The peasantry of Ireland carry about the person “medicine bags” very much like those in use among the North American Indians. Among the contents of these bags “are usually found tobacco, garlic, salt, chicken-dung, lus-crea, and some dust from the roadside.” (Idem.) This is “carried as a protection against the fairies; ... also as a protection against the evil eye; and something of the same nature is sewed into the clothing of the bride when her friends are preparing her for the marriage ceremony.”—(Idem.)
“A charm to be said each morning by a witch fasting, or at least before she goes abroad: ‘The fire bite, the fire bite; hog’s turd over it, hog’s turd over it, hog’s turd over it! The Father with thee; the Son with thee; the Holy Ghost between us both to be!’ This last refrain three times; then spit over one shoulder, and then over the other, and then three times right forward.”—(Scot, “Discoverie,” p. 177.)
“Item. They hang ... garlicke in the roof of the house for to keep away witches and spirits, ... and so they do alicium likewise.”—(Idem, p. 192.)
Garlic was put in the cradle of a new-born babe in Holland.—(“Times,” New York, Nov. 10, 1889.)
Garlic could not be eaten by the monks or nuns of Thibet (Bhikshuni); to eat it was considered a sin. “140. Si une Bhikshuni mange de l’ail,” etc. But in a footnote it is stated that it might be eaten when it was the only remedy for some disease or infirmity; but even then the patient should not enter a dormitory, a latrine, could not expound the law, mingle with brahmins, enter a park, a market, or a temple until he had undergone a three days’ purification, been bathed and fumigated.—(See “Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W. Rockhill, Paris, 1885, Société Asiatique.)
XLIV.
A FEW REMARKS UPON TEMPLE OR SACRED PROSTITUTION, AND UPON THE HORNS OF CUCKOLDS.
“The bawds of Amsterdam believed (in 1637) that horse’s dung dropped before the house and put fresh behind the door ... would bring good luck to their houses.”—(“Le Putanisme d’Amsterdam,” p. 56, quoted in Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 18, article “Sorcery.”)
While a sacred origin cannot be claimed for prostitution in general, all, or nearly all, temples must in the early ages of mankind have been provided with prostitutes. The necessity for such a provision is obvious. Man’s superstition and ignorance invested certain localities, or the guardian spirits of those localities, with the power to work him weal or woe, unless kept in good humor by oblations and sacrifices. Temples were erected on such foundations, tended by priests, who waxed fat and enriched themselves, because the right of asylum attached to their position, although such a right did not absolutely attach to the little communities which insensibly grew up around these temples. The necessities of national administration and of international or inter-tribal arbitration, would naturally attract periodically to those temples the law-makers, the great chiefs and their followers, perhaps to settle their disputes or arrange their treaties by personal discussion, perhaps by the decision of the arch-priest.