Non audet quisquam dignos educere versus.’
As for ourselves, though the old drinking salutation of ‘wæs hæl?’ is no longer vulgar English, the formula remains with us, stiffened into a noun. On the whole, there is presumptive though not conclusive evidence that the custom of drinking healths to the living is historically related to the religious rite of drinking to the gods and the dead.
Let us now put the theory of survival to a somewhat severe test, by seeking from it some explanation of the existence, in practice or memory, within the limits of modern civilized society, of three remarkable groups of customs which civilized ideas totally fail to account for. Though we may not succeed in giving clear and absolute explanations of their motives, at any rate it is a step in advance to be able to refer their origins to savage or barbaric antiquity. Looking at these customs from the modern practical point of view, one is ridiculous, the others are atrocious, and all are senseless. The first is the practice of salutation on sneezing, the second the rite of laying the foundations of a building on a human victim, the third the prejudice against saving a drowning man.
In interpreting the customs connected with sneezing, it is needful to recognize a prevalent doctrine of the lower races, of which a full account will be given in another chapter. As a man’s soul is considered to go in and out of his body, so it is with other spirits, particularly such as enter into patients and possess them or afflict them with disease. Among the less cultured races, the connexion of this idea with sneezing is best shown among the Zulus, a people firmly persuaded that kindly or angry spirits of the dead hover about them, do them good or harm, stand visibly before them in dreams, enter into them, and cause diseases in them. The following particulars are abridged from the native statements taken down by Dr. Callaway:—When a Zulu sneezes, he will say, ‘I am now blessed. The Idhlozi (ancestral spirit) is with me; it has come to me. Let me hasten and praise it, for it is it which causes me to sneeze!’ So he praises the manes of his family, asking for cattle, and wives, and blessings. Sneezing is a sign that a sick person will be restored to health; he returns thanks after sneezing, saying, ‘Ye people of ours, I have gained that prosperity which I wanted. Continue to look on me with favour!’ Sneezing reminds a man that he should name the Itongo (ancestral spirit) of his people without delay, because it is the Itongo which causes him to sneeze, that he may perceive by sneezing that the Itongo is with him. If a man is ill and does not sneeze, those who come to him ask whether he has sneezed or not; if he has not sneezed, they murmur, saying, ‘The disease is great!’ If a child sneezes, they say to it, ‘Grow!’ it is a sign of health. So then, it is said, sneezing among black men gives a man strength to remember that the Itongo has entered into him and abides with him. The Zulu diviners or sorcerers are very apt to sneeze, which they regard as an indication of the presence of the spirits, whom they adore by saying, ‘Makosi!’ (i.e. lords or masters). It is a suggestive example of the transition of such customs as these from one religion to another, that the Amakosa, who used to call on their divine ancestor Utixo when they sneezed, since their conversion to Christianity say, ‘Preserver, look upon me!’ or, ‘Creator of heaven and earth!’[[111]] Elsewhere in Africa, similar ideas are mentioned. Sir Thomas Browne, in his ‘Vulgar Errors,’ made well known the story that when the King of Monomotapa sneezed, acclamations of blessing passed from mouth to mouth through the city; but he should have mentioned that Godigno, from whom the original account is taken, said that this took place when the king drank, or coughed, or sneezed.[[112]] A later account from the other side of the continent is more to the purpose. In Guinea, in the last century, when a principal personage sneezed, all present fell on their knees, kissed the earth, clapped their hands, and wished him all happiness and prosperity.[[113]] With a different idea, the negroes of Old Calabar, when a child sneezes, will sometimes exclaim, ‘Far from you!’ with an appropriate gesture as if throwing off some evil.[[114]] Polynesia is another region where the sneezing salutation is well marked. In New Zealand, a charm was said to prevent evil when a child sneezed;[[115]] if a Samoan sneezed, the bystanders said, ‘Life to you!’[[116]] while in the Tongan group a sneeze on the starting of an expedition was a most evil presage.[[117]] A curious American instance dates from Hernando de Soto’s famous expedition into Florida, when Guachoya, a native chief, came to pay him a visit. ‘While this was going on, the cacique Guachoya gave a great sneeze; the gentlemen who had come with him and were lining the walls of the hall among the Spaniards there all at once bowing their heads, opening their arms, and closing them again, and making other gestures of great veneration and respect, saluted him with different words, all directed to one end, saying, “The Sun guard thee, be with thee, enlighten thee, magnify thee, protect thee, favour thee, defend thee, prosper thee, save thee,” and other like phrases, as the words came, and for a good space there lingered the murmur of these words among them, whereat the governor wondering said to the gentlemen and captains with him, “Do you not see that all the world is one?” This matter was well noted among the Spaniards, that among so barbarous a people should be used the same ceremonies, or greater, than among those who hold themselves to be very civilized. Whence it may be believed that this manner of salutation is natural among all nations, and not caused by a pestilence, as is vulgarly said,’ &c.[[118]]
In Asia and Europe the sneezing superstition extends through a wide range of race, age, and country.[[119]] Among the passages relating to it in the classic ages of Greece and Rome, the following are some of the most characteristic,—the lucky sneeze of Telemachos in the Odyssey;[[120]] the soldier’s sneeze and the shout of adoration to the god which rose along the ranks, and which Xenophon appealed to as a favourable omen;[[121]] Aristotle’s remark that people consider a sneeze as divine (τὸν ηὲν πταρμὸν θεὸν ἡγούμεθα εἶναι), but not a cough,[[122]] &c.; the Greek epigram on the man with the long nose, who did not say Ζεῦ σῶσον when he sneezed, for the noise was too far off for him to hear;[[123]] Petronius Arbiter’s mention of the custom of saying ‘Salve!’ to one who sneezed;[[124]] and Pliny’s question, ‘Cur sternutamentis salutamus?’ apropos of which he remarks that even Tiberius Cæsar, that saddest of men, exacted this observance.[[125]] Similar rites of sneezing have long been observed in Eastern Asia.[[126]] When a Hindu sneezes, bystanders say, ‘Live!’ and the sneezer replies, ‘With you!’ It is an ill omen, to which among others the Thugs paid great regard on starting on an expedition, and which even compelled them to let the travellers with them escape.[[127]]
The Jewish sneezing formula is, ‘Tobim chayim!’ i.e. ‘Good life!’[[128]] The Moslem says, ‘Praise to Allah!’ when he sneezes, and his friends compliment him with proper formulas, a custom which seems to be conveyed from race to race wherever Islam extends.[[129]] Lastly, the custom ranges through mediæval into modern Europe. To cite old German examples, ‘Die Heiden nicht endorften niesen, dâ man doch sprichet “Nu helfiu Got?”’ ‘Wir sprechen, swer niuset, Got helfe dir.’[[130]] For a Norman French instance in England, the following lines (A.D. 1100) may serve, which show our old formula ‘waes hæl!’ (‘may you be well!’—‘wassail!’) used also to avert being taken ill after a sneeze:—
‘E pur une feyze esternuer
Tantot quident mal trouer,
Si uesbeil ne diez aprez.’[[131]]
In the ‘Rules of Civility’ (A.D. 1685, translated from the French) we read:—‘If his lordship chances to sneeze, you are not to bawl out, “God bless you, sir,” but, pulling off your hat, bow to him handsomely, and make that obsecration to yourself.’[[132]] It is noticed that Anabaptists and Quakers rejected these with other salutations, but they remained in the code of English good manners among high and low till half a century or so ago, and are so little forgotten now, that most people still see the point of the story of the fiddler and his wife, where his sneeze and her hearty ‘God bless you!’ brought about the removal of the fiddle case. ‘Got hilf!’ may still be heard in Germany, and ‘Felicità!’ in Italy.