Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I.

§ 1. Not to touch the Earth

[The priest of Aricia and the Golden Bough]

We have travelled far since we turned our backs on Nemi and set forth in quest of the secret of the Golden Bough. With the present volume we enter on the last stage of our long journey. The reader who has had the patience to follow the enquiry thus far may remember that at the outset two questions were proposed for answer: Why had the priest of Aricia to slay his predecessor? And why, before doing so, had he to pluck the Golden Bough?1 Of these two questions the first has now been answered. The priest of Aricia, if I am right, was one of those sacred kings or human divinities on whose life the welfare of the community and even the course of nature in general are believed to be intimately dependent. It does not appear that the subjects or worshippers of such a spiritual potentate form to themselves any very clear notion of the exact relationship in which they stand to him; probably their ideas on the point are vague and fluctuating, and we should err if we attempted to define the relationship with logical precision. All that the people know, or rather imagine, is that somehow they themselves, their cattle, and their crops are mysteriously bound up with their divine king, so that according as he is well or ill the community is healthy or sickly, the flocks and herds thrive or languish with disease, and the fields yield an abundant or a scanty harvest. The worst evil which they can conceive of is the natural death of their ruler, whether he succumb to sickness or old age, for in the opinion of his followers such a death would entail the most disastrous consequences on themselves and their possessions; fatal epidemics would sweep away man and beast, the earth would refuse her increase, nay the very frame of nature itself might be dissolved. To guard against these catastrophes it is necessary to put the king to death while he is still in the full bloom of his divine manhood, in order that his sacred life, transmitted in unabated force to his successor, may renew its youth, and thus by successive transmissions through a perpetual line of vigorous incarnations may remain eternally fresh and young, a pledge and security that men and animals shall in like manner renew their youth by a perpetual succession of generations, and that seedtime and harvest, and summer and winter, and rain and sunshine shall never fail. That, if my conjecture is right, was why the priest of Aricia, the King of the Wood at Nemi, had regularly to perish by the sword of his successor.

[What was the Golden Bough?]

But we have still to ask, What was the Golden Bough? and why had each candidate for the Arician priesthood to pluck it before he could slay the priest? These questions I will now try to answer.

[Sacred kings and priests forbidden to touch the ground with their feet.]

It will be well to begin by noticing two of those rules or taboos by which, as we have seen, the life of divine kings or priests is regulated. The first of the rules to which I desire to call the reader's attention is that the divine personage may not touch the ground with his foot. This rule was observed by the supreme pontiff of the Zapotecs in Mexico; he profaned his sanctity if he so much as touched the ground with his foot.2 Montezuma, emperor of Mexico, never set foot on the ground; he was always carried on the shoulders of noblemen, and if he lighted anywhere they laid rich tapestry for him to walk upon.3 For the Mikado of Japan to touch the ground with his foot was a shameful degradation; indeed, in the sixteenth century, it was enough to deprive him of his office. Outside his palace he was carried on men's shoulders; within it he walked on exquisitely wrought mats.4 The king and queen of Tahiti might not touch the ground anywhere but within their hereditary domains; for the ground on which they trod became sacred. In travelling from place to place they were carried on the shoulders of sacred men. They were always accompanied by several pairs of these sanctified attendants; and when it became necessary to change their bearers, the king and queen vaulted on to the shoulders of their new bearers without letting their feet touch the ground.5 It was an evil omen if the king of Dosuma touched the ground, and he had to perform an expiatory ceremony.6 Within his palace the king of Persia walked on carpets on which no one else might tread; outside of it he was never seen on foot but only in a chariot or on horseback.7 In old days the king of Siam never set foot upon the earth, but was carried on a throne of gold from place to place.8 Formerly neither the kings of Uganda, nor their mothers, nor their queens might walk on foot outside of the spacious enclosures in which they lived. Whenever they went forth they were carried on the shoulders of men of the Buffalo clan, several of whom accompanied any of these royal personages on a journey and took it in turn to bear the burden. The king sat astride the bearer's neck with a leg over each shoulder and his feet tucked under the bearer's arms. When one of these royal carriers grew tired he shot the king on to the shoulders of a second man without allowing the royal feet to touch the ground. In this way they went at a great pace and travelled long distances in a day, when the king was on a journey. The bearers had a special hut in the king's enclosure in order to be at hand the moment they were wanted.9 Among the Bakuba or rather Bushongo, a nation in the southern region of the Congo, down to a few years ago persons of the royal blood were forbidden to touch the ground; they must sit on a hide, a chair, or the back of a slave, who crouched on hands and feet; their feet rested on the feet of others. When they travelled they were carried on the backs of men; but the king journeyed in a litter supported on shafts.10 Among the Ibo people about Awka, in Southern Nigeria, the priest of the Earth has to observe many taboos; for example, he may not see a corpse, and if he meets one on the road he must hide his eyes with his wristlet. He must abstain from many foods, such as eggs, birds of all sorts, mutton, dog, bush-buck, and so forth. He may neither wear nor touch a mask, and no masked man may enter his house. If a dog enters his house, it is killed and thrown out. As priest of the Earth he may not sit on the bare ground, nor eat things that have fallen on the ground, nor may earth be thrown at him.11 According to ancient Brahmanic ritual a king at his inauguration trod on a tiger's skin and a golden plate; he was shod with shoes of boar's skin, and so long as he lived thereafter he might not stand on the earth with his bare feet.12

[Certain persons on certain occasions forbidden to touch the ground with their feet.]

But besides persons who are permanently sacred or tabooed and are therefore permanently forbidden to touch the ground with their feet, there are others who enjoy the character of sanctity or taboo only on certain occasions, and to whom accordingly the prohibition in question only applies at the definite seasons during which they exhale the odour of sanctity. Thus among the Kayans or Bahaus of Central Borneo, while the priestesses are engaged in the performance of certain rites they may not step on the ground, and boards are laid for them to tread on.13 At a funeral ceremony observed by night among the Michemis, a Tibetan tribe near the northern frontier of Assam, a priest fantastically bedecked with tiger's teeth, many-coloured plumes, bells, and shells, executed a wild dance for the purpose of exorcising the evil spirits; then all fires were extinguished and a new light was struck by a man suspended by his feet from a beam in the ceiling; "he did not touch the ground," we are told, "in order to indicate that the light came from heaven."14 Again, newly born infants are strongly tabooed; accordingly in Loango they are not allowed to touch the earth.15 Among the Iluvans of Malabar the bridegroom on his wedding-day is bathed by seven young men and then carried or walks on planks from the bathing-place to the marriage booth; he may not touch the ground with his feet.16 With the Dyaks of Landak and Tajan, two districts of Dutch Borneo, it is a custom that for a certain time after marriage neither bride nor bridegroom may tread on the earth.17 Warriors, again, on the war-path are surrounded, so to say, by an atmosphere of taboo; hence some Indians of North America might not sit on the bare ground the whole time they were out on a warlike expedition.18 In Laos the hunting of elephants gives rise to many taboos; one of them is that the chief hunter may not touch the earth with his foot. Accordingly, when he alights from his elephant, the others spread a carpet of leaves for him to step upon.19 German wiseacres recommended that when witches were led to the block or the stake, they should not be allowed to touch the bare earth, and a reason suggested for the rule was that if they touched the earth they might make themselves invisible and so escape. The sagacious author of The Striped-petticoat Philosophy in the eighteenth century ridicules the idea as mere silly talk. He admits, indeed, that the women were conveyed to the place of execution in carts; but he denies that there is any deep significance in the cart, and he is prepared to maintain this view by a chemical analysis of the timber of which the cart was built. To clinch his argument he appeals to plain matter of fact and his own personal experience. Not a single instance, he assures us with apparent satisfaction, can be produced of a witch who escaped the axe or the fire in this fashion. "I have myself," says he, "in my youth seen divers witches burned, some at Arnstadt, some at Ilmenau, some at Schwenda, a noble village between Arnstadt and Ilmenau, and some of them were pardoned and beheaded before being burned. They were laid on the earth in the place of execution and beheaded like any other poor sinner; whereas if they could have escaped by touching the earth, not one of them would have failed to do so."20

[Sacred or tabooed persons apparently thought to be charged with a mysterious virtue like a fluid, which will run to waste or explode if it touches the ground.]

Apparently holiness, magical virtue, taboo, or whatever we may call that mysterious quality which is supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed persons, is conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical substance or fluid, with which the sacred man is charged just as a Leyden jar is charged with electricity; and exactly as the electricity in the jar can be discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the holiness or magical virtue in the man can be discharged and drained away by contact with the earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for the magical fluid. Hence in order to preserve the charge from running to waste, the sacred or tabooed personage must be carefully prevented from touching the ground; in electrical language he must be insulated, if he is not to be emptied of the precious substance or fluid with which he, as a vial, is filled to the brim. And in many cases apparently the insulation of the tabooed person is recommended as a precaution not merely for his own sake but for the sake of others; for since the virtue of holiness or taboo is, so to say, a powerful explosive which the smallest touch may detonate, it is necessary in the interest of the general safety to keep it within narrow bounds, lest breaking out it should blast, blight, and destroy whatever it comes into contact with.

[Things as well as persons can be charged with the mysterious quality of holiness or taboo; and when so charged they must be kept from contact with the ground.]

But things as well as persons are often charged with the mysterious quality of holiness or taboo; hence it frequently becomes necessary for similar reasons to guard them also from coming into contact with the ground, lest they should in like manner be drained of their valuable properties and be reduced to mere commonplace material objects, empty husks from which the good grain has been eliminated. Thus, for example, the most sacred object of the Arunta tribe in Central Australia is, or rather used to be, a pole about twenty feet high, which is completely smeared with human blood, crowned with an imitation of a human head, and set up on the ground where the final initiatory ceremonies of young men are performed. A young gum-tree is chosen to form the pole, and it must be cut down and transported in such a way that it does not touch the earth till it is erected in its place on the holy ground. Apparently the pole represents some famous ancestor of the olden time.21

[Festival of the wild mango tree in British New Guinea.]

Again, at a great dancing festival celebrated by the natives of Bartle Bay, in British New Guinea, a wild mango tree plays a prominent part. The tree must be self-sown, that is, really wild and so young that it has never flowered. It is chosen in the jungle some five or six weeks before the festival, and a circle is cleared round its trunk. From that time the master of the ceremonies and some eight to twenty other men, who have aided him in choosing the tree and in clearing the jungle, become strictly holy or tabooed. They sleep by themselves in a house into which no one else may intrude: they may not wash or drink water, nor even allow it accidentally to touch their bodies: they are forbidden to eat boiled food and the fruit of mango trees: they may drink only the milk of a young coco-nut which has been baked, and they may eat certain fruits and vegetables, such as paw-paws (Carica papaya) and sugar-cane, but only on condition that they have been baked. All refuse of their food is kept in baskets in their sleeping-house and may not be removed from it till the festival is over. At the time when the men begin to observe these rules of abstinence, some six to ten women, members of the same clan as the master of the ceremonies, enter on a like period of mortification, avoiding the company of the other sex, and refraining from water, all boiled food, and the fruit of the mango tree. These fasting men and women are the principal dancers at the festival. The dancing takes place on a special platform in a temporary village which has been erected for the purpose. When the platform is about to be set up, the fasting men rub the stepping posts and then suck their hands for the purpose of extracting the ghost of any dead man that might chance to be in the post and might be injured by the weight of the platform pressing down on him. Having carefully extracted these poor souls, the men carry them away tenderly and set them free in the forest or the long grass.

[The wild mango tree not allowed to touch the ground.]

On the day before the festival one of the fasting men cuts down the chosen mango tree in the jungle with a stone adze, which is never afterwards put to any other use; an iron tool may not be used for the purpose, though iron tools are now common enough in the district. In cutting down the mango they place nets on the ground to catch any leaves or twigs that might fall from the tree as it is being felled and they surround the trunk with new mats to receive the chips which fly out under the adze of the woodman; for the chips may not drop on the earth. Once the tree is down, it is carried to the centre of the temporary village, the greatest care being taken to prevent it from coming into contact with the ground. But when it is brought into the village, the houses are connected with the top of the mango by means of long vines decorated with the streamers. In the afternoon the fasting men and women begin to dance, the men bedizened with gay feathers, armlets, streamers, and anklets, the women flaunting in parti-coloured petticoats and sprigs of croton leaves, which wave from their waistbands as they dance. The dancing stops at sundown, and when the full moon rises over the shoulder of the eastern hill (for the date of the festival seems to be determined with reference to the time of the moon), two chiefs mount the gables of two houses on the eastern side of the square, and, their dusky figures standing sharply out against the moonlight, pray to the evil spirits to go away and not to hurt the people. Next morning pigs are killed by being speared as slowly as possible in order that they may squeal loud and long; for the people believe that the mango trees hear the squealing, and are pleased at the sound, and bear plenty of fruit, whereas if they heard no squeals they would bear no fruit. However, the trees have to content themselves with the squeals; the flesh of the pigs is eaten by the people. This ends the festival.

[Final disposition of the wild mango tree.]

Next day the mango is taken down from the platform, wrapt in new mats, and carried by the fasting men to their sleeping house, where it is hung from the roof. But after an interval, it may be of many months, the tree is brought forth again. As to the reason for its reappearance in public opinions are divided; but some say that the tree itself orders the master of the ceremonies to bring it forth, appearing to him in his dreams and saying, "Let me smell the smoking fat of pigs. So will your pigs be healthy and your crops will grow." Be that as it may, out it comes, conducted by the fasting men in their dancing costume; and with it come in the solemn procession all the pots, spoons, cups and so forth used by the fasting men during their period of holiness or taboo, also all the refuse of their food which has been collected for months, and all the fallen leaves and chips of the mango in their bundles of mats. These holy relics are carried in front and the mango tree itself brings up the rear of the procession. While these sacred objects are being handed out of the house, the men who are present rush up, wipe off the hallowed dust which has accumulated on them, and smear it over their own bodies, no doubt in order to steep themselves in their blessed influence. Thus the tree is carried as before to the centre of the temporary village, care being again taken not to let it touch the ground. Then one of the fasting men takes from a basket a number of young green mangoes, cuts them in pieces, and places them with his own hands in the mouths of his fellows, the other fasting men, who chew the pieces small and turning round spit the morsels in the direction of the setting sun, in order that "the sun should carry the mango bits over the whole country and everyone should know." A portion of the mango tree is then broken off and in the evening it is burnt along with the bundles of leaves, chips, and refuse of food, which have been stored up. What remains of the tree is taken to the house of the master of the ceremonies and hung over the fire-place; it will be brought out again at intervals and burned bit by bit, till all is consumed, whereupon a new mango will be cut down and treated in like manner. The ashes of the holy fire on each occasion are gathered by the people and preserved in the house of the master of the ceremonies.22

[The ceremony apparently intended to fertilize the mango trees.]

The meaning of these ceremonies is not explained by the authorities who describe them; but we may conjecture that they are intended to fertilize the mango trees and cause them to bear a good crop of fruit. The central feature of the whole ritual is a wild mango tree, so young that it has never flowered: the men who cut it down, carry it into the village, and dance at the festival, are forbidden to eat mangoes: pigs are killed in order that their dying squeals may move the mango trees to bear fruit: at the end of the ceremonies pieces of young green mangoes are solemnly placed in the mouths of the fasting men and are by them spurted out towards the setting sun in order that the luminary may carry the fragments to every part of the country; and finally when after a longer or shorter interval the tree is wholly consumed, its place is supplied by another. All these circumstances are explained simply and naturally by the supposition that the young mango tree is taken as a representative of mangoes generally, that the dances are intended to quicken it, and that it is preserved, like a May-pole of old in England, as a sort of general fund of vegetable life, till the fund being exhausted by the destruction of the tree it is renewed by the importation of a fresh young tree from the forest. We can therefore understand why, as a storehouse of vital energy, the tree should be carefully kept from contact with the ground, lest the pent-up and concentrated energy should escape and dribbling away into the earth be dissipated to no purpose.

[Sacred objects of various sorts not allowed to touch the ground.]

To take other instances of what we may call the conservation of energy in magic or religion by insulating sacred bodies from the ground, the natives of New Britain have a secret society called the Duk-duk, the members of which masquerade in petticoats of leaves and tall headdresses of wickerwork shaped like candle extinguishers, which descend to the shoulders of the wearers, completely concealing their faces. Thus disguised they dance about to the awe and terror, real or assumed, of the women and uninitiated, who take, or pretend to take, them for spirits. When lads are being initiated into the secrets of this august society, the adepts cut down some very large and heavy bamboos, one for each lad, and the novices carry them, carefully wrapt up in leaves, to the sacred ground, where they arrive very tired and weary, for they may not let the bamboos touch the ground nor the sun shine on them. Outside the fence of the enclosure every lad deposits his bamboo on a couple of forked sticks and covers it up with nut leaves.23 Among the Carrier Indians of North-Western America, who burned their dead, the ashes of a chief used to be placed in a box and set on the top of a pole beside his hut: the box was never allowed to touch the ground.24 In the Omaha tribe of North American Indians the sacred clam shell of the Elk clan was wrapt up from sight in a mat, placed on a stand, and never suffered to come in contact with the earth.25 The Cherokees and kindred Indian tribes of the United States used to have certain sacred boxes or arks, which they regularly took with them to war. Such a holy ark consisted of a square wooden box, which contained "certain consecrated vessels made by beloved superannuated women, and of such various antiquated forms, as would have puzzled Adam to have given significant names to each." The leader of a war party and his attendant bore the ark by turns, but they never set it on the ground nor would they themselves sit on the bare earth while they were carrying it against the enemy. Where stones were plentiful they rested the ark on them; but where no stones were to be found, they deposited it on short logs. "The Indian ark is deemed so sacred and dangerous to be touched, either by their own sanctified warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they durst not touch it upon any account. It is not to be meddled with by any, except the war chieftain and his waiter, under the penalty of incurring great evil. Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods, for the very same reason." After their return home they used to hang the ark on the leader's red-painted war pole.26 At Sipi, near Simla, in Northern India, an annual fair is held, at which men purchase wives. A square box with a domed top figures prominently at the fair. It is fixed on two poles to be carried on men's shoulders, and long heavily-plaited petticoats hang from it nearly to the ground. Three sides of the box are adorned with the head and shoulders of a female figure and the fourth side with a black yak's tail. Four men bear the poles, each carrying an axe in his right hand. They dance round, with a swinging rhythmical step, to the music of drums and a pipe. The dance goes on for hours and is thought to avert ill-luck from the fair. It is said that the box is brought to Simla from a place sixty miles off by relays of men, who may not stop nor set the box on the ground the whole way.27 In Scotland, when water was carried from sacred wells to sick people, the water-vessel might not touch the earth.28 In some parts of Aberdeenshire the last bunch of standing corn, which is commonly viewed as very sacred, being the last refuge of the corn-spirit retreating before the reapers, is not suffered to touch the ground; the master or "gueedman" sits down and receives each handful of corn as it is cut on his lap.29

[Sacred food not allowed to touch the earth.]

Again, sacred food may not under certain circumstances be brought into contact with the earth. Some of the aborigines of Victoria used to regard the fat of the emu as sacred, believing that it had once been the fat of the black man. In taking it from the bird or giving it to another they handled it reverently. Any one who threw away the fat or flesh of the emu was held accursed. "The late Mr. Thomas observed on one occasion, at Nerre-nerre-Warreen, a remarkable exhibition of the effects of this superstition. An aboriginal child-one attending the school-having eaten some part of the flesh of an emu, threw away the skin. The skin fell to the ground, and this being observed by his parents, they showed by their gestures every token of horror. They looked upon their child as one utterly lost. His desecration of the bird was regarded as a sin for which there was no atonement."30 The Roumanians of Transylvania believe that "every fresh-baked loaf of wheaten bread is sacred, and should a piece inadvertently fall to the ground, it is hastily picked up, carefully wiped and kissed, and if soiled, thrown into the fire-partly as an offering to the dead, and partly because it were a heavy sin to throw away or tread upon any particle of it."31 At certain festivals in south-eastern Borneo the food which is consumed in the common house may not touch the ground; hence, a little before the festivals take place, foot-bridges made of thin poles are constructed from the private dwellings to the common house.32 When Hall was living with the Esquimaux and grew tired of eating walrus, one of the women brought the head and neck of a reindeer for him to eat. This venison had to be completely wrapt up before it was brought into the house, and once in the house it could only be placed on the platform which served as a bed. "To have placed it on the floor or on the platform behind the fire-lamp, among the walrus, musk-ox, and polar-bear meat which occupy a goodly portion of both of these places, would have horrified the whole town, as, according to the actual belief of the Innuits, not another walrus could be secured this year, and there would ever be trouble in catching any more."33 But in this case the real scruple appears to have been felt not so much at placing the venison on the ground as at bringing it into contact with walrus meat.34

[Magical implements and remedies thought to lose their virtue by contact with the ground.]

Sometimes magical implements and remedies are supposed to lose their virtue by contact with the ground, the volatile essence with which they are impregnated being no doubt drained off into the earth. Thus in the Boulia district of Queensland the magical bone, which the native sorcerer points at his victim as a means of killing him, is never by any chance allowed to touch the earth.35 The wives of rajahs in Macassar, a district of southern Celebes, pride themselves on their luxuriant tresses and are at great pains to oil and preserve them. Should the hair begin to grow thin, the lady resorts to many devices to stay the ravages of time; among other things she applies to her locks a fat extracted from crocodiles and venomous snakes. The unguent is believed to be very efficacious, but during its application the woman's feet may not come into contact with the ground, or all the benefit of the nostrum would be lost.36 Some people in antiquity believed that a woman in hard labour would be delivered if a spear, which had been wrenched from a man's body without touching the ground, were thrown over the house where the sufferer lay. Again, according to certain ancient writers, arrows which had been extracted from a body without coming into contact with the earth and laid under sleepers, acted as a love-charm.37 Among the peasantry of the north-east of Scotland the prehistoric weapons called celts went by the name of "thunderbolts" and were coveted as the sure bringers of success, always provided that they were not allowed to fall to the ground.38

[Serpents eggs or Snake Stones.]

In ancient Gaul certain glass or paste beads attained great celebrity as amulets under the name of serpents' eggs; it was believed that serpents, coiling together in a wriggling, writhing mass, generated them from their slaver and shot them into the air from their hissing jaws. If a man was bold and dexterous enough to catch one of these eggs in his cloak before it touched the ground, he rode off on horseback with it at full speed, pursued by the whole pack of serpents, till he was saved by the interposition of a river, which the snakes could not pass. The proof of the egg being genuine was that if it were thrown into a stream it would float up against the current, even though it were hooped in gold. The Druids held these beads in high esteem; according to them, the precious objects could only be obtained on a certain day of the moon, and the peculiar virtue that resided in them was to secure success in law suits and free access to kings. Pliny knew of a Gaulish knight who was executed by the emperor Claudius for wearing one of these amulets.39 Under the name of Snake Stones (glain neidr) or Adder Stones the beads are still known in those parts of our own country where the Celtic population has lingered, with its immemorial superstitions, down to the present or recent times; and the old story of the origin of the beads from the slaver of serpents was believed by the modern peasantry of Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland as by the Druids of ancient Gaul. In Cornwall the time when the serpents united to fashion the beads was commonly said to be at or about Midsummer Eve; in Wales it was usually thought to be spring, especially the Eve of May Day, and even within recent years persons in the Principality have affirmed that they witnessed the great vernal congress of the snakes and saw the magic stone in the midst of the froth. The Welsh peasants believe the beads to possess medicinal virtues of many sorts and to be particularly efficacious for all maladies of the eyes. In Wales and Ireland the beads sometimes went by the name of the Magician's or Druid's Glass (Gleini na Droedh and Glaine nan Druidhe). Specimens of them may be seen in museums; some have been found in British barrows. They are of glass of various colours, green, blue, pink, red, brown, and so forth, some plain and some ribbed. Some are streaked with brilliant hues. The beads are perforated, and in the Highlands of Scotland the hole is explained by saying that when the bead has just been conflated by the serpents jointly, one of the reptiles sticks his tail through the still viscous glass. An Englishman who visited Scotland in 1699 found many of these beads in use throughout the country. They were hung from children's necks to protect them from whooping cough and other ailments. Snake Stones were, moreover, a charm to ensure prosperity in general and to repel evil spirits. When one of these priceless treasures was not on active service, the owner kept it in an iron box to guard it against fairies, who, as is well known, cannot abide iron.40

[Medicinal plants, water, are not allowed to touch the earth.]

Pliny mentions several medicinal plants, which, if they were to retain their healing virtue, ought not to be allowed to touch the earth.41 The curious medical treatise of Marcellus, a native of Bordeaux in the fourth century of our era, abounds with prescriptions of this sort; and we can well believe the writer when he assures us that he borrowed many of his quaint remedies from the lips of common folk and peasants rather than from the books of the learned.42 Thus he tells us that certain white stones found in the stomachs of young swallows assuage the most persistent headache, always provided that their virtue be not impaired by contact with the ground.43 Another of his cures for the same malady is a wreath of fleabane placed on the head, but it must not touch the earth.44 On the same condition a decoction of the root of elecampane in wine kills worms; a fern, found growing on a tree, relieves the stomach-ache; and the pastern-bone of a hare is an infallible remedy for colic, provided, first, it be found in the dung of a wolf, second, that it docs not touch the ground, and, third, that it is not touched by a woman.45 Another cure for colic is effected by certain hocus-pocus with a scrap of wool from the forehead of a first-born lamb, if only the lamb, instead of being allowed to fall to the ground, has been caught by hand as it dropped from its dam.46 In Andjra, a district of Morocco, the people attribute many magical virtues to rain-water which has fallen on the twenty-seventh day of April, Old Style; accordingly they collect it and use it for a variety of purposes. Mixed with tar and sprinkled on the door-posts it prevents snakes and scorpions from entering the house: sprinkled on heaps of threshed corn it protects them from the evil eye: mixed with an egg, henna, and seeds of cress it is an invaluable medicine for sick cows: poured over a plate, on which a passage of the Koran has been written, it strengthens the memory of schoolboys who drink it; and if you mix it with cowdung and red earth and paint rings with the mixture round the trunks of your fig-trees at sunset on Midsummer Day, you may depend on it that the trees will bear an excellent crop and will not shed their fruit untimely on the ground. But in order to preserve these remarkable properties it is absolutely essential that the water should on no account be allowed to touch the ground; some say too that it should not be exposed to the sun nor breathed upon by anybody.47 Again, the Moors ascribe great magical efficacy to what they call "the sultan of the oleander," which is a stalk of oleander with a cluster of four pairs of leaves springing from it. They think that the magical virtue is greatest if the stalk has been cut immediately before midsummer. But when the plant is brought into the house, the branches may not touch the ground, lest they should lose their marvellous qualities.48 In the olden days, before a Lithuanian or Prussian farmer went forth to plough for the first time in spring, he called in a wizard to perform a certain ceremony for the good of the crops. The sage seized a mug of beer with his teeth, quaffed the liquor, and then tossed the mug over his head. This signified that the corn in that year should grow taller than a man. But the mug might not fall to the ground; it had to be caught by somebody stationed at the wizard's back, for if it fell to the ground the consequence naturally would be that the corn also would be laid low on the earth.49

§ 2. Not to see the Sun

[Sacred persons not allowed to see the sun.]

The second rule to be here noted is that the sun may not shine upon the divine person. This rule was observed both by the Mikado and by the pontiff of the Zapotecs. The latter "was looked upon as a god whom the earth was not worthy to hold, nor the sun to shine upon."50 The Japanese would not allow that the Mikado should expose his sacred person to the open air, and the sun was not thought worthy to shine on his head.51 The Indians of Granada, in South America, "kept those who were to be rulers or commanders, whether men or women, locked up for several years when they were children, some of them seven years, and this so close that they were not to see the sun, for if they should happen to see it they forfeited their lordship, eating certain sorts of food appointed; and those who were their keepers at certain times went into their retreat or prison and scourged them severely."52 Thus, for example, the heir to the throne of Bogota, who was not the son but the sister's son of the king, had to undergo a rigorous training from his infancy: he lived in complete retirement in a temple, where he might not see the sun nor eat salt nor converse with a woman: he was surrounded by guards who observed his conduct and noted all his actions: if he broke a single one of the rules laid down for him, he was deemed infamous and forfeited all his rights to the throne.53 So, too, the heir to the kingdom of Sogamoso, before succeeding to the crown, had to fast for seven years in the temple, being shut up in the dark and not allowed to see the sun or light.54 The prince who was to become Inca of Peru had to fast for a month without seeing light.55 On the day when a Brahman student of the Veda took a bath, to signify that the time of his studentship was at an end, he entered a cow-shed before sunrise, hung over the door a skin with the hair inside, and sat there; on that day the sun should not shine upon him.56

[Tabooed persons not allowed to see the sun; certain persons forbidden to see fire.]

Again, women after childbirth and their offspring are more or less tabooed all the world over; hence in Corea the rays of the sun are rigidly excluded from both mother and child for a period of twenty-one or a hundred days, according to their rank, after the birth has taken place.57 Among some of the tribes on the north-west coast of New Guinea a woman may not leave the house for months after childbirth. When she does go out, she must cover her head with a hood or mat; for if the sun were to shine upon her, it is thought that one of her male relations would die.58 Again, mourners are everywhere taboo; accordingly in mourning the Ainos of Japan wear peculiar caps in order that the sun may not shine upon their heads.59 During a solemn fast of three days the Indians of Costa Rica eat no salt, speak as little as possible, light no fires, and stay strictly indoors, or if they go out during the day they carefully cover themselves from the light of the sun, believing that exposure to the sun's rays would turn them black.60 On Yule Night it has been customary in parts of Sweden from time immemorial to go on pilgrimage, whereby people learn many secret things and know what is to happen in the coming year. As a preparation for this pilgrimage, "some secrete themselves for three days previously in a dark cellar, so as to be shut out altogether from the light of heaven. Others retire at an early hour of the preceding morning to some out-of-the-way place, such as a hay-loft, where they bury themselves in the hay, that they may neither see nor hear any living creature; and here they remain, in silence and fasting, until after sundown; whilst there are those who think it sufficient if they rigidly abstain from food on the day before commencing their wanderings. During this period of probation a man ought not to see fire, but should this have happened, he must strike a light with flint and steel, whereby the evil that would otherwise have ensued will be obviated."61 During the sixteen days that a Pima Indian is undergoing purification for killing an Apache he may not see a blazing fire.62

[The story of Prince Sunless.]

Acarnanian peasants tell of a handsome prince called Sunless, who would die if he saw the sun. So he lived in an underground palace on the site of the ancient Oeniadae, but at night he came forth and crossed the river to visit a famous enchantress who dwelt in a castle on the further bank. She was loth to part with him every night long before the sun was up, and as he turned a deaf ear to all her entreaties to linger, she hit upon the device of cutting the throats of all the cocks in the neighbourhood. So the prince, whose ear had learned to expect the shrill clarion of the birds as the signal of the growing light, tarried too long, and hardly had he reached the ford when the sun rose over the Aetolian mountains, and its fatal beams fell on him before he could regain his dark abode.63

Notes:

Footnote 1: (return) The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 44.

Footnote 2: (return) H.H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States (London, 1875-1876), ii. 142; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale (Paris, 1857-1859), iii. 29.

Footnote 3: (return) Manuscrit Ramirez, Histoire de l'origine des Indiens, publié par D. Charnay (Paris, 1903), p. 108; J. de Acosta, The Natural and Moral History of the Indies, bk. vii. chap. 22, vol. ii. p. 505 of E. Grimston's translation, edited by (Sir) Clements R. Markham (Hakluyt Society, London, 1880).

Footnote 4: (return) Memorials of the Empire of Japon in the XVI. and XVII. Centuries, edited by T. Rundall (Hakluyt Society, London, 1850), pp. 14, 141; B. Varenius, Descriptio regni Japoniae et Siam (Cambridge, 1673), p. 11; Caron, "Account of Japan," in John Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels (London, 1808-1814), vii. 613; Kaempfer, "History of Japan," in id. vii. 716.

Footnote 5: (return) W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), iii. 102 sq.; Captain James Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean (London, 1799), p. 329.

Footnote 6: (return) A. Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte (Leipsic, 1860), iii. 81.

Footnote 7: (return) Athenaeus, xii. 8, p. 514 c.

Footnote 8: (return) The Voiages and Travels of John Struys (London, 1684), p. 30.

Footnote 9: (return) Rev. J. Roscoe, "Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 62, 67; id., The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 154 sq. Compare L. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa (London, 1898), p. 445 note: "Before horses had been introduced into Uganda the king and his mother never walked, but always went about perched astride the shoulders of a slave-a most ludicrous sight. In this way they often travelled hundreds of miles." The use both of horses and of chariots by royal personages may often have been intended to prevent their sacred feet from touching the ground.

Footnote 10: (return) E. Torday et T.A. Joyce, Les Bushongo (Brussels, 1910), p. 61.

Footnote 11: (return) Northcote W. Thomas, Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria (London, 1913), i. 57 sq.

Footnote 12: (return) Satapatha Brahmana, translated by Julius Eggeling, Part iii. (Oxford, 1894) pp. 81, 91, 92, 102, 128 sq. (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xli.).

Footnote 13: (return) A.W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo (Leyden, 1904-1907), i. 172.

Footnote 14: (return) Letter of Missionary Krick, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xxvi. (1854) pp. 86-88.

Footnote 15: (return) Pechuel-Loesche, "Indiscretes aus Loango," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, x. (1878) pp. 29 sq.

Footnote 16: (return) Edgar Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India (Madras, 1906), p. 70.

Footnote 17: (return) M.C. Schadee, "Het familieleven en familierecht der Dajaks van Landak en Tajan," Bijdragen tot de Taal-Land en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indié, lxiii. (1910) p. 433.

Footnote 18: (return) James Adair, History of the American Indians (London, 1775), p. 382; Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner (London, 1830), p. 123. As to the taboos to which warriors are subject see Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 157 sqq.

Footnote 19: (return) Etienne Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos (Saigon, 1885), p. 26.

Footnote 20: (return) Die gestritgelte Rockenphilosophie,5 (Chemnitz, 1759), pp. 586 sqq.

Footnote 21: (return) Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 364, 370 sqq., 629; id., Across Australia (London, 1912), ii. 280, 285 sq.

Footnote 22: (return) C.G. Seligmann, M.D., The Melanesians of British New Guinea (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 589-599.

Footnote 23: (return) George Brown, D.D., Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), pp. 60 sq., 64. As to the Duk-duk society, see below, vol. ii. pp. 246 sq.

Footnote 24: (return) John Keast Lord, The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British Columbia (London, 1866), ii. 237.

Footnote 25: (return) Edwin James, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains (London, 1823), ii. 47; Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, "Omaha Sociology," Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1884), p. 226.

Footnote 26: (return) James Adair, History of the American Indians (London, 1775), pp. 161-163.

Footnote 27: (return) (Sir) Henry Babington Smith, in Folk-lore, v. (1894) p. 340.

Footnote 28: (return) Miss C.F. Gordon Cumming, In the Hebrides (London, 1883), p. 211.

Footnote 29: (return) W. Gregor, "Quelques coutumes du Nord-est du Comté d'Aberdeen," Revue des Traditions populaires, iii. (1888) p. 485 B. Compare Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i. 158 sq.

Footnote 30: (return) R. Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria (Melbourne and London, 1878), i. 450.

Footnote 31: (return) E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest (Edinburgh and London, 1888), ii. 7.

Footnote 32: (return) F. Grabowsky, "Der Distrikt Dusson Timor in Südost-Borneo und seine Bewohner," Das Ausland, 1884, No. 24, p. 470.

Footnote 33: (return) Narrative of the Second Arctic Expedition made by Charles F. Hall, edited by Prof. J.E. Nourse (Washington, 1879), pp. 110 sq.

Footnote 34: (return) See Taboo and Perils of the Soul, pp. 207 sqq.

Footnote 35: (return) Walter E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 156, § 265. The custom of killing a man by pointing a bone or stick at him, while the sorcerer utters appropriate curses, is common among the tribes of Central Australia; but amongst them there seems to be no objection to place the bone or stick on the ground; on the contrary, an Arunta wizard inserts the bone or stick in the ground while he invokes death and destruction on his enemy. See Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1899), pp. 534 sqq.; id., Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), pp. 455 sqq.

Footnote 36: (return) Hugh Low, Sarawak (London, 1848), pp. 145 sq.

Footnote 37: (return) Pliny, Naturalis Historia xxviii. 33 sq.

Footnote 38: (return) Rev. Walter Gregor, Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland (London, 1881), p. 184. As to the superstitions attaching to stone arrowheads and axeheads (celts), commonly known as "thunderbolts," in the British Islands, see W.W. Skeat, "Snakestones and Stone Thunderbolts," Folklore, xxiii. (1912) pp. 60 sqq.; and as to such superstitions in general, see Chr. Blinkenberg, The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore (Cambridge, 1911).

Footnote 39: (return) Pliny, Naturalis Historia, xxix. 52-54.

Footnote 40: (return) W. Borlase, Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall (London, 1769), pp. 142 sq.; J. Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (London, 1882-1883), i. 322; J.G. Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 140 sq.; Daniel Wilson, The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1851), pp. 303 sqq.; Lieut.-Col. Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments (Edinburgh, 1866), i. 75 sqq.; J.G. Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 84-88; Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), pp. 170 sq.; J.C. Davies, Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales (Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 76. Compare W.W. Skeat, "Snakestones and Stone Thunderbolts," Folk-lore, xxiii. (1912) pp. 45 sqq. The superstition is described as follows by Edward Lhwyd in a letter quoted by W. Borlase (op. cit. p. 142): "In most parts of Wales, and throughout all Scotland, and in Cornwall, we find it a common opinion of the vulgar, that about Midsummer-Eve (though in the time they do not all agree) it is usual for snakes to meet in companies; and that, by joining heads together, and hissing, a kind of bubble is formed, which the rest, by continual hissing, blow on till it passes quite through the body, and then it immediately hardens, and resembles a glass-ring, which whoever finds (as some old women and children are persuaded) shall prosper in all his undertakings. The rings thus generated, are called Gleineu Nadroeth; in English, Snake-stones. They are small glass amulets, commonly about half as wide as our finger-rings, but much thicker, of a green colour usually, though sometimes blue, and waved with red and white."

Footnote 41: (return) Pliny, Naturalis Historia xxiv. 12 and 68, xxv. 171.

Footnote 42: (return) Marcellus, De medicamentis, ed. G. Helmreich (Leipsic, 1889), preface, p. i.: "Nec solum veteres medicinae artis auctores Latino dumtaxat sermone perscriptos ... lectione scrutatus sum, sed etiam ab agrestibus et plebeis remedia fortuita atque simplicia, quae experimentis probaverant didici." As to Marcellus and his work, see Jacob Grimm, "Ueber Marcellus Burdigalensis," Abhandlungen der koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaft zu Berlin, 1847, pp. 429-460; id., "Ueber die Marcellischen Formeln," ibid.. 1855, pp. 50-68.

Footnote 43: (return) Marcellus, De medicamentis, i. 68.

Footnote 44: (return) Marcellus, op. cit. i. 76.

Footnote 45: (return) Marcellus, op. cit. xxviii. 28 and 71, xxix. 35.

Footnote 46: (return) Marcellus, op. cit. xxix. 51.

Footnote 47: (return) Edward Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," Folklore, xvi. (1905) pp. 32 sq.; id., Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather in Morocco (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 75 sq.

Footnote 48: (return) E. Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," Folk-lore, xvi. (1905) p. 35 id., Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather in Morocco (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 88 sq.

Footnote 49: (return) Matth?us Pr?torius, Deliciae Prussicae, herausgegeben von Dr. W. Pierson (Berlin, 1871), p. 54.

Footnote 50: (return) H.H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States (London, 1875-1876), ii. 142; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique Centrale (Paris, 1857-1859), iii. 29.

Footnote 51: (return) Kaempfer, "History of Japan," in J. Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, vii. 717; Caron, "Account of Japan," ibid. vii. 613; B. Varenius, Descriptio regni Japoniae et Siam (Cambridge, 1673), p. 11: "Radiis solis caput nunquam illustrabatur: in apertum acrem non procedebat."

Footnote 52: (return) A. de Herrera, General History of the vast Continent and Islands of America, trans, by Capt. John Stevens (London, 1725-1726), v. 88.

Footnote 53: (return) H. Ternaux-Compans, Essai sur l'ancien Cundinamarca (Paris, N.D.), p. 56; Theodor Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturv?lker iv. (Leipsic, 1864) p. 359.

Footnote 54: (return) Alonzo de Zurita, "Rapport sur les differentes classes de chefs de la Nouvelle-Espagne," p. 30, in H. Ternaux-Compans's Voyages, Relations et Mémoires originaux, pour servir à l'Histoire de la Découvertede l'Amérique (Paris, 1840); Th. Waitz, l.c.; A. Bastian, Die Culturl?nder des alten Amerika (Berlin, 1878), ii. 204.

Footnote 55: (return) Cieza de Leon, Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru (Hakluyt Society, London, 1883), p. 18.

Footnote 56: (return) The Grihya S?tras, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part ii. (Oxford, 1892) pp. 165, 275 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxx.). Umbrellas appear to have been sometimes used in ritual for the purpose of preventing the sunlight from falling on sacred persons or things. See W. Caland, Altindisches Zauberritual (Amsterdam, 1900), p. 110 note 12. At an Athenian festival called Scira the priestess of Athena, the priest of Poseidon, and the priest of the Sun walked from the Acropolis under the shade of a huge white umbrella which was borne over their heads by the Eteobutads. See Harpocration and Suidas, s.v. [Greek: Skiron]; Scholiast on Aristophanes, Eccles. 18.

Footnote 57: (return) Mrs. Bishop, Korea and her Neighbours (London, 1898), ii. 248.

Footnote 58: (return) J.L. van Hasselt, "Eenige aanteekeningen aangaande de bewoners der N. Westkust van Nieuw Guinea," Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-Landen Volkenkunde, xxxi. (1886) p. 587.

Footnote 59: (return) A. Bastian, Die V?lker des ?stlichen Asien, v. (Jena, 1869) p. 366.

Footnote 60: (return) W.M. Gabb, "On the Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa Rica," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia, xiv. (Philadelphia, 1876), p. 510.

Footnote 61: (return) L. Lloyd, Peasant Life in Sweden (London, 1870), p. 194.

Footnote 62: (return) H.H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 553. See Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 182.

Footnote 63: (return) L. Heuzey, Le Mont Olympe et l'Acarnanie (Paris, 1860), pp. 458 sq.