James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)

Once more, the savage thinks he can make the wind to blow or to be still. When the day is hot and a Yakut has a long way to go, he takes a stone which he has chanced to find in an animal or fish, winds a horse-hair several times round it, and ties it to a stick. He then waves the stick about, uttering a spell. Soon a cool breeze begins to blow. 103 103 Gmelin, Reise durch Sibirien , ii. 510. The Wind clan of the Omahas flap their blankets to start a breeze which will drive away the mosquitoes. 104 104 Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington), p. 241. When a Haida Indian wishes to obtain a fair wind, he fasts, shoots a raven, singes it in the fire, and then going to the edge of the sea sweeps it over the surface of the water four times in the direction in which he wishes the wind to blow. He then throws the raven behind him, but afterwards picks it up and sets it in a sitting posture at the foot of a spruce-tree, facing towards the required wind. Propping its beak open with a stick, he requests a fair wind for a certain number of days; then going away he lies covered up in his mantle till another Indian asks him for how many days he has desired the wind, which question he answers. 105 105 G. M. Dawson, “On the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands,” Geological Survey of Canada, Report of progress for 1878-1879 , p. 124 B. When a sorcerer in New Britain wishes to make a wind blow in a certain direction, he throws burnt lime in the air, chanting a song all the time. Then he waves sprigs of ginger and other plants about, throws them up and catches them. Next he makes a small fire with these sprigs on the spot where the lime has fallen thickest, and walks round the fire chanting. Lastly, he takes the ashes and throws them on the water. 106 106 W. Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country , p. 169. 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 then poured water on the stone, whereupon a favourable breeze was sure to spring up. 107 107 Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, In the Hebrides , p. 166 sq. ; Martin, “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels , iii. 627. In Finnland wizards used to sell wind to storm-staid 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. 108 108 Olaus Magnus, Gentium Septentr. Hist. iii. 15. The same thing is said to have been done by wizards and witches in Lappland, in the island of Lewis, and in the Isle of Man. 109 109 Scheffer, Lapponia , p. 144; Gordon Cumming, In the Hebrides , p. 254 sq. ; Train, Account of the Isle of Man , ii. 166. A Norwegian witch has boasted of sinking a ship by opening a bag in which she had shut up a wind. 110 110 C. Leemius, De Lapponibus Finmarchiae etc. commentatio , p. 454. Ulysses received the winds in a leather bag from Aeolus, King of the Winds. 111 111 Odyssey , x. 19 sqq. So Perdoytus, the Lithuanian wind-god, keeps the winds enclosed in a leather bag; when they escape from it he pursues them, beats them, and shuts them up again. 112 112 E. Veckenstedt, Die Mythen, Sagen, und Legenden der Zamaiten (Litauer) , i. 153. The Motumotu in New Guinea think that storms are sent by an Oiabu sorcerer; for each wind he has a bamboo which he opens at pleasure. 113 113 J. Chalmers, Pioneering in New Guinea , p. 177. But here we have passed from custom (with which alone we are at present concerned) into mythology. Shetland seamen still buy winds from old women who claim to rule the storms. There are now in Lerwick old women who live by selling wind. 114 114 Rogers, Social Life in Scotland , iii. 220; Sir W. Scott, Pirate , note to ch. vii.; Shaks. Macbeth , Act i. Sc. 3, l. 11. When the Hottentots wish to make the wind drop, they take one of their fattest skins and hang it on the end of a pole, believing that by blowing the skin down the wind will lose all its force and must itself fall. 115 115 Dapper, Description de l'Afrique (Amsterdam, 1686), p. 389. In some parts of Austria, during a heavy storm, it is customary to open the window and throw out a handful of meal, chaff, or feathers, saying to the wind, “There, that's for you, stop!” 116 116 A. Peter, Volksthümliches aus Oesterreichisch Schlesien , ii. 259. Once when north-westerly winds had kept the ice long on the coast, and food was getting scarce, the Eskimos of Alaska performed a ceremony to make a calm. A fire was kindled on the shore and the men gathered round it and chanted. An old man then stepped up to the fire and in a coaxing voice invited the demon of the wind to come under the fire and warm himself. When he was supposed to have arrived, a vessel of water, to which each man present had contributed, was thrown on the fire by an old man, and immediately a flight of arrows sped towards the spot where the fire had been. They thought that the demon would not stay where he had been so badly treated. To complete the effect, guns were discharged in various directions, and the captain of a European vessel was asked to fire on the wind with cannon. 117 117 Arctic Papers for the Expedition of 1875 (R. Geogr. Soc.), p. 274. When the wind blows down their huts, the Payaguas in South America snatch up firebrands and run against the wind menacing it with the blazing brands, while others beat the air with their fists to frighten the storm. 118 118 Azara, Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale , ii. 137. When the Guaycurus are threatened by a severe storm the men go out armed, and the women and children scream their loudest to intimidate the demon. 119 119 Charlevoix, Histoire du Paraguay , i. 74. During a tempest the inhabitants of a Batta village in Sumatra have been seen to rush from their houses armed with sword and lance. The Raja placed himself at their head, and with shouts and yells they hewed and hacked at the invisible foe. An old woman was observed to be especially active in defending her house, slashing the air right and left with a long sabre. 120 120 W. A. Henry, “Bijdrage tot de Kennis der Bataklanden,” in Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde , xvii. 23 sq.

In the light of these examples a story told by Herodotus, which his modern critics have treated as a fable, is perfectly credible. He says, without however vouching for the truth of the tale, that once in the land of the Psylli, the modern Tripoli, the wind blowing from the Sahara had dried up all the water-tanks. So the people took counsel and marched in a body to make war on the south wind. But when they entered the desert, the simoom swept down on them and buried them to a man. 121 121 Herodotus, iv. 173; Aulus Gellius, xvi. 11. The story may well have been told by one who watched them disappearing, in battle array, with drums and cymbals beating, into the red cloud of whirling sand. It is still said of the Bedouins of Eastern Africa that “no whirlwind ever sweeps across the path without being pursued by a dozen savages with drawn creeses, who stab into the centre of the dusty column in order to drive away the evil spirit that is believed to be riding on the blast.” 122 122 Harris, Highlands of Ethiopia , i. 352. So in Australia the huge columns of red sand that move rapidly across a desert tract are thought by the blackfellows to be spirits passing along. Once an athletic young black ran after one of these moving columns to kill it with boomerangs. He was away two or three hours and came back very weary, saying he had killed Koochee (the demon), but that Koochee had growled at him and he must die. 123 123 Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria , i. 457 sq. ; cp. id. ii. 270; Journ. Anthrop. Inst. xiii. p. 194 note . Even where these dust columns are not attacked they are still regarded with awe. In some parts of India they are supposed to be bhuts going to bathe in the Ganges. 124 124 Denzil C. J. Ibbetson, Settlement Report of the Panipat Tahsil and Karnal Parganah of the Karnal District , p. 154. Californian Indians think that they are happy souls ascending to the heavenly land. 125 125 Stephen Powers, Tribes of California , p. 328.