Chapter V: The Magical Control of the Weather (3)

The intimate association of frogs and toads with water has earned for these creatures a widespread reputation as custodians of rain; and hence they often play a part in charms designed to draw needed showers from the sky. Some of the Indians of the Orinoco held the toad to be the god or lord of the waters, and for that reason feared to kill the creature, even when they were ordered to do so. They have been known to keep frogs under a pot and to beat them with rods when there was a drought.[1004] It is said that the Aymara Indians of Peru and Bolivia often make little images of frogs and other aquatic animals and place them on the tops of the hills as a means of bringing down rain.[1005] In some parts of south-eastern Australia, where the rainfall is apt to be excessive, the natives feared to injure Tidelek, the frog, or Bluk, the bull-frog, because they were said to be full of water instead of intestines, and great rains would follow if one of them were killed. The frog family was often referred to as Bunjil Willung or Mr. Rain. A tradition ran that once upon a time long ago the frog drank up all the water in the lakes and rivers, and then sat in the dry {p293} reed beds swollen to an enormous size, saying, “Bluk! bluk!” in a deep gurgling voice. All the other animals wandered about gaping and gasping for a drop of moisture, but finding none, they agreed that they must all die of thirst unless they could contrive to make the frog laugh. So they tried one after the other, but for a long time in vain. At last the conger eel and his relations, hung round with lake grass and gay sea-weed, reared themselves on their tails and pranced round the fire. This was too much for the frog. He opened his mouth and laughed till the water ran out and the lakes and streams were full once more.[1006] We have seen that some of the Queensland aborigines imitate the movements and cries of frogs as part of a rain-charm.[1007] The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia and some people in Europe think that to kill a frog brings on rain.[1008] In order to procure rain people of low caste in the Central Provinces of India will tie a frog to a rod covered with green leaves and branches of the _nîm_ tree (_Azadirachta Indica_) and carry it from door to door singing—

_Send soon, O frog, the jewel of water!_
_And ripen the wheat and millet in the field._[1009]

In Kumaon, a district of north-western India, one way of bringing on rain when it is needed is to hang a frog with its mouth up on a tall bamboo or on a tree for a day or two. The notion is that the god of rain, seeing the creature in trouble, will take pity on it and send the rain.[1010] In the district of Muzaffarpur in India the vulgar believe that the cry of a frog is most readily heard by the God of {p294} Rain. Hence in a year of drought the low-caste females of a village assemble at evening and put a frog in a small earthen pot together with water taken from five different houses. The pot with the frog is then placed in the hollow wooden cup into which the lever used for pounding rice falls. Being raised with the foot and then allowed to drop, the lever crushes the frog to death; and while the creature emits his dying croak the women sing songs in a loud voice about the dearth of water.[1011] The Kapus or Reddis are a large and prosperous caste of cultivators and landowners in the Madras Presidency. When rain fails, women of the caste will catch a frog and tie it alive to a new winnowing fan made of bamboo. On this fan they spread a few margosa leaves and go from door to door singing, “Lady frog must have her bath. Oh! rain-god, give a little water for her at least.” While the Kapu women sing this song, the woman of the house pours water over the frog and gives an alms, convinced that by so doing she will soon bring rain down in torrents.[1012] Again, in order to procure rain the Malas, who are the pariahs of the Telugu country in Southern India, tie a live frog to a mortar and put a mud figure of Gontiyalamma over it. Then they carry the mortar, frog, and all in procession, singing, “Mother frog, playing in water, pour rain by pots full,” while the villagers of other castes pour water over them.[1013] Beliefs like these might easily develop into a worship of frogs regarded as personifying the powers of water and rain. In the Rig Veda there is a hymn about frogs which appears to be substantially a rain-charm.[1014] The Newars, the aboriginal inhabitants of Nepaul, worship the frog as a creature associated with the demi-god Nagas in the production and control of rain and the water-supply, on which the welfare of the crops depends. A sacred character is attributed to the little animal, and every care is taken not to molest or injure it. The worship of the frog is performed on the seventh day of the month Kartik (October), usually at a {p295} pool which is known to be frequented by frogs, although it is not essential to the efficacy of the rite that a frog should be actually seen at the time. After carefully washing his face and hands, the priest takes five brazen bowls and places in them five separate offerings, namely, rice, flowers, milk and vermilion, ghee and incense, and water. Lighting the pile of ghee and incense, the priest says, “Hail, Paremêsvara Bhûmînâtha! I pray you receive these offerings and send us timely rain, and bless our crops!”[1015]

[Sidenote: Suggested explanation of connexion of frog with rain.]

Some of these customs and beliefs may be, at least in part, based on the frog’s habit of storing up water in its body against seasons of drought; when it is caught at such times, it squirts the water out in a jet.[1016] On seeing a frog emit a gush of water when all around was dry and parched, savages might easily infer that the creature had caused the drought by swallowing all the water, and that in order to restore its moisture to the thirsty ground they had only to make the frog disgorge its secret store of the precious liquid.

[Sidenote: Stopping rain by means of rabbits and serpents.]

Among some tribes of South Africa, when too much rain falls, the wizard, accompanied by a large crowd, repairs to the house of a family where there has been no death for a very long time, and there he burns the skin of a coney. As it burns he shouts, “The rabbit is burning,” and the cry is taken up by the whole crowd, who continue shouting till they are exhausted.[1017] This no doubt is supposed to stop the rain. Equally effective is a method adopted by gypsies in Austria. When the rain has continued to pour steadily for a long time, to the great discomfort of these homeless vagrants, the men of the band assemble at a river and divide themselves into two parties. Some of them cut branches with which to make a raft, while the others collect hazel leaves and cover the raft with them. A witch thereupon lays a dried serpent, wrapt {p296} in white rags, on the raft, which is then carried by several men to the river. Women are not allowed to be present at this part of the ceremony. While the procession moves towards the river, the witch marches behind the raft singing a song, of which the burden is a statement that gypsies do not like water, and have no urgent need of serpents’ milk, coupled with the expression of a hope that the serpent may see his way to swallow the water, that he may run to his mother and drink milk from her breasts, and that the sun may shine out, bringing back mirth and jollity to gypsy hearts. Transylvanian gypsies will sometimes expose the dried carcase of a serpent to the pouring rain, “in order that the serpent may convince himself of the inclemency of the weather, and so grant the people’s wish.”[1018]

[Sidenote: Doing violence to the being who controls the weather.]

This last custom is an example of an entirely different mode of procuring rain, to which people sometimes have recourse in extreme cases, when the drought is long and their temper short. At such times they will drop the usual hocus-pocus of imitative magic altogether, and being far too angry to waste their breath in prayer they seek by threats and curses or even downright physical force to extort the waters of heaven from the supernatural being who has, so to say, cut them off at the main. Thus, in Muzaffarnagar, a town of the Punjaub, when the rains are excessive, the people draw a figure of a certain Muni or Rishi Agastya on a loin-cloth and put it out in the rain, or they paint his figure on the outside of the house and let the rain wash it off. This Muni or Rishi Agastya is a great personage in the native folklore, and enjoys the reputation of being able to stop the rain. It is supposed that he will exercise his power as soon as he is thus made to feel in effigy the misery of wet weather.[1019] On the other hand, when rain is wanted at Chhatarpur, a native state in Bundelcund, they paint two figures with their legs up and their heads down on a wall that faces east; one of the figures represents Indra, the other Megha Raja, the lord of rain. They think that in this uncomfortable position these powerful beings will soon be glad to send {p297} the much-needed showers.[1020] In a Japanese village, when the guardian divinity had long been deaf to the peasants’ prayers for rain, they at last threw down his image and, with curses loud and long, hurled it head foremost into a stinking rice-field. “There,” they said, “you may stay yourself for a while, to see how _you_ will feel after a few days’ scorching in this broiling sun that is burning the life from our cracking fields.”[1021] In the like circumstances the Feloupes of Senegambia cast down their fetishes and drag them about the fields, cursing them till rain falls.[1022] In Okunomura, a Japanese village not far from Tokio, when rain is wanted, an artificial dragon is made out of straw, reeds, bamboos, and magnolia leaves. Preceded by a Shinto priest, attended by men carrying paper flags, and followed by others beating a big drum, the dragon is carried in procession from the Buddhist temple and finally thrown into a waterfall.[1023] When the spirits withhold rain or sunshine, the Comanches whip a slave; if the gods prove obstinate, the victim is almost flayed alive.[1024]

[Sidenote: Chinese modes of compelling the gods to give rain.

Siamese modes of constraining the gods to give rain.]

The Chinese are adepts in the art of taking the kingdom of heaven by storm. Thus, when rain is wanted they make a huge dragon of paper or wood to represent the rain-god, and carry it about in procession; but if no rain follows, the mock-dragon is execrated and torn to pieces.[1025] At other times they threaten and beat the god if he does not give rain; sometimes they publicly depose him from the rank of deity. On the other hand, if the wished-for rain falls, the god is promoted to a higher rank by an imperial decree.[1026] It is said that in the reign of Kia-King, fifth emperor of the {p298} Manchu dynasty, a long drought desolated several provinces of northern China. Processions were of no avail; the rain-dragon hardened his heart and would not let a drop fall. At last the emperor lost patience and condemned the recalcitrant deity to perpetual exile on the banks of the river Illi in the province of Torgot. The decree was in process of execution; the divine criminal, with a touching resignation, was already traversing the deserts of Tartary to work out his sentence on the borders of Turkestan, when the judges of the High Court of Peking, moved with compassion, flung themselves at the feet of the emperor and implored his pardon for the poor devil. The emperor consented to revoke his doom, and a messenger set off at full gallop to bear the tidings to the executors of the imperial justice. The dragon was reinstated in his office on condition of performing his duties a little better in future.[1027] About the year 1710 the island of Tsong-ming, which belongs to the province of Nanking, was afflicted with a drought. The viceroy of the province, after the usual attempts to soften the heart of the local deity by burning incense-sticks had been made in vain, sent word to the idol that if rain did not fall by such and such a day, he would have him turned out of the city and his temple razed to the ground. The threat had no effect on the obdurate divinity; the day of grace came and went, and yet no rain fell. Then the indignant viceroy forbade the people to make any more offerings at the shrine of this unfeeling deity, and commanded that the temple should be shut up and seals placed on the doors. This soon produced the desired effect. Cut off from his base of supplies, the idol had no choice but to surrender at discretion. Rain fell in a few days, and thus the god was restored to the affections of the faithful.[1028] In some parts of China the mandarins procure rain or fine weather by shutting the southern or the northern gates of the city. For the south wind brings drought and the north wind brings showers. Hence by closing the southern and opening the northern gates you clearly exclude drought and admit rain; whereas contrariwise by shutting the northern and opening the {p299} southern gates you bar out the clouds and the wet and let in sunshine and genial warmth.[1029] In April 1888 the mandarins of Canton prayed to the god Lung-wong to stop the incessant downpour of rain; and when he turned a deaf ear to their petitions they put him in a lock-up for five days. This had a salutary effect. The rain ceased and the god was restored to liberty. Some years before, in time of drought, the same deity had been chained and exposed to the sun for days in the courtyard of his temple in order that he might feel for himself the urgent need of rain.[1030] So when the Siamese need rain, they set out their idols in the blazing sun; but if they want dry weather, they unroof the temples and let the rain pour down on the idols. They think that the inconvenience to which the gods are thus subjected will induce them to grant the wishes of their worshippers.[1031] When the rice-crop is endangered by long drought, the governor of Battambang, a province of Siam, goes in great state to a certain pagoda and prays to Buddha for rain. Then, accompanied by his suite and followed by an enormous crowd, he adjourns to a plain behind the pagoda. Here a dummy figure has been made up, dressed in bright colours, and placed in the middle of the plain. A wild music begins to play; maddened by the din of drums and cymbals and crackers, and goaded on by their drivers, the elephants charge down on the dummy and trample it to pieces. After this, Buddha will soon give rain.[1032]

[Sidenote: Compelling the saints to give rain in Sicily.]

The reader may smile at the meteorology of the Far East; but precisely similar modes of procuring rain have been resorted to in Christian Europe within our own lifetime. By the end of April 1893 there was great distress in Sicily for lack of water. The drought had lasted six months. Every day the sun rose and set in a sky of cloudless blue. The gardens of the Conca d’Oro, which surround Palermo with a magnificent belt of verdure, were {p300} withering. Food was becoming scarce. The people were in great alarm. All the most approved methods of procuring rain had been tried without effect. Processions had traversed the streets and the fields. Men, women, and children, telling their beads, had lain whole nights before the holy images. Consecrated candles had burned day and night in the churches. Palm branches, blessed on Palm Sunday, had been hung on the trees. At Solaparuta, in accordance with a very old custom, the dust swept from the churches on Palm Sunday had been spread on the fields. In ordinary years these holy sweepings preserve the crops; but that year, if you will believe me, they had no effect whatever. At Nicosia the inhabitants, bare-headed and bare-foot, carried the crucifixes through all the wards of the town and scourged each other with iron whips. It was all in vain. Even the great St. Francis of Paola himself, who annually performs the miracle of rain and is carried every spring through the market-gardens, either could not or would not help. Masses, vespers, concerts, illuminations, fire-works—nothing could move him. At last the peasants began to lose patience. Most of the saints were banished. At Palermo they dumped St. Joseph in a garden to see the state of things for himself, and they swore to leave him there in the sun till rain fell. Other saints were turned, like naughty children, with their faces to the wall. Others again, stripped of their beautiful robes, were exiled far from their parishes, threatened, grossly insulted, ducked in horse-ponds. At Caltanisetta the golden wings of St. Michael the Archangel were torn from his shoulders and replaced with wings of pasteboard; his purple mantle was taken away and a clout wrapt about him instead. At Licata the patron saint, St. Angelo, fared even worse, for he was left without any garments at all; he was reviled, he was put in irons, he was threatened with drowning or hanging. “Rain or the rope!” roared the angry people at him, as they shook their fists in his face.[1033] {p301}

[Sidenote: Disturbing the rain-god in his haunts.]

Another way of constraining the rain-god is to disturb him in his haunts. This seems to be the reason why rain is supposed to follow the troubling of a sacred spring. The Dards believe that if a cow-skin or anything impure is placed in certain springs, storms will follow.[1034] In the mountains of Farghana there was a place where rain began to fall as soon as anything dirty was thrown into a certain famous well.[1035] Again, in Tabaristan there was said to be a cave in the mountain of Tak which had only to be defiled by filth or milk for the rain to begin to fall, and to continue falling till the cave was cleansed.[1036] Gervasius mentions a spring, into which if a stone or a stick were thrown, rain would at once issue from it and drench the thrower.[1037] There was a fountain in Munster such that if it were touched or even looked at by a human being, it would at once flood the whole province with rain.[1038] In Normandy a wizard will sometimes repair to a spring, sprinkle flour on it, and strike the water with a hazel rod, while he chants his spell. A mist then rises from the spring and condenses in the shape of heavy clouds, which discharge volleys of hail on the orchards and corn-fields.[1039] When rain was long of coming in the Canary Islands, the priestesses used to beat the sea with rods to punish the water-spirit for his niggardliness.[1040] Among the natural curiosities of Annam are the caves of Chua-hang {p302} or Troc. You may sail into them in a boat underground for a distance of half a mile, and a little way further in you come to the remains of an ancient altar among magnificent stalactite columns. The Annamites worship the spirit of the cave and offer sacrifices at its mouth in time of drought. From all the villages in the neighbourhood come boats, the boatmen singing, “Let it rain! let it rain!” in time to the measured dip of their oars in the water. Arrived at the mouth of the cave, they offer rice and wine to the spirit, prostrating themselves four times before him. Then the master of the ceremonies recites a prayer, ties a written copy of it to the neck of a dog, and flings the animal into the stream which flows from the grotto. This is done in order to provoke the spirit of the cave to anger by defiling his pure water; for he will then send abundant rains to sweep far away the carcase of the dead dog which pollutes the sacred grotto.[1041]

[Sidenote: Putting compulsion on the rain-god.

Exciting the pity of the beings who control the rain.]

Two hundred miles to the east of the land of the Huichol Indians in Mexico there is a sacred spring, and away to the west of their country stretches the Pacific Ocean. To ensure the fall of rain these Indians carry water from the spring to the sea, and an equal quantity of sea-water from the sea to the spring. The two waters thus transferred will, they think, feel strange in their new surroundings and will seek to return to their old homes. Hence they will pass in the shape of clouds across the Huichol country and meeting there will descend as rain.[1042] Sometimes an appeal is made to the pity of the gods. When their corn is being burnt up by the sun, the Zulus look out for a “heaven bird,” kill it, and throw it into a pool. Then the heaven melts with tenderness for the death of the bird; “it wails for it by raining, wailing a funeral wail.”[1043] In Zululand women sometimes bury their children up to the neck in the ground, and then retiring to a distance keep up a dismal howl for a long time. The sky is supposed to melt with pity at the sight. Then the women dig the children out and feel sure {p303} that rain will soon follow. They say that they call to “the lord above” and ask him to send rain. If it comes they declare that “Usondo rains.”[1044] In times of drought the Guanches of Teneriffe led their sheep to sacred ground, and there they separated the lambs from their dams, that their plaintive bleating might touch the heart of the god.[1045] In Kumaon a way of stopping rain is to pour hot oil in the left ear of a dog. The animal howls with pain, his howls are heard by Indra, and out of pity for the beast’s sufferings the god stops the rain.[1046] Sometimes the Toradjas of Central Celebes attempt to procure rain as follows. They place the stalks of certain plants in water, saying, “Go and ask for rain, and so long as no rain falls I will not plant you again, but there shall you die.” Also they string some fresh-water snails on a cord, and hang the cord on a tree, and say to the snails, “Go and ask for rain, and so long as no rain comes, I will not take you back to the water.” Then the snails go and weep and the gods take pity and send rain.[1047] However, the foregoing ceremonies are religious rather than magical, since they involve an appeal to the compassion of higher powers. A peculiar mode of making rain was adopted by some of the heathen Arabs. They tied two sorts of bushes to the tails and hind legs of their cattle, and, setting fire to the bushes, drove the cattle to the top of a mountain, praying for rain.[1048] This may be, as Wellhausen suggests, an imitation of lightning on the horizon;[1049] but it may also be a way of threatening the sky, as some West African rain-makers put a pot of inflammable materials on the fire and blow up the flames, threatening that if heaven does not soon give rain they will send up a blaze which will set the sky on fire.[1050] In time of drought the priests of the Muyscas in New Granada ascended a mountain and there burned billets {p304} of wood smeared with resin. The ashes they scattered in the air, thinking thus to condense the clouds and bring rain.[1051]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of stones.

Bezoar stones as instruments of rain.]

Stones are often supposed to possess the property of bringing on rain, provided they be dipped in water or sprinkled with it, or treated in some other appropriate manner. In a Samoan village a certain stone was carefully housed as the representative of the rain-making god, and in time of drought his priests carried the stone in procession and dipped it in a stream.[1052] Among the Ta-ta-thi tribe of New South Wales, the rain-maker breaks off a piece of quartz-crystal and spits it towards the sky; the rest of the crystal he wraps in emu feathers, soaks both crystal and feathers in water, and carefully hides them.[1053] In the Keramin tribe of New South Wales the wizard retires to the bed of a creek, drops water on a round flat stone, then covers up and conceals it.[1054] Among some tribes of north-western Australia the rain-maker repairs to a piece of ground which is set apart for the purpose of rain-making. There he builds a heap of stones or sand, places on the top of it his magic stone, and walks or dances round the pile chanting his incantations for hours, till sheer exhaustion obliges him to desist, when his place is taken by his assistant. Water is sprinkled on the stone and huge fires are kindled. No layman may approach the sacred spot while the mystic ceremony is being performed.[1055] When the Sulka of New Britain wish to procure rain they blacken stones with the ashes of certain fruits and set them out, along with certain other plants and buds, in the sun. Then a handful of twigs is dipped in water and weighted with stones, while a spell is chanted. After that rain should follow.[1056] In Manipur, on a lofty hill to the east of the capital, there is a stone which the popular imagination likens to an umbrella. {p305} When rain is wanted, the rajah fetches water from a spring below and sprinkles it on the stone.[1057] At Sagami in Japan there is a stone which draws down rain whenever water is poured on it.[1058] When the Wakondyo, a tribe of Central Africa, desire rain, they send to the Wawamba, who dwell at the foot of snowy mountains, and are the happy possessors of a “rain-stone.” In consideration of a proper payment, the Wawamba wash the precious stone, anoint it with oil, and put it in a pot full of water. After that the rain cannot fail to come.[1059] In Behar people think to put an end to drought by keeping a holy stone named Náráyan-chakra in a vessel of water.[1060] The Turks of Armenia make rain by throwing pebbles into the water. At Egin the pebbles are hung in two bags in the Euphrates; there should be seventy thousand and one of them.[1061] At Myndus in Asia Minor the number of the stones used for this purpose is seventy-seven thousand, and each of them should be licked before it is cast into the sea.[1062] In some parts of Mongolia, when the people desire rain, they fasten a bezoar stone to a willow twig, and place it in pure water, uttering incantations or prayers at the same time.[1063] At Yakutsk all classes used firmly to believe they could make rain by means of one of these bezoar stones, provided it had really been found in the stomach of an animal, and the fiercer the beast the more powerful the charm. The rain-maker had to dip the stone in spring water just as the sun rose, and then holding it between the thumb and fore-finger of the right hand to present it to the luminary, after which he made three turns contrary to the direction of the sun. The virtue of a bezoar stone lasted only nine days.[1064] Conversely, when Dr. Radloff’s Mongolian guide wished to stop the rain, he tied a rock-crystal by a short string to a stick, held the stone over the fire, and then swung the stick {p306} about in all directions, while he chanted an incantation.[1065] Water is scarce with the fierce Apaches, who roam the arid wastes of Arizona and New Mexico; for springs are few and far between in these torrid wildernesses, where the intense heat would be unendurable were it not for the great dryness of the air. The stony beds of the streams are waterless in the plains; but if you ascend for some miles the profound cañons that worm their way into the heart of the wild and rugged mountains, you come in time to a current trickling over the sand, and a mile or two more will bring you to a stream of a tolerable size flowing over boulders and screened from the fierce sun by walls of rock that tower on either hand a thousand feet into the air, their parched sides matted with the fantastic forms of the prickly cactus, and their summits crested far overhead with pine woods, like a black fringe against the burning blue of the sky. In such a land we need not wonder that the thirsty Indians seek to procure rain by magic. They take water from a certain spring and throw it on a particular point high up on a rock; the welcome clouds then soon gather, and rain begins to fall.[1066] In the district of Varanda, in Armenia, there is a rock with a hole in it near a sacred place. Women light candles on the rock and pour water into the hole in order to bring on rain. And in the same district there is another rock on which water is poured and milk boiled as an offering in time of drought.[1067]

[Sidenote: Making rain by means of stones in Europe.

Dipping images of saints in water as a rain-charm.]

But customs of this sort are not confined to the wilds of Africa and Asia or the torrid deserts of Australia and the New World. They have been practised in the cool air and under the grey skies of Europe. There is a fountain called Barenton, of romantic fame, in those “wild woods of Broceliande,” where, if legend be true, the wizard Merlin still sleeps his magic slumber in the hawthorn shade. Thither the Breton peasants used to resort when they {p307} needed rain. They caught some of the water in a tankard and threw it on a slab near the spring.[1068] On Snowdon there is a lonely tarn called Dulyn, or the Black Lake, lying “in a dismal dingle surrounded by high and dangerous rocks.” A row of stepping-stones runs out into the lake, and if any one steps on the stones and throws water so as to wet the farthest stone, which is called the Red Altar, “it is but a chance that you do not get rain before night, even when it is hot weather.”[1069] In these cases it appears probable that, as in Samoa, the stone is regarded as more or less divine. This appears from the custom sometimes observed of dipping the cross in the Fountain of Barenton to procure rain, for this is plainly a Christian substitute for the old pagan way of throwing water on the stone.[1070] At various places in France it is, or used till lately to be, the practice to dip the image of a saint in water as a means of procuring rain. Thus, beside the old priory of Commagny, a mile or two to the south-west of Moulins-Engilbert, there is a spring of St. Gervais, whither the inhabitants go in procession to obtain rain or fine weather according to the needs of the crops. In times of great drought they throw into the basin of the fountain an ancient stone image of the saint that stands in a sort of niche from which the fountain flows.[1071] At Collobrières and Carpentras, both in Provence, a similar practice was observed with the images of St. Pons and St. Gens respectively.[1072] In several villages of Navarre prayers for rain used to be offered to St. Peter, and by way of enforcing them the villagers carried the image of the saint in procession to the river, where they thrice invited him to reconsider his resolution and to grant their prayers; then, if he was still obstinate, they plunged him in the water, despite the remonstrances of the clergy, who {p308} pleaded with as much truth as piety that a simple caution or admonition administered to the image would produce an equally good effect. After this the rain was sure to fall within twenty-four hours.[1073] Catholic countries do not enjoy a monopoly of making rain by ducking holy images in water. In Mingrelia, when the crops are suffering from want of rain, they take a particularly holy image and dip it in water every day till a shower falls;[1074] and in the Far East the Shans drench the images of Buddha with water when the rice is perishing of drought.[1075] In all such cases the practice is probably at bottom a sympathetic charm, however it may be disguised under the appearance of a punishment or a threat.

[Sidenote: Various rain-charms by means of stones.]

The application of water to a miraculous stone is not the only way of securing its good offices in the making of rain. In the island of Uist, one of the Outer Hebrides, there is a stone cross opposite to St. Mary’s church, which the natives used to call the Water-cross. When they needed rain, they set the cross up; and when enough rain had fallen, they laid it flat on the ground.[1076] In Aurora, one of the New Hebrides islands, the rain-maker puts a tuft of leaves of a certain plant in the hollow of a stone; over it he lays some branches of a pepper-tree pounded and crushed, and to these he adds a stone which is believed to possess the property of drawing down showers from the sky. All this he accompanies with incantations, and finally covers the whole mass up. In time it ferments, and steam, charged with magical virtue, goes up and makes clouds and rain. The wizard must be careful, however, not to pound the pepper too hard, as otherwise the wind might blow too strong.[1077] Sometimes the stone derives its magical virtue from its likeness to a real or imaginary animal. Thus, at Kota Gadang in Sumatra, there is a stone which, with the help of a powerful imagination, may perhaps be conceived to bear a faint and distant resemblance to a cat. {p309} Naturally, therefore, it possesses the property of eliciting showers from the sky, since in Sumatra, as we have seen, a real black cat plays a part in ceremonies for the production of rain. Hence the stone is sometimes smeared with the blood of fowls, rubbed, and incensed, while a charm is uttered over it.[1078] At Eneti, in Washington State, there is an irregular basaltic rock on which a face, said to be that of the thunder-bird, has been hammered. The Indians of the neighbourhood long believed that to shake the rock would cause rain by exciting the wrath of the thunder-bird.[1079]

[Sidenote: Rain-charms in classical antiquity.]

Like other peoples, the Greeks and Romans sought to obtain rain by magic, when prayers and processions[1080] had proved ineffectual. For example, in Arcadia, when the corn and trees were parched with drought, the priest of Zeus dipped an oak branch into a certain spring on Mount Lycaeus. Thus troubled, the water sent up a misty cloud, from which rain soon fell upon the land.[1081] A similar mode of making rain is still practised, as we have seen, in Halmahera near New Guinea.[1082] The people of Crannon in Thessaly had a bronze chariot which they kept in a temple. When they desired a shower they shook the chariot and the shower fell.[1083] Probably the rattling of the chariot was meant to imitate thunder; we have already seen that mock thunder and lightning form part of a rain-charm in Russia and {p310} Japan.[1084] The legendary Salmoneus, King of Elis, made mock thunder by dragging bronze kettles behind his chariot, or by driving over a bronze bridge, while he hurled blazing torches in imitation of lightning. It was his impious wish to mimic the thundering car of Zeus as it rolled across the vault of heaven. Indeed he declared that he was actually Zeus, and caused sacrifices to be offered to himself as such.[1085] Near a temple of Mars, outside the walls of Rome, there was kept a certain stone known as the _lapis manalis_. In time of drought the stone was dragged into Rome, and this was supposed to bring down rain immediately.[1086] There were Etruscan wizards who made rain or discovered springs of water, it is not certain which. They were thought to bring the rain or the water out of their bellies.[1087] The legendary Telchines in Rhodes are described as magicians who could change their shape and bring clouds, rain, and snow.[1088] The Athenians sacrificed boiled, not roast meat to the Seasons, begging them to avert drought and dry heat and to send due warmth and timely rain.[1089] This is an interesting example of the admixture of religion with sorcery, of sacrifice with magic. The Athenians dimly conceived that in some way the water in the pot would be transmitted through the boiled meat to the deities, and then sent down again by them in the form of rain.[1090] In a similar spirit {p311} the prudent Greeks made it a rule always to pour honey, but never wine, on the altars of the sun-god, pointing out, with great show of reason, how expedient it was that a god on whom so much depended should keep strictly sober.[1091]

§3. _The Magical Control of the Sun_

[Sidenote: Making the sun to shine.

Magical control of the sun.

Attempts to help the sun at an eclipse.

Various charms to cause the sun to shine.]

The rule of total abstinence which Greek prudence and piety imposed on the sun-god introduces us to a second class of natural phenomena which primitive man commonly supposes to be in some degree under his control and dependent on his exertions. As the magician thinks he can make rain, so he fancies he can cause the sun to shine, and can hasten or stay its going down. At an eclipse the Ojebways used to imagine that the sun was being extinguished. So they shot fire-tipped arrows in the air, hoping thus to rekindle his expiring light.[1092] The Sencis of eastern Peru also shot burning arrows at the sun during an eclipse, but apparently they did this not so much to relight his lamp as to drive away a savage beast with which they supposed him to be struggling.[1093] Conversely during an eclipse of the moon some Indian tribes of the Orinoco used to bury lighted brands in the ground; because, said they, if the moon were to be extinguished, all fire on earth would be extinguished {p312} with her, except such as was hidden from her sight.[1094] During an eclipse of the sun the Kamtchatkans were wont to bring out fire from their huts and pray the great luminary to shine as before.[1095] But the prayer addressed to the sun shews that this ceremony was religious rather than magical. Purely magical, on the other hand, was the ceremony observed on similar occasions by the Chilcotin Indians of north-western America. Men and women tucked up their robes, as they do in travelling, and then leaning on staves, as if they were heavy laden, they continued to walk in a circle till the eclipse was over.[1096] Apparently they thought thus to support the failing steps of the sun as he trod his weary round in the sky. Similarly in ancient Egypt the king, as the representative of the sun, walked solemnly round the walls of a temple in order to ensure that the sun should perform his daily journey round the sky without the interruption of an eclipse or other mishap.[1097] And after the autumnal equinox the ancient Egyptians held a festival called “the nativity of the sun’s walking-stick,” because, as the luminary declined daily in the sky, and his light and heat diminished, he was supposed to need a staff on which to lean.[1098] In New Caledonia when a wizard desires to make sunshine, he takes some plants and corals to the burial-ground, and fashions them into a bundle, adding two locks of hair cut from a living child of his family, also two teeth or an entire jawbone from the skeleton of an ancestor. He then climbs a mountain whose top catches the first rays of the morning sun. Here he deposits three sorts of plants on a flat stone, places a branch of dry coral beside them, and hangs the bundle of charms over the stone. Next morning he returns to the spot and sets fire to the bundle at the moment when {p313} the sun rises from the sea. As the smoke curls up, he rubs the stone with the dry coral, invokes his ancestors and says: “Sun! I do this that you may be burning hot, and eat up all the clouds in the sky.” The same ceremony is repeated at sunset.[1099] The New Caledonians also make a drought by means of a disc-shaped stone with a hole in it. At the moment when the sun rises, the wizard holds the stone in his hand and passes a burning brand repeatedly into the hole, while he says: “I kindle the sun, in order that he may eat up the clouds and dry up our land, so that it may produce nothing.”[1100] When the sun rises behind clouds—a rare event in the bright sky of southern Africa—the Sun clan of the Bechuanas say that he is grieving their heart. All work stands still, and all the food of the previous day is given to matrons or old women. They may eat it and may share it with the children they are nursing, but no one else may taste it. The people go down to the river and wash themselves all over. Each man throws into the river a stone taken from his domestic hearth, and replaces it with one picked up in the bed of the river. On their return to the village the chief kindles a fire in his hut, and all his subjects come and get a light from it. A general dance follows.[1101] In these cases it seems that the lighting of the flame on earth is supposed to rekindle the solar fire. Such a belief comes naturally to people who, like the Sun clan of the Bechuanas, deem themselves the veritable kinsmen of the sun. When the sun is obscured by clouds, the Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco hold burning sticks towards him to encourage the luminary,[1102] or rather perhaps to {p314} rekindle his seemingly expiring light. The Banks Islanders make sunshine by means of a mock sun. They take a very round stone, called a _vat loa_ or sunstone, wind red braid about it, and stick it with owls’ feathers to represent rays, singing the proper spell in a low voice. Then they hang it on some high tree, such as a banyan or a casuarina, in a sacred place. Or the stone is laid on the ground with white rods radiating from it to imitate sunbeams.[1103] Sometimes the mode of making sunshine is the converse of that of making rain. Thus we have seen that a white or red victim is sacrificed for sunshine, while a black one is sacrificed for rain.[1104] Some of the New Caledonians drench a skeleton to make rain, but burn it to make sunshine.[1105]

[Sidenote: Sun-charms among the American Indians.

Human sacrifices offered to the sun by the Mexicans.

Greek sacrifices of horses to the sun.]

When the mists lay thick on the Sierras of Peru, the Indian women used to rattle the silver and copper ornaments which they wore on their breasts, and they blew against the fog, hoping thus to disperse it and make the sun shine through. Another way of producing the same effect was to burn salt or scatter ashes in the air.[1106] The Guarayo Indians also threw ashes in the air for the sake of clearing up the clouded evening sky.[1107] In Car Nicobar, when it has rained for several days without stopping, the natives roll long bamboos in leaves of various kinds and set them up in the middle of the village. They call these bamboos “rods inviting the sun to shine.”[1108] The offering made by the Brahman in the morning is supposed to produce the sun, and we are told that “assuredly it would not rise, were he not to make that offering.”[1109] The ancient Mexicans conceived the sun as the source of all vital force; hence they named him Ipalnemohuani, “He by whom men live.” But if he bestowed life on the world, he needed also to receive {p315} life from it. And as the heart is the seat and symbol of life, bleeding hearts of men and animals were presented to the sun to maintain him in vigour and enable him to run his course across the sky. Thus the Mexican sacrifices to the sun were magical rather than religious, being designed, not so much to please and propitiate him, as physically to renew his energies of heat, light, and motion. The constant demand for human victims to feed the solar fire was met by waging war every year on the neighbouring tribes and bringing back troops of captives to be sacrificed on the altar. Thus the ceaseless wars of the Mexicans and their cruel system of human sacrifices, the most monstrous on record, sprang in great measure from a mistaken theory of the solar system. No more striking illustration could be given of the disastrous consequences that may flow in practice from a purely speculative error.[1110] The ancient Greeks believed that the sun drove in a chariot across the sky; hence the Rhodians, who worshipped the sun as their chief deity, annually dedicated a chariot and four horses to him, and flung them into the sea for his use. Doubtless they thought that after a year’s work his old horses and chariot would be worn out.[1111] From a like motive, probably, the idolatrous kings of Judah dedicated chariots and horses to the sun,[1112] and the Spartans,[1113] Persians,[1114] and Massagetae[1115] sacrificed horses to him. The Spartans performed the sacrifice on the {p316} top of Mount Taygetus, the beautiful range behind which they saw the great luminary set every night. It was as natural for the inhabitants of the valley of Sparta to do this as it was for the islanders of Rhodes to throw the chariot and horses into the sea, into which the sun seemed to them to sink at evening. For thus, whether on the mountain or in the sea, the fresh horses stood ready for the weary god where they would be most welcome, at the end of his day’s journey.

[Sidenote: Staying the sun by means of a net or string.

Staying the sun by putting a stone or a clod in the fork of a tree.]