The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 04 of 12)

357

C. Brockelmann, “Das Neujahrsfest der Jezîdîs,” Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, lv. (1901) pp. 388-390.

358

Letter of the missionary N. Baudin, dated 16th April 1875, in Missions Catholiques, vii. (1875) pp. 614-616, 627 sq.; Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xlviii. (1876) pp. 66-76.

359

U. Lisiansky, A Voyage Round the World in the Years 1803, 4, 5, and 6 (London, 1814), pp. 118 sq. The same ceremony seems to be more briefly described by the French voyager Freycinet, who says that after the principal idol had been carried in procession about the island for twenty-three days it was brought back to the temple, and that thereupon the king was not allowed to enter the precinct until he had parried a spear thrown at him by two men. See L. de Freycinet, Voyage autour du monde, vol. ii. Première Partie (Paris, 1829), pp. 596 sq.

360

R. E. Dennett, Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, with an introduction by Mary H. Kingsley (London, 1898), p. xxxii; id., At the Back of the Black Man's Mind (London, 1906), p. 120. Miss Kingsley in conversation called my attention to this particular custom, and informed me that she was personally acquainted with the chief, who possesses but declines to exercise the right of succession.

361

The High History of the Holy Graal, translated from the French by Sebastian Evans (London, 1898), i. 200-203. I have to thank the translator, Mr. Sebastian Evans, for his kindness in indicating this passage to me.

362

For a discussion of the legends which gather round Vikramaditya see Captain Wilford, “Vicramaditya and Salivahana,” Asiatic Researches, ix. (London, 1809) pp. 117 sqq.; Chr. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii.2 752 sqq., 794 sqq.; E. T. Atkinson, The Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of India, ii. (Allahabad, 1884), pp. 410. sqq. Vikramaditya is commonly supposed to have lived in the first century b. c. and to have founded the Samvat era, which began with 57 b. c., and is now in use all over India. But according to Professor H. Oldenberg it is now certain that this Vikramaditya was a purely legendary personage (H. Oldenberg, Die Literatur des alten Indien, Stuttgart and Berlin, 1903, pp. 215 sq.).

363

“Histoire des rois de l'Hindoustan après les Pandaras, traduite du texte hindoustani de Mîr Cher-i Alî Afsos, par M. l'abbé Bertrand,” Journal Asiatique, IVème Série, iii. (Paris, 1844) pp. 248-257. The story is told more briefly by Mrs. Postans, Cutch (London, 1839), pp. 21 sq. Compare Chr. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii.2 798.

364

A. V. Williams Jackson, “Notes from India, Second Series,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, xxiii. (1902) pp. 308, 316 sq. I have to thank my friend the Rev. Professor J. H. Moulton for referring me to Prof. Williams Jackson's paper.

365

“Histoire des rois de l'Hindoustan,” Journal Asiatique, IVème Série, iii. (1844) pp. 239-243. The legend is told with modifications by Captain Wilford (“Vicramaditya and Salivahana,” Asiatic Researches, ix. London, 1809, pp. 148 sq.), Mrs. Postans (Cutch, London, 1839, pp. 18-20), and Prof. Williams Jackson (op. cit. pp. 314 sq.).

366

The Bishop of Labuan, “Wild Tribes of Borneo,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series, ii. (1863) pp. 26 sq.

367

Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, “The Relations between Men and Animals in Sarawak,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxi. (1901) pp. 197 sq.

368

Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, op. cit. p. 193.

369

Rev. E. H. Gomes, “Two Sea Dyak Legends,” Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 41 (January 1904, Singapore), pp. 12-28; id., Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo (London, 1911), pp. 278 sqq.

370

A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast (London, 1887), pp. 204-212.

371

The type of story in question has been discussed by Mr. Andrew Lang in a well-known essay “Cupid, Psyche, and the Sun-Frog,” Custom and Myth (London, 1884), pp. 64-86. He rightly explains all such tales as based on savage taboos, but so far as I know he does not definitely connect them with totemism. For other examples of these tales told by savages see W. Lederbogen, “Duala Märchen,” Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin, v. (1902) Dritte Abtheilung, pp. 139-145 (the Duala tribe of Cameroons; in one tale the wife is a palm-rat, in the other a mpondo, a hard brown fruit as large as a coconut); R. H. Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa (London, 1904), pp. 351-358 (West Africa; wife a forest-rat); G. H. Smith, “Some Betsimisaraka Superstitions,” The Antananarivo Annual and Madagascar Magazine, No. 10 (Christmas, 1886), pp. 241 sq.; R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, pp. 172, 397 sq. (Melanesia; wife a bird, husband an owl); A. F. van Spreeuwenberg, “Een blik op Minahassa,” Tijdschrift voor Neêrland's Indië, 1846, Erste deel, pp. 25-28 (the Bantiks of Celebes; wife a white dove); J. H. F. Kohlbrugge, “Die Tenggeresen, ein alter Javanischer Volksstaam,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, iiii. (1901) pp. 97-99 (the Tenggeres of Java; wife a bird); J. Fanggidaej, “Rottineesche Verhalen,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, lviii. (1905), pp. 430-436 (island of Rotti; husband a crocodile); J. Kubary, “Die Religion der Pelauer,” in A. Bastian's Allerlei aus Volkes- und Menschenkunde (Berlin, 1888), i. 60 sq. (Pelew Islands; wife a fish); A. R. McMahon, The Karens of the Golden Chersonese, pp. 248-250 (Karens of Burma; husband a tree-lizard); Landes, “Contes Tjames,” Cochinchine française, excursions et reconnaissances, No. 29 (Saigon, 1887), pp. 53 sqq. (Chams of Cochin-China; husband a coco-nut); A. Certeux and E. H. Carnoy, L'Algérie traditionnelle (Paris and Algiers, 1884), pp. 87-89 (Arabs of Algeria; wife a dove); J. G. Kohl, Kitschi-Gami (Bremen, 1858), i. 140-145 (Ojebway Indians; wife a beaver); Franz Boas and George Hunt, Kwakiutl Texts, ii. 322-330 (The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History) (Kwakiutl Indians; wife a salmon); J. R. Swanton, Haida Texts and Myths (Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin, No. 29, Washington, 1905), pp. 286 sq. (Haida Indians; wife a killer-whale); H. Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, pp. 146 sq. (Esquimaux; wife a sea-fowl). The Bantik story is told to explain the origin of the people; the Tenggeres story is told to explain why it is forbidden to lift the lid of a basket in which rice is being boiled. The other stories referred to in this note are apparently told as fairy tales only, but we may conjecture that they too were related originally to explain a supposed relationship of human beings to animals or plants. I have already illustrated and explained this type of story in Totemism and Exogamy, vol. ii. pp. 55, 206, 308, 565-571, 589, iii. 60-64, 337 sq.

372

The fable of Cupid and Psyche is only preserved in the Latin of Apuleius (Metamorph. iv. 28-vi. 24), but we cannot doubt that the original was Greek. For the story of Pururavas and Urvasi, see The Rigveda, x. 95 (Hymns of the Rigveda, translated by R. T. H. Griffith, vol. iv. Benares, 1892, pp. 304 sqq.); Satapatha Brahmana, translated by J. Eggeling, part v. pp. 68-74 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xliv.); and the references in The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, vol. ii. p. 250, note 4. A clear trace of the bird-nature of Urvasi occurs in the Satapatha Brahmana (Part v. p. 70 of J. Eggeling's translation), where the sorrowing husband finds his lost wife among nymphs who are swimming about in the shape of swans or ducks on a lotus-covered lake. This has been already pointed out by Th. Benfey (Pantschatantra, i. 264). In English the type of tale is known as “Beauty and the Beast,” which ought to include the cases in which the wife, as well as those in which the husband, appears as an animal. On stories of this sort, especially in the folklore of civilised peoples, see Th. Benfey, Pantschatantra, i. 254 sqq.; W. R. S. Ralston, Introduction to F. A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales, pp. xxxvii. – xxxix.; A. Lang, Custom and Myth (London, 1884), pp. 64 sqq.; S. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 561-578; E. Cosquin, Contes populaires de Lorraine, ii. 215-230; W. A. Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, i. 182-191; Miss M. Roalfe Cox, Introduction to Folklore (London, 1895) pp. 120-123.

373

In the ruins of Raipoor, supposed to be the ancient Mandavie, coins are found bearing the image of an ass; and the legend of the transformation of Gandharva-Sena into an ass is told to explain their occurrence. The coins are called Gandharva pice. See Mrs. Postans, Cutch (London, 1839), pp. 17 sq., 22.

374

E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, pp. 165 sq.

375

T. C. Hodson, “The Native Tribes of Manipur,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxi. (1901) pp. 302, 304.

376

See above, pp. 118 sq.

377

See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, vol. ii. p. 4; Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 17 sqq.

378

See Dr. Joseph Bautz, Die Hölle, im Anschluss an die Scholastik dargestellt2 (Mainz, 1905). Dr. Bautz holds that the damned burn in eternal darkness and eternal fire somewhere in the bowels of the earth. He is, let us hope in more senses than one, an extraordinary professor of theology at the University of Münster, and his book is published with the approbation of the Catholic Church.

379

R. H. Elliot, Experiences of a Planter in the Jungles of Mysore (London, 1871), i. 95.

380

Mrs. Postans, Cutch (London, 1839), p. 168.

381

Mgr. Masson, in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xxiv. (1852) pp. 324 sq.

382

H. R. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, ii. (Philadelphia, 1853), p. 68.

383

F. de Azara, Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale, ii. 181.

384

A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 127. The testimony of a soldier on such a point is peculiarly valuable.

385

A. Thevet, Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique (Antwerp, 1558), pp. 74 sq.; id., Cosmographie universelle (Paris, 1575), p. 945 [979].

386

My informant was the late Captain W. C. Robinson, formerly of the 2nd Bombay Europeans (Company's Service), afterwards resident at 15 Chesterton Hall Crescent, Cambridge. He learned the facts in the year 1853 from his friend Captain Gore, of the 29th Madras Native Infantry, who rescued some of the victims.

387

Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), p. 338.

388

See above, pp. 42 sqq., 54 sqq.

389

O. Dapper, Description de l'Afrique (Amsterdam, 1686), p. 312; H. Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 43.

390

R. Southey, History of Brazil, iii. 391 sq.

391

Tacitus, Histor. ii. 49; Plutarch, Otho, 17.

392

R. Lasch, “Rache als Selbstmordmotiv,” Globus, lxxiv. (1898) pp. 37-39.

393

Father Martin, Jesuit missionary, in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, Nouvelle Édition, xi. (Paris, 1781), pp. 246-248. The letter was written at Marava, in the mission of Madura, 8th November 1709. No doubt the English Government has long since done its best to suppress these practices.

394

Seleucus, quoted by Athenaeus, iv. 42, p. 155 d e.

395

Posidonius, quoted by Athenaeus, iv. 40, p. 154 b c.

396

Euphorion of Chalcis, quoted by Athenaeus, iv. 40, p. 154 C; Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey, xviii. 46, p. 1837.

397

Athenaeus, iv. 39, p. 153 e f, quoting Nicolaus Damascenus.

398

Tertullian, De spectaculis, 12. The custom of sacrificing human beings in honour of the dead, which has been practised by many savage and barbarous peoples, was in later times so far mitigated at Rome that the destined victims were allowed to fight each other, which gave some of them a chance of surviving. This mitigation of human sacrifice is said to have been introduced by D. Junius Brutus in the third century b. c. (Livy, Epit. xvi.). It resembles the change which I suppose to have taken place at Nemi and other places, where, if I am right, kings were at first put to death inexorably at the end of a fixed period, but were afterwards permitted to defend themselves in single combat.

399

Livy, ii. 5. 8, xxvi. 13. 15, xxviii. 29. 11; Polybius, i. 7. 12, xi. 30. 2; Th. Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht (Leipsic, 1899), pp. 916 sqq.

400

Hiera Sykaminos (Maharraka), the furthest point of the Roman dominion in southern Egypt, lies within the tropics. The empire did not reach this its extreme limit till after the age of Augustus. See Th. Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, v. 594 sq. Strabo speaks (xvii. 1. 48, p. 817) as if Syene, which was held by a Roman garrison of three cohorts, were within the tropics; but that is a mistake.

401

For some evidence see J. H. Gray, China, i. 329 sqq.; H. Norman, The Peoples and Politics of the Far East (London, 1905), pp. 277 sq. On this subject the Rev. Dr. W. T. A. Barber, Headmaster of the Leys School, Cambridge, formerly a missionary in China, writes to me as follows (3rd February 1902): – “Undoubtedly the Eastern, through his belief in Fate, has comparatively little fear of death. I have sometimes seen the Chinese in great fear; but, on the other hand, I have saved at least a hundred lives of people who had swallowed opium out of spite against some one else, the idea being, first, the trouble given by minions of the law to the survivor; second, that the dead would gain a vantage ground by becoming a ghost, and thus able to plague his enemy in the flesh. Probably blind anger has more to do with it than either of these causes. But the particular mode would not ordinarily occur to a Western. I am bound to say that in many cases the patient was ready enough to take my medicines, but mostly it was the friends who were most eager, and exceedingly rarely did I receive thanks from the rescued.”

402

J. H. Gray (Archdeacon of Hong-kong), China (London, 1878), ii. 306.

403

The particulars in the text are taken, with Lord Avebury's kind permission, from a letter addressed to him by Mr. M. W. Lampson of the Foreign Office. See Note A at the end of the volume. Speaking of capital punishment in China, Professor E. H. Parker says: “It is popularly stated that substitutes can be bought for Taels 50, and most certainly this statement is more than true, so far as the price of human life is concerned; but it is quite another question whether the gaolers and judges can always be bribed” (E. H. Parker, Professor of Chinese at the Owens College, Manchester, China Past and Present, London, 1903, pp. 378 sq.). However, from his personal enquiries Professor Parker is convinced that in such matters the local mandarin can do what he pleases, provided that he observes the form of law and gives no offence to his superiors.

404

My friend, the late Sir Francis Galton, mentioned in conversation a phrase which described the fear of death as “the Western (or European) malady,” but he did not remember where he had met with it. He wrote to me (18th October 1902) that “our fear of death is presumably much greater than that of the barbarians who were our far-back ancestors.”

405

See above, pp. 23, 49 sqq., 52 sq.

406

See above, pp. 113 sqq.

407

E. Aymonier, Notice sur le Cambodge (Paris, 1875), p. 61; J. Moura, Le Royaume du Cambodge (Paris, 1883), i. 327 sq. For the connexion of the temporary king's family with the royal house, see E. Aymonier, op. cit. pp. 36 sq.

408

De la Loubère, Du royaume de Siam (Amsterdam, 1691), i. 56 sq.; Turpin, “History of Siam,” in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, ix. 581 sq.; Mgr. Brugière, in Annales de l'Association de la Propagation de la Foi, v. (1831) pp. 188 sq.; Pallegoix, Description du royaume Thai ou Siam (Paris, 1854), i. 250; A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, iii. 305-309, 526-528. Bowring (Siam, i. 158 sq.) copies, as usual, from Pallegoix. For a description of the ceremony as observed at the present day, see E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe (Westminster, 1898), pp. 210 sq. The representative of the king no longer enjoys his old privilege of seizing any goods that are exposed for sale along the line of the procession. According to Mr. Young, the ceremony is generally held about the middle of May, and no one is supposed to plough or sow till it is over. According to Loubère the title of the temporary king was Oc-ya Kaou, or Lord of the Rice, and the office was regarded as fatal, or at least calamitous “funeste”) to him.

409

Lieut. – Col. James Low, “On the Laws of Muung Thai or Siam,” Journal of the Indian Archipelago, i. (Singapore, 1847) p. 339; A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, iii. 98, 314, 526 sq.

410

E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe, pp. 212-217. The writer tells us that though the Minister for Agriculture still officiates at the Ploughing Festival, he no longer presides at the Swinging Festival; a different nobleman is chosen every year to superintend the latter.

411

Ed. Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) Occidentaux (St. Petersburg, 1903), p. 133, note. The documents collected in this volume are translated from the Chinese.

412

C. B. Klunzinger, Bilder aus Oberägypten der Wüste und dem Rothen Meere (Stuttgart, 1877), pp. 180 sq.

413

Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, p. 243. For evidence of a practice of burning divine personages, see Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 84 sqq., 91 sqq., 139 sqq.

414

Budgett Meakin, The Moors (London, 1902), pp. 312 sq.; E. Aubin, Le Maroc d'aujourd'hui (Paris, 1904), pp. 283-287. According to the latter of these writers the flight of the mock sultan takes place the day after his meeting with the real sultan. The account in the text embodies some notes which were kindly furnished me by Dr. E. Westermarck.

415

R. Carew, Survey of Cornwall (London, 1811), p. 322. I do not know what the writer means by “little Easter Sunday.” The ceremony has often been described by subsequent writers, but they seem all to copy, directly or indirectly, from Carew, who says that the custom had been yearly observed in past times and was only of late days discontinued. His Survey of Cornwall was first printed in 1602. I have to thank Mr. G. M. Trevelyan, formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, for directing my attention to this interesting survival of what was doubtless a very ancient custom.

416

J. W. Boers, “Oud volksgebruik in het Rijk van Jambi,” Tijdschrift voor Neêrlands Indië, 1840, dl. i. pp. 372 sqq.

417

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

418

Aeneas Sylvius, Opera (Bâle, 1571), pp. 409 sq.; J. Boemus, Mores, leges, et ritus omnium gentium (Lyons, 1541), pp. 241 sq.; J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 253. According to Grimm, the cow and mare stood beside the prince, not the peasant. The Carinthian ceremony is the subject of an elaborate German dissertation by Dr. Emil Goldmann (Die Einführung der deutschen Herzogsgeschlechter Kärntens in den Slovenischen Stammesverband, ein Beitrag zur Rechts- und Kulturgeschichte, Breslau, 1903).

419

E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe, p. 211.

420

Lasicius, “De diis Samagitarum caeterorumque Sarmatarum,” in Respublica sive status regni Poloniae, Lituaniae, Prussiae, Livoniae, etc. (Elzevir, 1627), pp. 306 sq.; id., edited by W. Mannhardt in Magazin herausgegeben von der Lettisch-Literarischen Gesellschaft, xiv. 91 sq.; J. G. Kohl, Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen (Dresden and Leipsic, 1841), ii. 27. There, are, however, other occasions when superstition requires a person to stand on one foot. At Toku-toku, in Fiji, the grave-digger who turns the first sod has to stand on one leg, leaning on his digging-stick (Rev. Lorimer Fison, in a letter to the author, dated August 26, 1898). Among the Angoni of British Central Africa, when the corpse of a chief is being burned, his heir stands beside the blazing pyre on one leg with his shield in his hand; and three days later he again stands on one leg before the assembled people when they proclaim him chief. See R. Sutherland Rattray, Some Folk-lore Stories and Songs in Chinyanja (London, 1907), pp. 100, 101.

421

E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe, p. 212.

422

J. G. Kohl, Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen, ii. 25. With regard to swinging as a magical or religious rite, see Note B at the end of the volume. For other charms to make the crops grow tall by leaping, letting the hair hang loose, and so forth, see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 135 sqq.

423

Macrobius, Saturn. v. 19. 13.

424

See Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 225 sqq.

425

Sir John Malcolm, History of Persia (London, 1815), i. 527 sq. I am indebted to my friend Mr. W. Crooke for calling my attention to this passage.

426

Captain John Stevens, The History of Persia (London, 1715), pp. 356 sq. I have to thank Mr. W. Crooke for his kindness in copying out this passage and sending it to me. I have not seen the original. An Irish legend relates how the abbot Eimine Ban and forty-nine of his monks sacrificed themselves by a voluntary death to save Bran úa Faeláin, King of Leinster, and forty-nine Leinster chiefs, from a pestilence which was then desolating Leinster. They were sacrificed in batches of seven a day for a week, the abbot himself perishing after the last batch on the last day of the week. But it is not said that the abbot enjoyed regal dignity during the seven days. See C. Plummer, “Cáin Eimíne Báin,” Ériu, the Journal of the School of Irish Learning, Dublin. vol. iv. part i. (1908) pp. 39-46. The legend was pointed out to me by Professor Kuno Meyer.