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

212

W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), i. 102 sq.

213

Mrs. Bishop, Korea and her Neighbours (London, 1898), ii. 143 sq.

214

P. Giran, Magie et Religion Annamites (Paris, 1912), pp. 132 sq.

215

R. C. Maclagan, “Notes on folk-lore Objects collected in Argyleshire,” Folk-lore, vi. (1895) p. 158.

216

R. Andree, Braunschweiger Volkskunde (Brunswick, 1896), p. 307.

217

F. Chapiseau, Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche (Paris, 1902), i. 170.

218

E. Doutté, Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord (Algiers, 1908), pp. 228 sq.

219

J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren, p. 116, § 1172.

220

A. Leared, Morocco and the Moors (London, 1876), pp. 275 sqq.

221

R. C. Thompson, Semitic Magic (London, 1908), p. 17. It would seem that in Macedonia demons and ghosts can be hammered into walls. See G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore (Cambridge, 1903), p. 221. In Chittagong, as soon as a coffin has been carried out of the house, a nail is knocked into the threshold “to prevent death from entering the dwelling, at least for a time.” See Th. Bérengier, “Les funérailles à Chittagong,” Les Missions Catholiques, xiii. (1881) p. 504.

222

E. W. Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (Paisley and London, 1895), ch. x. p. 240.

223

R. C. Thompson, Semitic Magic (London, 1908), p. 18.

224

L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg, ii. 120, § 428 a. A similar story is told of a house in Neuenburg (op. cit. ii. 182, § 512 c).

225

Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6. 24.

226

Livy, vii. 1-3. The plague raged from 365 to 363 b. c., when it was happily stayed in the manner described in the text.

227

Livy, ix. 28. This happened in the year 313 b. c.

228

Livy, viii. 18. These events took place in 331 b. c.

229

Livy, vii. 3. Livy says nothing as to the place where the nails were affixed; but from Festus (p. 56 ed. C. O. Müller) we learn that it was the wall of a temple, and as the date of the ceremony was also the date of the dedication of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol (Plutarch, Publicola, 14), we may fairly conjecture that this temple was the scene of the rite. It is the more necessary to call attention to the uncertainty which exists on this point because modern writers, perhaps misunderstanding the words of Livy, have commonly stated as a fact what is at best only a more or less probable hypothesis. Octavian seems to have provided for the knocking of a nail into the temple of Mars by men who had held the office of censor. See Dio Cassius, lv. 10, ἧλόν τε αὐτῷ ὑπὸ τῶν τιμητευσάντων προσπήγνυσθαι.

230

Livy, vii. 3. Festus speaks (p. 56 ed. C. O. Müller) of “the annual nail, which was fixed in the walls of temples for the purpose of numbering the years,” as if the practice were common. From Cicero's passing reference to the custom (“Ex hoc die clavum anni movebis,” Epist. ad Atticum, v. 15. 1) we see that it was matter of notoriety. Hence we may safely reject Mommsen's theory, which Mr. W. Warde Fowler is disposed to accept (The Roman Festivals of the period of the Republic, London, 1899, pp. 234 sq.), that the supposed annual custom never existed except in the brains of Roman Dryasdusts.

231

See Livy and Festus, ll.cc.

232

Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 63.

233

County Folk-lore, Suffolk, edited by Lady E. C. Gurdon (London, 1893), p. 14. In the north-west Highlands of Scotland it used to be customary to bury a black cock alive on the spot where an epileptic patient fell down. Along with the cock were buried parings of the patient's nails and a lock of his hair. See (Sir) Arthur Mitchell, On various Superstitions in the North-West Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1862), p. 26; J. G. Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1902), p. 97. Probably the disease was supposed to be buried with the cock in the ground. The ancient Hindoos imagined that epilepsy was caused by a dog-demon. When a boy fell down in a fit, his father or other competent person used to wrap the sufferer in a net, and carry him into the hall, not through the door, but through an opening made for the purpose in the roof. Then taking up some earth in the middle of the hall, at the place where people gambled, he sprinkled the spot with water, cast dice on it, and laid the boy on his back on the dice. After that he prayed to the dog-demon, saying, “Doggy, let him loose! Reverence be to thee, barker, bender! Doggy, let him loose! Reverence be to thee, barker, bender!” See The Grihya Sutras, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part i. (Oxford, 1886) pp. 296 sq.; id. Part ii. (Oxford, 1892) pp. 219 sq., 286 sq. (Sacred Books of the East, vols. xxix. and xxx.). Apparently the place where people gambled was for some reason supposed to be a spot where an epileptic could divest himself most readily of his malady. But the connexion of thought is obscure.

234

The analogy of the Roman custom to modern superstitious practices has been rightly pointed out by Mr. E. S. Hartland (Folk-lore, iv. (1893) pp. 457, 464; Legend of Perseus, ii. 188), but I am unable to accept his general explanation of these and some other practices as modes of communion with a divinity.

235

A. Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste (Jena, 1874-1875), ii. 176.

236

A. Bastian, op. cit. ii. 175-178. Compare Father Campana, “Congo, Mission Catholique de Landana,” Les Missions Catholiques, xxvii. (1895) p. 93; Notes Analytiques sur les Collections Ethnographiques du Musée du Congo, i. (Brussels, 1902-1906) pp. 153, 246; B. H. Mullen, “Fetishes from Landana, South-West Africa,” Man, v. (1905) pp. 102-104; R. E. Dennett, “Bavili Notes,” Folk-lore, xvi. (1905) pp. 382 sqq.; id., At the Back of the Black Man's Mind (London, 1906), pp. 85 sqq., 91 sqq. The Ethnological Museum at Berlin possesses a number of rude images from Loango and Congo, which are thickly studded with nails hammered into their bodies. The intention of the custom, as explained to me by Professor von Luschan, is to pain the fetish and so to refresh his memory, lest he should forget to do his duty.