Demoniacal Control of the Weather.
It is an idea common to the beliefs of many races, that the spirits of the wind may be tied up in sacks and let out to injure an enemy and assist a friend. To this day the Lapps give their sailors magic sacks containing certain winds to secure them a safe journey.[159]
Another side of the matter may be illustrated from Marco Polo. “During the three months of every year that the Lord (Kublai Khân) resides at that place, if it should happen to be bad weather, there are certain crafty enchanters and astrologers in his train, who are such adepts in necromancy and the diabolical arts, that they are able to prevent any cloud or storm passing over the spot on which the Emperor’s palace stands. Whatever they do in this way is by the help of the Devil; but they make those people believe that it is compassed by their own sanctity and the help of God. They always go in a state of dirt and uncleanness, devoid of respect for themselves or for those who see them, unkempt and sordidly attired.” Timûr in his “Memoirs” speaks of the Indian Jâts using incantations to produce heavy rain, which hindered his cavalry from acting against them. A Yadachi was captured, and when his head had been taken off the storm ceased. Bâbar speaks of one of his early friends, Khwâjaka Mulai, who was acquainted with Yadagarî, or the art of bringing on rain and snow by incantations. In the same way in Nepâl the control of the weather is supposed to be vested in the Lamas.[160]
Rain-making and Nudity.
One very curious custom of rain-making has a series of remarkable parallels in Europe. In Servia, in time of drought, a girl is stripped and covered with flowers. She dances at each house, and the mistress steps out and pours a jar of water over her, while her companions sing rain songs.[161] In Russia the women draw a furrow round the village, and bury at the juncture a cock, a cat, and a dog. “The dog is a demonic character in Russia, while the cat is sacred. The offering of both seems to represent a desire to conciliate both sides.”[162] Mr. Conway thinks that the nudity of the women represents their utter poverty and inability to give more to conciliate the god of the rain; or that we have here a form of the Godiva and Peeping Tom legend, “where there is probably a distant reflection of the punishment sometimes said to overtake those who gazed too curiously upon the Swan Maiden with her feathers.”[163]
The Godiva legend has been admirably illustrated by Mr. Hartland,[164] who comes to the conclusion that it is the survival of an annual rite in honour of a heathen goddess, and closely connected with those nudity observances which we are discussing. The difficulty is, however, to account for the nudity part of the ceremony. It may possibly be based on the theory that spirits dread indecency, or rather the male and female principles.[165]
This may be the origin of the indecencies of word and act practised at the Holî and Kajarî festivals in Upper India, which are both closely connected with the control of the weather. Among the Ramoshis of the Dakkhin the bridegroom is stripped naked before the anointing ceremony commences, and the same custom prevails very generally in Upper India. The Mhârs of Sholapur are buried naked, even the loin-cloth being taken off. Barren women worship a naked female figure at Bijapur. At Dayamava’s festival in the Karnâtak, women walk naked to the temple where they make their vows; and the Mâng, who carries the scraps of holy meat which he scatters in the fields to promote fertility, is also naked.[166] The same idea of scaring evil spirits from temples possibly accounts for much of the obscene sculpture to be found on the walls of many Hindu shrines, and it may be noted in illustration of the same principle that in Nepâl temples are decorated with groups of obscene figures as a protection against lightning.[167]