[219] Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, i. 45, n. 2.
[220] Baring-Gould, Strange Survivals, p. 2. For various instances of similar beliefs, see Sartori, in Zeitschr. f. Ethnol. xxx. 14 sqq.; Crawley, Mystic Rose, p. 25.
[221] Baring-Gould, op. cit. p. 4.
[222] Crawley, op. cit. p. 25.
[223] Westermarck, ‘Nature of the Arab Ğinn, illustrated by the Present Beliefs of the People of Morocco,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxix. 253, 260.
On the other hand it is maintained that the foundation-sacrifice is partly, if not exclusively, performed for the purpose of converting the soul of the victim into a protecting demon.[224] This opinion, no doubt, has the support of beliefs actually held by some of the peoples who practise the rite. When the gate of the new city of Tavoy, in Tenasserim, was built, Mason was told by an eye-witness that a criminal was put in each post-hole to become a guardian spirit.[225] The Burmese kings used to have victims buried alive at the gates of their capitals, “so that their spirits might watch over the city.”[226] Formerly, in Siam, “when a new city gate was being erected, it was customary for a number of officers to lie in wait near the spot, and seize the first four or eight persons who happened to pass by, and who were then buried alive under the gate-posts, to serve as guardian angels.”[227] But whatever be the present notions of certain peoples concerning the object of the building-sacrifice, I do not believe that its primary object could have been to procure a spirit-guardian. According to early ideas, the ghost of a murdered man is not a friendly being, and least of all is he kindly disposed towards those who killed him. Several instances are known in which later generations have put upon human sacrifices an interpretation obviously foreign to their original purpose.[228] Thus, according to a North German tradition, a master-builder was immured by a certain knight in the tower which he had built, as a punishment for boasting that he could have built a still finer tower if he had liked to do so.[229] An Indian raja, we are told, was once building a bridge over the river Jargoat Chunâr, and when it fell down several times he was advised to sacrifice a Brahman girl to the local deity; however, “she has now become the Marî or ghost of the place, and is regularly worshipped in time of trouble.”[230] Considering that the foundation-sacrifice was offered for the purpose of protecting the living against the attacks of the spirit of the place, it is quite intelligible that the ghost of the victim came in time to be looked upon as a guardian spirit; and it was all the more natural to attribute to the dead the function of a guard in cases where he was buried at the gate. But he was buried there, I presume, simply because that spot was thought to be the most dangerous. The gate of a town corresponds to the entrance of a house, and the threshold has almost universally been regarded as the proper haunt of what the Moors call “the owners of the place.”[231]
[224] Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 106. Grant Allen, op. cit. p. 248 sqq. Lippert, Christenthum, Volksglaube und Volksbrauch, p. 456 sq. Idem, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, ii. 270. Gaidoz, in Mélusine, iv. 14 sqq. Sartori, in Zeitsthr. f. Ethnol. xxx. 32 sqq.
[225] Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 107.
[226] Woodthorpe, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxvi. 24. See also Shway Yoe, The Burman, i. 286.
[227] Alabaster, Wheel of the Law, p. 212 sq. Cf. Gaidoz, loc. cit. p. 14 sq.