Beasts, birds, and insects are also the child's oracles. Mr. Callaway tells us that among the Amazulu, when cattle are lost, and the boys see the bird called Isi pungumangati sitting on a tree, "they ask it where the cattle are, and go in the direction in which it points with its head." The insect known as the mantis, or "praying insect," is used for a similar purpose (417. 339). In the Sollinger forest (Germany), on St. Matthew's day, February 24, the following practice is in vogue: A girl takes a girl friend upon her back and carries her to the nearest sheep-pen, at the door of which both knock. If a lamb is the first to bleat, the future husbands of both girls will be young; if an old sheep bleats first, they will both marry old men (391. II. 10).
The Child as Oracle in the Primitive Community.
In primitive social economy the services of the child, as an unprejudiced or oracular decider of fates and fortunes, were often in demand. In the community of Pudu-vayal, in the Carnatic (southeastern India), "when the season for cultivation arrives, the arable land in the village is allotted to the several shareholders in the following manner: The names of each lot and each share-holder are written on pieces of the leaf of the palm-tree, such as is used for village records, and the names of each division of land to be allotted are placed in a row. A child, selected for the purpose, draws by lot a leaf with the name of the principal share-holder, and places under it a number, thus,—
1—Tannappa. 2—Nina. 3—Narrappa. 4—Malliyan.
It is thus settled by lottery that Tannappa and his under-share-holders are to cultivate the land of the principal share lotted under No. 1. Tannappa next proceeds to settle in the same way each under-shareholder's portion included in his principal share, and so on, until the sixty-four shareholders receive each his allotment (461. 32)."
At Haddenham, in the county of Buckingham, England, a somewhat similar practice survived: "The method of deciding the ownership, after the meadow was plotted out, was by drawing lots. This was done by cutting up a common dock-weed into the required number of pieces to represent the lots, a well understood sign being carved on each piece, representing crows' feet, hog-troughs, and so on. These were placed in a hat and shaken up. Before this could be done, however, notice must be given by one of the men, calling out, at the top of his voice, 'Harko,' and using some sort of rigmarole, calling people to witness that the lots were drawn fairly and without favour…. The hat being shaken up, and one of the boys standing by, looking on with the greatest interest, is pitched upon as a disinterested person to draw the lots, and each owner had to 'sup up' with the lot that fell to him" (461.270).
In the manor of Aston, in the parish of Bampton, Oxfordshire, a like custom prevailed: "When the grass was fit to cut, the grass stewards and Sixteens [stewards] summoned the freeholders and tenants to a general meeting, and the following ceremony took place: Four of the tenants came forward, each bearing his mark cut on a piece of wood, which, being thrown into a hat, were shaken up and drawn by a boy. The first drawing entitled its owner to have his portion of the common meadow in set one, the second drawn in set two, etc., and thus four of the tenants have obtained their allotments. Four others then came forward, and the same process is repeated until all the tenants have received their allotments" (461. 166).
In Kilkenny, "when the division is made out, lots are prepared. Each man takes a bit of stick or particular stone, well marked; these are enveloped in a ball of clay, and a child or stranger is called to place each ball upon some one of the lots, by which each man's share is determined" (461. 141).
The Kaffir boy who is to tend the calves in the kraal, while his fellows sport and romp about, is selected by lot: "As many blades of grass as there are boys are taken, and a knot is made on the end of one of them. The biggest boy holds the blades between the fingers and thumb of his closed hand, and whoever draws the blade with the knot has to act as herdsman" (543. 221). Nowadays, children are employed to turn roulette-wheels, sort cards, pick out lottery-tickets, select lucky numbers, set machinery going for the first time, and perform other like actions; for, though men are all "children of fortune," there is something about real children that brings luck and prospers all enterprises of chance and hazard.
Unconscious action and selection by children have no doubt profoundly influenced individual men and society at times. De Quincey tells us that "the celebrated Dr. Doddridge is said to have been guided in a primary act of choice, influencing his whole after life, by a few chance words from a child reading aloud to his mother." The story of the conversion of drunken John Stirling by the naïve remark of his four-year-old boy, as the mother was reading Matthew xxv. 31-33, "Will father be a goat, then, mother?" finds parallels in other lives and other lands (191.356). Here may be considered as belonging some of the "guessing-games," certain of which, in forms remarkably like those in use to-day, were known to the ancients, as Mr. Newell has pointed out, from references in Xenophon and Petronius Arbiter (313. 147-152).