chanting and screaming, &c., have been incidentally given in describing
the doctrine of demoniacal possession. I will only further cite a few
typical cases to show that the practice of bringing on swoons or fits by
religious exercises, in reality or pretence, is one belonging originally
to savagery, whence it has been continued into higher grades of
civilization. We may judge of the mental and bodily condition of the
priest or sorcerer in Guyana, by his preparation for his sacred office.
This consisted in the first place in fasting and flagellation of extreme
severity; at the end of his fast he had to dance till he fell senseless,
and was revived by a potion of tobacco-juice causing violent nausea and
vomiting of blood; day after day this treatment was continued till the
candidate, brought into or confirmed in the condition of a
‘convulsionary,’ was ready to pass from patient into doctor.[1013]
Again, at the Winnebago medicine-feast, members of the fraternity
assemble in a long arched booth, and with them the candidates for
initiation, whose preparation is a three days’ fast, with severe
sweating and steaming with herbs, under the direction of the old
medicine-men. The initiation is performed in the assembly by a number of
medicine-men. These advance in line, as many abreast as there are
candidates; holding their medicine-bags before them with both hands,
they dance forward slowly at first, uttering low guttural sounds as they
approach the candidates, their step and voice increasing in energy,
until with a violent ‘Ough!’ they thrust their medicine-bags at their
breasts. Instantly, as if struck with an electric shock, the candidates
fall prostrate on their faces, their limbs extended, their muscles rigid
and quivering. Blankets are now thrown over them, and they are suffered
to lie thus a few moments; as soon as they show signs of recovering from
the shock, they are assisted to their feet and led forward.
Medicine-bags are then put in their hands, and medicine-stones in their
mouths; they are now medicine men or women, as the case may be, in full
communion and fellowship; and they now go round the bower in company
with the old members, knocking others down promiscuously by thrusting
their medicine-bags at them. A feast and dance to the music of drum and
rattle carry on the festival.[1014] Another instance may be taken from
among the Alfurus of Celebes, inviting Empong Lembej to descend into
their midst. The priests chant, the chief priest with twitching and
trembling limbs turns his eyes towards heaven; Lembej descends into him,
and with horrible gestures he springs upon a board, beats about with a
bundle of leaves, leaps and dances, chanting legends of an ancient
deity. After some hours another priest relieves him, and sings of
another deity. So it goes on day and night till the fifth day, and then
the chief priest’s tongue is cut, he falls into a swoon like death, and
they cover him up. They fumigate with benzoin the piece taken from his
tongue, and swing a censer over his body, calling back his soul; he
revives and dances about, lively but speechless, till they give him back
the rest of his tongue, and with it his power of speech.[1015] Thus, in
the religion of uncultured races, the phenomenon of being ‘struck’ holds
so recognised a position that impostors will even counterfeit it. In its
morbid nature, its genuine cases at least plainly correspond with the
fits which history records among the convulsionnaires of St. Medard and
the enthusiasts of the Cevennes. Nor need we go even a generation back
to see symptoms of the same type accepted as signs of grace among
ourselves. Medical descriptions of the scenes brought on by fanatical
preachers at ‘revivals’ in England, Ireland, and America, are full of
interest to students of the history of religious rites. I will but quote
a single case. ‘A young woman is described as lying extended at full
length; her eyes closed, her hands clasped and elevated, and her body
curved in a spasm so violent that it appeared to rest arch-like upon her
heels and the back portion of her head. In that position she lay without
speech or motion for several minutes. Suddenly she uttered a terrific
scream, and tore handfuls of hair from her uncovered head. Extending her
open hands in a repelling attitude of the most appalling terror, she
exclaimed, “Oh, that fearful pit!” During this paroxysm three strong men
were hardly able to restrain her. She extended her arms on either side,
clutching spasmodically at the grass, shuddering with terror, and
shrinking from some fearful inward vision; but she ultimately fell back
exhausted, nerveless, and apparently insensible.’[1016] Such
descriptions carry us far back in the history of the human mind, showing
modern men still in ignorant sincerity producing the very fits and
swoons to which for untold ages savage tribes have given religious
import. These manifestations in modern Europe indeed form part of a
revival of religion, the religion of mental disease.
From this series of rites, practical with often harmful practicality, we
turn to a group of ceremonies whose characteristic is picturesque
symbolism. In discussing sun-myth and sun-worship, it has come into view
how deeply the association in men’s mind of the east with light and
warmth, life and happiness and glory, of the west with darkness and
chill, death and decay, has from remote ages rooted itself in religious
belief. It will illustrate and confirm this view to observe how the same
symbolism of east and west has taken shape in actual ceremony, giving
rise to a series of practices concerning the posture of the dead in
their graves and the living in their temples, practices which may be
classed under the general heading of Orientation.
While the setting sun has shown to men, from savage ages onward, the
western region of death, the rising sun has displayed a scene more
hopeful, an eastern home of deity. It seems to be the working out of the
solar analogy, on the one hand in death as sunset, on the other in new
life as sunrise, that has produced two contrasted rules of burial, which
agree in placing the dead in the sun’s path, the line of east and west.
Thus the natives of Australia have in some districts well-marked
thoughts of the western land of the dead, yet the custom of burying the
dead sitting with face to the east is also known among them.[1017] The
Samoans and Fijians, agreeing that the land of the departed lies in the
far west, bury the corpse lying with head east and feet west;[1018] the
body would but have to rise and walk straight onward to follow its soul
home. This idea is stated explicitly among the Winnebagos of North
America; they will sometimes bury a dead man sitting up to the breast in
a hole in the ground, looking westward; or graves are dug east and west,
and the bodies laid in them with the head eastward, with the motive
‘that they may look towards the happy land in the west.’[1019] With
these customs may be compared those of certain South American tribes.
The Yumanas bury their dead bent double with faces looking toward the
heavenly region of the sunrise, the home of their great good deity, who
they trust will take their souls with him to his dwelling;[1020] the
Guarayos bury the corpses with heads turned to the east, for it is in
the eastern sky that their god Tamoi, the Ancient of Heaven, has his
happy hunting-grounds where the dead will meet again.[1021] On the other
hand the Peruvian custom was to place the dead huddled up in a sitting
posture and with faces turned to the west.[1022] Barbaric Asia may be
represented by the modern Ainos of Yesso, burying the dead lying robed
in white with the head to the east, ‘because that is where the sun
rises;’ or by the Tunguz who bury with the head to the west; or by the
mediæval Tatars, raising a great mound over the dead, and setting up
thereon a statue with face turned toward the east, holding a
drinking-cup in his hand before his navel; or by the modern Siamese, who
do not sleep with their heads to the west, because it is in this
significant position that the dead are burned.[1023] The burial of the
dead among the ancient Greeks in the line of east and west, whether
according to Athenian custom of the head toward the sunset, or the
converse, is another link in the chain of custom.[1024] Thus it is not
to late and isolated fancy, but to the carrying on of ancient and
widespread solar ideas, that we trace the well-known legend that the
body of Christ was laid with the head toward the west, thus looking
eastward, and the Christian usage of digging graves east and west, which
prevailed through mediæval times and is not yet forgotten. The rule of
laying the head to the west, and its meaning that the dead shall rise
looking toward the east, are perfectly stated in the following passage
from an ecclesiastical treatise of the 16th century: ‘Debet autem quis
sic sepeliri, ut capite ad occidentem posito, pedes dirigat ad orientem,
in quo quasi ipsa positione orat: et innuit quod promptus est, ut de
occasu festinet ad ortum: de mundo ad seculum.’[1025]
Where among the lower races sun-worship begins to consolidate itself in
systematic ritual, the orientation of the worshipper and the temple
becomes usual and distinct. The sun-worshipping Comanches, preparing for
the war-path, will place their weapons betimes on the east side of the
lodge to receive the sun’s first rays; it is a remnant of old solar
rite, that the Christianized Pueblo Indians of New Mexico turn to the
sun at his rising.[1026] It has been already noticed how in old times
each morning at sunrise the Sun-chief of the Natchez of Louisiana stood
facing the east at the door of his house, and smoked toward the sun
first, before he turned to the other three quarters of the world.[1027]
The cave-temple of the sun-worshipping Apalaches of Florida had its
opening looking east, and within stood the priests on festival days at
dawn, waiting till the first rays entered to begin the appointed rites
of chant and incense and offering.[1028] In old Mexico, where
sun-worship was the central doctrine of the complex religion, men knelt
in prayer towards the east, and the doors of the sanctuaries looked
mostly westward.[1029] It was characteristic of the solar worship of
Peru that even the villages were habitually built on slopes toward the
east, that the people might see and greet the national deity at his
rising. In the temple of the sun at Cuzco, his splendid golden disc on
the western wall looked out through the eastern door, so that as he rose
his first beams fell upon it, reflected thence to light up the
sanctuary.[1030]
In Asia, the ancient Aryan religion of the sun manifests itself not less
plainly in rites of orientation. They have their place in the weary
ceremonial routine which the Brahman must daily accomplish. When he has
performed the dawn ablution, and meditated on the effulgent sun-light
which is Brahma, the supreme soul, he proceeds to worship the sun,
standing on one foot and resting the other against his ankle or heel,
looking toward the east, and holding his hands open before him in a
hollow form. At noon, when he has again adored the sun, it is sitting
with his face to the east that he must read his daily portion of the
Veda; it is looking toward the east that his offering of barley and
water must be first presented to the gods, before he turns to north and
south; it is with first and principal direction to the east that the
consecration of the fire and the sacrificial implements, a ceremony
which is the groundwork of all his religious acts, has to be
performed.[1031] The significance of such reverence paid by adorers of
the sun to the glorious eastern region of his rising, may be heightened
to us by setting beside it a ceremony of a darker faith, displaying the
awe-struck horror of the western home of death. The antithesis to the
eastward consecration by the orthodox Brahmans is the westward
consecration by the Thugs, worshippers of Kali the death-goddess. In
honour of Kali their victims were murdered, and to her the sacred
pickaxe was consecrated, wherewith the graves of the slain were dug. At
the time of the suppression of Thuggee, Englishmen had the consecration
of the pickaxe performed in make-believe in their presence by those who
well knew the dark ritual. On the dreadful implement no shadow of any
living thing must fall, its consecrator sits facing the west to perform
the fourfold washing and the sevenfold passing through the fire, and
then it being proved duly consecrated by the omen of the coco-nut
divided at a single cut, it is placed on the ground, and the bystanders
worship it, turning to the west.[1032]
These two contrasted rites of east and west established themselves and
still remain established in modern European religion. In judging of the
course of history that has brought about this state of things, it
scarcely seems that Jewish influence was effective. The Jewish temple
had the entrance in the east, and the sanctuary in the west. Sun-worship
was an abomination to the Jews, and the orientation especially belonging
to it appears as utterly opposed to Jewish usage, in Ezekiel’s
horror-stricken vision: ‘and, behold, at the door of the temple of
Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, about five-and-twenty men,
with their backs toward the temple of Jehovah, and their faces toward
the east, and they worshipped the sun toward the east.’[1033] Nor is
there reason to suppose that in later ages such orientation gained
ground in Jewish ceremony. The solar rites of other nations whose ideas
were prominent in the early development of Christianity, are sufficient
to account for the rise of Christian orientation. On the one hand there
was the Asiatic sun-worship, perhaps specially related to the veneration
of the rising sun in old Persian religion, and which has left relics in
the east of the Turkish empire into modern years; Christian sects
praying toward the sun, and Yezidis turning to the east as their kibleh
and burying their dead looking thither.[1034] On the other hand,
orientation was recognized in classic Greek religion, not indeed in
slavish obedience to a uniform law, but as a principle to be worked out
in converse ways. Thus it was an Athenian practice for the temple to
have its entrance east, looking out through which the divine image stood
to behold the rising sun. This rule it is that Lucian refers to, when he
talks of the delight of gazing toward the loveliest and most longed-for
of the day, of welcoming the sun as he peeps forth, of taking one’s fill
of light through the wide-open doors, even as the ancients built their
temples looking forth. Nor was the contrary rule as stated by Vitruvius
less plain in meaning; the sacred houses of the immortal gods shall be
so arranged, that if no reason prevents and choice is free, the temple
and the statue erected in the cell shall look toward the west, so that
they who approach the altar to sacrifice and vow and pray may look at
once toward the statue and the eastern sky, the divine figures thus
seeming to arise and look upon them. Altars of the gods were to stand
toward the east.[1035]
Unknown in primitive Christianity, the ceremony of orientation was
developed within its first four centuries. It became an accepted custom
to turn in prayer toward the east, the mystic region of the Light of the
World, the Sun of Righteousness. Augustine says, ‘When we stand at
prayer, we turn to the east, where the heaven arises, not as though God
were only there, and had forsaken all other parts of the world, but to
admonish our mind to turn to a more excellent nature, that is, to the
Lord.’ No wonder that the early Christians were thought to practise in
substance the rite of sun-worship which they practised in form. Thus
Tertullian writes: ‘Others indeed with greater truth and verisimilitude
believe the sun to be our God ... the suspicion arising from its being
known that we pray toward the region of the east.’ Though some of the
most ancient and honoured churches of Christendom stand to show that
orientation was no original law of ecclesiastical architecture, yet it
became dominant in early centuries. That the author of the ‘Apostolical
Constitutions’ should be able to give directions for building churches
toward the east (ὁ οἶκος ἔστω ἐπιμηκής, κατ’ ἀνατολὰς τετραμμένος), just
as Vitruvius had laid down the rule as to the temples of the gods, is
only a part of that assimilation of the church to the temple which took
effect so largely in the scheme of worship. Of all Christian ceremony,
however, it was in the rite of baptism that orientation took its fullest
and most picturesque form. The catechumen was placed with face toward
the west, and then commanded to renounce Satan with gestures of
abhorrence, stretching out his hands against him, or smiting them
together, and blowing or spitting against him thrice. Cyril of
Jerusalem, in his ‘Mystagogic Catechism,’ thus depicts the scene: ‘Ye
first came into the ante-room of the baptistery, and standing toward the
west (πρὸς τὰς δυσμάς) ye were commanded to put away Satan, stretching
out your hands as though he were present.... And why did ye stand toward
the west? It was needful, for sunset is the type of darkness, and he is
darkness and has his strength in darkness; therefore symbolically
looking toward the west ye renounce that dark and gloomy ruler.’ Then
turning round to the east, the catechumen took up his allegiance to his
new master, Christ. The ceremony and its significance are clearly set
forth by Jerome, thus: ‘In the mysteries [meaning baptism] we first
renounce him who is in the west, and dies to us with our sins; and so,
turning to the east, we make a covenant with the Sun of righteousness,
promising to be his servants.’[1036] This perfect double rite of east
and west, retained in the baptismal ceremony of the Greek Church, may be
seen in Russia to this day. The orientation of churches and the practice
of turning to the east as an act of worship, are common to both Greek
and Latin ritual. In our own country they declined from the Reformation,
till at the beginning of the 19th century they seemed falling out of
use; since then, however, they have been restored to a certain
prominence by the revived mediævalism of our own day. To the student of
history, it is a striking example of the connexion of thought and
ceremony through the religions of the lower and higher culture, to see
surviving in our midst, with meaning dwindled into symbolism, this
ancient solar rite. The influence of the divine Sun upon his rude and
ancient worshippers still subsists before our eyes as a mechanical
force, acting diamagnetically to adjust the axis of the church and turn
the body of the worshipper.
The last group of rites whose course through religious history is to be
outlined here, takes in the varied dramatic acts of ceremonial
purification of Lustration. With all the obscurity and intricacy due to
age-long modification, the primitive thought which underlies these
ceremonies is still open to view. It is the transition from practical to
symbolic cleansing, from removal of bodily impurity to deliverance from
invisible, spiritual, and at last moral evil. Our language follows this
ideal movement to its utmost stretch, where such words as cleansing and
purification have passed from their first material meaning, to signify
removal of ceremonial contamination, legal guilt, and moral sin. What we
thus express in metaphor, the men of the lower culture began early to
act in ceremony, purifying persons and objects by various prescribed
rites, especially by dipping them in and sprinkling them with water, or
fumigating them with and passing them through fire. It is the plainest
proof of the original practicality of proceedings now passed into
formalism, to point out how far the ceremonial lustrations still keep
their connexion with times of life when real purification is necessary,
how far they still consist in formal cleansing of the new-born child and
the mother, of the man-slayer who has shed blood, or the mourner who has
touched a corpse. In studying the distribution of the forms of
lustration among the races of the world, while allowing for the large
effect of their transmission from religion to religion, and from nation
to nation, we may judge that their diversity of detail and purpose
scarcely favours a theory of their being all historically derived from
one or even several special religions of the ancient world. They seem
more largely to exemplify independent working out, in different
directions, of an idea common to mankind at large. This view may be
justified by surveying lustration through a series of typical instances,
which show its appearance and character in savage and barbaric culture,
as being an act belonging to certain well-marked events of human life.
The purification of the new-born child appears among the lower races in
various forms, but perhaps in some particular instances borrowed from
the higher. It should be noticed that though the naming of the child is
often associated with its ceremonial cleansing, there is no real
connexion between the two rites, beyond their coming due at the same
early time of life. To those who look for the matter-of-fact origin of
such ceremonies, one of the most suggestive of the accounts available is
a simple mention of the two necessary acts of washing and name-giving,
as done together in mere practical purpose, but not as yet passed into
formal ceremony—the Kichtak Islanders, it is remarked, at birth wash the
child, and give it a name.[1037] Among the Yumanas of Brazil, as soon as
the child can sit up, it is sprinkled with a decoction of certain herbs,
and receives a name which has belonged to an ancestor.[1038] Among some
Jakun tribes of the Malay Peninsula, as soon as the child is born it is
carried to the nearest stream and washed; it is then brought back to the
house, the fire is kindled, and fragrant wood thrown on, over which it
is passed several times.[1039] The New Zealanders’ infant baptism is no
new practice, and is considered by them an old traditional rite, but
nothing very similar is observed among other branches of the Polynesian
race. Whether independently invented or not, it was thoroughly worked
into the native religious scheme. The baptism was performed on the
eighth day or earlier, at the side of a stream or elsewhere, by a native
priest who sprinkled water on the child with a branch or twig; sometimes
the child was immersed. With this lustration it received its name, the
priest repeating a list of ancestral names till the child chose one for
itself by sneezing at it. The ceremony was of the nature of a
dedication, and was accompanied by rhythmical formulas of exhortation.
The future warrior was bidden to flame with anger, to leap nimbly and
ward off the spears, to be angry and bold and industrious, to work
before the dew is off the ground; the future housewife was bidden to get
food and go for firewood and weave garments with panting of breath. In
after years, a second sacred sprinkling was performed to admit a lad
into the rank of warriors. It has to be noticed with reference to the
reason of this ceremonial washing, that a new-born child is in the
highest degree tapu, and may only be touched by a few special persons
till the restriction is removed.[1040] In Madagascar, a fire is kept up
in the room for several days, then the child in its best clothes is in
due form carried out of the house and back to its mother, both times
being carefully lifted over the fire, which is made near the door.[1041]
In Africa, some of the most noticeable ceremonies of the class are
these. The people of Sarac wash the child three days after birth with
holy water.[1042] When a Mandingo child was about a week old its hair
was cut, and the priest, invoking blessings, took it in his arms,
whispered in its ear, spat thrice in its face, and pronounced its name
aloud before the assembled company.[1043] In Guinea, when a child is
born, the event is publicly proclaimed, the new-born babe is brought
into the streets, and the headman of the town or family sprinkles it
with water from a basin, giving it a name and invoking blessings of
health and wealth upon it; other friends follow the example, till the
child is thoroughly drenched.[1044] In these various examples of
lustration of infants, the purifications by fire have especial
importance ethnologically, not because this proceeding is more natural
to the savage mind than that of bathing or sprinkling with water, but
because this latter ceremony may sometimes have been imitated from
Christian baptism. The fact of savage and barbaric lustration of infants
being in several cases associated with the belief in re-birth of
ancestral souls seems to mark the rite as belonging to remote
pre-Christian ages.[1045]
The purification of women at childbirth, &c., is ceremonially practised
by the lower races under circumstances which do not suggest adoption
from more civilized nations. The seclusion and lustration among North
American Indian tribes have been compared with those of the Levitical
law, but the resemblance is not remarkably close, and belongs rather to
a stage of civilization than to the ordinance of a particular nation. It
is a good case of independent development in such customs, that the rite
of putting out the fires and kindling ‘new fire’ on the woman’s return
is common to the Iroquois and Sioux in North America,[1046] and the
Basutos in South Africa. These latter have a well-marked rite of
lustration by sprinkling, performed on girls at womanhood.[1047] The
Hottentots considered mother and child unclean till they had been washed
and smeared after the uncleanly native fashion.[1048] Lustrations with
water were usual in West Africa.[1049] Tatar tribes in Mongolia used
bathing, while in Siberia the custom of leaping over a fire answered the
purpose of purification.[1050] The Mantras of the Malay Peninsula have
made the bathing of the mother after childbirth into a ceremonial
ordinance.[1051] It is so among the indigenes of India, where both in
northern and southern districts the naming of the child comes into
connexion with the purification of the mother, both ceremonies being
performed on the same day.[1052] Without extending further this list of
instances, it is sufficiently plain that we have before us the record of
a practical custom becoming consecrated by traditional habit, and making
its way into the range of religious ceremony.
Much the same may be said of the purification of savage and barbaric
races on occasion of contamination by bloodshed or funeral. In North
America, the Dacotas use the vapour-bath not only as a remedy, but also
for the removal of ceremonial uncleanness, such as is caused by killing
a person, or touching a dead body.[1053] So among the Navajos, the man
who has been deputed to carry a dead body to burial, holds himself
unclean until he has thoroughly washed himself in water prepared for the
purpose by certain ceremonies.[1054] In Madagascar, no one who has
attended a funeral may enter the palace courtyard till he has bathed,
and in all cases there must be an ablution of the mourner’s garments on
returning from the grave.[1055] Among the Basutos of South Africa,
warriors returning from battle must rid themselves of the blood they
have shed, or the shades of their victims would pursue them and disturb
their sleep. Therefore they go in procession in full armour to the
nearest stream to wash, and their weapons are washed also. It is usual
in this ceremony for a sorcerer higher up the stream to put in some
magical ingredient, such as he also uses in the preparation of the holy
water which is sprinkled over the people with a beast’s tail at the
frequent public purifications. These Basutos, moreover, use fumigation
with burning wood to purify growing corn, and cattle taken from the
enemy. Fire serves for purification in cases too trifling to require
sacrifice; thus when a mother sees her child walk over a grave, she
hastens to call it, makes it stand before her, and lights a small fire
at its feet.[1056] The Zulus, whose horror of a dead body will induce
them to cast out and leave in the woods their sick people, at least
strangers, purify themselves by an ablution after a funeral. It is to be
noticed that these ceremonial practices have come to mean something
distinct from mere cleanliness. Kaffirs who will purify themselves from
ceremonial uncleanness by washing, are not in the habit of washing
themselves or their vessels for ordinary purposes, and the dogs and the
cockroaches divide between them the duty of cleaning out the
milk-baskets.[1057] Mediæval Tatar tribes, some of whom had
conscientious scruples against bathing, have found passing through fire
or between two fires a sufficient purification, and the household stuff
of the dead was lustrated in this latter way.[1058]
In the organised nations of the semi-civilized and civilized world,
where religion shapes itself into elaborate and systematic schemes, the
practices of lustration familiar to the lower culture now become part of
stringent ceremonial systems. It seems to be at this stage of their
existence that they often take up in addition to their earlier
ceremonial significance an ethical meaning, absent or all but absent
from them at their first appearance above the religious horizon. This
will be made evident by glancing over the ordinances of lustration in
the great national religions of history. It will be well to notice first
the usages of two semi-civilized nations of America, which though they
have scarcely produced practical effect on civilization at large, give
valuable illustration of a transition period in culture, leaving apart
the obscure question of their special civilization having been
influenced in early or late times from the Old World.
In the religion of Peru, lustration is well-marked and characteristic.
On the day of birth, the water in which the child has been washed was
poured into a hole in the ground, charms being repeated by a wizard or
priest; an excellent instance of the ceremonial washing away of evil
influences. The naming of the child was also more or less generally
accompanied with ceremonial washing, as in districts where at two years
old it was weaned, baptized, had its hair ceremonially cut with a stone
knife, and received its child-name; Peruvian Indians still cut off a
lock of the child’s hair at its baptism. Moreover, the significance of
lustration as removing guilt is plainly recorded in ancient Peru; after
confession of guilt, an Inca bathed in a neighbouring river and repeated
this formula, ‘O thou River, receive the sins I have this day confessed
unto the Sun, carry them down to the sea, and let them never more
appear.’[1059] In old Mexico, the first act of ceremonial lustration
took place at birth. The nurse washed the infant in the name of the
water-goddess, to remove the impurity of its birth, to cleanse its heart
and give it a good and perfect life; then blowing on water in her right
hand she washed it again, warning it of forthcoming trials and miseries
and labours, and praying the invisible Deity to descend upon the water,
to cleanse the child from sin and foulness, and to deliver it from
misfortune. The second act took place some four days later, unless the
astrologers postponed it. At a festive gathering, amid fires kept alight
from the first ceremony, the nurse undressed the child sent by the gods
into this sad and doleful world, bade it receive the life-giving water,
and washed it, driving out evil from each limb and offering to the
deities appointed prayers for virtue and blessing. It was then that the
toy instruments of war or craft or household labour were placed in the
boy’s or girl’s hand (a custom singularly corresponding with one usual
in China), and the other children, instructed by their parents, gave the
newcomer its child-name, here again to be replaced by another at manhood
or womanhood. There is nothing unlikely in the statement that the child
was also passed four times through the fire, but the authority this is
given on is not sufficient. The religious character of ablution is well
shown in Mexico by its forming part of the daily service of the priests.
Aztec life ended as it had begun, with ceremonial lustration; it was one
of the funeral ceremonies to sprinkle the head of the corpse with the
lustral water of this life.[1060]
Among the nations of East Asia, and across the more civilized Turanian
districts of Central Asia, ceremonial lustration comes frequently into
notice; but it would often bring in difficult points of ethnography to
attempt a general judgment how far these may be native local rites, and
how far ceremonies adopted from foreign religious systems. As examples
may be mentioned in Japan the sprinkling and naming of the child at a
month old, and other lustrations connected with worship;[1061] in China
the religious ceremony at the first washing of the three days’ old
infant, the lifting of the bride over burning coals, the sprinkling of
holy-water over sacrifices and rooms and on the mourners after a
funeral;[1062] in Burma the purification of the mother by fire, and the
annual sprinkling-festival.[1063] Within the range of Buddhism in its
Lamaist form, we find such instances as the Tibetan and Mongol
lustration of the child a few days after birth, the lama blessing the
water and immersing the child thrice, and giving its name; the Buraet
consecration by threefold washing; the Tibetan ceremony where the
mourners returning from the funeral stand before the fire, wash their
hands with warm water over the hot coals, and fumigate themselves thrice
with proper formulas.[1064] With this infant baptism of Tibetans and
Mongols may be compared the rite of their ethnological kinsfolk in
Europe. The Lapps in their semi-Christianized state had a form of
baptism, in which a new name, that of the deceased ancestor who would
live again in the child, as the mother was spiritually informed in a
dream, was given with a threefold sprinkling and washing with warm water
where mystic alder-twigs were put. This ceremony, though called by the
Scandinavian name of ‘laugo’ or bath, was distinct from the Christian
baptism to which the Lapps also conformed.[1065] The natural
ethnographic explanation of these two baptismal ceremonies existing
together in Northern Europe, is that Christianity had brought in a new
rite, without displacing a previous native one.
Other Asiatic districts show lustration in more compact and
characteristic religious developments. The Brahman leads a life marked
by recurring ceremonial purification, from the time when his first
appearance in the world brings uncleanness on the household, requiring
ablution and clean garments to remove it, and thenceforth through his
years from youth to old age, where bathing is a main part of the long
minute ceremonial of daily worship, and further washings and aspersions
enter into more solemn religious acts, till at last the day comes when
his kinsfolk, on their way home from his funeral, cleanse themselves by
a final bath from their contamination by his remains. For the means of
some of his multifarious lustrations the Hindu has recourse to the
sacred cow, but his more frequent medium of removing uncleanness of body
and soul is water, the divine waters to which he prays, ‘Take away, O
Waters, whatsoever is wicked in me, what I have done by violence or
curse, and untruth!’[1066] The Parsi religion prescribes a system of
lustrations which well shows its common origin with that of Hinduism by
its similar use of cow’s urine and of water. Bathing or sprinkling with
water, or applications of ‘nirang’ washed off with water, form part of
the daily religious rites, as well as of such special ceremonies as the
naming of the new-born child, the putting on of the sacred cord, the
purification of the mother after childbirth, the purification of him who
has touched a corpse, when the unclean demon, driven by sprinkling of
the good water from the top of the head and from limb to limb, comes
forth at the left toe and departs like a fly to the evil region of the
north. It is, perhaps, the influence of this ancestral religion, even
more than the actual laws of Islam, that makes the modern Persian so
striking an example of the way in which ceremony may override reality.
It is rather in form than in fact that his cleanliness is next to
godliness. He carries the principle of removing legal uncleanness by
ablution so far, that a holy man will wash his eyes when they have been
polluted by the sight of an infidel. He will carry about a water-pot
with a long spout for his ablutions, yet he depopulates the land by his
neglect of the simplest sanitary rules, and he may be seen by the side
of the little tank where scores of people have been in before him,
obliged to clear with his hand a space in the foul scum on the water,
before he plunges in to obtain ceremonial purity.[1067]
Over against the Aryan rites of lustration in the religions of Asia, may
be set the well-known types in the religions of classic Europe. At the
Greek amphidromia, when the child was about a week old, the women who
had assisted at the birth washed their hands, and afterwards the child
was carried round the fire by the nurse, and received its name; the
Roman child received its prænomen with a lustration at about the same
age, and the custom is recorded of the nurse touching its lips and
forehead with spittle. To wash before an act of worship was a ceremony
handed down by Greek and Roman ritual through the classic ages: καθαραῖς
δὲ δρόσοις, ἀφυδρανάμενοι στχείετε ναούς—eo lavatum, ut sacrificem. The
holy-water mingled with salt, the holy-water vessel at the temple
entrance, the brush to sprinkle the worshippers, all belong to classic
antiquity. Romans, their flocks and herds and their fields, were
purified from disease and other ill by lustrations which show perfectly
the equivalent nature of water and fire as means of purification; the
passing of flocks and shepherds through fires, the sprinkling water with
laurel branches, the fumigating with fragrant boughs and herbs and
sulphur, formed part of the rustic rites of the Palilia. Bloodshed
demanded the lustral ceremony. Hektor fears to pour with unwashen hands
the libation of dark wine, nor may he pray bespattered with gore to
cloud-wrapped Zeus; Æneas may not touch the household gods till cleansed
from slaughter by the living stream. It was with far changed thought
that Ovid wrote his famous reproof of his too-easy countrymen, who
fancied that water could indeed wash off the crime of blood:—
‘Ah nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina cædis
Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqua.’
Thus, too, the mourner must be cleansed by lustration from the
contaminating presence of death. At the door of the Greek house of
mourning was set the water-vessel, that those who had been within might
sprinkle themselves and be clean; while the mourners returning from a
Roman funeral, aspersed with water and stepping over fire, were by this
double process made pure.[1068]
The ordinances of purification in the Levitical law relate especially to
the removal of legal uncleanness connected with childbirth, death, and
other pollutions. Washing was prescribed for such purposes, and also
sprinkling with water of separation, water mingled with the ashes of the
red heifer. Ablution formed part of the consecration of priests, and
without it they might not serve at the altar nor enter the tabernacle.
In the later times of Jewish national history, perhaps through
intercourse with nations whose lustrations entered more into the daily
routine of life, ceremonial washings were multiplied. It seems also that
in this period must be dated the ceremony which in after ages has held
so great a place in the religion of the world, their rite of baptism of
proselytes.[1069] The Moslem lustrations are ablutions with water, or in
default with dust or sand, performed partially before prayer, and
totally on special days or to remove special uncleanness. They are
strictly religious acts, belonging in principle to prevalent usage of
Oriental religion; and their details, whether invented or adopted as
they stand in Islam, are not carried down from Judaism or
Christianity.[1070] The rites of lustration which have held and hold
their places within the pale of Christianity are in well-marked
historical connexion with Jewish and Gentile ritual. Purification by
fire has only appeared as an actual ceremony among some little-known
Christian sects, and in the European folklore custom of passing children
through or over fire, if indeed we can be sure that this rite is lustral
and not sacrificial.[1071] The usual medium of purification is water.
Holy-water is in full use through the Greek and Roman churches. It
blesses the worshipper as he enters the temple, it cures disease, it
averts sorcery from man and beast, it drives demons from the possessed,
it stops the spirit-writer’s pen, it drives the spirit-moved table it is
sprinkled upon to dash itself frantically against the wall; at least
these are among the powers attributed to it, and some of the most
striking of them have been lately vouched for by papal sanction. This
lustration with holy-water so exactly continues the ancient classic
rite, that its apologists are apt to explain the correspondence by
arguing that Satan stole it for his own wicked ends.[1072] Catholic
ritual follows ancient sacrificial usage in the priest’s ceremonial
washing of hands before mass. The priest’s touching with his spittle the
ears and nostrils of the infant or catechumen, saying, ‘Ephphatha,’ is
obviously connected with passages in the Gospels; its adoption as a
baptismal ceremony has been compared, perhaps justly, with the classical
lustration by spittle.[1073] Finally, it has but to be said that
ceremonial purification as a Christian act centres in baptism by water,
that symbol of initiation of the convert which history traces from the
Jewish rite to that of John the Baptist, and thence to the Christian
ordinance. Through later ages adult baptism carries on the Jewish
ceremony of the admission of the proselyte, while infant baptism
combines this with the lustration of the new-born infant. Passing
through a range of meaning such as separates the sacrament of the Roman
centurion from the sacrament of the Roman cardinal, becoming to some a
solemn symbol of new life and faith, to some an act in itself of
supernatural efficacy, the rite of baptism has remained almost
throughout the Christian world the outward sign of the Christian
profession.
In considering the present group of religious ceremonies, their
manifestations in the religions of the higher nations have been but
scantily outlined in comparison with their rudimentary forms in the
lower culture. Yet this reversal of the proportions due to practical
importance in no way invalidates, but rather aids, the ethnographic
lessons to be drawn by tracing their course in history. Through their
varied phases of survival, modification, and succession, they have each
in its own way brought to view the threads of continuity which connect
the faiths of the lower with the faiths of the higher world; they have
shown how hardly the civilized man can understand the religious rites
even of his own land without knowledge of the meaning, often the widely
unlike meaning, which they bore to men of distant ages and countries,
representatives of grades of culture far different from his.
Footnote 844:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 88; see p. 427.
Footnote 845:
Ibid. p. 200; see p. 174. See also Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p.
343. Mariner, ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. ii. p. 235.
Footnote 846:
Schoolcraft, ‘Ind. Tribes,’ part iii. p. 237.
Footnote 847:
M’Coy, ‘Baptist Indian Missions,’ p. 359.
Footnote 848:
Tanner, ‘Narrative,’ p. 46.
Footnote 849:
Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 297.
Footnote 850:
Heckewelder, ‘Ind. Völkerschaften,’ p. 354.
Footnote 851:
‘Narratives of Rites and Laws of Yncas,’ tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham,
pp. 31, 33. See also Brinton, p. 298.
Footnote 852:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ pp. 141, 174, 182. ‘Remarks on Zulu
Lang.’ Pietermaritzburg, 1870, p. 22.
Footnote 853:
Waitz, vol. ii. p. 169. Steinhauser, l.c. p. 129.
Footnote 854:
Rowley, ‘Universities’ Mission to Central Africa,’ p. 226.
Footnote 855:
Mason, ‘Karens,’ l.c. p. 215.
Footnote 856:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 110, 128. See also Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal,’ p.
182 (Santals).
Footnote 857:
Plath, ‘Religion der Chinesen,’ part ii. p. 2; Doolittle, vol. ii. p.
116.
Footnote 858:
‘Sama-Veda,’ i. 4, 2. Wuttke, ‘Gesch. des Heidenthums,’ part ii. p.
342.
Footnote 859:
Lane, ‘Modern Egyptians,’ vol. i. p. 128.
Footnote 860:
‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 51, 8, x. 105, 8. Muir, ‘Sanskrit Texts,’ part ii. ch.
iii.
Footnote 861:
Lane, ‘Modern Egyptians,’ vol. ii. p. 383.
Footnote 862:
See Köppen, ‘Religion des Buddha,’ vol. i. pp. 345, 556; vol. ii. pp.
303, 319. Compare Fergusson, ‘Tree and Serpent Worship,’ pl. xlii.
Footnote 863:
Xenoph. Memorabilia Socrat. i. 3, 2.
Footnote 864:
Sahagun, ‘Retorica, &c., de la Gente Mexicana,’ lib. vi. c. 4, in
Kingsborough, ‘Antiquities of Mexico,’ vol. v.
Footnote 865:
‘Rig-Veda,’ vii. 89, 3. Max Müller, ‘Chips,’ vol. i. p. 39.
Footnote 866:
‘Avesta,’ tr. by Spiegel; ‘Khorda-Avesta,’ Patet Qod.
Footnote 867:
Garcilaso de la Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ v. 19. Ellis,
‘Madagascar,’ vol. i., p. 421.
Footnote 868:
Charlevoix, ‘Nouv. Fr.’ vol. i. p. 394. See also Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in
‘Pinkerton,’ vol. xiii. p. 41.
Footnote 869:
Phillips in Astley’s ‘Voyages,’ vol. ii. p. 411; Lubbock, ‘Origin of
Civilization,’ p. 216. Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p.
500. Bastian in ‘Ztschr. für Ethnologie,’ 1869, p. 315.
Footnote 870:
Schoolcraft, ‘Algic Res.’ vol. ii. p. 75. See also Tanner, ‘Narr.’ p.
193, and above, p. 270.
Footnote 871:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ p. 129.
Footnote 872:
Billings, ‘Exp. to Northern Russia,’ p. 125. Chinese sacrifices buried
for earth spirits, see ante, vol. i. p. 107; Plath, part ii. p. 50.
Footnote 873:
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 182.
Footnote 874:
Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 67.
Footnote 875:
Herod. vii. 35, 54. Liv. vii. 6. Grote, ‘Hist. of Greece,’ vol. x. p.
589, see p. 715.
Footnote 876:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 367.
Footnote 877:
Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. pp. 336, 358. Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i.
p. 220.
Footnote 878:
Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 494; J. L. Wilson, ‘W.
Afr.’ p. 218; Burton, ‘W. & W. fr. W. Afr.’ p. 331.
Footnote 879:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. p. 195, &c.
Footnote 880:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 69. J. G. Müller, p. 631.
Footnote 881:
Ward, vol. ii. p. 194; ‘Mem. Anthrop. Soc.’ vol. i. p. 332.
Footnote 882:
Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 226.
Footnote 883:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 218.
Footnote 884:
Manu, iii. 212. See also ‘Avesta,’ tr. by Spiegel, vol. ii. p. lxxvii.
(sacrificial cakes eaten by priest).
Footnote 885:
Ysbrants Ides, ‘Reize naar China,’ p. 38. Meiners, vol. i. p. 162.
Footnote 886:
Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 46. J. G. Müller, p. 631.
Footnote 887:
Bel and the Dragon.
Footnote 888:
Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 47.
Footnote 889:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ part ii. p. 210.
Footnote 890:
Homer, Odyss. xi. xii.
Footnote 891:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. p. 270.
Footnote 892:
Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 41; see J. G. Müller,
p. 143; Waitz, vol. iii. p. 207. Comp. Meiners, vol. ii. p. 89. See
also Bollaert in ‘Mem. Anthrop. Soc.’ vol. ii. p. 96.
Footnote 893:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iii. p. 145. See also St. John, ‘Far East,’
vol. i. p. 160.
Footnote 894:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 147; Hunter, ‘Rural Bengal,’ p. 181;
Forbes Leslie, ‘Early Races of Scotland,’ vol. ii. p. 458.
Footnote 895:
Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ letter xxi. in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 531. See also
Waitz, vol. ii. p. 192.
Footnote 896:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 96.
Footnote 897:
Levit. i. &c.; Deuteron. xii. 23; Psalm xvi. 4.
Footnote 898:
Waitz, vol. iii. p. 181. Hennepin, ‘Voyage,’ p. 302. Charlevoix,
‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. v. p. 311, vi. p. 178. Schoolcraft, ‘Ind.
Tribes,’ part i. p. 49, part ii. p. 127. Catlin, vol. i. pp. 181, 229.
Morgan, ‘Iroquois,’ p. 164. J. G. Müller, p. 58.
Footnote 899:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ pp. 418, 507. Lery, ‘Voy. en Brésil,’ p.
268. See also Musters in ‘Journ. Anthrop. Inst.’ vol. i. p. 202
(Patagonians).
Footnote 900:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ pp. 11, 141, 177. See also Casalis,
‘Basutos,’ p. 258.
Footnote 901:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 39. See also Piedrahita, part i.
lib. i. c. 3 (Muyscas).
Footnote 902:
Plath, ‘Religion der alten Chinesen,’ part ii. p. 31. Doolittle,
‘Chinese.’
Footnote 903:
Porphyr. de Abstinentia, ii. 5. Arnob. contra Gentes. vii. 26.
Meiners, vol. ii. p. 14.
Footnote 904:
Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Egyptians,’ vol. v. pp. 315, 338. Plutarch, de Is.
et Osir.
Footnote 905:
Herodot. i. 183.
Footnote 906:
Exod. xxx., xxxvii. Lev. x. 1, xvi. 12, &c.
Footnote 907:
Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 41. Le Jeune in ‘Rel.
des Jés.’ 1634, p. 16. Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’ vol. i. p. 189.
Footnote 908:
‘Rites and Laws of Incas,’ p. 16, &c., 79; see ‘Ollanta, an ancient
Ynca Drama,’ tr. by C. R. Markham, p. 81. Garcilaso de la Vega, lib.
i. ii. vi.
Footnote 909:
Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iii. pp. 106, 114.
Footnote 910:
Plath, part ii. p. 65.
Footnote 911:
Latham, ‘Descr. Eth.’ vol. i. p. 191.
Footnote 912:
‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 1, 4.
Footnote 913:
Homer, Il. i. 317.
Footnote 914:
Porphyr. De Abstinentia, ii. 42; see 58.
Footnote 915:
Stanley, ‘Jewish Church,’ 2d Ser. pp. 410, 424. See Kalisch on
Leviticus; Barry in Smith’s ‘Dictionary of the Bible,’ art.
‘sacrifice.’
Footnote 916:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ p. 11 (amadhlozi or amatongo =
ancestral spirits).
Footnote 917:
Roman Pane, ch. xvi. in ‘Life of Colon,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xii. p.
86. Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 418; see Meiners, vol. ii., p. 516;
J. G. Müller, p. 212.
Footnote 918:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iv. p. 194.
Footnote 919:
Eliot in ‘As. Res.’ vol. iii. p. 30.
Footnote 920:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 88, 100.
Footnote 921:
Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iii. p. 114.
Footnote 922:
Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ p. 264.
Footnote 923:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. i. p. 27.
Footnote 924:
Mason, ‘Karens,’ l.c. p. 208.
Footnote 925:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 407. Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.’ vol. i. p.
358. Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ pp. 104, 220.
Footnote 926:
Williams, ‘Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 231.
Footnote 927:
Schoolcraft, ‘Algic Researches,’ vol. ii. p. 140; see p. 190.
Footnote 928:
Tanner’s ‘Narrative,’ pp. 286, 318. See also Waitz, vol. iii. p. 207.
Footnote 929:
J. G. Müller, p. 142; see p. 282.
Footnote 930:
Sahagun, lib. vi. in Kingsborough, vol. v.
Footnote 931:
‘Rites and Laws of Yncas,’ tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham, pp. 55, 58,
166. See ante, p. 385 (possible connexion of smoke with soul).
Footnote 932:
Waitz, vol. ii. pp. 188, 196. Steinhauser, l.c. p. 136. See also
Schlegel, ‘Ewe-Sprache,’ p. xv.; Magyar, ‘Süd-Afrika,’ p. 273.
Footnote 933:
A. Campbell in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vii. p. 153.
Footnote 934:
O’Riley, in ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iv. p. 592. Bastian, ‘Oestl.
Asien,’ vol. ii. p. 12.
Footnote 935:
R. Clarke, ‘Sierra Leone,’ p. 43.
Footnote 936:
Smith, ‘Virginia,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiii. p. 41. Welcker, ‘Griech.
Götterlehre,’ vol. ii. p. 693. Legge, ‘Confucius,’ p. 179. Grohmann,
‘Aberglauben aus Böhmen,’ p. 41, &c.
Footnote 937:
J. L. Wilson, ‘W. Afr.’ p. 218; Bosman, ‘Guinea,’ in Pinkerton, vol.
xvi. p. 400.
Footnote 938:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii. p. 387.
Footnote 939:
Roberts, ‘Oriental Illustrations,’ p. 545.
Footnote 940:
M’Coy, ‘Baptist Indian Missions,’ p. 305.
Footnote 941:
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ p. 59. See Casalis, p. 252.
Footnote 942:
Earl in ‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. iv. p. 174.
Footnote 943:
Hodgson, ‘Abor. of India,’ p. 170, see p. 146; Hooker, ‘Himalayan
Journals,’ vol. ii. p. 276.
Footnote 944:
Prescott, ‘Mexico,’ book i. ch. iii.
Footnote 945:
‘Rites and Laws of Yncas,’ p. 33, &c.
Footnote 946:
Welcker, ‘Griech. Götterlehre,’ vol. ii. p. 50; Pauly,
‘Real-Encyclopedie,’ s.v. ‘Sacrificia.’
Footnote 947:
Tanner’s ‘Nar.’ p. 154; see also Waitz, vol. iii. p. 167.
Footnote 948:
Symes, ‘Ava,’ in Pinkerton, vol. ix. p. 440; Caron, ‘Japan,’ ib. vol.
vii. p. 629.
Footnote 949:
Burton, ‘Medinah,’ &c., vol. iii. p. 302; Lane, ‘Mod. Eg.’ vol. i. p.
132.
Footnote 950:
Hardy, ‘Manual of Budhism,’ p. 59.
Footnote 951:
2 Kings iii. 27. Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. 10, iv. 156; Laud. Constant.
xiii. Porphyr. De Abstin. ii. 56, &c. Lamprid. Heliogabal. vii.
Movers, ‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. p. 300, &c.
Footnote 952:
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. p. 419.
Footnote 953:
Römer, ‘Guinea,’ p. 59. Bosman in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 399.
Footnote 954:
Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iii. p. 106; Castrén, ‘Finn. Myth.’ p.
232.
Footnote 955:
Hesiod. Theog. 537. Welcker, vol. i. p. 764; vol. ii. p. 51.
Footnote 956:
Haug, ‘Parsis,’ Bombay, 1862, p. 238.
Footnote 957:
Hamilton in ‘As. Res.’ vol. ii. p. 342.
Footnote 958:
Mariner’s ‘Tonga Is.’ vol. i. p. 454; vol. ii. p. 222. Cook’s ‘3rd
Voy.’ vol. i. p. 403. Details from S. Africa in Bastian, ‘Mensch,’
vol. iii. pp. 4, 24; Scherzer, ‘Voy. of Novara,’ vol. i. p. 212.
Footnote 959:
Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’ vol. i. p. 172; Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. ii.
p. 170. See also Venegas, ‘Noticia de la California,’ vol. i. p. 117;
Garcilaso de la Vega, lib. ii. c. 8 (Peru).
Footnote 960:
Buchanan, ‘Mysore,’ &c., in Pinkerton, vol. viii. p. 661; Meiners,
vol. ii. p. 472; Bastian, l.c. See also Dubois, ‘India,’ vol. i. p. 5.
Footnote 961:
Polack, ‘New Zealand,’ vol. i. p. 264.
Footnote 962:
Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 184.
Footnote 963:
Theodoret. in Levit. xix.; Hanusch, ‘Slaw. Myth.’ Details in Bastian,
‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 229, &c.
Footnote 964:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. iii. p. 113 (see other details).
Footnote 965:
Pausan. viii. 23; ix. 8.
Footnote 966:
‘Encyc. Brit.’ art. ‘Brahma.’ See ‘Asiat. Res.’ vol. ix. p. 387.
Footnote 967:
Boecler, ‘Ehsten Aberglaübische Gebraüche,’ &c., p. 4.
Footnote 968:
Rivero and Tschudi, p. 196. See ‘Rites of Yncas,’ p. 79.
Footnote 969:
Bastian, p. 112, &c.; Smith’s ‘Dic. of Gr. and Rom. Ant.’ art.
‘Sacrificium.’
Footnote 970:
Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ p. 40.
Footnote 971:
Diodor. Sic. xx. 14.
Footnote 972:
Callaway, ‘Zulu Tales,’ vol. i. p. 88; Magyar, ‘Süd-Afrika,’ p. 256.
Footnote 973:
Macpherson, ‘India,’ pp. 108, 187.
Footnote 974:
De Silva in Bastian, ‘Psychologie,’ p. 181.
Footnote 975:
Details in Pauly, ‘Real-Encyclop.’ s.v. ‘Sacrificia’; Bastian,
‘Mensch,’ vol. iii. p. 114; Movers, ‘Phönizier,’ vol. i. p. 300.
Footnote 976:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 82; Torquemada, ‘Monarquia Indiana,’
x. c. 29; J. G. Müller, pp. 502, 640. See also ibid. p. 379 (Peru);
‘Rites and Laws of Yncas,’ pp. 46, 54.
Footnote 977:
Grote, vol. v. p. 366. Schmidt in Smith’s ‘Dic. of Gr. and Rom. Ant.’
art. ‘Sacrificium.’ Bastian, l.c.
Footnote 978:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. iii. p. 501.
Footnote 979:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 152.
Footnote 980:
Lane, ‘Modern Eg.’ vol. ii. p. 262. Meiners, vol. ii. p. 85.
Footnote 981:
Wilkinson, ‘Ancient Eg.’ vol. iii. p. 395; and in Rawlinson’s
Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 137. See 1 Sam. vi. 4.
Footnote 982:
Grimm, ‘Deutsche Myth.’ p. 1131.
Footnote 983:
Ibid.
Footnote 984:
Bastian, vol. iii. p. 116.
Footnote 985:
St. Clair and Brophy, ‘Bulgaria,’ p. 43. Compare modern Circassian
sacrifice of animal before cross, as substitute for child, in Bell,
‘Circassia,’ vol. ii.
Footnote 986:
Ralston, ‘Songs of Russian People,’ pp. 123, 153, &c.
Footnote 987:
Wuttke, ‘Deutsche Volksaberglaube,’ p. 86. See also Grimm, ‘Deutsche
Myth.’ pp. 417, 602.
Footnote 988:
Hyltén-Cavallius, ‘Wärend och Wirdarne,’ part i. pp. 131, 146, 157,
&c.
Footnote 989:
Monnier, ‘Traditions Populaires,’ pp. 187, 666.
Footnote 990:
R. Hunt, ‘Pop. Rom. of W. of England,’ 1st Ser. p. 237. Pennant, ‘Tour
in Scotland,’ in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 49. J. Y. Simpson, Address to
Soc. Antiq. Scotland, 1861, p. 33; Brand, ‘Pop. Ant.’ vol. iii. pp.
74, 317.
Footnote 991:
Brand, vol. i. p. 484. Grimm, ‘D. M.’ pp. 45, 194, 1188, see p. 250;
‘Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer,’ p. 900; Hyltén-Cavallius, part i. p.
175.
Footnote 992:
Grimm, ‘D. M.’ p. 962.
Footnote 993:
Beausobre, vol. ii. p. 667. Polydorus Vergilius, De Inventoribus Rerum
(Basel, 1521), lib. v. 1.
Footnote 994:
Tanner’s ‘Narrative,’ p. 288. Loskiel, ‘N. A. Ind.’ part i. p. 76.
Schoolcraft, ‘Ind. Tribes,’ part i. pp. 34, 113, 360, 391; part iii.
p. 227. Catlin, ‘N. A. Ind.’ vol. i. p. 36. Charlevoix, ‘Nouv. Fr.’
vol. ii. p. 170; vol. vi. p. 67. Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. ii. p.
170. Waitz, ‘Anthropologie,’ vol. iii. pp. 206, 217.
Footnote 995:
Colombo, ‘Vita,’ ch. xxv. Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 501. See also
Meiners, vol. ii. p. 143 (Guyana).
Footnote 996:
Dobrizhoffer, ‘Abipones,’ vol. ii. p. 68.
Footnote 997:
St. John, ‘Far East,’ vol. i. p. 144.
Footnote 998:
Döhne, ‘Zulu Dic.’ s.v. ‘nyanga;’ Grout, ‘Zulu-land,’ p. 158;
Callaway, ‘Religion of Amazulu,’ p. 387.
Footnote 999:
Somadeva Bhatta, tr. Brockhaus, vol. ii. p. 81. Meiners, vol. ii. p.
147.
Footnote 1000:
Maury, ‘Magic,’ &c., p. 237; Pausan. i. 34; Philostrat. Apollon. Tyan.
i.; Galen. Comment. in Hippocrat. i.
Footnote 1001:
Baptist. Mantuan. Fast. ix. 350.
Footnote 1002:
‘Acta Sanctorum Bolland.’ S. Theresa.
Footnote 1003:
Colombo, ‘Vita,’ ch. lxii.; Roman Pane, ibid. ch. xv.; and in
Pinkerton, vol. xii. Condamine, ‘Travels,’ in Pinkerton, vol. xiv. p.
226; Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. pp. 441, 631 (details of
snuff-powders among Omaguas, Otomacs, &c.; native names curupá,
paricá, niopo, nupa; made from seeds of Mimosa acacioides, Acacia
niopo).
Footnote 1004:
Maury, ‘Magie,’ &c., p. 425.
Footnote 1005:
Seemann, ‘Voy. of Herald,’ vol. i. p. 256. Rivero and Tschudi,
‘Peruvian Antiquities,’ p. 184. J. G. Müller, p. 397.
Footnote 1006:
Brasseur, ‘Mexique,’ vol. iii. p. 558; Clavigero, vol. ii. p. 40; J.
G. Müller, p. 656.
Footnote 1007:
J. G. Müller, ‘Amer. Urrelig.’ p. 277; Hernandez, ‘Historia Mexicana,’
lib. v. c. 51; Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1292.
Footnote 1008:
D. Wilson, ‘Prehistoric Man,’ vol. i. p. 487.
Footnote 1009:
Loskiel, ‘Ind. of N. A.’ part i. p. 42.
Footnote 1010:
Herodot. iv. 73-5.
Footnote 1011:
Maury, ‘Magie,’ &c., l.c.; Plin. xxiv. 102; Hesych. s.v. ‘ὠπήτειρα.’
See also Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 152, &c.; Baring-Gould,
‘Were-wolves,’ p. 149.
Footnote 1012:
Polak, ‘Persien,’ vol. ii. p. 245; Vambéry in ‘Mem. Anthrop. Soc.’
vol. ii. p. 20; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 216.
Footnote 1013:
Meiners, vol. ii. p. 162.
Footnote 1014:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iii. p. 286.
Footnote 1015:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 145. Compare ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii.
p. 247 (Aracan).
Footnote 1016:
D. H. Tuke in ‘Journal of Mental Science,’ Oct. 1870, p. 368.
Footnote 1017:
Grey, ‘Australia,’ vol. ii. p. 327.
Footnote 1018:
Turner, ‘Polynesia,’ p. 230. Seemann, ‘Viti,’ p. 151.
Footnote 1019:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part iv. p. 54.
Footnote 1020:
Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 485.
Footnote 1021:
D’Orbigny, ‘L’Homme Américain,’ vol. ii. pp. 319, 330.
Footnote 1022:
Rivero and Tschudi, ‘Peruvian Antiquities,’ p. 202. See also Arbousset
and Daumas, ‘Voyage,’ p. 277 (Kafirs).
Footnote 1023:
Bickmore, in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vii. p. 20. Georgi, ‘Reise,’ vol. i.
p. 266. Gul. de Rubruquis in Hakluyt vol. i. p. 78. Bastian, ‘Oestl.
Asien,’ vol. iii. p. 228.
Footnote 1024:
Ælian. Var. Hist. v. 14, vii. 19; Plutarch. Solon, x.; Diog. Laert.
Solon; Welcker, vol. i. p. 404.
Footnote 1025:
Beda in Die S. Paschæ. Durand, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, lib.
vii. c. 35-9. Brand, ‘Popular Antiquities,’ vol. ii. pp. 295, 318.
Footnote 1026:
Gregg, ‘Commerce of Prairies,’ vol. i. pp. 270, 273; vol. ii. p. 318.
Footnote 1027:
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. vi. p. 178.
Footnote 1028:
Rochefort, ‘Iles Antilles,’ p. 365.
Footnote 1029:
Clavigero, ‘Messico,’ vol. ii. p. 24; J. G. Müller, p. 641. See
Oviedo, ‘Nicaragua,’ p. 29.
Footnote 1030:
J. G. Müller, p. 363; Prescott, ‘Peru,’ book i. ch. 3. Garcilaso de la
Vega, ‘Commentarios Reales,’ lib. iii. c. 20, says it was at the east
end; cf. lib. vi. c. 21 (llama sacrificed with head to east).
Footnote 1031:
Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol. i., iv. and v.
Footnote 1032:
‘Illustrations of the History and Practices of the Thugs,’ London,
1837, p. 46.
Footnote 1033:
Ezek. viii. 16; Mishna, ‘Sukkoth,’ v. See Fergusson in Smith’s
‘Dictionary of the Bible,’ s.v. ‘Temple.’
Footnote 1034:
Hyde, ‘Veterum Persarum Religionis Historia,’ ch. iv. Niebuhr,
‘Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien,’ vol. i. p. 396. Layard, ‘Nineveh,’
vol. i. ch. ix.
Footnote 1035:
Lucian. De Domo, vi. Vitruv. de Architectura, iv. 5. See Welcker, vol.
i. p. 403.
Footnote 1036:
Augustin. de Serm. Dom. in Monte, ii. 5. Tertullian. Contra Valentin.
iii.; Apolog. xvi. Constitutiones Apostolicæ, ii. 57. Cyril. Catech.
Mystag. i. 2. Hieronym. in Amos. vi. 14; Bingham, ‘Antiquities of Chr.
Church,’ book viii. ch. 3, book xi. ch. 7, book xiii. ch. 8. J. M.
Neale, ‘Eastern Church,’ part i. p. 956; Romanoff, ‘Greco-Russian
Church,’ p. 67.
Footnote 1037:
Billings, ‘N. Russia,’ p. 175.
Footnote 1038:
Martius, ‘Ethnog. Amer.’ vol. i. p. 485.
Footnote 1039:
‘Journ. Ind. Archip.’ vol. ii. p. 264.
Footnote 1040:
Taylor, ‘New Zealand,’ p. 184; Yate, p. 82; Polack, vol. i. p. 51; A.
S. Thomson, vol. i. p. 118; Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iv. p. 304.
See Schirren, ‘Wandersagen der Neuseeländer,’ pp. 58, 183; Shortland,
p. 145.
Footnote 1041:
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. p. 152.
Footnote 1042:
Munzinger, ‘Ost-Afrika,’ p. 387.
Footnote 1043:
Park, ‘Travels,’ ch. vi.
Footnote 1044:
J. L. Wilson, ‘Western Africa,’ p. 399. See also Bastian, ‘Mensch,’
vol. ii. p. 279 (Watje); ‘Anthropological Review,’ Nov. 1864, p. 243
(Mpongwe); Barker-Webb and Berthelot, vol. ii. p. 163 (Tenerife).
Footnote 1045:
See pp. 5, 437.
Footnote 1046:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 261; part iii. p. 243, &c.
Charlevoix, ‘Nouvelle France,’ vol. v. p. 425. Wilson in ‘Tr. Eth.
Soc.’ vol. iv. p. 294.
Footnote 1047:
Casalis, ‘Basutos,’ p. 267.
Footnote 1048:
Kolben, vol. i. pp. 273, 283.
Footnote 1049:
Bosman, in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. pp. 423, 527; Meiners, vol. ii. pp.
107, 463.
Footnote 1050:
Pallas, ‘Mongolische Völkerschaften,’ vol. i. p. 166, &c.;
Strahlenberg, ‘Siberia,’ p. 97.
Footnote 1051:
Bourien in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. iii. p. 81.
Footnote 1052:
Dalton in ‘Tr. Eth. Soc.’ vol. vi. p. 22; Shortt, ibid. vol. iii. p.
375.
Footnote 1053:
Schoolcraft, ‘Indian Tribes,’ part i. p. 255.
Footnote 1054:
Brinton, ‘Myths of New World,’ p. 127.
Footnote 1055:
Ellis, ‘Madagascar,’ vol. i. p. 241; see pp. 407, 419.
Footnote 1056:
Casalis, ‘Basutos,’ p. 258.
Footnote 1057:
Grout, ‘Zulu-land,’ p. 147; Backhouse, ‘Mauritius and S. Africa,’ pp.
213, 225.
Footnote 1058:
Bastian, ‘Mensch,’ vol. iii. p. 75; Rubruquis, in Pinkerton, vol. vii.
p. 82; Plano Carpini in Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 37.
Footnote 1059:
Rivero and Tschudi, ‘Peruvian Antiquities,’ p. 180; J. G. Müller,
‘Amer. Urrelig.’ p. 389; Acosta, ‘Ind. Occ.’ v. c. 25; Brinton, p.
126. See account of the rite of driving out sicknesses and evils into
the rivers, ‘Rites and Laws of Incas,’ tr. and ed. by C. R. Markham,
p. 22.
Footnote 1060:
Sahagun, ‘Nueva España,’ lib. vi.; Torquemada, ‘Monarquia Indiana,’
lib. xii.; Clavigero, vol. ii. pp. 39, 86, &c.; Humboldt, ‘Vues des
Cordillères,’ Mendoza Cod.; J. G. Müller, p. 652.
Footnote 1061:
Siebold, ‘Nippon,’ v. p. 22; Kempfer, ‘Japan,’ ch. xiii. in Pinkerton,
vol. vii.
Footnote 1062:
Doolittle, ‘Chinese,’ vol. i. p. 120, vol. ii. p. 273. Davis, vol. i.
p. 269.
Footnote 1063:
Bastian, ‘Oestl. Asien,’ vol. ii. p. 247; Meiners, vol. ii. p. 106;
Symes in Pinkerton, vol. ix. p. 435.
Footnote 1064:
Köppen, ‘Religion des Buddha,’ vol. ii. p. 320; Bastian,
‘Psychologie,’ pp. 151, 211; ‘Mensch,’ vol. ii. p. 499.
Footnote 1065:
Leems, ‘Finnmarkens Lapper.’ Copenhagen, c. xiv., xxii., and Jessen,
c. xiv.; Pinkerton, vol. i. p. 483; Klemm, ‘Cultur-Gesch.’ vol. iii.
p. 77.
Footnote 1066:
Ward, ‘Hindoos,’ vol. ii. pp. 96, 246, 337; Colebrooke, ‘Essays,’ vol.
ii. Wuttke, ‘Gesch. des Heidenthums,’ vol. ii. p. 378. ‘Rig-Veda,’ i.
22, 23.
Footnote 1067:
Avesta, Vendidad, v.-xii.; Lord, in Pinkerton, vol. viii. p. 570;
Naoroji, ‘Parsee Religion’; Polak, ‘Persien,’ vol i. p. 355, &c., vol.
ii. p. 271. Meiners, vol. ii. p. 125.
Footnote 1068:
Details in Smith’s ‘Dic. of Gr. and Rom. Ant.’ and Pauly,
‘Real-Encyclopedie,’ s.v. ‘amphidromia,’ ‘lustratio,’ ‘sacrificium,’
‘funus’; Meiners, ‘Gesch. der Religionen,’ book vii.; Lomeyer, ‘De
Veterum Gentilium Lustrationibus’; Montfaucon, ‘L’Antiquité
Expliquée,’ &c. Special passages; Homer, Il. vi. 266; Eurip. Ion. 96;
Theocrit. xxiv. 95; Virg. Æn. ii. 719; Plaut. Aulular. iii. 6; Pers.
Sat. ii. 31; Ovid. Fast. i. 669, ii. 45, iv. 727; Festus, s.v. ‘aqua
et ignis,’ &c. The obscure subject of lustration in the mysteries is
here left untouched.
Footnote 1069:
Ex. xxix. 4, xxx. 18, xl. 12; Lev. viii. 6, xiv. 8, xv. 5, xxii. 6;
Numb. xix. &c.; Lightfoot in ‘Works,’ vol. xi.; Browne in Smith’s
‘Dic. of the Bible,’ s.v. ‘baptism;’ Calmet, ‘Dic.’ &c.
Footnote 1070:
Reland, ‘De Religione Mohammedanica;’ Lane, ‘Modern Eg.’ vol. i. p.
98, &c.
Footnote 1071:
Bingham, ‘Antiquities of Christian Church,’ book xi. ch. 2. Grimm,
‘Deutsche Mythologie,’ p. 592; Leslie, ‘Early Races of Scotland,’ vol.
i. p. 113; Pennant, in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 383.
Footnote 1072:
Rituale Romanum; Gaume, ‘L’Eau Bénite;’ Middleton, ‘Letter from Rome,’
&c.
Footnote 1073:
Rituale Romanum. Bingham, book x. ch. 2, book xv. ch. 3. See Mark vii.
34, viii. 23; John ix. 6.