It sall not lye till I please againe.”[1150]
Raising the wind.
At Victoria, the capital of Vancouver’s Island, there are a number of large stones not far from what is called the Battery. Each of them represents a certain wind. When an Indian wants any particular wind, he goes and moves the corresponding stone a little; were he to move it too much, the wind would blow very hard.[1151] The natives of Murray Island in Torres Straits used to make a great wind blow from the south-east by pointing coco-nut leaves and other plants at two granitic boulders on the shore. So long as the leaves remained there the wind sat in that quarter. But, significantly enough, the ceremony was only performed during the prevalence of the south-east monsoon. The natives knew better than to try to raise a south-east wind while the north-west monsoon was blowing.[1152] On the altar of Fladda’s chapel, in the island of Fladdahuan (one of the Hebrides), lay a round bluish stone which was always moist. Windbound fishermen walked sunwise round the chapel and {p323} then poured water on the stone, whereupon a favourable breeze was sure to spring up.[1153] In Gigha, an island off the western coast of Argyleshire, there is a well named Tobar-rath Bhuathaig or “The lucky well of Beathag,” which used to be famous for its power of raising the wind. It lies at the foot of a hill facing north-east near an isthmus called Tarbat. Six feet above where the water gushes out there is a heap of stones which forms a cover to the sacred spring. When a person wished for a fair wind, either to leave the island or to bring home his absent friends, this part was opened with great solemnity, the stones were carefully removed, and the well cleaned with a wooden dish or a clam shell. This being done, the water was thrown several times in the direction from which the wished-for wind was to blow, and this action was accompanied by a certain form of words which the person repeated every time he threw the water. When the ceremony was over, the well was again carefully shut up to prevent fatal consequences, it being firmly believed that, were the place left open, a storm would arise which would overwhelm the whole island.[1154] The Esthonians have various odd ways of raising a wind. They scratch their finger, or hang up a serpent, or strike an axe into a house-beam in the direction from which they wish the wind to blow, while at the same time they whistle. The notion is that the gentle wind will not let an innocent being or even a beam suffer without coming and breathing softly to assuage the pain.[1155]
Winds raised by wizards and witches.
In Mabuiag, an island between New Guinea and Australia, there were men whose business was to make wind for such as wanted it. When engaged in his professional duties the wizard painted himself black behind and red on his face and chest. The red in front typified the red cloud of morning, the black represented the dark blue sky of night. Thus arrayed he took some bushes, and, when the tide was low, fastened them at the edge of the reef so that the flowing {p324} tide made them sway backwards and forwards. But if only a gentle breeze was needed, he fastened them nearer to the shore. To stop the wind he again painted himself red and black, the latter in imitation of the clear blue sky, and then removing the bushes from the reef he dried and burnt them. The smoke as it curled up was believed to stop the wind: “Smoke he go up and him clear up on top.”[1156] In some islands of Torres Straits the wizard made wind by whirling a bull-roarer;[1157] the booming sound of the instrument probably seemed to him like the roar or the whistling of the wind. Amongst the Kurnai tribe of Gippsland in Victoria there used to be a noted raiser of storms who went by the name of Bunjil Kraura or “Great West Wind.” This wind makes the tall slender trees of the Gippsland forests to rock and sway so that the natives could not climb them in search of opossums. Hence the people were forced to propitiate Bunjil Kraura by liberal offerings of weapons and rugs whenever the tree-tops bent before a gale. Having received their gifts, Bunjil Kraura would bind his head with swathes of stringy bark, and lull the storm to rest with a song which consisted of the words “Wear—string—Westwind,” repeated again and again.[1158] Apparently the wizard identified himself with the wind, and fancied that he could bind it by tying string round his own head. The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, as we have seen, believe that twins can summon any wind by merely moving their hands.[1159] In Greenland a woman in child-bed and for some time after delivery is supposed to possess the power of laying a storm. She has only to go out of doors, fill her mouth with air, and coming back into the house blow it out again.[1160] In antiquity there was a family at Corinth which enjoyed the reputation of being able to still the raging wind; but we do not know in what manner its members exercised a useful function, {p325} which probably earned for them a more solid recompense than mere repute among the seafaring population of the isthmus.[1161] Even in Christian times, under the reign of Constantine, a certain Sopater suffered death at Constantinople on a charge of binding the winds by magic, because it happened that the corn-ships of Egypt and Syria were detained afar off by calms or head-winds, to the rage and disappointment of the hungry Byzantine rabble.[1162] An ancient charm to keep storms from damaging the crops was to bury a toad in a new earthen vessel in the middle of the field.[1163] Finnish wizards used to sell wind to storm-stayed mariners. The wind was enclosed in three knots; if they undid the first knot, a moderate wind sprang up; if the second, it blew half a gale; if the third, a hurricane.[1164] Indeed the Esthonians, whose country is divided from Finland only by an arm of the sea, still believe in the magical powers of their northern neighbours. The bitter winds that blow in spring from the north and north-east, bringing ague and rheumatic inflammations in their train, are set down by the simple Esthonian peasantry to the machinations of the Finnish wizards and witches. In particular they regard with special dread three days in spring to which they give the name of Days of the Cross; one of them falls on the Eve of Ascension Day. The people in the neighbourhood of Fellin fear to go out on these days lest the cruel winds from Lappland should smite them dead. A popular Esthonian song runs:
“Wind of the Cross! rushing and mighty!
Heavy the blow of thy wings sweeping past!
Wild wailing wind of misfortune and sorrow,
Wizards of Finland ride by on the blast.”[1165]
It is said, too, that sailors, beating up against the wind in the Gulf of Finland, sometimes see a strange sail heave in sight astern and overhaul them hand over hand. On she {p326} comes with a cloud of canvas—all her studding-sails out—right in the teeth of the wind, forging her way through the foaming billows, dashing back the spray in sheets from her cutwater, every sail swollen to bursting, every rope strained to cracking. Then the sailors know that she hails from Finland.[1166]