The elan, deer, and elk were treated by the American Indians with

the same punctilious respect, and for the same reason. Their bones

might not be given to the dogs nor thrown into the fire, nor might

their fat be dropped upon the fire, because the souls of the dead

animals were believed to see what was done to their bodies and to

tell it to the other beasts, living and dead. Hence, if their bodies

were illused, the animals of that species would not allow themselves

to be taken, neither in this world nor in the world to come. Among

the Chiquites of Paraguay a sick man would be asked by the

medicine-man whether he had not thrown away some of the flesh of the

deer or turtle, and if he answered yes, the medicine-man would say,

"That is what is killing you. The soul of the deer or turtle has

entered into your body to avenge the wrong you did it." The Canadian

Indians would not eat the embryos of the elk, unless at the close of

the hunting season; otherwise the mother-elks would be shy and

refuse to be caught.

In the Timor-laut islands of the Indian Archipelago the skulls of

all the turtles which a fisherman has caught are hung up under his

house. Before he goes out to catch another, he addresses himself to

the skull of the last turtle that he killed, and having inserted

betel between its jaws, he prays the spirit of the dead animal to

entice its kinsfolk in the sea to come and be caught. In the Poso

district of Central Celebes hunters keep the jawbones of deer and

wild pigs which they have killed and hang them up in their houses

near the fire. Then they say to the jawbones, "Ye cry after your

comrades, that your grandfathers, or nephews, or children may not go

away." Their notion is that the souls of the dead deer and pigs

tarry near their jawbones and attract the souls of living deer and

pigs, which are thus drawn into the toils of the hunter. Thus the

wily savage employs dead animals as decoys to lure living animals to

their doom.

The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco love to hunt the ostrich, but

when they have killed one of these birds and are bringing home the

carcase to the village, they take steps to outwit the resentful

ghost of their victim. They think that when the first natural shock

of death is passed, the ghost of the ostrich pulls himself together

and makes after his body. Acting on this sage calculation, the

Indians pluck feathers from the breast of the bird and strew them at

intervals along the track. At every bunch of feathers the ghost

stops to consider, "Is this the whole of my body or only a part of

it?" The doubt gives him pause, and when at last he has made up his

mind fully at all the bunches, and has further wasted valuable time

by the zigzag course which he invariably pursues in going from one

to another, the hunters are safe at home, and the bilked ghost may

stalk in vain round about the village, which he is too timid to

enter.

The Esquimaux about Bering Strait believe that the souls of dead

sea-beasts, such as seals, walrus, and whales, remain attached to

their bladders, and that by returning the bladders to the sea they

can cause the souls to be reincarnated in fresh bodies and so

multiply the game which the hunters pursue and kill. Acting on this

belief every hunter carefully removes and preserves the bladders of

all the sea-beasts that he kills; and at a solemn festival held once

a year in winter these bladders, containing the souls of all the

sea-beasts that have been killed throughout the year, are honoured

with dances and offerings of food in the public assembly-room, after

which they are taken out on the ice and thrust through holes into

the water; for the simple Esquimaux imagine that the souls of the

animals, in high good humour at the kind treatment they have

experienced, will thereafter be born again as seals, walrus, and

whales, and in that form will flock willingly to be again speared,

harpooned, or otherwise done to death by the hunters.

For like reasons, a tribe which depends for its subsistence, chiefly

or in part, upon fishing is careful to treat the fish with every

mark of honour and respect. The Indians of Peru "adored the fish

that they caught in greatest abundance; for they said that the first

fish that was made in the world above (for so they named Heaven)

gave birth to all other fish of that species, and took care to send

them plenty of its children to sustain their tribe. For this reason

they worshipped sardines in one region, where they killed more of

them than of any other fish; in others, the skate; in others, the

dogfish; in others, the golden fish for its beauty; in others, the

crawfish; in others, for want of larger gods, the crabs, where they

had no other fish, or where they knew not how to catch and kill

them. In short, they had whatever fish was most serviceable to them

as their gods." The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia think that

when a salmon is killed its soul returns to the salmon country.

Hence they take care to throw the bones and offal into the sea, in

order that the soul may reanimate them at the resurrection of the

salmon. Whereas if they burned the bones the soul would be lost, and

so it would be quite impossible for that salmon to rise from the

dead. In like manner the Ottawa Indians of Canada, believing that

the souls of dead fish passed into other bodies of fish, never

burned fish bones, for fear of displeasing the souls of the fish,

who would come no more to the nets. The Hurons also refrained from

throwing fish bones into the fire, lest the souls of the fish should

go and warn the other fish not to let themselves be caught, since

the Hurons would burn their bones. Moreover, they had men who

preached to the fish and persuaded them to come and be caught. A

good preacher was much sought after, for they thought that the

exhortations of a clever man had a great effect in drawing the fish

to the nets. In the Huron fishing village where the French

missionary Sagard stayed, the preacher to the fish prided himself

very much on his eloquence, which was of a florid order. Every

evening after supper, having seen that all the people were in their

places and that a strict silence was observed, he preached to the

fish. His text was that the Hurons did not burn fish bones. "Then

enlarging on this theme with extraordinary unction, he exhorted and

conjured and invited and implored the fish to come and be caught and

to be of good courage and to fear nothing, for it was all to serve

their friends who honoured them and did not burn their bones." The

natives of the Duke of York Island annually decorate a canoe with

flowers and ferns, lade it, or are supposed to lade it, with

shell-money, and set it adrift to compensate the fish for their

fellows who have been caught and eaten. It is especially necessary

to treat the first fish caught with consideration in order to

conciliate the rest of the fish, whose conduct may be supposed to be

influenced by the reception given to those of their kind which were

the first to be taken. Accordingly the Maoris always put back into

the sea the first fish caught, "with a prayer that it may tempt

other fish to come and be caught."

Still more stringent are the precautions taken when the fish are the

first of the season. On salmon rivers, when the fish begin to run up

the stream in spring, they are received with much deference by

tribes who, like the Indians of the Pacific Coast of North America,

subsist largely upon a fish diet. In British Columbia the Indians

used to go out to meet the first fish as they came up the river:

"They paid court to them, and would address them thus: 'You fish,

you fish; you are all chiefs, you are; you are all chiefs.'" Amongst

the Tlingit of Alaska the first halibut of the season is carefully

handled and addressed as a chief, and a festival is given in his

honour, after which the fishing goes on. In spring, when the winds

blow soft from the south and the salmon begin to run up the Klamath

river, the Karoks of California dance for salmon, to ensure a good

catch. One of the Indians, called the Kareya or God-man, retires to

the mountains and fasts for ten days. On his return the people flee,

while he goes to the river, takes the first salmon of the catch,

eats some of it, and with the rest kindles the sacred fire in the

sweating house. "No Indian may take a salmon before this dance is

held, nor for ten days after it, even if his family are starving."

The Karoks also believe that a fisherman will take no salmon if the

poles of which his spearing-booth is made were gathered on the

river-side, where the salmon might have seen them. The poles must be

brought from the top of the highest mountain. The fisherman will

also labour in vain if he uses the same poles a second year in

booths or weirs, "because the old salmon will have told the young

ones about them." There is a favourite fish of the Aino which appears

in their rivers about May and June. They prepare for the fishing by

observing rules of ceremonial purity, and when they have gone out to

fish, the women at home must keep strict silence or the fish would

hear them and disappear. When the first fish is caught he is brought

home and passed through a small opening at the end of the hut, but

not through the door; for if he were passed through the door, "the

other fish would certainly see him and disappear." This may partly

explain the custom observed by other savages of bringing game in

certain cases into their huts, not by the door, but by the window,

the smoke-hole, or by a special opening at the back of the hut.

With some savages a special reason for respecting the bones of game,

and generally of the animals which they eat, is a belief that, if

the bones are preserved, they will in course of time be reclothed

with flesh, and thus the animal will come to life again. It is,

therefore, clearly for the interest of the hunter to leave the bones

intact since to destroy them would be to diminish the future supply

of game. Many of the Minnetaree Indians "believe that the bones of

those bisons which they have slain and divested of flesh rise again

clothed with renewed flesh, and quickened with life, and become fat,

and fit for slaughter the succeeding June." Hence on the western

prairies of America, the skulls of buffaloes may be seen arranged in

circles and symmetrical piles, awaiting the resurrection. After

feasting on a dog, the Dacotas carefully collect the bones, scrape,

wash, and bury them, "partly, as it is said, to testify to the

dog-species, that in feasting upon one of their number no disrespect

was meant to the species itself, and partly also from a belief that

the bones of the animal will rise and reproduce another." In

sacrificing an animal the Lapps regularly put aside the bones, eyes,

ears, heart, lungs, sexual parts (if the animal was a male), and a

morsel of flesh from each limb. Then, after eating the remainder of

the flesh, they laid the bones and the rest in anatomical order in a

coffin and buried them with the usual rites, believing that the god

to whom the animal was sacrificed would reclothe the bones with

flesh and restore the animal to life in Jabme-Aimo, the subterranean

world of the dead. Sometimes, as after feasting on a bear, they seem

to have contented themselves with thus burying the bones. Thus the

Lapps expected the resurrection of the slain animal to take place in

another world, resembling in this respect the Kamtchatkans, who

believed that every creature, down to the smallest fly, would rise

from the dead and live underground. On the other hand, the North

American Indians looked for the resurrection of the animals in the

present world. The habit, observed especially by Mongolian peoples,

of stuffing the skin of a sacrificed animal, or stretching it on a

framework, points rather to a belief in a resurrection of the latter

sort. The objection commonly entertained by primitive peoples to

break the bones of the animals which they have eaten or sacrificed

may be based either on a belief in the resurrection of the animals,

or on a fear of intimidating other creatures of the same species and

offending the ghosts of the slain animals. The reluctance of North

American Indians and Esquimaux to let dogs gnaw the bones of animals

is perhaps only a precaution to prevent the bones from being broken.

But after all the resurrection of dead game may have its

inconveniences, and accordingly some hunters take steps to prevent

it by hamstringing the animal so as to prevent it or its ghost from

getting up and running away. This is the motive alleged for the

practice by Koui hunters in Laos; they think that the spells which

they utter in the chase may lose their magical virtue, and that the

slaughtered animal may consequently come to life again and escape.

To prevent that catastrophe they therefore hamstring the beast as

soon as they have butchered it. When an Esquimau of Alaska has

killed a fox, he carefully cuts the tendons of all the animal's legs

in order to prevent the ghost from reanimating the body and walking

about. But hamstringing the carcase is not the only measure which

the prudent savage adopts for the sake of disabling the ghost of his

victim. In old days, when the Aino went out hunting and killed a fox

first, they took care to tie its mouth up tightly in order to

prevent the ghost of the animal from sallying forth and warning its

fellows against the approach of the hunter. The Gilyaks of the Amoor

River put out the eyes of the seals they have killed, lest the

ghosts of the slain animals should know their slayers and avenge

their death by spoiling the seal-hunt.

Besides the animals which primitive man dreads for their strength

and ferocity, and those which he reveres on account of the benefits

which he expects from them, there is another class of creatures

which he sometimes deems it necessary to conciliate by worship and

sacrifice. These are the vermin that infest his crops and his

cattle. To rid himself of these deadly foes the farmer has recourse

to many superstitious devices, of which, though some are meant to

destroy or intimidate the vermin, others aim at propitiating them

and persuading them by fair means to spare the fruits of the earth

and the herds. Thus Esthonian peasants, in the island of Oesel,

stand in great awe of the weevil, an insect which is exceedingly

destructive to the grain. They give it a fine name, and if a child

is about to kill a weevil they say, "Don't do it; the more we hurt

him, the more he hurts us." If they find a weevil they bury it in

the earth instead of killing it. Some even put the weevil under a

stone in the field and offer corn to it. They think that thus it is

appeased and does less harm. Amongst the Saxons of Transylvania, in

order to keep sparrows from the corn, the sower begins by throwing

the first handful of seed backwards over his head, saying, "That is

for you, sparrows." To guard the corn against the attacks of

leaf-flies he shuts his eyes and scatters three handfuls of oats in

different directions. Having made this offering to the leaf-flies he

feels sure that they will spare the corn. A Transylvanian way of

securing the crops against all birds, beasts, and insects, is this:

after he has finished sowing, the sower goes once more from end to

end of the field imitating the gesture of sowing, but with an empty

hand. As he does so he says, "I sow this for the animals; I sow it

for every thing that flies and creeps, that walks and stands, that

sings and springs, in the name of God the Father, etc." The

following is a German way of freeing a garden from caterpillars.

After sunset or at midnight the mistress of the house, or another

female member of the family, walks all round the garden dragging a

broom after her. She may not look behind her, and must keep

murmuring, "Good evening, Mother Caterpillar, you shall come with

your husband to church." The garden gate is left open till the

following morning.

Sometimes in dealing with vermin the farmer aims at hitting a happy

mean between excessive rigour on the one hand and weak indulgence on

the other; kind but firm, he tempers severity with mercy. An ancient

Greek treatise on farming advises the husbandman who would rid his

lands of mice to act thus: "Take a sheet of paper and write on it as

follows: 'I adjure you, ye mice here present, that ye neither injure

me nor suffer another mouse to do so. I give you yonder field' (here

you specify the field); 'but if ever I catch you here again, by the

Mother of the Gods I will rend you in seven pieces.' Write this, and

stick the paper on an unhewn stone in the field before sunrise,

taking care to keep the written side up." In the Ardennes they say

that to get rid of rats you should repeat the following words:

"_Erat verbum, apud Deum vestrum._ Male rats and female rats, I

conjure you, by the great God, to go out of my house, out of all my

habitations, and to betake yourselves to such and such a place,

there to end your days. _Decretis, reversis et desembarassis virgo

potens, clemens, justitiae._" Then write the same words on pieces of

paper, fold them up, and place one of them under the door by which

the rats are to go forth, and the other on the road which they are

to take. This exorcism should be performed at sunrise. Some years

ago an American farmer was reported to have written a civil letter

to the rats, telling them that his crops were short, that he could

not afford to keep them through the winter, that he had been very

kind to them, and that for their own good he thought they had better

leave him and go to some of his neighbours who had more grain. This

document he pinned to a post in his barn for the rats to read.

Sometimes the desired object is supposed to be attained by treating

with high distinction one or two chosen individuals of the obnoxious

species, while the rest are pursued with relentless rigour. In the

East Indian island of Bali, the mice which ravage the rice-fields

are caught in great numbers, and burned in the same way that corpses

are burned. But two of the captured mice are allowed to live, and

receive a little packet of white linen. Then the people bow down

before them, as before gods, and let them go. When the farms of the

Sea Dyaks or Ibans of Sarawak are much pestered by birds and

insects, they catch a specimen of each kind of vermin (one sparrow,

one grasshopper, and so on), put them in a tiny boat of bark

well-stocked with provisions, and then allow the little vessel with

its obnoxious passengers to float down the river. If that does not

drive the pests away, the Dyaks resort to what they deem a more

effectual mode of accomplishing the same purpose. They make a clay

crocodile as large as life and set it up in the fields, where they

offer it food, rice-spirit, and cloth, and sacrifice a fowl and a

pig before it. Mollified by these attentions, the ferocious animal

very soon gobbles up all the creatures that devour the crops. In

Albania, if the fields or vineyards are ravaged by locusts or

beetles, some of the women will assemble with dishevelled hair,

catch a few of the insects, and march with them in a funeral

procession to a spring or stream, in which they drown the creatures.

Then one of the women sings, "O locusts and beetles who have left us

bereaved," and the dirge is taken up and repeated by all the women

in chorus. Thus by celebrating the obsequies of a few locusts and

beetles, they hope to bring about the death of them all. When

caterpillars invaded a vineyard or field in Syria, the virgins were

gathered, and one of the caterpillars was taken and a girl made its

mother. Then they bewailed and buried it. Thereafter they conducted

the "mother" to the place where the caterpillars were, consoling

her, in order that all the caterpillars might leave the garden.

LIV. Types of Animal Sacrament

1. The Egyptian and the Aino Types of Sacrament

WE are now perhaps in a position to understand the ambiguous

behaviour of the Aino and Gilyaks towards the bear. It has been

shown that the sharp line of demarcation which we draw between

mankind and the lower animals does not exist for the savage. To him

many of the other animals appear as his equals or even his

superiors, not merely in brute force but in intelligence; and if

choice or necessity leads him to take their lives, he feels bound,

out of regard to his own safety, to do it in a way which will be as

inoffensive as possible not merely to the living animal, but to its

departed spirit and to all the other animals of the same species,

which would resent an affront put upon one of their kind much as a

tribe of savages would revenge an injury or insult offered to a

tribesman. We have seen that among the many devices by which the

savage seeks to atone for the wrong done by him to his animal

victims one is to show marked deference to a few chosen individuals

of the species, for such behaviour is apparently regarded as

entitling him to exterminate with impunity all the rest of the

species upon which he can lay hands. This principle perhaps explains

the attitude, at first sight puzzling and contradictory, of the Aino

towards the bear. The flesh and skin of the bear regularly afford

them food and clothing; but since the bear is an intelligent and

powerful animal, it is necessary to offer some satisfaction or

atonement to the bear species for the loss which it sustains in the

death of so many of its members. This satisfaction or atonement is

made by rearing young bears, treating them, so long as they live,

with respect, and killing them with extraordinary marks of sorrow

and devotion. So the other bears are appeased, and do not resent the

slaughter of their kind by attacking the slayers or deserting the

country, which would deprive the Aino of one of their means of

subsistence.

Thus the primitive worship of animals conforms to two types, which

are in some respects the converse of each other. On the one hand,

animals are worshipped, and are therefore neither killed nor eaten.

On the other hand, animals are worshipped because they are

habitually killed and eaten. In both types of worship the animal is

revered on account of some benefit, positive or negative, which the

savage hopes to receive from it. In the former worship the benefit

comes either in the positive shape of protection, advice, and help

which the animal affords the man, or in the negative shape of

abstinence from injuries which it is in the power of the animal to

inflict. In the latter worship the benefit takes the material form

of the animal's flesh and skin. The two types of worship are in some

measure antithetical: in the one, the animal is not eaten because it

is revered; in the other, it is revered because it is eaten. But

both may be practised by the same people, as we see in the case of

the North American Indians, who, while they apparently revere and

spare their totem animals, also revere the animals and fish upon

which they subsist. The aborigines of Australia have totemism in the

most primitive form known to us; but there is no clear evidence that

they attempt, like the North American Indians, to conciliate the

animals which they kill and eat. The means which the Australians

adopt to secure a plentiful supply of game appear to be primarily

based, not on conciliation, but on sympathetic magic, a principle to

which the North American Indians also resort for the same purpose.

Hence, as the Australians undoubtedly represent a ruder and earlier

stage of human progress than the American Indians, it would seem

that before hunters think of worshipping the game as a means of

ensuring an abundant supply of it, they seek to attain the same end

by sympathetic magic. This, again, would show--what there is good

reason for believing--that sympathetic magic is one of the earliest

means by which man endeavours to adapt the agencies of nature to his

needs.

Corresponding to the two distinct types of animal worship, there are

two distinct types of the custom of killing the animal god. On the

one hand, when the revered animal is habitually spared, it is

nevertheless killed--and sometimes eaten--on rare and solemn

occasions. Examples of this custom have been already given and an

explanation of them offered. On the other hand, when the revered

animal is habitually killed, the slaughter of any one of the species

involves the killing of the god, and is atoned for on the spot by

apologies and sacrifices, especially when the animal is a powerful

and dangerous one; and, in addition to this ordinary and everyday

atonement, there is a special annual atonement, at which a select

individual of the species is slain with extraordinary marks of

respect and devotion. Clearly the two types of sacramental

killing--the Egyptian and the Aino types, as we may call them for

distinction--are liable to be confounded by an observer; and, before

we can say to which type any particular example belongs, it is

necessary to ascertain whether the animal sacramentally slain

belongs to a species which is habitually spared, or to one which is

habitually killed by the tribe. In the former case the example

belongs to the Egyptian type of sacrament, in the latter to the Aino

type.

The practice of pastoral tribes appears to furnish examples of both

types of sacrament. "Pastoral tribes," says Adolf Bastian, "being

sometimes obliged to sell their herds to strangers who may handle

the bones disrespectfully, seek to avert the danger which such a

sacrilege would entail by consecrating one of the herd as an object

of worship, eating it sacramentally in the family circle with closed

doors, and afterwards treating the bones with all the ceremonious

respect which, strictly speaking, should be accorded to every head

of cattle, but which, being punctually paid to the representative

animal, is deemed to be paid to all. Such family meals are found

among various peoples, especially those of the Caucasus. When

amongst the Abchases the shepherds in spring eat their common meal

with their loins girt and their staves in their hands, this may be

looked upon both as a sacrament and as an oath of mutual help and

support. For the strongest of all oaths is that which is accompanied

with the eating of a sacred substance, since the perjured person

cannot possibly escape the avenging god whom he has taken into his

body and assimilated." This kind of sacrament is of the Aino or

expiatory type, since it is meant to atone to the species for the

possible ill-usage of individuals. An expiation, similar in

principle but different in details, is offered by the Kalmucks to

the sheep, whose flesh is one of their staple foods. Rich Kalmucks

are in the habit of consecrating a white ram under the title of "the

ram of heaven" or "the ram of the spirit." The animal is never shorn

and never sold; but when it grows old and its owner wishes to

consecrate a new one, the old ram must be killed and eaten at a

feast to which the neighbours are invited. On a lucky day, generally

in autumn when the sheep are fat, a sorcerer kills the old ram,

after sprinkling it with milk. Its flesh is eaten; the skeleton,

with a portion of the fat, is burned on a turf altar; and the skin,

with the head and feet, is hung up.

An example of a sacrament of the Egyptian type is furnished by the

Todas, a pastoral people of Southern India, who subsist largely upon

the milk of their buffaloes. Amongst them "the buffalo is to a

certain degree held sacred" and "is treated with great kindness,

even with a degree of adoration, by the people." They never eat the

flesh of the cow buffalo, and as a rule abstain from the flesh of

the male. But to the latter rule there is a single exception. Once a

year all the adult males of the village join in the ceremony of

killing and eating a very young male calf--seemingly under a month

old. They take the animal into the dark recesses of the village

wood, where it is killed with a club made from the sacred tree of

the Todas (the _Millingtonia_). A sacred fire having been made by

the rubbing of sticks, the flesh of the calf is roasted on the

embers of certain trees, and is eaten by the men alone, women being

excluded from the assembly. This is the only occasion on which the

Todas eat buffalo flesh. The Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa,

whose chief wealth is their cattle, though they also practise

agriculture, appear to kill a lamb sacramentally on certain solemn

occasions. The custom is thus described by Dr. Felkin: "A remarkable

custom is observed at stated times--once a year, I am led to

believe. I have not been able to ascertain what exact meaning is

attached to it. It appears, however, to relieve the people's minds,

for beforehand they evince much sadness, and seem very joyful when

the ceremony is duly accomplished. The following is what takes

place: A large concourse of people of all ages assemble, and sit

down round a circle of stones, which is erected by the side of a

road (really a narrow path). A very choice lamb is then fetched by a

boy, who leads it four times round the assembled people. As it

passes they pluck off little bits of its fleece and place them in

their hair, or on to some other part of their body. The lamb is then

led up to the stones, and there killed by a man belonging to a kind

of priestly order, who takes some of the blood and sprinkles it four

times over the people. He then applies it individually. On the

children he makes a small ring of blood over the lower end of the

breast bone, on women and girls he makes a mark above the breasts,

and the men he touches on each shoulder. He then proceeds to explain

the ceremony, and to exhort the people to show kindness. . . . When

this discourse, which is at times of great length, is over, the

people rise, each places a leaf on or by the circle of stones, and

then they depart with signs of great joy. The lamb's skull is hung

on a tree near the stones, and its flesh is eaten by the poor. This

ceremony is observed on a small scale at other times. If a family is

in any great trouble, through illness or bereavement, their friends

and neighbours come together and a lamb is killed; this is thought

to avert further evil. The same custom prevails at the grave of

departed friends, and also on joyful occasions, such as the return

of a son home after a very prolonged absence." The sorrow thus

manifested by the people at the annual slaughter of the lamb seems

to show that the lamb slain is a sacred or divine animal, whose

death is mourned by his worshippers, just as the death of the sacred

buzzard was mourned by the Californians and the death of the Theban

ram by the Egyptians. The smearing each of the worshippers with the

blood of the lamb is a form of communion with the divinity; the

vehicle of the divine life is applied externally instead of being

taken internally, as when the blood is drunk or the flesh eaten.

2. Processions with Sacred Animals

THE FORM of communion in which the sacred animal is taken from house

to house, that all may enjoy a share of its divine influence, has

been exemplified by the Gilyak custom of promenading the bear

through the village before it is slain. A similar form of communion

with the sacred snake is observed by a Snake tribe in the Punjaub.

Once a year in the month of September the snake is worshipped by all

castes and religions for nine days only. At the end of August the

Mirasans, especially those of the Snake tribe, make a snake of dough

which they paint black and red, and place on a winnowing basket.

This basket they carry round the village, and on entering any house

they say: "God be with you all! May every ill be far! May our

patron's (Gugga's) word thrive!" Then they present the basket with

the snake, saying: "A small cake of flour: a little bit of butter:

if you obey the snake, you and yours shall thrive!" Strictly

speaking, a cake and butter should be given, but it is seldom done.

Every one, however, gives something, generally a handful of dough or

some corn. In houses where there is a new bride or whence a bride

has gone, or where a son has been born, it is usual to give a rupee

and a quarter, or some cloth. Sometimes the bearers of the snake

also sing:

"Give the snake a piece of cloth, and he will send a lively bride!"

When every house has been thus visited, the dough snake is buried

and a small grave is erected over it. Thither during the nine days

of September the women come to worship. They bring a basin of curds,

a small portion of which they offer at the snake's grave, kneeling

on the ground and touching the earth with their foreheads. Then they

go home and divide the rest of the curds among the children. Here

the dough snake is clearly a substitute for a real snake. Indeed, in

districts where snakes abound the worship is offered, not at the

grave of the dough snake, but in the jungles where snakes are known

to be. Besides this yearly worship, performed by all the people, the

members of the Snake tribe worship in the same way every morning

after a new moon. The Snake tribe is not uncommon in the Punjaub.

Members of it will not kill a snake, and they say that its bite does

not hurt them. If they find a dead snake, they put clothes on it and

give it a regular funeral.

Ceremonies closely analogous to this Indian worship of the snake

have survived in Europe into recent times, and doubtless date from a

very primitive paganism. The best-known example is the "hunting of

the wren." By many European peoples--the ancient Greeks and Romans,

the modern Italians, Spaniards, French, Germans, Dutch, Danes,

Swedes, English, and Welsh--the wren has been designated the king,

the little king, the king of birds, the hedge king, and so forth,

and has been reckoned amongst those birds which it is extremely

unlucky to kill. In England it is supposed that if any one kills a

wren or harries its nest, he will infallibly break a bone or meet

with some dreadful misfortune within the year; sometimes it is

thought that the cows will give bloody milk. In Scotland the wren is

called "the Lady of Heaven's hen," and boys say:

"Malisons, malisons, mair than ten,

That harry the Ladye of Heaven's hen!"

At Saint Donan, in Brittany, people believe that if children touch

the young wrens in the nest, they will suffer from the fire of St.

Lawrence, that is, from pimples on the face, legs, and so on. In

other parts of France it is thought that if a person kills a wren or

harries its nest, his house will be struck by lightning, or that the

fingers with which he did the deed will shrivel up and drop off, or

at least be maimed, or that his cattle will suffer in their feet.

Notwithstanding such beliefs, the custom of annually killing the

wren has prevailed widely both in this country and in France. In the

Isle of Man down to the eighteenth century the custom was observed

on Christmas Eve, or rather Christmas morning. On the twenty-fourth

of December, towards evening, all the servants got a holiday; they

did not go to bed all night, but rambled about till the bells rang

in all the churches at midnight. When prayers were over, they went

to hunt the wren, and having found one of these birds they killed it

and fastened it to the top of a long pole with its wings extended.

Thus they carried it in procession to every house chanting the

following rhyme:

"We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin,

We hunted the wren for Jack of the Can,

We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin,

We hunted the wren for every one."

When they had gone from house to house and collected all the money

they could, they laid the wren on a bier and carried it in

procession to the parish churchyard, where they made a grave and

buried it "with the utmost solemnity, singing dirges over her in the

Manks language, which they call her knell; after which Christmas

begins." The burial over, the company outside the churchyard formed

a circle and danced to music.

A writer of the eighteenth century says that in Ireland the wren "is

still hunted and killed by the peasants on Christmas Day, and on the

following (St. Stephen's Day) he is carried about, hung by the leg,

in the centre of two hoops, crossing each other at right angles, and

a procession made in every village, of men, women, and children,

singing an Irish catch, importing him to be the king of all birds."

Down to the present time the "hunting of the wren" still takes place

in parts of Leinster and Connaught. On Christmas Day or St.

Stephen's Day the boys hunt and kill the wren, fasten it in the

middle of a mass of holly and ivy on the top of a broomstick, and on

St. Stephen's Day go about with it from house to house, singing:

"The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,

St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze;

Although he is little, his family's great,

I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat."

Money or food (bread, butter, eggs, etc.) were given them, upon

which they feasted in the evening.

In the first half of the nineteenth century similar customs were

still observed in various parts of the south of France. Thus at

Carcassone, every year on the first Sunday of December the young

people of the street Saint Jean used to go out of the town armed

with sticks, with which they beat the bushes, looking for wrens. The

first to strike down one of these birds was proclaimed King. Then

they returned to the town in procession, headed by the King, who

carried the wren on a pole. On the evening of the last day of the

year the King and all who had hunted the wren marched through the

streets of the town to the light of torches, with drums beating and

fifes playing in front of them. At the door of every house they

stopped, and one of them wrote with chalk on the door _vive le roi!_

with the number of the year which was about to begin. On the morning

of Twelfth Day the King again marched in procession with great pomp,

wearing a crown and a blue mantle and carrying a sceptre. In front

of him was borne the wren fastened to the top of a pole, which was

adorned with a verdant wreath of olive, of oak, and sometimes of

mistletoe grown on an oak. After hearing high mass in the parish

church of St. Vincent, surrounded by his officers and guards, the

King visited the bishop, the mayor, the magistrates, and the chief

inhabitants, collecting money to defray the expenses of the royal

banquet which took place in the evening and wound up with a dance.

The parallelism between this custom of "hunting the wren" and some

of those which we have considered, especially the Gilyak procession

with the bear, and the Indian one with the snake, seems too close to

allow us to doubt that they all belong to the same circle of ideas.

The worshipful animal is killed with special solemnity once a year;

and before or immediately after death he is promenaded from door to

door, that each of his worshippers may receive a portion of the

divine virtues that are supposed to emanate from the dead or dying

god. Religious processions of this sort must have had a great place

in the ritual of European peoples in prehistoric times, if we may

judge from the numerous traces of them which have survived in

folk-custom. For example, on the last day of the year, or Hogmanay

as it was called, it used to be customary in the Highlands of

Scotland for a man to dress himself up in a cow's hide and thus

attired to go from house to house, attended by young fellows, each

of them armed with a staff, to which a bit of raw hide was tied.

Round every house the hide-clad man used to run thrice _deiseal,_

that is, according to the course of the sun, so as to keep the house

on his right hand; while the others pursued him, beating the hide

with their staves and thereby making a loud noise like the beating

of a drum. In this disorderly procession they also struck the walls

of the house. On being admitted, one of the party, standing within

the threshold, pronounced a blessing on the family in these words:

"May God bless the house and all that belongs to it, cattle, stones,

and timber! In plenty of meat, of bed and body clothes, and health

of men may it ever abound!" Then each of the party singed in the

fire a little bit of the hide which was tied to his staff; and

having done so he applied the singed hide to the nose of every

person and of every domestic animal belonging to the house. This was

imagined to secure them from diseases and other misfortunes,

particularly from witchcraft, throughout the ensuing year. The whole

ceremony was called _calluinn_ because of the great noise made in

beating the hide. It was observed in the Hebrides, including St.

Kilda, down to the second half of the eighteenth century at least,

and it seems to have survived well into the nineteenth century.

LV. The Transference of Evil

1. The Transference to Inanimate Objects

WE have now traced the practice of killing a god among peoples in

the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages of society; and I

have attempted to explain the motives which led men to adopt so

curious a custom. One aspect of the custom still remains to be

noticed. The accumulated misfortunes and sins of the whole people

are sometimes laid upon the dying god, who is supposed to bear them

away for ever, leaving the people innocent and happy. The notion

that we can transfer our guilt and sufferings to some other being

who will bear them for us is familiar to the savage mind. It arises

from a very obvious confusion between the physical and the mental,

between the material and the immaterial. Because it is possible to

shift a load of wood, stones, or what not, from our own back to the

back of another, the savage fancies that it is equally possible to

shift the burden of his pains and sorrows to another, who will

suffer them in his stead. Upon this idea he acts, and the result is

an endless number of very unamiable devices for palming off upon

some one else the trouble which a man shrinks from bearing himself.

In short, the principle of vicarious suffering is commonly

understood and practised by races who stand on a low level of social

and intellectual culture. In the following pages I shall illustrate

the theory and the practice as they are found among savages in all

their naked simplicity, undisguised by the refinements of

metaphysics and the subtleties of theology.

The devices to which the cunning and selfish savage resorts for the

sake of easing himself at the expense of his neighbour are manifold;

only a few typical examples out of a multitude can be cited. At the

outset it is to be observed that the evil of which a man seeks to

rid himself need not be transferred to a person; it may equally well

be transferred to an animal or a thing, though in the last case the

thing is often only a vehicle to convey the trouble to the first

person who touches it. In some of the East Indian islands they think

that epilepsy can be cured by striking the patient on the face with

the leaves of certain trees and then throwing them away. The disease

is believed to have passed into the leaves, and to have been thrown

away with them. To cure toothache some of the Australian blacks

apply a heated spear-thrower to the cheek. The spear-thrower is then

cast away, and the toothache goes with it in the shape of a black

stone called _karriitch._ Stones of this kind are found in old

mounds and sandhills. They are carefully collected and thrown in the

direction of enemies in order to give them toothache. The Bahima, a

pastoral people of Uganda, often suffer from deep-seated abscesses:

"their cure for this is to transfer the disease to some other person

by obtaining herbs from the medicine-man, rubbing them over the

place where the swelling is, and burying them in the road where

people continually pass; the first person who steps over these

buried herbs contracts the disease, and the original patient

recovers."

Sometimes in case of sickness the malady is transferred to an effigy

as a preliminary to passing it on to a human being. Thus among the

Baganda the medicine-man would sometimes make a model of his patient

in clay; then a relative of the sick man would rub the image over

the sufferer's body and either bury it in the road or hide it in the

grass by the wayside. The first person who stepped over the image or

passed by it would catch the disease. Sometimes the effigy was made

out of a plantain-flower tied up so as to look like a person; it was

used in the same way as the clay figure. But the use of images for

this maleficent purpose was a capital crime; any person caught in

the act of burying one of them in the public road would surely have

been put to death.

In the western district of the island of Timor, when men or women

are making long and tiring journeys, they fan themselves with leafy

branches, which they afterwards throw away on particular spots where

their forefathers did the same before them. The fatigue which they

felt is thus supposed to have passed into the leaves and to be left

behind. Others use stones instead of leaves. Similarly in the Babar

Archipelago tired people will strike themselves with stones,

believing that they thus transfer to the stones the weariness which

they felt in their own bodies. They then throw away the stones in

places which are specially set apart for the purpose. A like belief

and practice in many distant parts of the world have given rise to

those cairns or heaps of sticks and leaves which travellers often

observe beside the path, and to which every passing native adds his

contribution in the shape of a stone, or stick, or leaf. Thus in the

Solomon and Banks' Islands the natives are wont to throw sticks,

stones, or leaves upon a heap at a place of steep descent, or where

a difficult path begins, saying, "There goes my fatigue." The act is

not a religious rite, for the thing thrown on the heap is not an

offering to spiritual powers, and the words which accompany the act

are not a prayer. It is nothing but a magical ceremony for getting

rid of fatigue, which the simple savage fancies he can embody in a

stick, leaf, or stone, and so cast it from him.

2. The Transference to Animals

ANIMALS are often employed as a vehicle for carrying away or

transferring the evil. When a Moor has a headache he will sometimes

take a lamb or a goat and beat it till it falls down, believing that

the headache will thus be transferred to the animal. In Morocco most

wealthy Moors keep a wild boar in their stables, in order that the

jinn and evil spirits may be diverted from the horses and enter into

the boar. Amongst the Caffres of South Africa, when other remedies

have failed, "natives sometimes adopt the custom of taking a goat

into the presence of a sick man, and confess the sins of the kraal

over the animal. Sometimes a few drops of blood from the sick man

are allowed to fall on the head of the goat, which is turned out

into an uninhabited part of the veldt. The sickness is supposed to

be transferred to the animal, and to become lost in the desert." In

Arabia, when the plague is raging, the people will sometimes lead a

camel through all the quarters of the town in order that the animal

may take the pestilence on itself. Then they strangle it in a sacred

place and imagine that they have rid themselves of the camel and of

the plague at one blow. It is said that when smallpox is raging the

savages of Formosa will drive the demon of disease into a sow, then

cut off the animal's ears and burn them or it, believing that in

this way they rid themselves of the plague.

Amongst the Malagasy the vehicle for carrying away evils is called a

_faditra._ "The faditra is anything selected by the sikidy [divining

board] for the purpose of taking away any hurtful evils or diseases

that might prove injurious to an individual's happiness, peace, or

prosperity. The faditra may be either ashes, cut money, a sheep, a

pumpkin, or anything else the sikidy may choose to direct. After the

particular article is appointed, the priest counts upon it all the

evils that may prove injurious to the person for whom it is made,

and which he then charges the faditra to take away for ever. If the

faditra be ashes, it is blown, to be carried away by the wind. If it

be cut money, it is thrown to the bottom of deep water, or where it

can never be found. If it be a sheep, it is carried away to a

distance on the shoulders of a man, who runs with all his might,

mumbling as he goes, as if in the greatest rage against the faditra,

for the evils it is bearing away. If it be a pumpkin, it is carried

on the shoulders to a little distance, and there dashed upon the

ground with every appearance of fury and indignation." A Malagasy

was informed by a diviner that he was doomed to a bloody death, but

that possibly he might avert his fate by performing a certain rite.

Carrying a small vessel full of blood upon his head, he was to mount

upon the back of a bullock; while thus mounted, he was to spill the

blood upon the bullock's head, and then send the animal away into

the wilderness, whence it might never return.

The Bataks of Sumatra have a ceremony which they call "making the

curse to fly away." When a woman is childless, a sacrifice is

offered to the gods of three grasshoppers, representing a head of

cattle, a buffalo, and a horse. Then a swallow is set free, with a

prayer that the curse may fall upon the bird and fly away with it.

"The entrance into a house of an animal which does not generally

seek to share the abode of man is regarded by the Malays as ominous

of misfortune. If a wild bird flies into a house, it must be

carefully caught and smeared with oil, and must then be released in

the open air, a formula being recited in which it is bidden to fly

away with all the ill-luck and misfortunes of the occupier." In

antiquity Greek women seem to have done the same with swallows which

they caught in the house: they poured oil on them and let them fly

away, apparently for the purpose of removing ill-luck from the

household. The Huzuls of the Carpathians imagine that they can

transfer freckles to the first swallow they see in spring by washing

their face in flowing water and saying, "Swallow, swallow, take my

freckles, and give me rosy cheeks."

Among the Badagas of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern India, when a

death has taken place, the sins of the deceased are laid upon a

buffalo calf. For this purpose the people gather round the corpse

and carry it outside of the village. There an elder of the tribe,

standing at the head of the corpse, recites or chants a long list of

sins such as any Badaga may commit, and the people repeat the last

word of each line after him. The confession of sins is thrice

repeated. "By a conventional mode of expression, the sum total of

sins a man may do is said to be thirteen hundred. Admitting that the

deceased has committed them all, the performer cries aloud, 'Stay

not their flight to God's pure feet.' As he closes, the whole

assembly chants aloud 'Stay not their flight.' Again the performer

enters into details, and cries, 'He killed the crawling snake. It is

a sin.' In a moment the last word is caught up, and all the people

cry 'It is a sin.' As they shout, the performer lays his hand upon

the calf. The sin is transferred to the calf. Thus the whole

catalogue is gone through in this impressive way. But this is not

enough. As the last shout 'Let all be well' dies away, the performer

gives place to another, and again confession is made, and all the

people shout 'It is a sin.' A third time it is done. Then, still in

solemn silence, the calf is let loose. Like the Jewish scapegoat, it

may never be used for secular work." At a Badaga funeral witnessed

by the Rev. A. C. Clayton the buffalo calf was led thrice round the

bier, and the dead man's hand was laid on its head. "By this act,

the calf was supposed to receive all the sins of the deceased. It

was then driven away to a great distance, that it might contaminate

no one, and it was said that it would never be sold, but looked on

as a dedicated sacred animal." The idea of this ceremony is, that

the sins of the deceased enter the calf, or that the task of his

absolution is laid on it. They say that the calf very soon

disappears, and that it is never heard of."

3. The Transference to Men

AGAIN, men sometimes play the part of scapegoat by diverting to

themselves the evils that threaten others. When a Cingalese is

dangerously ill, and the physicians can do nothing, a devil-dancer

is called in, who by making offerings to the devils, and dancing in

the masks appropriate to them, conjures these demons of disease, one

after the other, out of the sick man's body and into his own. Having

thus successfully extracted the cause of the malady, the artful

dancer lies down on a bier, and shamming death is carried to an open

place outside the village. Here, being left to himself, he soon

comes to life again, and hastens back to claim his reward. In 1590 a

Scotch which of the name of Agnes Sampson was convicted of curing a

certain Robert Kers of a disease "laid upon him by a westland

warlock when he was at Dumfries, whilk sickness she took upon

herself, and kept the same with great groaning and torment till the

morn, at whilk time there was a great din heard in the house." The

noise was made by the witch in her efforts to shift the disease, by

means of clothes, from herself to a cat or dog. Unfortunately the

attempt partly miscarried. The disease missed the animal and hit

Alexander Douglas of Dalkeith, who dwined and died of it, while the

original patient, Robert Kers, was made whole.

"In one part of New Zealand an expiation for sin was felt to be

necessary; a service was performed over an individual, by which all

the sins of the tribe were supposed to be transferred to him, a fern

stalk was previously tied to his person, with which he jumped into

the river, and there unbinding, allowed it to float away to the sea,

bearing their sins with it." In great emergencies the sins of the

Rajah of Manipur used to be transferred to somebody else, usually to

a criminal, who earned his pardon by his vicarious sufferings. To

effect the transference the Rajah and his wife, clad in fine robes,

bathed on a scaffold erected in the bazaar, while the criminal

crouched beneath it. With the water which dripped from them on him

their sins also were washed away and fell on the human scapegoat. To

complete the transference the Rajah and his wife made over their

fine robes to their substitute, while they themselves, clad in new

raiment, mixed with the people till evening. In Travancore, when a

Rajah is near his end, they seek out a holy Brahman, who consents to

take upon himself the sins of the dying man in consideration of the

sum of ten thousand rupees. Thus prepared to immolate himself on the

altar of duty, the saint is introduced into the chamber of death,

and closely embraces the dying Rajah, saying to him, "O King, I

undertake to bear all your sins and diseases. May your Highness live

long and reign happily." Having thus taken to himself the sins of

the sufferer, he is sent away from the country and never more

allowed to return. At Utch Kurgan in Turkestan Mr. Schuyler saw an

old man who was said to get his living by taking on himself the sins

of the dead, and thenceforth devoting his life to prayer for their

souls.

In Uganda, when an army had returned from war, and the gods warned

the king by their oracles that some evil had attached itself to the

soldiers, it was customary to pick out a woman slave from the

captives, together with a cow, a goat, a fowl, and a dog from the

booty, and to send them back under a strong guard to the borders of

the country from which they had come. There their limbs were broken

and they were left to die; for they were too crippled to crawl back

to Uganda. In order to ensure the transference of the evil to these

substitutes, bunches of grass were rubbed over the people and cattle

and then tied to the victims. After that the army was pronounced

clean and was allowed to return to the capital. So on his accession

a new king of Uganda used to wound a man and send him away as a

scapegoat to Bunyoro to carry away any uncleanliness that might

attach to the king or queen.

4. The Transference of Evil in Europe

THE EXAMPLES of the transference of evil hitherto adduced have been

mostly drawn from the customs of savage or barbarous peoples. But

similar attempts to shift the burden of disease, misfortune, and sin

from one's self to another person, or to an animal or thing, have

been common also among the civilised nations of Europe, both in

ancient and modern times. A Roman cure for fever was to pare the

patient's nails, and stick the parings with wax on a neighbour's

door before sunrise; the fever then passed from the sick man to his

neighbour. Similar devices must have been resorted to by the Greeks;

for in laying down laws for his ideal state, Plato thinks it too

much to expect that men should not be alarmed at finding certain wax

figures adhering to their doors or to the tombstones of their

parents, or lying at cross-roads. In the fourth century of our era

Marcellus of Bordeaux prescribed a cure for warts, which has still a

great vogue among the superstitious in various parts of Europe. You

are to touch your warts with as many little stones as you have

warts; then wrap the stones in an ivy leaf, and throw them away in a

thoroughfare. Whoever picks them up will get the warts, and you will

be rid of them. People in the Orkney Islands will sometimes wash a

sick man, and then throw the water down at a gateway, in the belief

that the sickness will leave the patient and be transferred to the

first person who passes through the gate. A Bavarian cure for fever

is to write upon a piece of paper, "Fever, stay away, I am not at

home," and to put the paper in somebody's pocket. The latter then

catches the fever, and the patient is rid of it. A Bohemian

prescription for the same malady is this. Take an empty pot, go with

it to a cross-road, throw it down, and run away. The first person

who kicks against the pot will catch your fever, and you will be

cured.

Often in Europe, as among savages, an attempt is made to transfer a

pain or malady from a man to an animal. Grave writers of antiquity

recommended that, if a man be stung by a scorpion, he should sit

upon an ass with his face to the tail, or whisper in the animal's

ear, "A scorpion has stung me"; in either case, they thought, the

pain would be transferred from the man to the ass. Many cures of

this sort are recorded by Marcellus. For example, he tells us that

the following is a remedy for toothache. Standing booted under the

open sky on the ground, you catch a frog by the head, spit into its

mouth, ask it to carry away the ache, and then let it go. But the

ceremony must be performed on a lucky day and at a lucky hour. In

Cheshire the ailment known as aphtha or thrush, which affects the

mouth or throat of infants, is not uncommonly treated in much the

same manner. A young frog is held for a few moments with its head

inside the mouth of the sufferer, whom it is supposed to relieve by

taking the malady to itself. "I assure you," said an old woman who

had often superintended such a cure, "we used to hear the poor frog

whooping and coughing, mortal bad, for days after; it would have

made your heart ache to hear the poor creature coughing as it did

about the garden." A Northamptonshire, Devonshire, and Welsh cure

for a cough is to put a hair of the patient's head between two

slices of buttered bread and give the sandwich to a dog. The animal

will thereupon catch the cough and the patient will lose it.

Sometimes an ailment is transferred to an animal by sharing food

with it. Thus in Oldenburg, if you are sick of a fever you set a

bowl of sweet milk before a dog and say, "Good luck, you hound! may

you be sick and I be sound!" Then when the dog has lapped some of

the milk, you take a swig at the bowl; and then the dog must lap

again, and then you must swig again; and when you and the dog have

done it the third time, he will have the fever and you will be quit

of it.

A Bohemian cure for fever is to go out into the forest before the

sun is up and look for a snipe's nest. When you have found it, take

out one of the young birds and keep it beside you for three days.

Then go back into the wood and set the snipe free. The fever will

leave you at once. The snipe has taken it away. So in Vedic times

the Hindoos of old sent consumption away with a blue jay. They said,

"O consumption, fly away, fly away with the blue jay! With the wild

rush of the storm and the whirlwind, oh, vanish away!" In the

village of Llandegla in Wales there is a church dedicated to the

virgin martyr St. Tecla, where the falling sickness is, or used to

be, cured by being transferred to a fowl. The patient first washed

his limbs in a sacred well hard by, dropped fourpence into it as an

offering, walked thrice round the well, and thrice repeated the

Lord's prayer. Then the fowl, which was a cock or a hen according as

the patient was a man or a woman, was put into a basket and carried

round first the well and afterwards the church. Next the sufferer

entered the church and lay down under the communion table till break

of day. After that he offered sixpence and departed, leaving the

fowl in the church. If the bird died, the sickness was supposed to

have been transferred to it from the man or woman, who was now rid

of the disorder. As late as 1855 the old parish clerk of the village

remembered quite well to have seen the birds staggering about from

the effects of the fits which had been transferred to them.

Often the sufferer seeks to shift his burden of sickness or ill-luck

to some inanimate object. In Athens there is a little chapel of St.

John the Baptist built against an ancient column. Fever patients

resort thither, and by attaching a waxed thread to the inner side of

the column believe that they transfer the fever from themselves to

the pillar. In the Mark of Brandenburg they say that if you suffer

from giddiness you should strip yourself naked and run thrice round

a flax-field after sunset; in that way the flax will get the

giddiness and you will be rid of it.

But perhaps the thing most commonly employed in Europe as a

receptacle for sickness and trouble of all sorts is a tree or bush.

A Bulgarian cure for fever is to run thrice around a willow-tree at

sunrise, crying, "The fever shall shake thee, and the sun shall warm

me." In the Greek island of Karpathos the priest ties a red thread

round the neck of a sick person. Next morning the friends of the

patient remove the thread and go out to the hillside, where they tie

the thread to a tree, thinking that they thus transfer the sickness

to the tree. Italians attempt to cure fever in like manner by

tethering it to a tree The sufferer ties a thread round his left

wrist at night, and hangs the thread on a tree next morning. The

fever is thus believed to be tied up to the tree, and the patient to

be rid of it; but he must be careful not to pass by that tree again,

otherwise the fever would break loose from its bonds and attack him

afresh. A Flemish cure for the ague is to go early in the morning to

an old willow, tie three knots in one of its branches, say,

"Good-morrow, Old One, I give thee the cold; good-morrow, Old One,"

then turn and run away without looking round. In Sonnenberg, if you

would rid yourself of gout you should go to a young fir-tree and tie

a knot in one of its twigs, saying, "God greet thee, noble fir. I

bring thee my gout. Here will I tie a knot and bind my gout into it.

In the name," etc.

Another way of transferring gout from a man to a tree is this. Pare

the nails of the sufferer's fingers and clip some hairs from his

legs. Bore a hole in an oak, stuff the nails and hair in the hole,

stop up the hole again, and smear it with cow's dung. If, for three

months thereafter, the patient is free of gout, you may be sure the

oak has it in his stead. In Cheshire if you would be rid of warts,

you have only to rub them with a piece of bacon, cut a slit in the

bark of an ash-tree, and slip the bacon under the bark. Soon the

warts will disappear from your hand, only however to reappear in the

shape of rough excrescences or knobs on the bark of the tree. At

Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, there used to be certain oak-trees

which were long celebrated for the cure of ague. The transference of

the malady to the tree was simple but painful. A lock of the

sufferer's hair was pegged into an oak; then by a sudden wrench he

left his hair and his ague behind him in the tree.

LVI. The Public Expulsion of Evils

1. The Omnipresence of Demons

IN THE FOREGOING chapter the primitive principle of the transference

of ills to another person, animal, or thing was explained and

illustrated. But similar means have been adopted to free a whole

community from diverse evils that afflict it. Such attempts to

dismiss at once the accumulated sorrows of a people are by no means

rare or exceptional; on the contrary they have been made in many

lands, and from being occasional they tend to become periodic and

annual.

It needs some effort on our part to realise the frame of mind which

prompts these attempts. Bred in a philosophy which strips nature of

personality and reduces it to the unknown cause of an orderly series

of impressions on our senses, we find it hard to put ourselves in

the place of the savage, to whom the same impressions appear in the

guise of spirits or the handiwork of spirits. For ages the army of

spirits, once so near, has been receding farther and farther from

us, banished by the magic wand of science from hearth and home, from

ruined cell and ivied tower, from haunted glade and lonely mere,

from the riven murky cloud that belches forth the lightning, and

from those fairer clouds that pillow the silvery moon or fret with

flakes of burning red the golden eve. The spirits are gone even from

their last stronghold in the sky, whose blue arch no longer passes,

except with children, for the screen that hides from mortal eyes the

glories of the celestial world. Only in poets' dreams or impassioned

flights of oratory is it given to catch a glimpse of the last

flutter of the standards of the retreating host, to hear the beat of

their invisible wings, the sound of their mocking laughter, or the

swell of angel music dying away in the distance. Far otherwise is it

with the savage. To his imagination the world still teems with those

motley beings whom a more sober philosophy has discarded. Fairies

and goblins, ghosts and demons, still hover about him both waking

and sleeping. They dog his footsteps, dazzle his senses, enter into

him, harass and deceive and torment him in a thousand freakish and

mischievous ways. The mishaps that befall him, the losses he

sustains, the pains he has to endure, he commonly sets down, if not

to the magic of his enemies, to the spite or anger or caprice of the

spirits. Their constant presence wearies him, their sleepless

malignity exasperates him; he longs with an unspeakable longing to

be rid of them altogether, and from time to time, driven to bay, his

patience utterly exhausted, he turns fiercely on his persecutors and

makes a desperate effort to chase the whole pack of them from the

land, to clear the air of their swarming multitudes, that he may

breathe more freely and go on his way unmolested, at least for a

time. Thus it comes about that the endeavour of primitive people to

make a clean sweep of all their troubles generally takes the form of

a grand hunting out and expulsion of devils or ghosts. They think

that if they can only shake off these their accursed tormentors,

they will make a fresh start in life, happy and innocent; the tales

of Eden and the old poetic golden age will come true again.

2. The Occasional Expulsion of Evils

WE can therefore understand why those general clearances of evil, to

which from time to time the savage resorts, should commonly take the

form of a forcible expulsion of devils. In these evil spirits

primitive man sees the cause of many if not of most of his troubles,

and he fancies that if he can only deliver himself from them, things

will go better with him. The public attempts to expel the

accumulated ills of a whole community may be divided into two

classes, according as the expelled evils are immaterial and

invisible or are embodied in a material vehicle or scape-goat. The

former may be called the direct or immediate expulsion of evils; the

latter the indirect or mediate expulsion, or the expulsion by

scapegoat. We begin with examples of the former.

In the island of Rook, between New Guinea and New Britain, when any

misfortune has happened, all the people run together, scream, curse,

howl, and beat the air with sticks to drive away the devil, who is

supposed to be the author of the mishap. From the spot where the

mishap took place they drive him step by step to the sea, and on

reaching the shore they redouble their shouts and blows in order to

expel him from the island. He generally retires to the sea or to the

island of Lottin. The natives of New Britain ascribe sickness,

drought, the failure of crops, and in short all misfortunes, to the

influence of wicked spirits. So at times when many people sicken and

die, as at the beginning of the rainy season, all the inhabitants of

a district, armed with branches and clubs, go out by moonlight to

the fields, where they beat and stamp on the ground with wild howls

till morning, believing that this drives away the devils; and for

the same purpose they rush through the village with burning torches.

The natives of New Caledonia are said to believe that all evils are

caused by a powerful and malignant spirit; hence in order to rid

themselves of him they will from time to time dig a great pit, round

which the whole tribe gathers. After cursing the demon, they fill up

the pit with earth, and trample on the top with loud shouts. This

they call burying the evil spirit. Among the Dieri tribe of Central

Australia, when a serious illness occurs, the medicine-men expel

Cootchie or the devil by beating the ground in and outside of the

camp with the stuffed tail of a kangaroo, until they have chased the

demon away to some distance from the camp.

When a village has been visited by a series of disasters or a severe

epidemic, the inhabitants of Minahassa in Celebes lay the blame upon

the devils who are infesting the village and who must be expelled

from it. Accordingly, early one morning all the people, men, women,

and children, quit their homes, carrying their household goods with

them, and take up their quarters in temporary huts which have been

erected outside the village. Here they spend several days, offering

sacrifices and preparing for the final ceremony. At last the men,

some wearing masks, others with their faces blackened, and so on,

but all armed with swords, guns, pikes, or brooms, steal cautiously

and silently back to the deserted village. Then, at a signal from

the priest, they rush furiously up and down the streets and into and

under the houses (which are raised on piles above the ground),

yelling and striking on walls, doors, and windows, to drive away the

devils. Next, the priests and the rest of the people come with the

holy fire and march nine times round each house and thrice round the

ladder that leads up to it, carrying the fire with them. Then they

take the fire into the kitchen, where it must burn for three days

continuously. The devils are now driven away, and great and general

is the joy.

The Alfoors of Halmahera attribute epidemics to the devil who comes

from other villages to carry them off. So, in order to rid the

village of the disease, the sorcerer drives away the devil. From all

the villagers he receives a costly garment and places it on four

vessels, which he takes to the forest and leaves at the spot where

the devil is supposed to be. Then with mocking words he bids the

demon abandon the place. In the Kei Islands to the south-west of New

Guinea, the evil spirits, who are quite distinct from the souls of

the dead, form a mighty host. Almost every tree and every cave is

the lodging-place of one of these fiends, who are moreover extremely

irascible and apt to fly out on the smallest provocation. They

manifest their displeasure by sending sickness and other calamities.

Hence in times of public misfortune, as when an epidemic is raging,

and all other remedies have failed, the whole population go forth

with the priest at their head to a place at some distance from the

village. Here at sunset they erect a couple of poles with a

cross-bar between them, to which they attach bags of rice, wooden

models of pivot-guns, gongs, bracelets, and so on. Then, when

everybody has taken his place at the poles and a death-like silence

reigns, the priest lifts up his voice and addresses the spirits in

their own language as follows: "Ho! ho! ho! ye evil spirits who

dwell in the trees, ye evil spirits who live in the grottoes, ye

evil spirits who lodge in the earth, we give you these pivot-guns,

these gongs, etc. Let the sickness cease and not so many people die

of it." Then everybody runs home as fast as their legs can carry

them.

In the island of Nias, when a man is seriously ill and other

remedies have been tried in vain, the sorcerer proceeds to exorcise

the devil who is causing the illness. A pole is set up in front of

the house, and from the top of the pole a rope of palm-leaves is

stretched to the roof of the house. Then the sorcerer mounts the

roof with a pig, which he kills and allows to roll from the roof to

the ground. The devil, anxious to get the pig, lets himself down

hastily from the roof by the rope of palm-leaves, and a good spirit,

invoked by the sorcerer, prevents him from climbing up again. If

this remedy fails, it is believed that other devils must still be

lurking in the house. So a general hunt is made after them. All the

doors and windows in the house are closed, except a single

dormer-window in the roof. The men, shut up in the house, hew and

slash with their swords right and left to the clash of gongs and the

rub-a-dub of drums. Terrified at this onslaught, the devils escape

by the dormer-window, and sliding down the rope of palm-leaves take

themselves off. As all the doors and windows, except the one in the

roof, are shut, the devils cannot get into the house again. In the

case of an epidemic, the proceedings are similar. All the gates of

the village, except one, are closed; every voice is raised, every

gong and drum beaten, every sword brandished. Thus the devils are

driven out and the last gate is shut behind them. For eight days

thereafter the village is in a state of siege, no one being allowed

to enter it.

When cholera has broken out in a Burmese village the able-bodied men

scramble on the roofs and lay about them with bamboos and billets of

wood, while all the rest of the population, old and young, stand

below and thump drums, blow trumpets, yell, scream, beat floors,

walls, tin pans, everything to make a din. This uproar, repeated on

three successive nights, is thought to be very effective in driving

away the cholera demons. When smallpox first appeared amongst the

Kumis of South-Eastern India, they thought it was a devil come from

Aracan. The villages were placed in a state of siege, no one being

allowed to leave or enter them. A monkey was killed by being dashed

on the ground, and its body was hung at the village gate. Its blood,

mixed with small river pebbles, was sprinkled on the houses, the

threshold of every house was swept with the monkey's tail, and the

fiend was adjured to depart.

When an epidemic is raging on the Gold Coast of West Africa, the

people will sometimes turn out, armed with clubs and torches, to

drive the evil spirits away. At a given signal the whole population

begin with frightful yells to beat in every corner of the houses,

then rush like mad into the streets waving torches and striking

frantically in the empty air. The uproar goes on till somebody

reports that the cowed and daunted demons have made good their

escape by a gate of the town or village; the people stream out after

them, pursue them for some distance into the forest, and warn them

never to return. The expulsion of the devils is followed by a

general massacre of all the cocks in the village or town, lest by

their unseasonable crowing they should betray to the banished demons

the direction they must take to return to their old homes. When

sickness was prevalent in a Huron village, and all other remedies

had been tried in vain, the Indians had recourse to the ceremony

called _Lonouyroya,_ "which is the principal invention and most

proper means, so they say, to expel from the town or village the

devils and evil spirits which cause, induce, and import all the

maladies and infirmities which they suffer in body and mind."

Accordingly, one evening the men would begin to rush like madmen

about the village, breaking and upsetting whatever they came across

in the wigwams. They threw fire and burning brands about the

streets, and all night long they ran howling and singing without

cessation. Then they all dreamed of something, a knife, dog, skin,

or whatever it might be, and when morning came they went from wigwam

to wigwam asking for presents. These they received silently, till

the particular thing was given them which they had dreamed about. On

receiving it they uttered a cry of joy and rushed from the hut, amid

the congratulations of all present. The health of those who received

what they had dreamed of was believed to be assured; whereas those

who did not get what they had set their hearts upon regarded their

fate as sealed.

Sometimes, instead of chasing the demon of disease from their homes,

savages prefer to leave him in peaceable possession, while they

themselves take to flight and attempt to prevent him from following

in their tracks. Thus when the Patagonians were attacked by

small-pox, which they attributed to the machinations of an evil

spirit, they used to abandon their sick and flee, slashing the air

with their weapons and throwing water about in order to keep off the

dreadful pursuer; and when after several days' march they reached a

place where they hoped to be beyond his reach, they used by way of

precaution to plant all their cutting weapons with the sharp edges

turned towards the quarter from which they had come, as if they were

repelling a charge of cavalry. Similarly, when the Lules or

Tonocotes Indians of the Gran Chaco were attacked by an epidemic,

they regularly sought to evade it by flight, but in so doing they

always followed a sinuous, not a straight, course; because they said

that when the disease made after them he would be so exhausted by

the turnings and windings of the route that he would never be able

to come up with them. When the Indians of New Mexico were decimated

by smallpox or other infectious disease, they used to shift their

quarters every day, retreating into the most sequestered parts of

the mountains and choosing the thorniest thickets they could find,

in the hope that the smallpox would be too afraid of scratching

himself on the thorns to follow them. When some Chins on a visit to

Rangoon were attacked by cholera, they went about with drawn swords

to scare away the demon, and they spent the day hiding under bushes

so that he might not be able to find them.

3. The Periodic Expulsion of Evils

THE EXPULSION of evils, from being occasional, tends to become

periodic. It comes to be thought desirable to have a general

riddance of evil spirits at fixed times, usually once a year, in

order that the people may make a fresh start in life, freed from all

the malignant influences which have been long accumulating about

them. Some of the Australian blacks annually expelled the ghosts of

the dead from their territory. The ceremony was witnessed by the

Rev. W. Ridley on the banks of the River Barwan. "A chorus of

twenty, old and young, were singing and beating time with

boomerangs. . . . Suddenly, from under a sheet of bark darted a man

with his body whitened by pipeclay, his head and face coloured with

lines of red and yellow, and a tuft of feathers fixed by means of a

stick two feet above the crown of his head. He stood twenty minutes

perfectly still, gazing upwards. An aboriginal who stood by told me

he was looking for the ghosts of dead men. At last he began to move

very slowly, and soon rushed to and fro at full speed, flourishing a

branch as if to drive away some foes invisible to us. When I thought

this pantomime must be almost over, ten more, similarly adorned,

suddenly appeared from behind the trees, and the whole party joined

in a brisk conflict with their mysterious assailants. . . . At last,

after some rapid evolutions in which they put forth all their

strength, they rested from the exciting toil which they had kept up

all night and for some hours after sunrise; they seemed satisfied

that the ghosts were driven away for twelve months. They were

performing the same ceremony at every station along the river, and I

am told it is an annual custom."

Certain seasons of the year mark themselves naturally out as

appropriate moments for a general expulsion of devils. Such a moment

occurs towards the close of an Arctic winter, when the sun reappears

on the horizon after an absence of weeks or months. Accordingly, at

Point Barrow, the most northerly extremity of Alaska, and nearly of

America, the Esquimaux choose the moment of the sun's reappearance

to hunt the mischievous spirit Tuña from every house. The ceremony

was witnessed by the members of the United States Polar Expedition,

who wintered at Point Barrow. A fire was built in front of the

council-house, and an old woman was posted at the entrance to every

house. The men gathered round the council-house while the young

women and girls drove the spirit out of every house with their

knives, stabbing viciously under the bunk and deer-skins, and

calling upon Tuña to be gone. When they thought he had been driven

out of every hole and corner, they thrust him down through the hole

in the floor and chased him into the open air with loud cries and

frantic gestures. Meanwhile the old woman at the entrance of the

house made passes with a long knife in the air to keep him from

returning. Each party drove the spirit towards the fire and invited

him to go into it. All were by this time drawn up in a semicircle

round the fire, when several of the leading men made specific

charges against the spirit; and each after his speech brushed his

clothes violently, calling on the spirit to leave him and go into

the fire. Two men now stepped forward with rifles loaded with blank

cartridges, while a third brought a vessel of urine and flung it on

the flames. At the same time one of the men fired a shot into the

fire; and as the cloud of steam rose it received the other shot,

which was supposed to finish Tunña for the time being.

In late autumn, when storms rage over the land and break the icy

fetters by which the frozen sea is as yet but slightly bound, when

the loosened floes are driven against each other and break with loud

crashes, and when the cakes of ice are piled in wild disorder one

upon another, the Esquimaux of Baffin Land fancy they hear the

voices of the spirits who people the mischief-laden air. Then the

ghosts of the dead knock wildly at the huts, which they cannot

enter, and woe to the hapless wight whom they catch; he soon sickens

and dies. Then the phantom of a huge hairless dog pursues the real

dogs, which expire in convulsions and cramps at sight of him. All

the countless spirits of evil are abroad striving to bring sickness

and death, foul weather and failure in hunting on the Esquimaux.

Most dreaded of all these spectral visitants are Sedna, mistress of

the nether world, and her father, to whose share dead Esquimaux

fall. While the other spirits fill the air and the water, she rises

from under ground. It is then a busy season for the wizards. In

every house you may hear them singing and praying, while they

conjure the spirits, seated in a mystic gloom at the back of the

hut, which is dimly lit by a lamp burning low. The hardest task of

all is to drive away Sedna, and this is reserved for the most

powerful enchanter. A rope is coiled on the floor of a large hut in

such a way as to leave a small opening at the top, which represents

the breathing hole of a seal. Two enchanters stand beside it, one of

them grasping a spear as if he were watching a seal-hole in winter,

the other holding the harpoon-line. A third sorcerer sits at the

back of the hut chanting a magic song to lure Sedna to the spot. Now

she is heard approaching under the floor of the hut, breathing

heavily; now she emerges at the hole; now she is harpooned and sinks

away in angry haste, dragging the harpoon with her, while the two

men hold on to the line with all their might. The struggle is

severe, but at last by a desperate wrench she tears herself away and

returns to her dwelling in Adlivun. When the harpoon is drawn up out

of the hole it is found to be splashed with blood, which the

enchanters proudly exhibit as a proof of their prowess. Thus Sedna

and the other evil spirits are at last driven away, and next day a

great festival is celebrated by old and young in honour of the

event. But they must still be cautious, for the wounded Sedna is

furious and will seize any one she may find outside of his hut; so

they all wear amulets on the top of their hoods to protect

themselves against her. These amulets consist of pieces of the first

garments that they wore after birth.

The Iroquois inaugurated the new year in January, February, or March

(the time varied) with a "festival of dreams" like that which the

Hurons observed on special occasions. The whole ceremonies lasted

several days, or even weeks, and formed a kind of saturnalia. Men

and women, variously disguised, went from wigwam to wigwam smashing

and throwing down whatever they came across. It was a time of

general license; the people were supposed to be out of their senses,

and therefore not to be responsible for what they did. Accordingly,

many seized the opportunity of paying off old scores by belabouring

obnoxious persons, drenching them with ice-cold water, and covering

them with filth or hot ashes. Others seized burning brands or coals

and flung them at the heads of the first persons they met. The only

way of escaping from these persecutors was to guess what they had

dreamed of. On one day of the festival the ceremony of driving away

evil spirits from the village took place. Men clothed in the skins

of wild beasts, their faces covered with hideous masks, and their

hands with the shell of the tortoise, went from hut to hut making

frightful noises; in every hut they took the fuel from the fire and

scattered the embers and ashes about the floor with their hands. The

general confession of sins which preceded the festival was probably

a preparation for the public expulsion of evil influences; it was a

way of stripping the people of their moral burdens, that these might

be collected and cast out.

In September the Incas of Peru celebrated a festival called Situa,

the object of which was to banish from the capital and its vicinity

all disease and trouble. The festival fell in September because the

rains begin about this time, and with the first rains there was

generally much sickness. As a preparation for the festival the

people fasted on the first day of the moon after the autumnal

equinox. Having fasted during the day, and the night being come,

they baked a coarse paste of maize. This paste was made of two

sorts. One was kneaded with the blood of children aged from five to

ten years, the blood being obtained by bleeding the children between

the eyebrows. These two kinds of paste were baked separately,

because they were for different uses. Each family assembled at the

house of the eldest brother to celebrate the feast; and those who

had no elder brother went to the house of their next relation of

greater age. On the same night all who had fasted during the day

washed their bodies, and taking a little of the blood-kneaded paste,

rubbed it over their head, face, breast, shoulders, arms and legs.

They did this in order that the paste might take away all their

infirmities. After this the head of the family anointed the

threshold with the same paste, and left it there as a token that the

inmates of the house had performed their ablutions and cleansed

their bodies. Meantime the High Priest performed the same ceremonies

in the temple of the Sun. As soon as the Sun rose, all the people

worshipped and besought him to drive all evils out of the city, and

then they broke their fast with the paste that had been kneaded

without blood. When they had paid their worship and broken their

fast, which they did at a stated hour, in order that all might adore

the Sun as one man, an Inca of the blood royal came forth from the

fortress, as a messenger of the Sun, richly dressed, with his mantle

girded round his body, and a lance in his hand. The lance was decked

with feathers of many hues, extending from the blade to the socket,

and fastened with rings of gold. He ran down the hill from the

fortress brandishing his lance, till he reached the centre of the

great square, where stood the golden urn, like a fountain, that was

used for the sacrifice of the fermented juice of the maize. Here

four other Incas of the blood royal awaited him, each with a lance

in his hand, and his mantle girded up to run. The messenger touched

their four lances with his lance, and told them that the Sun bade

them, as his messengers, drive the evils out of the city. The four

Incas then separated and ran down the four royal roads which led out

of the city to the four quarters of the world. While they ran, all

the people, great and small, came to the doors of their houses, and

with great shouts of joy and gladness shook their clothes, as if

they were shaking off dust, while they cried, "Let the evils be

gone. How greatly desired has this festival been by us. O Creator of

all things, permit us to reach another year, that we may see another

feast like this." After they had shaken their clothes, they passed

their hands over their heads, faces, arms, and legs, as if in the

act of washing. All this was done to drive the evils out of their

houses, that the messengers of the Sun might banish them from the

city; and it was done not only in the streets through which the

Incas ran, but generally in all quarters of the city. Moreover, they

all danced, the Inca himself amongst them, and bathed in the rivers

and fountains, saying that their maladies would come out of them.

Then they took great torches of straw, bound round with cords. These

they lighted, and passed from one to the other, striking each other

with them, and saying, "Let all harm go away." Meanwhile the runners

ran with their lances for a quarter of a league outside the city,

where they found four other Incas ready, who received the lances

from their hands and ran with them. Thus the lances were carried by

relays of runners for a distance of five or six leagues, at the end

of which the runners washed themselves and their weapons in rivers,

and set up the lances, in sign of a boundary within which the

banished evils might not return.

The negroes of Guinea annually banish the devil from all their towns

with much ceremony at a time set apart for the purpose. At Axim, on

the Gold Coast, this annual expulsion is preceded by a feast of

eight days, during which mirth and jollity, skipping, dancing, and

singing prevail, and "a perfect lampooning liberty is allowed, and

scandal so highly exalted, that they may freely sing of all the

faults, villanies, and frauds of their superiors as well as

inferiors, without punishment, or so much as the least

interruption." On the eighth day they hunt out the devil with a

dismal cry, running after him and pelting him with sticks, stones,

and whatever comes to hand. When they have driven him far enough out

of the town, they all return. In this way he is expelled from more

than a hundred towns at the same time. To make sure that he does not

return to their houses, the women wash and scour all their wooden

and earthen vessels, "to free them from all uncleanness and the

devil."

At Cape Coast Castle, on the Gold Coast, the ceremony was witnessed

on the ninth of October, 1844, by an Englishman, who has described

it as follows: "To-night the annual custom of driving the evil

spirit, Abonsam, out of the town has taken place. As soon as the

eight o'clock gun fired in the fort the people began firing muskets

in their houses, turning all their furniture out of doors, beating

about in every corner of the rooms with sticks, etc., and screaming

as loudly as possible, in order to frighten the devil. Being driven

out of the houses, as they imagine, they sallied forth into the

streets, throwing lighted torches about, shouting, screaming,

beating sticks together, rattling old pans, making the most horrid

noise, in order to drive him out of the town into the sea. The

custom is preceded by four weeks' dead silence; no gun is allowed to

be fired, no drum to be beaten, no palaver to be made between man

and man. If, during these weeks, two natives should disagree and

make a noise in the town, they are immediately taken before the king

and fined heavily. If a dog or pig, sheep or goat be found at large

in the street, it may be killed, or taken by anyone, the former

owner not being allowed to demand any compensation. This silence is

designed to deceive Abonsam, that, being off his guard, he may be

taken by surprise, and frightened out of the place. If anyone die

during the silence, his relatives are not allowed to weep until the

four weeks have been completed."

Sometimes the date of the annual expulsion of devils is fixed with

reference to the agricultural seasons. Thus among the Hos of

Togoland, in West Africa, the expulsion is performed annually before

the people partake of the new yams. The chiefs summon the priests

and magicians and tell them that the people are now to eat the new

yams and be merry, therefore they must cleanse the town and remove

the evils. Accordingly the evil spirits, witches, and all the ills

that infest the people are conjured into bundles of leaves and

creepers, fastened to poles, which are carried away and set up in

the earth on various roads outside the town. During the following

night no fire may be lit and no food eaten. Next morning the women

sweep out their hearths and houses, and deposit the sweepings on

broken wooden plates. Then the people pray, saying, "All ye

sicknesses that are in our body and plague us, we are come to-day to

throw you out." Thereupon they run as fast as they can in the

direction of Mount Adaklu, smiting their mouths and screaming, "Out

to-day! Out to-day! That which kills anybody, out to-day! Ye evil

spirits, out to-day! and all that causes our heads to ache, out

to-day! Anlo and Adaklu are the places whither all ill shall betake

itself!" When they have come to a certain tree on Mount Adaklu, they

throw everything away and return home.

At Kiriwina, in South-Eastern New Guinea, when the new yams had been

harvested, the people feasted and danced for many days, and a great

deal of property, such as armlets, native money, and so forth, was

displayed conspicuously on a platform erected for the purpose. When

the festivities were over, all the people gathered together and

expelled the spirits from the village by shouting, beating the posts

of the houses, and overturning everything under which a wily spirit

might be supposed to lurk. The explanation which the people gave to

a missionary was that they had entertained and feasted the spirits

and provided them with riches, and it was now time for them to take

their departure. Had they not seen the dances, and heard the songs,

and gorged themselves on the souls of the yams, and appropriated the

souls of the money and all the other fine things set out on the

platform? What more could the spirits want? So out they must go.

Among the Hos of North-Eastern India the great festival of the year

is the harvest home, held in January, when the granaries are full of

grain, and the people, to use their own expression, are full of

devilry. "They have a strange notion that at this period, men and

women are so overcharged with vicious propensities, that it is

absolutely necessary for the safety of the person to let off steam

by allowing for a time full vent to the passions." The ceremonies

open with a sacrifice to the village god of three fowls, a cock and

two hens, one of which must be black. Along with them are offered

flowers of the palas tree (_Butea frondosa_), bread made from

rice-flour, and sesamum seeds. These offerings are presented by the

village priest, who prays that during the year about to begin they

and their children may be preserved from all misfortune and

sickness, and that they may have seasonable rain and good crops.

Prayer is also made in some places for the souls of the dead. At

this time an evil spirit is supposed to infest the place, and to get

rid of it men, women, and children go in procession round and

through every part of the village with sticks in their hands, as if

beating for game, singing a wild chant, and shouting vociferously,

till they feel assured that the evil spirit must have fled. Then

they give themselves up to feasting and drinking rice-beer, till

they are in a fit state for the wild debauch which follows. The

festival now "becomes a saturnale, during which servants forget

their duty to their masters, children their reverence for parents,

men their respect for women, and women all notions of modesty,

delicacy, and gentleness; they become raging bacchantes." Usually

the Hos are quiet and reserved in manner, decorous and gentle to

women. But during this festival "their natures appear to undergo a

temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross

language, and parents their children; men and women become almost

like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities." The

Mundaris, kinsmen and neighbours of the Hos, keep the festival in

much the same manner. "The resemblance to a Saturnale is very

complete, as at this festival the farm labourers are feasted by

their masters, and allowed the utmost freedom of speech in

addressing them. It is the festival of the harvest home; the

termination of one year's toil, and a slight respite from it before

they commence again."

Amongst some of the Hindoo Koosh tribes, as among the Hos and

Mundaris, the expulsion of devils takes place after harvest. When

the last crop of autumn has been got in, it is thought necessary to

drive away evil spirits from the granaries. A kind of porridge is

eaten, and the head of the family takes his matchlock and fires it

into the floor. Then, going outside, he sets to work loading and

firing till his powder-horn is exhausted, while all his neighbours

are similarly employed. The next day is spent in rejoicings. In

Chitral this festival is called "devil-driving." On the other hand

the Khonds of India expel the devils at seed-time instead of at

harvest. At this time they worship Pitteri Pennu, the god of

increase and of gain in every shape. On the first day of the

festival a rude car is made of a basket set upon a few sticks, tied

upon the bamboo rollers for wheels. The priest takes this car first

to the house of the lineal head of the tribe, to whom precedence is

given in all ceremonies connected with agriculture. Here he receives

a little of each kind of seed and some feathers. He then takes the

car to all the other houses in the village, each of which

contributes the same things. Lastly, the car is conducted to a field

without the village, attended by all the young men, who beat each

other and strike the air violently with long sticks. The seed thus

carried out is called the share of the "evil spirits, spoilers of

the seed." "These are considered to be driven out with the car; and

when it and its contents are abandoned to them, they are held to

have no excuse for interfering with the rest of the seed-corn."

The people of Bali, an island to the east of Java, have periodical

expulsions of devils upon a great scale. Generally the time chosen

for the expulsion is the day of the "dark moon" in the ninth month.

When the demons have been long unmolested the country is said to be

"warm," and the priest issues orders to expel them by force, lest

the whole of Bali should be rendered uninhabitable. On the day

appointed the people of the village or district assemble at the

principal temple. Here at a cross-road offerings are set out for the

devils. After prayers have been recited by the priests, the blast of

a horn summons the devils to partake of the meal which has been

prepared for them. At the same time a number of men step forward and

light their torches at the holy lamp which burns before the chief

priest. Immediately afterwards, followed by the bystanders, they

spread in all directions and march through the streets and lanes

crying, "Depart! go away!" Wherever they pass, the people who have

stayed at home hasten, by a deafening clatter on doors, beams,

rice-blocks, and so forth, to take their share in the expulsion of

devils. Thus chased from the houses, the fiends flee to the banquet

which has been set out for them; but here the priest receives them

with curses which finally drive them from the district. When the

last devil has taken his departure, the uproar is succeeded by a

dead silence, which lasts during the next day also. The devils, it

is thought, are anxious to return to their old homes, and in order

to make them think that Bali is not Bali but some desert island, no

one may stir from his own abode for twenty-four hours. Even ordinary

household work, including cooking, is discontinued. Only the

watchmen may show themselves in the streets. Wreaths of thorns and

leaves are hung at all the entrances to warn strangers from

entering. Not till the third day is this state of siege raised, and

even then it is forbidden to work at the rice-fields or to buy and

sell in the market. Most people still stay at home, whiling away the

time with cards and dice.

In Tonquin a _theckydaw_ or general expulsion of malevolent spirits

commonly took place once a year, especially if there was a great

mortality amongst men, the elephants or horses of the general's

stable, or the cattle of the country, "the cause of which they

attribute to the malicious spirits of such men as have been put to

death for treason, rebellion, and conspiring the death of the king,

general, or princes, and that in revenge of the punishment they have

suffered, they are bent to destroy everything and commit horrible

violence. To prevent which their superstition has suggested to them

the institution of this _theckydaw,_ as a proper means to drive the

devil away, and purge the country of evil spirits." The day

appointed for the ceremony was generally the twenty-fifth of

February, one month after the beginning of the new year, which fell

on the twenty-fifth of January. The intermediate month was a season

of feasting, merry-making of all kinds, and general licence. During

the whole month the great seal was kept shut up in a box, face

downwards, and the law was, as it were, laid asleep. All courts of

justice were closed; debtors could not be seized; small crimes, such

as petty larceny, fighting, and assault, escaped with impunity; only

treason and murder were taken account of and the malefactors

detained till the great seal should come into operation again. At

the close of the saturnalia the wicked spirits were driven away.

Great masses of troops and artillery having been drawn up with

flying colours and all the pomp of war, "the general beginneth then

to offer meat offerings to the criminal devils and malevolent

spirits (for it is usual and customary likewise amongst them to

feast the condemned before their execution), inviting them to eat

and drink, when presently he accuses them in a strange language, by

characters and figures, etc., of many offences and crimes committed

by them, as to their having disquieted the land, killed his

elephants and horses, etc., for all which they justly deserve to be

chastised and banished the country. Whereupon three great guns are

fired as the last signal; upon which all the artillery and musquets

are discharged, that, by their most terrible noise the devils may be

driven away; and they are so blind as to believe for certain, that

they really and effectually put them to flight."

In Cambodia the expulsion of evil spirits took place in March. Bits

of broken statues and stones, considered as the abode of the demons,

were collected and brought to the capital. Here as many elephants

were collected as could be got together. On the evening of the full

moon volleys of musketry were fired and the elephants charged

furiously to put the devils to flight. The ceremony was performed on

three successive days. In Siam the banishment of demons is annually

carried into effect on the last day of the old year. A signal gun is

fired from the palace; it is answered from the next station, and so

on from station to station, till the firing has reached the outer

gate of the city. Thus the demons are driven out step by step. As

soon as this is done a consecrated rope is fastened round the

circuit of the city walls to prevent the banished demons from

returning. The rope is made of tough couch-grass and is painted in

alternate stripes of red, yellow, and blue.

Annual expulsions of demons, witches, or evil influences appear to

have been common among the heathen of Europe, if we may judge from

the relics of such customs among their descendants at the present

day. Thus among the heathen Wotyaks, a Finnish people of Eastern

Russia, all the young girls of the village assemble on the last day

of the year or on New Year's Day, armed with sticks, the ends of

which are split in nine places. With these they beat every corner of

the house and yard, saying, "We are driving Satan out of the

village." Afterwards the sticks are thrown into the river below the

village, and as they float down stream Satan goes with them to the

next village, from which he must be driven out in turn. In some

villages the expulsion is managed otherwise. The unmarried men

receive from every house in the village groats, flesh, and brandy.

These they take to the fields, light a fire under a fir-tree, boil

the groats, and eat of the food they have brought with them, after

pronouncing the words, "Go away into the wilderness, come not into

the house." Then they return to the village and enter every house

where there are young women. They take hold of the young women and

throw them into the snow, saying, "May the spirits of disease leave

you." The remains of the groats and the other food are then

distributed among all the houses in proportion to the amount that

each contributed, and each family consumes its share. According to a

Wotyak of the Malmyz district the young men throw into the snow

whomever they find in the houses, and this is called "driving out

Satan"; moreover, some of the boiled groats are cast into the fire

with the words, "O god, afflict us not with sickness and pestilence,

give us not up as a prey to the spirits of the wood." But the most

antique form of the ceremony is that observed by the Wotyaks of the

Kasan Government. First of all a sacrifice is offered to the Devil

at noon. Then all the men assemble on horseback in the centre of the

village, and decide with which house they shall begin. When this

question, which often gives rise to hot disputes, is settled, they

tether their horses to the paling, and arm themselves with whips,

clubs of lime-wood and bundles of lighted twigs. The lighted twigs

are believed to have the greatest terrors for Satan. Thus armed,

they proceed with frightful cries to beat every corner of the house

and yard, then shut the door, and spit at the ejected fiend. So they

go from house to house, till the Devil has been driven from every

one. Then they mount their horses and ride out of the village,

yelling wildly and brandishing their clubs in every direction.

Outside of the village they fling away the clubs and spit once more

at the Devil. The Cheremiss, another Finnish people of Eastern

Russia, chase Satan from their dwellings by beating the walls with

cudgels of lime-wood. For the same purpose they fire guns, stab the

ground with knives, and insert burning chips of wood in the

crevices. Also they leap over bonfires, shaking out their garments

as they do so; and in some districts they blow on long trumpets of

lime-tree bark to frighten him away. When he has fled to the wood,

they pelt the trees with some of the cheese-cakes and eggs which

furnished the feast.

In Christian Europe the old heathen custom of expelling the powers

of evil at certain times of the year has survived to modern times.

Thus in some villages of Calabria the month of March is inaugurated

with the expulsion of the witches. It takes place at night to the

sound of the church bells, the people running about the streets and

crying, "March is come." They say that the witches roam about in

March, and the ceremony is repeated every Friday evening during the

month. Often, as might have been anticipated, the ancient pagan rite

has attached itself to church festivals. In Albania on Easter Eve

the young people light torches of resinous wood and march in

procession, swinging them, through the village. At last they throw

the torches into the river, crying, "Ha, Kore! we throw you into the

river, like these torches, that you may never return." Silesian

peasants believe that on Good Friday the witches go their rounds and

have great power for mischief. Hence about Oels, near Strehlitz, the

people on that day arm themselves with old brooms and drive the

witches from house and home, from farmyard and cattle-stall, making

a great uproar and clatter as they do so.

In Central Europe the favourite time for expelling the witches is,

or was, Walpurgis Night, the Eve of May Day, when the baleful powers

of these mischievous beings were supposed to be at their height. In

the Tyrol, for example, as in other places, the expulsion of the

powers of evil at this season goes by the name of "Burning out the

Witches." It takes place on May Day, but people have been busy with

their preparations for days before. On a Thursday at midnight

bundles are made up of resinous splinters, black and red spotted

hemlock, caperspurge, rosemary, and twigs of the sloe. These are

kept and burned on May Day by men who must first have received

plenary absolution from the Church. On the last three days of April

all the houses are cleansed and fumigated with juniper berries and

rue. On May Day, when the evening bell has rung and the twilight is

falling, the ceremony of "Burning out the Witches" begins. Men and

boys make a racket with whips, bells, pots, and pans; the women

carry censers; the dogs are unchained and run barking and yelping

about. As soon as the church bells begin to ring, the bundles of

twigs, fastened on poles, are set on fire and the incense is

ignited. Then all the house-bells and dinner-bells are rung, pots

and pans are clashed, dogs bark, every one must make a noise. And

amid this hubbub all scream at the pitch of their voices:

"_Witch flee, flee from here, or it will go ill with thee._"

Then they run seven times round the houses, the yards, and the

village. So the witches are smoked out of their lurking-places and

driven away. The custom of expelling the witches on Walpurgis Night

is still, or was down to recent years, observed in many parts of

Bavaria and among the Germans of Bohemia. Thus in the Böhmer-wald

Mountains all the young fellows of the village assemble after sunset

on some height, especially at a cross-road, and crack whips for a

while in unison with all their strength. This drives away the

witches; for so far as the sound of the whips is heard, these

maleficent beings can do no harm. In some places, while the young

men are cracking their whips, the herdsmen wind their horns, and the

long-drawn notes, heard far off in the silence of night, are very

effectual for banning the witches.

Another witching time is the period of twelve days between Christmas

and Epiphany. Hence in some parts of Silesia the people burn

pine-resin all night long between Christmas and the New Year in

order that the pungent smoke may drive witches and evil spirits far

away from house and homestead; and on Christmas Eve and New Year's

Eve they fire shots over fields and meadows, into shrubs and trees,

and wrap straw round the fruit-trees, to prevent the spirits from

doing them harm. On New Year's Eve, which is Saint Sylvester's Day,

Bohemian lads, armed with guns, form themselves into circles and

fire thrice into the air. This is called "Shooting the Witches" and

is supposed to frighten the witches away. The last of the mystic

twelve days is Epiphany or Twelfth Night, and it has been selected

as a proper season for the expulsion of the powers of evil in

various parts of Europe. Thus at Brunnen, on the Lake of Lucerne,

boys go about in procession on Twelfth Night carrying torches and

making a great noise with horns, bells, whips, and so forth to

frighten away two female spirits of the wood, Strudeli and

Strätteli. The people think that if they do not make enough noise,

there will be little fruit that year. Again, in Labruguière, a

canton of Southern France, on the eve of Twelfth Day the people run

through the streets, jangling bells, clattering kettles, and doing

everything to make a discordant noise. Then by the light of torches

and blazing faggots they set up a prodigious hue and cry, an

ear-splitting uproar, hoping thereby to chase all the wandering

ghosts and devils from the town.

LVII. Public Scapegoats

1. The Expulsion of Embodied Evils

THUS far we have dealt with that class of the general expulsion of

evils which I have called direct or immediate. In this class the

evils are invisible, at least to common eyes, and the mode of

deliverance consists for the most part in beating the empty air and

raising such a hubbub as may scare the mischievous spirits and put

them to flight. It remains to illustrate the second class of

expulsions, in which the evil influences are embodied in a visible

form or are at least supposed to be loaded upon a material medium,

which acts as a vehicle to draw them off from the people, village,

or town.

The Pomos of California celebrate an expulsion of devils every seven

years, at which the devils are represented by disguised men. "Twenty

or thirty men array themselves in harlequin rig and barbaric paint,

and put vessels of pitch on their heads; then they secretly go out

into the surrounding mountains. These are to personify the devils. A

herald goes up to the top of the assembly-house, and makes a speech

to the multitude. At a signal agreed upon in the evening the

masqueraders come in from the mountains, with the vessels of pitch

flaming on their heads, and with all the frightful accessories of

noise, motion, and costume which the savage mind can devise in

representation of demons. The terrified women and children flee for

life, the men huddle them inside a circle, and, on the principle of

fighting the devil with fire, they swing blazing firebrands in the

air, yell, whoop, and make frantic dashes at the marauding and

bloodthirsty devils, so creating a terrific spectacle, and striking

great fear into the hearts of the assembled hundreds of women, who

are screaming and fainting and clinging to their valorous

protectors. Finally the devils succeed in getting into the

assembly-house, and the bravest of the men enter and hold a parley

with them. As a conclusion of the whole farce, the men summon

courage, the devils are expelled from the assembly-house, and with a

prodigious row and racket of sham fighting are chased away into the

mountains." In spring, as soon as the willow-leaves were full grown

on the banks of the river, the Mandan Indians celebrated their great

annual festival, one of the features of which was the expulsion of

the devil. A man, painted black to represent the devil, entered the

village from the prairie, chased and frightened the women, and acted

the part of a buffalo bull in the buffalo dance, the object of which

was to ensure a plentiful supply of buffaloes during the ensuing

year. Finally he was chased from the village, the women pursuing him

with hisses and gibes, beating him with sticks, and pelting him with

dirt.

Some of the native tribes of Central Queensland believe in a noxious

being called Molonga, who prowls unseen and would kill men and

violate women if certain ceremonies were not performed. These

ceremonies last for five nights and consist of dances, in which only

men, fantastically painted and adorned, take part. On the fifth

night Molonga himself, personified by a man tricked out with red

ochre and feathers and carrying a long feather-tipped spear, rushes

forth from the darkness at the spectators and makes as if he would

run them through. Great is the excitement, loud are the shrieks and

shouts, but after another feigned attack the demon vanishes in the

gloom. On the last night of the year the palace of the Kings of

Cambodia is purged of devils. Men painted as fiends are chased by

elephants about the palace courts. When they have been expelled, a

consecrated thread of cotton is stretched round the palace to keep

them out. In Munzerabad, a district of Mysore in Southern India,

when cholera or smallpox has broken out in a parish, the inhabitants

assemble and conjure the demon of the disease into a wooden image,

which they carry, generally at midnight, into the next parish. The

inhabitants of that parish in like manner pass the image on to their

neighbours, and thus the demon is expelled from one village after

another, until he comes to the bank of a river into which he is

finally thrown.