians have various odd ways of raising a wind.

They scratch their finger, or hang up a serpent, or strike an axe into

a house-beam in the direction from which they wish the wind to blow,

while at the same time they whistle. The notion is that the gentle wind

will not let an innocent being or even a beam suffer without coming and

breathing softly to assuage the pain.​[1155]

[Sidenote: Winds raised by wizards and witches.]

In Mabuiag, an island between New Guinea and Australia, there were men

whose business was to make wind for such as wanted it. When engaged in

his professional duties the wizard painted himself black behind and

red on his face and chest. The red in front typified the red cloud

of morning, the black represented the dark blue sky of night. Thus

arrayed he took some bushes, and, when the tide was low, fastened them

at the edge of the reef so that the flowing {p324} tide made them sway

backwards and forwards. But if only a gentle breeze was needed, he

fastened them nearer to the shore. To stop the wind he again painted

himself red and black, the latter in imitation of the clear blue sky,

and then removing the bushes from the reef he dried and burnt them. The

smoke as it curled up was believed to stop the wind: “Smoke he go up

and him clear up on top.”​[1156] In some islands of Torres Straits the

wizard made wind by whirling a bull-roarer;​[1157] the booming sound of

the instrument probably seemed to him like the roar or the whistling

of the wind. Amongst the Kurnai tribe of Gippsland in Victoria there

used to be a noted raiser of storms who went by the name of Bunjil

Kraura or “Great West Wind.” This wind makes the tall slender trees

of the Gippsland forests to rock and sway so that the natives could

not climb them in search of opossums. Hence the people were forced

to propitiate Bunjil Kraura by liberal offerings of weapons and rugs

whenever the tree-tops bent before a gale. Having received their

gifts, Bunjil Kraura would bind his head with swathes of stringy bark,

and lull the storm to rest with a song which consisted of the words

“Wear—string—Westwind,” repeated again and again.​[1158] Apparently the

wizard identified himself with the wind, and fancied that he could bind

it by tying string round his own head. The Kwakiutl Indians of British

Columbia, as we have seen, believe that twins can summon any wind by

merely moving their hands.​[1159] In Greenland a woman in child-bed

and for some time after delivery is supposed to possess the power

of laying a storm. She has only to go out of doors, fill her mouth

with air, and coming back into the house blow it out again.​[1160] In

antiquity there was a family at Corinth which enjoyed the reputation

of being able to still the raging wind; but we do not know in what

manner its members exercised a useful function, {p325} which probably

earned for them a more solid recompense than mere repute among the

seafaring population of the isthmus.​[1161] Even in Christian times,

under the reign of Constantine, a certain Sopater suffered death at

Constantinople on a charge of binding the winds by magic, because it

happened that the corn-ships of Egypt and Syria were detained afar off

by calms or head-winds, to the rage and disappointment of the hungry

Byzantine rabble.​[1162] An ancient charm to keep storms from damaging

the crops was to bury a toad in a new earthen vessel in the middle of

the field.​[1163] Finnish wizards used to sell wind to storm-stayed

mariners. The wind was enclosed in three knots; if they undid the first

knot, a moderate wind sprang up; if the second, it blew half a gale; if

the third, a hurricane.​[1164] Indeed the Esthonians, whose country is

divided from Finland only by an arm of the sea, still believe in the

magical powers of their northern neighbours. The bitter winds that blow

in spring from the north and north-east, bringing ague and rheumatic

inflammations in their train, are set down by the simple Esthonian

peasantry to the machinations of the Finnish wizards and witches. In

particular they regard with special dread three days in spring to which

they give the name of Days of the Cross; one of them falls on the Eve

of Ascension Day. The people in the neighbourhood of Fellin fear to go

out on these days lest the cruel winds from Lappland should smite them

dead. A popular Esthonian song runs:

“_Wind of the Cross! rushing and mighty!_

_Heavy the blow of thy wings sweeping past!_

_Wild wailing wind of misfortune and sorrow,_

_Wizards of Finland ride by on the blast._”​[1165]

It is said, too, that sailors, beating up against the wind in the

Gulf of Finland, sometimes see a strange sail heave in sight astern

and overhaul them hand over hand. On she {p326} comes with a cloud of

canvas—all her studding-sails out—right in the teeth of the wind,

forging her way through the foaming billows, dashing back the spray

in sheets from her cutwater, every sail swollen to bursting, every

rope strained to cracking. Then the sailors know that she hails from

Finland.​[1166]

[Sidenote: Enclosing the winds in knots, bags, and pots.]

The art of tying up the wind in three knots, so that the more knots are

loosed the stronger will blow the wind, has been attributed to wizards

in Lappland and to witches in Shetland, Lewis, and the Isle of Man.

Shetland seamen still buy winds in the shape of knotted handkerchiefs

or threads from old women who claim to rule the storms. There are said

to be ancient crones in Lerwick now who live by selling wind.​[1167]

In the early part of the nineteenth century Sir Walter Scott visited

one of these witches at Stromness in the Orkneys. He says: “We clomb,

by steep and dirty lanes, an eminence rising above the town, and

commanding a fine view. An old hag lives in a wretched cabin on this

height, and subsists by selling winds. Each captain of a merchantman,

between jest and earnest, gives the old woman sixpence, and she boils

her kettle to procure a favourable gale. She was a miserable figure;

upwards of ninety, she told us, and dried up like a mummy. A sort of

clay-coloured cloak, folded over her head, corresponded in colour

to her corpse-like complexion. Fine light-blue eyes, and nose and

chin that almost met, and a ghastly expression of cunning, gave her

quite the effect of Hecate.”​[1168] A Norwegian witch has boasted of

sinking a ship by opening a bag in which she had shut up a wind.​[1169]

Ulysses received the winds in a leathern bag from Aeolus, King of the

Winds.​[1170] The {p327} Motumotu in New Guinea think that storms are

sent by an Oiabu sorcerer; for each wind he has a bamboo which he opens

at pleasure.​[1171] On the top of Mount Agu in Togo, a district of

German West Africa, resides a fetish called Bagba, who is supposed to

control the wind and the rain. His priest is said to keep the winds

shut up in great pots.​[1172]

[Sidenote: Frightening, driving away, and killing the spirit of the

wind.]

Often the stormy wind is regarded as an evil being who may be

intimidated, driven away, or killed. When the darkening of the sky

indicates the approach of a tornado, a South African magician will

repair to a height whither he collects as many people as can be hastily

summoned to his assistance. Directed by him, they shout and bellow in

imitation of the gust as it swirls roaring about the huts and among

the trees of the forest. Then at a signal they mimic the crash of the

thunder, after which there is a dead silence for a few seconds; then

follows a screech more piercing and prolonged than any that preceded,

dying away in a tremulous wail. The magician fills his mouth with a

foul liquid which he squirts in defiant jets against the approaching

storm as a kind of menace or challenge to the spirit of the wind; and

the shouting and wailing of his assistants are meant to frighten the

spirit away. The performance lasts until the tornado either bursts or

passes away in another direction. If it bursts, the reason is that the

magician who sent the storm was more powerful than he who endeavoured

to avert it.​[1173] When storms and bad weather have lasted long and

food is scarce with the Central Esquimaux, they endeavour to conjure

the tempest by making a long whip of seaweed, armed with which they

go down to the beach and strike out in the direction of the wind,

crying, “_Taba_ (it is enough)!”​[1174] Once when north-westerly winds

had kept the ice long on the coast and food was becoming scarce, the

Esquimaux {p328} performed a ceremony to make a calm. A fire was

kindled on the shore, and the men gathered round it and chanted. An

old man then stepped up to the fire and in a coaxing voice invited

the demon of the wind to come under the fire and warm himself. When

he was supposed to have arrived, a vessel of water, to which each man

present had contributed, was thrown on the flames by an old man, and

immediately a flight of arrows sped towards the spot where the fire had

been. They thought that the demon would not stay where he had been so

badly treated. To complete the effect, guns were discharged in various

directions, and the captain of a European vessel was invited to fire

on the wind with cannon.​[1175] On the twenty-first of February 1883

a similar ceremony was performed by the Esquimaux of Point Barrow,

Alaska, with the intention of killing the spirit of the wind. Women

drove the demon from their houses with clubs and knives, with which

they made passes in the air; and the men, gathering round a fire, shot

him with their rifles and crushed him under a heavy stone the moment

that steam rose in a cloud from the smouldering embers, on which a tub

of water had just been thrown.​[1176]

[Sidenote: Confronting the storm with swords and drums.]

In ancient India the priest was directed to confront a storm, armed to

the teeth with a bludgeon, a sword, and a firebrand, while he chanted

a magical lay.​[1177] During a tremendous hurricane the drums of

Kadouma, near the Victoria Nyanza, were heard to beat all night. When

next morning a missionary enquired the cause, he was told that the

sound of the drums is a charm against storms.​[1178] The Sea Dyaks and

Kayans of Borneo beat gongs when a tempest is raging; but the Dyaks,

and perhaps the Kayans also, do this, not so much to frighten away the

spirit of the storm, as to apprise him of their whereabouts, lest he

should inadvertently knock their houses down. Heard at night above the

howling of the storm, the distant boom of the {p329} gongs has a weird

effect; and sometimes, before the notes can be distinguished for the

wind and rain, they strike fear into a neighbouring village; lights

are extinguished, the women are put in a place of safety, and the

men stand to their arms to resist an attack. Then with a lull in the

wind the true nature of the gong-beating is recognised, and the alarm

subsides.​[1179]

[Sidenote: Attacking the whirlwind with weapons.]

On calm summer days in the Highlands of Scotland eddies of wind

sometimes go past, whirling about dust and straws, though not another

breath of air is stirring. The Highlanders think that the fairies

are in these eddies carrying away men, women, children, or animals,

and they will fling their left shoe, or their bonnet, or a knife, or

earth from a mole-hill at the eddy to make the fairies drop their

booty.​[1180] When a gust lifts the hay in the meadow, the Breton

peasant throws a knife or a fork at it to prevent the devil from

carrying off the hay.​[1181] Similarly in the Esthonian island of

Oesel, when the reapers are busy among the corn and the wind blows

about the ears that have not yet been tied into sheaves, the reapers

slash at it with their sickles.​[1182] The custom of flinging a knife

or a hat at a whirlwind is observed alike by German, Slavonian, and

Esthonian rustics; they think that a witch or wizard is riding on the

blast, and that the knife, if it hits the witch, will be reddened by

her blood or will disappear altogether, sticking in the wound it has

inflicted.​[1183] {p330} Sometimes Esthonian peasants run shrieking

and shouting behind a whirlwind, hurling sticks and stones into the

flying dust.​[1184] The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco ascribe the

rush of a whirlwind to the passage of a spirit and they fling sticks

at it to frighten it away.​[1185] When the wind blows down their huts,

the Payaguas of South America snatch up firebrands and run against

the wind, menacing it with the blazing brands, while others beat the

air with their fists to frighten the storm.​[1186] When the Guaycurus

are threatened by a severe storm, the men go out armed, and the women

and children scream their loudest to intimidate the demon.​[1187]

During a tempest the inhabitants of a Batta village in Sumatra have

been seen to rush from their houses armed with sword and lance. The

rajah placed himself at their head, and with shouts and yells they

hewed and hacked at the invisible foe. An old woman was observed to be

specially active in the defence of her house, slashing the air right

and left with a long sabre.​[1188] In a violent thunderstorm, the peals

sounding very near, the Kayans of Borneo have been seen to draw their

swords threateningly half out of their scabbards, as if to frighten

away the demons of the storm.​[1189] In Australia the huge columns of

red sand that move rapidly across a desert tract are thought by the

natives to be spirits passing along. Once {p331} an athletic young black

ran after one of these moving columns to kill it with boomerangs. He

was away two or three hours, and came back very weary, saying he had

killed Koochee (the demon), but that Koochee had growled at him and

he must die.​[1190] Of the Bedouins of eastern Africa it is said that

“no whirlwind ever sweeps across the path without being pursued by a

dozen savages with drawn creeses, who stab into the centre of the dusty

column in order to drive away the evil spirit that is believed to be

riding on the blast.”​[1191]

[Sidenote: Fighting the simoom.]

In the light of these examples a story told by Herodotus, which his

modern critics have treated as a fable, is perfectly credible. He

says, without however vouching for the truth of the tale, that once in

the land of the Psylli, the modern Tripoli, the wind blowing from the

Sahara had dried up all the water-tanks. So the people took counsel

and marched in a body to make war on the south wind. But when they

entered the desert the simoom swept down on them and buried them to a

man.​[1192] The story may well have been told by one who watched them

disappearing, in battle array, with drums and cymbals beating, into the

red cloud of whirling sand.

{p332}