Ritual and belief

by Edwin Sidney Hartland

THE HAUNTED WIDOW

According to the legend of Osiris as preserved for us by Plutarch, the slain divinity accompanied with Isis, his sister-wife, after his death, with the result that she had by him a child whose name is given in Greek form as Harpocrates.^[194.1] Doubt has been thrown by some Egyptologists upon the accuracy of Plutarch’s report; but it is probably correct. At all events the incident is fairly widespread both in tale and superstition, as I shall proceed to show.

Among the Chinese the dead of both sexes have always been held capable of sexual intercourse with the living. A favourite topic of Chinese tales is that of a belated wanderer entertained by a liberal host or hostess and passing the time in agreeable conversation, eating, drinking, sleeping and sexual intercourse, and then suddenly awaking to find himself or herself, as the case may be, in or on a tomb, with no trace of human dwelling near. Visits are paid by the dead to the living for various purposes, from which the enjoyment of the pleasures of married life are not excluded. One famous story concerns a man of the Ma clan, who died childless, leaving a wife who refused to marry again. In her sorrow she caused to be made a clay image of the deceased and offered something to it whenever she took a meal, as she had done to her husband in his lifetime. One night the image became animated, and telling her that he was her husband permitted to return and solace her fidelity and chastity, he passed the night with her, rising at cockcrow and going away. The visit was repeated every night, with the result that before the end of a month she had conceived and in due time bore a son. Information was laid before the magistrate and the woman was arrested. On hearing her story the magistrate said: “I have heard that the children of ghosts are shadowless, and that those that have shadows are not genuine.” He took the child into the sunshine, and lo, its shadow was as faint as a light smoke. He further tested it by pricking its finger and putting the blood on the clay image of the woman’s husband, into which it soaked without leaving a trace, whereas smeared on another image it was wiped off at once. These experiments convinced the magistrate that the woman’s tale was true; and all traces of suspicion subsequently vanished when, as the boy grew up, he was found closely to resemble the deceased in face, gesture and speech.^[195.1]

Gansám, a divinity worshipped by the Muásís and Gonds of Bengal, is said to have been a Gond chief who was devoured by a tiger just after his marriage at an early age. “Cut off at such a moment, it was unreasonable to suppose that his spirit would rest. One year after his death he visited his wife, and she conceived by him; and the descendants of the ghostly embrace are, it is said, living to this day at Amodah in the Central Provinces.” As a result of other apparitions to many of his old friends he persuaded them to inaugurate a regular worship of him, and two festivals in the year were established in his honour.^[196.1] Not in all cases, however, do the deceased husband’s visits to his widow result in the birth of a child. The legend of Záhir Pir, the saint of a Mohammedanized caste of scavengers about Benares, relates that he was involved in strife with his mother’s sister’s sons, who disputed his succession to his father’s kingdom, and slew them. For this he was cursed by his mother never to see her face again. In his anguish he called upon Mother Earth to receive him into her bosom. On her refusal, because, being a Hindu, he was not burnt, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca and accepted Islam. Afterwards renewing his petition, the earth opened and disclosed a chapel as for a hermit. Záhir Pir entered on his charger, and the earth closed above him and his devotions. Siryal, his widow, reduced with his mother to poverty, mourned him and cried: “Mother Earth, give me back my husband!” By God’s command the earth yielded him up to visit her nightly; but every morning at daybreak he flew away on his winged charger. Siryal had discarded her jewels as became a widow when she lost her husband. Now that she received these secret visits she resumed them as a matron. When her mother-in-law upbraided her, saying: “What means this wanton finery?” she returned: “To thee thy son is dead: to me my husband is alive.” In explanation of the riddle she placed her beneath the bedstead at night that she might see her son. But when Záhir Pir came at midnight his aged mother had fallen into a deep sleep, which was undisturbed by the caresses above her; nor was it until he had quitted the bed and vaulted into the saddle that Siryal could rouse her. She started up and clutched his bridle. Even then her curse prevented her from seeing her son’s face. “I do but obey thy bidding,” he groaned, turning his face away. “Look back! thy house is burning.”^[197.1] So among the Calmucks we hear of a khan who, being married to a wife whom he did not love, resorted to a girl living a little distance away. His visits resulted in her pregnancy; but before the birth of her child he died. Death does not prevent him from carrying her off to his funeral rites, nor from afterwards paying her marital visits on the fifteenth of every month, and spending the night with her, disappearing in the morning. When she urges him to stay, so that his mother may see him and be convinced of her truth, he gives her directions to go to the place of the dead and fetch his heart. This she accomplishes, and thus recovers him as her husband permanently.^[197.2] The islanders of the East Indian Archipelago are profoundly convinced that various kinds of spirits can have similar intercourse with human beings. The spirits of the dead are not excepted from this belief; and albinos are held to be their offspring by a living mother. A famous priest-king of the Toba-bataks, called Singa Mangaraja, owed his birth to this cause.^[197.3]

A story is told by the Dene (Athapascans) of the northern provinces of Canada concerning a man who one night suddenly disappeared from his wife’s side, and in the morning, in the ashes of the hearth, were found the cloven footprints of a reindeer: he had been transformed. His wife was an adept in magic. By its aid she became an expert hunter, and after the loss of her husband supplied the family, consisting of her mother and little son, with food. As her son grew up, he in turn hunted and successfully snared reindeer. One day he caught a reindeer with human hair between its horns. He brought its carcase to his mother, who had constantly mourned her husband. She at once recognized the dead reindeer as her husband. Lying down along with it, the animal revived and once more became man. Thus she recovered the husband whom she had loved, and for whom she had so long sorrowed. The story is ætiological, told to explain why so many reindeer are caught with snares made of magical bonds of pine-root, and why certain parts of the reindeer are not eaten.^[198.1]

Plutarch mentions that Harpocrates was born lame, that is to say, with his lower limbs feebly developed, and interprets this as a parable of the new corn with its tender and imperfect shoots. We find, however, that the offspring born of the unnatural connection with a dead man is represented as being as remarkable as the manner of his generation, and not infrequently monstrous. We have seen that the Toba-bataks thus account for the birth of an albino. A story told by the Transylvanian Gypsies concerns a girl named Mariutza of the Chale tribe, the daughter of a wealthy chief. She loved a youth named Jarko, to whom her father refused to give her. Her brothers caught her in his arms one night, and slew him. They killed one of their father’s horses and buried it with him in a grave on the edge of the forest, spreading the report abroad that he had fled and would never return to the tribe. She was not a witness of his death, and did not know what had become of him. One night, unable to sleep, she went out of the tent, sat down beside a brook and wept bitterly, crying aloud: “Oh that I could once more see him, dead or alive!” Hardly had she uttered the words when she heard the ring of a horse’s hoofs, and her lover galloped up on a white steed, his clothing covered with blood and his hair with icicles. He took her up; and the steed made off to the grave, where he lay down with her in his arms. She rested thus in her lover’s arms until day began to break, when he sent her back to her tent, charging her to cease from disturbing his rest any further with her tears. As she hurried away the grave closed. After nine months she bore a great stone that flew from tent to tent until it met her brothers, and, striking them on the head, hurled them both dead to the ground. Then it disappeared; and when folk came to look for Mariutza, she too lay dead on her bed.^[199.1] In a modern Icelandic tale a youth and maiden love one another, but are prevented from marrying. The youth dies, but after death visits his beloved by night. An old woman in whom she confides compels the dead man to confess. He tells her that the girl is pregnant, and will bear a son who will surpass all men in beauty and intellect, and will become a priest; but unless someone be found bold enough to stab him in the breast during his first mass, the church will sink into the earth with all the people in it. It was done; and the young priest disappeared, leaving behind on the floor of the church nothing but three drops of blood.^[199.2]

In Brittany a story is told with much circumstance of place and name, relating how a peasant-farmer of the village of Keranniou died, leaving a wife much younger than himself and seven children. After death he reappeared as ghost, and played a variety of tricks. At length his widow found herself pregnant, and, seeking the priest, confessed with tears that the deceased had lain with her several times, insisting that he had been sent back by God because he had not had his full tale of children. The duty of bringing into the world one’s allotted number of children, it may be observed, is a motive in many of the grimmer Breton stories. As her condition became visible the neighbours taunted the unfortunate widow; but the priest took her part openly in the church. A child was born, but without eyes. The ghost appeared again, and took far more interest in it than in any of the children born during his lifetime. The child was extremely precocious, but lived only for seven months. When it died the dead man’s ghost was seen to accompany the funeral procession. From that hour he was never beheld again; and the villagers said he had been waiting for the babe to lead him by the hand to Paradise.^[200.1] A similar incident is found as far away as among the Bella Coola of the British Columbian fiords. There a husband and wife who were devoted to one another made vows of mutual fidelity, even after the death of either of them. The husband died; and his body was placed, as was usual, in a little dead-hut. The widow wept bitterly, entered the dead-hut and lay down to sleep beside the corpse. In her dreams she saw him once more alive. He begot upon her a child, which was born after the lapse of a fortnight. It was not like other children, for it consisted only of a head without a body. The widow was unwilling to exhibit such a monster; but her mother did not rest until she was allowed to take it in her arms. When she saw what it was she let it fall in terror. The head sank into the earth and disappeared from view.^[201.1]

Cases like these suggest that Plutarch’s view of the crippled condition in which Harpocrates was born is not to be accepted. It does not necessarily follow that the interpretation of Osiris as a deity of vegetation, adumbrated by the philosopher and adopted by Professor Frazer, is wholly incorrect. We are in error if we suppose the myth of Osiris to be one and self-consistent. The myths of Osiris were innumerable. The realm of Egypt was formed by the union of a number of small independent states or communities. Each of these communities had its own customs, institutions, beliefs, märchen. Many stories told, whether for serious credence or by way of pastime, in every district were doubtless common to all Egypt. But probably even they had their local variants; and these variants must often have been irreconcilable. The phenomenon is familiar. It is abundantly exemplified in the tales of the Greek and Scandinavian mythologies. In Egypt, however, the formation of a strong central authority, and the consequent growth and maintenance during many ages of a powerful and educated priesthood, were among the influences that led to a persistent attempt to unify and explain the principal divine myths, to attach them to the various local and periodical solemnities already observed from time immemorial, and to educe from the jumble something like a system, a philosophy. Whether in this process an originally independent myth had become united with a series of agricultural rites, or whether a myth previously annexed to such rites had acquired an independent existence by virtue of a higher inspiration, matters not to us. The story of Osiris is found on the Egyptian monuments in a number of frequently disconnected texts, of which there is no authoritative canon. Among those texts the exact status and meaning of the Harpocratian episode is probably a subject on which the Egyptians themselves would have been unable to agree. We can hardly be wrong in indulging our scepticism at the expense of Plutarch’s interpretation, though he may simply have reported it as it was given to him. The parallel tales, whether of Europe or America, at least are purely human. They yield no trace of vegetable symbolism. They are founded upon impulses and beliefs that have all over the world influenced the conduct of men towards the supernatural.

It was a common belief in antiquity, and thence through the Middle Ages and right down, among the uneducated classes, to modern times, that dead men and other supernatural beings might have intercourse with living women. Upon this belief and the innumerable tales connected therewith was founded Bürger’s famous ballad of Lenore.^[202.1] The story told by Herodotus of the paternity of Demaratus, King of Sparta, is an early example. Demaratus, being accused of not being the son of his predecessor, Ariston, adjured his mother in a solemn ceremony to tell him the truth. Her account was that, on the third night after her marriage to Ariston, an apparition in his likeness and wearing garlands came to her, and, having embraced her in conjugal wise, transferred to her the garlands it wore and departed. Ariston, coming in afterwards, saw the garlands and asked who had given them to her. She told him he had done so himself; and when he denied it she confirmed it with an oath. Ariston then began to suspect divine interference. On making enquiry it was found that the garlands were from the adjacent temple of the hero Astrabakus; and the diviners identified the apparition with the hero himself. In that night Demaratus’ mother became pregnant of him.^[203.1] Satyrs and Fauns, under the name of incubi, were generally held to be guilty of criminal assaults upon women when opportunity offered. Among the Gauls, we are told by Saint Augustine, this kind of evil spirit was known as Dusii; and their constant exploits, as well as those of the Silvans and Fauns, were so well attested that to the great ecclesiastic it seemed it would be impudent to deny them.^[203.2]

Incubi were identified by later theologians with devils; and their embraces were almost always an item in the accusation against witches before a legal tribunal. When offspring resulted, it was naturally a monster. The romance of Merlin, born of such a connection, born grisly to sight and rough and not as other children, was cited as a fact by the credulous writers of those days on witchcraft and demonology.^[203.3]

According to Bulgarian belief a ghost against which proper precautions are not taken may cause, especially in the winter, much annoyance. Such ghosts may even have sexual intercourse with women. As lately as the year 1888, at the village of Orzoja, the death of a certain girl was attributed by the people to this cause.^[204.1] A Ruthenian story represents a dead husband as haunting his wife every night for a whole year. Whether he actually came to conjugal intercourse does not appear. However that might have been, he gave her no rest from his bodily attacks. Worn out, she sought for help against him, and was advised to take poppy-seed to bed with her, to fasten upon her head a large bowl, and to light a taper. When the dead man came as usual she threw the poppy-seed in his face, as she had been prescribed. He asked in a tone of surprise who had given her this advice. By way of answer she threw more. In a fury the dead man flung himself upon her, by main force tore the bowl from her and took to flight, apparently convinced that he had torn off her head. The door banged after him so violently as to split from top to bottom; and in the morning the bowl was found some distance away, smashed to pieces. But the woman was delivered from her tormentor from that hour.^[204.2]

Sir Walter Scott’s novel, The Pirate, was based on the deeds and capture of one John Gow. This man was taken prisoner in the Orkney Islands and afterwards tried before the High Court of Admiralty in London, condemned for piracy and executed. Before his capture he had become affianced to an Orcadian girl. “It is said,” writes Sir Walter in the advertisement prefixed to the book, “that the lady whose affections Gow had engaged went up to London to see him before his death, and that, arriving too late, she had the courage to request a sight of his dead body; and then, touching the hand of the corpse, she formally resumed the troth-plight which she had bestowed. Without going through this ceremony she could not, according to the superstition of the country, have escaped a visit from the ghost of her departed lover, in the event of her bestowing upon any living suitor the faith which she had plighted to the dead.”^[205.1] In the Orkney Islands these superstitions were then vivid. If we may judge by a phrase in the record of a witch-trial at Kirkwall, it was the belief in the early part of the seventeenth century that a man slain at the going down of the sun remained neither living nor dead, but was capable of sexual intercourse with any woman who would yield herself to him; in return for which he gave “a guidly fe,” in the shape of second sight and power of divining the future.^[205.2] A circumstantial and horrible account of a series of occurrences of the same period in Iceland is given by contemporary authorities. A man of position named Ivar Eyjulfsson was wedded to Herdis, daughter of Sera Magnus Jonsson of Ottrardal. They lived at Reykjarfjörd on affectionate terms; and the husband often prayed his wife in case of his death not to marry again, or something untoward would happen. In the year 1604, despite foreboding dreams during the whole of the previous winter, he went to sea with four companions. On taking leave of his wife and father-in-law as if he never expected to see them again, he reiterated his injunctions to her to remain single. A quarrel arose at sea between Ivar and one of his companions named Jon; the boat foundered, and Ivar, Jon, and another of the crew were drowned. The bodies came to shore at Langardal, and were buried in the churchyard there. On digging the grave an older grave, lying in heathen fashion north and south, was found; and just where the breast of the corpse lay was a great stone, and beside it an iron arrowhead. This incident seems to have been regarded as having some connection with the spooks which were subsequently manifested. Whatever that connection may have been, it speedily began to be noised abroad that Ivar and Jon “walked,” and that their quarrel was far from being ended with their death. After a year or two of widowhood Herdis was courted by an honourable man, one Sturla Gottskalksson, and on her father’s advice consented to marry him. Already, however, she had been suffering from an ulcer on the foot; and after she had given her consent to Sturla it became worse. Nor was this all. One night her first husband came to her bed and had intercourse with her. Another night she struggled with him, seizing the coverlet with her teeth to protect herself from him. One disaster followed another. A black blister on her tongue burst and sloughed away half of that member. In spite of all, the formal betrothal took place; but it was followed by such an exhibition of ghostly fury that even Sturla wished to withdraw, and only Sera Magnus’ firmness in insisting on the wedding prevented the engagement from being broken off. When the wedding was solemnized, no sooner had the vows been spoken in the church than Herdis uttered a piercing cry, and those of the company who, being Sunday-born children, had the gift of seeing spirits beheld Ivar’s ghost approach her. Such was the horror and confusion that the ceremony had to be cut short, and the newly wedded pair left the church without the customary prayer and blessing. The persecution was repeated every time that Sturla attempted to consummate the marriage, until even ordinary folk who were not ghost-seers saw how the ghost waylaid the unfortunate Herdis. Recourse was had to a renowned practitioner of supernatural arts, who by his incantations succeeded in making things somewhat quieter in the house; but after awhile matters were as bad as ever, and his spells ceased to be effective. Sometimes Ivar appeared alone, sometimes with Jon, and then both were usually in fierce contest. If the word of God were read they slunk out of the house; as soon as the reading was over they returned. Herdis was again subjected to the dead man’s assaults; and the magician could only protect her by setting on her lap a woman holding upright a naked blade of steel. At length the ghost attacked the magician himself, and, blowing in his mouth, caused him a frightful ulcer in the neck; so that he was compelled to leave the place, declaring that he could not cope with all the devils that followed Ivar’s ghost. Herdis sought refuge in a chapel, but in vain. She returned home, therefore; and shortly after, on a Sunday morning, a loud crash was heard; her bed had broken down, and two of its timbers had fallen to the ground. That was the culmination of the ghostly persecution. The unhappy woman breathed her last. The magician said, when he heard of it, that the ghost had strangled her. Then he did what, by all the rules of the ghostlayer’s art, he ought to have done before. Venturing back to Sturla’s house, he ordered Ivar’s grave to be opened. Ivar’s body and that of Jon were found undecayed, but right evil to look upon. They were disinterred and burnt, and with that all manifestations came to an end.^[208.1]

This narrative is not an ordinary saga, located indeed at a specified place, but the events of which are told of an indefinite past, or are clustered in a manner known to all students of folklore round a celebrated name. It is quite distinguishable in character from the Icelandic tale I have mentioned on a previous page. It was soberly reported in the year 1606 by persons of credit, if also of credulity, according to our standard, while most of the actors and a number of persons who had more or less acquaintance with the facts were yet living; it was related as something which had occurred not within their recollections at some distant date, but quite recently. The ghostlayer whose services were called in survived until the year 1647, and was well known in the island. The account therefore discloses the kind of horrors that in that age, as in earlier ages, witness the Heimskringla and various sagas, enlivened the long gloom of an arctic winter. Foremost among those horrors may be reckoned the belief that dead men still, in some circumstances at any rate, retained their sexual instincts, and attempted, not in vain, to gratify those instincts upon living women.

Indeed, communities boasting themselves of the culture and progress of the twentieth century have not entirely discarded the terrors born of some such belief. I do not refer to solitary cases of mania,^[208.2] such as are probably to be found in all communities from time to time, but to cases in which the belief has been adopted by society at large and stamped with the collective approval, or at least acceptance. This may be said to be done when a court of law, in the course of a judicial investigation, admits evidence of haunting and solemnly gives judgement based upon such evidence.

On the 16th February 1912, at Macon, Georgia, in the United States of America, the second husband of a lady was actually granted a decree of divorce on the ground that the ghost of her first husband haunted both his wife and himself, and the difficulty was so great that it was utterly impossible for them to live together. It was not of course given in evidence that the ghost committed assaults, such as those we have just been considering. The advance of civilization since the seventeenth century has softened the manners even of ghosts. But it was stated that the wife had promised her former husband that she would not marry again; she violated the promise; and it was solemnly testified in court that the first husband’s spirit appeared nightly with groans and reproachful glances, and only ceased to do so when the lady left her new husband.^[209.1] In our country a luckless husband would find that the posthumous jealousy of his predecessor in the ménage is no ground for divorce. Since the days of the witch-trials our courts have remained unmoved by ghostly perturbations. They have even been known to refuse assistance to the tenant of a haunted house. But Europe is effete.

In the lower culture it is otherwise. The Ewhe of Togoland believe in the possibility of conjugal intercourse and other communion between a dead and a living spouse; but when it takes place it results in death to the survivor. Stringent measures are therefore adopted to prevent it. These measures are all the more necessary, since the survivor must during the period of mourning—in which all the danger seems to be concentrated—lay aside all clothing and ornaments and go entirely naked. A widow for the first six weeks has nothing to fear so much as her deceased husband. She must remain all that time in the hut beneath which her husband is buried, only leaving it for short intervals to bathe and for other necessary purposes. In token of mourning she goes with bowed head and eyes bent down, crossing her arms over her breast so that the left hand rests on the right shoulder, in order that “no mischief befall her from the dead man.” She also carries a club to drive him away in case he wish to approach her, otherwise there would immediately be an end of her.^[210.1] She sleeps, moreover, on the club, because, if she did not, he would take it away from her unperceived. Ashes must be mingled with her food and drink to prevent her husband from partaking of it—a sign probably of the renewal of conjugal life—in which case she would die. She must not answer any call, must eat neither beans, nor flesh nor fish, drink neither palm-wine nor rum; for any infringement of these prohibitions would cost her life. Smoking is the only solace permitted to her. During the night a charcoal fire is kept up in the hut; and upon this fire she strews a powder, consisting of peppermint-leaves dried and rubbed down, and red pepper, so as to cause an evil-smelling smoke, which makes the dead man—it would make any living man—averse to entering.^[210.2] After the death of his wife a man, in some districts at all events, must remain for three days in his hut and abstain from intercourse with his other wives. At the expiration of this period the women of the town assemble and wash him with medicine prepared by the witch-doctor. Without this precaution none of his other wives would dare to come near him, lest they too should die.^[211.1]

Before passing to another cultural area we may note two other significant customs in Togoland. Weddings there, as elsewhere, are occasions of festivity; and the firing of guns is doubtless an expression of joy and triumph, for the Negro delights in noise. Even when, among the Akposso, in the administrative district of Atakpame, a man succeeds in seducing a married woman away from her husband into his own house, he fires a gun, for he says: “I have now a new wife!” With that the marriage is concluded, and he gives a great feast and defies the former husband, who sometimes attempts to recover her by force. But if the former husband be dead he fires no gun on marrying the widow.^[211.2] On the other hand, when a man’s wife dies in her house the husband fears to enter it again, and it is usually destroyed. Even where it is not destroyed, it is never again entered by the widower or any of his relations or dependants. Only a stranger not belonging to his family may dare to dwell there. If the widower take a new wife, he builds her a new house.^[212.1] To build a new house for a new wife is usual; what is important to observe here is that the old house in which the deceased wife dwelt may be safely inhabited by a stranger, and only by a stranger.

Precautions like those of the Togo are taken by widows in Loango. All the openings in a widow’s hut are closed, and a spell is laid on every place where the ghost might harbour. But that is not enough. What she fears is that her deceased husband, or some other disembodied spirit greedy of her society, will visit her by night. That would result either in her death, or in her bringing some fearful monster into the world. So the medicine-men prepare for her, according to the rules of their art, a piece of wood wherewith to fasten the door by way of bar or bolt; or they give her a fringed cord to stretch behind, and another to stretch round, her bed, both of them of course enchanted. More than this, the door of the hut is changed to another side, further to mystify the unwelcome revenant. If she be very nervous they lead her in the darkness by a roundabout way to another hut, carefully erasing her footsteps, unless they carry her or make her wear shoes that will render the traces unrecognizable. Besides that, they furnish her with a magical staff to embrace when she goes to sleep. Sometimes at least it is carried in daylight also. One would think such precautions would daunt the most evil-designing ghost. If any ghost, however, were so obdurate, or so conceited of his power to break down these defences, as to persist, he would find they were mere outworks, and that there were stronger and more effectual lines behind. The witch-doctors are not easily beaten—provided they have a client who is willing and able to pay the enhanced cost of their services. Without going into all the details of what is in effect a war to the bitter end against the intrusive ghost, it may be said generally that they will give him no rest; they will beat the dwelling inside and outside with their conjuring implements; they will sweep the courtyard clear; they will leave no corner where the poor wretch can skulk; they will lay spells; they will hunt him through the village with beating, with sweeping, with fire, with the discharge of guns; they will rouse the whole population to their assistance; they will lay bombs laden with magical virtue; they will stretch magical cords across every path leading to the village. If, in spite of all these boisterous proceedings, the ghost be so hardy or so clever as to continue haunting the place, there will be nothing for it but to remove the village, or to catch the supernatural enemy and to shoot him dead beyond resurrection. But this is obviously an extreme measure, to which it is seldom necessary to resort, and which can only be undertaken by a specialist of the first rank and at a corresponding cost. The ghosts of deceased men are, in Loango, scarcely more to be dreaded than those of women dead in childbed, or of marriageable girls. The former are especially dreaded by pregnant women and married men, for their vengeful malice. The latter attack married men in their sleep, or seduce them under varied forms; and to yield means impotence or death.^[213.1]

A little further to the south, beyond the Congo, it was the custom in Matiambo for widows to sacrifice themselves, together with the slaves of the deceased, who were sent to accompany their master into the other world. Widows who neglected to do so, and who escaped victorious from the ordeal for witchcraft, felt the soul of the departed spouse oppressing their breasts; and the witch-doctor was required to purify them before they ventured to contract a new marriage.^[214.1] The process of purification is not described, but is probably like that reported by a missionary who has spent many years on the Congo. The widow must go to a running stream, taking her husband’s bed and one or two of the articles he has commonly used. These are all placed in the middle of the stream; and after she has well washed she sits on the bed. The witch-doctor dips her three times in the water and then dresses her; the bed and other articles are broken and thrown down the stream to float away. She is led out of the stream; a raw egg is broken, and she swallows it; a toad is killed, and some of the blood rubbed on her lips; lastly, a fowl is killed and hung by the roadside—presumably a sacrifice to the deceased. She returns to her town. On arriving there, she sits on the ground, stretching out her legs before her, and her deceased husband’s brother steps over them. She is then free to marry again; but inasmuch as widows are not allowed to marry for a year or two after the husband’s death, the rite is most likely not performed until the end of that period. It is only necessary after the death of a first husband. Corresponding ceremonies are necessary for a man after his first wife’s death. He may not leave his house, except at night, for six days, and he must sleep only on a basket made by plaiting together two palm-fronds. He then undergoes a similar purification to that just described, with some additional precautions. On returning home his deceased wife’s sister steps over his legs. No woman would dare to marry him until these rites are performed.^[215.1] Although they do not seem to be confined to cases in which oppression by the ghost is endured, it is fairly certain that their object is to get rid, not merely of the death-pollution, but of the ghost. We shall see directly what is the meaning of the ceremonial stepping over the survivor’s legs.

Meanwhile let us cross the continent to Delagoa Bay. The neighbourhood of Delagoa Bay, together with a large extent of country to the north in Portuguese and across the border in British territory, is occupied by various branches of a Bantu people frequently known as Shangaans, but which it is convenient to call the Thonga, a name proposed by M. Henri Junod, a Swiss Protestant missionary. The tribe more immediately around the Bay is called the Baronga. The rites of purification practised by the Thonga on different occasions—among others, notably after a death—are very remarkable, and indicate a considerable preoccupation with sexual matters. These rites have been carefully described by M. Junod, but they have not yet been sufficiently studied to enable us to pronounce on the meaning of them all. I shall therefore only refer to one or two.

The death-pollution affects not merely all who come into contact with the corpse; it affects the entire kin, and indeed the whole of the village in which the deceased resided, whether related to him or not. But it affects especially his wives, and among these his principal or “great” wife. Like the grave-diggers who have been handling the corpse, she is required to take a sweat-bath. She is required, moreover, to fumigate herself over a fire of dry grass from the roof of the hut, mingled with cock’s dung (not hen’s). A reed or a strip of palm-leaf with a few other leaves suspended to it is then put round her waist. She enters the hut, which has been already unroofed, wailing to her deceased husband, and crawls out again by the hole at the back made to remove the corpse, as if she were herself a corpse. She cannot remain there. A new hut is therefore built for her; and there she must afterwards sleep, until the days of her purification are accomplished and she passes into the possession of her husband’s kinsman to whom she is assigned. Even for the subordinate wives (who have their own rites of purification to observe) it would be dangerous to sleep on the very ground where they have been accustomed to meet the deceased: hence their huts must also be removed. It is difficult to understand what danger they are exposed to, unless it be assaults from the ghost. The huts they occupy do not seem to be polluted, at least beyond the general pollution of the village, or they could not continue to occupy them. But the sites must be changed; and this can hardly be for any other purpose than to mystify the ghost.^[216.1]

Turning now to two other widely separated cultural regions, we will first of all notice a significant article of dress worn by a widow in the eastern islands of Torres Straits. The ordinary dress of a woman comprised invariably a petticoat (sometimes more than one) of ample size, extending from the waist to the knee or thereabouts, and made of split leaves or bark-fibre. But a widow, and she alone, “twisted up a petticoat of banana leaves, and, passing it between her legs, fixed it at her waistband. This was the first sign of widowhood,” and had a special name. It was put on as soon as the preliminary ceremonies had finished, and prior to the removal of the body for the purpose of mummification. The widow continued to wear it after she had discarded every other sign of mourning, and until she married again.^[217.1] In the Mekeo district of British New Guinea, inhabited by a population consisting, so far as has been ascertained, of a fusion of Melanesians and Papuans, the lot of a widower is not a happy one. So closely is he haunted by the ghost of his deceased wife that he becomes a social outcast, shunned by everyone, and loses all civil rights, such is the horror he inspires. Excluded thus from communion with his fellow-men, he skulks alone in the long grass and the bushes; for he must not be seen. He invariably carries, like the Ewhe widow, a tomahawk to defend himself against the dreaded spirit of his departed spouse, who, we are told, would do him an ill turn if she could. This may, to be sure, as the missionary to whom we are indebted for the report presents it, be no more than the natural malignancy of the dead, whose chief delight is to harm the living.^[218.1] The missionary, however, may not have penetrated the true inwardness of the superstition. At all events, elsewhere there is no room for doubt.

Among the Indians of the Thompson River in British Columbia both widows and widowers took elaborate precautions against the persecution of their deceased spouses. Directly death occurred the survivor went out and passed four times through a patch of rose-bushes, doubtless to ensure that the spirit should not cling to him or her. Probably for the same end ablutions in the creeks morning and evening for a year were prescribed. Rigid abstention from certain kinds of food was part of the discipline; and, contrary to the practice of the Ewhe, tobacco was also forbidden. During a whole year the survivor was required to sleep on a bed made of fir-branches, on which rose-bush sticks were also spread at the head and foot, while in the middle were not only rose-bush sticks, but also branches of bearberry, mountain-ash, juniper, sage, and so forth. A widow could neither lie or sit where her children slept, nor let them lie down on her bed. Finally, a widow often wore a breech-cloth made of dry bunch-grass for several days, that the ghost of her husband should not have conjugal intercourse with her.^[219.1] The aborigines of Hispaniola also believed that the dead walked in the night and entered into converse with living people, even in their beds; but if we may trust Peter Martyr, though in human shape they thus approached women, seeking sexual intercourse, “when the matter cometh to actual deede,” suddenly they vanished away.^[219.2] Our information concerning this unfortunate people, speedily destroyed by the Spaniards, is extremely meagre; and we do not know whether any precautions were taken against these ghostly visits. Among the Tarahumares of Mexico three great feasts are given at intervals after a death. Until the last of them is held the deceased hangs about the neighbourhood. Their object therefore is to get rid of the ghost. To that end he is presented with gifts and adjured to depart with them, and not to come and disturb the survivors. At the second, and especially at the third feast, ceremonial races are performed, in order to chase him away. Hikuli, the sacred plant of the Tarahumares, plays a prominent part in these festivities, for it “is thought to be very powerful in running off the dead, chasing them to the end of the world, where they join the other dead.” The third feast, the most elaborate of all, is deemed to be at last effectual. Not until it is over “will a widower or a widow marry again, being more afraid of the dead than are the other relatives.”^[219.3] It is not expressly stated what their fear is; but in the light of other examples it is perhaps not unreasonable to suspect that it arises from jealousy on the part of the deceased.

At all events I have shown that among the Negroes on the northern shore of the Gulf of Guinea, among the Bantu about the Lower Congo, and among the Indians of the Thompson River in British Columbia, the fear is seriously entertained that the deceased will seek a renewal of conjugal intercourse, and the utmost precautions are taken to prevent it. The precautions taken by the Baronga (also a Bantu tribe) in South-East Africa, and by some Melanesian peoples of the Torres Straits Islands and the mainland of New Guinea, strongly suggest the same fear. The ancient inhabitants of Hispaniola attributed sexual desires to the dead, though they do not seem to have believed in the possibility of their accomplishment; and the Tarahumare husband or wife is afraid to marry again until the deceased spouse has been finally driven away from the society of the living to herd with the other dead at the end of the world. It is very striking that the populations of areas so widely different in race and culture, as well as so far apart in space, as some of these, should display the identical terror exhibited in the tales and superstitions cited from ancient and modern Europe and from China. The story of the generation of Harpocrates, though related of a god, points to similar ideas in ancient Egypt; and it has its analogues in India and the East Indian Archipelago.

Practices exist, moreover, in other countries that seem to bear witness to the same terror, though the terror itself is not recorded. In such cases they may be indirect evidence of its existence. The practices I refer to are such as that among the Kikuyu and Anyanja in East-Central Africa. The former are a tribe Bantu in speech and mainly Bantu in blood and custom, though mingled with other elements. On the third day after the burial of a husband the elders assemble at the village to kill a ram. This ceremony has the effect of cleansing the village at large “from the stain of death”; but something more is needed by the widow. Accordingly “the elders bring with them one of their number who is very poor, and of the same clan as the deceased, and he has to sleep in the hut of the senior widow of the deceased,” and to have sexual relations with her. His poverty, and the rule that “he generally lives on in the village and is looked upon as a stepfather to the children,” point to the service he thus performs being considered attended with some danger, and therefore not to be undertaken except in hope of an adequate reward.^[221.1] The Anyanja, likewise a Bantu tribe, settled at the southern end of Lake Nyasa, hold a beer-drinking accompanied by dance and song a month after the burial, which takes place two or three days after the death. Up to that time conjugal relations are forbidden throughout the village of the deceased. The widow or widower and then each relative in turn is shaved, and cohabitation by all except the widow is resumed. She must wait until the second beer-drinking, six months or a year later. At this second ceremony dancing takes place on the first night, and beer is drunk the next day. Before sunset on the first day the widow is again shaven, and the mother of the deceased informs her that she is now free to marry again. That night “she has to sleep with a man paid by her relations.” He is not her permanent husband; his services are merely required as a preliminary to her marriage. According to the account from which I am quoting it would appear that she may marry after mourning two or three months, but not without the same previous ritual coition, else “her second husband would die, should she have committed adultery.” A widower, on the other hand, “mourns five or six months and is then given medicine, after which he may marry again, and without which, should he marry, his new wife would die.”^[222.1] There are some difficulties here. It seems clear that until the mourning is over the widows cannot marry again, and the length of mourning is decided by the relatives of the deceased; it is closed with the beer-drinking. When it is over, the widows select their husbands from among the kindred of the deceased; he who marries the chief wife is the heir. A widow cannot marry outside this limited circle, unless she, or her new husband, be prepared to repay her bride-price, and often more. Customs doubtless differ, but this is the usual course. It is curious too that the second husband of a widow should die, if he married her without the previous coition by another man, only if she had committed adultery, whereas the woman marrying a widower will die in any case if he have not had medicine. It is probable that there has been some misunderstanding of the informants and that the second husband runs the risk of death in any case by wedding a widow who has not undergone the regular preliminary.^[222.2] The probability is confirmed by the practice of the Yaos, a neighbouring tribe, among whom the second husband pays a man to pass a night with the widow before he takes her.^[223.1] A further example may be given from a wholly different cultural area. Among the Kamtchadals no one would be willing to marry a widow “unless her sins have been previously taken away by the highest degree of familiarity granted to anyone who wishes to render her this service.” The writer to whom we are indebted for the information reported in the eighteenth century that the natives imagined that this expiation might cause the expiator to die like the defunct husband, so that the poor women would remain widows but for the assistance of the Russian soldiers, who were not afraid of exposing themselves to a danger so equivocal.^[223.2]

The Kikuyu, Anyanja and Kamtchadal customs are evidently the same. The penalty for non-observance, though not expressed in our account of the Kikuyu custom, is, it will hardly be questioned, the same as in the other two; it is the death of the second husband. What I venture to suggest, in view of the other Bantu customs already laid before the reader, is that the risk actually run by marrying or cohabiting with the widow is that of death from the posthumous jealousy of the deceased. The fact that the deceased is still supposed to desire a continuance of conjugal relations renders it natural to think that, even where the extreme terrors that torture the widow in some places are not shown, the belief may linger in his jealousy of other men, who do what he perhaps is no longer conceived capable of. The suggestion derives support from the rites performed about the Lower Congo. There, it will be remembered, the terror of a dead husband is excessive. The elaborate purification of the widow, every incident of which points to the desire to rid her of his attentions, culminates in his brother stepping over her outstretched legs.

Now the act of stepping over another is everywhere regarded as one of great rudeness, if not insult. More than this, it is regarded as likely to communicate some mysterious injury or to take away some luck, good quality or advantage from the person who is thus treated. Hence it is often hotly resented. Without going beyond the Congo region, it is enough to note that in Loango to step over a child is to interfere with his development—in other words, to stop his growth; to step over an adult is to transfer to him every evil from which one may be suffering. It is not good even to reach, or to throw anything, across him; and if such a thing be done, the action must be repeated in the contrary direction, in order, it would seem, to reverse the spell.^[224.1] But in the ceremony of purification an act in ordinary circumstances so injurious is ritually performed for some beneficial effect. This may be simply to take away some evil; it may be to dispossess finally and for ever the tenacious ghost, in case all the previous efforts have proved unavailing. But the difference of the performer’s sex means surely more than this. When a widow is purified, her husband’s brother performs the final rite; when it is a widower, his wife’s sister. Now it will be observed these persons belong to the precise class from which the next spouse is to be taken. When the husband dies the widow becomes the wife of one of his brothers; when the wife dies the husband demands another wife from her family.^[224.2] The act of stepping over the widow or widower, therefore, seems to symbolize the taking of possession by one of the persons entitled to do so.

Let us turn to the Baganda, a Bantu people on the highest pitch of civilization to which any branch of the race had attained prior to the coming of the white man. There we find that jumping over a woman, or stepping over her legs, is regarded as “equivalent to, or instead of, having sexual connection with her.” “For a woman to sit with her legs straight in front of her, or apart, was looked upon as unbecoming; and for any man to step over her legs was equivalent to having intercourse with her. The mere fact of stepping over a wife, or over some of her clothing, was a method frequently followed to end a taboo which necessitated intercourse” (scil., to end it).^[225.1] The act is performed on a variety of ceremonial occasions when coition would be inconvenient. To mention only one, the king had an officer of the court, a relative of his own, called the Kauzumu, whose duty it was to fulfil certain rites and taboos for him, and thus to save him from inconvenience. Among others, it was said that in former times it was his duty to take the women who were to become the king’s wives for one night to his bed. To the latest period of national independence, when one of the king’s wives died and her clan sent another in her place, the Kauzumu jumped over her before presenting her to the king.^[225.2] By this act the taboo was removed, the danger, whatever it was, was diverted from the king to the Kauzumu. We may safely infer that the act of stepping over the legs of the surviving spouse in the Congo region is a symbolic coition. It is performed by one who belongs to the class of prospective spouses, though probably after the performance of such a ceremony not the one who would actually wed the survivor; for its object, if I am right, is to take on the shoulders of the performer the consequences which would otherwise light on the new consort.^[226.1]

Though not by any means so conclusively as the practices just discussed, the delay between the ending of a first marriage by the death of one of the parties and the second marriage of the other party seems to indicate the same dread of the deceased. The mourning ceremonies must usually all be accomplished before the survivor, at all events if a woman, can be married again. With the completion of the mourning ceremonies it is a common belief, of which we have had more than one instance, that the deceased is finally despatched to the society of the dead; in any case, he is at rest, and is very often speedily forgotten. Among the Namib-Bushmen of South-West Africa, a mongrel people, the result of the intermingling of probably many broken tribes with an original stock of Hottentots, marriage is monogamous. That does not mean that death only can separate the married pair. If separation between two living spouses take place, either can marry again forthwith. But if the separation be caused by death, something like half a year (that is to say, either a rainy or a dry season) must elapse before re-marriage; for, we are told, the belief prevails that, for example, the woman whom a widower marries without waiting will soon herself die. And when the widower does venture on a new marriage, it must be to a sister of his deceased wife if there be one at liberty.^[227.1] So in the Togo district of Atakpame, a woman who is left by her husband, even if only for a time, may be taken by another man; and this, it seems, under German rule renders it difficult to get men to work at the making of roads, for his absence will cost the labourer his wife. But when a man dies his widow must wait for three farm-years (a farm-year equals ten months) before she marries again. The delay seems not to be popular. In the western portion of the district, among the Akposso, the time has been shortened to two years, while in the eastern portion, where the people are less purely Akposso, the widow marries after eleven months. The modern Akposso widow holds it silly to wait longer: she has not murdered her first husband, and therefore she ought, she thinks, to be able to marry sooner. But she must wait these eleven months, else she would die. If, however, her husband has been hanged for murder or some other reason, she may marry at the end of two or three months. The ground alleged for this shortening of the period of delay is economic. There seems to be no rule requiring the widow to be taken by a surviving member of the husband’s family, though the children resulting from a second marriage belong to it. If she cannot find another husband, therefore, she must go back to her own family and she may become a burden upon it. On marrying she must work in her husband’s fields, for the benefit of himself and his family. But she is entitled to a small field for herself, out of which she may make her own profit; and there is now plenty of money in the country, and a general desire to earn as much of it and as soon as possible.^[228.1] All this may be very true; but seeing that the widow who marries prematurely must die, she will not be likely to run so serious a risk for the chance of making a little money. If we are right in supposing that the death-penalty is one exacted by the deceased, the conjecture will not be deemed unreasonable that hanging is believed to inflict such injuries on the ghost that its interference is not to be dreaded. The mode of death and the mutilations (if any) inflicted on the corpse are widely held to affect the departed in the future life.

Jealousy is a passion by no means confined to the male sex. In the lower culture it is believed to continue to inspire women as well as men, even after death. If not so prominent a superstition as the belief in masculine jealousy, this is perhaps to be accounted for partly by the generally dominant position in the household and in society of the man, partly to the widespread habit of polygamy, and partly to the physiological rule that the decay of sexual impulse makes its appearance earlier in women than in men. We have already found examples of customs pointing to posthumous feminine jealousy among various races in both hemispheres. One or two other examples may be given.

Among the Bantu tribes of North-Eastern Rhodesia, when a married woman dies her husband sends to her father for another wife in her stead. A sister or some such relative of the deceased is the proper person to take her place. If there be none unmarried and therefore available, a married sister of the deceased must spend one or two nights with the widower “to take the death from off his body.”^[228.2] This is so much in harmony with the Bantu practices previously considered, that we can only suppose the deceased would acquiesce in her sister’s succession to her rights, but would feel jealous and angry at the intrusion of another woman. The women of these tribes are high-spirited and jealous, those of the Awemba being proverbially fierce. Among most of the tribes it is imperative for the bridegroom to move into the bride’s parents’ village, where he will always be under the eye of his mother-in-law, and where, no doubt, in case of the wife’s death, a sister or other relation would be conveniently handy to step into her shoes. Indeed, among the Awemba the wife often relinquishes her position voluntarily to another member of the family. When she “has presented her husband with two or three children she considers that she has fulfilled her marriage obligations towards him. With his consent, which as a rule is not difficult to obtain, she hands over her niece as a substitute. The niece inherits her aunt’s position, and cares for her children, while the aunt retires to the peace of a single life, or very often finds a new partner.”^[229.1] Thus it may be presumed that a dead wife, if she returned and found a relative of her own in her husband’s arms, would submit to a relationship between them such as she herself might in a year or two have voluntarily initiated, satisfied that her children, if any, would be looked after. How long that relationship would last (and divorce is quite an everyday occurrence) would be no concern of hers, and she would not trouble herself further in the matter. The next woman whom her husband married would therefore be rendered safe: the “death” would have been taken off his body.

In India the widows of the higher castes are not allowed to marry again. Among the aboriginal tribes widows who do so often marry “under cover of darkness, and with the aid of certain ceremonies commonly relied upon as a protection against spirits.” If in spite of these precautions the woman should be troubled by her departed husband, he is placated, as among the Kolīs of Ahmadnagar, by a tiny image of himself worn in a copper case round her neck, or set among the household gods, and by the expenditure of money in charity.^[230.1] But the spirit of a dead wife is more troublesome. Her character for jealousy and malice is perhaps partly due to confusion with a woman dead in childbirth or pregnancy, or who has never had a child. A ghost of this kind is greatly dreaded.^[230.2] The ghosts of ordinary married women are, however, not to be despised. They perform all sorts of unpleasant tricks on the survivors, not the least of which are the attacks they make on their successors in their husbands’ affections. Happily these attacks can be warded off by a judicious homage to the departed or a pretended identification of the deceased with her successor. Thus among the Gaddis, a Hindu sect in the Panjab, when the first wife dies the second wears a silver plate called saukan mora, or crown of the rival wife. This plate represents the deceased, and is propitiated to avert her hostility.^[230.3] Indeed, the practice is not confined to one sect: it is common to several of the castes. The widower hangs a miniature portrait of his former wife, or even her name engraved on a silver or gold plate, about the new bride’s neck. The object, it has been suggested, is to humour the spirit of the first wife by identifying her with the second, thus proving the husband’s fidelity. In the Central Panjab, on the other hand, the bride is dressed as a milkmaid, or a flower-seller, and given a servile nickname, apparently to convince the spirit of the deceased that the girl being married is not a real wife, but a slave-girl. When the death of the second wife shows that the device has been unsuccessful, a mock-marriage of the bridegroom to a tree or a sheep, adorned like a bride, is resorted to before his marriage with a woman. “It is interesting to watch the bedecked sheep sitting on the khárás (reversed baskets) with a bridegroom and being led by him round the sacrificial fire, while the real bride sits by.” Here it is doubtless intended to fix the attention of the deceased upon the tree or the sheep, and so leave the real wife free from her jealousy. After the death of the third wife the evil influence of the first is deemed to be exhausted.^[231.1] The Lets of Bengal, who are also Hindus in religion, permit their widows to marry again, though not by the rite for a virgin-bride. The second husband is usually a widower; and he places the iron bangle of his former wife on his new wife’s arm.^[231.2] So in Baroda a widower who marries again has to present to his new wife a neck-ornament with marks to represent the feet of his first wife. She will wear this to prevent the ghost of the latter from troubling her.^[231.3]

It need hardly be said that the rites and tales here discussed involve something more than the belief in the survival of death by a bare human personality. They could not have come into existence without the belief that what remained after the catastrophe was still in some degree a sentient and powerful being. It is difficult for mankind to acquiesce in the reality of death. The imagination refuses to harbour the thought of the cessation of conscious existence. The dead, although they appear to respond no longer to the physical and social stimuli hitherto effective, must still be. Vanished from our ordinary ken, they must be living somewhere, somehow; they cannot have been annihilated. If they still live, they must live under conditions analogous to those we know, and with affections, desires, appetites, aversions, similar to those they had in this life, though the objects may conceivably be changed. Hence every sort of activity known to man is ascribed to them. In dreams, in trances, and in the phenomena of possession they are observed to carry on these activities. But because they are observed to carry them on only under such mysterious conditions they repel the survivors and fill them with an undefinable horror and awe. Among the affections and appetites of mankind those connected with the sexual life are almost the strongest. It is natural therefore to imagine that the dead will still endeavour, by social and even by fleshly intercourse with the survivors, to gratify them. For if the belief in their activity in other directions be conceded, this cannot be denied; and perhaps the very horror that would be inspired by the ultimate stages of such a possibility serves to attract the thoughts, and therefore the belief, of peoples on the lower planes of civilization.

Ill weeds grow rank in such a soil. Not only are sexual appetites and affections almost the strongest; but, as is now well recognized, in the complex attitude of mankind to the invisible world they have no inconsiderable share. Marriage is a status hemmed about by many taboos and easily lending itself to mystical presentation. It is natural that the demise of one of the parties should cause a shock to the survivor corresponding to the change of condition involved, and should powerfully affect the sexual impulses. Even apart from marriage they are an object on which the thought of mankind, whether savage or civilized, broods with a persistent endeavour to solve the mystery surrounding them. Hints are seen in them for the solution of many a problem other than that of the propagation of the species. The ideas suggested by their contemplation are utilized alike for practical and economical purposes (for example, in agricultural magic), and for speculation on the transcendent themes of life and death and the constitution of the universe. The tales and superstitions I have brought together exhibit these impulses emphasizing the terror of the dead. Many of the phenomena of dreams, and the phenomena of hysteria and various forms of delusion are due to the sexual impulses. The sexual impulses in turn are in many, if not all, of the cases referred to above greatly aided by the conditions imposed on the patient. No less than luxury and over-feeding, fasting and abstinence from the ordinary and reasonable gratification of animal appetites, and from social intercourse, are the parents of nightmare and delusion. Both extremes lead through physical disturbances to disorders of the imagination and the reason. Hermits and celibates have probably suffered even more than rakes and gluttons and drunkards. The annals of monasticism with tiresome and pitiful iteration record the disastrous effects of asceticism upon body and mind. Among savage and barbarous peoples these effects are as a rule less noxious, because the conditions inducing and accelerating them are less continuous. But it is precisely at the time when sexual relations are put out of normal gear, and the sexual impulses are left without their normal gratification, that exclusion from society and abstinence, sometimes from sleep, always from food usual in quality and amount, are imposed. The imagination, already stimulated by the shock of the death (rarely attributed to natural causes), the possibility of an accusation of witchcraft hanging over the widow’s head, the certainty in many cases (as among the tribes of British Columbia) of a long period of hardship and even torture, all combine with the exclusion and enforced abstinence to produce a state of unnatural excitement, amounting at times to terror and delusion—in any case liable powerfully to affect the dreams, and to produce hysteria.

It must be remembered that the entire community shares to the full the underlying beliefs, and participates in varying degrees in the fears of the bereaved spouse. We are familiar even in Europe with the effect upon a crowd—nay, upon an entire nation—of emotions felt in common. They are intensified. The atmosphere becomes electrical, and a spark suffices to produce a conflagration. When the object of the emotion is strange, imperfectly apprehended, mysterious, the effect is heightened; it becomes a species of insanity. Things are imagined which do not exist; eyewitnesses attest what a dispassionate observer knows to be impossibilities. The most appalling of the tales and the most vivid of the rites we have been considering are thus easily accounted for. The marvel is that they are not more widely distributed over the world than our present information enables us to affirm.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOURNING
CLOTHES

It is a commonplace among anthropologists that certain events in a community cause a state of taboo, which affects the members of the community in a greater or less degree, according to their nearness of place or blood to the person principally concerned, or according to the magnitude of the event. Among these events a death is not the least important. In the lower culture the whole village or settlement is often attainted by the occurrence of a death. But it is more particularly the near relatives, and those who have been brought into contact with the corpse, who are affected by the death-taboo (or, as it is often called, the death-pollution), most of all the widow or widower. We call the period of the death-taboo—mourning. The duration of the taboo, as well as its intensity, varies among different peoples, and not only according to the relationship of the mourners to the deceased, but also to his rank, from a few days to many months, and even to years. It is very rare that there is no mourning on a death; but if our reports may be trusted, there are a few cases, which, however, need not detain us.

Mourning garb is an essential part of the observances. Its object has been much debated by anthropologists. There seems little doubt that its first object is to distinguish those who are under the taboo from other persons: it is the sign of the plague. Professor Frazer many years ago laid it down “that mourning costume is usually the reverse of that in ordinary life.” He cited (among others) the practice at Rome for the sons of the deceased to walk at the funeral with their heads covered, the daughters with their heads uncovered, and that in Greece for men and women during the period of mourning to invert their usual habits of wearing the hair, the ordinary practice of men being to cut it short and that of women to wear it long.^[236.1] The accuracy of the generalization might be illustrated from examples all over the world. The Arapaho, who wear their hair long and braided, when in mourning unbraid it and wear it unbound. Sometimes they cut it. They wear old clothing, and do not paint themselves as they are accustomed to do.^[236.2] Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo men sometimes wear women’s dresses instead of their own, and shave half the hair of the head, or shave it in patches, and they rub clay on their bodies. Widows dress in only a few leaves or go stark naked, but with dirt or clay rubbed on the body. For three months after the funeral and a period of retirement in the bush they wear long, untidy-looking grass cloths.^[236.3] When following a corpse to the grave Ainu mourners wear their coats inside out and upside down. An Ainu’s hair is never cut, except on the death of husband or wife; and then cutting is obligatory.^[236.4] Among the Iban of Sarawak a widow’s mourning lasts until the final ceremonies, sometimes two years after the death. During that time she may not wear any ornament, her dress must be plain and old; and she is not allowed to pull out her eyelashes and eyebrows, nor to use soap for washing. Whatever acquaintance she may have in ordinary life with soap, the prohibition to pull out her eyelashes and eyebrows is a prohibition of the last and most seductive touches of her toilet: no Iban woman would think of wearing eyelashes and eyebrows if she were not a widow in mourning.^[237.1] By reversing the usual costume the mourner is distinguished from others, notice is given to the world of the taboo that binds him.

For this reason many of the aborigines of British Guiana lay their trinkets aside and go entirely naked; and among the Jiraras or Ayricas the wife, brothers and sisters of the deceased paint themselves all over with the juice of a fruit that renders them as black as Negroes, while relatives less near paint only their feet, legs, arms and part of the face: they are not so deeply compromised.^[237.2] So on the Ivory Coast the Ngoulango or Pakhalla mourners put off their ornaments, put on the head a worn-out loin-cloth and wear brown clothing, marking different parts of the body with red earth. If anything more were necessary to exhibit their state of taboo, it would be the practice of widows when they went out of doors to carry a piece of “fetish” wood, endowed with the power of causing death to anyone who approached them and touched it.^[237.3] In Australia the relatives, especially the women, cover their heads with clay, or in some parts of West Australia with red mud.^[237.4] The Warramunga women in the Northern Territory cover themselves from head to foot with pipeclay.^[237.5] Among the Uriyas of India, whose women are particularly fond of gay colours, a widow wears a plain white borderless sari, or cloth, as the sign of her bereavement.^[238.1] The Man Cao Lan of Tonkin wear white garments not hemmed; and those of their women who have adopted the Annamite trousers recur to the native petticoat.^[238.2]

The colours of the mourning garb vary widely. Dr Frazer has collected a considerable list, to which it is needless to add. Let it suffice to say that though emblematic colours are often used, the main principle, especially in the lower culture, is that just discussed of reversing, or wearing something quite distinctive from, the ordinary costume.

The condition of taboo occasioned by a death, it should be noted, is by no means limited to the death of a human being. Among the ancient Egyptians the Mendesians observed a great mourning on the death of a goat; and more generally when a cat died by a natural death everyone in the house shaved his eyebrows, while on the death of a dog the whole head and body were shaved. Both these and other animals were also accorded honours of burial in sacred tombs.^[238.3] The native tribes of Manipur lay a genna, or taboo, upon the inmates of a house in which an animal dies or has young, especially a cow; and when a cat dies it is wrapped up in a cloth and buried amid lamentations in a grave dug for it by the old women.^[238.4] To the Ibo-speaking peoples of Nigeria the leopard is a quasi-sacred animal. At Aguku the hunter who has killed it puts eagle-feathers in his hair and does no work for twenty-eight days: that is to say, he is under a taboo for a whole moon. At Ugwoba he may not go to the Aǰana (the shrine of the earth) for a year; he must sit down without working for twenty-eight days, and may eat only such food as has been put in a pot and hung over the fire; he sleeps in a good house, and people watch lest other leopards come and kill him. On the twenty-eighth day, on taking the skin to market, sacrifices are offered to a certain tree, which is regarded as ekwensu, defined as the spirit of a man who has been killed with a rope or a knife, or of a woman who has died in pregnancy.^[239.1] Such a death would be an evil death, and the ghost would be naturally inclined to make others suffer in the same way; but the sacrifices would perhaps conciliate him and induce him to turn his attention to an effectual protection of the sacrificer against the leopards’ vengeance.

Among the Herero of German South-West Africa to shed the blood of a lion is the same as to shed that of a human being; and he who kills a lion can only wash away the sin by the shedding of his own blood. This is done by scoring his breast and arm with a flint and dropping some of the blood upon the earth.^[239.2] The Hidatsa of the North American prairies, after hunting eagles, build a sweat-lodge and purify themselves, singing a mystery-song or incantation.^[239.3] The practice, in fact, is widespread. In some instances it may be explained by totemism or analogous beliefs. In any case there can be no doubt it is dictated by similar motives to those that lead to the taboo and mourning after the death of a human being.

The suggestion has been made that the change of garb is intended as a disguise to deceive the spirit of the deceased, and so to shelter the mourner from its attacks. On the one hand, many tribes unquestionably adopt the same costume after killing an enemy as on the death of a friend. Among the Abarambos of Welle in the French Soudan, when a native kills another he blackens his face, girds himself with a grass cord and eats only raw bananas, to hinder the ghost from coming to kill him in his turn. The same rites are observed on the death of a husband or wife, with the addition that the survivor disappears for a time into the woods.^[240.1]

But this is by no means the universal rule. Among the Nandi of East Africa the killing of an enemy entails quite a different garb from the death of a friend. “When a married man dies, his widows and unmarried daughters lay aside all their ornaments, and the eldest son wears his garment inside out”; and more or less shaving, according to their nearness in blood, is done by all the relatives. “On the death of a married woman her youngest daughter wears her garment inside out, whilst her other relations put rope on their ornaments [to hide them, a common practice where they cannot easily be taken off] and shave their heads. In the case of unmarried people the female relations cover their ornaments with rope, and the male relations shave their heads.” The killing of a Nandi, so far as appears, does not entail a change of costume, at least if the homicide belong to a different clan from his victim. It is merely the subject of vengeance, unless bought off by blood-money. Curiously enough, it does not even seem to render the guilty man “unclean,” as the killing of a member of his own clan does. The latter indeed renders him “unclean for the rest of his life, unless he can succeed in killing two other Nandi of a different clan, and can pay the fine himself.” In the meantime, for aught that appears in Mr Hollis’ careful account of the Nandi, no change of costume is necessary beyond what other members of the clan must undergo on the death of a relation. The killing of a person belonging to another tribe—a person who is not a Nandi,—however, entails a stringent condition of taboo, yet it is a subject, not of blame like the killing of a Nandi, but of praise. The slayer “paints one side of his body, spear and sword red, and the other side white. For four days after the murder he is considered unclean, and may not go home. He has to build a small shelter by a river and live there; he must not associate with his wife or sweetheart, and he may only eat porridge, beef, and goat’s flesh. At the end of the fourth day he must purify himself by drinking a strong purge made from the bark of the segetet-tree, and by drinking goat’s milk mixed with bullock’s blood.”^[241.1]

Other tribes in the east of Africa paint the man-killer. Masai warriors (from whom possibly the Nandi have taken over the custom), after returning victorious, paint the body in the manner just described.^[241.2] Among the Borâna Galla, the conquerors who have slain an enemy, on returning, are washed by the women with a mixture of fat and milk, and their faces are painted red and white. After dirges over those who have fallen, the praises of the surviving heroes are sung, and the young warriors’ trophies are publicly buried outside the village. These trophies are portions of the bodies of the slaughtered foes which cannot be conveniently preserved.^[242.1] The washing is obviously a ceremonial purification. Apart from this the entire proceeding is one of triumph, and there is no indication of an attempt at concealment. In the Congo basin the Yaka warrior who kills a man in battle incurs the danger of reprisals on the part of the ghost. He can, however, escape by wearing the red tail-feathers of the parrot in his hair and painting his forehead red. Upon this it is to be observed that, as elsewhere, red is a favourite colour among the Bayaka. It is used for body-painting of both living and dead. The corpse is painted before burial; the dandy paints himself to increase his beauty; the widow is painted in mourning. The painting of the forehead can therefore hardly be a disguise. The tail-feathers of the parrot are probably an amulet.^[242.2]

The Lillooet or the Ntlakapamux warrior of British Columbia who has slain a foe paints not merely his forehead but his entire face black. If he did not do so, it was believed that he would become blind; and in the case of the latter tribe we are told that “the spirit of the victim would cause him to become blind.” Blindness for some reason is dreaded by these tribes after other deaths. Among the Lillooet a widower cuts his hair very short above his eyes and ears; “for if his hair touched the eyes he would become blind.” The cutting of the hair is, of course, a very common rite either in or at the conclusion of mourning. Among the Ntlakapamux, widows and widowers “rubbed four times across their eyes a small smooth stone taken from beneath running water, and then threw it away, praying that they might not become blind.”^[243.1] Since widows and widowers are specially subject to the persecution of the deceased spouse, we may perhaps infer that the blindness in such cases would be attributable to the departed. A parity of reasoning would lead to the same conclusion in regard to the warrior’s victim. But how the painting of the face black would prevent such a catastrophe we are in the dark. For aught we know, it may have been (for instance) an expression of contrition designed to mollify the injured ghost. Mortuary ceremonies are almost everywhere so complicated that it is difficult to disentangle their motives. In the related tribe of the Skqomic all who follow the corpse in the burial procession must paint the breasts of their garments with red paint, else “a scarcity of fish would be the result at the next salmon run”; and the widow in addition is painted with red streaks on the crown of her head.^[243.2] The fact is that painting oneself is a preparation for the footlights by no means confined to over-civilized peoples. It is so usual in the most varied stages of culture, from the lowest upwards, that we cannot safely pronounce it an attempt at disguise.

A somewhat stronger case might perhaps be made for the garb of a company of Dyak head-hunters, if we could be sure that the ceremonies as described a few years ago by an eyewitness at the settlement of Tandjoeng-Karang, on the river Kapoeas, were intact. But when a rite is in decay, as head-hunting is, all sorts of variations are possible. The British and Dutch governments, now supreme in Borneo, with little regard for the most sacred feelings of their heathen subjects, positively forbid a custom intended to procure blessings for the community by the conversion of ancient foes into guardian spirits. Hence it is often necessary, instead of taking fresh heads, to put up with old ones and to make believe that they are new. For this purpose an expedition is sent forth on a mock-raid, carrying skulls of former victims with them, and bringing them back as if they were just acquired. When the expedition returns, it is received as if it were a successful war-party, and the ceremonies on the arrival of genuine head-hunters are performed. At Tandjoeng-Karang, on the occasion in question, these included dances in which both men and women took part. The men (who had been fasting, and were still under taboo) were clad in war-apparel. Skins of animals hung from their shoulders; feathers adorned their caps; and all wore on their wrists, arms and legs ornaments of withered palm-leaves, such as are distinctive of successful raiders. In addition, some had also shaved the front of the head and decked it with similar wreaths, so that the leaves hung down like fringes over the face. If this were intended as a disguise, it is curious that not all the raiders were thus shaven. Whether there was any reason why all did not share in this treatment of the head, or indeed what the palm-leaf ornament signified, it was not possible to ascertain. The observer was assured, however, that the shaving was necessary in order to bring the fast to an end, and that in former days the shorn hair was thrown into the water with invocations to the spirits. Now it lay neglected where it fell. The day was concluded with feasting and further dances; but the men were not yet entirely relieved from their taboo. This was accomplished early the next morning with a bath in the river; and the slaughter of hogs and another feast brought the solemnity to a close.^[245.1]

On the other hand, all supernatural beings are deceived and tricked with what are to us very transparent devices. The standard of intellect in the other world would seem to be much lower than in this. Even the spirits of Shakespeare and Milton, when conjured up in a spiritualistic séance, are found stripped of all their supreme qualities, and hardly the equals of the silly persons who have flocked to their manifestations. In Borneo it is recorded that “some Madang [245.2] In the same island also the Kayans protect a child from an evil-disposed Toh, or inferior spirit, by a sooty mark on the forehead, consisting of a vertical median line and a horizontal band above the eyebrows, which is thought to render it difficult for the Toh to recognize his victim.^[245.3]

This facility of deception, it may be observed, extends to other senses than that of sight. It is accountable for the taboo of words and the use of euphemisms in hunting and on other occasions. The poor silly spirits will not be able to penetrate the disguise. In the north-east of Scotland the fishermen when at sea never pronounced the words minister, kirk, swine, salmon, trout, dog, and so on, but used other words or phrases instead, such as “bell-hoose” for kirk, or “the man wi’ the black quyte” for minister.^[246.1] The people of Mulera-Ruanda in German East Africa have a definite theory to account for such a practice. They hold that the spirits have indeed ears and can hear what is said, but they have no eyes. Consequently when a householder proposes on some solemn occasion, as a betrothal, to sacrifice an animal, he directs the slave to go to the hill and fetch the thickest sweet potato for a feast, meaning a fat goat from the herd. This goat he then offers to his ancestors, calling it an ox; for the spirits will not be able to detect the cheat.^[246.2] Like Isaac in the Hebrew story, they are blind, and “what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve at,” as our English proverb has it: they can be thus deceived into giving their blessing in return for a trifling gratification.

Yet it may be doubted whether the cases alleged by Professor Frazer in the important paper to which reference has been made, as favouring the opinion that mourning clothes are a disguise, are not susceptible of a different interpretation. So inconclusive did he himself think the evidence that he refrained from definitely committing himself to the opinion in question, though others have since done so. The custom of painting the face and body in mourning is so common that it is at least remarkable that the tribes of Borneo, who disguise themselves, as we have seen, from hostile spirits with charcoal, do not seem to attempt this defence against the peevish ghost of a newly deceased person. They content themselves with wearing bark-cloth or clothes stained yellow with clay, with allowing the hair to grow where it is usually shaved, or shaving it where it usually grows, and with laying aside personal ornaments or substituting for the metal earrings commonly worn by the women a wooden makeshift.^[247.1] In this way they may be said to conform to the rule already discussed of reversing the ordinary costume.

A Bohemian custom required the mourners to put on masks and to practise strange behaviour on their return from the funeral. It may be conjectured that this was a dance or devil-drive, intended to expel, not to deceive. Such dances are not uncommon, both at periodical purification ceremonies^[247.2] and on the occasion of a death. The use of masks at funeral dances of this kind has been reported, for example, in recent years among the Bantu-speaking peoples of the prairie-land in the interior of the Kamerun. At these dances wooden masks in the likeness of lower animals as well as of human beings are worn; and two of the latter, hideous enough to horrify any respectable ghost, are figured by the German explorer who discovered them.^[247.3] More recently another German explorer has found, on the Upper Aiary in the interior of Brazil, mourning-dances of a similar character, in which masks were used representing various animals and demons, and has given figures from photographs of the dancers, as well as a lively description of one of the dances which he witnessed. This dance began with an attack on the Maloka, or community-house, by a troop of evil spirits, who eventually succeeded in storming it. The mother and widow of the dead man wailed. The attacking party, having forced an entrance, sang. The women were terrified, but the scene ended in weeping and laughter. It was followed by dances and songs by the various animals; and the performance was concluded by a phallic dance—a pantomime of the process of reproduction. The meaning of the masque, the explorer declares, was clear. It was a magic ritual intended to propitiate the angry ghost of the deceased, that he might not return and carry off any of the survivors. The evil demons, to whose charge perhaps the death was laid, and from whose spite mankind is never safe, would by the performance be hindered from further mischief. Mákukö (the forest-demon) and the jaguar, foes of the hunter, the spoilers of the crops (worms, larvæ, and other vermin), and likewise the game itself were meant, by the mimicry of their various proceedings, to be magically influenced and rendered favourable to men, so that rich booty, large harvests, and every sort of fertility and blessing would result.^[248.1]

If it be objected that a mask is by its very nature intended to deceive, we must not forget that that is very often not its primary object. A nurse in play with a child will sometimes put on a mask for an instant. She does so not to deceive the child as to her identity, but to cause a momentary terror. So the horrible distortions of the human countenance, the wild, the grotesque, the impossible mingling of human and bestial features characteristic of many of the masks used in these dances, are often intended rather to terrify than to deceive the supernatural beings against whom the performance is directed. A warrior going to battle decks himself out with paint and feathers, with helmet and grinning crest, in order to strike fear into the heart of his foe. Spirits are as easily frightened as human beings. Indeed, happily for the comfort of mankind, they are possessed of uncommonly weak nerves which fail them, with all their malevolence, at every turn. All that is necessary is for the man who knows how to deal with them to put on a bold front, and they will flee before him.

Professor de Groot, writing of the war against spectres in China, says: “A courageous man while boldly fighting, or trying to terrify by aggressive gestures, easily gets his hair disordered. Therefore flowing hair intimates intrepidity, and cannot fail to inspire the spectral world with fear.… This idea has not only formed the text of old traditions, but as early as the Han dynasty had created the custom of setting up long-haired heads, in order to drive away spectres. No wonder that to this day long-haired exorcists assuming this terrifying aspect, and enhancing it by weapons brandished with vigour, are everyday appearances also in spectre-expelling processions. Accoutrements,” he goes on to say, “have been worn with the same object since early times. Before the Christian era, the fang-siang, while purifying grave-pits, houses, and streets, were dressed with bearskins and masked with grotesque caps; and under the Han dynasty persons masked as animals, feathered, haired and horned, accompanied them in exorcising processions, jumping about and screaming. Probably such exorcists have appeared in all ages at funerals. Even to this day… fang-siang are seen therein in the shape of effigies.”^[249.1]

But masked personages in many mourning-dances represent the ghosts themselves. In the islands of Torres Straits, for example, such representations are an indispensable part of the funeral ceremonies, and the identity of the ghost is “indicated by a pantomimic representation of characteristic traits of the deceased. The idea,” says Dr Haddon, “evidently was to convey to the mourners the assurance that the ghost was alive and that in the person of the dancer he visited his friends; the assurance of his life after death comforted the bereaved ones.”^[250.1] The identification of the performer with the deceased is among some peoples complete. Thirty days after the death of an adult Musquakie Indian the dead man is personated by a friend, who in this character attends a farewell feast preparatory to the final departure of the ghost for the Happy Hunting Grounds. He is called the ghost-carrier. When the sun goes down he departs toward the west, convoyed by a number of the friends of the deceased, all of whom, like himself, are painted but not masked. After nightfall they return and are welcomed as from a long journey. The ghost-carrier is by everyone addressed by the name of the deceased. In a few days he visits the parents of the deceased, if they survive, announcing himself as their dead son, who would care for them in their old age. He is henceforth looked upon as their son, called by that son’s name, and pledged to a son’s duty to them, though his own parents do not necessarily give him up and still call him by his own name. Similar ceremonies are performed for women by women.^[250.2] In fact the performer who represents a supernatural being in a religious dance of any kind is quite commonly regarded not as a representative, but as the supernatural personage himself, so long as he wears the mask and bears his attributes. So an author already quoted, writing of the Indians of North-Western Brazil, says: “The demon is involved in the mask, is incorporated in it; the mask is for the Indian the demon himself.… The demon of the mask passes over into the masquer for the time being.”^[251.1] The masked dances of these Indians are performed especially in honour of the dead. The masks therefore are intended to deceive nobody, not even the recently deceased, who as a new arrival in the other world may be “a babe in these things.” The masquers are the demons in propriis personis without any deceit.

A different case is that of a Myoro woman cited by Dr Frazer from Captain Speke’s Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. Her child had died. She smeared herself with butter and ashes and ran frantically about, “while the men abused her in foul language for the express purpose of frightening away the demons” who had carried off her child. And Dr Frazer asks: “If curses are meant to frighten, are not the ashes meant to deceive the demon?”^[251.2] From the description of the scene, however, it seems probable that the demon was conceived as actually in possession of the woman, and that it was intended to drive him out of her. In that event again there would be no deception of the demon—it was open war; while the ashes may be referable to quite another cause, as will be suggested below.

A third possible example is the custom in Calabria, whereby the women cease wailing at night and put off the black veils they donned at the moment of death.^[251.3] Here it may be, as Professor Frazer suggests, a sufficient explanation that disguise is superfluous in the dark. The custom of wearing veils or hoods to conceal the face in mourning is not confined to Europe, though widely spread there. The “weepers” and other crape trappings still in use in France, but for the most part abandoned in this country, are probably relics of it. It is found among nations sundered as far as the Eskimo on the shores of the frozen ocean from the tribes of the Eastern Archipelago and Melanesia. The veil is sometimes worn without intermission. Among the Minuanes of South America the widow carefully covers her face with her hair, notwithstanding she remains for several days in the hut.^[252.1] About Bering Strait the housemates of a deceased Eskimo must remain in their accustomed places in the house during the four days following the death, while the ghost is believed to be still about. During this time all of them must keep their fur hoods drawn over their heads, not to deceive the dead man, but “to prevent the influence of the shade from entering their heads and killing them.”^[252.2] Where the mourners are confined more or less to the house, however, the custom of veiling is often, perhaps usually, more stringent on going out of doors than when they are inside in the dark. In the lower culture the women at least are frequently confined to the house, and only go out in case of necessity at night, or at early morning and evening to weep at the grave. But the Calabrian women would more naturally go out of doors, if at all, by day; hence they would be more closely veiled by day; and at night, when they would not go out, they might wear their ordinary head-dress of a white handkerchief. It is at least curious that they themselves assume that they would be recognized at night through the disguise by “il demonio,” who has doubtless succeeded to the pre-Christian terrors of the other world; and they declare it is lest he should rejoice over their sorrow—to deceive him as to that, and not as to their identity—that they doff the discomfort of the veil. For the same reason they take the opportunity to suspend their wailing, which to be sure is not as a rule anywhere absolutely continuous: human nature could not endure it.

Taboo is the most contagious of diseases. Mourning garb is its outward and visible sign, and a warning to all who would otherwise come into contact with the mourner. The veil in particular may be compared with the head-coverings and seclusion required of girls arriving at maturity. At that period they also are under taboo. Among the Eskimo, the tribes of British Columbia, many of the South American tribes and the Bantu tribes of Africa, and over a considerable area in the south of Asia, the Indian Ocean and Melanesia, adolescent girls are confined for a longer or shorter time where they cannot be seen, or kept covered if they go out of doors. They are very sensitive to the influence of the sun.^[253.1] But it is not merely that the sun would affect them; their very glance is deleterious. A Thlinkit girl wears a hat with long flaps, that her glance may not pollute the sky. Among the Tsetsaut it is believed that if she were to expose her face to the sun or the sky, rain would fall.^[253.2] So the Hupa grave-digger in California is under a taboo. He has come into contact with death, and is required after the funeral to carry a bough of Douglas spruce over his head, “that he may not by any chance glance at the sky or at any human being, thereby contaminating them.”^[253.3] On the island of Mabuiag, if a maturing girl’s own father see her, he will have bad luck in fishing, and probably smash his canoe the next time he goes in it.^[254.1] So far as I am aware, there is no intention in veiling a girl at puberty to disguise her so as to delude any spiritual foe. It is true that both she and the mourners at a death (including all who take part in the death-rites) are exposed to special dangers. That is because they are alike in a state of taboo. They are thus also dangerous to others. They must be secluded; or if they venture abroad they must be either covered or so garbed as to keep other persons at a distance.

That the same reasons apply, at all events among some tribes, to the veiling of the faces of widows and widowers appears from the customs of the Lkungen of Vancouver Island. After a burial “the whole tribe go down to the sea, wash their heads, bathe, and cut their hair. The nearer related a person is to the deceased, the shorter he cuts his hair. Those who do not belong to the deceased’s family merely clip the ends of their hair.… Widow and widower, after the death of wife or husband, are forbidden to cut their hair, as they would gain too great power over the souls and the welfare of others. They must remain alone at their fire for a long time, and are forbidden to mingle with other people. When they eat, nobody must see them. They must keep their faces covered for ten days. They fast for two days after burial and are not allowed to speak. After two days they may speak a little; but before addressing anyone they must go into the woods and clean themselves in ponds and with cedar-branches. If they wish to harm an enemy they call his name when taking their first meal after the fast, and bite very hard in eating. It is believed that this will kill him. They must not go near the water, or eat fresh salmon, as the latter might be driven away. They must not eat warm food, else their teeth would fall out.”^[255.1] This account shows that the widow or widower is dangerous to other people, and consequently in a state of taboo. It further shows that the fast and privation of society and comfort that such a mourner undergoes materially increase his orenda, giving him power to kill his enemy by sympathetic magic, or even rendering him a peril to his own community if he add to the severity of his penance by cutting his hair, as a mourner who is not so nearly related to the deceased does. All this is in accord with the principles underlying the taboo and fast of girls and boys at puberty. There can be very little doubt that it is dictated by similar motives. If so, the covering of the face is, here at least, not intended to disguise the mourner and conceal him from the ghost. It is an integral portion of his taboo. It helps to safeguard the well-being of the surviving members of his community, and to make his own orenda more powerful.

It is no part of my case to deny that mourning garb is ever intended to deceive the ghost. Customs differ so much in different cultural areas that it is quite possible there may be some instances in which the intention is to disguise the mourner by way of precaution against the deceased. Professor Frazer has brought forward two cases, and only two, so far as I am aware, in which this object is avowed. The first is found in the western districts of the island of Timor. When a man dies and before his body is put into a coffin, his wives stand weeping over it with their village gossips, “all with loosened hair, in order to make themselves unrecognizable by the nitu (spirit) of the dead.”^[255.2] I have not seen the authority he cites; therefore I do not know whether we are given any information how a widow in these districts habitually wears her hair. For aught that appears here, the hair is loosened only for this ceremony, which comes to an end with the enclosure of the corpse in the coffin, and may not last for more than an hour or two. If so, whatever be the reason for hindering the ghost from identifying the participants, the loosening of the hair may not be, strictly speaking, part of the mourning garb.

The other case is a practice occasionally in use among the Herero. When a dying man intimates to one of his relatives and friends, who crowd around him at such a time, that he has “decided upon taking him away after his death,” that is to say, that he will kill him (fetch him to the other world), the person so threatened has recourse to an onganga, or witch-doctor. This functionary strips him, washes and greases him afresh, and dresses him in other clothes. “He is now quite at his ease about the threatening of death caused by the deceased; for, says he: ‘Now, our father does not know me.’” The survivors, however, may fulfil the threat.^[256.1] This certainly does appear to be a case of disguise, or at least a change of clothes in order to deceive the deceased; but the substituted clothes do not appear to be mourning garb, and the problem of mourning garb is what we are endeavouring to solve.

That protection is needed against the ghost of the recently dead is clear. All over the world there is fear of ghosts. Protection, however, is not commonly sought in disguise, even in extreme cases. It is frequently sought, as against other supernatural foes, in fire. The custom is so well known that it need not now detain us.^[256.2] The Ewhe widow provides herself with a club, burns pungent powders and takes other precautions from assault, or even approach, by the deceased. A widower does the same. In both cases the event to be dreaded is the attempt by the deceased to renew conjugal relations. This danger assumes recognition by the ghost. So far from seeking to elude it, she goes entirely naked. The lot, whether of widow or widower, is not happy, though here, as elsewhere, the woman gets the worst of it: she must be defended for six weeks, while seven or eight days suffice for him.^[257.1] The Charrua mourner in South America went forth into the wilderness armed with a stick.^[257.2] The Eskimo of Bering Strait indeed wear fur hoods, but, as we have seen, they are a direct defence against the penetrative influence of the ghost, not a disguise. The Koryak, the Timorlaut islanders, the Ngoulango of the Ivory Coast seek refuge in a talisman or amulet.^[257.3]

The amulet preserved by the son of the deceased Timorlaut islander is a piece of his father’s nail. According to the rules of sympathetic magic he preserves in this way his corporal union with the deceased, and thereby ensures his protection. The widow or widower does not take a portion of the body, but wears a piece of the clothing. This obviously is intended to have the same effect. The practice is not unknown elsewhere. In Syria when a man dies his wife puts on one of his garments and sings funeral songs.^[257.4] Dr Junker relates that he witnessed the ceremonies on the death of the ruler of Kabajendi, who had lived almost all his life among the A-sande and was mourned according to their rites. His wives, after wailing beside the coffin, marched through the zeriba and pretended to search in every hole and corner, crying out to him, creeping in and out on hands and knees under the overhanging thatch of the roofs, then gathering and starting again on further explorations, all the while howling, shrieking, and lamenting. The next morning those of them who could manage to possess themselves of any article of his clothing put it on, marching round the village thus attired in a continual procession or dance, while others carried sword, lances, clubs, climbing plants, maize-cobs, and so forth, their heads strewn with ashes. This performance lasted for a fortnight, despite the tropical rain.^[258.1]

Some light on this fantastic promenade may be thrown by the proceedings of the Bangala women. In the Boloki district, “when a man of any position died his wives would throw off their dresses and wear old rags (sometimes they would go absolutely naked), pick up anything belonging to him—his chair, spear, pipe, mug, knife, shield or blanket—anything that came first to hand; and having covered their bodies with a coating of clay, they would parade the town in ones, or twos, or threes, crying bitterly and calling upon him to return to them. They would stop at times in their crying and say: ‘He is gone to So-and-so; we will go and find him’; and away they would start off in a business-like fashion in their pretended search for him. This parading they would keep up for a day or two, and then women of the town would bedeck themselves with climbing plants, vines, leaves, and bunches of twigs; and, forming themselves into a procession, they would march through the town chanting the praises of the deceased. Men would paint and arm themselves as for a fight, and would imitate the daring acts of the departed as a warrior; and if he had been remarkable for fighting on the river, they would arrange a sham canoe-fight in his honour.… It was an amusing and interesting sight, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed both by actors and spectators alike. They called this praising or honouring the dead.”^[259.1]

It has been suggested that the wearing of a portion of the clothing of the dead is intended to delude him into the belief that those who do so are themselves dead, and so to turn aside his attack.^[259.2] No proof, so far as I am aware, has been offered for the suggestion. Whatever the exact intention of the A-sande rite (and its equivalence with the Boloki rite is obvious), it can hardly be tortured into this. The ghost must be stupid indeed who cannot distinguish his own clothing and personal chattels when carried about by his wives. To wear the clothing of the deceased identifies the mourner with him, sometimes for the purpose of protection by means of sympathetic magic, sometimes for the presentation of the dead man in funeral ceremonies like those of the Torres Straits islanders or the Musquakie Indians.^[259.3] Where this is not the object, to put on his coat and to carry his mug or his spear in procession may be due, as it seems to be here, to some vague idea of honouring him, or perhaps of inducing him to return. The supposition that it is intended to deceive the ghost may be safely discarded.

In more general terms it has been conjectured that mourning rites are intended to express union with the departed by obligatory, if partial, participation of his state, that by virtue of the contagion of death the mourners have become really changed and are for a time as if they were dead, hence they must eat, clothe, and conduct themselves as far as possible like the dead.^[260.1] Lastly, it has been pointed out that many of the observances imposed on mourners are a return to more primitive and savage conditions—such as sitting on the bare earth, going naked or wearing only the roughest and coarsest stuffs, and abstaining from good food in favour of wild berries and roots;—and the question has been put whether this may not be the essence of mourning.^[260.2] There is probably some measure of truth in both these suggestions; but they must not be pressed too far. Many of the rites and usages are intended beyond question to express sympathy for the deceased, and a temporary segregation with him from ordinary life.

But they go further: in all the greater degrees of mourning at least they indicate grief at his loss that is calculated to call down the pity and compassion of every beholder, and to deprecate the wrath or ill-humour of the deceased. It is very striking that while coarse and scanty garments (sackcloth or bark-cloths among peoples who usually wear cotton or wool, and mere loin-cloths or nothing at all among peoples usually clad) are worn in place of more luxurious stuffs, a frequently recurring prescription is old worn-out clothes. In the Tonga Islands the mourners (who are always women) are “habited in large old ragged mats—the more ragged, the more fit for the occasion, as being more emblematical of a spirit broken down, or, as it were, torn to pieces by grief.”^[261.1] In the hinterland of the Sherbro in West Africa, on the mourning for a chief’s death, the people most closely connected with him “presented an unkempt and slovenly appearance, their bodies draped in the oldest and dirtiest of their cloths.”^[261.2] Among the Baganda on the other side of the continent the mourning garb for an ordinary man is “old bark-cloths and a girdle of dry plantain leaves: the hair is unkempt, the nails are allowed to grow long like birds’ claws, and on the chest is a white patch, a mixture of water and ashes.”^[261.3] The custom of strewing ashes on the person is very widely practised: more than one example has been incidentally given. Among the Hebrews its use was not confined to mourning for the dead; repentance in dust and ashes is a familiar figure in English speech, and is derived from the Bible. The general air of neglect and misery produced by these practices might be paralleled in the mourning customs of most countries. Even in our own island little more than a hundred years ago it was noted that the chief mourner at a funeral in the parish of Llanvetherine, Monmouthshire, and elsewhere wore a dirty cloth about his head.^[261.4] And of many peoples the description by a French writer of the mourning garb among the Agni of Sanwi on the Ivory Coast would hold literally true: “Old black loin-cloths, unwashed for a long time. On ne se peigne pas—on ne fait pas de toilette—on reste modeste.”^[261.5]

This is not all. Mourners fast, abstaining altogether from food or indulging only in restricted diet, and that of an inferior kind. On the island of Aurora all who are in mourning refrain from certain food. The immediate relatives may not eat any cultivated food. They are limited to gigantic caladium, bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, mallow, and other things which must be sought in the bush where they grow.^[262.1] The ancient Hurons were forbidden, even in cold weather, to eat warm food.^[262.2] Among the Charruas of South America the adult sons of a dead man remain for two days entirely naked in their huts and almost without food.^[262.3] In Togoland the Ewhe widow is forbidden beans, flesh, fish, palm-wine and rum; any infringement of these prohibitions would cost her life.^[262.4]

Many nations add to their other rites that of laceration or even mutilation of the body. In Central Australia the Warramunga women fight with one another and cut one another’s scalps, and all who stand in any near relation to the deceased, reckoned according to the classificatory system—which greatly widens the area of relationship—also cut their own scalps open with yam-sticks, the actual widows even searing the wound with red-hot fire-sticks.^[262.5] It was forbidden to the ancient Hebrews, by what was evidently a reform of a pre-existing custom, to make a baldness between the eyes for the dead—in other words, to cut themselves on the brow.^[262.6] Among the Arawaks a drinking-feast is held, at which all the men of the village assemble and scourge one another with whips made of a climbing plant, until the blood runs in streams and strips of skin and muscle hang down. Those who participate in the rite often die of their wounds.^[262.7] As if mere wounding were not enough, finger-joints are frequently cut off. In the Fiji Islands the amputation of a finger-joint is a common sign of mourning. In one case in Tonga when a king died orders were issued that one hundred fingers should be cut off.^[263.1] In Montana, one of the north-western states of America, on the execution of four aborigines for murder in December 1890, they were mourned by two squaws, who scalped their children. One of them gashed her own face, while the other cut off two of her fingers and threw them into the grave.^[263.2] When a Charrua dies his widow and his married daughters and sisters amputate each of them a finger-joint, besides inflicting other wounds on themselves.^[263.3]

The illustration of practices like these might be multiplied indefinitely. The same reason holds good for them all. In the lower culture grief at a death is often intensified by fear—on the one hand, of an accusation of witchcraft—on the other hand, of the ill-will of the deceased himself, who is naturally disgusted to find himself dead. Against the latter danger at any rate the forlorn condition of the survivors, stiff with wounds, thrust like him from the company of their friends and fellow-tribesmen, made to wear a distinctive garb, often in rags or dirt, wailing, watching, fasting, would constitute an appeal that even the ghost of a savage would feel hard to resist. That this is actually the effect intended, in some instances at least, is certain. A widow among the Salivas of South America cuts her hair, and is not allowed to anoint herself as usual, nor to wear any ornament, in order, we are expressly told, not to irritate the departed, but to humble herself before him.^[263.4] Nor must it be overlooked that wailing and lamenting, so usually part of the rites practised especially by the chief mourners, such as widows and near relations, would not favour concealment. On the contrary, they would draw attention to the grief, and help even the simplest and most easily deluded of ghosts to identify the mourner, which they would seem indeed to be meant to do. But they would powerfully deprecate his malice or revenge. In this connection the belief of the Bañarwanda on the east of Lake Kivu, in German East Africa, is interesting. To them the bazimu (plural of muzimu) or souls of the departed are by no means always kindly disposed, even the best of them. They must be continually propitiated with offerings, or they will cause calamities, either of themselves directly, or indirectly by setting in motion the imandwa, semi-apotheosized heroes. But the muzimu does not begin his mischievous activities until the mourning ceremonies are at an end. So long as they last the survivors are quite safe from him, for he will not during that period attack the living.^[264.1]

Many customs, sometimes born of widely differing motives, converge in a similarity of expression. Hence it is impossible in the present state of our knowledge dogmatically to assert a single origin for practices of a like character extending over so wide an area as those we have just passed in review. They are the expression of the psychological reaction caused by the shock of death and the consequent breach of the circle of kinship or other social bonds. The taboo results from the bewilderment and terror caused by the entry of death into the circle. The conduct and garb of the mourners are the outcome of grief and sympathy, but also of fear. That fear has for its object survivors who have it in their power to involve the mourners in even a more terrible doom by an accusation of witchcraft. Even more, it has regard to death itself, and to the inimical designs of him whose earthly life has been severed, and who has thereby been converted into an envious, and if not a malicious, at least a peevish and easily angered, being, armed by his death with greater, because more mysterious, powers. Mourning garb is often a device to secure his compassion; it is often a defence against his overt attacks; but on the whole tangible proof is lacking that it is a disguise to deceive him.

THE RITE AT THE TEMPLE
OF MYLITTA

Among the religious rites of antiquity there was none more alien to modern feeling than the sacrifice of chastity by every Babylonian woman at the temple of Mylitta. It is described first and in most detail by Herodotus, whose denunciation of it shows that to the Greeks of the fifth century B.C. it was as abhorrent as it is to us. According to this account, every woman once in her life was required to sit down in the precincts of the temple of Mylitta wearing a wreath of cord about her head, and there to wait until a stranger should throw a silver coin into her lap and summon her with ritual words in the name of the goddess to follow him. She was not allowed to refuse, but was compelled to follow the first man who threw, and to have sexual intercourse with him outside the temple. She might then depart to her home, her duty to the goddess being fulfilled.^[266.1] The historian lets fall the observation that there was a similar custom in some places in Cyprus. This has been supposed to be referred to by Justin, who wrote probably after the establishment of Christianity, but whose work consists of selections from Trogus Pompeius, a lost writer of the Augustan age. He reports that it was the Cypriote custom to send maidens before their marriage on certain days to seek their dowry by prostitution on the seashore, and to pay the offerings to Venus for their future chastity. Dido on her way to Carthage touched at the island at the very time, and took on board her fleet eighty of these damsels, to be wives to her followers and assist in peopling the city she was going to found.^[267.1] We shall further consider Justin’s statement hereafter. For the moment we pass on to Heliopolis (Baalbec), where, the ecclesiastical historian Socrates affirms, virgins were offered in prostitution to strangers.^[267.2] He does not, any more than Justin, connect this with a temple or a divinity; but from Sozomen we gather that it was a religious observance, inasmuch as the prostitution of virgins prior to their marriage is stated to have been abolished by Constantine when he destroyed the temple of Aphrodite.^[267.3] A similar custom, according to Ælian, was followed by the Lydians. And he expressly says that when once the rite had been performed the woman remained ever afterwards chaste, nor would a repetition be forgiven her on any plea.^[267.4] Herodotus, however, states that the daughters of the common people in Lydia earned their dowries by a life of prostitution.^[267.5] The two writers are obviously referring to two different customs. A third custom distinct from either is mentioned by Strabo as practised by the Armenians, among whom even the highest families of the nation consecrated their virgin daughters to the service of the goddess Anaitis, to remain as prostitutes at her temple before their marriage.^[267.6]

What is the relation of these three customs? They have usually been considered as closely connected. It may be, as Dr Frazer suspects, that the real motive for the custom described as that of earning dowries by prostitution was religious, rather than economical, although my own suspicions point in another direction. But putting that custom aside for further examination, both the others are certainly portrayed as religious. As practised by the nations of Western Asia for a thousand years prior to the fall of paganism they were annexed to the cult of certain divinities. There is, however, a broad distinction to be drawn between a custom requiring every woman once in her lifetime to submit to the embraces of a stranger, and one which consecrated a life of prostitution. Such a life was one of devotion to the goddess as a more or less permanent servant. The other custom demanded a single act which freed the worshipper for the rest of her days. It may be freely conceded that the goddess at whose temple, or on whose feast-day, the act was performed was endowed with similar characteristics to those of the goddess in whose service the life of prostitution was lived. It may even have been that sometimes the same goddess had bands of harlots attached to her shrine, and also required the sacrifice of the virginity of all other women in the manner described. This perhaps, as we shall see, was the case in Lydia. We should still need to investigate separately the two customs. One of the most fertile sources of error in the interpretation of custom is the fatal tendency of rites distinct, or even altogether different in origin and intention, but similar in expression, to converge. This convergence is accelerated by a variety of causes. The natural vagueness of tradition, the forgetfulness of the exact original meaning, the gradual predominance of one idea over another owing to circumstances which, for want of knowledge, we call accidental, the tendency to repeat by way of precaution in one rite acts which essentially belong to another, are all causes of the kind referred to. Moreover, we have so often found in the similarity of rite the real key to a common interpretation, that where convergence does not in fact occur there is a temptation to read identity of meaning into two rites having a superficial likeness. It behoves us, therefore, to be on our guard, and to scrutinize with some scepticism all cases where the identity both of act and intention is not demonstrably complete.

The practices I have enumerated have all been interpreted as expiations for marriage. Marriage, it is said,—the appropriation of one or more women to one man—is an evolution from the primeval condition of promiscuity. Religious prostitution, the jus primæ noctis and other customs are expiations exacted by society from women who are thus appropriated. They witness to the primeval common rights of the male sex, thus asserted for the last time by one or more on behalf of all on abandoning the woman to the exclusive possession of one of their number.

Now, if the interpretation in question be suitable for any of these customs, it is more suitable for the single rite such as that at the temple of Mylitta than for the exercise of prostitution over an extended period; and it is to this rite that I desire more particularly to call attention. I need hardly observe that the explanation of the rite as an expiation for marriage does not by any means follow of necessity from the theory of primitive promiscuity. On the contrary it overlooks one of the peculiar features of the rite. Alike at Babylon, at Heliopolis, and apparently at Cyprus (if Cyprus be a case in point) the act has to be accomplished with a stranger. If it were a forfeit rendered to the general body of men, who might have had a claim to temporary union but for the institution of marriage, or if it were a formal witness of that claim, it would seem, prima facie, more natural that it should be accomplished with some one or more of the claimants, that is to say, with a member or members of the same community. A similar rite of intercourse with a stranger was practised, as Lucian relates, at Byblus. There it was the custom at the mourning for Adonis to perform the well-known mourning rite of cutting off the hair. Any woman who refused to do this was required to exhibit herself on one day of the festival and undergo prostitution to one of the strangers who resorted thither, handing over the price to the goddess called by Lucian the Byblian Aphrodite.^[270.1] The rite as there practised therefore was, at all events in the second century A.D., an alternative to the dedication of hair: it was a redemption for the tresses that should have been sacrificed. Thus the woman would repeat the expiation once a year, whether married or single, so long as she was unwilling to shear her locks, or preferred the alternative sacrifice of her chastity. There is no evidence that it ever had anything to do with marriage; it certainly had not when Lucian wrote.

The rite at Byblus must, however, be distinguished from those we are considering. They were performed by every woman without alternative, but they were performed only once. If they were an expiation for marriage we should expect to find them described as part of the marriage rites. The Balearic islanders, the Nasamonians and the Auziles in antiquity had, as well as many modern savages, such rites, whether or not they can be properly explained as an expiation for marriage. But at the most the rites with which we are now concerned were a preliminary to marriage—a necessary preliminary, perhaps, but one that might have been accomplished at any period before it. Indeed, so far as appears from Herodotus, the victim, if we may call her so, of the Babylonian rite was not necessarily unmarried. But comparison of the accounts of the practice at Heliopolis, in Lydia and in Cyprus renders it fairly certain that it was only unmarried women who were subjected to it, and that it was essentially a sacrifice of maidenhood. A passing reference by Eusebius has been interpreted to imply that at Heliopolis both married women and girls were prostituted in the service of the goddess.^[271.1] But Eusebius says nothing about the goddess. His reference must be construed in the light of Socrates’ statement that women were by the law of the country required to be common, and hence the offspring was doubtful, for there was no distinction between fathers and children.^[271.2] Whatever else those phrases may mean, they entirely negative the theory of expiation for marriage. But they do not refer to the custom of prostituting virgins to strangers, which the historian expressly distinguishes.

It may be objected to this reading of Herodotus that while he uses the generic term women (γυναῖκες) in speaking of the victims, on the other hand, in a previous chapter referring to the Babylonian marriage customs, he reports that once a year in every village the marriageable maidens (παρθένοι) were all put up to auction, the respective purchasers being required to give security that they would marry them; and it was unlawful to give them in marriage in any other way. The objection is of little weight. It is needless to consider whether we are to understand the specific term παρθένοι literally. Even if so, there would doubtless be ample time for the performance of the rite at the temple of Mylitta between the auction and the marriage. It does not appear that marriage followed the auction immediately. Had that been contemplated, security would hardly have been necessary. When the anniversary came round all the maidens who had during the preceding year attained puberty and thus become ripe for marriage (γάμων ὡραῖαι) were probably put up. Those who had not previously undergone the rite would, if my interpretation be correct, be required to submit to it before marriage.

It is superfluous to discuss other and obvious objections to the theory of expiation for marriage. But the appearance of prostitution which the rite presents demands further consideration. At Babylon, although a piece of money passed, the payment seems to have been merely pro forma. It mattered not how small the coin was, it could not be refused. Whatever it was, Strabo tells us it was considered as consecrated to the goddess. Lastly, the rite once performed, no gift, were it ever so great, would be accepted to repeat it. The details of the rite at Heliopolis and among the Lydians have not been preserved to us; but we may with probability infer that they were similar. In Lydia, indeed, if we are to trust both Ælian and Herodotus, two distinct customs are traceable, namely, the sacrifice of virginity and the life of prostitution to earn a dowry. A Greek inscription of the second century A.D., found at Tralles and referred to by Dr Frazer, discloses also the existence of religious prostitution by girls expressly chosen by the god and set apart for that end.^[273.1] This is a similar custom to that of the Armenian girls already mentioned, and is not to be confounded with the prostitution mentioned by the Father of History as practised by all the daughters of the common people. Whatever may have been the origin of the latter, the other two in the time of Ælian were connected with religion. On the island of Cyprus we seem to find much the same state of things. If we may believe Justin, the maidens earned their dowry by prostitution. From other sources we learn that there were mysteries of the Cypriote Aphrodite, which were said to have been instituted by Cinyras, king of Paphos and father of Adonis. Into these mysteries there was a regular initiation. Sexual matters no doubt formed their staple teaching; and what classical and especially apologetic writers would call prostitution would be practised. The legend ran that the daughters of Cinyras, through the wrath of Aphrodite, united themselves with strangers.^[273.2] Probably it was believed to be in imitation of them that the maidens of Cyprus sought prostitution on the seashore. In any case the story indicates, as Dr Frazer has pointed out, “that the princesses of Paphos had to conform to the custom as well as the women of humble birth.” But if this be so, the object of the harlotry alleged by Justin falls to the ground, since it would be unnecessary for princesses to earn their dowry. It may be suspected, therefore, that Justin or his authority has confounded two disparate customs, that of earning the dowry by prostitution, and that of a religious sacrifice of virginity in connection with the mysteries of Aphrodite, in which the other party to the rite was a stranger. Only thus can we satisfactorily explain the limitation of the practice to stated days, probably festivals of Aphrodite, and the phrase about paying the offerings to her for future chastity.

The money payment, whether large or small, was in the Byblian rite, as in the Babylonian and (if I interpret correctly) in the Cypriote rites, consecrated to the goddess. We may infer that the same was the case wherever else the rite was performed. At Byblus it was the alternative to the consecration of the woman’s hair. Prostitution—that is, sexual intercourse for hire—is not a primitive practice. The appearance of prostitution in connection with religion may be accounted for by the influence upon the religious practice of the general practice of harlots. Analogy would suggest that intercourse other than conjugal or the satisfaction of the genuine passion of love demanded a monetary consideration. But when that intercourse was the performance of a religious duty the money was not kept as gain by the woman. It was not earned for herself, but devoted to the goddess. Where bands of “harlots” were attached to a temple their earnings probably went to swell the temple funds out of which they were supported.^[274.1] It may accordingly be suggested that the hire was not an essential part of the rite, but merely an aftergrowth in the process of adapting an older custom to the changing manners and religious ideas of a growing civilization.^[274.2]

Assuming, therefore, that the rite was a sacrifice of virginity to which every woman was subjected, it would probably be performed either on the attainment of puberty or as a preliminary to the marriage ceremonies. But we gather from the historian’s account of the sale of the village maidens around Babylon that the auction followed almost immediately after the attainment of puberty, or within (say) a year at the furthest. The practice of most ancient nations, as of nearly all barbarous and savage peoples, and indeed of many in a high stage of civilization, would lead us to expect that marriage would be entered into within a very short time of the bride’s puberty. Sometimes marriage even precedes puberty. Where, as more usual, it follows that epoch of life, the rites incident to puberty must first be completed. Among such rites defloration is not infrequently found. In this respect the Australian tribes are notorious. In the Boulia district of Northern Queensland the girl is compelled to intercourse with a number of men.^[275.1] Among the Dieri of South Australia a ceremony called Wilpadrina is performed on the young women when they come to maturity, in which the elder men claim and exercise a right to them, and that in the presence of the other women.^[275.2] The Arunta and Ilpirra tribes in the centre of the continent perform a ceremony on every girl when she arrives at a marriageable age, but before she has been taken over by the husband to whom she has been allotted. As part of that ceremony a number of men have access to her in ritual order; and the intercourse is often repeated the following day.^[276.1] Analogous proceedings are known in other parts of the world. The central tribes of New Ireland have a women’s house in every village. When a girl attains puberty she withdraws into a small house, called mbak, built inside it. There it is said she has to remain for ten months, only going outside at night. During this period she is waited upon by the old women, and through their intervention every man who chooses has access to her. On leaving the mbak she belongs only to the husband to whom she has probably been betrothed since infancy.^[276.2] In the west of the island of Serang between Celebes and New Guinea, a girl after ceremonial bathing goes round clothed with a sarong woven of the fibre of the Pandanus repens, at the service of every man until her family have collected the necessary materials for a feast. In certain districts, however, before actual puberty the teeth are filed. When this operation is completed, a feast is prepared of which the novice must taste everything. Further, an earthen pot filled with spring-water is covered with a fresh pisang-leaf. One of the old women then taking the index-finger of the girl’s right hand thrusts it through the leaf as “a symbol of the rupture of the hymen, or to show that the possession of virginity means nothing for her.” The leaf is then displayed on the ridge of the roof. This done, the women fall to eating and drinking. When they have finished they begin singing to the accompaniment of drums. The men are then admitted to the house. In some villages the old men have free access that evening to the room of the girl in whose honour the feast is given, while the other guests amuse themselves with singing outside. After this celebration the girl is entitled to free intercourse with men, even before puberty.^[277.1] In East-Central Africa the Azimba maiden is artificially deflowered during a period of retirement and instruction in the forest. When the retirement is over she celebrates her attainment of puberty by a dance in which only women take part. That night a man, hired by her father for the purpose, sleeps with her, and once this is done she is supposed to have no further intercourse with him. Often, however, she is already married before puberty, and consequently no longer a maiden. None the less is she taken from her husband that the puberty customs may be performed. When she is brought back he himself sleeps with her apparently as a ritual act, without the necessity of hiring a man for the purpose.^[277.2] Among the Wanyasa, or Mang’anja, at the southern end of Lake Nyasa, ceremonies are performed similar to those of the Intonjane (girls’ puberty ceremonies) of South Africa, and every girl on her return after the initiation must find some man “to be with her,” otherwise she will die.^[277.3] The Intonjane among the Kaffirs is well known to be an occasion of sexual indulgence. It may be surmised that the ceremonies of the Suahili on the east coast were originally similar to those just mentioned. But the Suahili have become partially Arabized, though their Mohammedanism is little more than a veneer over their heathen customs and belief. Among them now a girl returns from her seclusion in silence and gives her hand to every man she meets, receiving from him in return a few small coins.^[277.4] It is said that the girls of the Wamegi, also a tribe near the coast, are artificially deflowered at puberty by certain old women.^[278.1] Artificial defloration at puberty is also practised by the Sawu Islanders. The Sakalava girls in Madagascar perform it on themselves in case their parents have not previously taken the trouble.^[278.2] Other examples could be cited, but the subject need not be pursued.

I would venture to suggest then that the Babylonian rite was a puberty rite, and that a maiden was not admitted to the status and privileges of adult life until she had thus been ceremonially deflowered. Among those privileges, and the chief of them, was the gratification of the sexual instinct. It was, therefore, a prerequisite to marriage. Ceremonial defloration of the bride by others than her husband has prevailed in many places. When marriage follows closely after puberty it is difficult to determine whether the custom really belongs to the puberty rites, or to those of marriage. I am not concerned here to deny that among many peoples who practise it as part of the marriage rites it may have been such ab initio. The determination of this question would involve an examination of marriage customs extending far beyond the space at my disposal. But it will be admitted that as puberty rites gradually became simplified or altogether obsolete such a custom could only maintain existence as part of the marriage rites. It is then usually (but, as we shall see, not always) performed by one or more of the bridegroom’s friends or by an appointed official, and ultimately degenerates into the jus primæ noctis vested in some powerful personage, as a lord or priest. Nothing of the sort appears in the accounts which have come down to us of the ancient rite in Western Asia. In all of them (save among the Lydians) emphasis is laid on the performance by a stranger. At Babylon our information does not connect the rite with marriage at all. Elsewhere it is referred to not as part of the marriage rites, but as a preliminary to marriage.

That such a rite should be found annexed to the temple and worship of a luxurious goddess causes no surprise; on the contrary, it is what might have been anticipated. Every reader will call to mind numerous examples of archaic rites which have become attached to Christian festivals, and of Christian shrines which are simply shrines of an earlier religion adapted and consecrated afresh under Christian names. The difficulty of uprooting old customs, and their consequent incorporation and adaptation by advancing culture or a new religion, are phenomena too well known to be insisted on here. Probably the Cypriote mysteries were adapted to the worship of Aphrodite from a ruder stage in which no divinity was invoked. And if this could happen once in Western Asia, it might have happened also at Babylon, at Heliopolis and elsewhere. It is possible that other practices, such as the prostitution of the Armenian girls at the temple of Anaitis, or that of the Lydian and Paphian girls to earn their dowries, are no more than the adaptation of a custom common enough in the lower barbarism, by which unmarried girls have unfettered liberty in their sexual relations. The Armenian maidens, at all events, though spoken of as harlots by Strabo, do not seem to have exercised their calling for money, nor to have admitted indiscriminately to their favours all who offered. They reserved themselves for their equals in rank, and entertained them in their dwellings with more hospitality than in a spinsters’ house in the Pacific Islands. The surmise may be indulged that it was in fact originally, if not in later times, their way of choosing husbands. The Lydian girls are expressly said to have bestowed themselves in marriage.

Mannhardt contended (and his opinion is so far endorsed by Dr Frazer) that the maidens who surrendered their virginity in connection with the cult of a goddess like Aphrodite did so in imitation of their divinity, as her representatives, the human players of her part.^[280.1] This may have been the mode by which the ancient custom was adapted to the newer order of things. But it is submitted that it is a very insufficient account of it. The custom must have been older than any definite belief in the goddess’s habits or any story of her various intrigues. Are we then to suppose that it was a magical rite designed to promote the fertility of animal and vegetable life? Such rites are known in both hemispheres. The great goddess worshipped under different names throughout Western Asia personified, we may concede, the reproductive energies of Nature. Many of the rites employed in her cult are in the last analysis magical, and had for their purpose to assist those energies. By a well-known mental process magical efficacy is often ascribed to acts and usages not essentially of a magical, nor indeed of a ritual, character. Thus the general prostitution of young girls to earn their dowries, and that of widows—customs which are probably of quite a different origin—are among certain tribes of Morocco held to be not without their effect on the abundance of the crops.^[281.1] Such a belief may have consecrated lives of habitual harlotry in Armenia, in Lydia, and in Cyprus. It by no means follows that every rite performed in the name of the goddess acquired that meaning, still less that that was its primitive meaning. Many such rites would be wholly personal. They would be intended to secure personal blessings to the worshipper, and nothing more, though everyone might have been required to perform them. It is needless to suppose without express evidence that the rite described by Herodotus as taking place at the temple of Mylitta had more than a personal reference. The most obvious personal blessing to be secured from such a goddess would be fertility. It is possible that this was the intention here. Puberty customs are doubtless performed for the good of the individual, and of the tribe or nationality through the individual. We must not infer, however, that the personal blessing of fertility was held to be the natural and direct outcome of the sacrifice of virginity. That was not the way in which it would be envisaged, however logical such an outcome may seem to us. The savage would not expect the natural result, but one that we call magical. At the stage represented by the Babylonian custom the blessing was invoked from the goddess, and was her gift. In other words, it was not that specific ritual act of coition, but future acts rendered licit and consecrated by it which were expected to bear fruit. This interpretation is perhaps strengthened by a rite said to have been regularly performed in the Troad. “Every maiden on the approach of her marriage was required to go and bathe in the Skamandros, and standing in the water to pronounce the sacred formula: ‘Skamandros, take my maidenhood as a gift.’” Dr Farnell, citing the fictitious letter of Aischines on which the evidence for the custom rests, observes: “The letter narrates how a mortal assumed the human form of the god and took a treacherous advantage; but originally, we may suppose, the rite of consecration was not associated with any anthropomorphic divinity, but was performed in the hope that the spirit of the river might enter into the maiden, and that the child she might afterwards bear to her wedded husband might thus be mystically akin to the guardian of the land. The many early myths concerning heroines and princesses being made pregnant by river-gods suggest that the ritual just described was once prevalent in primitive Greece; for such myths could arise naturally from such a custom.”^[282.1] But the ritual itself suggests that it is a relic of a still older rite parallel with the rite at the temple of Mylitta.

The last of the problems connected with the rite is to explain why it must be accomplished with a stranger. If, as has been alleged, the act of defloration of a maiden were held to be in itself dangerous, it is not easy to say why anyone, even a stranger, should undertake it, unless he were strangely ignorant of the risk or strangely careless. In some places, indeed, a maiden who had come to submit to the rite may have been outwardly indistinguishable from one of the hierai; and hence the man may have been unconscious of his risk, or may have been willing to undertake a risk thus diminished. But at Babylon the women who came thus to offer themselves wore a distinctive head-dress of cords, the emblem, perhaps, of their condition of virginity. Moreover, they seem to have been penned in enclosures divided from each other by ropes, which were broken to let them out for the accomplishment of the rite. There was therefore no mistake as to their status or object.^[283.1] On the other hand, if the defloration simply involved ritual impurity such as could be removed by the proper ceremonies, it must be asked why the task was left to a stranger. None of our ancient authorities have condescended to define a stranger. We are probably to understand by that term one who was not an inhabitant of the town or who was not a member of the community. The analogy of certain Australian rites already referred to, and of rites of marriage in some other parts of the world, would lead us to suppose that what was really intended in the first instance was one who was not eligible for sexual relations with the woman in the ordinary course. Thus in Peru and New Granada “the nearest relations of the bride and her most intimate friends” are said to have performed the corresponding rite^[283.2]; and even her father is credited with the labour among the Orang-Sakai of the Malay Peninsula, the Battas of Sumatra, the Alfoers of Celebes, and on the Island of Ceylon and the eastern Moluccas.^[284.1] From this the more developed morality of the Babylonians would recoil. Mr Crawley, commenting on the Australian rite, surmises that in it “initiation” and marriage are one, and that “initiation” ceremonies (that is to say, puberty ceremonies) “of this kind are marriages to the other sex in abstract.”^[284.2] The surmise follows from his theory of the danger of human contact, and especially of marriage, and the importance of ceremonies to avert the peril. The theory itself—at all events pushed to the length to which Mr Crawley pushes it—is very questionable. But defloration at puberty, whether natural or artificial, is undoubtedly (whatever else it may be) a formal introduction to sexual life. Such introduction might be the more authoritative and emphatic if given by one (or more) with whom sexual relations would not in future be sustained. It is a ritual act. Ritual acts are acts out of the ordinary course—often clean contrary to the ordinary course. Therein consists their essence, their virtue. But in the growth of civilization, with the emergence of a new religion or different customs, the real meaning of a traditional rite is obscured, the rite itself becomes decadent, and a new meaning is assigned to it. Hence a puberty rite might easily become part of the cult of a goddess like Mylitta.

Moreover, at the stage of decay which the rite had reached at Babylon and elsewhere in Western Asia, the proviso that the person with whom the act was performed must be a stranger might be intended to prevent an assignation. When the act had to be performed as a sacrifice in honour of the goddess it might be regarded as a profanation to perform it as an act of inclination with a favoured lover. The best way to prevent this would be to require that it should be performed with a chance stranger, who might further be looked upon, if Mannhardt’s interpretation be correct, as a representative sent by the goddess to play Adonis to the maiden’s Aphrodite. The rite at Byblus lends countenance to this conjecture. It is supported also by the artificial defloration enacted only in symbol by Roman brides, but in grim earnest at the temples of Siva by brides in Southern India.

But we are able to carry the conjecture a step beyond this. Here I am glad to avail myself of the criticism of Professor Westermarck, who has pointed out that a semi-supernatural character is very generally ascribed to strangers, and that intercourse with a stranger would thus be productive of blessings—especially the blessing of fertility—to the woman.^[285.1] From the large collections on the subject of relations with strangers brought together by Professor Frazer and Professor Westermarck himself it results that a stranger is regarded as uncanny. He is a being possessed of unknown powers for good or ill. His orenda, as we have seen, is incalculable.^[285.2] He must therefore be either repulsed at once as a foe or received and treated with extraordinary respect. The former course is not usually adopted unless the strangers come in force or there are other circumstances that suggest hostile intent. The latter course has given birth to laws of hospitality recognized all over the world, however the exact procedure may differ among different peoples. But even in this case the stranger is looked upon with suspicion until he has undergone what M. van Gennep calls rites of aggregation to the group or society to which he has come. These rites may be of the most simple character, such as spitting upon his host or drinking a cup of water or coffee from his host’s hand; or they may involve a trial of strength, an exchange of gifts, the offering of sacrifices or entry into a blood-covenant.^[286.1]

The uncanny character thus attributed to a stranger includes not merely the possession of magical powers. In a society where everyone, or at least a large and unknown number of persons, is believed to be endowed more or less with magical powers, this is a matter of course. But a halo of still more mysterious possibility encircles a stranger: he may be a superhuman Power, a dead man, or even a god. Hence arise the numerous stories, many of which have been collected by Mr Gerould in his monograph on The Grateful Dead, published by the Folk-Lore Society in 1908. These stories usually represent the stranger as a dead man to whom the hero has rendered some service, such as that of burying his corpse. But perhaps the best known, and among the most ancient is that found in the book of Tobit, where the stranger is the angel Raphael. A tale even older and more widespread is preserved among the Hebrew traditions as that of Lot and the two angels who visited him in Sodom. Probably it was part of the common Semitic stock, and as such would have been known at Babylon. Substantially the same story is that of Baucis and Philemon reported by Ovid; and the tale of Demeter’s wanderings and many another in Greek legend rest on a common basis of belief. Continental folklore down to modern days identifies the unknown beggar as Jesus Christ Himself or, if a woman, his Mother. The Bantu of South-West Africa tell of the great goddess Nzambi who begs in disguise for a little palm-wine to slake the thirst of her child. Refusal is followed in the night by punishment; the smiling valley, like that of Sodom, is covered by the waters of a lake; and the only person saved is he who had taken compassion and granted the poor old mendicant’s request.^[287.1] Lest this be thought a tale imported from Europe, let me add that in Annam a similar tale is told to account for three lakes in the province of Thay Nguyen. There a beggar-woman is repulsed by all save an old widow and her son, who give of their poverty food and a night’s lodging to the miserable and unattractive creature. She turns out to be a supernatural personage. She has come down to test the hearts of the devotees who have flocked to a great religious festival periodically held in the place. The hypocrites who repulsed her are all overwhelmed in a deluge of waters; only the widow and her son are saved.^[287.2]

To labour the proof is unnecessary. It is abundantly clear that a stranger may be far more than mortal, and that this possibility has deeply affected the evolution of hospitality. The stranger must be conciliated. He must be bound by sacred ties to the host—ties which he cannot break so long as he remains under the host’s protection. Among the rites of aggregation—the rites effecting this union—M. van Gennep reckons the use of the women frequently accorded to visitors in the lower culture; and he suggests that the rite at the temple of Mylitta was such a rite of aggregation. It may have been so. It may have been expected of all masculine strangers at Babylon to unite themselves with the natives by means of this homage to the goddess. All that can be said is that Herodotus gives no hint of it. According to him it was only on the women that the duty lay—and that no more than once in their lives—of submitting to the rite. The mystery attaching to a stranger and involving the expectation of divine blessing is a sufficient reason for the performance of the rite with one who might be a god in person, and in any event must have been held to be divinely sent; for chance is the servant of the gods. Thence it is but a step (and the step was taken elsewhere, if not at Babylon) to the substitution of the priest for the stranger or the god; and the way is opened to the abuses of the jus primæ noctis.^[288.1]

Before dismissing the subject reference may be made to Professor Cumont’s note on the subject of religious prostitution in Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain (Paris, 1907), pp. 143, 286, as showing the facility with which a learned and highly distinguished scholar may fail to appreciate the complexity of the problem. He makes no distinction between the three customs of sacrifice of virginity, prostitution to earn a dowry, and a life of religious prostitution in the service of the goddess. He refers them all to the primitive constitution of the Semitic tribe, and explains them as a modified form, become utilitarian, of an ancient exogamy. Mating with a virgin, he holds, resulted in defilement; therefore she was given first to a stranger; only after that could she be married to a man of her own race. I pass by the confusion between the three customs in question, to all of which his explanation will not equally apply. But if the explanation be correct for any of them, either the ancient exogamy of the Semites must have been quite different from exogamy as generally understood, or it must have been not merely modified but transformed. Exogamy, as generally understood, has nothing to do with race or nationality. It is simply the savage rule corresponding to our table of prohibited degrees.^[289.1] A man may not marry or have sexual relations with one who is akin to him; every member of his clan (not of his tribe or his race) is akin to him; therefore, he cannot marry or have sexual relations with any member of his clan. The origin of this rule is still disputed by anthropologists, and we need not here discuss it. But since exogamy bars a man from sexual relations with every member of his kin, it is obvious that it cannot be merely a preliminary to marriage within the kin. Where exogamy is the law, the bar is absolute; it is the law for the whole of life; it is not intended to provide for a temporary union outside the kin in order to prepare the way for a permanent union within the kin. Exogamy, therefore, I submit, cannot explain these customs.

THE VOICE OF THE STONE OF
DESTINY

In the following pages I propose to consider some of the auguries which have been deemed necessary to the choice of a king. Kingship is not found in the most archaic forms of society known to us. But where the community is organized on the basis of monarchy the king tends to be regarded as something more than ordinary humanity. He has powers and privileges denied to other mortals. These very powers and privileges and the sanctity of which they are the appanage entail, however, taboos and penalties of the most burdensome description. Professor Frazer has abundantly illustrated this side of royalty, and has also fully discussed some of the means whereby pretensions to the throne are enforced. But there remain others witnessing not less than those he has described to the extraordinary position of a king. Some of these and their echoes in folk-tale and romance will repay a little attention.

The famous Coronation Stone has an authentic history of six hundred years. At the time of the conquest of Scotland by Edward I., it was the stone on which the kings of the Scots were, according to immemorial custom, installed. Regarded by the Scots as sacred, it was therefore removed by Edward’s order from Scone, where it stood, to Westminster, and was enclosed in what is now, and has been ever since, the Coronation Chair. Its earlier history, as distinguished from conjecture and legend, goes no further back than the middle of the thirteenth century, or something less than half a century before its removal to Westminster, when it is recorded by Fordun that Alexander III. was solemnly placed upon it and hallowed to king by the Bishop of St. Andrews (1249). But what is wanting in authentic history has been abundantly made up in legend. The tale, of which there are two versions, is the creation of a literary age. The Irish version brings it, with the Tuatha Dé Danann, from Lochlann, or Scandinavia, to Ireland. The Scottish version traces it on the other hand from Egypt, whence it was carried by the Milesians. This was improved upon, to the extent of identifying the stone with that used by Jacob as a pillow on his journey from Beersheba to Haran. The attempt was thus made, by connecting the ruling race in Scotland with the legends of the Hebrew patriarchs, to confer upon the stone the united sanctity of religion, of antiquity, and of patriotism.

In the course of its wanderings the stone is said to have reached Tara; and it is declared to be the famous Lia Fáil, or Stone of Destiny, one of the two wonders of Tara celebrated in Irish sagas. We are indebted to the Book of Lismore, a fifteenth-century manuscript, for an enumeration of the wonderful properties of the Lia Fáil. The Colloquy with the Ancients, which is comprised in this precious manuscript, records a number of Irish traditions, some of which would else in all probability have perished beyond recovery. There we learn—the account is put into the mouth of no less a personage than Ossian himself—that “Anyone of all Ireland on whom an ex parte imputation rested was set upon that stone: then if the truth were in him he would turn pink and white; but if otherwise, it was a black spot that in some conspicuous place would appear on him. Further, when Ireland’s monarch stepped on to it the stone would cry out under him, and her three arch-waves would boom in answer: as the wave of Cleena, the wave of Ballintoy, and the wave of Loch Rury; when a provincial king went on it the flag would rumble under him; when a barren woman trod it, it was a dew of dusky blood that broke out on it; when one that would bear children tried it, it was a ‘nursing drop’”—that is, says Mr Standish O’Grady, from whose translation I quote, semblance of milk—“that it sweated.”^[292.1] The Colloquy is imperfect, the legible portion of the manuscript ceasing a line or two further on, just as we are about to be told how it was that the stone left Ireland.^[292.2] Its subsequent adventures are related by Keating, who says that it was sent to Feargus the Great, “to sit upon, for the purpose of being proclaimed king of Scotland.” However, it is not to the adventures of the stone, but to its properties that I wish now to direct attention. With regard to the former, all that I need add is that the legend has been subjected by Skene, and more recently by Mr P. J. O’Reilly, to an exhaustive analysis, which renders it clear that there is no trustworthy evidence that the stone of Tara is the Coronation Stone. The antecedent improbability is great; and even if it were indisputable that the stone in question was no longer at Tara in the eleventh century, the chasm between that period and Fergus, whose very existence only rested on legend, would still have to be bridged, and the variants of the story would need to be reconciled.^[293.1]

The properties of the stone of Tara were oracular; and the stone itself was one of a large class of stones endowed in popular opinion with divining powers, and actually resorted to for the purpose of enquiry. When the reputation of an oracle is once established, it is consulted for many purposes. Not only political, but juridical and domestic purposes are enumerated by the author of the Colloquy in regard to the Lia Fáil. Among these functions is the recognition of the monarch. The phrase used in the Colloquy is ambiguous. It is not stated why, or on what occasion, the stone was expected to make its voice heard. In practice the only object of obtaining such a recognition would be that of determining the succession to the throne. Keating supplies the missing explanation. “It was a stone,” he says, “on which were enchantments, for it used to roar under the person who had the best right to obtain the sovereignty of Ireland at the time of the men of Ireland being in assembly at Tara to choose a king over them.”^[293.2] Whether as a matter of fact the stone ever was consulted with this object is another question. It is enough at present to know that Irish tradition asserted this use of the oracle. In a semi-civilized community a disputed succession is of frequent occurrence. To prevent a dispute, and to settle it when it arises, various means are adopted. The usual Irish plan seems to have been the custom of Tanistry. “During the lifetime of a chief,” Sullivan tells us, “his successor was elected under the name of Tanaiste; and on the death of the former the latter succeeded him. The Tanaiste was not necessarily the son of the chief: he might be his brother or nephew; but he should belong to his Fine,” or family.^[294.1]

That this mode of election was not always successful we may easily believe. That it was the gradual outcome of the experience of a long series of generations is probable. Where for one cause or another it failed, how would the succession be determined? The most obvious means would be either conflict or divination. According to the legends, divination was sometimes actually used to determine the appointment of king. On one occasion in the days of Conchobar, the famous King of Ulster, the monarchy of Ireland had been vacant for seven years. This state of things being found intolerable, a general assembly was held at Tara to choose a king. The royal houses of Connaught, South Munster, North Munster, and Leinster were there, but the Ulstermen were absent; for there was bitter feud between Ulster and the rest of Ireland, and they would not hold kingly counsel together. The mode of election adopted was divination by means of a dream induced by certain ceremonies. The ceremonies began with a bull-feast. A bull was killed, and a man was gorged with its flesh and broth. We are told “he slept under that meal.” It is not incredible. Then “a true oration,” which I understand to mean an incantation, was pronounced over him by four Druids. He dreamed, and screamed out of his sleep, and related to the assembled kings that he had seen in his dream “a soft youth, noble, and powerfully made, with two red stripes on his skin around his body, and he standing at the pillow of a man who was lying in a decline at Emain Macha,” the royal palace of Ulster. Messengers were accordingly sent thither, and the description was found to correspond with that of Lugaidh Reo-derg, the pupil of Cuchulainn, who was then lying ill. Lugaidh was brought to Tara, recognized as the subject of the vision, and proclaimed as monarch of Ireland.^[295.1]

This is not the only instance in Irish legend of election to the throne by incubatio, or divination by means of a dream. Conaire, whose tale is filled with incidents explicable only by the comparative studies of ethnologists, was thus elected. Though really begotten by a supernatural bird-man, he was regarded as the son of his predecessor, Eterscéle. But this does not seem to have given him any title to succeed. A bull-feast was accordingly given; and the bull-feaster in his sleep at the end of the night beheld a man stark-naked, passing along the road of Tara with a stone in his sling. Warned and counselled by his bird-relatives, Conaire fulfilled these requirements. He found three kings (doubtless of the under-kings of Ireland) awaiting him, with royal raiment to clothe his nakedness, and a chariot to convey him to Tara. It was a disappointment to the folk of Tara to find that their bull-feast and their spell of truth chanted over the feaster had resulted in the selection of a beardless lad. But he convinced them that he was the true successor, and was admitted to the kingship.^[296.1]

A traditional story is not a record of fact. It is a record only of what is believed. Probably both Lugaidh Reo-derg and Conaire are mythical personages, but their stories certainly embody what was thought to be possible. The description of the election by divination is substantially the same in both. It may therefore be taken, if not as approximately correct, at least as showing that election by divination was regarded among the ancient Irish as in the last resort a reasonable and proper manner of ascertaining and appointing a king. In this the Irish were by no means singular. The traditions of other nations point to the same result, and the customs in various parts of the world confirm it. The incident of election by divination is so picturesque and so suitable for the purposes of a story-teller that it is to be expected far more often in a tale than in real life. But that the story-incident is based on actual practice, I think there is sufficient ground for believing.

We will first shortly review a few stories of election by divination. The Saxons of Transylvania tell of a peasant who had three sons, of whom the youngest was despised by the others because he was weak and small while they were tall and strong. In that kingdom God Himself chose the king from time to time. The mode of ascertaining the divine will was to call a general assembly of the people on the king’s meadow in the largest commune of the country, and there to lay the crown at a certain hour on a hillock or mound. All the bells in the town pealed forth together; and the crown slowly raised itself in the air, floated round over the heads of the assembly, and finally alighted on that of the destined sovereign. The two elder brothers made ready to attend the ceremony, but bade the youngest remain at home in the ashes, where his place was. However, he slipped out after them, and, for fear they would see him, crept into a pigsty that stood at the end of the town abutting on the meadow. The crown, passing over all the people present, sank down upon the pigsty. Surprised and curious to know what this strange proceeding meant, the people ran to the pigsty, there found the trembling boy, and drawing him forth bowed the knee and saluted him as the new king, called by God to occupy the throne.^[297.1]

In this Transylvanian märchen the crown is the instrument of divination. Going next to the dim and distant East we find other emblems of royalty thus represented. In the Jātaka, the great book of Buddhist Birth-stories, the supposititious child of a merchant’s wife of Maghada is the hero of a similar adventure. He is, however, no ordinary child but the Bodhisatta, the future Buddha in an earlier birth. He was called Banyan, from having been found under a banyan tree, where his own mother had forsaken him at his birth. Travelling with two faithful companions who had been born on the same day as himself, he came to Benares, and entering the royal park lay down upon a slab of stone with his two companions beside it. The previous night they had slept in the city under a tree at a temple. One of the youths had awakened at dawn and heard some cocks quarrelling in the branches. He listened, and learnt that whoever killed a certain one of these birds and ate of his fat would become king that very day, he who ate the middle flesh would become commander-in-chief, and he who ate the flesh about the bones would become treasurer. He killed the bird, gave the fat to Banyan, the middle flesh to his other friend, and gnawed the bones himself. Now the king of Benares was dead, and that day the festal car was going forth with the five symbols of royalty, the sword, the parasol, the diadem, the slippers, and the fan, within it, to choose the king’s successor. As the three youths lay in the royal park, the ceremonial chariot rolled up and stopped before them. The chaplain (presumably a Brahman) followed. Removing the cloth from Banyan’s feet he examined the marks upon them. “Why!” he exclaimed, “he is destined to be king of all India, let alone Benares!” and he ordered the gongs and the cymbals to strike up. This awoke Banyan, who sat up. The chaplain fell down before him, saying: “Divine being, the kingdom is thine.” “So be it,” quietly answered the youth; the chaplain placed him upon the heap of precious jewels and sprinkled him to be king.^[298.1]

In a Calmuck tale the instrument of divination is not one of the royal insignia, but a sacrificial cake. An assembly of the people is held to choose a new khan; and it is decided to appeal to the judgement of heaven by throwing a sacrificial cake, called Baling, apparently a figure of dough, into the air, at the time of the sacrifice (Streuopfer). On whosesoever head the cake fell, he should be khan.^[298.2]

A tale of the Teleut Tartars tells of a father who was enraged with his son because he interpreted the cry of some birds, declaring that they foretold that he himself would become emperor, and his father would drink his urine. The father, in his anger, struck off his son’s head. He then killed his horse, skinned it, rolled his son’s body in the hide and flung it into the sea. The waves carried the package to a village, where an old woman found it. She opened the leather, and the youth came out alive. The prince of that land had died, leaving no son. His subjects took two golden posts, and fastened on their tops two tapers. They then set up the posts in the middle of the village. Everyone was required to jump through them, and the tapers would fall on him who was to be the prince. But they obstinately remained standing until the destined youth came, when they both fell on his neck and burst into flame. If he had not become an emperor, at least he was now a prince: and with that variation, the whole of the bird’s prophecy was in due course fulfilled.^[299.1] But we need not follow it further. The hero of a Balochi tale likewise falls under his father’s displeasure. His father was a king, and the son took advantage of his royalty to break the crockery of his father’s subjects. When the people complained, his father drove him away. In the course of his wanderings, he came to a town where the king had just died. The palace door was shut, and upon it was written: “He whose hand shall open this door, shall be king of this city.” The wandering prince, reading this, said: “Bismillah.” He pushed the door: it opened. He entered, seated himself on the throne, and became king.^[299.2]

The Kah-gyur, a sacred work of Tibetan Buddhism dating back to the eleventh century or thereabouts, contains a story of king Ánanda. The name Ánanda is famous in the literature of Buddhism as that of a favourite disciple of the master; but it is here used in the indiscriminate way in which the mediæval friars used the names of Pompey, Titus, Pliny, and other famous Romans, in the Gesta Romanorum. This king had five sons, of whom the youngest was endowed with qualities better suited to a ruler than the others, and to whom accordingly he desired to leave the kingdom. But he feared that if he invested his youngest son with sovereign power, his kinsmen would reproach him for having passed over his elder sons. As a way of escape from the difficulty he decreed that after his death his sons should be tested, and that he should be made king whom the jewel-shoes should fit, under whom the throne should remain steadfast, and on whose head the diadem should rest unshaken, whom the women should recognize, and who should guess six objects to be divined by insight.^[300.1] There is a triple test here—divination by the royal insignia, the choice of the harem, and the solution of a riddle. I shall return to the two former tests. But before passing to another type of story I may note that in the Bakhtyár-Náma, a Persian romance translated by Sir William Ouseley, who brought it from the East in the early part of the last century, there is a story in which the succession to the throne is made to depend upon the solution of three riddles. The king having died without issue, it was resolved to go to the prison and propound three questions to the criminals confined there. He who answered best was recognized as king.^[300.2] Riddles are regarded in certain stages of civilization as a test of more than ordinary wisdom. Their position in the evolution of thought and custom is well worth investigation. It is too large a subject for discussion here.

Occasionally the instrument of divination is wholly wanting, and the first man met with is taken for king. Among a tribe in Morocco is told a tale of which the hero is made king, because he is the first man found outside the city-gate when it is opened in the morning.^[301.1] Another of these stories is that of Ali Shar and Zumurrud in the Arabian Nights. Ali Shar was a prodigal, and Zumurrud was his favourite female slave. By a series of diverting adventures which do not concern us, they are separated. After much suffering, Zumurrud contrives to possess herself of a man’s clothes, horse and sword. In the course of her wanderings she draws nigh to a city-gate, where she finds the emirs and nobles with the troops drawn up and waiting, as Conaire found the three kings waiting on the way to Tara. The soldiery, on seeing her, dash forward. They dismount and prostrate themselves before her, saluting her as lord and sultan. On enquiry she learns that the sultan of the city is dead; and on such occasions it is the custom that the troops sally forth to the suburbs, there to sojourn for three days. Whoever comes during that time from the quarter whence she has come is made king. Being a lady of resource, she accepts the position, administers the kingdom with efficiency, and ultimately finds means to avenge herself on her enemies and to be reunited with her master, Ali Shar.^[301.2] An Indian folk-tale relates that in a certain city “it was the custom that when the rája died the nobles of the kingdom used to take their seats at the gate of the city, and the first man who appeared before them they made their rája.”^[301.3]

The same tale is told by the Taranchi Tartars, an agricultural people who are now settled in the valley of the Ili, a large river flowing into Lake Balkash, in Central Asia. But it is told with this difference. When the hero draws nigh to the gate of the city, all the people cry out “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” On enquiring why they do this, they reply: “Our ruler has been dead for three days. He had a magical bird, which has been let fly, and on whosesoever head the bird settles, him we raise to be our prince.” Here the augury is drawn from a bird.^[302.1]

In another Tartar märchen, this time from the west of Siberia, the ruler of the town has grown old, and is desirous of retiring. He has a bird which is let fly and chooses a woman. She is immediately accepted as prince and installed in the place of the old man.^[302.2] In a Kurdish märchen a special bird called “the bird of dominion” is fetched, it is not said whence, for the purpose of the divination.^[302.3]

An animal of some kind is, in fact, the agent in most of these tales. A Buddhist tale from Cambodia tells us that, the royal family having become extinct, it was the custom to ask the royal family of another kingdom to furnish a king. The council of mandarins determined to take this course. Under the advice of an old astrologer horses were harnessed to the carriage—we must understand, no doubt, the royal carriage—and then allowed to go in any direction they pleased, without a driver. This is described as consulting the horses. The first day the horses re-entered the palace. The next day they drew the carriage in the direction of a neighbouring kingdom. Twice, thrice the carriage was turned back; but the horses persisted in drawing it again in the same direction. It was accordingly decided to demand a prince from that kingdom.^[303.1]

In the East, however, as might be expected, it is usually the royal animal, the elephant, which thus confers the kingdom. I have already cited one great collection of Indian tales. There is another, only second to the Jātaka in extent, the Kathá Sarit Ságara, or Ocean of the Streams of Story, translated a few years ago by Dr Tawney. It contains a märchen, perhaps derived from that older and more famous collection, the Panchatantra, of a man who retired with his wife to the forest, to practise austerities. While there he rescued from the river a wretch whose hands and feet had been cut off, and who had been thrown by his enemies into the stream to die. His wife, probably sick of austerities, falls in love with the cripple thus rescued, and plots her husband’s death. She succeeds in precipitating him into the river; but instead of being drowned he is thrown on the bank near a city. “Now it happened that at that time the king of that city had just died, and in that country there was an immemorial custom, that an auspicious elephant was driven about by the citizens, and any man that he took up with his trunk and placed on his back, was anointed king.” The hero of the story, who is “an incarnation of a portion of a Bodhisattva,” is of course chosen; and when he gets the chance he inflicts condign punishment on his wife.^[303.2] The elephant is here described as “an auspicious elephant.” Sometimes he is called the “crown-elephant,” the special property and symbol of royalty. So in a Tamil story we learn that the king of a certain city dying childless, on his death-bed called his ministers together and directed them “to send his crown-elephant with a flower-wreath in his trunk, and to choose him on whom the elephant throws the garland, as his successor.”^[304.1] In a folk-tale from the far north of India it is “the sacred elephant” before whom all the inhabitants are required to pass in file, and the animal is expected to elect one of them to the vacant throne “by kneeling down and saluting the favoured individual as he passed by, for in this manner kings were elected in that country.”^[304.2] In a story which appears to come from Gujerat, the king dies without an heir, and the astrologers prophesy that his heir would be the first who entered the gates of the city on the morrow of the king’s decease, and around whose neck the sacred elephant would throw a garland of flowers.^[304.3]

At other times the elephant alone does not make the choice. With him is conjoined some other animal or symbol of royalty. A tale from Kashmir speaks of a land where, when the king died, his elephant “was driven all over the country and his hawk was made to fly here, there and everywhere in search of a successor; and it came to pass that before whomsoever the elephant bowed and on whosesoever hand the hawk alighted, he was supposed to be the divinely chosen one.”^[304.4] In the Kathákoça, a collection of stories illustrating the tenets and practice of Jainism, five ordeals, as they are expressly called, are invoked. “The mighty elephant came into the garden outside the city. There the elephant sprinkled Prince Amaradatta [we have already heard of sprinkling as a means of hallowing to kingship], and put him on its back. Then the horse neighed. The two chowries fanned the prince. An umbrella was held over his head. A divine voice was heard in the air: ‘Long live King Amaradatta.’”^[305.1]

In most of these cases the decision is clearly regarded as the judgement of Heaven; and in every case the judgement of Heaven may at least be inferred. The incident is hardly less a favourite in the West than in the East. In the West, too, it is an appeal to the judgement of Heaven. All the European stories, however, in which it occurs have been recorded within the last century; consequently the incident in question appears only in a very late form. Now an appeal to the judgement of Heaven in the selection of a ruler is familiar to the peasant mind of the continent in one solitary instance—that of the choice of a pope. Accordingly this is the favourite, if not the only form of the story as it is told in France, Italy, and Switzerland. The charming collection by the late M. Luzel of religious and quasi-religious tales of Lower Brittany contains one entitled “Pope Innocent.” The hero is a son of the King of France cast off by his parents, who attempt to put him to death. He sets out for Rome to be present at the election of a new pope. On the way he falls in with two Capuchin monks. The elder of them is gentle to him, the other suspicious and hostile. The youth is a bit of a prig. Perhaps this is not to be wondered at, seeing that he is endowed with supernatural knowledge and power. These qualities make his conduct throughout the journey enigmatical to the point of excusing, if not justifying, the attitude of his unfriendly companion. Everyone takes him for a sorcerer; and the younger monk says in so many words to the other, that they will be lucky if he do not bring them to the gallows or the stake before reaching Rome. As they draw near the holy city, the boy hears some birds in a hedge foretell that one of the three will be made pope, just as the cocks were overheard in the story I have cited from the Jātaka. Thereupon he enquires of each of his companions what office he will give him if he (the monk) attain this dignity. The elder monk promises to make him his first cardinal, the younger contemptuously says he will make him beadle in his cathedral. Arrived at Rome, they find that the choice of a pope proceeds in this way: There are to be three days’ processions. Every pilgrim has to carry a candle, not lighted, in his hand; and he whose candle lights of itself is the person designated by God to the office of pope. The youth, however, has no money to buy candles. So he carries merely a white wand which he has cut in the hedge where the birds sang; and people, seeing him, shrug their shoulders and exclaim: “Look at that poor innocent!” It is, however, not the candle of an archbishop, or bishop, or of any great dignitary of the church; it is not that of an abbot, or a monk, or even of a simple priest, which lights; it is the boy Innocent’s white wand. The omen is refused on the first day; nor is it accepted until it has been repeated on the second and third days of the ceremony. At last the premier cardinal kneels before him, acknowledges him as pope and asks for his benediction. Thus Innocent becomes pope at Rome, by the will of God.^[306.1]

The story of Pope Innocent belongs to the cycle of the Outcast Child, a well-known group of folk-tales, of which the examples most familiar to us are the story of King Lear and that of Joseph and his brethren. The hero (or heroine) of these tales is cast off by his relatives for reasons at the least excusable. Sometimes, as in the Teleut tale already mentioned, his life is attempted. But in the end he attains a place and dignity which enable him to compel recognition of his wrongs, and, after the infliction of retributive humiliation, to pardon the offenders. In these märchen the pope is not always chosen by the burning of a taper. In the Italian variants the favourite method is by a dove which alights on the hero’s head. In a Swiss story from the Upper Valais two snow-white doves settle on his shoulders. In a Basque story, as the travellers approach Rome the bells begin to ring of themselves. In a story from Upper Brittany the will of Heaven is declared by a bell, which rings of itself when the destined pope passes beneath it. In a story from Normandy the new pope is indicated by “a portion of Heaven stooping upon him whom Jesus would choose to govern His Church.” The collector, while faithfully recording this singular phrase, is puzzled by it, and suggests that it must mean a cloud resting on him.^[307.1] In all cases it is quite clear that the falling of the lot, however it may be accomplished, is regarded as a direct expression of the divine will. The sacred character of the Papacy, and the names of historical popes, as Innocent and Gregory, given to the heroes, raise the suspicion that these tales are something more than märchen, and lead directly to the enquiry, not whether such prodigies have in fact been the means of determining the succession to the popedom, but whether they have been believed to have occurred.

Now it happens that this very event was reported in connection with the election of the great Pope Innocent III., in the year 1198. Three doves, it was said, flew about the church during the proceedings, and at last one of them, a white one, came and perched on his right side, which was held to be a favourable omen.^[308.1] In the atmosphere of the Middle Ages an occurrence of the kind, if it happened, could not fail to make a great impression on the popular mind. The dove would be regarded as no less than the embodiment of the Holy Spirit. Long before Innocent’s day—indeed before the Middle Ages began—something like this would seem to have happened. It is recorded by Eusebius that in the reign of the Emperor Gordian, who ruled from A.D. 238 to 244, when all the brethren were assembled in the church for the purpose of electing a successor to Anteros, Bishop of Rome, suddenly a dove flew down from on high and sat on the head of Fabian. Thereupon the assembly with one voice acclaimed him bishop and seated him on the episcopal throne.^[308.2]

Nor were popes alone thus honoured. Dr Conyers Middleton, in his once famous Letter from Rome, records that “in the cathedral church of Ravenna I saw, in mosaic work, the pictures of those archbishops of the place who, as all their historians affirm, were chosen for several ages successively by the special designation of the Holy Ghost, who in a full assembly of the clergy and people, used to descend visibly on the person elect in the shape of a dove.”^[308.3] Among the apocryphal stories in The Book of Sir John Maundeville we are told that in the convent on Mount Sinai are many lamps burning. The author, whoever he may have been, writes rather a muddled account of the election of “prelate of the abbey.” I gather from it that each monk has a lamp, and that when a prelate is chosen his lamp will light of itself, if he be a good man and worthy of the office; if otherwise, the lamp, though lighted, will go out. An inconsistent tradition ran that the priest who sang mass for the deceased dignitary found written upon the altar the name of him who was to be chosen in his place. But though the miracle-monger who writes under the name of Sir John Maundeville professes to have been at the monastery and questioned the monks, he admits that he could not induce them to tell him the facts.^[309.1]

The marvels reported of the election of Christian bishops are told with little variation of the election of other rulers. Paulus Diaconus relates that when Liutprand, king of the Lombards, a contemporary of Charles Martel, was thought to be dying, his subjects met outside the walls of his capital, Pavia, at the church of St Mary ad Perticas,^[309.2] to choose a successor. Their choice fell on the king’s nephew, Hildeprand, in whose hand they formally placed the royal spear. Immediately a cuckoo flew down and settled on the point of the spear, as it will be remembered a cuckoo in the Tartar story settled on the kalender’s head. This, however, was reckoned by Lombard wiseacres as an evil omen. Their augury was so far justified, that King Liutprand did not die after all, but recovered from his sickness and was not well pleased that his subjects had been in such a hurry to find a successor. Yet he did not refuse to recognize his nephew as co-ruler; and when he at last died, Hildeprand succeeded him.^[310.1] Of another king of the Lombards, Desiderius, a contemporary of Charles the Great, the story is told that the Lombard nobles were meeting to choose a king at Pavia, and Desiderius, a pious man of noble lineage who dwelt at Brescia, journeyed thither to be present, accompanied by a serving man. At Leno, between Brescia and Cremona, being weary, he lay down under a tree to sleep. As he slept his servant beheld a snake crawl forth and wind itself round his head like a crown. The servant was afraid to move, lest the snake might injure his master; but after a while it uncoiled and crept away. Desiderius meanwhile had dreamt that the crown of the Lombards was placed on his head. When he reached Pavia, the dream was fulfilled.^[310.2]

It is said that in Senjero, a petty kingdom in the south of Abyssinia, when the king dies the nobles assemble outside the city in the open plain, and wait until a vulture or an insect settles on one of them, who is then saluted as king.^[310.3] Everyone is familiar with the story told by Herodotus concerning the election of a successor to Smerdis the Magian, usurper of the throne of Persia, how it was agreed that the successful conspirators should meet at sunrise, and that he whose horse first neighed should be king. According to Herodotus, Darius won by a trick of his groom. That may or may not have been. What interests us in the story is that it was believed that the succession on this occasion to the throne of Persia was determined by an augury drawn from horses, and that the neighing of Darius’ horse was instantly followed by the further manifestation of the will of Heaven in thunder and lightning from a clear sky.^[311.1] The elephant, the horse and the divine voice of Indian märchen here find their counterpart, if not in actual fact, at least in the serious belief of the venerable historian, and the people whose tradition he reports. In this connection it must not be forgotten that among many peoples, horses were sacred animals. They were sacrificed to the gods; they were looked upon as in the counsels of the gods; their neighing was a favourable omen. It is therefore not at all improbable that Herodotus is here recording the mode of choice actually adopted.^[311.2]

Similarly in the annals of Kedda, a portion of the Malay Peninsula, there is a story of the rajah who was dethroned and fled. His nobles and queen sent to the King of Siam for a new ruler. He, having consulted his astrologers, was advised that the true heir to the throne could only be discovered by a supernaturally intelligent elephant, named Kamala Jauhari, which was wandering about on the confines of Kedda and Patani. When the envoys brought back the message to the Kedda chiefs, they decked the palace for a fête. “Then all the people held a fast for seven days and nights.… On the night of the seventh day the dupa and incense were burned, and all sorts of perfumes were diffused around, and at the same time the name of the super-intelligent elephant was invoked to attend upon the four mantris [ministers]. Immediately almost there was a sound, like the rushing of a coming tempest, from the East, with earthquakes, agitations and terrific sounds. In the midst of all this uproar the terrified spectators were delighted to see Kamala Jauhari standing at the hall, and thrusting up her trunk into it. The four mantris instantly rubbed her with cosmetics and bathed her with lime-juice, while others applied cosmetics and sweet-smelling oils, rubbing these over its whole body. Then a meal was served up to it, and put into its mouth. The state howdah was now placed on its back, along with all its appurtenances, curtains and hangings. Then one of the mantris read the King of Siam’s letter close to the ear of Kamala Jauhari, acquainting her that she was expected to assist in finding out a rajah for Kedda by all means. When Jauhari heard all this, she bowed her head and played her trunk, and then set forth in the direction of the East, followed and attended by from three to four hundred men, having banners and flags streaming in the wind, and being supplied with all necessaries, and armed with various kinds of spears, held in hand.” It is needless to say that the expedition thus pompously described was successful in discovering the boy. The elephant caught him up in her trunk, and, placing him on her back in the howdah, carried him off in triumph to the palace, where he was forthwith clad in royal robes and crowned.^[312.1]

In Indian belief it is not only super-intelligent elephants which can discover the future occupant of a throne. The elephant is the possession and symbol of royalty. But in the stories, other royal properties are also instruments of divination for that purpose. That these stories were founded on current superstitions is shown by the fact that among the ornaments of the throne of the famous Tippoo, conquered by the British at the end of the eighteenth century, was a bird of paradise made of gold and covered with diamonds, rubies and emeralds, and represented in the act of fluttering. Of this bird it was believed that every head it overshadowed would, in time, wear a crown. When Tippoo was defeated and slain, the Marquis Wellesley, at that time governor-general, sent it home to the Court of Directors of the East India Company.^[313.1] It is now at Windsor.

Coming back to Europe, we find the succession to the throne of one of the Scythian tribes determined by the possession of a certain stone. The author of the work on the names of rivers and mountains attributed to Plutarch relates that in the river Tanais a stone like a crystal grows. It resembles in shape a man wearing a crown. When the king dies, whosoever finds it, and can produce it in the assembly held on the banks of the river to elect a new sovereign, is recognized as the rightful successor.^[313.2] For this statement Ctesiphon on Plants and Aristobulus on Stones are cited, authors whose works are lost and who are unknown by any other citations. It is, therefore, impossible for us to judge how far they are likely to have known, or with what accuracy they may have presented, the practice of the barbarous tribe referred to. There can, however, be no doubt that election by divination has been resorted to by peoples in many parts of the world. The succession of Grand Lamas of Lhasa supplies examples of both story and custom. The custom used to be to write on slips of paper the names of all likely male children born under miraculous portents (of which anon) just after the death of the preceding Lama, to put these slips into a golden urn and thus ballot for his successor (or, as it is believed, his new incarnation) amid constant prayer. But the Chinese court, which has a considerable stake in the decision, was thought to influence the selection. The state-oracle has therefore predicted disaster by the appearance of a monster as the Dalai or Grand Lama, if the ancient practice were continued; and on a recent vacancy, in 1876, he foretold the discovery, by a pious monk, of the future Grand Lama, announcing that his discovery would be accompanied by horse-neighings. He sent this monk to Chukorgye, where he dreamed that he was to look in a certain lake for the future Dalai. There, pictured in the bosom of the lake, the monk saw the child with his parents in the house where he was born, and at the same instant his horse neighed. In due course the child himself was found, and successfully encountered the usual test, by recognizing the articles which had belonged to him in his previous life. Every child who is a candidate has to pass this test. He is confronted with a duplicate collection of various sacred objects, and he is required to point out among them the genuine possessions of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is not the only Grand Lama. The head of every lamasery, or convent of lamas, bears this title. When the Grand Lama of such a lamasery dies, his successor, or new incarnation, is sought first of all by divination. A diviner is called in, who, after consulting his books, directs the lamas where to look for the boy. When they have found him, he has to pass a similar test to that just described. In addition he has to submit to cross-examination on the name and situation of the lamasery, and how many lamas reside there, and on the habits of the deceased Grand Lama, and the manner of his death.

The portents at the birth of a Dalai Lama are magnificent. It is not irrelevant to mention them here, as they may be regarded as part of the auguries which decide the succession. An official report from the Chinese Commissioner to the Emperor, on such an occasion in the year 1839, declares, among other things, that it was ascertained that on the night before the boy was born, a brilliant radiance of many colours was manifested in the air, and the water in the well of the temple courtyard changed to a milk-white colour. Seven days later a flame appeared on the rock behind the post-station. When the rock was examined, no trace of fire remained, but a sacred image and characters were found, together with the print of footsteps. Moreover, on the night when the child was born, the sound of music was heard, and milk dropped upon the pillars of the house.^[315.1]

The Buddhists are not the only sect in the Chinese Empire which has a supreme head appointed by religious divination. The arch-abbot of Taouism dwells in a princely residence on the Dragon and Tiger Mountains, in the province of Kiang-si. “The power of this dignitary,” we are told, “is immense, and is acknowledged by all the priests of his sect throughout the empire.” The office has been confined for centuries to one family or clan. When the arch-abbot dies, all the male members of his clan are cited to appear at the official residence. The name of each one is engraved on a separate piece of lead, and deposited in a large earthenware vase filled with water. Standing round this vase are priests who invoke the three persons of the Taouist Trinity to cause the piece of lead bearing the name of the person on whom the choice of the gods has fallen, to come to the surface of the water.^[316.1]

The Taouist dignitary seems to possess only spiritual power, except probably in his own monastery. The Dalai Lama, on the other hand, retains some portion of civil rule. In both cases the person of the ruler is looked upon as sacred. Among savage and barbarous nations the office of priest or medicine-man is often not clearly distinguished from that of temporal ruler. The instances in which the chief or king is looked upon as divine, in which he is responsible for the weather, in which he causes the crops to grow, and performs other superhuman functions, are too numerous, and too well-known to be mentioned here. Since the publication of The Golden Bough they have been among the commonplaces of folklore. I need only remind you that “the divinity that doth hedge a king” is not confined to savagery and barbarism. It has lasted far into civilization, and been sedulously cultivated for political purposes by royalty in every age. A Roman Emperor was Divus Augustus. When the dignity of king becomes hereditary, the monarch is held to be at least descended from the gods. The Mikado traces his descent from the Sun-goddess. King George V. traces his from Woden, the war-god of the Anglo-Saxon tribes which colonized Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. It is true that this genealogy, at one time seriously credited, is now treated as fable; but even yet the coronation ceremonies of “His Sacred Majesty,” though not directly of pagan origin, witness to the mysterious sanctity that surrounds him.

A view of kingship thus exalted renders it easy to understand why, when circumstances compelled the choice of a king, the divine will must have been most anxiously consulted. It was not merely that the qualities of a leader in battle, a wise judge and administrator, and a prudent politician were needed. Luck and the favour of the gods were more than these, to say nothing of the marks of godhead, which in many cases it was necessary to discover in his person, conduct or knowledge. Hence the choice of the people, or rather the recognition by the people, would depend upon the auguries, or upon more direct indications of the decision of Heaven. When Dagara, the King of Karagwe, on the western shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza, died, he left behind him three sons, any of whom was eligible to the throne. The officers of state put before them a small mystic drum. It was of trifling weight, but, being loaded with charms, no one could lift it, save he to whom the ancestral spirits were inclined as the successor. Nor was this enough. The victor in this contest was required to undergo a further trial of his right. He was made to sit, as he himself informed Captain Speke, on the ground at a certain spot where the land would gradually rise up under him, like a telescope, until it reached the skies. The aspirant who was approved by the spirits was then gradually lowered in safety; whereas, if not approved, the elastic hill would suddenly collapse, and he would be dashed to pieces. It is needless to add, that Rumanika, Captain Speke’s informant, claimed to have gone through the ordeal with success.^[317.1]

Light is perhaps thrown on the matter by the final test actually imposed on the successor elected to the throne of Ukerewe, an island in the lake, and therefore adjacent to the kingdom of Karagwe. He is taken to Kitale, the burial-place of the kings, about two kilometres from the capital. There lies an immense stone rising like a donkey’s back from the soil, beginning a few centimetres only above the earth, and gently swelling until it attains the height of a little more than a metre. It is called the ruswa. The provisionally proclaimed king, with both hands laden with lances, bows and arrows, and wearing gigantic native sandals, is required to climb it slowly and with short steps to the top. If he be so unfortunate as to slip and fall on the way, he is unworthy of the drum (the symbol of sovereignty), and is driven away without pity. If, on the other hand, he successfully reach the platform, or highest point of the rock, he is acclaimed in a frenzy of excitement, the men breaking forth into a sham fight, the women joyfully shouting “Yu, yu!” The test is over; he is definitely king.^[318.1] It is not impossible that, reduced to its final terms, some such ordeal as this was what the candidate for the throne of Karagwe actually underwent.

These are barbarous auguries. But all auguries and oracles are barbarous. We do not know how Melchizedek was appointed King of Salem. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to him as “without father, without mother, without genealogy,” as if there were something peculiar in the omission of his pedigree, though in this respect he did not differ from the other kings mentioned in the narrative. However, the discovery at Tel-el-Amarna of letters from Ebed-tob, King of Salem in the fifteenth century B.C., to his suzerain the King of Egypt, has rendered it possible to suppose that Melchizedek did not come to the throne by inheritance, and consequently that his parentage was unimportant. Ebed-tob, protesting his loyalty as an ally and a tributary of the King of Egypt, says: “Neither my father, nor my mother, (but) the oracle of the mighty king, established (me) in the house of (my) father.” In other words, he states, as Professor Sayce interprets the expression, “that his authority was not based on the right of inheritance; he had been called to exercise it by a divine voice.”^[319.1] We must beware of drawing too large an inference from a single phrase. Assuming that “the mighty king” is the god ’Shalim, and not the suzerain whom he is addressing, there remains the question what is meant by “the house of his father.” Evidently it is the royal office; but is it not the royal office previously filled by his ancestors? The correct view, I would suggest, is that the kingship was, like that of Karagwe, descendible to any scion of the royal house, subject to the decision of the oracle. The pedigree then would be important, but not all-important. The god would decide among the candidates. Some such arrangement would seem to have been recognized in the heroic age of Greece, if we may trust the somewhat obscure expressions of the Odyssey. There are examples in the Homeric poems of kings who have succeeded to the inheritance of their sires. Agamemnon is one. On the other hand, the position of Ulysses is enigmatical. It is enigmatical in regard to Laertes, his father, who was still alive; while, if Ulysses were dead, it would seem that Telemachus, his son, would only have the first, but by no means an indefeasible, claim. As Mr Crooke has pointed out, it results from the interview between Telemachus and the wooers in the first book of the Odyssey, that some kind of divine nomination should appoint the king, and that the choice might fall, not on Telemachus, but on another of the Achæans in sea-girt Ithaca.^[320.1] It is dangerous to read into the poem what is not expressed. The poet is describing an age already mythical, though no doubt he has embodied considerable fragments of actual custom in the representation. He does not detail the process of appointment of king. Consequently, all we can safely say (and that on the assumption that here we have one of the fragments of actual custom) is that the manners and whole atmosphere of the poem correspond with a stage of culture in which the will of the gods would be ascertained by augury. In this connection it may not be irrelevant to refer to the early traditions of Rome. The quarrel between Romulus and Remus concerned not merely the site of the city, but also the founder after whose name it should be called—in other words, the royal dignity. It was settled by an augury taken from the flight of vultures. Numa, the successor of Romulus, though elected, took care to assure himself by auguries that the gods approved of the choice. It must be remembered that the legends, as we have them, took shape under the republic when the ordinary human process of election had been long established. The habit thus formed probably affected them; and I think we are warranted in suspecting that if we could recover them at a prior stage, we should find the appointment of king resting on the will of the gods and ascertained by divination.

No argument is needed to show that the form of tradition is affected, even where the substance remains, by external changes. Customs referred to in a legend may become obsolete and consequently unintelligible; and the reference to them must of necessity be modified into something which is understood, or it will be dropped into oblivion. The tradition of the Lia Fáil, with which I started, is an example. To step on the stone was to put one’s claim to sovereignty to proof. As Keating relates, doubtless from some older author, on it “were enchantments, for it used to roar under the person who had the best right to obtain the sovereignty of Ireland.” But this is the latest form of the tradition. We can, however, reconstruct the earlier form by comparison with custom and tradition elsewhere. They render it clear that the stone was once held to declare the divine will as to the succession. Further back still, it may have been regarded as itself endowed with power of choice.^[321.1] Strictly speaking, this is not augury, for augury is the ascertainment and declaration of a higher will. But some such animistic belief may have been the seed-plot out of which augury grew as gods properly so-called were evolved. At the stage at which the tradition reaches us the Lia Fáil no longer either chooses on its own account or makes known the choice of Heaven. At this stage, not only is it enchanted, consequently diabolic rather than divine in the source of its power, but also it merely points out him who has “the best right.” The principle of heredity is now firmly established; its application alone is uncertain. When the principle is established and the application certain, it is not necessary to consult an oracle.

The changes I thus venture to postulate are steps in the disintegration of the myth. A Welsh tale now to be cited has taken a further step in that it simply credits the instrument of divination with the diagnosis of blood royal, the practical purpose of determining the succession to the kingdom having disappeared. According to Giraldus Cambrensis, it happened that in the time of Henry I. Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Tudor, who, although he only held of the king one commote, namely, a fourth part of the cantref of Caio, yet was reputed as lord in Deheubarth, was returning from court by way of Llangorse Lake, in Brecknockshire, with Milo, Earl of Hereford and Lord of Brecknock, and Payn FitzJohn, who then held Ewyas, two of the king’s secretaries and privy councillors. It was winter, and the lake was covered with water-fowl of various kinds. Seeing them, Milo, partly in joke, said to Gruffydd: “It is an old saying in Wales that if the natural prince of Wales, coming to this lake, command the birds upon it to sing, they will all immediately sing.” Gruffydd replied: “Do you, therefore, who now bear sway in this country, command them first.” Both Milo and Payn having made the attempt in vain, Gruffydd dismounted from his horse, fell on his knees with his face to the East, and after devout prayers to God, stood up, and making the sign of the cross on his forehead and face, cried aloud: “Almighty and all-knowing God, Lord Jesus Christ, show forth here to-day Thy power! If Thou hast made me lineally to descend from the natural princes of Wales, I command these birds in Thy name to declare it.” Forthwith all the birds, according to their kind, beating the water with outstretched wings, began altogether to sing and proclaim it. No wonder that all who were present were amazed and confounded, and that Milo and Payn reported it to the king, who is said to have taken it philosophically enough. “By the death of Christ!” (his customary oath), he replied, “it is not so much to be wondered at. For although by our great power we may impose injustice and violence upon those people, yet they are none the less known to have the hereditary right to the country.”^[323.1]

In the same manner, in India snakes are supposed to be specially gifted with the faculty of distinguishing persons of royal race or born to rule.^[323.2] One example will be enough. The Gandharbs of Benares, a caste of singers and prostitutes, ascribe their origin to Doman Deo, the second Raghubansi Râjput king of Chandrâvati. He had a groom named Shîru, who one day went into the jungle to cut grass, and fell asleep. While he slept, a cobra raised its hood over his head, and a wagtail kept flying above him. In that condition his master saw him, and afterwards asked him what he would do for him if he became king. Shîru promised to make him his prime minister. Going subsequently to Delhi, the throne of which was vacant, Shîru was chosen emperor, in the manner with which we are already acquainted, by an elephant laying a garland on his neck; and he redeemed his word by making Doman Deo his wazîr.^[323.3] In Further India a saga of the Chams relates that Klong Garay, who plays a great part in their legendary history, was found by a companion of his wanderings, after a temporary absence, sleeping and watched by two dragons, which were licking his body. Then he knew, we are told, that Klong Garay was of royal race.^[324.1] The child of a king of Siam by a Naga, or divine snake, being exposed, was found and adopted by a hunter. The king’s subjects were compelled by law to work in turn for the king. The hunter, when summoned, took with him his adopted child and laid it in the shadow of the palace, to protect it from the rays of the sun while he performed his task. But the spire of the palace inclined before the child, and the shadow appeared to fly. This prodigy put the king upon enquiry, and he identified his son by means of the ring and mantle which he had given to the lady, and which had been found with the child.^[324.2] In the old English metrical romance of Havelok the Dane, the hero is identified by means of a royal mark, “a croiz ful gent,” shining brighter than gold on his right shoulder.

“It sparkede, and ful brith shon,

So doth the gode charbucle ston,

That men mouthe se by the lith

A peni chesen, so was it brith.”^[324.3]

The romance in which the incident is found is a literary version of the local tradition of Grimsby, still commemorated in the seal of the corporation. The poem dates from the end of the thirteenth century. There are two French versions which I have not seen. Professor Skeat has epitomized the longer in the preface to his edition of the English romance. In it a flame issues from Havelok’s mouth when he sleeps. This is a personal peculiarity, also found in the English lay. His heirship to the throne of Denmark is determined by his ability to blow a horn which none but the true heir could sound. Thus we are brought back to the succession by divination from which we started, and of which the simple diagnosis of royal descent is a corruption and a weakening. It is preserved here, we know not by what cause, after its true meaning had been forgotten. Adopted first of all into tradition from living custom, when the custom was superseded by other means of determining the succession it survived as a tradition until, its true intent being gradually lost, while the hereditary principle was strengthened and fenced about with sanctity, the incident faded into a merely picturesque presentation, in some places of prophecy, in other places of the claims of birth.

The study of folk-tales is often despised as mere trifling. But traditional narratives must always occupy an important place in the study of the past. Rightly used they have much to tell us of human history, of human thought and the evolution of human institutions. It may safely be said that of all the incidents that compose them there is none which is not a concrete presentation either of human institutions or of human belief. They are all thus in a sense the outcome of actual human experiences. The stories of election by augury are not wilder than the authentic facts. The telescopic mountain of Karagwe, which Rumanika averred himself to have experienced, is at least as wonderful as the groaning of the Lia Fáil, or the lighting of a dry twig. Even if we may be allowed to rationalize it in the manner suggested by the ordeal required of the chosen candidate for the throne of the neighbouring Bakerewe, it remains evidence of the belief imposed by the power of imagination in a moment of excitement. Analogous performances are averred by the votaries of what is called spiritualism to have been exhibited in our own day by mediums, and were solemnly recorded long ago in the witch-trials of various European countries. In one of the stories I have cited we found the dying monarch laying down among the conditions to be fulfilled by his successor, that the women of the royal household should recognize him. Secret intrigues of the harem are believed to determine the devolution of many an Eastern crown. But that the formal and ceremonial choice of the heir should be made by the wives of the deceased ruler seems too grotesque to be known outside a fairy tale. Yet this was the law a hundred years ago in the kingdom of Quiteve, on the south-eastern coast of Africa. When a king died the queens (that is to say, his legitimate wives) named the person who was to accompany his body to the burial-place, and the person thus named became the successor.^[326.1] In an adjoining kingdom a similar law prevailed. It was forbidden to any prince to enter the palace where the women were, or to take possession of the kingdom without their consent, and whoever entered by violence and took possession against their will, lost his right of succession. The Portuguese friar, to whom we are indebted for the information, records a case which happened while he was in Sofala, and in which the claimant would have entered and formally seated himself in the royal hall with the royal widows. They, however, were unwilling to acknowledge him as their king and husband. Accordingly they secretly summoned another member of the royal family, seated him with them in the public place, and sent officers through the town to proclaim the new sovereign and call his subjects to do homage. The pretender fled. This instance is the more remarkable because the unsuccessful claimant had in his favour the nomination of the previous monarch. Though this constituted not an indefeasible title, it afforded at least a strong presumption in his favour. Yet it was defeated, in accordance with established and publicly acknowledged custom, by the choice of the harem.

Nor was the rule requiring the choice, or at any rate the recognition, by the harem so redolent of the comic opera as it may seem, since the women all became the wives of the new king.^[327.1] This is usual in Africa, and not in Africa only, but in other regions where a similar type of polygamous monarchical society exists. It is most familiar to us among the ancient Hebrews. Absalom, by taking possession of his father’s harem, made a final and unqualified assertion of his succession to the throne. Solomon evidently regarded Adonijah’s request for Abishag the Shunammite as a pretension inconsistent with his own sovereignty; for she had been part of King David’s harem, though in fact no more than his nurse.^[327.2] In these cases the women had probably little to say in the matter. But by the customs of the South-Eastern Bantu a man’s widows, though they are bound to the family of the deceased, are allowed some latitude in the choice of the individual man with whom they will mate. Among the Thonga, for example, at the final distribution of the estate, any of the widows who refuses to take the husband to whom she has been provisionally allotted will be permitted to exercise her own preference.^[328.1] The power accorded to the widowed queens of Quiteve to choose their new husband was hardly an extension of this liberty. That it drew with it incidentally the right to the kingdom was a consequence which did not affect the principle.

[The End]