The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)

The throwing of sticks or stones on piles is sometimes explained as a sacrifice. Certainly the throwing of stones is sometimes accompanied by sacrifices. Heaps of sticks at the fords of rivers in Africa.

This mode of interpreting the custom of throwing sticks and stones on piles appears preferable to the one which has generally found favour with European travellers and writers. Imperfectly acquainted for the most part with the notions which underlie primitive magic, but very familiar with the religious conception of a deity who requires sacrifice of his worshippers, they are apt to interpret the missiles in question as cheap and easy offerings presented by pious but frugal worshippers to ghosts or spirits whose favour they desire to win.[71 - See, for example, O. Baumann, Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle (Berlin, 1894), p. 214; G. M. Dawson, “Notes on the Shuswap People of British Columbia,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, ix. (1891) section ii. p. 38; F. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde (Heilbronn, 1879), pp. 267 sq., 273 sq., 276, 278 sq.; R. Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche (Stuttgart, 1878), p. 48; Catat, in Le Tour du Monde, lxv. (1893), p. 40. Some of these writers have made a special study of the practices in question. See F. Liebrecht, “Die geworfenen Steine,” Zur Volkskunde, pp. 267-284; R. Andree, “Steinhaufen,” Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche, pp. 46-58; E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, ii. (London, 1895) pp. 204 sqq.; E. Doutté, Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord (Algiers, 1908), pp. 419 sqq. With the views of the last of these writers I am in general agreement.] Whether a likely mode of conciliating a ghost or spirit is to throw sticks and stones at him is a question about which opinions might perhaps differ. It is difficult to speak with confidence about the tastes of spiritual beings, but as a rule they bear a remarkable likeness to those of mere ordinary mortals, and it may be said without fear of contradiction that few of the latter would be gratified by being set up as a common target to be aimed at with sticks and stones by everybody who passed within range.[72 - However, at the waterfall of Kriml, in the Tyrol, it is customary for every passer-by to throw a stone into the water; and this attention is said to put the water-spirits in high good humour; for they follow the wayfarer who has complied with the custom and guard him from all the perils of the dangerous path. See F. Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie (Munich, 1848-1855), ii. 236 sq.] Yet it is quite possible that a ceremony, which at first was purely magical, may in time have a religious gloss or interpretation put on it even by those who practise it; and this seems in fact to have sometimes happened to the particular custom under consideration. Certainly some people accompany the throwing of the stone on the pile with the presentation of useful articles, which can hardly serve any other purpose than that of propitiating some local spirits. Thus travellers in Sikhim and Bhootan offer flour and wine, as well as stones, at the cairns; and they also burn incense and recite incantations or prayers,[73 - J. A. H. Louis, The Gates of Thibet, Second Edition (Calcutta, 1894), pp. 111 sq.] or they tear strips from their garments, tie them to twigs or stones, and then lay them on the cairn, calling out to the spirit of the mountain, “Pray accept our offering! The spirits are victorious! The devils are defeated!”[74 - L. A. Waddell, Among the Himalayas (Westminster, 1899), pp. 115, 188.] Indians of Guatemala offered, according to their means, a little cotton, salt, cacao, or chili.[75 - Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale, ii. 564.] They now burn copal and sometimes dance on the tops of the passes where the cairns are to be seen, but perhaps these devotions may be paid to the crosses which at the present day are generally set up in such situations.[76 - C. Sapper, “Die Gebräuche und religiösen Anschauungen der Kekchí-Indianer,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, viii. (1895) pp. 197 sq.] The Indian of Bolivia will squirt out the juice of his coca-quid, or throw the quid itself on the cairn, to which he adds a stone; occasionally he goes so far as to stick feathers or a leathern sandal or two on the pile. In passing the cairns he will sometimes pull a hair or two out of his eyebrows or eyelashes and puff them away towards the sun.[77 - D. Forbes, “On the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru,” Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, ii. (1870) pp. 237 sq.; G. C. Musters, “Notes on Bolivia,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xlvii. (1877) p. 211; Baron E. Nordenskiöld, “Travels on the Boundaries of Bolivia and Argentina,” The Geographical Journal, xxi. (1903) p. 518.] Peruvian Indians used similarly to make cheap offerings of chewed coca or maize, old shoes, and so forth, on the cairns.[78 - P. J. de Arriaga, Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Piru (Lima, 1621), pp. 37, 130.] In Sweden and Corea a little money is sometimes thrown on a cairn instead of a stick or stone.[79 - F. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 274; Brett, “Dans la Corée Septentrionale,” Les Missions Catholiques, xxxi. (1899) p. 237.] The shrine of the Jungle Mother in Northern India is usually a pile of stones and branches to which every passer-by contributes. When she is displeased, she lets a tiger or leopard kill her negligent votary. She is the great goddess of the herdsmen and other dwellers in the forest, and they vow to her a cock and a goat, or a young pig, if she saves them and their cattle from beasts of prey.[80 - W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), i. 115. “In some parts of Bilaspore there may be seen heaps of stones, which are known as kuriyā, from the word kurhonā, meaning to heap or pile-up. Just how and why the practice was started the people cannot explain; but to this day every one who passes a kuriyā will take up a stone and throw it on the pile. This, they say, has been done as long as they can remember” (E. M. Gordon, Indian Folk Tales, London, 1908, p. 14).] In the jungles of Mirzapur the cairn which marks the spot where a man has been killed by a tiger, and to which each passer-by contributes a stone, is commonly in charge of a Baiga or aboriginal priest, who offers upon it a cock, a pig, or some spirits, and occasionally lights a little lamp at the shrine.[81 - W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), i. 267 sq.] Amongst the Baganda members of the Bean clan worshipped the spirit of the river Nakiza. “There was no temple, but they had two large heaps of sticks and grass, one on either side of the river by the ford; to these heaps the members went, when they wished to make an offering to the spirit, or to seek his assistance. The offerings were usually goats, beer, barkcloth, and fowls. When people crossed the river they threw a little grass or some sticks on to the heap before crossing, and again a little more on to the second heap after crossing; this was their offering to the spirit for a safe crossing.”[82 - Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 163.] There is a ford on the Calabar river in West Africa which has an ill repute, for the stream is broad, the current rapid, and there are crocodiles in the deep places. Beside the ford is a large oval-shaped stone which the Ekoi regard as an altar of Nimm, a powerful goddess, who dwells in the depth of the river Kwa and manifests herself in the likeness now of a crocodile and now of a snake. In order to ensure a safe passage through the river it is customary to pluck a leaf, rub it on the forehead over the pineal gland, and throw it on a heap of leaves in front of the stone. As he rubs the leaf on his forehead, the person who is about to plunge into the river prays, “May I be free from danger! May I go through the water to the other side! May I see no evil!” And when he throws the leaf on the heap he prays again, saying, “I am coming across the river, may the crocodile lay down his head!”[83 - P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London, 1912), p. 242. As to the goddess Nimm, see id., pp. 2 sq.] Here the leaves appear to be a propitiatory offering presented to the dread goddess in the hope that she will suffer her worshipper to pass the ford unmolested. At another but smaller stream, called the River of Good Fortune, the Ekoi similarly rub leaves on their foreheads, praying for luck, and throw them on a heap before they pass through the water. They think that he who complies with this custom will have good luck throughout the year. Again, when the Ekoi kill a chameleon on the road, they do not throw the body away in the forest, but lay it by the wayside, and all who pass by pluck a few leaves and drop them on the dead animal, saying, “Look! Here is your mat.” In this way heaps of leaves accumulate over the carcases of chameleons. The custom is intended to appease the shade of the chameleon, who, if he were not pacified, would go to the Earth-god Obassi Nsi and pray for vengeance on the race of those who had caused his death.[84 - P. Amaury Talbot, op. cit. p. 91.] The Washamba of German East Africa believe that certain stony and dangerous places in the paths are the abodes of spirits; hence at any such spot a traveller who would have a prosperous journey must dance a little and deposit a few small stones.[85 - A. Karasek, “Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Waschambaa,” Baessler-Archiv, i. (1911) p. 194.] The dance and the stones are presumably intended to soften the heart of the spirits and induce them to look favourably on the dancer. In Papa Westray, one of the Orkney Islands, there is a ruined chapel called St. Tredwels, “at the door of which there is a heap of stones; which was the superstition of the common people, who have such a veneration for this chapel above any other, that they never fail, at their coming to it, to throw a stone as an offering before the door: and this they reckon an indispensable duty enjoined by their ancestors.”[86 - M. Martin, “A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in John Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels (London, 1808-1814), iii. 691.]

The throwing of stones and sticks is sometimes accompanied by prayers. Gradual transformation of an old magical ceremony into a religious rite.

Prayers, too, as we have seen, are sometimes offered at these piles. In Laos heaps of stones may be seen beside the path, on which the passenger will deposit a pebble, a branch, or a leaf, while he beseeches the Lord of the Diamond to bestow on him good luck and long life.[87 - E. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos (Saigon, 1885), p. 198.] In the Himalayan districts of the North-Western Provinces of India heaps of stones and sticks are often to be seen on hills or at cross-roads. They are formed by the contributions of passing travellers, each of whom in adding his stone or stick to the pile prays, saying, “Thou goddess whose home is on the ridge, eater of wood and stone, preserve me.”[88 - E. T. Atkinson, The Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of India, ii. (Allahabad, 1884) p. 832.] Tibetan travellers mutter a prayer at the cairns on the tops of passes to which they add a few stones gathered by them on the ascent.[89 - T. T. Cooper, Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce (London, 1871), p. 275. Compare W. W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas (London, 1891), pp. 126 sq.] A native of South-Eastern Africa who places a small stone on a cairn is wont to say as he does so, “Cairn, grant me strength and prosperity.”[90 - Rev. J. Macdonald, “Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Religions of South African Tribes,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xx. (1891) p. 126.] In the same circumstances the Hottentot prays for plenty of cattle,[91 - Sir James E. Alexander, Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa (London, 1838), i. 166.] and the Caffre that his journey may be prosperous, that he may have strength to accomplish it, and that he may obtain an abundant supply of food by the way.[92 - S. Kay, Travels and Researches in Caffraria (London, 1833), pp. 211 sq. When the Bishop of Capetown once passed a heap of stones on the top of a mountain in the Amapondo country he was told that “it was customary for every traveller to add one to the heap that it might have a favourable influence on his journey, and enable him to arrive at some kraal while the pot is yet boiling” (J. Shooter, The Kaffirs of Natal, London, 1857, p. 217). Here there is no mention of a prayer. Similarly a Basuto on a journey, when he fears that the friend with whom he is going to stay may have eaten up all the food before his guest's arrival, places a stone on a cairn to avert the danger (E. Casalis, The Basutos, London, 1861, p. 272). The reason alleged for the practice in these cases is perhaps equivalent to the one assigned by the Melanesians and others; by ridding the traveller of his fatigue it enables him to journey faster and so to reach his destination before supper is over. But sometimes a travelling Mowenda will place a stone, not on a cairn, but in the fork of a tree, saying, “May the sun not set before I reach my destination.” See Rev. E. Gottschling, “The Bawenda,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxv. (1905) p. 381. This last custom is a charm to prevent the sun from setting. See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 318. In Senegal the custom of throwing stones on cairns by the wayside is said to be observed “in order to ensure a speedy and prosperous return.” See Dr. Bellamy, “Notes ethnographiques recueillies dans le Haut-Sénégal,” Revue d' Ethnographie, v. (1886) p. 83. In the Fan country of West Africa the custom of adding a leafy branch to a heap of such branches in the forest was explained by a native, who said that it was done to prevent the trees and branches from falling on the traveller's head, and their roots from wounding his feet. See Father Trilles, “Mille lieues dans l'inconnu,” Les Missions Catholiques, xxxiv. (1902) p. 142.] It is said that sick Bushmen used to go on pilgrimage to the cairn called the Devil's Neck, and pray to the spirit of the place to heal them, while they rubbed the sick part of their body and cried, “Woe! woe!” On special occasions, too, they resorted thither and implored the spirit's help.[93 - Th. Hahn, “Die Buschmänner,” Globus, xviii. 141. As to the cairn in question, see above, p. 16 (#x_4_i31).] Such customs seem to indicate the gradual transformation of an old magical ceremony into a religious rite with its characteristic features of prayer and sacrifice. Yet behind these later accretions, as we may perhaps regard them, it seems possible in many, if not in all, cases to discern the nucleus to which they have attached themselves, the original idea which they tend to conceal and in time to transmute. That idea is the transference of evil from man to a material substance which he can cast from him like an outworn garment.

§ 3. The Transference to Animals

Evils transferred to animals in Africa.

Animals are often employed as a vehicle for carrying away or transferring the evil. A Guinea negro who happens to be unwell will sometimes tie a live chicken round his neck, so that it lies on his breast. When the bird flaps its wings or cheeps the man thinks it a good sign, supposing the chicken to be afflicted with the very pain from which he hopes soon to be released, or which he would otherwise have to endure.[94 - J. Smith, Trade and Travels in the Gulph of Guinea (London, 1851), p. 77.] When a Moor has a headache he will sometimes take a lamb or a goat and beat it till it falls down, believing that the headache will thus be transferred to the animal.[95 - O. Dapper, Description de l'Afrique (Amsterdam, 1686), p. 117.] In Morocco most wealthy Moors keep a wild boar in their stables, in order that the jinn and evil spirits may be diverted from the horses and enter into the boar.[96 - A. Leared, Morocco and the Moors (London, 1876), p. 301. Compare E. Doutté, Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord (Algiers, 1908), p. 454.] In some parts of Algeria people think that typhoid fever can be cured by taking a tortoise, putting it on its back in the road, and covering it over with a pot. The patient recovers, but whoever upsets the pot catches the fever. In Tlemcen a pregnant woman is protected against jinn by means of a black fowl which is kept in the house from the seventh month of her pregnancy till her delivery. Finally, the oldest woman in the house releases the fowl in the Jews' quarter; the bird is supposed to carry the jinn away with it.[97 - E. Doutté, op. cit. pp. 454 sq.] Amongst the Caffres of South Africa, when other remedies have failed, “natives sometimes adopt the custom of taking a goat into the presence of a sick man, and confess the sins of the kraal over the animal. Sometimes a few drops of blood from the sick man are allowed to fall on the head of the goat, which is turned out into an uninhabited part of the veldt. The sickness is supposed to be transferred to the animal, and to become lost in the desert.”[98 - Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), p. 261.] After an illness a Bechuana king seated himself upon an ox which lay stretched on the ground. The native doctor next poured water on the king's head till it ran down over his body. Then the head of the ox was held in a vessel of water till the animal expired; whereupon the doctor declared, and the people believed, that the ox died of the king's disease, which had been transferred from him to it.[99 - Rev. John Campbell, Travels in South Africa (London, 1822), ii. 207 sq.] The Baganda of Central Africa also attempted to transfer illness from a person to an animal. “The medicine-man would take the animal, pass some herbs over the sick man, tie these to the animal, and then drive it away to some waste land, where he would kill it, taking the meat as his perquisite. The sick man would be expected to recover.”[100 - Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 342 sq.] The Akikuyu of East Africa think that a man can transfer the guilt of incest by means of “an ignoble ceremony” to a goat, which is then killed; this saves the life of the culprit, who otherwise must die.[101 - P. Cayzac, “La religion des Kikuyu,” Anthropos, v. (1910) p. 311.] When disease breaks out among the cattle of the Bahima, a pastoral people of Central Africa, the priest “collects herbs and other remedies to attract the disease from the cattle. An animal is chosen from the herd in the evening, which is to be the scapegoat for the herd; the herbs, etc., are tied round its neck, with certain fetiches to ensure the illness leaving the other animals; the cow is driven round the outside of the kraal several times, and afterwards placed inside with the herd for the night. Early the following morning the animal is taken out and again driven round the kraal; the priest then kills it in the gateway, and some of the blood is sprinkled over the people belonging to the kraal, and also over the herd. The people next file out, each one jumping over the carcase of the cow, and all the animals are driven over it in the same way. The disease is thus transferred to the scapegoat and the herd is saved. All the fetiches and herbs, which were upon the scapegoat, are fastened upon the door-posts and lintel of the kraal to prevent the disease from entering again.”[102 - Rev. J. Roscoe, “The Bahima, a Cow Tribe of Enkole,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xxxvii. (1907) p. 111.]

Evils transferred to animals in various parts of the world.

When the cattle of the Huzuls, a pastoral people of the Carpathians, are sick and the owner attributes the sickness to witchcraft, he throws glowing coals into a vessel of water and then pours the water on a black dog; thus the sickness passes into the dog and the cattle are made whole.[103 - Dr. R. F. Kaindl, “Zauberglaube bei den Huzulen,” Globus, lxxvi. (1899) p. 254.] In Arabia, when the plague is raging, the people will sometimes lead a camel through all the quarters of the town in order that the animal may take the pestilence on itself. Then they strangle it in a sacred place and imagine that they have rid themselves of the camel and of the plague at one blow.[104 - J. Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien (Halle a. S., 1888-1890), i. 34.] In Annam, when sickness is caused by the presence of a demon in the body of the sufferer, a skilful exorcist will decoy the unwary devil into a fowl and then, quick as thought, decapitate the bird and throw it out of the door. But lest the fiend should survive this severe operation, cabalistic figures are posted on the outside of the door, which preclude him from entering the premises and assaulting the patient afresh.[105 - E. Diguet, Les Annamites (Paris, 1906), pp. 283 sq.] It is said that when smallpox is raging the savages of Formosa will drive the demon of disease into a sow, then cut off the animal's ears and burn them or it, believing that in this way they rid themselves of the plague.[106 - W. Müller, “Über die Wildenstämme der Insel Formosa,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xlii. (1910) p. 237. The writer's use of the pronoun (sie) is ambiguous.] When a Kabyle child is pining for jealousy of a younger brother or sister, the parents imagine that they can cure it as follows. They take fifteen grains of wheat, wrap them up in a packet, and leave the packet all night under the head of the jealous child. Then in the morning they throw the grains into an ant-hill, saying, “Salutation to you, oh beautiful beings clad in black; salutation to you who dig the earth so well without the aid of any hoe by the help of God and the angels! May each of you take his share of the jealousy attached to these grains!”[107 - Father E. Amat, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, lxx. (1898) pp. 266 sq.]

Vehicles for the transference of evils in Madagascar.

Amongst the Malagasy the vehicle for carrying away evils is called a faditra. “The faditra is anything selected by the sikidy [divining board] for the purpose of taking away any hurtful evils or diseases that might prove injurious to an individual's happiness, peace, or prosperity. The faditra may be either ashes, cut money, a sheep, a pumpkin, or anything else the sikidy may choose to direct. After the particular article is appointed, the priest counts upon it all the evils that may prove injurious to the person for whom it is made, and which he then charges the faditra to take away for ever. If the faditra be ashes, it is blown, to be carried away by the wind. If it be cut money, it is thrown to the bottom of deep water, or where it can never be found. If it be a sheep, it is carried away to a distance on the shoulders of a man, who runs with all his might, mumbling as he goes, as if in the greatest rage against the faditra, for the evils it is bearing away. If it be a pumpkin, it is carried on the shoulders to a little distance, and there dashed upon the ground with every appearance of fury and indignation.”[108 - Rev. W. Ellis, History of Madagascar (London, n. d.), i. 422 sq.; compare id., pp. 232, 435, 436 sq.; Rev. J. Sibree, The Great African Island (London, 1880), pp. 303 sq. As to divination by the sikidy, see J. Sibree, “Divination among the Malagasy,” Folk-lore, iii. (1892) pp. 193-226.] A Malagasy was informed by a diviner that he was doomed to a bloody death, but that possibly he might avert his fate by performing a certain rite. Carrying a small vessel full of blood upon his head, he was to mount upon the back of a bullock; while thus mounted, he was to spill the blood upon the bullock's head, and then send the animal away into the wilderness, whence it might never return.[109 - W. Ellis, op. cit. i. 374; J. Sibree, The Great African Island, p. 304; J. Cameron, in Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine, Reprint of the First Four Numbers (Antananarivo, 1885), p. 263.]

Extraction of kleptomania by spiders and crabs. Evils transferred to birds, which fly away with them.

Among the Toradjas of Central Celebes a chief's daughter, who suffered from kleptomania, was healed by a wise woman, who placed a bag containing spiders and crabs on the patient's hands. The physician calculated that the prehensile claws of these creatures, so suggestive of a thief's hands in the act of closing on his prey, would lay hold of the vicious propensity in the young woman's mind and extract it as neatly as a pair of forceps nips out a thorn from the flesh.[110 - N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De Bare'e-sprekende Toradja's van Midden-Celebes, i. (Batavia, 1912) p. 399.] The Battas of Sumatra have a ceremony which they call “making the curse to fly away.” When a woman is childless, a sacrifice is offered to the gods of three grasshoppers, representing a head of cattle, a buffalo, and a horse. Then a swallow is set free, with a prayer that the curse may fall upon the bird and fly away with it.[111 - W. Ködding, “Die Batakschen Götter,” Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, xii. (1885) p. 478; Dr. R. Römer, “Bijdrage tot de Geneeskunst der Karo-Batak's,” Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, l. (1908) p. 223.] “The entrance into a house of an animal which does not generally seek to share the abode of man is regarded by the Malays as ominous of misfortune. If a wild bird flies into a house, it must be carefully caught and smeared with oil, and must then be released in the open air, a formula being recited in which it is bidden to fly away with all the ill-luck and misfortunes (sial jambalang) of the occupier.”[112 - W. E. Maxwell, “The Folklore of the Malays,” Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 7 (June, 1881), p. 27; W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London, 1900), pp. 534 sq.] In antiquity Greek women seem to have done the same with swallows which they caught in the house: they poured oil on them and let them fly away, apparently for the purpose of removing ill-luck from the household.[113 - Dio Chrysostom, Orat. liii. vol. ii. pp. 164 sq. ed. L. Dindorf (Leipsic, 1857). Compare Plato, Republic, iii. 9, p. 398 a, who ironically proposes to dismiss poets from his ideal state in the same manner. These passages of Plato and Dio Chrysostom were pointed out to me by my friend Professor Henry Jackson. There was a Greek saying, attributed to Pythagoras, that swallows should not be allowed to enter a house (Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. viii. 7, 1).] The Huzuls of the Carpathians imagine that they can transfer freckles to the first swallow they see in spring by washing their face in flowing water and saying, “Swallow, swallow, take my freckles, and give me rosy cheeks.”[114 - Dr. R. F. Kaindl, “Zauberglaube bei den Huzulen,” Globus, lxxvi. (1899) pp. 255 sq.] At the cleansing of a leper and of a house suspected of being tainted with leprosy among the Hebrews the priest used to let a living bird fly away into the open field,[115 - Leviticus xiv. 7, 53.] no doubt in order to carry away the leprosy with it. Similarly among the ancient Arabs a widow was expected to live secluded in a small tent for a year after her husband's death; then a bird or a sheep was brought to her, she made the creature touch her person, and let it go. It was believed that the bird or the sheep would not live long thereafter; doubtless it was supposed to suffer from the uncleanness or taint of death which the widow had transferred to it.[116 - J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentumes (Berlin, 1887), p. 156; W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, New Edition (London, 1894), pp. 422, 428.]

Evils transferred to animals in India.

Among the Majhwar, a Dravidian race of South Mirzapur, if a man has died of a contagious disease, such as cholera, the village priest walks in front of the funeral procession with a chicken in his hands, which he lets loose in the direction of some other village as a scapegoat to carry the infection away. None but another very experienced priest would afterwards dare to touch or eat such a chicken.[117 - W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh (Calcutta, 1896), iii. 434.] Among the Badagas of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern India, when a death has taken place, the sins of the deceased are laid upon a buffalo calf. For this purpose the people gather round the corpse and carry it outside of the village. There an elder of the tribe, standing at the head of the corpse, recites or chants a long list of sins such as any Badaga may commit, and the people repeat the last words of each line after him. The confession of sins is thrice repeated. “By a conventional mode of expression, the sum total of sins a man may do is said to be thirteen hundred. Admitting that the deceased has committed them all, the performer cries aloud, ‘Stay not their flight to God's pure feet.’ As he closes, the whole assembly chants aloud ‘Stay not their flight.’ Again the performer enters into details, and cries, ‘He killed the crawling snake. It is a sin.’ In a moment the last word is caught up, and all the people cry ‘It is a sin.’ As they shout, the performer lays his hand upon the calf. The sin is transferred to the calf. Thus the whole catalogue is gone through in this impressive way. But this is not enough. As the last shout ‘Let all be well’ dies away, the performer gives place to another, and again confession is made, and all the people shout ‘It is a sin.’ A third time it is done. Then, still in solemn silence, the calf is let loose. Like the Jewish scapegoat, it may never be used for secular work.” At a Badaga funeral witnessed by the Rev. A. C. Clayton the buffalo calf was led thrice round the bier, and the dead man's hand was laid on its head. “By this act, the calf was supposed to receive all the sins of the deceased. It was then driven away to a great distance, that it might contaminate no one, and it was said that it would never be sold, but looked on as a dedicated sacred animal.”[118 - E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India (Madras, 1909), i. 113-117; id., Ethnographic Notes in Southern India (Madras, 1906), pp. 192-196; Captain H. Harkness, Description of a Singular Aboriginal Race inhabiting the Summit of the Neilgherry Hills (London, 1832), p. 133; F. Metz, The Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, Second Edition (Mangalore, 1864), p. 78; Jagor, “Ueber die Badagas im Nilgiri-Gebirge,” Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie (1876), pp. 196 sq. At the Badaga funerals witnessed by Mr. E. Thurston “no calf was brought near the corpse, and the celebrants of the rites were satisfied with the mere mention by name of a calf, which is male or female according to the sex of the deceased.”] “The idea of this ceremony is, that the sins of the deceased enter the calf, or that the task of his absolution is laid on it. They say that the calf very soon disappears, and that it is never after heard of.”[119 - H. Harkness, l. c.] Some of the Todas of the Neilgherry Hills in like manner let loose a calf as a funeral ceremony; the intention may be to transfer the sins of the deceased to the animal. Perhaps the Todas have borrowed the ceremony from the Badagas.[120 - J. W. Breeks, An Account of the Primitive Tribes and Monuments of the Nīlagiris (London, 1873), pp. 23 sq.; W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas (London, 1906), pp. 376 sq.] In Kumaon, a district of North-Western India, the custom of letting loose a bullock as a scapegoat at a funeral is occasionally observed. A bell is hung on the bullock's neck, and bells are tied to its feet, and the animal is told that it is to be let go in order to save the spirit of the deceased from the torments of hell. Sometimes the bullock's right quarter is branded with a trident and the left with a discus.[121 - E. T. Atkinson, The Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of India, ii. (Allahabad, 1884) pp. 927 sq. In other parts of North-Western India on the eleventh day after a death a bull calf is let loose with a trident branded on its shoulder or quarter “to become a pest.” See (Sir) Denzil C. J. Ibbetson, Report on the Revision of Settlement of the Panipat Tahsil and Karnal Parganah of the Karnal District (Allahabad, 1883), p. 137. In Behar, a district of Bengal, a bullock is also let loose on the eleventh day of mourning for a near relative. See G. A. Grierson, Bihār Peasant Life (Calcutta, 1885), p. 409.] Perhaps the original intention of such customs was to banish the contagion of death by means of the animal, which carried it away and so ensured the life of the survivors. The idea of sin is not primitive.

§ 4. The Transference to Men

Evils transferred to human beings in India and elsewhere.

Again, men sometimes play the part of scapegoat by diverting to themselves the evils that threaten others. An ancient Hindoo ritual describes how the pangs of thirst may be transferred from a sick man to another. The operator seats the pair on branches, back to back, the sufferer with his face to the east, and the whole man with his face to the west. Then he stirs some gruel in a vessel placed on the patient's head and hands the stir-about to the other man to drink. In this way he transfers the pangs of thirst from the thirsty soul to the other, who obligingly receives them in his stead.[122 - W. Caland, Altindisches Zauberritual (Amsterdam, 1900), p. 83; Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, translated by Maurice Bloomfield (Oxford, 1897), pp. 308 sq. (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xlii.).] There is a painful Telugu remedy for a fever: it is to embrace a bald-headed Brahman widow at the earliest streak of dawn. By doing so you get rid of the fever, and no doubt (though this is not expressly affirmed) you at the same time transfer it to the bald-headed widow.[123 - M. N. Venketswami, “Telugu Superstitions,” The Indian Antiquary, xxiv. (1895) p. 359.] When a Cinghalese is dangerously ill, and the physicians can do nothing, a devil-dancer is called in, who by making offerings to the devils, and dancing in the masks appropriate to them, conjures these demons of disease, one after the other, out of the sick man's body and into his own. Having thus successfully extracted the cause of the malady, the artful dancer lies down on a bier, and shamming death, is carried to an open place outside the village. Here, being left to himself, he soon comes to life again, and hastens back to claim his reward.[124 - A. Grünwedel, “Sinhalesische Masken,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, vi. (1893) pp. 85 sq.] In 1590 a Scotch witch of the name of Agnes Sampson was convicted of curing a certain Robert Kers of a disease “laid upon him by a westland warlock when he was at Dumfries, whilk sickness she took upon herself, and kept the same with great groaning and torment till the morn, at whilk time there was a great din heard in the house.” The noise was made by the witch in her efforts to shift the disease, by means of clothes, from herself to a cat or dog. Unfortunately the attempt partly miscarried. The disease missed the animal and hit Alexander Douglas of Dalkeith, who dwined and died of it, while the original patient, Robert Kers, was made whole.[125 - J. G. Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 104 sq. I have modernised the spelling.] The Dyaks believe that certain men possess in themselves the power of neutralizing bad omens. So, when evil omens have alarmed a farmer for the safety of his crops, he takes a small portion of his farm produce to one of these wise men, who eats it raw for a small consideration, “and thereby appropriates to himself the evil omen, which in him becomes innocuous, and thus delivers the other from the ban of the pemali or taboo.”[126 - J. Perham, “Sea Dyak Religion,” Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 10 (December 1882), p. 232.]

Sins and misfortunes transferred to human scapegoats in New Zealand and Manipur. Annual eponyms in Manipur. Eponymous magistrates as public scapegoats.

“In one part of New Zealand an expiation for sin was felt to be necessary; a service was performed over an individual, by which all the sins of the tribe were supposed to be transferred to him, a fern stalk was previously tied to his person, with which he jumped into the river, and there unbinding, allowed it to float away to the sea, bearing their sins with it.”[127 - Rev. Richard Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants, Second Edition (London, 1870), p. 101.] In great emergencies the sins of the Rajah of Manipur used to be transferred to somebody else, usually to a criminal, who earned his pardon by his vicarious sufferings. To effect the transference the Rajah and his wife, clad in fine robes, bathed on a scaffold erected in the bazaar, while the criminal crouched beneath it. With the water which dripped from them on him their sins also were washed away and fell on the human scapegoat. To complete the transference the Rajah and his wife made over their fine robes to their substitute, while they themselves, clad in new raiment, mixed with the people till evening. But at the close of the day they entered into retreat and remained in seclusion for about a week, during which they were esteemed sacred or tabooed.[128 - T. C. Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxi. (1901) p. 302; id., The Meitheis (London, 1908), pp. 106 sq.] Further, in Manipur “they have a noteworthy system of keeping count of the years. Each year is named after some man, who – for a consideration – undertakes to bear the fortune good or bad of the year. If the year be good, if there be no pestilence and a good harvest, he gets presents from all sorts of people, and I remember hearing that in 1898, when the cholera was at its worst, a deputation came to the Political Agent and asked him to punish the name-giver, as it was obvious that he was responsible for the epidemic. In former times he would have got into trouble.”[129 - T. C. Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxi. (1901) p. 302.] The nomination of the eponym, or man who is to give his name to the year, takes place at a festival called Chirouba, which falls about the middle of April. It is the priests who nominate the eponym, after comparing his horoscope with that of the Rajah and of the State generally. The retiring official, who gave his name to the past year, addresses his successor as follows: “My friend, I bore and took away all evil spirits and sins from the Rajah and his people during the last year. Do thou likewise from to-morrow until the next Chirouba.” Then the incoming official, who is to give his name to the New Year, addresses the Rajah in these words: “O son of heaven, Ruler of the Kings, great and ancient Lord, Incarnation of God, the great Lord Pakhangba, Master of the bright Sun, Lord of the Plain and Despot of the Hills, whose kingdom is from the hills on the east to the mountains on the west, the old year perishes, the new cometh. New is the sun of the new year, and bright as the new sun shalt thou be, and mild withal as the moon. May thy beauty and thy strength grow with the growth of the new year. From to-day will I bear on my head all thy sins, diseases, misfortunes, shame, mischief, all that is aimed in battle against thee, all that threatens thee, all that is bad and hurtful for thee and thy kingdom.” For these important services the eponym or vicar receives from the Rajah a number of gifts, including a basket of salt, and his grateful country rewards his self-sacrificing devotion by bestowing many privileges on him.[130 - T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis (London, 1908), pp. 104-106.] Elsewhere, perhaps, if we knew more about the matter, we might find that eponymous magistrates who give their names to the year have been similarly regarded as public scapegoats, who bore on their devoted heads the misfortunes, the sins, and the sorrows of the whole people.[131 - Compare The Dying God, pp. 116 sq.]

Indian story of the transference of sins to a holy man.

In the Jataka, or collection of Indian stories which narrate the many transmigrations of the Buddha, there is an instructive tale, which sets forth how sins and misfortunes can be transferred by means of spittle to a holy ascetic. A lady of easy virtue, we are told, had lost the favour of King Dandaki and bethought herself how she could recover it. As she walked in the park revolving these things in her mind, she spied a devout ascetic named Kisavaccha. A thought struck her. “Surely,” said she to herself, “this must be Ill Luck. I will get rid of my sin on his person and then go and bathe.” No sooner said than done. Chewing her toothpick, she collected a large clot of spittle in her mouth with which she beslavered the matted locks of the venerable man, and having hurled her toothpick at his head into the bargain she departed with a mind at peace and bathed. The stratagem was entirely successful; for the king took her into his good graces again. Not long after it chanced that the king deposed his domestic chaplain from his office. Naturally chagrined at this loss of royal favour, the clergyman repaired to the king's light o' love and enquired how she had contrived to recapture the monarch's affection. She told him frankly how she had got rid of her sin and emerged without a stain on her character by simply spitting on the head of Ill Luck in the royal park. The chaplain took the hint, and hastening to the park bespattered in like manner the sacred locks of the holy man; and in consequence he was soon reinstated in office. It would have been well if the thing had stopped there, but unfortunately it did not. By and bye it happened that there was a disturbance on the king's frontier, and the king put himself at the head of his army to go forth and fight. An unhappy idea occurred to his domestic chaplain. Elated by the success of the expedient which had restored him to royal favour, he asked the king, “Sire, do you wish for victory or defeat?” “Why for victory, of course,” replied the king. “Then you take my advice,” said the chaplain; “just go and spit on the head of Ill Luck, who dwells in the royal park; you will thus transfer all your sin to his person.” It seemed to the king a capital idea and he improved on it by proposing that the whole army should accompany him and get rid of their sins in like manner. They all did so, beginning with the king, and the state of the holy man's head when they had all done is something frightful to contemplate. But even this was not the worst. For after the king had gone, up came the commander-in-chief and seeing the sad plight of the pious ascetic, he took pity on him and had his poor bedabbled hair thoroughly washed. The fatal consequences of this kindly-meant but most injudicious shampoo may easily be anticipated. The sins which had been transferred with the saliva to the person of the devotee were now restored to their respective owners; and to punish them for their guilt fire fell from heaven and destroyed the whole kingdom for sixty leagues round about.[132 - The Jataha or Stories of the Buddha's former Births, vol. v., translated by H. T. Francis (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 71 sq.]

Transference of evils to human scapegoats in Uganda.

A less harmless way of relieving an army from guilt or misfortune used in former times to be actually practised by the Baganda. When an army had returned from war, and the gods warned the king by their oracles that some evil had attached itself to the soldiers, it was customary to pick out a woman slave from the captives, together with a cow, a goat, a fowl, and a dog from the booty, and to send them back under a strong guard to the borders of the country from which they had come. There their limbs were broken and they were left to die; for they were too crippled to crawl back to Uganda. In order to ensure the transference of the evil to these substitutes, bunches of grass were rubbed over the people and cattle and then tied to the victims. After that the army was pronounced clean and was allowed to return to the capital. A similar mode of transferring evil to human and animal victims was practised by the Baganda whenever the gods warned the king that his hereditary foes the Banyoro were working magic against him and his people.[133 - Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 342.]

Transference of sins to a Brahman in Travancore. Transference of sins to a Sin-eater in England.

In Travancore, when a rajah is near his end, they seek out a holy Brahman, who consents to take upon himself the sins of the dying man in consideration of the sum of ten thousand rupees. Thus prepared to immolate himself on the altar of duty as a vicarious sacrifice for sin, the saint is introduced into the chamber of death, and closely embraces the dying rajah, saying to him, “O King, I undertake to bear all your sins and diseases. May your Highness live long and reign happily.” Having thus, with a noble devotion, taken to himself the sins of the sufferer, and likewise the rupees, he is sent away from the country and never more allowed to return.[134 - Rev. S. Mateer, Native Life in Travancore (London, 1883), p. 136.] Closely akin to this is the old Welsh custom known as “sin-eating.” According to Aubrey, “In the County of Hereford was an old Custome at funeralls to hire poor people, who were to take upon them all the sinnes of the party deceased. One of them I remember lived in a cottage on Rosse-high way. (He was a long, leane, ugly, lamentable poor raskal.) The manner was that when the Corps was brought out of the house and layd on the Biere; a Loafe of bread was brought out, and delivered to the Sinne-eater over the corps, as also a Mazar-bowle of maple (Gossips bowle) full of beer, which he was to drinke up, and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him (ipso facto) all the Sinnes of the Defunct, and freed him (or her) from walking after they were dead… This Custome (though rarely used in our dayes) yet by some people was observed even in the strictest time of ye Presbyterian government: as at Dynder, volens nolens the Parson of ye Parish, the kinred of a woman deceased there had this ceremonie punctually performed according to her Will: and also the like was donne at ye City of Hereford in these times, when a woman kept many yeares before her death a Mazard-bowle for the Sinne-eater; and the like in other places in this Countie; as also in Brecon, e. g. at Llangors, where Mr. Gwin the minister about 1640 could no hinder ye performing of this ancient custome. I believe this custom was heretofore used over all Wales… In North Wales the Sinne-eaters are frequently made use of; but there, instead of a Bowle of Beere, they have a bowle of Milke.”[135 - J. Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme (Folk-lore Society, London, 1881), pp. 35 sq.] According to a letter dated February 1, 1714-15, “within the memory of our fathers, in Shropshire, in those villages adjoyning to Wales, when a person dyed, there was notice given to an old sire (for so they called him), who presently repaired to the place where the deceased lay, and stood before the door of the house, when some of the family came out and furnished him with a cricket, on which he sat down facing the door. Then they gave him a groat, which he put in his pocket; a crust of bread, which he eat; and a full bowle of ale, which he drank off at a draught. After this he got up from the cricket and pronounced, with a composed gesture, the ease and rest of the soul departed for which he would pawn his own soul. This I had from the ingenious John Aubrey, Esq.”[136 - Bagford's letter in Leland's Collectanea, i. 76, quoted by J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 246 sq., Bohn's edition (London, 1882-1883).] In modern times some doubt has been thrown on Aubrey's account of the custom.[137 - In The Academy, 13th Nov. 1875, p. 505, Mr. D. Silvan Evans stated that he knew of no such custom anywhere in Wales; and the custom seems to be now quite unknown in Shropshire. See C. S. Burne and G. F. Jackson, Shropshire Folk-lore (London, 1883), pp. 307 sq.] The practice, however, is reported to have prevailed in a valley not far from Llandebie to a recent period. An instance was said to have occurred about sixty years ago.[138 - The authority for the statement is a Mr. Moggridge, reported in Archaeologia Cambrensis, second series, iii. 330. But Mr. Moggridge did not speak from personal knowledge, and as he appears to have taken it for granted that the practice of placing bread and salt upon the breast of a corpse was a survival of the custom of “sin-eating,” his evidence must be received with caution. He repeated his statement, in somewhat vaguer terms, at a meeting of the Anthropological Institute, 14th December 1875. See Journal of the Anthropological Institute, v. (1876) pp. 423 sq.]

Transference of sins to a sin-eater in India.

Aubrey's statement is moreover supported by the analogy of similar customs in India. When the Rajah of Tanjore died in 1801, some of his bones and the bones of the two wives, who were burned with his corpse, were ground to powder and eaten, mixed with boiled rice, by twelve Brahmans. It was believed that the sins of the deceased passed into the bodies of the Brahmans, who were paid for the service.[139 - J. A. Dubois, Mœurs des Peuples de l'Inde (Paris, 1825), ii. 32 sq.] A Brahman, resident in a village near Raipur, stated that he had eaten food (rice and milk) out of the hand of the dead Rajah of Bilaspur, and that in consequence he had been placed on the throne for the space of a year. At the end of the year he had been given presents and then turned out of the territory and forbidden apparently to return. He was an outcast among his fellows for having eaten out of a dead man's hand.[140 - R. Richardson, in Panjab Notes and Queries, i. p. 86, § 674 (May, 1884).] A similar custom is believed to obtain in the hill states about Kangra, and to have given rise to a caste of “outcaste” Brahmans. At the funeral of a Rani of Chamba rice and ghee were eaten out of the hands of the corpse by a Brahman paid for the purpose. Afterwards a stranger, who had been caught outside the Chamba territory, was given the costly wrappings of the corpse, then told to depart and never shew his face in the country again.[141 - Panjab Notes and Queries, i. p. 86, § 674, ii. p. 93, § 559 (March, 1885). Some of these customs have been already referred to in a different connexion. See The Dying God, p. 154. In Uganda the eldest son used to perform a funeral ceremony, which consisted in chewing some seeds which he took with his lips from the hand of his dead father; some of these seeds he then blew over the corpse and the rest over one of the childless widows who thereafter became his wife. The meaning of the ceremony is obscure. The eldest son in Uganda never inherited his father's property. See the Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 117.] In Oude when an infant was killed it used to be buried in the room where it had been born. On the thirteenth day afterwards the priest had to cook and eat his food in that room. By doing so he was supposed to take the whole sin upon himself and to cleanse the family from it.[142 - Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. p. 179, § 745 (July, 1886).] At Utch Kurgan in Turkestan Mr. Schuyler saw an old man who was said to get his living by taking on himself the sins of the dead, and thenceforth devoting his life to prayer for their souls.[143 - E. Schuyler, Turkistan (London, 1876), ii. 28.]

Transference of sins in Tahiti.

In Tahiti, where the bodies of chiefs and persons of rank were embalmed and preserved above ground in special sheds or houses erected for them, a priest was employed at the funeral rites who bore the title of the “corpse-praying priest.” His office was singular. When the house for the dead had been prepared, and the corpse placed on the platform or bier, the priest ordered a hole to be made in the floor, near the foot of the platform. Over this he prayed to the god by whom it was supposed that the soul of the deceased had been called away. The purport of his prayer was that all the dead man's sins, especially the one for which his soul had been required of him, might be deposited there, that they might not attach in any degree to the survivors, and that the anger of the god might be appeased. He next addressed the corpse, usually saying, “With you let the guilt now remain.” The pillar or post of the corpse, as it was called, was then planted in the hole, and the hole filled up. As soon as the ceremony of depositing the sins in the hole was over, all who had touched the body or the garments of the deceased, which were buried or destroyed, fled precipitately into the sea, to cleanse themselves from the pollution which they had contracted by touching the corpse. They also cast into the sea the garments they had worn while they were performing the last offices to the dead. Having finished their ablutions, they gathered a few pieces of coral from the bottom of the sea, and returning with them to the house addressed the corpse, saying, “With you may the pollution be.” So saying they threw down the coral on the top of the hole which had been dug to receive the sins and the defilement of the dead.[144 - W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 401 sqq.] In this instance the sins of the departed, as well as the pollution which the primitive mind commonly associates with death, are not borne by a living person, but buried in a hole. Yet the fundamental idea – that of the transference of sins – is the same in the Tahitian as in the Welsh and Indian customs; whether the vehicle or receptacle destined to catch and draw off the evil be a person, an animal, or a thing, is for the purpose in hand a matter of little moment.[145 - The Welsh custom of “sin-eating” has been interpreted by Mr. E. S. Hartland as a modification of an older custom of eating the corpse. See his article, “The Sin-eater,” Folk-lore, iii. (1892) 145-157; The Legend of Perseus, ii. 291 sqq., iii. p. ix. I cannot think his interpretation probable or borne out by the evidence. The Badaga custom of transferring the sins of the dead to a calf which is then let loose and never used again (above, pp. 36 (#x_5_i9)sq.), the Tahitian custom of burying the sins of a person whose body is carefully preserved by being embalmed, and the Manipur and Travancore customs of transferring the sins of a Rajah before his death (pp. 39 (#x_5_i15), 42 (#x_5_i19)sq.) establish the practice of transferring sins in cases where there can be no question of eating the corpse. The original intention of such practices was perhaps not so much to take away the sins of the deceased as to rid the survivors of the dangerous pollution of death. This comes out to some extent in the Tahitian custom.]

§ 5. The Transference of Evil in Europe

Transference of evils in ancient Greece. The transference of warts. Transference of sickness in Scotland, Germany, and Austria.

The examples of the transference of evil hitherto adduced have been mostly drawn from the customs of savage or barbarous peoples. But similar attempts to shift the burden of disease, misfortune, and sin from one's self to another person, or to an animal or thing, have been common also among the civilized nations of Europe, both in ancient and modern times. A Roman cure for fever was to pare the patient's nails, and stick the parings with wax on a neighbour's door before sunrise; the fever then passed from the sick man to his neighbour.[146 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 86.] Similar devices must have been resorted to by the Greeks; for in laying down laws for his ideal state, Plato thinks it too much to expect that men should not be alarmed at finding certain wax figures adhering to their doors or to the tombstones of their parents, or lying at cross-roads.[147 - Plato, Laws, xi. 12, p. 933 b.] Among the ruins of the great sanctuary of Aesculapius, which were excavated not very long ago in an open valley among the mountains of Epidaurus, inscriptions have been found recording the miraculous cures which the god of healing performed for his faithful worshippers. One of them tells how a certain Pandarus, a Thessalian, was freed from the letters which, as a former slave or prisoner of war, he bore tattooed or branded on his brow. He slept in the sanctuary with a fillet round his head, and in the morning he discovered to his joy that the marks of shame – the blue or scarlet letters – had been transferred from his brow to the fillet. By and by there came to the sanctuary a wicked man, also with brands or tattoo marks on his face, who had been charged by Pandarus to pay his debt of gratitude to the god, and had received the cash for the purpose. But the cunning fellow thought to cheat the god and keep the money all to himself. So when the god appeared to him in a dream and asked anxiously after the money, he boldly denied that he had it, and impudently prayed the god to remove the ugly marks from his own brazen brow. He was told to tie the fillet of Pandarus about his head, then to take it off, and look at his face in the water of the sacred well. He did so, and sure enough he saw on his forehead the marks of Pandarus in addition to his own.[148 - Ἐφημερὶς ἀρχαιολογική, 1883, col. 213, 214; G. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,

No. 802, lines 48 sqq. (vol. ii. pp. 652 sq.).] In the fourth century of our era Marcellus of Bordeaux prescribed a cure for warts, which has still a great vogue among the superstitious in various parts of Europe. Doubtless it was an old traditional remedy in the fourth, and will long survive the expiry of the twentieth, century. You are to touch your warts with as many little stones as you have warts; then wrap the stones in an ivy leaf, and throw them away in a thoroughfare. Whoever picks them up will get the warts, and you will be rid of them.[149 - Marcellus, De medicamentis, xxxiv. 102. A similar cure is described by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxii. 149); you are to touch the warts with chick-peas on the first day of the moon, wrap the peas in a cloth, and throw them away behind you. But Pliny does not say that the warts will be transferred to the person who picks up the peas. On this subject see further J. Hardy, “Wart and Wen Cures,” Folk-lore Record, i. (1878) pp. 216-228.] A similar cure for warts, with such trifling variations as the substitution of peas or barley for pebbles, and a rag or a piece of paper for an ivy leaf, has been prescribed in modern times in Italy, France, Austria, England, and Scotland.[150 - Z. Zanetti, La Medicina delle nostre donne (Città di Castello, 1892), pp. 224 sq.; J. B. Thiers, Traité des Superstitions (Paris, 1679), p. 321; B. Souché, Croyances, présages et traditions diverses (Niort, 1880), p. 19; J. W. Wolf, Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie (Göttingen, 1852-1857), i. 248, § 576; Dr. R. F. Kaindl, “Aus dem Volksglauben der Rutenen in Galizien,” Globus, lxiv. (1893) p. 93; J. Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-lore (Manchester and London, 1882), p. 157; G. W. Black, Folk-medicine (London, 1883), p. 41; W. Gregor, Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland (London, 1881), p. 49; J. G. Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 94 sq.] Another favourite way of passing on your warts to somebody else is to make as many knots in a string as you have warts; then throw the string away or place it under a stone. Whoever treads on the stone or picks up the thread will get the warts instead of you; sometimes to complete the transference it is thought necessary that he should undo the knots.[151 - L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), ii. 71, § 85; E. Monseur, Le Folklore Wallon (Brussels, n. d.), p. 29; H. Zahler, Die Krankheit im Volksglauben des Simmenthals (Bern, 1898), p. 93; R. Andree, Braunschweiger Volkskunde (Brunswick, 1896), p. 306.] Or you need only place the knotted thread before sunrise in the spout of a pump; the next person who works the pump will be sure to get your warts.[152 - A. Birlinger, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862), i. 483.] Equally effective methods are to rub the troublesome excrescences with down or fat, or to bleed them on a rag, and then throw away the down, the fat, or the bloody rag. The person who picks up one or other of these things will be sure to release you from your warts by involuntarily transferring them to himself.[153 - Thiers, Souché, Strackerjan, Monseur, ll.cc.; J. G. Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1902), p. 95.] People in the Orkney Islands will sometimes wash a sick man, and then throw the water down at a gateway, in the belief that the sickness will leave the patient and be transferred to the first person who passes through the gate.[154 - Ch. Rogers, Social Life in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1884-1886), iii. 226.] A Bavarian cure for fever is to write upon a piece of paper, “Fever, stay away, I am not at home,” and to put the paper in somebody's pocket. The latter then catches the fever, and the patient is rid of it.[155 - G. Lammert, Volksmedizin und medizinischer Aberglaube in Bayern (Würzburg, 1869), p. 264.] Or the sufferer may cure himself by sticking a twig of the elder-tree in the ground without speaking. The fever then adheres to the twig, and whoever pulls up the twig will catch the disease.[156 - Ibid. p. 263.] A Bohemian prescription for the same malady is this. Take an empty pot, go with it to a cross-road, throw it down, and run away. The first person who kicks against the pot will catch your fever, and you will be cured.[157 - J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren (Prague and Leipsic, 1864), p. 167, § 1180.] In Oldenburg they say that when a person lies sweating with fever, he should take a piece of money to himself in bed. The money is afterwards thrown away on the street, and whoever picks it up will catch the fever, but the original patient will be rid of it.[158 - L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 71, § 85.]

Sickness transferred to asses, frogs, dogs, and other animals.

Often in Europe, as among savages, an attempt is made to transfer a pain or malady from a man to an animal. Grave writers of antiquity recommended that, if a man be stung by a scorpion, he should sit upon an ass with his face to the tail, or whisper in the animal's ear, “A scorpion has stung me”; in either case, they thought, the pain would be transferred from the man to the ass.[159 - Geoponica, xiii. 9, xv. 1; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 155. The authorities for these cures are respectively Apuleius and Democritus. The latter is probably not the atomic philosopher. See J. G. Frazer, “The Language of Animals,” The Archæological Review, vol. i. (May, 1888) p. 180, note 140.] Many cures of this sort are recorded by Marcellus. For example, he tells us that the following is a remedy for toothache. Standing booted under the open sky on the ground, you catch a frog by the head, spit into its mouth, ask it to carry away the ache, and then let it go. But the ceremony must be performed on a lucky day and at a lucky hour.[160 - Marcellus, De medicamentis, xii. 24.] In Cheshire the ailment known as aphtha or thrush, which affects the mouth or throat of infants, is not uncommonly treated in much the same manner. A young frog is held for a few moments with its head inside the mouth of the sufferer, whom it is supposed to relieve by taking the malady to itself. “I assure you,” said an old woman who had often superintended such a cure, “we used to hear the poor frog whooping and coughing, mortal bad, for days after; it would have made your heart ache to hear the poor creature coughing as it did about the garden.”[161 - W. G. Black, Folk-medicine (London, 1883), pp. 35 sq.] Again Marcellus tells us that if the foam from a mule's mouth, mixed with warm water, be drunk by an asthmatic patient, he will at once recover, but the mule will die.[162 - Marcellus, De medicamentis, xvii. 18.] An ancient cure for the gripes, recorded both by Pliny and Marcellus, was to put a live duck to the belly of the sufferer; the pains passed from the man into the bird, to which they proved fatal.[163 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx. 61; Marcellus, De medicamentis, xxvii. 33. The latter writer mentions (op. cit. xxviii. 123) that the same malady might similarly be transferred to a live frog.] According to the same writers a stomachic complaint of which the cause was unknown might be cured by applying a blind puppy to the suffering part for three days. The secret disorder thus passed into the puppy; it died, and a post-mortem examination of its little body revealed the cause of the disease from which the man had suffered and of which the dog had died.[164 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx. 64; Marcellus, De medicamentis, xxviii. 132.] Once more, Marcellus advises that when a man was afflicted with a disorder of the intestines the physician should catch a live hare, take the huckle-bone from one of its feet and the down from the belly, then let the hare go, pronouncing as he did so the words, “Run away, run away, little hare, and take away with you the intestine pain.” Further, the doctor was to fashion the down into thread, with which he was to tie the huckle-bone to the patient's body, taking great care that the thread should not be touched by any woman.[165 - Marcellus, De medicamentis, xxix. 35.] A Northamptonshire, Devonshire, and Welsh cure for a cough is to put a hair of the patient's head between two slices of buttered bread and give the sandwich to a dog. The animal will thereupon catch the cough and the patient will lose it.[166 - W. Henderson, Folk-lore of the Northern Counties (London, 1879), p. 143; W. G. Black, Folk-medicine, p. 35; Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), p. 226.] Sometimes an ailment is transferred to an animal by sharing food with it. Thus in Oldenburg, if you are sick of a fever you set a bowl of sweet milk before a dog and say, “Good luck, you hound! may you be sick and I be sound!” Then when the dog has lapped some of the milk, you take a swig at the bowl; and then the dog must lap again, and then you must swig again; and when you and the dog have done it the third time, he will have the fever and you will be quit of it. A peasant woman in Abbehausen told her pastor that she suffered from fever for a whole year and found no relief. At last somebody advised her to give some of her food to a dog and a cat. She did so and the fever passed from her into the animals. But when she saw the poor sick beasts always before her, she wished it undone. Then the fever left the cat and the dog and returned to her.[167 - L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 72, § 86.]

Sickness transferred to birds, snails, fish, and fowls.

A Bohemian cure for fever is to go out into the forest before the sun is up and look for a snipe's nest. When you have found it, take out one of the young birds and keep it beside you for three days. Then go back into the wood and set the snipe free. The fever will leave you at once. The snipe has taken it away. So in Vedic times the Hindoos of old sent consumption away with a blue jay. They said, “O consumption, fly away, fly away with the blue jay! With the wild rush of the storm and the whirlwind, oh, vanish away!”[168 - J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren (Prague and Leipsic, 1864), p. 166, § 1173, quoting Kuhn's translation of Rig-veda, x. 97. 13. A slightly different translation of the verse is given by H. Grassmann, who here follows R. Roth (Rig-veda übersetzt, vol. ii. p. 379). Compare Hymns of the Rigveda, translated by R. T. H. Griffith (Benares, 1889-1892), iv. 312.] In Oldenburg they sometimes hang up a goldfinch or a turtle-dove in the room of a consumptive patient, hoping that the bird may draw away the malady from the sufferer to itself.[169 - L. Strackerjan, op. cit. i. 72, § 87.] A prescription for a cough in Sunderland is to shave the patient's head and hang the hair on a bush. When the birds carry the hair to their nests, they will carry the cough with it.[170 - W. Henderson, Folk-lore of the Northern Counties (London, 1879), p. 143.] In the Mark of Brandenburg a cure for headache is to tie a thread thrice round your head and then hang it in a loop from a tree; if a bird flies through the loop, it will take your headache away with it.[171 - J. D. H. Temme, Die Volkssagen der Altmark (Berlin, 1839), p. 83; A. Kuhn, Märkische Sagen und Märchen (Berlin, 1843), p. 384, § 62.] A Saxon remedy for rupture in a child is to take a snail, thrust it at sunset into a hollow tree, and stop up the hole with clay. Then as the snail perishes the child recovers. But this cure must be accompanied by the recitation of a proper form of words; otherwise it has no effect.[172 - R. Wuttke, Sächsische Volkskunde

(Dresden, 1901), p. 372.] A Bohemian remedy for jaundice is as follows. Take a living tench, tie it to your bare back and carry it about with you for a whole day. The tench will turn quite yellow and die. Then throw it into running water, and your jaundice will depart with it.[173 - J. V. Grohmann, op. cit. p. 230, § 1663. A similar remedy is prescribed in Bavaria. See G. Lammert, Volksmedizin und medizinischer Aberglaube in Bayern (Würzburg, 1869), p. 249.] In the village of Llandegla in Wales there is a church dedicated to the virgin martyr St. Tecla, where the falling sickness is, or used to be, cured by being transferred to a fowl. The patient first washed his limbs in a sacred well hard by, dropped fourpence into it as an offering, walked thrice round the well, and thrice repeated the Lord's prayer. Then the fowl, which was a cock or a hen according as the patient was a man or a woman, was put into a basket and carried round first the well and afterwards the church. Next the sufferer entered the church and lay down under the communion table till break of day. After that he offered sixpence and departed, leaving the fowl in the church. If the bird died, the sickness was supposed to have been transferred to it from the man or woman, who was now rid of the disorder. As late as 1855 the old parish clerk of the village remembered quite well to have seen the birds staggering about from the effects of the fits which had been transferred to them.[174 - J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 375; W. G. Black, Folk-medicine, p. 46.] In South Glamorgan and West Pembrokeshire it is thought possible to get rid of warts by means of a snail. You take a snail with a black shell, you rub it on each wart and say,

“Wart, wart, on the snail's shell black,
Go away soon, and never come back.”

Then you put the snail on the branch of a tree or bramble and you nail it down with as many thorns as you have warts. When the snail has rotted away on the bough, your warts will have vanished. Another Welsh cure for warts is to impale a frog on a stick and then to rub the warts on the creature. The warts disappear as the frog expires.[175 - Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), pp. 229 sq.] In both these cases we may assume that the warts are transferred from the human sufferer to the suffering animal.

Sickness and ill-luck transferred to inanimate objects.

Often the sufferer seeks to shift his burden of sickness or ill-luck to some inanimate object. In Athens there is a little chapel of St. John the Baptist built against an ancient column. Fever patients resort thither, and by attaching a waxed thread to the inner side of the column believe that they transfer the fever from themselves to the pillar.[176 - B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen (Leipsic, 1871), p. 82.] In the Mark of Brandenburg they say that if you suffer from giddiness you should strip yourself naked and run thrice round a flax-field after sunset; in that way the flax will get the giddiness and you will be rid of it.[177 - A. Kuhn, Märkische Sagen und Märchen (Berlin, 1843), p. 386.] Sometimes an attempt is made to transfer the mischief, whatever it may be, to the moon. In Oldenburg a peasant related how he rid himself of a bony excrescence by stroking it thrice crosswise in the name of the Trinity, and then making a gesture as if he were seizing the deformity and hurling it towards the moon. In the same part of Germany a cure for warts is to stand in the light of a waxing moon so that you cannot see your own shadow, then hold the disfigured hand towards the moon, and stroke it with the other hand in the direction of the luminary. Some say that in doing this you should pronounce these words, “Moon, free me from these vermin.”[178 - L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 74, § 91.]

Sickness and trouble transferred to trees and bushes.

But perhaps the thing most commonly employed in Europe as a receptacle for sickness and trouble of all sorts is a tree or bush. The modes of transferring the mischief to it are many. For example, the Esthonians say that you ought not to go out of the house on a spring morning before you have eaten or drunk; for if you do, you may chance to hear one of “the sounds which are not heard in winter,” such as the song of a bird, and that would be unlucky. They think that if you thus let yourself be deceived or outwitted, as they call it, by a bird, you will be visited by all sorts of ill-luck during the year; indeed it may very well happen that you will fall sick and die before another spring comes round. However, there is a way of averting the evil. You have merely to embrace a tree or go thrice round it, biting into the bark each time or tearing away a strip of the bark with your teeth. Thus the bad luck passes from you to the tree, which accordingly withers away.[179 - F. J. Wiedemann, Aus dem inneren und äussern Leben der Ehsten (St. Petersburg, 1876), pp. 451 sq.] In Sicily it is believed that all kinds of marvellous cures can be effected on the night which precedes Ascension Day. For example, people who suffer from goitre bite the bark of a peach-tree just at the moment when the clocks are striking midnight. Thus the malady is transferred to the sap of the tree, and its leaves wither away in exact proportion as the patient recovers. But in order that the cure may be successful it is absolutely essential that the bark should be bitten at midnight precisely; a bite before or after that witching hour is labour thrown away.[180 - Le Tour du Monde, lxvii. (1894) p. 308; id., Nouvelle Série, v. (1899) p. 521.] On St. George's Day, South Slavonian lads and lasses climb thrice up and down a cornel-tree, saying, “My laziness and sleepiness to you, cornel-tree, but health and booty (?) to me.” Then as they wend homewards they turn once more towards the tree and call out, “Cornel-tree! cornel-tree! I leave you my laziness and sleepiness.”[181 - F. S. Krauss, Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven (Münster i. W., 1890), pp. 35 sq.] The same people attempt to cure fever by transferring it to a dwarf elder-bush. Having found such a bush with three shoots springing from the root, the patient grasps the points of the three shoots in his hand, bends them down to the ground, and fastens them there with a stone. Under the arch thus formed he creeps thrice; then he cuts off or digs up the three shoots, saying, “In three shoots I cut three sicknesses out. When these three shoots grow young again, may the fever come back.”[182 - F. S. Krauss, op. cit. p. 39.] A Bulgarian cure for fever is to run thrice round a willow-tree at sunrise, crying, “The fever shall shake thee, and the sun shall warm me.”[183 - A. Strausz, Die Bulgaren (Leipsic, 1898), p. 400, compare p. 401.] In the Greek island of Karpathos the priest ties a red thread round the neck of a sick person. Next morning the friends of the patient remove the thread and go out to the hillside, where they tie the thread to a tree, thinking that they thus transfer the sickness to the tree.[184 - Blackwood's Magazine, February 1886, p. 239.] Italians attempt to cure fever in like manner by fastening it to a tree. The sufferer ties a thread round his left wrist at night, and hangs the thread on a tree next morning. The fever is thus believed to be tied up to the tree, and the patient to be rid of it; but he must be careful not to pass by that tree again, otherwise the fever would break loose from its bonds and attack him afresh.[185 - Z. Zanetti, La medicina delle nostre donne (Città di Castello, 1892), p. 73.] An old French remedy for fever was to bind the patient himself to a tree and leave him there for a time; some said that the ceremony should be performed fasting and early in the morning, that the cord or straw rope with which the person was bound to the tree should be left there to rot, and that the sufferer should bite the bark of the tree before returning home.[186 - J. B. Thiers, Traité des Superstitions (Paris, 1679), pp. 323 sq.] In Bohemia the friends of a fever patient will sometimes carry him head foremost, by means of straw ropes, to a bush, on which they dump him down. Then he must jump up and run home. The friends who carried him also flee, leaving the straw ropes and likewise the fever behind them on the bush.[187 - J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren (Prague and Leipsic, 1864), p. 167, § 1178. A Belgian cure of the same sort is reported by J. W. Wolf (Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie, Göttingen, 1852-1857, i. 223 (wrongly numbered 219), § 256).]

Sickness transferred to trees by means of knots.

Sometimes the sickness is transferred to the tree by making a knot in one of its boughs. Thus in Mecklenburg a remedy for fever is to go before sunrise to a willow-tree and tie as many knots in one of its branches as the fever has lasted days; but going and coming you must be careful not to speak a word.[188 - L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 74, § 90.] A Flemish cure for the ague is to go early in the morning to an old willow, tie three knots in one of its branches, say, “Good-morrow, Old One, I give thee the cold; good-morrow, Old One,” then turn and run away without looking round.[189 - J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie

(Berlin, 1875-1878), ii. 979.] In Rhenish Bavaria the cure for gout is similar. The patient recites a spell or prayer while he stands at a willow-bush holding one of its boughs. When the mystic words have been spoken, he ties a knot in the bough and departs cured. But all his life long he must never go near that willow-bush again, or the gout will come back to him.[190 - Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern, iv. 2 (Munich, 1867), p. 406.] In Sonnenberg, if you would rid yourself of gout you should go to a young fir-tree and tie a knot in one of its twigs, saying, “God greet thee, noble fir. I bring thee my gout. Here will I tie a knot and bind my gout into it. In the name,” etc.[191 - A. Schleicher, Volkstümliches aus Sonnenberg (Weimar, 1858), p. 150; A. Witschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen (Vienna, 1878), p. 283, § 82.] Not far from Marburg, at a place called Neuhof, there is a wood of birches. Thither on a morning before sunrise, in the last quarter of the moon, bands of gouty people may often be seen hobbling in silence. Each of them takes his stand before a separate tree and pronounces these solemn words: “Here stand I before the judgment bar of God and tie up all my gout. All the disease in my body shall remain tied up in this birch-tree.” Meanwhile the good physician ties a knot in a birch-twig, repeating thrice, “In the name of the Father,” etc.[192 - W. Kolbe, Hessische Volks-Sitten und Gebrauche

(Marburg, 1888), pp. 88 sq.]