Whenever we killed an elephant the natives flung themselves upon the victim. The first-comer drank its blood with relish and the others had to rest content with the great drops which reached the ground. The next step was to cut off the little triangle in which the trunk terminates. This object is a much prized amulet. Next the genital organs are severed for the evening meal, and finally, as something is due to us for presenting such booty, they offer us hairs from the animal's tail for toothpicks. To be offered these hairs is the equivalent of being presented with the brush in Europe.
Another widespread superstition among the Moï is that the urine of savage dogs is able to blind the prey that they pursue. M. Millet tells us that in the province of Tay-Nhinh he saw wild dogs tear out the eyes of a boar, pin it against a tree and rip it in pieces. One of them seemed to be told off to distract the victim during these operations, the distraction consisting of biting the creature's head to prevent it from turning round and goring its foes with its tusks. The combination of ferocity and system displayed by these wild dogs has always greatly impressed the Moï, who believe that it is quite impossible to kill or capture them. We must admit that, though during our operations we killed almost every kind of wild animal, we never did anything to shake that belief. A wild dog was never in the day's bag.
CHAPTER VII
RITES AND SUPERSTITIONS (continued)
Agrarian rites—How Me-Sao, King of the Moï, opens the jar—Rites of initiation and "coming of age."
The Moï being essentially an agricultural people it is not difficult to believe that a large number of agrarian rites enliven the monotony of their daily life. We must also remind ourselves that these rites are generally based on a belief in imitative or sympathetic magic. They are seldom propitiatory in character.
Thus before each harvest the Mnong plant bulbous or fibrous-rooted plants in the corners of their rice or maize fields and water them with spirits. At sowing time they cast some of the leaves of these plants among the seed in the hope of thus attracting the Spirit of the grain. The ceremony is completed by sacrificing a pig or chicken, and the proceedings terminate with a great feast. This method of celebrating sowing-time with a feast was famous in antiquity. The sower assumes that by filling his own body with food he can stimulate the fertility of the grain. The place and time selected is the largest plantation the sower can find and the season of the new moon, as if to invite the harvest to coincide with the last quarter. If the sower is a woman she will let her hair hang loose, in order that the stalk of the cereal may, by imitation, be as long as possible. At harvest time she will clothe herself very lightly, and the ball of rice, in imitation of her slender form, will be small, and accordingly of better quality.
Reasoning along these lines the savage often believes that the sexual act during seed-time will have a great influence on the harvest to come. Sometimes this influence is considered beneficent, and accordingly the work of sowing is accompanied by the most licentious orgies. Sometimes, on the contrary, this influence is regarded as baneful, and chastity is recommended, or even ordered. The famous ethnologist Frazer considers that to this order of ideas must be traced the rigid abstinence observed by Catholics during Lent.
Even to-day the Karens believe that illicit love affairs bring a bad harvest to the guilty parties.
In this connection it is only necessary to observe that ancient history has much to tell us of lascivious festivals in which the laws of morality and decency were relaxed almost to the point of extinction during the sowing-time. The Saturnalia of ancient Rome, taking their name from Saturn, the god of agriculture, are an example which occurs readily to the mind, and modern equivalents are to be found in certain half-pagan, half-religious ceremonies of eastern Europe.