James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

Hottentot custom of driving their sheep through fire and smoke.

“Another grand custom of the Hottentots, which they likewise term andersmaken , is the driving their sheep at certain times through the fire. Early in the day appointed by a kraal for the observance of this custom, the women milk all their cows, and set the whole produce before their husbands. 'Tis a strict rule at those times that the women neither taste, nor suffer their children to touch, a drop of it. The whole quantity is sacred to the men, who drink it all up before they address themselves to the business of the fire. Having consumed the milk, some go and bring the sheep together to the place where the fire is to be lighted, while others repair to the place to light it. The fire is made of chips and dry twigs and thinly spread into a long square. Upon the coming up of the sheep, the fire, scattered into this figure, is covered with green twigs to raise a great smoak; and a number of men range themselves closely on both sides of it, making a lane for the sheep to pass through, and extending themselves to a good distance beyond the fire on the side where the sheep are to enter. Things being in this posture, the sheep are driven into the lane close up to the fire, which now smoaks in the thickest clouds. The foremost boggle, and being forced forward by the press behind, seek their escape by attempting breaches in the ranks. The men stand close and firm, and whoop and goad them forward; when a few hands, planted at the front of the fire, catch three or four of the foremost sheep by the head, and drag them through, and bring them round into the sight of the rest; which sometimes upon this, the whooping and goading continuing, follow with a tantivy, jumping and pouring themselves through the fire and smoak with a mighty clattering and fury. At other times they are not so tractable, but put the Hottentots to the trouble of dragging numbers of them through; and sometimes, in a great press and fright, sturdily attacking the ranks, they make a breach and escape. This is a very mortifying event at all times, the Hottentots, upon whatever account, looking upon it as a heavy disgrace and a very ill omen into the bargain. But when their labours here are attended with such success, that the sheep pass readily through or over the fire, 'tis hardly in the power of language to describe them in all the sallies of their joy.” The writer who thus describes the custom had great difficulty in extracting an explanation of it from the Hottentots. At last one of them informed him that their country was much infested by wild dogs, which made terrible havoc among the cattle, worrying the animals to death even when they did not devour them. “Now we have it,” he said, “from our ancestors, that if sheep are driven through the fire, as we say, that is, through a thick smoak, the wild dogs will not be fond of attacking them while the scent of the smoak remains upon their fleeces. We therefore from time to time, for the security of our flocks, perform this andersmaken .” 21 21 Peter Kolben, The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope , Second Edition (London, 1738), i. 129-133.

Fire applied to sick cattle by the Nandi and Zulus.

When disease breaks out in a herd of the Nandi, a pastoral tribe of British East Africa, a large bonfire is made with the wood of a certain tree ( Olea chrysophilla ), and brushwood of two sorts of shrubs is thrown on the top. Then the sick herd is driven to the fire, and while the animals are standing near it, a sheep big with young is brought to them and anointed with milk by an elder, after which it is strangled by two men belonging to clans that may intermarry. The intestines are then inspected, and if the omens prove favourable, the meat is roasted and eaten; moreover rings are made out of the skin and worn by the cattle-owners. After the meat has been eaten, the herd is driven round the fire, and milk is poured on each beast. 22 22 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi (Oxford, 1909), pp. 45 sq. When their cattle are sick, the Zulus of Natal will collect their herds in a kraal, where a medicine-man kindles a fire, burns medicine in it, and so fumigates the cattle with the medicated smoke. Afterwards he sprinkles the herd with a decoction, and, taking some melted fat of the dead oxen in his mouth, squirts it on a fire-brand and holds the brand to each animal in succession. 23 23 Rev. Joseph Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal (London, 1857), p. 35. Such a custom is probably equivalent to the Hottentot and European practice of driving cattle through a fire.

Indians of Yucatan walk over hot embers in order to avert calamities.

Among the Indians of Yucatan the year which was marked in their calendar by the sign of Cauac was reputed to be very unlucky; they thought that in the course of it the death-rate would be high, the maize crops would be withered up by the extreme heat of the sun, and what remained of the harvest would be devoured by swarms of ants and birds. To avert these calamities they used to erect a great pyre of wood, to which most persons contributed a faggot. Having danced about it during the day, they set fire to it at night-fall, and when the flames had died down, they spread out the red embers and walked or ran barefoot over them, some of them escaping unsmirched by the flames, but others burning themselves more or less severely. In this way they hoped to conjure away the evils that threatened them, and to undo the sinister omens of the year. 24 24 Diego de Landa, Relation des choses de Yucatan (Paris, 1864), pp. 231, 233.

The fire-walk in antiquity, at Castabala in Cappadocia and at Mount Soracte near Rome.

Similar rites were performed at more than one place in classical antiquity. At Castabala, in Cappadocia, the priestesses of an Asiatic goddess, whom the Greeks called Artemis Perasia, used to walk barefoot through a furnace of hot charcoal and take no harm. 25 25 Strabo, xii. 2. 7, p. 537. Compare Adonis, Attis, Osiris , Second Edition, pp. 89, 134 sqq. Again, at the foot of Mount Soracte, in Italy, there was a sanctuary of a goddess Feronia, where once a year the men of certain families walked barefoot, but unscathed, over the glowing embers and ashes of a great fire of pinewood in presence of a vast multitude, who had assembled from all the country round about to pay their devotions to the deity or to ply their business at the fair. The families from whom the performers of the rite were drawn went by the name of Hirpi Sorani, or “Soranian Wolves”; and in consideration of the services which they rendered the state by walking through the fire, they were exempted, by a special decree of the senate, from military service and all public burdens. In the discharge of their sacred function, if we can trust the testimony of Strabo, they were believed to be inspired by the goddess Feronia. The ceremony certainly took place in her sanctuary, which was held in the highest reverence alike by Latins and Sabines; but according to Virgil and Pliny the rite was performed in honour of the god of the mountain, whom they call by the Greek name of Apollo, but whose real name appears to have been Soranus. 26 26 Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 19; Virgil, Aen. xi. 784 sqq. with the comment of Servius; Strabo, v. 2. 9, p. 226; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquit. Rom. iii. 32. From a reference to the custom in Silius Italicus (v. 175 sqq. ) it seems that the men passed thrice through the furnace holding the entrails of the sacrificial victims in their hands. The learned but sceptical Varro attributed their immunity in the fire to a drug with which they took care to anoint the soles of their feet before they planted them in the furnace. See Varro, cited by Servius, on Virgil, Aen. xi. 787. The whole subject has been treated by W. Mannhardt ( Antike Wald- und Feldkulte , Berlin, 1877, pp. 327 sqq. ), who compares the rites of these “Soranian Wolves” with the ceremonies performed by the brotherhood of the Green Wolf at Jumièges in Normandy. See above, vol. i. pp. 185 sq. If Soranus was a sun-god, as his name has by some been thought to indicate, 27 27 L. Preller ( Römische Mythologie , 3 i. 268), following G. Curtius, would connect the first syllable of Soranus and Soracte with the Latin sol , “sun.” However, this etymology appears to be at the best very doubtful. My friend Prof. J. H. Moulton doubts whether Soranus can be connected with sol ; he tells me that the interchange of l and r is rare. He would rather connect Soracte with the Greek ὕραξ, “a shrew-mouse.” In that case Apollo Soranus might be the equivalent of the Greek Apollo Smintheus, “the Mouse Apollo.” Professor R. S. Conway also writes to me (11th November 1902) that Soranus and Soracte “have nothing to do with sol ; r and l are not confused in Italic.” we might perhaps conclude that the passage of his priests through the fire was a magical ceremony designed to procure a due supply of light and warmth for the earth by mimicking the sun's passage across the firmament. For so priceless a service, rendered at some personal risk, it would be natural that the magicians should be handsomely rewarded by a grateful country, and that they should be released from the common obligations of earth in order the better to devote themselves to their celestial mission. The neighbouring towns paid the first-fruits of their harvest as tribute to the shrine, and loaded it besides with offerings of gold and silver, of which, however, it was swept clean by Hannibal when he hung with his dusky army, like a storm-cloud about to break, within sight of the sentinels on the walls of Rome. 28 28 Livy, xxvi. 11. About this time the Carthaginian army encamped only three miles from Rome, and Hannibal in person, at the head of two thousand cavalry, rode close up to the walls and leisurely reconnoitered them. See Livy, xxvi. 10; Polybius, ix. 5-7.