Chapter IX: Comparative Folk-Lore (9)

Water-worship, whether as river, lake, or spring, seems as widely spread as that of trees or other natural objects, and the numerous traditions connected with it form yet another link between our civilised present and our barbarous past. ‘There is scarcely,’ says a writer on Lancashire Folk-Lore, ‘a stream of any magnitude in either Lancashire or Yorkshire, which does not possess a presiding spirit in some part of its course.’ A water-spirit that haunts some stepping-stones near Clitheroe is still believed once in every seven years to require a human life; nor is it long since a farmer in Anglesea had to drain a well belonging to him, on account of the damage done by persons resorting thither, under the belief that if they cursed the disease they suffered from and dropped pins about the well, they would shortly be cured. There is still a pin-well in Northumberland, and another in Westmoreland, wherein country girls in passing throw an offering of pins to the resident spirits. So in Ireland, votive rags may be seen on trees and hedges that surround sacred wells, whither people travel great distances in order to crawl an uneven number of times in the sun’s direction round the water, hoping thereby to propitiate the fairies and to avert sorceries.[452] St. Gowen’s well on the coast of Pembroke was lately or is still frequented for the cure of paralysis and other maladies, and there are few counties in England where the dedication of curative wells to Christian saints does not betray the attempt to hallow and hide a heathen practice under a Christian name. In Northampton alone we find St. Lawrence’s at Peterborough, St. John’s at Boughton, St. Rumbald’s at Brackley, St. Loy’s at Weedon-Loys, St. Dennis’ at Naseby, St. Mary’s at Hardwick, and St. Thomas’ at Northampton. So in Normandy, people still resort from all parts of the province, on the eve of the first of June, to the fountain of St. Clotilde, near Andelys, and there are other French wells of no inferior celebrity. As English peasants propitiate bad water-spirits by presents of pins, so do the Bretons by slices of bread and butter; and the Livonians, before starting on a voyage, calm the sea-mother by a libation of brandy.[453] But water, in addition to its dangerous and curative properties, is supposed to contain prophetic ones as well. The Castalian fountain in Greece was prophetic; and as the Laconians, by cakes thrown into a pool sacred to Juno, used to augur good or bad to themselves according as their cakes sank or floated, so do our Cornish countrymen by dropping pins or pebbles into wells read futurity in the signs of the bubbles.

The belief in unseen spirits, which underlies many of the foregoing superstitions, as it is one of the earliest beliefs of the human mind, so it is one of the most persistent. The worship of water, fire, and other natural objects probably arose from a dread of spirits thought to be resident within them, whom it was as well to cajole by gifts and prayers. Earth and air, like fire and water, were peopled respectively with invisible demons, which survive in still current traditions of the Gabriel Hounds, the Seven Whistlers, fairies, elves, and all their tribe. Our countrymen in Cornwall, if the breeze fail while they are winnowing, whistle to the Spriggian, or air-spirits, to bring it back; and the Esthonians on the Gulf of Finland do, or did, precisely the same. In Northamptonshire, till lately, women used to sweep the hearth before they went to bed, and leave vessels of water for the ablutions of the fairies or spirits of the earth, just as in Siberia food is placed daily in the cellar for the benefit of the Domavoi or house-spirits. In Scotland green patches may still be seen on field or moor left uncultivated as ‘the gudeman’s croft,’ by which it has been hoped to buy the goodwill of the otherwise evil-disposed Devil or earth-spirit; and it is doubtless from a similar fear of showing neglect or disrespect that Esthonian peasants dislike parting with any earth from their fields, and in drinking beer or eating bread recognise the existence and wants of the earth-spirit by letting some drops of the one and some crumbs of the other find their way to the floor.[454]

The foregoing instances of actual Folk-Lore, many of them now mere meaningless survivals, seem only intelligible on the ground that they have descended to us either from the earliest inhabitants of Western Europe, or from times when our Aryan progenitors were perhaps not unlike modern Fuejians. The existence has been proved, not only in England but throughout Europe, of phases of thought and modes of worship closely similar to those still found among actual savages. There is no nation that we know in the present or read of in the past so cultivated as not to retain many spots from the dark ages of its infancy and ignorance; but these, absurd as they may seem, hold the rank and claim the interest of prehistoric antiquities. The fact that there still survive among civilised people ideas and practices, corresponding in structure to those found in the various stages of the lower races, is of the same force to prove that we once went through those several stages, as the survival of traits in the growth of the individual, similar to those actually found in lower animals, point to our gradual ascent from a lower scale of being. The belief in, and dread of, evil spirits; the endeavour to affect them by acting on their fetishes or substitutes; the worship of natural objects, as trees, animals, water or even stones; the mistaking of mere sequence in time for causal connection and the consequent importance attached to such occurrences as have been observed to precede remarkable phenomena,—these and many other characteristics of modern savages find abundant representation in modern civilisation, and it is more likely they are there as survivals than as importations.

But it may be urged that no necessary antiquity can be asserted of traditions simply on account of the wide area they range over, and instances may be cited of Christian superstitions no less widely extended than many above mentioned. The belief, for instance, that about midnight on Christmas Eve, cattle rise on their knees to salute the Nativity, is found with slight modifications in England, Brittany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. In Cornwall a strong prejudice exists against burying on the north side of a church, and precisely the same feeling is found in Esthonia, for the reason there given that at the end of the world all churches will fall on that side. So, too, the custom of opening all doors and windows at a death, to give free outlet to the departing soul, prevails no less in the south of Spain than in England or in parts of Germany.

To this objection there are two answers: first, that the capacity of superstitions to spread widely and rapidly is by no means denied; secondly, that many Christian traditions are really heathen, though their origin and meaning may now be lost. For the policy of the Church towards paganism, though at times one of radical opposition, was generally one better calculated for success. It learned to prefer gradual triumphs to speedy conquests, aware that the former were more likely to last, and was pleased to satisfy its conscience and hide its impotence under connivance and compromise. It assimilated beliefs which it could not destroy, and glossed over what it could not erase, substituting simply its saints and angels for the gods and spirits of older cults. On Monte Casino, near Rome, there existed down to the sixth century a temple sacred to Apollo, till St. Benedict came and, like another Josiah, broke the idols and overthrew the altar and burned the grove, but set up a temple to St. Martin in its stead. And this case is typical of the way in which obstinate heathen rites were diverted and customs consecrated. Some illustrations may be added to those already incidentally alluded to, since they serve to explain how so many relics of heathenism have resisted centuries of Christian teaching. The Scandinavian water-spirit, Nikur, inhabitant of lakes and rivers and raiser of storms, whose favour could only be won by sacrifices, became in the middle ages St. Nicholas, the patron of sailors and sole refuge in danger; and near St. Nicholas’ church at Liverpool there stood a statue of the Christian saint, to whom sailors used to present a peace-offering when they went to sea, and a wave-offering when they returned. So it was with sacred trees and flowers and waters. Their sanctity was transferred, not destroyed. St. Boniface, with the wood of the oak he so miraculously felled, raised an oratory to St. Peter, to whom were thenceforth paid the honours of Thor. Nobody ventured the more to touch the famous oak at Kenmare when blown down by a storm, because it had been handed over to the protection of St. Columba, nor did a fragment of St. Colman’s oak held in the mouth the less avert death by hanging because it had been sanctified by the name of a saint. The Breton princes, before they entered the church at Vretou, offered prayers under a yew outside, which was said to have sprung from St. Martin’s staff and to have been so replete with holiness that the very birds of the air left its berries untouched. The great goddess Freja could only be banished from men’s thoughts by transferring what had been sacred to her to the Virgin Mary; and the names of such common plants as Lady’s Grass, Lady’s Smock, Lady’s Slipper, Lady’s Mantle, and others, attest to this day the wrong that was done to the Northern goddess. Bits of seaweed called Lady’s Trees still decorate many a Cornish chimney-piece, and protect the house from fire and other evils. The Ladybird was once Freja’s bird; and Orion’s belt, which in Sweden is still called Freja’s spindle, in Zealand now belongs to her successor Mary. In the same way Christmas has supplanted the old Yule festival, and the Yule log still testifies to the rites of fire-worship once connected with the season. So we now keep Easter at the time when our pagan forefathers used to sacrifice to the goddess Eostre, and hot cross-buns are perhaps the descendants of cakes once eaten in her honour, on which the mark of Christianity has taken the place of some heathen sign.

Such then is the evidence which Comparative Folk-Lore affords in confirmation of the teaching of history, that the people from whom we inherit our popular traditions were once as miserable and savage as those we now place in the lowest scale of the human family. The evidence that the nations now highest in culture were once in the position of those now the lowest is ever increasing, and the study of Folk-Lore corroborates the conclusions long since arrived at by archæological science. For, just as stone monuments, flint knives, lake-piles, or shell-mounds point to a time when Europeans resembled races where such things are still part of actual life, so do the traces in our social organism of fetishism, totemism, and other low forms of thought, connect our past with people where such forms of thought are still predominant. The analogies with barbarism which still flourish in civilised communities seem only explicable on the theory of a slow and more or less uniform metamorphosis to higher types and modes of life, whilst they enforce the belief that before long it will appear a law of development, as firmly established on the inconceivability of the contrary, that civilisation should emerge from barbarism, as that butterflies should first be caterpillars, or that ignorance should precede knowledge. In this way superstition itself turns to the service of science, confirming its teaching, that the history of humanity has been a rise, not a fall, not a degradation from completeness to imperfection, but a constantly accelerating progress from savagery to culture; that, in short, the iron age of the world belongs to the past, its golden one to the future.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The justification of the use of the word _force_ is not far to seek. One of the demands in the ultimatum addressed to Cetewayo, which helped to bring about the present unhappy Zulu war, was for the reinstatement of missionaries in Zululand. A Natal correspondent of the _Times_, January 28, 1879, justly observes about this: ‘If the Zulus object to missionaries—_who certainly in many cases have acted as spies_—why _force_ missionaries upon them?’ The italics are not the correspondent’s.

[2] See on this subject Mr. Wallace’s _Tropical Nature_, pp. 290-300.

[3] Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 312, 313, 333.

[4] Sproat, _Savage Life_, 178, 179, 209, 210.

[5] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. 173; and Bancroft, iii. 105.

[6] Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 121-4.

[7] Schoolcraft, _I. T._, v. p. 155.

[8] Schoolcraft, _I. T._, iv. 496. See Dr. Brinton’s explanation of the story in his _Myths of the New World_, pp. 170-3.

[9] Humboldt, _Personal Narrative_, v. 595-7.

[10] Forbes Leslie, _Early Races in Scotland_, i. 177.

[11] Klemm, _Cultur-Geschichte_, ii. 155-7, where the beliefs are referred to. Franklin’s _Second Journey_, p. 308. They are so remarkable as to arouse suspicion that European influence has affected the native imagination; but the influence, if any, seems beyond the reach of criticism in this as in other striking cases of analogy.

[12] Schoolcraft, _I. T._, iv. 255.

[13] Hutton, _Voyage to Africa_, p. 320; and Bosman in Pinkerton, xvi. 396.

[14] Schoolcraft, iv. 90.

[15] Klemm, _Cultur-Geschichte_, vii. 368.

[16] _Trans. Eth. Soc._ iii. 233, 234; Oldfield’s _Aborigines of Australia_.

[17] Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, iii. 112.

[18] Brinton, pp. 198, 199.

[19] Brinton, p. 210.

[20] Catlin, ii. 127. For some other deluge-myths of a similar kind see Bancroft, iii. 46, 47, 64, 75, 76, 88, 100; Turner’s _Polynesia_, p. 249; Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 386; Franklin, i. 113; Sir G. Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_, 61; Brett, _Indian Tribes of Guiana_, pp. 381, 385, 398, 399; Dall, _Alaska_, p. 423.

[21] Koehler, _Volksbrauch im Voightland_, p. 444. ‘Dem Verstorbenen giebt man die Gegenstände mit in das Grab, welche er im Leben am liebsten hatte: so ist es geschehen, dass man selbst Regenschirm und Gummischühe mitgab. (Reichenbach.) ... In Schweden hat man dem Todten Tabakspfeife, Tabaksbeutel, Geld und Feuerzeug mitgegeben, damit er nicht spuke.... In einem Grabe des Gottesackers zu Elsterberg wurde eine Anzahl Kupfermünzen gefunden.’

[22] This fact has been denied in King’s _Greek Church_, p. 358, but it is mentioned by most of the earliest English travellers in Russia; by Chancelor, in _Hackluyt’s Voyages_, i. 283; Jenkinson, ibid., p. 361; and Fletcher, _Russe Commonwealth_, 106; as well as by later ones.

[23] Klemm, _Cultur-Geschichte_, ii. 165.

[24] Stevenson, _Travels in South America_, i. 58.

[25] Klemm, _Cultur-Geschichte_, ii. 166.

[26] See Brinton, p. 242. ‘Nowhere (in the New World) was any well-defined doctrine that moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next world. No contrast is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, and the niggard.’

[27] For other instances of the myth of the heaven-bridge, and its wide range, see Mr. Tylor’s _Early History of Mankind_, p. 348.

[28] Williams, _Fiji_, i. 244.

[29] Klemm, _Cultur-Geschichte_, iii. 71-77.

[30] Mariner, ii. 137.

[31] Klemm, _Cultur-Geschichte_, ii. 315. ‘Jedes Thier, auch die kleinste Fliege, ersteht sofort nach ihrem Tode und lebt unter der Erde.’

[32] Klemm, _Cultur-Geschichte_, iii. 83. ‘Endlich wurden die besonderten Theile nebst den Knochen in der Kiste begraben. Man glaubte, das Opferthier werde von den Göttern wieder belebt und in den Saiwo versetzt.’

[33] Dall, _Alaska_, p. 89.

[34] Schoolcraft, _I. T._, v. 91, 403; ii. 68.

[35] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iii. 268.

[36] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 350.

[37] Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 536.

[38] _Cape Monthly Magazine_, July 1874.

[39] Bleek, _Bushman Folk-lore_, pp. 15, 18.

[40] Steller, _Kamschatka_, p. 280.

[41] Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, ii. 170.

[42] Callaway, _Religious System of the Amazulu_, pt. ii. 182.

[43] Latham, _Descriptive Ethnology_, ii. 437-444.

[44] Waitz, ii. 169.

[45] Ellis, i. 402.

[46] Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, p. 297.

[47] Page 150.

[48] Pinkerton, xvi. 304.

[49] Pinkerton, xvi. 388, 874.

[50] Williams, _Fiji_, p. 176.

[51] Dieffenbach, p. 28.

[52] Gill, p. 36.

[53] Brett, _Indian Tribes of Guiana_, p. 370.

[54] Harmon, _Journal of Voyages, &c._, p. 345.

[55] Brinton, p. 126.

[56] Bancroft, iii. 370-3. For baptismal rites in Northern Europe before Christianity, see Mallet, _Northern Antiquities_, p. 205.

[57] Franklin, _Journey to the Polar Sea_, p. 255.

[58] Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 299.

[59] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iii. 237.

[60] Callaway, i. 33.

[61] Latham, _Descriptive Ethnology_, ii. 187.

[62] Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 250.

[63] Harmon, _Journal of Voyages_, p. 363.

[64] Lord Kames, _History of Man_, vol. iv., asserts this of many tribes, the Tahitians, Hottentots, and others. See also pp. 234, 238, 297.

[65] Latham, _Descriptive Ethnology_, i. 480.

[66] Cf. Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 250, and Du Chaillu’s _Explorations_, pp. 202-3.

[67] Lichtenstein, ii. 332; Callaway, i. 111.

[68] Pinkerton, xvi. 402, 530.

[69] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iv. 635-7. The admission quoted seems to cancel the statements repeated clearly and positively in i. 16, 17, 32, 35, 38, and iii. 60, of a dualism as decided as that between Ahriman and Ormuzd. In i. 32 it is said that the _first_ notice of such a doctrine occurs in Charlevoix, _Voyage to North America in 1721_.

[70] Schoolcraft, iv. 642-3.

[71] _Ibid._, ii. 195, 197; iii. 231.

[72] Schoolcraft, ii. 131.

[73] Franklin, i. 114-15.

[74] Ellis, i. 350.

[75] Klemm, iii. 120.

[76] Kames, _History of Man_, iv. 327.

[77] Kames, _History of Man_, iv. 321.

[78] Klemm, vi. 423.

[79] Brinton, p. 298.

[80] Schoolcraft, iii. 226.

[81] Brinton, p. 297.

[82] Turner, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_, pp. 88, 200, 239.

[83] Williams, p. 144.

[84] Ellis, i. 349.

[85] Catlin, i. 133; ii. 247. Cf. Schoolcraft, iii. 243.

[86] Bancroft, _Native Races, &c._, ii. 705.

[87] Bancroft, _Native Races, &c._, iii. 428; Burton, _Mission to Gelele_, ii. 18-25.

[88] Klemm, ii. 216, from Langsdorf, ii. 261.

[89] Sproat, p. 66. The Juangs of Bengal practise a bear dance, a pigeon dance, a pig dance, a tortoise dance, a quail dance, a vulture dance. Dalton, _Desc. Eth. of Bengal_, p. 156; and see _New Encyc. Brit._ for similar cases: article, ‘Dance.’

[90] Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 200.

[91] Sproat, p. 208.

[92] Bancroft, _Native Races_, iii. 167.

[93] Ellis, i. 348.

[94] Latham, _Desc. Eth._, i. 459.

[95] Catlin, i. 127, 164, 182.

[96] Klemm, ii. 120. ‘Ahmten die knarrende röchelnde Stimme des Bisonthiers in grosser Vollkommenheit nach.’

[97] Catlin, i. 244-5.

[98] Schoolcraft, iii. 487.

[99] ‘Ein wunderbares Spiel, das zum glücklichen Erfolg des Untermehmens _durchaus nothwendig_ gehalten wird.’

[100] Lichtenstein, i. 444.

[101] Mrs. Eastman, _Dahcotah_, p. 77.

[102] Sproat, p. 146.

[103] Collins, _New South Wales_, p. 368.

[104] Callaway, i. 125.

[105] Schoolcraft, iv. 80.

[106] _Ibid._, iii. 285.

[107] Isert, _Guinea_, in French translation, p. 204: ‘L’action de ramer voulait dire que leurs maris allaient passer la rivière Volta pour se battre avec les Augéens et les noyer; la truelle et le travail de maçon indiquait l’érection de fort Konigstein.’

[108] Casalis, p. 265.

[109] Schoolcraft (Prescott), iii. 230.

[110] Schoolcraft, iii. 273, 231.

[111] Gill, 312.

[112] Pinkerton, xvi. 875.

[113] Pinkerton, xvi. 875.

[114] Livingstone, _South Africa_, p. 235.

[115] Franklin, _First Journey_, i. 160.

[116] Wuttke, _Deutsche Volksaberglaube_, p. 14.

[117] Polwhele, _History of Cornwall_, p. 48.

[118] ‘Da Dios alas á la hormiga para que se pierda mas aina,’ is the Spanish version.—_Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs_, 210. Compare with Roebuck’s _Persian and Hindoostanee Proverbs_, i. 365, and ii. 283; Thornburn’s _Afghan Frontier_, 279; and Burckhardt’s _Arabic Proverbs_.

[119] Most of the African proverbs here referred to are taken from Captain Burton’s collection from various sources in his _Wit and Wisdom of West Africa_.

[120] _Central Africa_, p. 289.

[121] Oscar Peschel, _The Races of Mankind_, translation, p. 150.

[122] Casalis, _Les Basutos_, pp. 324-8.

[123] Captain Burton justly calls attention to the possibility of many Yoruban proverbs being relics of the Moslems, who, in the tenth century, overran the Soudan.

[124] For a collection of Pashto proverbs see Thornburn’s _Afghan Frontier_, 1876.

[125] Sir G. Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_, p. 21.

[126] Williams, _Fiji_, p. 97.

[127] Callaway, ii. 171.

[128] Burton, _Mission to Dahome_, ii.

[129] Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 333.

[130] Trench, _On the Study of Words_, p. 17.

[131]

‘Nec commune bonum poterant spectare nec ullis
Moribus inter se scierant nec legibus uti.’—V. 956.

So Virgil, _Æn._, viii. 317.

[132] Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States of North America_, i. 426, 560.

[133] Peschel, _Races of Man_, pp. 39, 209.

[134] Burchell, _Travels in Southern Africa_, i. 456-62. Compare Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, i. 376. Also Wuttke, _Geschichte des Heidenthums_, p. 164. _Ein Brudermord wurde von ihnen als etwas ganz Harmloses erzählt._

[135] Bancroft, _Native Races_, i. 348.

[136] _Ibid._, i. 130.

[137] Klemm, _Culturgeschichte_, iii. 69.

[138] Bancroft, i. 520, 553.

[139] Dall, _Alaska_, p. 416.

[140] Kane, _Wanderings of an Artist_, p. 115.

[141] Catlin, _North American Indians_, ii. 192.

[142] Bancroft, iii. 167.

[143] Turner, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_, p. 285.

[144] Sir G. Grey, _Journals in Australia_, ii. 239.

[145] Williams, _Fiji_.

[146] _Old New Zealand._ By a Pakeha Maori, p. 105.

[147] Harmon’s _Journal_, pp. 299, 300.

[148] Seemann says of Fijian cruelty (_Viti_, p. 192): ‘Affection for the departed—of course mistaken affection—prompted their relatives or friends to dispatch widows at the time of their husband’s burial,’ &c.

[149] Turner, _Polynesia_, pp. 294-5.

[150] Mariner, ii. 233.

[151] Pinkerton, xvi. 595, from Froyart’s _Loango_.

[152] Fitzroy, _Voyages of ‘Adventure’ and ‘Beagle,’_ ii. 574.

[153] _Old New Zealand_, pp. 96-100.

[154] Lichtenstein, i. 259.

[155] Schoolcraft, _I. T._, i. 39.

[156] Livingstone, _Missionary Travels in South Africa_, p. 255.

[157] Harmon, _Journal_, p. 300.

[158] Turner, _Polynesia_, p. 224.

[159] Bancroft, iii. 486.

[160] Fitzroy, _Voyages_, ii. 180.

[161] Sproat, _Scenes and Studies of Savage Life_, p. 265.

[162] Shortland, _Southern Districts of New Zealand_, p. 30.

[163] Turner, _Polynesia_, pp. 225, 236.

[164] Kane, p. 205.

[165] _Ibid._; Seemann, p. 190.

[166] Bancroft, i. 245, 285, 438.

[167] Klemm, _Culturgeschichte_, iii. 78.

[168] Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 158.

[169] Dobritzhoffer, _Abipones_, ii. 203, 274.

[170] Burton, _Mission_, i. 231.

[171] Bancroft, ii. 357.

[172] Dali, _Alaska_, 524. For instances of the feeling in North America see Bancroft, i. 205, 288, 544, 745; iii. 521, 522.

[173] Gill, _Myths and Songs of the South Pacific_, p. 154.

[174] _Ibid._, p. 38.

[175] Catlin, _North American Indians_, i. 157.

[176] Bancroft, iii. 519; and other instances in the same work, chapter xii.

[177] Williams, _Fiji_, p. 247.

[178] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. 403, 404.

[179] Dr. Brinton (p. 250) says that no ethical bearing was assigned to the myth of the future by the red race till they were taught by Europeans, and that all Father Brebeuf could find was, that the souls of suicides and persons killed in war lived apart from others after death.

[180] Bowen, _Central Africa_, p. 285.

[181] Mariner, _Tongan Islands_, ii. 154.

[182] Peschel, 428-31.

[183] The collection of native Bushman literature is said to have reached eighty-four volumes! In Dr. Bleek’s _Brief Account of Bushman Folk-lore_, and in the _Cape Monthly Magazine_ for July 1874, some account is given of their mythology.

[184] Comp. Bancroft, i. 771, and Humboldt, _Personal Narrative_, v. 269.

[185] Steller, _Kamschatka_, pp. 234, 355.

[186] Schoolcraft, _I. T._, iii. 191.

[187] Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 51; Burton, _Dahome_, ii. 76; Pinkerton, xvi. 492.

[188] Bancroft, ii. 194, and i. 414, 280. Compare Catlin, i. 170; and Grote’s _Greece_, for an ordeal at Sparta.

[189] Dieffenbach, p. 667.

[190] Callaway, ii. 196.

[191] Burton, _Mission_, ii. 157.

[192] Turner, p. 236.

[193] Sproat, p. 213.

[194] Dobritzhoffer, _Abipones_, ii. 204, 441.

[195] Klemm, _Culturgeschichte_, iv. 101.

[196] Williams, _Fiji_, p. 29.

[197] Jarves, _History of Hawaii_, p. 23.

[198] Brett, _Wild Tribes of Guiana_, p. 131.

[199] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iii. 104.

[200] Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 149.

[201] Mariner, _Tongan Islands_, i. 380, 403.

[202] _Travels in Australia_, ii. 228.

[203] Bancroft, i. 109

[204] In Papworth’s _Ordinary of British Armorials_, no less than 124 pages are filled with the names of families who take their crest from some animal; 34 pages of families take their crests from the lion alone.

[205] Herberstein, i. 32.

[206] Kempper, _Japan_; Pinkerton, vii. 718.

[207] Turner, p. 343.

[208] Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 43.

[209] Burton, _Mission_, ii. 367; and Bowen, _Central Africa_, p. 318.

[210] Jarves, _History of Hawaii_, pp. 21, 23.

[211] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iii. 97.

[212] _See_ Klemm, iii. 330, for the custom in Loango; Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 43, for that in Ashantee; and Peschel, _Races of Man_, p. 235, for other instances.

[213] _Savage Africa_, p. 48.

[214] Williams, p. 40.

[215] Santo, _Eastern Ethiopia_. Pink, xvi. 698.

[216] Dieffenbach, ii. 100.

[217] Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 100. It has generally been thought best, in referring to books written some time ago, to employ the past tense where possibly the present would still be applicable. Wherever the present is used, it must be taken to refer not necessarily to the actual present but to the present of the original authority for the fact.

[218] Steller, _Kamschatka_, p. 356.

[219] Eschwege, _Brazilien_, i. 221.

[220] Bancroft, _Native Races of Pacific States_, i. 168.

[221] Catlin, ii. 240.

[222] Pinkerton. Bosnian, _Guinea_, xvi. 406.

[223] Denham, _Discoveries in Africa_, i. 167.

[224] Turner, _Polynesia_, p. 286.

[225] Elphinstone, _Caubul_, ii. 223.

[226] Thompson, _South Africa_, ii. 351.

[227] _See_ Bancroft, ii. 454-472, for the penal code of the Aztecs.

[228] Pinkerton. Froyart, _History of Loango_, xvi. 581.

[229] Hutton, _Voyage to Africa_, p. 319.

[230] Pinkerton, xvi. 242, in Merolla’s _Voyage to Congo_.

[231] Pinkerton. Bosman, _Guinea_, xvi. 405. For an account of a savage law suit, see Maclean’s _Caffre Laws and Customs_, pp. 38-43.

[232] Maclean, _Caffre Laws_, p. 34.

[233] Pinkerton, xvi. 259.

[234] Livingstone, _South Africa_, pp. 621, 642.

[235] Schweinfurth, _Heart of Africa_, i. 285.

[236] Klemm, _Culturgeschichte_, iii. 334.

[237] Williams, _Fiji_, p. 250.

[238] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 378; iv. 423.

[239] Pinkerton, xvi. 690.

[240] Wuttke, _Geschichte des Heidenthums_, p. 102, speaking of savage ordeals, says: ‘Wir können nicht sagen, dass ein monotheistischer Gedanke hier vorhanden sei; die Menschen glauben an die Gerechtigkeit des Schicksals noch nicht an einen gerechten Gott.’

[241] Turner, _Polynesia_, pp. 215, 241, 293.

[242] Klemm, iii. 68.

[243] Wuttke, _Geschichte des Heidenthums_, p. 103.

[244] Burckhardt, _Notes on the Bedouins_, p. 73.

[245] Latham, _Descriptive Ethnology_, ii. 98.

[246] Klemm, iv. 334.

[247] Maclean, pp. 124, 110.

[248] Klemm, iii. 69.

[249] Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 64.

[250] Seemann, _Mission to Viti_, p. 192.

[251] Mariner, ii. 302.

[252] Ellis, iii. 349.

[253] Earle, _Indian Archipelago_, p. 81.

[254] Pinkerton, xvi. 872.

[255] _Ibid._, p. 697.

[256] Bowen, _Central Africa_, p. 305.

[257] Lichtenstein, ii. 48.

[258] Portlock’s _Voyage_, p. 260, in Bancroft, i. 110.

[259] Cranz, i. 149, 150, 174, 218.

[260] _Travels in Australia_, ii. 355; and Bonwick, _Daily Life of the Tasmanians_, pp. 10, 78-98.

[261] _Transactions of Ethnological Society_, Prof. Owen, ii. 36.

[262] _Transactions of Ethnological Society_, ii. 291.

[263] _Ibid._, i. 264.

[264] _Nuova Antologia_, Jan. 1876.

[265] Ellis, i. 268.

[266] Mariner, i. 271-7.

[267] These stories are worth reading at length in Grey’s _Polynesian Mythology_, pp. 233-246, 296-301. See also pp. 246-273, 301-313. For a good Zulu love-story see Leslie’s _Among the Zulus_, pp. 275-284; and, for a Tasmanian love-legend, Bonwick, p. 34.

[268] Smiles, _Self-help_, p. 325; Pennant’s _Tour_, in Pinkerton, iii. 89: ‘Their tender sex are their only animals of burden.’

[269] Weddell, _Voyage to South Pole_, 1825, p. 156.

[270] Seemann, p. 192.

[271] Dalton, _Bengal_, p. 28.

[272] _Indian Tribes_, v. 131-2.

[273] Rochefort, _Les Îles Antilles_, p. 544.

[274] Bancroft, i. 110.

[275] _Heart of Africa_, i. 472; ii. 28.

[276] The best illustration of this side of savage life, of the sorrow felt by a bride on leaving her home, occurs in the _Finnish Kalewala_, in Schiefner’s German translation, pp. 126-132, 147-150.

[277] Dobell, _Travels in Kamtschatka_, &c., ii. 293.

[278] Holderness, _Journey from Riga_, p. 233.

[279] Hakluyt, i. 360; Pierson, _Russlands Vergangenheit_, pp. 202, 208.

[280] Marmier, _Sur la Russie_, ii. 154. ‘Au moment de se mettre en marche pour l’église, elle soupire, pleure, refuse de sortir. Tous ses parents essayent de la consoler,’ &c.

P. 149: ‘Rien ne donne une idée plus touchante du caractère du peuple russe que ces paroles de regret et de douleur que la jeune fiancée adresse à ses parents au milieu des joyeux préparatifs de la fête nuptiale.’

[281] Marmier, i. 127, 229.

[282] Cranz, i. 151.

[283] _Ibid._, i. 146.

[284] Egede, pp. 143-145.

[285] Chambers, _Book of Days_, ii. 721.

[286] Holderness, p. 234.

[287] Dall, _Alaska_, pp. 396, 399.

[288] Kolbe, in Medley’s translation, i. 161.

[289] Bowen, _Central Africa_, p. 303.

[290] Elphinstone, _Caubul_, i. 240.

[291] Latham, _Descriptive Ethnology_, i. 313.

[292] Herberstein, i. 92.

[293] Pinkerton, _Modern Geography_, ii. 524.

[294] Seemann, _Mission to Fiji_, p. 190.

[295] Si J. Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, pp. 75-76.

[296] Dalton, _Bengal_, p. 193.

[297] Williams, _Fiji_, p. 136.

[298] Chambers, _Book of Days_, ii. 733; Holman, _Travels_, i. 153.

[299] Dall, _Alaska_, p. 415.

[300] _Trans. Eth. Soc._, i. 98.

[301] Krashenninonikov, _Kamtshatka_, p. 215.

[302] ‘Beschwerte sich aber die Braut, dass sie den Brautigam durchaus nicht haben noch sich von ihm erobern lassen wollte, so musste er aus dem Ostrog fort.’—Steller, _Kamtschatka_, p. 345.

[303] Lesseps, _Travels in Kamtschatka_ (translated), ii. 93. The account here given of the Kamschadal marriage customs is from Krashenninonikov (translated by Grieve), _Travels in Kamtshatka_, pp. 212-214 (1764); Steller, pp. 343-349 (1774); Lesseps, ii. 93 (1790). They differ in some minor details.

[304] Burchell, ii. 56.

[305] Burckhardt, _Notes on the Bedouins_, p. 200.

[306] Leslie, pp. 117, 196.

[307] Burckhardt, _Notes_, p. 151.

[308] Lane, _Modern Egyptians_, i. 217.

[309] Gaya, _Marriage Ceremonies_ (pp. 30, 48, 81), for similar old customs, interpreted in the same way, formerly in vogue in France, Germany, and Turkey.

[310] Astley, _Collection of Voyages_, ii. 240, 273. It is a common rule of etiquette that, when a proposal of marriage is made, the purport of the visit shall only be approached indirectly and cursorily. It is curious to find such a rule among the Red Indians (_Algic Researches_, ii. 24; i. 130), the Kafirs (Maclean, p. 47), the Esquimaux (Cranz, i. 146), even the Hottentots (Kolbe, i. 149).

[311] Pinkerton, vii. 34.

[312] Bancroft, _Native Races_, &c., i. 389.

[313] _Ibid._, i. 436.

[314] _Ibid._, i. 512.

[315] Fitzroy, _Voyage of ‘Beagle,’_ ii. 152.

[316] Compare Bowen’s _Central Africa_, pp. 303-304; Gray’s _Travels in South Africa_, p. 56; Pinkerton, xvi. 568-569; and Bancroft, i. 66.

[317] Bowen, p. 104.

[318] Pinkerton, xvi. 873.

[319] Lichtenstein, i. 263.

[320] Thus Bonwick mentions a custom whereby a woman ‘was allowed some chance in her life-settlement. The applicant for her hand was permitted on a certain day to _run_ for her;’ if she passed three appointed trees without being caught she was free.—_Daily Life, &c._, p. 70.

[321] It is also an old custom in Finland, that, when a suitor tells a girl he has settled matters with her parents, she should ask him what he has given, and then, declaring it to be too little, should proceed to run away from him.—_Marmier_, i. 176.

[322] Delano, _Life on the Plains_, p. 346. In _Notes and Queries_, 1861, vol. xii. 414, it is said that in Wales a girl would often escape a disliked suitor through the custom of the pursuit on horseback—by taking a line of country of her own.

[323] Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 16, 194, 234, 252, 319.

[324] Bates, _Naturalist on the River Amazon_, p. 382.

[325] Marsden, _Sumatra_, p. 269.

[326] Denham, _Discoveries in Africa_, i. 32-35.

[327] Dobritzhoffer, ii. 97.

[328] Wuttke, _Heidenthum_, i. 185. ‘Die Guanas in Amerika begraben ihre Kinder lebendig, besonders die Mädchen, um diese _seltner und gesuchter zu machen_.’

[329] Dalton, p. 192.

[330] Colonel Dalton, in _Trans. Eth. Soc._, vi. 27.

[331] Elphinstone, _Cabul_, i. 239; ii. 23.

[332] Burnes, _Travels to Bokhara_, iii. 47.

[333] _Trans. Eth. Soc._, iii. 348-351, in Oldfield’s _Aborigines of Australia_, 1864.

[334] Bonwick, pp. 65-68.

[335] Latham, _Desc. Ethn._, ii. 159.

[336] Latham, _Desc. Ethn._, i. 96.

[337] Campbell, _Indian Journal_, 142.

[338] _Journal of Anthropology_ (July 1870), p. 33; _Trans. Eth. Soc._, vii. 236, 242.

[339] Buchanan, _Travels_, i. 251, 273, 321, 358, 394; iii. 100.

[340] Sproat, p. 98.

[341] Rochefort, _Les Îles Antilles_, 545.

[342] Bancroft, _Native Races_, i. 109, 132.

[343] Macpherson, 65.

[344] Collins (1796), _New South Wales_, 362, 351-3.

[345] Hunter (1790), _Voyage to New South Wales_, 62, 494.

[346] _Trans. Eth. Soc._, i. 217-8, and compare Sir G. Grey, _Travels, &c._, ii. 224.

[347] Hunter, 466, 479.

[348] Lecky, _Hist. of England in Eighteenth Century_, ii. 366.

[349] Bonwick, _Daily Life of the Tasmanians_, 60.

[350] Rochefort, _Les Îles Antilles_, 545. ‘Ils ne prenaient pour femmes légitimes que leurs cousines, qui leur étoyent aquises de droit naturel.’ Compare Burckhardt’s _Notes on the Bedouins_, 64: ‘A man has an exclusive right to the hand of his cousin;’ not that he was obliged to marry her, but without his consent she could marry no one else.’

[351] Rochefort, _Les Îles Antilles_, 460. ‘Il est à remarquer que les Caraibes du continent, hommes et femmes, parlent un même langage, n’ayant point corrumpu leur langue naturelle par des mariages avec des femmes étrangères.’ (1511.)

[352] Humboldt, personal narrative, vi. 40-43.

[353] See chapter on Carib language in _Les Îles Antilles_, 449, and collection of words, where those used exclusively by either sex are marked with an H and F (_Hommes et Femmes_) respectively.

[354] Maclean, 95.

[355] Leslie, 177.

[356] Du Tertre, _Hist. Gén. des Antilles_, 378.

[357] _Transactions of Ethnological Society_, i. 301-3.

[358] Bonwick, _Daily Life of the Tasmanians_, 188, 206. The author suggestively calls attention to the similarity of this legend to the Hindu legend of Indra, who delivers the lovely Apas from the monster Vitra in the dark cavern of Ahi, a legend which has been taken to mean the fire-god who destroys the dark storm cloud that chases and maltreats the fleecy maidens of the sky.

[359] Bleek, _Hottentot Fables_, 67.

[360] Bleek, _Bushman Folk-lore_.

[361] Egede, 209.

[362] Cranz, i. 213.

[363] Gill, 40-2.

[364] Dall, _Alaska_.

[365] Sproat, p. 182.

[366] Casalis, _Les Basutos_. With this story Grimm compares a German one, _Kinder und Hausmärchen_, i. 172.

[367] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, ii. 229-30.

[368] Gill, 88-98.

[369] Mrs. Cookson, _Legends of the Manx_, 27-30.

[370] Wolf, _Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie_, i. 2.

[371] _Algic Researches_, ii. 216.

[372] Kelly, _Indo-European Traditions_, 78. See the German version of the tale in Grimm’s _Hausmärchen_, ii. 394.

[373] Köhler, _Weimarische Beiträge zur Literatur_, Jan. 1865.

[374] Schirren, _Wandersagen der Neuseeländer_, 31, 37-39.

[375] Grimm, _Hausmärchen_, i. Pref. 53.

[376] See the different versions in Mr. Tylor’s _Early History of Mankind_, 344.

[377] Cox, _Aryan Mythology_, ii. 173.

[378] _Algic Researches_, ii. 1-33.

[379] _Aryan Mythology_, ii. 85.

[380] _Algic Researches_, ii. 34.

[381] Wilson, _Vishnu Purana_, 394-5.

[382] Fiske, _Myths and Myth Makers_, 97, and Cox, _Aryan Mythology_, ii. 282.

[383] _Transactions of Ethnological Society_, ii. 27.

[384] _Algic Researches_, i. 67.

[385] Bleek, _Hottentot Fables_, Pref. xxv.

[386] Bonwick, _Daily Life of the Tasmanians_, 148.

[387] _Algic Researches_, ii. 40.

[388] _Travels in Australia_, i. 261.

[389] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. 41.

[390] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. 409.

[391] D. Leslie, _Among the Zulus_, 168.

[392] Callaway, _Religious System of the Amazulu_, Part i. 5.

[393] _Algic Researches_, i. 122-8.

[394] Bancroft, _Native Races_, iii. 526.

[395] Bonwick, _Daily Life of the Tasmanians_, 182.

[396] Callaway, _Religious System of the Amazulu_, Part i. 122-3.

[397] Pinkerton, xvi. 689.

[398] Callaway, _Zulu Nursery Tales_, i. 152.

[399] Leslie, 81, 98.

[400] _Ibid._ 79.

[401] _Ibid._ 169.

[402] Appleyard, _Kafir Grammar_, 13.

[403] Mrs. Cookson, _Legends of the Manx_, 23.

[404] Prof. Max Müller, _Science of Language_, ii. 444.

[405] Steller, 253-4.

[406] Léouzon le Duc, _La Finlande_, 51, 87. ‘À dire vrai, _tous les dieux de la mythologie finnoise ne sont que les magiciens_.’

[407] Bancroft, v. 23.

[408] Brinton, _Myths of the New World_, 164.

[409] Vishnu Purana, 575.

[410] Schirren, 144. Maui wird im Meere geformt, von einem Fisch verschluckt, mit diesem ans Land geworfen und herausgeschnitten. _Der Fisch ist die Erde welche die Sonne zur Nacht verschlingt; der Himmel im Osten befreit die Sonne aus der Erde._

[411] Bancroft, v. 23.

[412] Brinton, 180.

[413] Waitz (_Anthropologie_, iv. 394, 448, 455) adopts the view of the human origin of Viracocha.

[414] Bleek, _Hottentot Fables_, 75.

[415] Schiefner, _Kalewala_, 129. In the lamentations over an approaching marriage, an old man says to the bride:

‘_Seinen Mond nannt’ dich der Vater,_
_Sonnenschein nannt’ dich die Mutter,_
_Wasserschimmer dich der Bruder,_’ &c.

[416] Fiske, 35, 76.

[417] Schweinfurth, _Heart of Africa_, ii. 326.

[418] Steller, 279.

[419] Williams, _Fiji_, 204.

[420] Rink, _Tales, &c. of the Esquimaux_, 90.

[421] _Algic Researches_, ii. 226.

[422] _Hiawatha_, Canto xxi.

[423] Steller, 267. ‘Die Italmanes geben nach ihrer _ungemein lebhaften Phantasie_ von allen Dingen Raison, und lassen nicht das geringste ohne Critic vorbei.’ Yet they had neither reverence nor names for the stars, calling only the Great Bear the moving star, 281.

[424] _Travels in Australia_, i. 261, 297.

[425] Thompson, _South Africa_, ii. 34.

[426] Aubrey’s _Miscellanies_, 197.

[427] Those who doubt the existence of much popular superstition in this century may judge of the amount and value of the evidence by referring to the following books: 1. All the volumes of _Notes and Queries_, Index, Folk-Lore. 2. Harland and Wilkinson, _Lancashire Folk-Lore_, 1867. 3. Henderson’s _Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders_, 1866. 4. Kelly’s _Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-Lore_, 1863. 5. Stewart’s _Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland_, 1851. 6. Sternberg’s _Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire_, 1851. 7. Thorpe’s _Northern Mythology_, 1851. 8. Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_, 1861. 9. Koehler, _Volksbrauch im Voigtlande_, 1867. 10. Bosquet, _La Normandie Romanesque_, 1845.

[428] _Origin of Civilisation_, 33.

[429] _Ibid._, 23.

[430] Hammerton, _Round my House_, 254.

[431] Holderness, _Journey from Riga to the Crimea_, 254.

[432] Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, ‘Aberglaube,’ cases 576, 664, 698, 898. These practices, even if no longer existent, throw light upon those that still are.

[433] Amélie Bosquet, _La Normandie pittoresque_, 217.

[434] Fletcher, _Russe Commonweal_, 78.

[435] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. 419.

[436] Kane, 216.

[437] Williams, 248.

[438] Brett, _Indian Tribes of Guiana_, 369.

[439] Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_, 111-114.

[440] Cook, vi. 192.

[441] Doolittle, _Social Life of the Chinese_, ii. 328.

[442] There are several derivations for Beltane or Bealteine: 1. From Baal or Belus, the Phœnician god, the worship being supposed to be of Phœnician origin; 2. from Baldur, one of the gods of Valhalla who represented the Sun; 3. from lá = day, teine = fire, and Beal = the name of some god, but not Belus; 4. from Paleteine, Pales’ fire, the worship being identified with that of the Roman goddess Pales, who presided over cattle and pastures, and to whom, on April 21, prayers and offerings were made. At the Palilia shepherds purified their flocks by sulphur and fires of olive and pine wood, and presented the goddess with cakes of millet and milk, whilst the people leaped thrice through straw fires kindled in a row. Yet we should probably be right if we connected the Palilia and the Beltanes, not as directly borrowed one from the other, but as co-descendants from one and the same origin.

Mr. Forbes-Leslie speaks of Beltane fires as still to be seen in 1865. The Beltane feast proper was on May-day, but the word was also applied to fires kindled in honour of Bel on other days, as on Midsummer Eve, All Hallow-e’en, and Yeule, now Christmas. (_Early Races of Scotland_, i. 120-1.)

[443] Stewart, _Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders_, p. 149.

[444] Bancroft, iii. 701.

[445] Kolbe, _Caput bonæ Spei_, ii. 431-2, and Thunberg, in Pinkerton, xvi. 143. Kolbe gives a picture of the practice.

[446] Kerr, _Voyages_, i. 131.

[447] Catlin, ii. 189.

[448] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iii. 228.

[449] Latham, _Desc. Ethn._, i. 141.

[450] Jones, _Antiquities of the Southern Indians_, p. 21, and Schoolcraft, _I.T._, v. 267.

[451] _Lancashire Folk-Lore_, p. 63.

[452] Sir W. Betham, _Gael and Cimbri_: 1834. ‘The branches of a tree near the Stone of Fire Temple in the Persian province of Fars were found thickly hung with rags, and the same offerings are common on bushes round sacred wells in the Dekkan of India and Ceylon.’ (Forbes-Leslie, _Early Races of Scotland_, i. 163.)

[453] Schiefner, _Introduction to Sjögren’s Livische Grammatik_. St. Petersburg, 1861.

[454] The instances of Esthonian superstitions are taken from Grimm’s collection in the _Deutsche Mythologie_. Their date is 1788. The same interest attaches to them from an archæological point of view, whether they exist still or have become extinct.

THE END.