James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)

In the island of Nias people fear that the spirits of murdered infants may come and cause women with child to miscarry. To divert the unwelcome attention of these sprites from a pregnant woman an elaborate mechanism has been contrived. A potent idol called Fangola is set up beside her bed to guard her slumbers during the hours of darkness from [pg 103] the evil things that might harm her; another idol, connected with the first by a chain of palm-leaves, is erected in the large room of the house; and lastly a small banana-tree is planted in front of the second idol. The notion is that the sprites, scared away by the watchful Fangola from the sleeping woman, will scramble along the chain of palm-leaves to the other idol, and then, beholding the banana-tree, will mistake it for the woman they were looking for, and so pounce upon it instead of her. 286 286 Fr. Kramer, “Der Götzendienst der Niasser,” Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde , xxxiii. (1890) p. 489. In Bhutan, when the Lamas make noisy music to drive away the demon who is causing disease, little models of animals are fashioned of flour and butter and the evil spirit is implored to enter these models, which are then burnt. 287 287 A. Bastian, Die Völkerstämme am Brahmaputra (Berlin, 1883), p. 73. So in Tibet, when a man is very ill and all other remedies have failed, his friends will sometimes, as a last resort, offer an image of him with some of his clothes to the Lord of Death, beseeching that august personage to accept the image and spare the man. 288 288 Sarat Chandra Das, Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet (London, 1902), p. 134. A Burmese mode of curing a sick man is to bury a small effigy of him in a tiny coffin, after which he ought certainly to recover. 289 289 Shway Yoe, The Burman (London, 1882), ii. 138. In Siam, when a person is dangerously ill, the magician models a small image of him in clay and carrying it away to a solitary place recites charms over it which compel the malady to pass from the sick man into the image. The sorcerer then buries the image, and the sufferer is made whole. 290 290 Pallegoix, Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam (Paris, 1854), ii. 48 sq. Compare A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien (Leipsic and Jena, 1866-1871), iii. 293, 486; E. Young, The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe (Westminster, 1898), p. 121. So, too, in Cambodia the doctor fashions a rude effigy of his patient in clay and deposits it in some lonely spot, where the ghost or demon takes it instead of the man. 291 291 J. Moura, Le Royaume du Cambodge (Paris, 1883), i. 176. The same ideas and the same practices prevail much further to the north among the tribes on the lower course of the River Amoor. When a Goldi or a Gilyak shaman has cast out the devil that caused disease, an abode has to be provided for the homeless devil, and this is done by making [pg 104] a wooden idol in human form of which the ejected demon takes possession. 292 292 A. Woldt, “Die Kultus-Gegenstände der Golden und Giljaken,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie , i. (1888) pp. 102 sq.

The Chinese of Amoy make great use of cheap effigies as means of diverting ghostly and other evil influence from people. These effigies are kept in stock and sold in the shops which purvey counterfeit paper money and other spurious wares for the use of simple-minded ghosts and gods, who accept them in all good faith instead of the genuine articles. Nothing could well be cruder than the puppets that are employed to relieve sufferers from the many ills which flesh is heir to. They are composed of two bamboo splinters fastened together crosswise with a piece of paper pasted on one side to represent a human body. Two other shreds of paper, supposed to stand for boots, distinguish the effigy of a man from the effigy of a woman. Armed with one of these “substitutes for a person,” as they are called, you may set fortune at defiance. If a member of your family, for example, is ailing, or has suffered any evil whatever, or even is merely threatened by misfortune, all that you have to do is to send for one of these puppets, pass it all over his body while you recite an appropriate spell, and then burn the puppet. The maleficent influence is thus elicited from the person of the sufferer and destroyed once for all. If your child has tumbled into one of those open sewers which yawn for the unwary in the streets, you need only fish him out, pass the puppet over his filthy little body, and say: “This contact (of the substitute) with the front of the body brings purity and prosperity, and the contact with the back gives power to eat till an old, old, old age; the contact with the left side establishes well-being for years and years, and the contact with the right side bestows longevity; happy fate, come! ill fate, be transferred to the substitute!” So saying you burn the substitute, by choice near the unsavoury spot where the accident happened; and if you are a careful man you will fetch a pail of water and wash the ashes away. Moreover, the child's head should be shaven quite clean; but if the sufferer was an adult, it is enough to lay bare with the razor [pg 105] a small patch on his scalp to let out the evil influence. 293 293 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China , vi. (Leyden, 1910) pp. 1103 sq. ; for a description of the effigies or “substitutes for a person” see id. , vol. v. (Leyden, 1907) p. 920. Can the monkish and clerical tonsure have been originally designed in like manner to let out the evil influence through the top of the head?

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See above, vol. i. pp. 16 sqq.

Herodotus, ii. 46; L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie , 4i. (Berlin, 1894), pp. 745 sq. ; K. Wernicke, in W. H. Roscher's Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie , iii. 1407 sqq.

L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie , 3i. 600; W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte , p. 138.

W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 139.

Julius Pollux, iv. 118.

W. Mannhardt, op. cit. pp. 142 sq.

Ovid, Fasti , ii. 361, iii. 312, v. 101; id. , Heroides , iv. 49.

Macrobius, Sat. i. 22. 3.

Homer, Hymn to Aphrodite , 262 sqq.

Pliny, Nat. Hist. xii. 3; Ovid, Metam. vi. 392; id. , Fasti , iii. 303, 309; Gloss. Isid. Mart. Cap. ii. 167, cited by W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte , p. 113.