James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)

Evils transferred to images. Mongol transference of evil to things.

Sometimes in case of sickness the malady is transferred to an effigy as a preliminary to passing it on to a human being. Thus among the Baganda the medicine-man would sometimes make a model of his patient in clay; then a relative of the sick man would rub the image over the sufferer's body and either bury it in the road or hide it in the grass by the wayside. The first person who stepped over the image or passed by it would catch the disease. Sometimes the effigy was made out of a plantain-flower tied up so as to look like a person; it was used in the same way as the clay figure. But the use of images for this maleficent purpose was a capital crime; any person caught in the act of burying one of them in the public road would surely have been put to death. 18 18 Rev. J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 343 sq. Among the Sena-speaking people to the north of the Zambesi, when any one is ill, the doctor makes a little pig of straw to which he transfers the sickness. The little pig is then set on the ground where two paths meet, and any passer-by who chances to kick it over is sure to absorb the illness and to draw it away from the patient. 19 19 Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), p. 146. Among the Korkus, a forest tribe of the Central Provinces in India, when a person wishes to transfer his sickness to another, he contrives to obtain the loin-cloth of his intended victim and paints two figures on it in lamp black, one upright and the other upside down. As soon as the owner of the loin-cloth puts it on, he falls a victim to the ailment which afflicted the artist who drew the figures. 20 20 Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey , iii., Draft Articles on Forest Tribes (Allahabad, 1907), p. 63. Every nine years a Mongol celebrates a memorial festival of his birth for the purpose of ensuring the continuance of his life and welfare. At this solemn ceremony two lambskins, one black and the other white, are spread on the floor of the hut, which is further covered with a felt carpet, and on the carpet are made nine little ridges of earth brought from nine mountains, the bottom of a river, and a sepulchral mound. The owner of the hut, for whose benefit the rite is performed, next seats himself on the black lambskin, and opposite him is set an effigy of himself made of dough by a lama. The priest then throws a black stone at the effigy, praying that the black arrow of death may pierce it, after which he throws a white stone at the master of the hut, praying that the bright beam of life may endow him with wondrous strength. After that the Mongol gets up, steps over one of the ridges of earth and says, “I have overcome a mishap, I have escaped a death.” This ceremony he performs nine times, stepping over all the ridges, one after the other. Then he sits down on the white lambskin, and the lama takes the dough effigy, swings it thrice round the man whom it represents, spits on it thrice, and hands it to attendants who carry it away into the steppe. A little holy water sprinkled over the Mongol now completes his protection against perils and dangers. 21 21 M. v. Beguelin, “Religiöse Volksbräuche der Mongolen,” Globus , lvii. (1890) pp. 209 sq. This last is a case of the beneficent transference of evil; for in it no attempt seems to be made to shift the burden of misfortune to anybody else.

Fatigue transferred to stones, sticks, or leaves.

In the western district of the island of Timor, when men or women are making long and tiring journeys, they fan themselves with leafy branches, which they afterwards throw away on particular spots where their forefathers did the same before them. The fatigue which they felt is thus supposed to have passed into the leaves and to be left behind. Others use stones instead of leaves. 22 22 J. G. F. Riedel, “Die Landschaft Dawan oder West-Timor,” Deutsche geographische Blätter , x. 231. Similarly in the Babar Archipelago tired people will strike themselves with stones, believing that they thus transfer to the stones the weariness which they felt in their own bodies. They then throw away the stones in places which are specially set apart for the purpose. 23 23 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua (The Hague, 1886), p. 340. A like belief and practice in many distant parts of the world have given rise to those cairns or heaps of sticks and leaves which travellers often observe beside the path, and to which every passing native adds his contribution in the shape of a stone, or stick, or leaf. Thus in the Solomon and Banks' Islands the natives are wont to throw sticks, stones, or leaves upon a heap at a place of steep descent, or where a difficult path begins, saying, “There goes my fatigue.” The act is not a religious rite, for the thing thrown on the heap is not an offering to spiritual powers, and the words which accompany the act are not a prayer. It is nothing but a magical ceremony for getting rid of fatigue, which the simple savage fancies he can embody in a stick, leaf, or stone, and so cast it from him. 24 24 R. H. Codrington, D.D., The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p. 186.

Heaps of stones or sticks among the American Indians.

An early Spanish missionary to Nicaragua, observing that along the paths there were heaps of stones on which the Indians as they passed threw grass, asked them why they did so. “Because we think,” was the answer, “that thereby we are kept from weariness and hunger, or at least that we suffer less from them.” 25 25 G. F. de Oviedo, Histoire du Nicaragua (Paris, 1840), pp. 42 sq. (Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, Relations et Mémoires originaux, pour servir à l'Histoire de la Découverte de l'Amérique ). When the Peruvian Indians were climbing steep mountains and felt weary, they used to halt by the way at certain points where there were heaps of stones, which they called apachitas . On these heaps the weary men would place other stones, and they said that when they did so, their weariness left them. 26 26 P. J. de Arriaga, Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Piru (Lima, 1621), pp. 37, 130. As to the custom compare J. J. von Tschudi, Peru (St. Gallen, 1846), ii. 77 sq. ; H. A. Weddell, Voyage dans le Nord de la Bolivia et dans les parties voisines du Pérou (Paris and London, 1853), pp. 74 sq. These latter writers interpret the stones as offerings. In the passes of the eastern Andes, on the borders of Argentina and Bolivia, “large cairns are constantly found, and every Puna Indian, on passing, adds a stone and a coca leaf, so that neither he nor his beast of burden may tire on the way.” 27 27 Baron E. Nordenskiöld, “Travels on the Boundaries of Bolivia and Argentina,” The Geographical Journal , xxi. (1903) p. 518. In the country of the Tarahumares and Tepehuanes in Mexico heaps of stones and sticks may be observed on high points, where the track leads over a ridge between two or more valleys. “Every Indian who passes such a pile adds a stone or a stick to it in order to gain strength for his journey. Among the Tarahumares only the old men observe this custom. Whenever the Tepehuanes carry a corpse, they rest it for some fifteen minutes on such a heap by the wayside that the deceased may not be fatigued but strong enough to finish his long journey to the land of the dead. One of my Huichol companions stopped on reaching this pile, pulled up some grass from the ground and picked up a stone as big as his fist. Holding both together he spat on the grass and on the stone and then rubbed them quickly over his knees. He also made a couple of passes with them over his chest and shoulders, exclaiming ‘ Kenestíquai! ’ (May I not get tired!) and then put the grass on the heap and the stone on top of the grass.” 28 28 C. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico (London, 1903), ii. 282. In Guatemala also piles of stones may be seen at the partings of ways and on the tops of cliffs and mountains. Every passing Indian used to gather a handful of grass, rub his legs with it, spit on it, and deposit it with a small stone on the pile, firmly persuaded that by so doing he would restore their flagging vigour to his weary limbs. 29 29 Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale (Paris, 1857-1859), ii. 564; compare iii. 486. Indians of Guatemala, when they cross a pass for the first time, still commonly add a stone to the cairn which marks the spot. See C. Sapper, “Die Gebräuche und religiösen Anschauungen der Kekchi-Indianer,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie , viii. (1895) p. 197. Here the rubbing of the limbs with the grass, like the Babar custom of striking the body with a stone, was doubtless a mode of extracting the fatigue from them as a preliminary to throwing it away.