The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)

Propitiation of slain buffaloes and sheep in Uganda

The Baganda greatly fear the ghosts of buffaloes which they have killed, and they always appease these dangerous spirits. On no account will they bring the head of a slain buffalo into a village or into a garden of plantains: they always eat the flesh of the head in the open country. Afterwards they place the skull in a small hut built for the purpose, where they pour out beer as an offering and pray to the ghost to stay where he is and not to harm them.670 Oddly enough the Baganda also dread the ghosts of sheep, which they believe would haunt and kill the butcher if they saw him give the fatal stroke. Hence when a man is about to slaughter a sheep, he gets another man to divert its attention, and coming up behind the unsuspecting animal he stuns it with the blow of an axe-handle; then, before it can recover consciousness, he adroitly cuts its throat. In this way the ghost of the sheep is bamboozled and will not haunt the butcher. Moreover, when a sheep dies in a house, the housewife may not say bluntly to her husband, “The sheep is dead,” or its ghost, touched to the quick, would certainly make her fall ill and might even kill her. She must put a finer point on the painful truth by saying, “I am unable to untie such and such a sheep.” Her husband understands her, but the ghost of the animal does not, or at all events he does not resent so delicate an allusion to its melancholy decease.671 Even the ghost of a fowl may haunt a Muganda [pg 232] woman and make her ill, if she has accidentally killed it with her hoe and flung away the body in the long grass instead of carrying it to her husband and confessing her fault.672

Propitiation of dead whales among the Koryak

Another formidable beast whose life the savage hunter takes with joy, yet with fear and trembling, is the whale. After the slaughter of a whale the maritime Koryak of north-eastern Siberia hold a communal festival, the essential part of which “is based on the conception that the whale killed has come on a visit to the village; that it is staying for some time, during which it is treated with great respect; that it then returns to the sea to repeat its visit the following year; that it will induce its relatives to come along, telling them of the hospitable reception that has been accorded to it. According to the Koryak ideas, the whales, like all other animals, constitute one tribe, or rather family, of related individuals, who live in villages like the Koryak. They avenge the murder of one of their number, and are grateful for kindnesses that they may have received.”673 As large whales are now rarely seen in the bays of the Okhotsk Sea, the Koryak at the present time generally celebrate the festival for a white whale. One such festival was witnessed by Mr. W. Jochelson, at the village of Kuel, in October 1900. A white whale had been caught in the nets, and as the sea was partially frozen, the carcase had to be brought ashore in a sledge. When it was seen nearing the beach, a number of women, arrayed in their long embroidered dancing-coats, went forth to meet and welcome it, carrying lighted fire-brands in their hands. To carry burning fire-brands from the hearth is the ancient Koryak fashion of greeting an honoured guest. Strictly speaking, the women who go forth to welcome a whale to the house should wear masks of sedge-grass on their faces as well as dancing-coats on their bodies, and should carry sacrificial alder branches as well as firebrands [pg 233] in their hands, but on the present occasion the women dispensed with the use of masks. They danced, shaking their heads, moving their shoulders, and swinging their whole bodies with arms outstretched, now squatting, now rising and singing, “Ah! a guest has come.” In spite of the cold and the wind the sweat dripped from them, so violently did they dance, and they sang and screamed till they were hoarse. When the sledge with its burden had reached the shore, one of the women pronounced an incantation over the whale's head, and then thrust alder branches and sacrificial grass into its mouth. Next they muffled its head in a hood, apparently to prevent the creature from witnessing the painful spectacle of its own dissection. After that the men cut up the carcase, and the women collected the blood in pails. Two seals, which had also been killed, were included in the festivities which followed. The heads of all three animals were cut off and placed on the roof of the house. Next day the festival began. In the morning the women plaited travelling bags of grass for the use of the whale, and made grass masks. In the evening, the people having assembled in a large underground house, some boiled pieces of the white whale were placed in a grass bag and set before a wooden image of a white whale, so that the animal, or its departed spirit, was thus apparently supposed to be regaled with portions of its own body; for the white whale and the seals were treated as honoured guests at the banquet. To keep up the pretence, the people were silent or spoke only in whispers for fear of wakening the guests before the time. At last the preparations were complete: fresh faggots piled on the hearth sent up a blaze, illumining with an unsteady light the smoke-blackened walls of the vast underground dwelling, which a moment before had been shrouded in darkness; and the long silence was broken by the joyful cries of the women, “Here dear guests have come!” “Visit us often!” “When you go back to the sea, tell your friends to call on us also, we will prepare just as nice food for them as for you.” With these words they pointed to puddings set out temptingly on the boards. Next the host took a piece of the fat of the white whale and threw it into the fire, saying, “We are burning it in the fire for thee!” Then he went to the domestic shrine, [pg 234] placed lumps of fat before the rude effigies of the guardian spirits, and smeared fat on their mouths. The appetites of the higher powers having thus been satisfied, the people set to and partook of the good things provided for them, including the flesh of the white whale and the seals. Lastly, two old men practised divination by means of the shoulder-blade of a seal to discover whether the white whale would go back to the sea and call his fellows to come and be caught like himself. In order to extract this information from the bone burning coals were piled on it, and the resulting cracks were carefully scrutinised. To the delight of all present the omens proved favourable: a long transverse crack indicated the sea to which the spirit of the white whale would soon depart. Four days later the departure actually took place. It was a bright sunshiny wintry morning: the frost was keen; and for more than a mile seaward the beach was covered with blocks of ice. In the great underground dwelling, where the feast had been held, the hearth had been turned into something like an altar. On it lay the heads of the white whale and the seals, and beside them travelling-bags of grass filled with puddings, which the souls of the animals were to take with them on their long journey. Beside the hearth knelt two women, their faces covered with grass masks and their heads bent over the bags, mumbling an incantation. The sunlight streamed down on them through the smoke-hole overhead, but spread only a dim twilight through the remoter recesses of the vast subterranean chamber. The masks worn by the women were intended to guard them against the spirit of the white whale, which was supposed to be hovering invisible in the air. The incantation over, the women rose from their knees and doffed their masks. A careful examination of a pudding, which had been offered in sacrifice to the white whale, now revealed the joyful intelligence that the spirit of the whale had accepted the sacrifice and was about to return to the sea. All that remained, therefore, to do was to speed him on his way. For that purpose two men ascended the roof, let down thongs through the smoke-hole, and hauled up the heads of the white whale and of the seals together with the travelling-bags of provisions. That concluded the despatch of the [pg 235] souls of the dead animals to their home in the great waters.674

Propitiation of whales, hippopotamuses, ounces, and apes

When the inhabitants of the Isle of St. Mary, to the north of Madagascar, go a-whaling, they single out the young whales for attack and “humbly beg the mother's pardon, stating the necessity that drives them to kill her progeny, and requesting that she will be pleased to go below while the deed is doing, that her maternal feelings may not be outraged by witnessing what must cause her so much uneasiness.”675 An Ajumba hunter having killed a female hippopotamus on Lake Azyingo in West Africa, the animal was decapitated and its quarters and bowels removed. Then the hunter, naked, stepped into the hollow of the ribs, and kneeling down in the bloody pool washed his whole body with the blood and excretions of the animal, while he prayed to the soul of the hippopotamus not to bear him a grudge for having killed her and so blighted her hopes of future maternity; and he further entreated the ghost not to stir up other hippopotamuses to avenge her death by butting at and capsizing his canoe.676 The ounce, a leopard-like creature, is dreaded for its depredations by the Indians of Brazil. When they have caught one of these animals in a snare, they kill it and carry the body home to the village. There the women deck the carcase with feathers of many colours, put bracelets on its legs, and weep over it, saying, “I pray thee not to take vengeance on our little ones for having been caught and killed through thine own ignorance. For it was not we who deceived thee, it was thyself. Our husbands only set the trap to catch animals that are good to eat: they never thought to take thee in it. Therefore, let not thy soul counsel thy fellows to avenge thy death on our little ones!”677 When the Yuracares Indians of Bolivia have killed great apes in their tropical forests, they bring the bodies home, set them out in a row on palm leaves with their heads [pg 236] all looking one way, sprinkle them with chicha, and say, “We love you, since we have brought you home.” They imagine that the performance of this ceremony is very gratifying to the other apes in the woods.678 Before they leave a temporary camp in the forest, where they have killed a tapir and dried the meat on a babracot, the Indians of Guiana invariably destroy this babracot, saying that should a tapir passing that way find traces of the slaughter of one of his kind, he would come by night on the next occasion when Indians slept at that place, and, taking a man, would babracot him in revenge.679

Propitiation of dead eagles. Deceiving the ghosts of spiders

When a Blackfoot Indian has caught eagles in a trap and killed them, he takes them home to a special lodge, called the eagles' lodge, which has been prepared for their reception outside of the camp. Here he sets the birds in a row on the ground, and propping up their heads on a stick, puts a piece of dried meat in each of their mouths in order that the spirits of the dead eagles may go and tell the other eagles how well they are being treated by the Indians.680 So when Indian hunters of the Orinoco region have killed an animal, they open its mouth and pour into it a few drops of the liquor they generally carry with them, in order that the soul of the dead beast may inform its fellows of the welcome it has met with, and that they too, cheered by the prospect of the same kind reception, may come with alacrity to be killed.681 A Cherokee hunter who has killed an eagle stands over the dead bird and prays it not to avenge itself on his tribe, because it is not he but a Spaniard who has done the cruel deed.682 When a Teton Indian is on a journey and he meets a grey spider or a spider with yellow legs, he kills it, because some evil would befall him if he did not. But he is very careful not to let the spider know that he kills it, for if the spider knew, his soul would go and tell the other spiders, and one of them [pg 237] would be sure to avenge the death of his relation. So in crushing the insect, the Indian says, “O Grandfather Spider, the Thunder-beings kill you.” And the spider is crushed at once and believes what is told him. His soul probably runs and tells the other spiders that the Thunder-beings have killed him; but no harm comes of that. For what can grey or yellow-legged spiders do to the Thunder-beings?683

The ceremonies of propitiation offered to slain animals vary with the more or less dangerous character of the creature. Animals which, without being feared, are valued for their flesh or their skin, are also treated with respect

But it is not merely dangerous creatures with whom the savage desires to keep on good terms. It is true that the respect which he pays to wild beasts is in some measure proportioned to their strength and ferocity. Thus the savage Stiens of Cambodia, believing that all animals have souls which roam about after their death, beg an animal's pardon when they kill it, lest its soul should come and torment them. Also they offer it sacrifices, but these sacrifices are proportioned to the size and strength of the animal. The ceremonies observed at the death of an elephant are conducted with much pomp and last seven days.684 Similar distinctions are drawn by North American Indians. “The bear, the buffalo, and the beaver are manidos [divinities] which furnish food. The bear is formidable, and good to eat. They render ceremonies to him, begging him to allow himself to be eaten, although they know he has no fancy for it. We kill you, but you are not annihilated. His head and paws are objects of homage… Other animals are treated similarly from similar reasons… Many of the animal manidos, not being dangerous, are often treated with contempt – the terrapin, the weasel, polecat, etc.”685 The distinction is instructive. Animals which are feared, or are good to eat, or both, are treated with ceremonious respect; those which are neither formidable nor good to eat are despised. We have had examples of reverence paid to animals which are both feared and eaten. It remains to prove that similar respect is shewn [pg 238] to animals which, without being feared, are either eaten or valued for their skins.

Respect shewn to dead sables. Bones of sables and beavers kept out of reach of dogs, lest the spirits of the dead animals should be offended

When Siberian sable-hunters have caught a sable, no one is allowed to see it, and they think that if good or evil be spoken of the captured sable no more sables will be caught. A hunter has been known to express his belief that the sables could hear what was said of them as far off as Moscow. He said that the chief reason why the sable hunt was now so unproductive was that some live sables had been sent to Moscow. There they had been viewed with astonishment as strange animals, and the sables cannot abide that. Another, though minor, cause of the diminished take of sables was, he alleged, that the world is now much worse than it used to be, so that nowadays a hunter will sometimes hide the sable which he has got instead of putting it into the common stock. This also, said he, the sables cannot abide.686 A Russian traveller happening once to enter a Gilyak hut in the absence of the owner, observed a freshly killed sable hanging on the wall. Seeing him look at it, the housewife in consternation hastened to muffle the animal in a fur cap, after which it was taken down, wrapt in birch bark, and put away out of sight. Despite the high price he offered for it, the traveller's efforts to buy the animal were unavailing. It was bad enough, they told him, that he, a stranger, had seen the dead sable in its skin, but far worse consequences for the future catch of sables would follow if they were to sell him the animal entire.687 Alaskan hunters preserve the bones of sables and beavers out of reach of the dogs for a year and then bury them carefully, “lest the spirits who look after the beavers and sables should consider that they are regarded with contempt, and hence no more should be killed or trapped.”688 The Shuswap Indians of British Columbia think that if they did not throw beaver-bones into the river, the beavers would not go into the traps any more, and that the same thing would happen were a dog to eat the flesh or gnaw the bone of a beaver.689 Carrier Indians [pg 239] who have trapped martens or beavers take care to keep them from the dogs; for if a dog were to touch these animals the Indians believe that the other martens or beavers would not suffer themselves to be caught.690 A missionary who fell in with an old Carrier Indian asked him what luck he had in the chase. “Oh, don't speak to me about it,” replied the Indian; “there are beavers in plenty. I caught one myself immediately after my arrival here, but unluckily a dog got hold of it. You know that after that it has been impossible for me to catch another.” “Nonsense,” said the missionary; “set your traps as if nothing had happened, and you will see.” “That would be useless,” answered the Indian in a tone of despair, “quite useless. You don't know the ways of the beaver. If a dog merely touches a beaver, all the other beavers are angry at the owner of the dog and always keep away from his traps.” It was in vain that the missionary tried to laugh or argue him out of his persuasion; the man persisted in abandoning his snares and giving up the hunt, because, as he asserted, the beavers were angry with him.691 A French traveller, observing that the Indians of Louisiana did not give the bones of beavers and otters to their dogs, enquired the reason. They told him there was a spirit in the woods who would tell the other beavers and otters, and that after that they would catch no more animals of these species.692 The Canadian Indians were equally particular not to let their dogs gnaw the bones, or at least certain of the bones, of beavers. They took the greatest pains to collect and preserve these bones, and, when the beaver had been caught in a net, they threw them into the river. To a Jesuit who argued that the beavers could not possibly know what became of their bones, the Indians replied, “You know nothing about catching beavers and yet you will be prating about it. Before the beaver is stone dead, his soul [pg 240] takes a turn in the hut of the man who is killing him and makes a careful note of what is done with his bones. If the bones are given to the dogs, the other beavers would get word of it and would not let themselves be caught. Whereas, if their bones are thrown into the fire or a river, they are quite satisfied; and it is particularly gratifying to the net which caught them.”693 Before hunting the beaver they offered a solemn prayer to the Great Beaver, and presented him with tobacco; and when the chase was over, an orator pronounced a funeral oration over the dead beavers. He praised their spirit and wisdom. “You will hear no more,” said he, “the voice of the chieftains who commanded you and whom you chose from among all the warrior beavers to give you laws. Your language, which the medicine-men understand perfectly, will be heard no more at the bottom of the lake. You will fight no more battles with the otters, your cruel foes. No, beavers! But your skins shall serve to buy arms; we will carry your smoked hams to our children; we will keep the dogs from eating your bones, which are so hard.”694

Deer, elk, and elan treated by the American Indians with ceremonious respect

The elan, deer, and elk were treated by the American Indians with the same punctilious respect, and for the same [pg 241] reason. Their bones might not be given to the dogs nor thrown into the fire, nor might their fat be dropped upon the fire, because the souls of the dead animals were believed to see what was done to their bodies and to tell it to the other beasts, living and dead. Hence, if their bodies were ill-used, the animals of that species would not allow themselves to be taken, neither in this world nor in the world to come.695 The houses of the Indians of Honduras were encumbered with the bones of deer, the Indians believing that if they threw the bones away, the other deer could not be taken.696 Among the Chiquites of Paraguay a sick man would be asked by the medicine-man whether he had not thrown away some of the flesh of the deer or turtle, and if he answered yes, the medicine-man would say, “That is what is killing you. The soul of the deer or turtle has entered into your body to avenge the wrong you did it.”697 Before the Tzentales of Southern Mexico and the Kekchis of Guatemala venture to skin a deer which they have killed, they lift up its head and burn copal before it as an offering; otherwise a certain being named Tzultacca would be angry and send them no more game.698 Cherokee hunters ask pardon of the deer they kill. If they failed to do so, they think that the Little Deer, the chief of the deer tribe, who can never die or be wounded, would track the hunter to his home by the blood-drops on the ground and would put the spirit of rheumatism into him. Sometimes the hunter, on starting for home, lights a fire in the trail behind him to prevent the Little Deer from pursuing him.699 Before they [pg 242] went out to hunt for deer, antelope, or elk the Apaches used to resort to sacred caves, where the medicine-men propitiated with prayer and sacrifice the animal gods whose progeny they intended to destroy.700 The Indians of Louisiana bewailed bitterly the death of the buffaloes which they were about to kill. More than two hundred of them at a time have been seen shedding crocodile tears over the approaching slaughter of the animals, while they marched in solemn procession, headed by an old man who waved a pocket-handkerchief at the end of a stick as an oriflamme, and by a woman who strutted proudly along, bearing on her back a large kettle which had been recently abstracted from the baggage of some French explorers.701 The Thompson Indians of British Columbia cherished many superstitious beliefs and observed many superstitious practices in regard to deer. When a deer was killed, they said that the rest of the deer would be well pleased if the hunters butchered the animal nicely and cleanly. To waste venison displeased the animals, who after that would not allow themselves to be shot by the hunter. If a hunter was overburdened and had to leave some of the venison behind, the other deer were better pleased if he hung it up on a tree than if he let it lie on the ground. The guts were gathered and put where the blood had been spilt in butchering the beast, and the whole was covered up with a few fir-boughs. In laying the boughs on the blood and guts the man told the deer not to grieve for the death of their friend and not to take it ill that he had left some of the body behind, for he had done his best to cover it. If he did not cover it, they thought the deer would be sorry or angry and would spoil his luck in the chase. When the head of a deer had to be left behind, they commonly placed it on the branch of a tree, that it might not be contaminated by dogs and women. For the same reason they burned the bones of the slain deer, lest they should be touched by women or gnawed by dogs. And venison was never brought into a hut by the common door, because that door was used by women; it was taken in [pg 243] through a hole made in the back of the hut. No hunter would give a deer's head to a man who was the first or second of a family, for that would make the rest of the deer very shy and hard to shoot. And in telling his friends of his bag he would generally call a buck a doe, and a doe he would call a fawn, and a fawn he would call a hare. This he did that he might not seem to the deer to brag.702 The Lillooet Indians of British Columbia threw the bones of animals, particularly those of the deer and the beaver, into the water, in order that the dogs should not defile or eat them and thereby offend the animals. When the hunter committed the bones to the water he generally prayed to the dead animal, saying, “See! I treat you respectfully. Nothing shall defile you. Have pity on me, so I may kill more of you! May I be successful in hunting and trapping!”703 The Canadian Indians would not eat the embryos of the elk, unless at the close of the hunting season; otherwise the mother-elks would be shy and refuse to be caught.704

Porcupines, turtles, and mice treated by American Indians with ceremonious respect

Indians of the Lower Fraser River regard the porcupine as their elder brother. Hence when a hunter kills one of these creatures he asks his elder brother's pardon and does not eat of the flesh till the next day.705 The Sioux will not stick an awl or needle into a turtle, for they are sure that, if they were to do so, the turtle would punish them at some future time.706 Some of the North American Indians believed that each sort of animal had its patron or genius who watched over and preserved it. An Indian girl having once picked up a dead mouse, her father snatched the little creature from her and tenderly caressed and fondled it. Being asked why he did so, he said that it was to appease the genius of mice, in order that he might not torment his daughter for eating the [pg 244] mouse. With that he handed the mouse to the girl and she ate it.707