The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

James George Frazer

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

Chapter VI. Fire-Festivals in Other Lands

§ 1. The Fire-walk

Bonfires at the Pongol festival in Southern India.

At first sight the interpretation of the European fire customs as charms for making sunshine is confirmed by a parallel custom observed by the Hindoos of Southern India at the Pongol or Feast of Ingathering. The festival is celebrated in the early part of January, when, according to Hindoo astrologers, the sun enters the tropic of Capricorn, and the chief event of the festival coincides with the passage of the sun. For some days previously the boys gather heaps of sticks, straw, dead leaves, and everything that will burn. On the morning of the first day of the festival the heaps are fired. Every street and lane has its bonfire. The young folk leap over the flames or pile on fresh fuel. This fire is an offering to Sûrya, the sun-god, or to Agni, the deity of fire; it “wakes him from his sleep, calling on him again to gladden the earth with his light and heat.”1 If this is indeed the explanation which the people themselves give of the festival, it seems decisive in favour of the solar explanation of the fires; for to say that the fires waken the sun-god from his sleep is only a metaphorical or mythical way of saying that they actually help to rekindle the sun's light and heat. But the hesitation which the writer indicates between the two distinct deities of sun and fire seems to prove that he is merely giving his own interpretation of the rite, not reporting the views of the celebrants. If that is so, the expression of his opinion has no claim to authority.

Bonfires at the Holi festival in Northern India. The village priest expected to pass through the fire. Leaping over the ashes of the fire to get rid of disease.

A festival of Northern India which presents points of resemblance to the popular European celebrations which we have been considering is the Holi. This is a village festival held in early spring at the full moon of the month Phalgun. Large bonfires are lit and young people dance round them. The people believe that the fires prevent blight, and that the ashes cure disease. At Barsana the local village priest is expected to pass through the Holi bonfire, which, in the opinion of the faithful, cannot burn him. Indeed he holds his land rent-free simply on the score of his being fire-proof. On one occasion when the priest disappointed the expectant crowd by merely jumping over the outermost verge of the smouldering ashes and then bolting into his cell, they threatened to deprive him of his benefice if he did not discharge his spiritual functions better when the next Holi season came round. Another feature of the festival which has, or once had, its counterpart in the corresponding European ceremonies is the unchecked profligacy which prevails among the Hindoos at this time.2 In Kumaon, a district of North-West India, at the foot of the Himalayas, each clan celebrates the Holi festival by cutting down a tree, which is thereupon stripped of its leaves, decked with shreds of cloth, and burnt at some convenient place in the quarter of the town inhabited by the clan. Some of the songs sung on this occasion are of a ribald character. The people leap over the ashes of the fire, believing that they thus rid themselves of itch and other diseases of the skin. While the trees are burning, each clan tries to carry off strips of cloth from the tree of another clan, and success in the attempt is thought to ensure good luck. In Gwalior large heaps of cow-dung are burnt instead of trees. Among the Marwaris the festival is celebrated by the women with obscene songs and gestures. A monstrous and disgusting image of a certain Nathuram, who is said to have been a notorious profligate, is set up in a bazaar and then smashed with blows of shoes and bludgeons while the bonfire of cow-dung is blazing. No household can be without an image of Nathuram, and on the night when the bride first visits her husband, the image of this disreputable personage is placed beside her couch. Barren women and mothers whose children have died look to Nathuram for deliverance from their troubles.3 Various stories are told to account for the origin of the Holi festival. According to one legend it was instituted in order to get rid of a troublesome demon (rákshasí). The people were directed to kindle a bonfire and circumambulate it, singing and uttering fearlessly whatever might come into their minds. Appalled by these vociferations, by the oblations to fire, and by the laughter of the children, the demon was to be destroyed.4

Vernal festival of fire in China. Ceremony to ensure an abundant year. Walking through the fire. Ashes of the fire mixed with the fodder of the cattle.

In the Chinese province of Fo-Kien we also meet with a vernal festival of fire which may be compared to the fire-festivals of Europe. The ceremony, according to an eminent authority, is a solar festival in honour of the renewal of vegetation and of the vernal warmth. It falls in April, on the thirteenth day of the third month in the Chinese calendar, and is doubtless connected with the ancient custom of renewing the fire, which, as we saw, used to be observed in China at this season.5 The chief performers in the ceremony are labourers, who refrain from women for seven days, and fast for three days before the festival. During these days they are taught in the temple how to discharge the difficult and dangerous duty which is to be laid upon them. On the eve of the festival an enormous brazier of charcoal, sometimes twenty feet wide, is prepared in front of the temple of the Great God, the protector of life. At sunrise next morning the brazier is lighted and kept burning by fresh supplies of fuel. A Taoist priest throws a mixture of salt and rice on the fire to conjure the flames and ensure an abundant year. Further, two exorcists, barefooted and followed by two peasants, traverse the fire again and again till it is somewhat beaten down. Meantime the procession is forming in the temple. The image of the god of the temple is placed in a sedan-chair, resplendent with red paint and gilding, and is carried forth by a score or more of barefooted peasants. On the shafts of the sedan-chair, behind the image, stands a magician with a dagger stuck through the upper parts of his arms and grasping in each hand a great sword, with which he essays to deal himself violent blows on the back; however, the strokes as they descend are mostly parried by peasants, who walk behind him and interpose bamboo rods between his back and the swords. Wild music now strikes up, and under the excitement caused by its stirring strains the procession passes thrice across the furnace. At their third passage the performers are followed by other peasants carrying the utensils of the temple; and the rustic mob, electrified by the frenzied spectacle, falls in behind. Strange as it may seem, burns are comparatively rare. Inured from infancy to walking barefoot, the peasants can step with impunity over the glowing charcoal, provided they plant their feet squarely and do not stumble; for usage has so hardened their soles that the skin is converted into a sort of leathery or horny substance which is almost callous to heat. But sometimes, when they slip and a hot coal touches the sides of their feet or ankles, they may be seen to pull a wry face and jump out of the furnace amid the laughter of the spectators. When this part of the ceremony is over, the procession defiles round the village, and the priests distribute to every family a leaf of yellow paper inscribed with a magic character, which is thereupon glued over the door of the house. The peasants carry off the charred embers from the furnace, pound them to ashes, and mix the ashes with the fodder of their cattle, believing that it fattens them. However, the Chinese Government disapproves of these performances, and next morning a number of the performers may generally be seen in the hands of the police, laid face downwards on the ground and receiving a sound castigation on a part of their person which is probably more sensitive than the soles of their feet.6

Passage of the image of the deity through the fire. Passage of inspired men through the fire in India.

In this last festival the essential feature of the ceremony appears to be the passage of the image of the deity across the fire; it may be compared to the passage of the straw effigy of Kupalo across the midsummer bonfire in Russia.7 As we shall see presently, such customs may perhaps be interpreted as magical rites designed to produce light and warmth by subjecting the deity himself to the heat and glow of the furnace; and where, as at Barsana, priests or sorcerers have been accustomed in the discharge of their functions to walk through or over fire, they have sometimes done so as the living representatives or embodiments of deities, spirits, or other supernatural beings. Some confirmation of this view is furnished by the beliefs and practices of the Dosadhs, a low Indian caste in Behar and Chota Nagpur. On the fifth, tenth, and full-moon days of three months in the year, the priest walks over a narrow trench filled with smouldering wood ashes, and is supposed thus to be inspired by the tribal god Rahu, who becomes incarnate in him for a time. Full of the spirit and also, it is surmised, of drink, the man of god then mounts a bamboo platform, where he sings hymns and distributes to the crowd leaves of tulsi, which cure incurable diseases, and flowers which cause barren women to become happy mothers. The service winds up with a feast lasting far into the night, at which the line that divides religious fervour from drunken revelry cannot always be drawn with absolute precision.8 Similarly the Bhuiyas, a Dravidian tribe of Mirzapur, worship their tribal hero Bir by walking over a short trench filled with fire, and they say that the man who is possessed by the hero does not feel any pain in the soles of his feet.9 Ceremonies of this sort used to be observed in most districts of the Madras Presidency, sometimes in discharge of vows made in time of sickness or distress, sometimes periodically in honour of a deity. Where the ceremony was observed periodically, it generally occurred in March or June, which are the months of the vernal equinox and the summer solstice respectively. A narrow trench, sometimes twenty yards long and half a foot deep, was filled with small sticks and twigs, mostly of tamarind, which were kindled and kept burning till they sank into a mass of glowing embers. Along this the devotees, often fifty or sixty in succession, walked, ran, or leaped barefoot. In 1854 the Madras Government instituted an enquiry into the custom, but found that it was not attended by danger or instances of injury sufficient to call for governmental interference.10

Hindoo fire-festival in honour of Darma Rajah and Draupadi. Worshippers walking through the fire.

The French traveller Sonnerat has described how, in the eighteenth century, the Hindoos celebrated a fire-festival of this sort in honour of the god Darma Rajah and his wife Drobedé (Draupadi). The festival lasted eighteen days, during which all who had vowed to take part in it were bound to fast, to practise continence, to sleep on the ground without a mat, and to walk on a furnace. On the eighteenth day the images of Darma Rajah and his spouse were carried in procession to the furnace, and the performers followed dancing, their heads crowned with flowers and their bodies smeared with saffron. The furnace consisted of a trench about forty feet long, filled with hot embers. When the images had been carried thrice round it, the worshippers walked over the embers, faster or slower, according to the degree of their religious fervour, some carrying their children in their arms, others brandishing spears, swords, and standards. This part of the ceremony being over, the bystanders hastened to rub their foreheads with ashes from the furnace, and to beg from the performers the flowers which they had worn in their hair; and such as obtained them preserved the flowers carefully. The rite was performed in honour of the goddess Drobedé (Draupadi), the heroine of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. For she married five brothers all at once; every year she left one of her husbands to betake herself to another, but before doing so she had to purify herself by fire. There was no fixed date for the celebration of the rite, but it could only be held in one of the first three months of the year.11 In some villages the ceremony is performed annually; in others, which cannot afford the expense every year, it is observed either at longer intervals, perhaps once in three, seven, ten, or twelve years, or only in special emergencies, such as the outbreak of smallpox, cholera, or plague. Anybody but a pariah or other person of very low degree may take part in the ceremony in fulfilment of a vow. For example, if a man suffers from some chronic malady, he may vow to Draupadi that, should he be healed of his disease, he will walk over the fire at her festival. As a preparation for the solemnity he sleeps in the temple and observes a fast. The celebration of the rite in any village is believed to protect the cattle and the crops and to guard the inhabitants from dangers of all kinds. When it is over, many people carry home the holy ashes of the fire as a talisman which will drive away devils and demons.12

Fire-festival of the Badagas in Southern India. Sacred fire made by friction. Walking through the fire. Cattle driven over the hot embers. The fire-walk preceded by a libation of milk and followed by ploughing and sowing.

The Badagas, an agricultural tribe of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern India, annually celebrate a festival of fire in various parts of their country. For example, at Nidugala the festival is held with much ceremony in the month of January. Omens are taken by boiling two pots of milk side by side on two hearths. If the milk overflows uniformly on all sides, the crops will be abundant for all the villages; but if it flows over on one side only, the harvest will be good for villages on that side only. The sacred fire is made by friction, a vertical stick of Rhodomyrtus tomentosus being twirled by means of a cord in a socket let into a thick bough of Debregeasia velutina. With this holy flame a heap of wood of two sorts, the Eugenia Jambolana and Phyllanthus Emblica, is kindled, and the hot embers are spread over a fire-pit about five yards long and three yards broad. When all is ready, the priest ties bells on his legs and approaches the fire-pit, carrying milk freshly drawn from a cow which has calved for the first time, and also bearing flowers of Rhododendron arboreum, Leucas aspera, or jasmine. After doing obeisance, he throws the flowers on the embers and then pours some of the milk over them. If the omens are propitious, that is, if the flowers remain for a few seconds unscorched and the milk does not hiss when it falls on the embers, the priest walks boldly over the embers and is followed by a crowd of celebrants, who before they submit to the ordeal count the hairs on their feet. If any of the hairs are found to be singed after the passage through the fire-pit, it is an ill omen. Sometimes the Badagas drive their cattle, which have recovered from sickness, over the hot embers in performance of a vow.13 At Melur, another place of the Badagas in the Neilgherry Hills, three, five, or seven men are chosen to walk through the fire at the festival; and before they perform the ceremony they pour into an adjacent stream milk from cows which have calved for the first time during the year. A general feast follows the performance of the rite, and next day the land is ploughed and sown for the first time that season. At Jakkaneri, another place of the Badagas in the Neilgherry Hills, the passage through the fire at the festival “seems to have originally had some connection with agricultural prospects, as a young bull is made to go partly across the fire-pit before the other devotees, and the owners of young cows which have had their first calves during the year take precedence of others in the ceremony, and bring offerings of milk, which are sprinkled over the burning embers.”14 According to another account the ceremony among the Badagas was performed every second year at a harvest festival, and the performers were a set of degenerate Brahmans called Haruvarus, who “used to walk on burning coals with bare feet, pretending that the god they worshipped could allay the heat and make fire like cold water to them. As they only remained a few seconds, however, on the coals, it was impossible that they could receive much injury.”15

The fire-walk in Japan.

In Japan the fire-walk is performed as a religious rite twice a year at a temple in the Kanda quarter of Tokio. One of the performances takes place in September. It was witnessed in the year 1903 by the wife of an American naval officer, who has described it. In a court of the temple a bed of charcoal about six yards long, two yards wide, and two feet deep was laid down and covered with a deep layer of straw. Being ignited, the straw blazed up, and when the flames had died down the bed of hot charcoal was fanned by attendants into a red glow. Priests dressed in robes of white cotton then walked round the fire, striking sparks from flint and steel and carrying trays full of salt. When mats had been laid down at the two ends of the fire and salt poured on them, the priests rubbed their bare feet twice in the salt and then walked calmly down the middle of the fire. They were followed by a number of people, including some boys and a woman with a baby in her arms. “The Shintoists claim that, having been perfectly purified by their prayers and ceremonies, no evil has any power over them. Fire they regard as the very spirit of evil; so twice a year, I believe, they go through this fire-walking as a kind of ‘outward and visible sign of inward spiritual grace.’ ”16

The fire-walk in Fiji, Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, and Trinidad.

In the island of Mbengga, one of the Fijian archipelago, once every year a dracaena, which grows in profusion on the grassy hillsides, becomes fit to yield the sugar of which its fibrous root is full. To render the roots edible it is necessary to bake them among hot stones for four days. A great pit is dug and filled with great stones and blazing logs, and when the flames have died down and the stones are at white heat, the oven is ready to receive the roots. At this moment the members of a certain clan called Na Ivilankata, favoured of the gods, leap into the oven and walk unharmed upon the hot stones, which would scorch the feet of any other persons. On one occasion when the ceremony was witnessed by Europeans fifteen men of the clan, dressed in garlands and fringes, walked unscathed through the furnace, where tongues of fire played among the hot stones. The pit was about nineteen feet wide and the men marched round it, planting their feet squarely and firmly on each stone. When they emerged from the pit, the feet of several were examined and shewed no trace of scorching; even the anklets of dried tree-fern leaves which they wore on their legs were unburnt. The immunity thus enjoyed by members of the clan in the fiery furnace is explained by a legend that in former days a chief of the clan, named Tui Nkualita, received for himself and his descendants this remarkable privilege from a certain god, whom the chief had accidentally dragged out of a deep pool of water by the hair of his head.17 A similar ceremony of walking through fire, or rather over a furnace of hot charcoal or hot stones, has also been observed in Tahiti,18 the Marquesas Islands,19 and by Hindoo coolies in the West Indian island of Trinidad;20 but the eye-witnesses who have described the rite, as it is observed in these islands, have said little or nothing as to its meaning and purpose, their whole attention having been apparently concentrated on the heat of the furnace and the state of the performers' legs before and after passing through it.

Hottentot custom of driving their sheep through fire and smoke.

“Another grand custom of the Hottentots, which they likewise term andersmaken, is the driving their sheep at certain times through the fire. Early in the day appointed by a kraal for the observance of this custom, the women milk all their cows, and set the whole produce before their husbands. 'Tis a strict rule at those times that the women neither taste, nor suffer their children to touch, a drop of it. The whole quantity is sacred to the men, who drink it all up before they address themselves to the business of the fire. Having consumed the milk, some go and bring the sheep together to the place where the fire is to be lighted, while others repair to the place to light it. The fire is made of chips and dry twigs and thinly spread into a long square. Upon the coming up of the sheep, the fire, scattered into this figure, is covered with green twigs to raise a great smoak; and a number of men range themselves closely on both sides of it, making a lane for the sheep to pass through, and extending themselves to a good distance beyond the fire on the side where the sheep are to enter. Things being in this posture, the sheep are driven into the lane close up to the fire, which now smoaks in the thickest clouds. The foremost boggle, and being forced forward by the press behind, seek their escape by attempting breaches in the ranks. The men stand close and firm, and whoop and goad them forward; when a few hands, planted at the front of the fire, catch three or four of the foremost sheep by the head, and drag them through, and bring them round into the sight of the rest; which sometimes upon this, the whooping and goading continuing, follow with a tantivy, jumping and pouring themselves through the fire and smoak with a mighty clattering and fury. At other times they are not so tractable, but put the Hottentots to the trouble of dragging numbers of them through; and sometimes, in a great press and fright, sturdily attacking the ranks, they make a breach and escape. This is a very mortifying event at all times, the Hottentots, upon whatever account, looking upon it as a heavy disgrace and a very ill omen into the bargain. But when their labours here are attended with such success, that the sheep pass readily through or over the fire, 'tis hardly in the power of language to describe them in all the sallies of their joy.” The writer who thus describes the custom had great difficulty in extracting an explanation of it from the Hottentots. At last one of them informed him that their country was much infested by wild dogs, which made terrible havoc among the cattle, worrying the animals to death even when they did not devour them. “Now we have it,” he said, “from our ancestors, that if sheep are driven through the fire, as we say, that is, through a thick smoak, the wild dogs will not be fond of attacking them while the scent of the smoak remains upon their fleeces. We therefore from time to time, for the security of our flocks, perform this andersmaken.”21

Fire applied to sick cattle by the Nandi and Zulus.

When disease breaks out in a herd of the Nandi, a pastoral tribe of British East Africa, a large bonfire is made with the wood of a certain tree (Olea chrysophilla), and brushwood of two sorts of shrubs is thrown on the top. Then the sick herd is driven to the fire, and while the animals are standing near it, a sheep big with young is brought to them and anointed with milk by an elder, after which it is strangled by two men belonging to clans that may intermarry. The intestines are then inspected, and if the omens prove favourable, the meat is roasted and eaten; moreover rings are made out of the skin and worn by the cattle-owners. After the meat has been eaten, the herd is driven round the fire, and milk is poured on each beast.22 When their cattle are sick, the Zulus of Natal will collect their herds in a kraal, where a medicine-man kindles a fire, burns medicine in it, and so fumigates the cattle with the medicated smoke. Afterwards he sprinkles the herd with a decoction, and, taking some melted fat of the dead oxen in his mouth, squirts it on a fire-brand and holds the brand to each animal in succession.23 Such a custom is probably equivalent to the Hottentot and European practice of driving cattle through a fire.