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

Goddess of disease expelled in a toy chariot.

In some parts of India a principal means of expelling an epidemic is a little toy chariot called a ratha or rath, in which the goddess of the disease is supposed to be carted away. It is carried or drawn in procession to the next village, the inhabitants of which pass it on in like manner, with great alacrity, to their neighbours. Thus the goddess and the plague are transferred from village to village, until at last they come to one which is so far away from its next neighbour that the people do not care to undertake the long weary journey. In that case they content themselves with conveying the chariot to a place so shut in by hills that the disease cannot possibly escape, and there they leave it to die. Or if the village is near the sea, they drown the sickness by throwing the chariot into the water. However, in Central India the real home of the goddess of cholera is at Unkareshwar; and accordingly the chariot in which she is politely escorted out of a village is finally deposited at or near that place. It is usual and proper for the people of a village to give a friendly notice to their neighbours that they are going to cart the cholera, smallpox, or whatever it may be, to their village, so that the inhabitants may be ready to receive the goddess with due honour and to escort her on her progress. But some unneighbourly folk, without giving notice, go by night and stealthily deposit the chariot on the outskirts of the next village. If the inhabitants are not on the watch, and suffer the fatal little vehicle to remain there, the disease will naturally cleave to them. Sometimes, perhaps generally, the procession with the chariot is accompanied by a goat, a cock, and a pot of native beer or wine, which serve as additional attractions to the goddess to set out on her travels.[488 - Jivangi Jimshedji Modi, B.A., “On the Chariot of the Goddess, a Supposed Remedy for driving out an Epidemic,” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, vol. iv. No. 8 (Bombay, 1899), pp. 420-424; Captain C. Eckford Luard, in Census of India, 1901, vol. xix., Central India (Lucknow, 1902), p. 78.]

Human scapegoats in Uganda.

Occasionally the scapegoat is a man. For example, from time to time the gods used to warn the King of Uganda that his foes the Banyoro were working magic against him and his people to make them die of disease. To avert such a catastrophe the king would send a scapegoat to the frontier of Bunyoro, the land of the enemy. The scapegoat consisted of either a man and a boy or a woman and her child, chosen because of some mark or bodily defect, which the gods had noted and by which the victims were to be recognized. With the human victims were sent a cow, a goat, a fowl, and a dog; and a strong guard escorted them to the land which the god had indicated. There the limbs of the victims were broken and they were left to die a lingering death in the enemy's country, being too crippled to crawl back to Uganda. The disease or plague was thought to have been thus transferred to the victims and to have been conveyed back in their persons to the land from which it came. So, too, after a war the gods sometimes advised the king to send back a scapegoat in order to free the warriors from some evil that had attached itself to the army. One of the women slaves, a cow, a goat, a fowl, and a dog would be chosen from among the captives and sent back to the borders of the country whence they had come; there they were maimed and left to die. After that the army would be pronounced clean and allowed to return to the capital. In each case a bundle of herbs would be rubbed over the people and the cattle, and would then be tied to the victims, who would thus carry back the evil with them.[489 - Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 342.] A similar use of scapegoats, human and animal, was regularly made after a King of Uganda had been crowned. Two men were brought to the king; one of them he wounded slightly with an arrow shot from a bow. The man was then sent away, under a strong guard, as a scapegoat to Bunyoro, the enemy's country, and with him were sent a cow, a goat, and a dog. On his sad journey he took with him the dust and ashes of the sacred fire, which had burned day and night at the entrance to the late king's enclosure and had been extinguished, as usual, at his death. Arrived at their destination, the man and the animals were maimed and left to die. They were believed to bear away with them any uncleanness that might cleave to the new King or Queen.[490 - Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda, pp. 109, 200. As to the perpetual fire at the entrance to a king's enclosure, see id. pp. 103, 197, 202 sq.]

Human scapegoats in China and India. Indian ceremony of sliding down a rope.

Some of the aboriginal tribes of China, as a protection against pestilence, select a man of great muscular strength to act the part of scapegoat. Having besmeared his face with paint, he performs many antics with the view of enticing all pestilential and noxious influences to attach themselves to him only. He is assisted by a priest. Finally the scapegoat, hotly pursued by men and women beating gongs and tom-toms, is driven with great haste out of the town or village.[491 - J. H. Gray, China (London, 1878), ii. 306.] In the Punjaub a cure for the murrain is to hire a man of the Chamar caste, turn his face away from the village, brand him with a red-hot sickle, and let him go out into the jungle taking the murrain with him. He must not look back.[492 - Panjab Notes and Queries, i. p. 75, § 598 (April, 1884); W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), i. 170.] When disease breaks out among a herd, the Oraons take the herdsman himself, tie a wooden bell from one of the cows round his neck, beat him with sticks, and drive him out of the village to a cross-road, where the bell and sticks are deposited.[493 - Rev. F. Hahn, “Some Notes on the Religion and Superstitions of the Orāōs” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, lxxii. Part iii. (Calcutta, 1904) p. 17; compare H. C. Streatfield, ibid. p. 37.] In the territory of Kumaon, lying on the southern slopes of the Western Himalayas, the custom of employing a human scapegoat appears to have taken a somewhat peculiar form in the ceremony known as Barat. First of all a thick rope of grass is stretched from the top of a cliff to the valley beneath, where it is made fast to posts driven into the ground. Next a wooden saddle, with a very sharp ridge and unpadded, is attached by thongs to the cable, along which it runs in a deep groove. A man now seats himself on the saddle and is strapped to it, while sand-bags or heavy stones are suspended from his feet to secure his balance. Then, after various ceremonies have been performed and a kid sacrificed, he throws himself as far back in the saddle as he can go, and is started off to slide down the rope into the valley. Away he shoots at an ever-increasing speed; the saddle under him, however well greased, emits volumes of smoke during the greater part of his progress; and he is nearly senseless when he reaches the bottom. Here men are waiting to catch him and run forward with him some distance in order to break gradually the force of his descent. This ceremony, regarded as a propitiation of Mahadeva, is performed as a means of delivering a community from present or impending calamity. Thus, for example, it was performed when cholera was raging at Almora, and the people traced the immunity they enjoyed to the due observance of the rite. Each district has its hereditary Badi, as the performer is called; he is supported by annual contributions in grain from the inhabitants, as well as by special payments for each performance. When the ceremony is over, the grass rope is cut up and distributed among the villagers, who hang the pieces as charms at the eaves of their houses; and they preserve the hair of the Badi for a similar purpose. Yet while his severed locks bring fertility to other people's lands, he entails sterility on his own; and it is firmly believed that no seed sown by his hand could ever sprout. Formerly the rule prevailed that, if a Badi had the misfortune to fall from the rope in the course of his flying descent, he was immediately despatched with a sword by the spectators. The rule has naturally been abolished by the English Government; but its former observance seems to indicate that the custom of letting a man slide down a rope as a charm to avert calamity is only a mitigation of an older custom of putting him to death.[494 - North Indian Notes and Queries, i. pp. 55, 74 sq., 77, §§ 417, 499, 516 (July and August, 1891), quoting G. W. Traill, Statistical Sketch of Kumaun, pp. 68 sq., and Moorcroft and Trebeck, Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjáb, i. 17 sq. Compare E. T. Atkinson, The Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of India, ii. (Allahabad, 1884), pp. 834 sq.]

Tibetan New Year ceremony of sliding down a rope.

A somewhat similar ceremony is annually performed at Lhasa a few days after the beginning of the Tibetan New Year, which falls in spring. The scene of the performance is Potala Hill, on the summit and slope of which is built the superb castle of the Grand Lama of Tibet, a massive and imposing pile of buildings which attracts the eye and dominates the landscape from afar. On the day in question a rope of hide is stretched from the top to the bottom of the steep hill, and men from a distant province of Tibet climb up it with the agility of monkeys. They are called Flying Spirits. Arrived at the top, each of them places a piece of wood on his breast, stretches out his hands and feet, and letting himself go shoots down the rope (in the words of a Chinese writer) “like the bolt flying from the bow, or the swallow skimming the water. 'Tis a wondrous sight!” Considering that these performers are called Spirits, and that the performance takes place a few days after the New Year, a season so commonly selected for the expulsion of demons, we may conjecture that the Flying Spirits represent the powers of evil who are thus shot out of the Tibetan pope's palace at the beginning of the year.[495 - W. Woodville Rockhill, “Tibet, A Geographical, Ethnographical, and Historical Sketch, derived from Chinese Sources,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1891 (London, 1891), p. 209. Compare Hue, Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet, Sixième Édition (Paris, 1878), ii. 379 sq. For a description of Potala Hill and its grand palace, see L. Austine Waddell, Lhasa and its Mysteries (London, 1905), pp. 330 sqq., 387 sqq.]

§ 3. The Periodic Expulsion of Evils in a Material Vehicle

Periodic expulsion of evils in a material vehicle. Periodic expulsion of spirits in rafts from Perak.

In this last case the expulsion of evils, if I am right in so interpreting the ceremony, is periodic, not occasional, being repeated every spring at the beginning of a new year. It brings us accordingly to the consideration of a whole class of such cases, for the mediate expulsion of evils by means of a scapegoat or other material vehicle, like the immediate expulsion of them in invisible form, tends to become periodic, and for a like reason. Thus in Perak, a state on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, it was in ancient times the custom to perform periodically a ceremony intended to ensure the prosperity of the country by the propitiation of friendly spirits and the expulsion of evil influences. The writer who records the custom is uncertain as to the period which elapsed between two successive celebrations; he suggests with hesitation that the rite was performed once in seven years or once in a Rajah's reign. The name of the ceremony was pĕlas negri, which means “the cleansing of the country from evils.” When the time came, the Rajah, the chiefs, and a great following of people assembled at a point as far up the river as possible, but short of the rapids which further up impede navigation. There a number of rafts were prepared, some of them elaborately built with houses on them. Four of them were devoted to the four great classes of spirits which are found in Perak, namely the Hantu Blian or “Tiger-spirits,” the Hantu Sungkei, the Hantu Malayu, and the Jin Raja. In each of these rafts a number of wizards (pawangs) took up their post, according to the particular class of demon which they affected. The procession was headed by the raft devoted to the Tiger-spirits; and in it was set up a prah tree with all its branches, kept erect by stays. It was followed by the three rafts dedicated to the other three classes of spirits, and behind them came a train of other rafts bearing mere common mortals, the royal bandsmen, the Rajah himself, the chiefs, and the people. As the long procession floated down the river with the current, the wizards, standing on sheets of tin, waved white cloths and shouted invocations to the spirits and demons who inhabited the country through which the rafts were drifting seaward. The burden of the invocations was to invite the spirits and demons to come aboard the rafts and partake of the food which had been considerately made ready for them. At every village on the bank large enough to possess a mosque (for the Malays of Perak are professing Mohammedans) the procession halted; a buffalo, subscribed for by the inhabitants, was slaughtered, and its head placed on one of the spirit-barks, while people feasted on the flesh. The ceremony ended at Bras Basah, a village on the left bank of the Perak river, not far from its mouth. There the rafts were abandoned to the current, which swept them out to sea,[496 - Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Notes and Queries, No. 3 (Singapore, 1886), pp. 80 sq.] doubtless bearing with them the hapless demons who had been lured by the tempting viands to embark and were now left to toss forlorn on the great deep at the mercy of the waves and the winds.

Annual expulsion of evils in small ships in the Indian Archipelago.

Again, every year, generally in March, the people of Leti, Moa, and Lakor, islands of the Indian Archipelago, send away all their diseases to sea. They make a proa about six feet long, rig it with sails, oars, rudder, and other gear, and every family deposits in it some rice, fruit, a fowl, two eggs, insects that ravage the fields, and so on. Then they let it drift away to sea, saying, “Take away from here all kinds of sickness, take them to other islands, to other lands, distribute them in places that lie eastward, where the sun rises.”[497 - J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), p. 393.] The Biajas of Borneo annually send to sea a little bark laden with the sins and misfortunes of the people. The crew of any ship that falls in with the ill-omened bark at sea will suffer all the sorrows with which it is laden.[498 - A. Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte (Leipsic, 1860), ii. 93.] A like custom is annually observed by the Dusuns of the Tuaran district in British North Borneo. The ceremony is the most important of the whole year. Its aim is to bring good luck to the village during the ensuing year by solemnly expelling all the evil spirits that may have collected in or about the houses throughout the last twelve months. The task of routing out the demons and banishing them devolves chiefly on women, who indeed play the principal part in all religious ceremonies among the Dusuns, while the humble duty of beating drums and banging gongs is discharged by members of the inferior sex. On this momentous occasion a procession of women, in full ceremonial dress, goes from house to house, stopping at each to go through their performances. At the head of the procession marches a boy carrying a spear on which is impaled a bundle of palm leaves containing rice. He is followed by two men, who carry a large gong and a drum slung on a pole between them. Then come the women. One of them carries a small sucking pig in a basket on her back; and all of them bear wands, with which they belabour the little pig at the appropriate moment; its squeals help to attract the vagrant spirits. At every house the women dance and sing, clashing castanets or cymbals of brass and jingling bunches of little brass bells in both hands. When the performance has been repeated at every house in the village, the procession defiles down to the river and all the evil spirits, which the performers have chased from the houses, follow them to the edge of the water. There a raft has been made ready and moored to the bank. It contains offerings of food, cloth, cooking-pots, and swords; and the deck is crowded with figures of men, women, animals, and birds, all made out of the leaves of the sago palm. The evil spirits now embark on the raft, and when they are all aboard, it is pushed off and allowed to float down with the current, carrying the demons with it. Should the raft run aground near the village, it is shoved off with all speed, lest the invisible passengers should seize the opportunity of landing and returning to the village. Finally, the sufferings of the little pig, whose squeals served to decoy the demons from their lurking-places, are terminated by death, for it is killed and its carcase thrown away.[499 - Ivor H. N. Evans, “Notes on the Religious Beliefs, Superstitions, Ceremonies and Tabus of the Dusuns of the Tuaran and Tempassuk Districts, British North Borneo,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xlii. (1912) pp. 382-384.]

Annual expulsion of demons in little ships in the Nicobar Islands.

Every year, at the beginning of the dry season, the Nicobar Islanders carry the model of a ship through their villages. The devils are chased out of the huts, and driven on board the little ship, which is then launched and suffered to sail away with the wind.[500 - A. Bastian, op. cit. ii. 91.] The ceremony has been described by a catechist, who witnessed it at Car Nicobar in July 1897. For three days the people were busy preparing two very large floating cars, shaped like canoes, fitted with sails, and loaded with certain leaves, which possessed the valuable property of expelling devils. While the young people were thus engaged, the exorcists and the elders sat in a house singing songs by turns; but often they would come forth, pace the beach armed with rods, and forbid the devil to enter the village. The fourth day of the solemnity bore the name of Intō-nga-Sĭya, which means “Expelling the Devil by Sails.” In the evening all the villagers assembled, the women bringing baskets of ashes and bunches of devil-expelling leaves. These leaves were then distributed to everybody, old and young. When all was ready, a band of robust men, attended by a guard of exorcists, carried one of the cars down to the sea on the right side of the village graveyard, and set it floating in the water. As soon as they had returned, another band of men carried the other car to the beach and floated it similarly in the sea to the left of the graveyard. The demon-laden barks being now launched, the women threw ashes from the shore, and the whole crowd shouted, saying, “Fly away, devil, fly away, never come again!” The wind and the tide being favourable, the canoes sailed quickly away; and that night all the people feasted together with great joy, because the devil had departed in the direction of Chowra. A similar expulsion of devils takes place once a year in other Nicobar villages; but the ceremonies are held at different times in different places.[501 - V. Solomon, “Extracts from Diaries kept in Car Nicobar,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 228 sq.]

Annual expulsion of embodied evils in India, China, and Corea. Annual expulsion or destruction of demons embodied in images in Tibet.

At Sucla-Tirtha, in India, an earthen pot containing the accumulated sins of the people is (annually?) set adrift on the river. Legend says that the custom originated with a wicked priest who, after atoning for his guilt by a course of austerities and expiatory ceremonies, was directed to sail upon the river in a boat with white sails. If the white sails turned black, it would be a sign that his sins were forgiven him. They did so, and he joyfully allowed the boat to drift with his sins to sea.[502 - Captain F. Wilford, “An Essay on the Sacred Isles in the West,” Asiatic Researches, ix. (London, 1809) pp. 96 sq.] Amongst many of the aboriginal tribes of China, a great festival is celebrated in the third month of every year. It is held by way of a general rejoicing over what the people believe to be a total annihilation of the ills of the past twelve months. The destruction is supposed to be effected in the following way. A large earthenware jar filled with gunpowder, stones, and bits of iron is buried in the earth. A train of gunpowder, communicating with the jar, is then laid; and a match being applied, the jar and its contents are blown up. The stones and bits of iron represent the ills and disasters of the past year, and the dispersion of them by the explosion is believed to remove the ills and disasters themselves. The festival is attended with much revelling and drunkenness.[503 - J. H. Gray, China (London, 1878), ii. 306 sq.] On New Year's Day people in Corea seek to rid themselves of all their distresses by painting images on paper, writing against them their troubles of body or mind, and afterwards giving the papers to a boy to burn. Another method of effecting the same object at the same season is to make rude dolls of straw, stuff them with a few copper coins, and throw them into the street. Whoever picks up such an effigy gets all the troubles and thereby relieves the original sufferer.[504 - W. Woodville Rockhill, “Notes on some of the Laws, Customs, and Superstitions of Corea,” The American Anthropologist, iv. (1891) p. 185; Mrs. Bishop, Korea and her Neighbours (London, 1898), ii. 56.] Again, on the fourteenth day of the first month the Coreans fly paper kites inscribed with a wish that all the ills of the year may fly away with them.[505 - Stewart Culin, Korean Games (Philadelphia, 1895), p. 12.] Mr. George Bogle, the English envoy sent to Tibet by Warren Hastings, witnessed the celebration of the Tibetan New Year's Day at Teshu Lumbo, the capital of the Teshu Lama. Monks walked in procession round the court to the music of cymbals, tabors, trumpets, hautboys and drums. Then others, clad in masquerade dress and wearing masks which represented the heads of animals, mostly wild beasts, danced with antic motions. “After this, the figure of a man, chalked upon paper, was laid upon the ground. Many strange ceremonies, which to me who did not understand them appeared whimsical, were performed about it; and a great fire being kindled in a corner of the court, it was at length held over it, and being formed of combustibles, vanished with much smoke and explosion. I was told it was a figure of the devil.”[506 - Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet and of the Journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa, edited by (Sir) Clements R. Markham (London, 1876), pp. 106 sq. Compare Sarat Chandra Das, Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet (London, 1902), p. 116.] Another Tibetan mode of expelling demons from a dwelling is to make a paste image, into which the lamas by their incantations conjure all the evil spirits that may be lurking in the house. This image is carried to a distance by a runner and thrown away. He is attended by men, who shout at the top of their voices, brandish swords, and fire guns, all to frighten the demons and drive them far from human habitations.[507 - Missionary Fage, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xxix. (1857) p. 321.]

Biennial expulsion of demons embodied in effigies at Old Calabar.

At Old Calabar on the coast of Guinea, the devils and ghosts are, or used to be, publicly expelled once in two years. Among the spirits thus driven from their haunts are the souls of all the people who died since the last lustration of the town. About three weeks or a month before the expulsion, which according to one account takes place in the month of November, rude effigies representing men and animals, such as crocodiles, leopards, elephants, bullocks, and birds, are made of wicker-work or wood, and being hung with strips of cloth and bedizened with gew-gaws, are set before the door of every house. About three o'clock in the morning of the day appointed for the ceremony the whole population turns out into the streets, and proceeds with a deafening uproar and in a state of the wildest excitement to drive all lurking devils and ghosts into the effigies, in order that they may be banished with them from the abodes of men. For this purpose bands of people roam through the streets knocking on doors, firing guns, beating drums, blowing on horns, ringing bells, clattering pots and pans, shouting and hallooing with might and main, in short making all the noise it is possible for them to raise. The hubbub goes on till the approach of dawn, when it gradually subsides and ceases altogether at sunrise. By this time the houses have been thoroughly swept, and all the frightened spirits are supposed to have huddled into the effigies or their fluttering drapery. In these wicker figures are also deposited the sweepings of the houses and the ashes of yesterday's fires. Then the demon-laden images are hastily snatched up, carried in tumultuous procession down to the brink of the river, and thrown into the water to the tuck of drums. The ebb-tide bears them away seaward, and thus the town is swept clean of ghosts and devils for another two years. This biennial expulsion of spirits goes by the name of Ndok, and the effigies by which it is effected are called Nabikem or Nabikim.[508 - T. J. Hutchinson, Impressions of Western Africa (London, 1858), p. 162; Rev. J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth (London, 1893), pp. 105-107; Hugh Goldie, Calabar and its Mission, New Edition (Edinburgh and London, 1901), pp. 49 sq.; Miss Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London, 1897), p. 495; Major A. G. Leonard, The Lower Niger and its Tribes (London, 1906), pp. 449-451. The ceremony takes place both in Creek Town and Duke Town. The date of it, according to Miss Kingsley, is either every November or every second November; but with the exception of Mr. Macdonald, who does not mention the period, the other authorities agree in describing the ceremony as biennial. According to Major Leonard it is celebrated usually towards the end of the year. Miss Kingsley speaks of the effigies being set up in the houses themselves; but all the other writers say or imply that they are set up at the doors of the houses in the streets. According to Mr. Goldie the spirits expelled are “all the ghosts of those who have died since the last lustration.” He makes no mention of devils.]

Annual expulsion of demons embodied in effigies at Porto Novo.

Further to the west similar ceremonies are or were till recently enacted at Porto Novo, the seaport of Dahomey. One of them has been described by an eye-witness, a Catholic missionary, who interpreted the rites as a Funeral of Death. He says: “Some time ago a curious event took place: the King had commanded to celebrate the funeral of Death. Every year, at the season of the rains, the predecessors of his sable Majesty, in order to preserve the life of their dear subjects, had caused the fetish of that terrible and pitiless enemy, who spares not even kings, to be drowned in the lagoon. Toffa wished to comply with the traditions of his ancestors.” However, the ceremony as described by the missionary seems to conform closely to the type of the expulsion of ghosts and demons. Two days before the crowning act of the celebration the streets were carefully swept and all the filth which usually encumbered them was removed, “lest Death should there find a refuge.” All the people from the neighbouring villages assembled; their fetishes, daubed with red paint, were carried in great pomp through the streets of the capital attended by noisy processions of mummers. A great multitude passed the night in the public square, drinking, singing, and shouting. Finally, a number of rude and hideous effigies were escorted by a noisy crowd to the shore of the lagoon; there canoes were waiting to receive them and paddle them out to deep water, where they were flung overboard. These effigies the missionary regarded as so many images of Death, who thus received his passport and was dismissed from the territory of Porto Novo. But more probably they represented the hosts of demons and ghosts who were believed to lurk about the town and to massacre people under the form of sickness and disease. Having made a clean sweep of the whole baleful crew the inhabitants no doubt thought that they had removed the principal, if not the only, cause of death, and that accordingly they had taken out a new lease of life.[509 - Missionary F. Terrien, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, liv. (1882) pp. 375-377.] It is not without interest to observe that in cleansing their streets the people did actually retrench one of the most fruitful sources of disease and death, especially in the sweltering heat of a damp tropical climate; hence the measures they took for the prolongation of their lives were really to a certain extent effectual, though they did not accomplish their object in the precise way they imagined. So curiously does it often happen that the savage reaches the goal of his wishes by a road which to civilized man might appear at first sight to lead far away from it.

Annual expulsion of embodied evils among the Hos of Togoland.

Before the Hos of Togoland, to the west of Dahomey, celebrate their festival of the new yams, which has been described in another part of this work,[510 - Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 58 sqq.] they say that it is necessary to clean the town and to put it in order. The way in which they do so is this. They take leaves of two particular sorts of trees (the adzu and the wo), together with creepers and ashes, and bind all the leaves fast to a pole of the adzu tree. As they do so they pray or command the evil spirits, the witches, and all other evils in the town to enter into the band and be bound with it. Then they make a paste out of the ashes mixed with urine and smear it on the bundle of leaves, saying, “We smear it on the face of the Evil Ones who are in this bundle, in order that they may not be able to see any more.” Then they throw the bundle on the ground and mock at it. Next they take all the similar poles, wrapt in creepers, in which they have bound up all the evil powers, and carry them out of the town and stick them in the ground on the various roads leading into the town. When they have done this, they say that they have driven the evils out of the town and shut the door against them. After that they wash the faces of all the people with a medicine which has been prepared by the oldest men. Thereupon they all return home to sweep out their houses and yards; they sweep even the ground in front of the yards, so that the whole town is thoroughly clean. All the grass-stalks and refuse of stock-yams which have been swept together are carried out of the town, and the people rail at the stock-yams. In the course of the night the oldest men assemble and tie a toad to a young palm-leaf. They say that they wish now to sweep the town and finish the ceremony. So they drag the toad behind them through the whole town in the direction of Mount Adaklu. When that has been done, the priests say that they will now remove the sicknesses. In the evening they give public notice that they are about to take to the road, so nobody may light a fire on the hearth or eat. At dead of night, when people are asleep, three men go through the town. One of them drags behind them a toad fastened to a bunch of herbs; another carries a calabash of holy herbs and water, with which he sprinkles the streets; and the third whistles softly. As soon as they have thus passed through the whole town, they throw away the toad and the holy herbs in the direction of Mount Adaklu. Next morning the women sweep out their houses and hearths and set the sweepings on broken wooden plates. Many put on torn mats or torn clothes; others tie grasses and creepers about them. While they do so, they pray, saying, “All ye sicknesses which are in our body and plague us, we are come this day to cast you out!” When they set out so to do, the priest commands every man to cry out thrice and thereby to smite himself on the mouth. In a moment they all cry out, smite themselves on the mouth, and run as fast as their legs can carry them in the direction of Mount Adaklu. As they run, they say, “Out to-day! Out to-day! What kills anybody, out to-day! Ye evil spirits, out to-day! And all that makes our heads to ache, out to-day! Anlo and Adaklu are the places whither all evil ought to go.” Now on Mount Adaklu there stands a klo tree; and when they have come thither they throw everything away and return home. After their return every man washes himself with the medicine which is set forth for that purpose in the public street; then he goes into his house. Such is the ceremony by which the Hos prepare themselves to eat the new yams.[511 - Jakob Spieth, Die Ewe-Stämme (Berlin, 1906), pp. 305-307. We have seen (above, p. 193) that these people used a toad as a scapegoat to free them from the influenza.] Thus among the Hos the public expulsion of evils is definitely connected with the crops and therefore takes place every year, not every two years, as at Old Calabar.

Annual expulsion of embodied evils among the gypsies.

Similar annual expulsions of embodied evils are not unknown in Europe. On the evening of Easter Sunday the gypsies of Southern Europe take a wooden vessel like a band-box, which rests cradle-wise on two cross pieces of wood. In this they place herbs and simples, together with the dried carcase of a snake, or lizard, which every person present must first have touched with his fingers. The vessel is then wrapt in white and red wool, carried by the oldest man from tent to tent, and finally thrown into running water, not, however, before every member of the band has spat into it once, and the sorceress has uttered some spells over it. They believe that by performing this ceremony they dispel all the illnesses that would otherwise have afflicted them in the course of the year; and that if any one finds the vessel and opens it out of curiosity, he and his will be visited by all the maladies which the others have escaped.[512 - H. von Wlislocki, Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Zigeuner (Münster i. W., 1891), pp. 65 sq.]

Annual expulsion of evils in an animal scapegoat among the Garos of Assam.

The scapegoat by means of which the accumulated ills of a whole year are publicly expelled is sometimes an animal. For example, among the Garos of Assam, “besides the sacrifices for individual cases of illness, there are certain ceremonies which are observed once a year by a whole community or village, and are intended to safeguard its members from dangers of the forest, and from sickness and mishap during the coming twelve months. The principal of these is the Asongtata ceremony. Close to the outskirts of every big village a number of stones may be noticed stuck into the ground, apparently without order or method. These are known by the name of asong, and on them is offered the sacrifice which the Asongtata demands. The sacrifice of a goat takes place, and a month later, that of a langur (Entellus monkey) or a bamboo-rat is considered necessary. The animal chosen has a rope fastened round its neck and is led by two men, one on each side of it, to every house in the village. It is taken inside each house in turn, the assembled villagers, meanwhile, beating the walls from the outside, to frighten and drive out any evil spirits which may have taken up their residence within. The round of the village having been made in this manner, the monkey or rat is led to the outskirts of the village, killed by a blow of a dao, which disembowels it, and then crucified on bamboos set up in the ground. Round the crucified animal long, sharp bamboo stakes are placed, which form chevaux de frise round about it. These commemorate the days when such defences surrounded the villages on all sides to keep off human enemies, and they are now a symbol to ward off sickness and dangers to life from the wild animals of the forest. The langur required for the purpose is hunted down some days before, but should it be found impossible to catch one, a brown monkey may take its place; a hulock may not be used.”[513 - Major A. Playfair, The Garos (London, 1909), p. 92.] Here the crucified ape or rat is the public scapegoat, which by its vicarious sufferings and death relieves the people from all sickness and mishap in the coming year.

Dogs as scapegoats in India, Scotland and America. The Jewish scapegoat.

Again, on one day of the year the Bhotiyas of Juhar, in the Western Himalayas, take a dog, intoxicate him with spirits and bhang or hemp, and having fed him with sweetmeats, lead him round the village and let him loose. They then chase and kill him with sticks and stones, and believe that, when they have done so, no disease or misfortune will visit the village during the year.[514 - E. T. Atkinson, “Notes on the History of Religion in the Himalaya of the North-West Provinces,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, liii. Pt. i. (1884) p. 62; id., The Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of India, ii. (Allahabad, 1884) p. 871.] In some parts of Breadalbane it was formerly the custom on New Year's Day to take a dog to the door, give him a bit of bread, and drive him out, saying, “Get away, you dog! Whatever death of men or loss of cattle would happen in this house to the end of the present year, may it all light on your head!”[515 - Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, from the MSS. of John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, edited by Alex. Allardyce (Edinburgh, 1888), ii. 439.] It appears that the white dogs annually sacrificed by the Iroquois at their New Year Festival are, or have been, regarded as scapegoats. According to Mr. J. V. H. Clark, who witnessed the ceremony in January 1841, on the first day of the festival all the fires in the village were extinguished, the ashes scattered to the winds, and a new fire kindled with flint and steel. On a subsequent day, men dressed in fantastic costumes went round the village, gathering the sins of the people. When the morning of the last day of the festival was come, two white dogs, decorated with red paint, wampum, feathers, and ribbons, were led out. They were soon strangled, and hung on a ladder. Firing and yelling succeeded, and half an hour later the animals were taken into a house, “where the people's sins were transferred to them.” The carcases were afterwards burnt on a pyre of wood.[516 - W. M. Beauchamp, “The Iroquois White Dog Feast,” American Antiquarian, vii. (1885) p. 237.] According to the Rev. Mr. Kirkland, who wrote in the eighteenth century, the ashes of the pyre upon which one of the white dogs was burnt were carried through the village and sprinkled at the door of every house.[517 - Ibid. p. 236; T. Dwight, Travels in New England and New York (London, 1823), iv. 202.] Formerly, however, as we have seen, the Iroquois expulsion of evils was immediate and not by scapegoat.[518 - Above, p. 127 (#x_13_i9).] On the Day of Atonement, which was the tenth day of the seventh month, the Jewish high-priest laid both his hands on the head of a live goat, confessed over it all the iniquities of the Children of Israel, and, having thereby transferred the sins of the people to the beast, sent it away into the wilderness.[519 - Leviticus xvi. The word translated “scapegoat” in the Authorised Version is Azazel, which appears rather to be the name of a bad angel or demon, to whom the goat was sent away. “In later Jewish literature (Book of Enoch) Azazel appears as the prince of the fallen angels, the offspring of the unions described in Gen. vi. 1 ff. The familiar rendering ‘scapegoat,’ i. e. the goat which is allowed to escape, goes back to the caper emissarius of the Vulgate, and is based on an untenable etymology” (Professor A. R. S. Kennedy, in his commentary on Leviticus xvi. 8, in the Century Bible). There is some ground for thinking that the animal was killed by being thrown over a certain crag that overhangs a rocky chasm not far from Jerusalem. See Encyclopædia Biblica, ed. T. K. Cheyne and J. S. Black, vol. i. (London, 1899) coll. 394 sqq., s. v. “Azazel.” Modern Jews sacrifice a white cock on the eve of the Day of Atonement, nine days after the beginning of their New Year. The father of the family knocks the cock thrice against his own head, saying, “Let this cock be a substitute for me, let it take my place, let death be laid upon this cock, but a happy life bestowed on me and on all Israel.” Then he cuts its throat and dashes the bird violently on the ground. The intestines are thrown on the roof of the house. The flesh of the cock was formerly given to the poor. See J. Buxtorf, Synagoga Judaica (Bâle, 1661), ch. xxv. pp. 508 sqq.]

Human scapegoats formerly put to death every year in Africa.

The scapegoat upon whom the sins of the people are periodically laid, may also be a human being. At Onitsha, on the Niger, two human beings used to be annually sacrificed to take away the sins of the land. The victims were purchased by public subscription. All persons who, during the past year, had fallen into gross sins, such as incendiarism, theft, adultery, witchcraft, and so forth, were expected to contribute 28 ngugas, or a little over £2. The money thus collected was taken into the interior of the country and expended in the purchase of two sickly persons “to be offered as a sacrifice for all these abominable crimes – one for the land and one for the river.” A man from a neighbouring town was hired to put them to death. On the twenty-seventh of February 1858 the Rev. J. C. Taylor witnessed the sacrifice of one of these victims. The sufferer was a woman, about nineteen or twenty years of age. They dragged her alive along the ground, face downwards, from the king's house to the river, a distance of two miles, the crowds who accompanied her crying, “Wickedness! wickedness!” The intention was “to take away the iniquities of the land. The body was dragged along in a merciless manner, as if the weight of all their wickedness was thus carried away.”[520 - S. Crowther and J. C. Taylor, The Gospel on the Banks of the Niger (London, 1859), pp. 343-345. Compare J. F. Schön and S. Crowther, Journals (London, 1848), pp. 48 sq. The account of the custom by J. Africanus B. Horton (West African Countries and Peoples, pp. 185 sq.) is taken entirely from Taylor.] Similar customs are said to be still secretly practised every year by many tribes on the delta of the Niger in spite of the vigilance of the British Government.[521 - Major A. G. Leonard, The Lower Niger and its Tribes (London, 1906), pp. 446 sqq.] Among the Yoruba negroes of West Africa “the human victim chosen for sacrifice, and who may be either a free-born or a slave, a person of noble or wealthy parentage, or one of humble birth, is, after he has been chosen and marked out for the purpose, called an Oluwo. He is always well fed and nourished and supplied with whatever he should desire during the period of his confinement. When the occasion arrives for him to be sacrificed and offered up, he is commonly led about and paraded through the streets of the town or city of the Sovereign who would sacrifice him for the well-being of his government and of every family and individual under it, in order that he might carry off the sin, guilt, misfortune and death of all without exception. Ashes and chalk would be employed to hide his identity by the one being freely thrown over his head, and his face painted with the latter, whilst individuals would often rush out of their houses to lay their hands upon him that they might thus transfer to him their sin, guilt, trouble, and death. This parading done, he is taken through a temporary sacred shed of palm and other tree branches, and especially of the former, the Igbodu[522 - An Igbodu is a sacred grove in which oracles are given. It is divided into three compartments by fences of palm branches and the omu shrub. Into the first compartment women and uninitiated men may enter; into the other two only priestly officials are permitted, according to their rank in the hierarchy, to enter. See Bishop James Johnson, “Yoruba Heathenism,” quoted by R. E. Dennett, At the Back of the Black Man's Mind (London, 1906), p. 254.] and to its first division, where many persons might follow him, and through a second where only the chiefs and other very important persons might escort and accompany him to, and to a third where only the Babalawo [priest] and his official assistant, the Ajigbona, are permitted to enter with him. Here, after he himself has given out or started his last song, which is to be taken up by the large assembly of people who will have been waiting to hear his last word or his last groan, his head is taken off and his blood offered to the gods. The announcement of his last word or his last groan heard and taken up by the people, would be a signal for joy, gladness, and thanksgiving, and for drum beating and dancing, as an expression of their gratification because their sacrifice has been accepted, the divine wrath is appeased, and the prospect of prosperity or increased prosperity assured.”[523 - Bishop James Johnson, op. cit. p. 263. Bishop Johnson is a native African. It does not appear whether the sacrifice which he describes is occasional or periodical.]

Human scapegoats formerly put to death every year in Siam. Annual human scapegoats in Japan and Sumatra.

In Siam it used to be the custom on one day of the year to single out a woman broken down by debauchery, and carry her on a litter through all the streets to the music of drums and hautboys. The mob insulted her and pelted her with dirt; and after having carried her through the whole city, they threw her on a dunghill or a hedge of thorns outside the ramparts, forbidding her ever to enter the walls again. They believed that the woman thus drew upon herself all the malign influences of the air and of evil spirits.[524 - Turpin, “History of Siam,” in J. Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels (London, 1808-1814), ix. 579.] In Japan the “tsuina or oni-yarahi, that is to say, demon expelling, is a sort of drama in which disease, or more generally ill-luck, is personified, and driven away with threats and a show of violence. Like the oho-harahi,[525 - The oho-harahi or “Great Purification” is a ceremony, which used to be performed in the Japanese capital twice every year, namely on the last days of the sixth and twelfth month. It included a preliminary lustration, expiatory offerings, and the recital of a norito or formula (not a prayer), in which the Mikado, by virtue of an authority transmitted to him from the Sun-goddess, pronounced to his ministers and people the absolution and remission of their sins. See W. G. Aston, Shinto (London, 1905), pp. 294 sqq. The writer adds (p. 295): “The Chinese had an oho-harahi, defined by Mr. Giles in his Chinese Dictionary as ‘a religious ceremony of purification performed in spring and autumn, with a view to secure divine protection for agricultural interests.’ ” The popular celebrations of the first of May and the first of November in Europe seem to be relics of similar biennial purifications.] it was performed on the last day of the year. This association is only natural. The demons of the tsuina are personified wintry influences, with the diseases which they bring with them, while the oho-harahi is intended to cleanse the people from sin and uncleanness, things closely related to disease, as well as from disease itself. Though probably of Chinese origin, the tsuina is a tolerably ancient rite. It is alluded to in the Nihongi under the date a. d. 689. It was at one time performed at Court on an imposing scale. Four bands of twenty youths, each wearing a four-eyed mask, and each carrying a halberd in the left hand, marched simultaneously from the four gates of the palace, driving the devils before them. Another account of this ceremony says that a man disguised himself as the demon of pestilence, in which garb he was shot at and driven off by the courtiers armed with peach-wood bows and arrows of reed. Peach-wood staves were used for the same purpose. There was formerly a practice at Asakusa in Tokio on the last day of the year for a man got up as a devil to be chased round the pagoda there by another wearing a mask. After this 3,000 tickets were scrambled for by the spectators. These were carried away and pasted up over the doors as a charm against pestilence.”[526 - W. G. Aston, Shinto, pp. 308 sq.] The Battas of Sumatra offer either a red horse or a buffalo as a public sacrifice to purify the land and obtain the favour of the gods. Formerly, it is said, a man was bound to the same stake as the buffalo, and when they killed the animal, the man was driven away; no one might receive him, converse with him, or give him food.[527 - W. Ködding, “Die Batakschen Götter und ihr Verhältnis zum Brahmanismus,” Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, xii. (1885) pp. 476, 478.] Doubtless he was supposed to carry away the sins and misfortunes of the people.

Annual human scapegoats in Europe. The expulsion of Posterli in Switzerland.

Human scapegoats, as we shall see presently, were well known in classical antiquity, and even in mediæval Europe the custom seems not to have been wholly extinct. In the town of Halberstadt, in Thüringen, there was a church said to have been founded by Charlemagne. In this church every year they chose a man, who was believed to be stained with heinous sins. On the first day of Lent he was brought to the church, dressed in mourning garb, with his head muffled up. At the close of the service he was turned out of the church. During the forty days of Lent he perambulated the city barefoot, neither entering the churches nor speaking to any one. The canons took it in turn to feed him. After midnight he was allowed to sleep in the streets. On the day before Good Friday, after the consecration of the holy oil, he was readmitted to the church and absolved from his sins. The people gave him money. He was called Adam, and was now believed to be in a state of innocence.[528 - Aeneas Sylvius, Opera (Bâle, 1571), pp. 423 sq.] At Entlebuch, in Switzerland, down to the close of the eighteenth century, the custom of annually expelling a scapegoat was preserved in the ceremony of driving “Posterli” from the village into the lands of the neighbouring village. “Posterli” was represented by a lad disguised as an old witch or as a goat or an ass. Amid a deafening noise of horns, clarionets, bells, whips, and so forth, he was driven out. Sometimes “Posterli” was represented by a puppet, which was drawn on a sledge and left in a corner of the neighbouring village. The ceremony took place on the Thursday evening of the last week but one before Christmas.[529 - H. Usener, “Italische Mythen,” Rheinisches Museum, N.F., xxx. (1875) p. 198; id., Kleine Schriften, iv. (Leipsic and Berlin, 1913) pp. 109 sq. The custom seems to have been revived in the latter part of the nineteenth century; perhaps it may still be observed. See H. Herzog, Schweizerische Volksfeste, Sitten und Gebräuche (Aarau, 1884), pp. 293 sq.; E. Hoffmann-Krayer, Feste und Bräuche des Schweizervolkes (Zurich, 1913), p. 101.]

Annual expulsion of the devil, personified by a man, from Munich on Ascension Day.

In Munich down to about a hundred years ago the expulsion of the devil from the city used to be annually enacted on Ascension Day. On the Eve of Ascension Day a man disguised as a devil was chased through the streets, which were then narrow and dirty in contrast to the broad, well-kept thoroughfares, lined with imposing buildings, which now distinguish the capital of Bavaria. His pursuers were dressed as witches and wizards and provided with the indispensable crutches, brooms, and pitchforks which make up the outfit of these uncanny beings. While the devil fled before them, the troop of maskers made after him with wild whoops and halloos, and when they overtook him they ducked him in puddles or rolled him on dunghills. In this way the demon at last succeeded in reaching the palace, where he put off his hideous and now filthy disguise and was rewarded for his vicarious sufferings by a copious meal. The devilish costume which he had thrown off was then stuffed with hay and straw and conveyed to a particular church (the Frauenkirche), where it was kept over night, being hung by a rope from a window in the tower. On the afternoon of Ascension Day, before the Vesper service began, an image of the Saviour was drawn up to the roof of the church, no doubt to symbolize the event which the day commemorates. Then burning tow and wafers were thrown on the people. Meantime the effigy of the devil, painted black, with a pair of horns and a lolling red tongue, had been dangling from the church tower, to the delight of a gaping crowd of spectators gathered before the church. It was now flung down into their midst, and a fierce struggle for possession of it took place among the rabble. Finally, it was carried out of the town by the Isar gate and burned on a neighbouring height, “in order that the foul fiend might do no harm to the city.” The custom died out at Munich towards the end of the eighteenth century; but it is said that similar ceremonies are observed to this day in some villages of Upper Bavaria.[530 - L. Curtius, “Christi Himmelfahrt,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xiv. (1911) p. 307, quoting the Münchener Neuesten Nachrichten, No. 235, May 21st, 1909.]

The pardoned criminal at Rouen on Ascension Day may have been a public scapegoat.

This quaint ceremony suggests that the pardoned criminal who used to play the principal part in a solemn religious procession on Ascension Day at Rouen[531 - The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 164 sqq.] may in like manner have originally served, if not as a representative of the devil, at least as a public scapegoat, who relieved the whole people of their sins and sorrows for a year by taking them upon himself. This would explain why the gaol had to be raked in order to furnish one who would parade with the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries in their gorgeous vestments through the streets of Rouen, while the church bells pealed out, the clergy chanted, banners waved, and every circumstance combined to enhance the pomp and splendour of the pageant. It would add a pathetic significance to the crowning act of the ceremony, when on a lofty platform in the public square, with the eyes of a great and silent multitude turned upon him, the condemned malefactor received from the Church the absolution and remission of his sins; for if the rite is to be interpreted in the way here suggested, the sins which were thus forgiven were those not of one man only but of the whole people. No wonder, then, that when the sinner, now a sinner no more, rose from his knees and thrice lifted the silver shrine of St. Romain in his arms, the whole vast assembly in the square broke out into joyous cries of “Noel! Noel! Noel!” which they understood to signify, “God be with us!” In Christian countries no more appropriate season could be selected for the ceremony of the human scapegoat than Ascension Day, which commemorates the departure from earth of Him who, in the belief of millions, took away the sins of the world.[532 - On the use of eponymous magistrates as annual scapegoats see above, pp. 39-41 (#x_5_i15).]

Divine animals as scapegoats in India and ancient Egypt.

Sometimes the scapegoat is a divine animal. The people of Malabar share the Hindoo reverence for the cow, to kill and eat which “they esteem to be a crime as heinous as homicide or wilful murder.” Nevertheless the “Bramans transfer the sins of the people into one or more Cows, which are then carry'd away, both the Cows and the Sins wherewith these Beasts are charged, to what place the Braman shall appoint.”[533 - J. Thomas Phillips, Account of the Religion, Manners, and Learning of the People of Malabar (London, 1717), pp. 6, 12 sq.] When the ancient Egyptians sacrificed a bull, they invoked upon its head all the evils that might otherwise befall themselves and the land of Egypt, and thereupon they either sold the bull's head to the Greeks or cast it into the river.[534 - Herodotus, ii. 39.] Now, it cannot be said that in the times known to us the Egyptians worshipped bulls in general, for they seem to have commonly killed and eaten them.[535 - Herodotus, ii. 38-41; Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, New Edition (London, 1878), iii. 403 sqq.] But a good many circumstances point to the conclusion that originally all cattle, bulls as well as cows, were held sacred by the Egyptians. For not only were all cows esteemed holy by them and never sacrificed, but even bulls might not be sacrificed unless they had certain natural marks; a priest examined every bull before it was sacrificed; if it had the proper marks, he put his seal on the animal in token that it might be sacrificed; and if a man sacrificed a bull which had not been sealed, he was put to death. Moreover, the worship of the black bulls Apis and Mnevis, especially the former, played an important part in Egyptian religion; all bulls that died a natural death were carefully buried in the suburbs of the cities, and their bones were afterwards collected from all parts of Egypt and interred in a single spot; and at the sacrifice of a bull in the great rites of Isis all the worshippers beat their breasts and mourned.[536 - Herodotus, l. c. As to the worship of sacred bulls in ancient Egypt, see further Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 34 sqq.] On the whole, then, we are perhaps entitled to infer that bulls were originally, as cows were always, esteemed sacred by the Egyptians, and that the slain bull upon whose head they laid the misfortunes of the people was once a divine scapegoat. It seems not improbable that the lamb annually slain by the Madis of Central Africa is a divine scapegoat, and the same supposition may partly explain the Zuni sacrifice of the turtle.[537 - Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 175 sqq., 314 sq.]

Divine men as scapegoats among the Gonds of India and the Albanians of the Caucasus.

Lastly, the scapegoat may be a divine man. Thus, in November the Gonds of India worship Ghansyam Deo, the protector of the crops, and at the festival the god himself is said to descend on the head of one of the worshippers, who is suddenly seized with a kind of fit and, after staggering about, rushes off into the jungle, where it is believed that, if left to himself, he would die mad. However, they bring him back, but he does not recover his senses for one or two days. The people think that one man is thus singled out as a scapegoat for the sins of the rest of the village.[538 - Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. p. 54, § 335 (December, 1884).] In the temple of the Moon the Albanians of the Eastern Caucasus kept a number of sacred slaves, of whom many were inspired and prophesied. When one of these men exhibited more than usual symptoms of inspiration or insanity, and wandered solitary up and down the woods, like the Gond in the jungle, the high priest had him bound with a sacred chain and maintained him in luxury for a year. At the end of the year he was anointed with unguents and led forth to be sacrificed. A man whose business it was to slay these human victims and to whom practice had given dexterity, advanced from the crowd and thrust a sacred spear into the victim's side, piercing his heart. From the manner in which the slain man fell, omens were drawn as to the welfare of the commonwealth. Then the body was carried to a certain spot where all the people stood upon it as a purificatory ceremony.[539 - Strabo, xi. 4. 7, p. 503. For the custom of standing upon a sacrificed victim, compare Demosthenes, Or. xxiii. 68, p. 642; Pausanias, iii. 20. 9.] This last circumstance clearly indicates that the sins of the people were transferred to the victim, just as the Jewish priest transferred the sins of the people to the scapegoat by laying his hands on the animal's head; and since the man was believed to be possessed by the divine spirit, we have here an undoubted example of a man-god slain to take away the sins and misfortunes of the people.

Annual human scapegoats in Tibet. The Jalno, the temporary ruler of Lhasa.

In Tibet the ceremony of the scapegoat presents some remarkable features. The Tibetan new year begins with the new moon which appears about the fifteenth of February. For twenty-three days afterwards the government of Lhasa, the capital, is taken out of the hands of the ordinary rulers and entrusted to the monk of the Debang monastery who offers to pay the highest sum for the privilege. The successful bidder is called the Jalno, and he announces his accession to power in person, going through the streets of Lhasa with a silver stick in his hand. Monks from all the neighbouring monasteries and temples assemble to pay him homage. The Jalno exercises his authority in the most arbitrary manner for his own benefit, as all the fines which he exacts are his by purchase. The profit he makes is about ten times the amount of the purchase money. His men go about the streets in order to discover any conduct on the part of the inhabitants that can be found fault with. Every house in Lhasa is taxed at this time, and the slightest offence is punished with unsparing rigour by fines. This severity of the Jalno drives all working classes out of the city till the twenty-three days are over. But if the laity go out, the clergy come in. All the Buddhist monasteries of the country for miles round about open their gates and disgorge their inmates. All the roads that lead down into Lhasa from the neighbouring mountains are full of monks hurrying to the capital, some on foot, some on horseback, some riding asses or lowing oxen, all carrying their prayer-books and culinary utensils. In such multitudes do they come that the streets and squares of the city are encumbered with their swarms, and incarnadined with their red cloaks. The disorder and confusion are indescribable. Bands of the holy men traverse the streets chanting prayers or uttering wild cries. They meet, they jostle, they quarrel, they fight; bloody noses, black eyes, and broken heads are freely given and received. All day long, too, from before the peep of dawn till after darkness has fallen, these red-cloaked monks hold services in the dim incense-laden air of the great Machindranath temple, the cathedral of Lhasa; and thither they crowd thrice a day to receive their doles of tea and soup and money. The cathedral is a vast building, standing in the centre of the city, and surrounded by bazaars and shops. The idols in it are richly inlaid with gold and precious stones.

The Jalno and the King of the Years. Expulsion of the King of the Years.

Twenty-four days after the Jalno has ceased to have authority, he assumes it again, and for ten days acts in the same arbitrary manner as before. On the first of the ten days the priests again assemble at the cathedral, pray to the gods to prevent sickness and other evils among the people, “and, as a peace-offering, sacrifice one man. The man is not killed purposely, but the ceremony he undergoes often proves fatal.[540 - The ceremony referred to is perhaps the one performed on the tenth day, as described in the text.] Grain is thrown against his head, and his face is painted half white, half black.” Thus grotesquely disguised, and carrying a coat of skin on his arm, he is called the King of the Years, and sits daily in the market-place, where he helps himself to whatever he likes and goes about shaking a black yak's tail over the people, who thus transfer their bad luck to him. On the tenth day, all the troops in Lhasa march to the great temple and form in line before it. The King of the Years is brought forth from the temple and receives small donations from the assembled multitude. He then ridicules the Jalno, saying to him, “What we perceive through the five senses is no illusion. All you teach is untrue,” and the like. The Jalno, who represents the Grand Lama for the time being, contests these heretical opinions; the dispute waxes warm, and at last both agree to decide the questions at issue by a cast of the dice, the Jalno offering to change places with the scapegoat should the throw be against him. If the King of the Years wins, much evil is prognosticated; but if the Jalno wins, there is great rejoicing, for it proves that his adversary has been accepted by the gods as a victim to bear all the sins of the people of Lhasa. Fortune, however, always favours the Jalno, who throws sixes with unvarying success, while his opponent turns up only ones. Nor is this so extraordinary as at first sight it might appear; for the Jalno's dice are marked with nothing but sixes and his adversary's with nothing but ones. When he sees the finger of Providence thus plainly pointed against him, the King of the Years is terrified and flees away upon a white horse, with a white dog, a white bird, salt, and so forth, which have all been provided for him by the government. His face is still painted half white and half black, and he still wears his leathern coat. The whole populace pursues him, hooting, yelling, and firing blank shots in volleys after him. Thus driven out of the city, he is detained for seven days in the great chamber of horrors at the Samyas monastery, surrounded by monstrous and terrific images of devils and skins of huge serpents and wild beasts. Thence he goes away into the mountains of Chetang, where he has to remain an outcast for several months or a year in a narrow den. If he dies before the time is out, the people say it is an auspicious omen; but if he survives, he may return to Lhasa and play the part of scapegoat over again the following year.[541 - “Report of a Route Survey by Pundit – from Nepal to Lhasa,” etc., Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xxxviii. (1868) pp. 167, 170 sq.; “Four Years Journeying through Great Tibet, by one of the Trans-Himalayan Explorers,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, N.S. vii. (1885) pp. 67 sq.; W. Woodville Rockhill, “Tibet, a Geographical, Ethnographical, and Historical Sketch, derived from Chinese Sources,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1891 (London, 1891), pp. 211 sq.; L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet (London, 1895), pp. 504 sqq., 512 sq.; J. L. Dutreuil de Rhins, Mission Scientifique dans la Haute Asie 1890-1895: Récit du Voyage (Paris, 1897), pp. 257 sq. The accounts supplement each other, though they differ in some particulars. I have endeavoured to combine them. According to Mr. Rockhill's account, which is drawn from Chinese sources, at one point of the ceremonies the troops march thrice round the temple and fire volleys of musketry to drive away the devil. With the like intent they discharge a great old cannon, which bears the inscription, “My power breaks up and destroys rebellion.” The same account speaks of a fencing with battle-axes by a troop of boy-dancers, a great illumination of the cathedral with lanterns, and its decoration with figures made out of butter and flour to represent men, animals, dragons, etc.; also it makes mention of a horse-race and a foot-race, both run by boys. The clerical invasion of the capital at this season is graphically described by an eye-witness. See Huc, Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet, Sixième Édition (Paris, 1878), ii. 380 sq.]

The Grand Lama, the Jalno, and the King of the Years in their relations to each other. Probability that of old the Tibetan scapegoat was put to death as a substitute for the Grand Lama.

This quaint ceremonial, still annually observed in the secluded capital of Buddhism – the Rome of Asia – is interesting because it exhibits, in a clearly marked religious stratification, a series of divine redeemers themselves redeemed, of vicarious sacrifices vicariously atoned for, of gods undergoing a process of fossilization, who, while they retain the privileges, have disburdened themselves of the pains and penalties of divinity. In the Jalno we may without undue straining discern a successor of those temporary kings, those mortal gods, who purchase a short lease of power and glory at the price of their lives. That he is the temporary substitute of the Grand Lama is certain; that he is, or was once, liable to act as scapegoat for the people is made nearly certain by his offer to change places with the real scapegoat – the King of the Years – if the arbitrament of the dice should go against him. It is true that the conditions under which the question is now put to the hazard have reduced the offer to an idle form. But such forms are no mere mushroom growths, springing up of themselves in a night. If they are now lifeless formalities, empty husks devoid of significance, we may be sure that they once had a life and a meaning; if at the present day they are blind alleys leading nowhere, we may be certain that in former days they were paths that led somewhere, if only to death. That death was the goal to which of old the Tibetan scapegoat passed after his brief period of licence in the market-place, is a conjecture that has much to commend it. Analogy suggests it; the blank shots fired after him, the statement that the ceremony often proves fatal, the belief that his death is a happy omen, all confirm it. We need not wonder then that the Jalno, after paying so dear to act as deputy-deity for a few weeks, should have preferred to die by deputy rather than in his own person when his time was up. The painful but necessary duty was accordingly laid on some poor devil, some social outcast, some wretch with whom the world had gone hard, who readily agreed to throw away his life at the end of a few days if only he might have his fling in the meantime. For observe that while the time allowed to the original deputy – the Jalno – was measured by weeks, the time allowed to the deputy's deputy was cut down to days, ten days according to one authority, seven days according to another. So short a rope was doubtless thought a long enough tether for so black or sickly a sheep; so few sands in the hour-glass, slipping so fast away, sufficed for one who had wasted so many precious years. Hence in the jack-pudding who now masquerades with motley countenance in the market-place of Lhasa, sweeping up misfortune with a black yak's tail, we may fairly see the substitute of a substitute, the vicar of a vicar, the proxy on whose back the heavy burden was laid when it had been lifted from nobler shoulders. But the clue, if we have followed it aright, does not stop at the Jalno; it leads straight back to the pope of Lhasa himself, the Grand Lama, of whom the Jalno is merely the temporary vicar. The analogy of many customs in many lands points to the conclusion that, if this human divinity stoops to resign his ghostly power for a time into the hands of a substitute, it is, or rather was once, for no other reason than that the substitute might die in his stead. Thus through the mist of ages unillumined by the lamp of history, the tragic figure of the pope of Buddhism – God's vicar on earth for Asia – looms dim and sad as the man-god who bore his people's sorrows, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep.

Chapter V. On Scapegoats in General