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

R. Richardson, in Panjab Notes and Queries, i. p. 86, § 674 (May, 1884).

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.

142

Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. p. 179, § 745 (July, 1886).

143

E. Schuyler, Turkistan (London, 1876), ii. 28.

144

W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 401 sqq.

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.

146

Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 86.

147

Plato, Laws, xi. 12, p. 933 b.

148

Ἐφημερὶς ἀρχαιολογική, 1883, col. 213, 214; G. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum,

No. 802, lines 48 sqq. (vol. ii. pp. 652 sq.).

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.

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.

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.

152

A. Birlinger, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862), i. 483.

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.

154

Ch. Rogers, Social Life in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1884-1886), iii. 226.

155

G. Lammert, Volksmedizin und medizinischer Aberglaube in Bayern (Würzburg, 1869), p. 264.

156

Ibid. p. 263.

157

J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren (Prague and Leipsic, 1864), p. 167, § 1180.

158

L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 71, § 85.

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.

160

Marcellus, De medicamentis, xii. 24.

161

W. G. Black, Folk-medicine (London, 1883), pp. 35 sq.

162

Marcellus, De medicamentis, xvii. 18.

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.

164

Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx. 64; Marcellus, De medicamentis, xxviii. 132.