Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. by Sir James George Frazer

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[Final disposition of the wild mango tree.]

Next day the mango is taken down from the platform, wrapt in new mats,
and carried by the fasting men to their sleeping house, where it is hung
from the roof. But after an interval, it may be of many months, the tree
is brought forth again. As to the reason for its reappearance in public
opinions are divided; but some say that the tree itself orders the
master of the ceremonies to bring it forth, appearing to him in his
dreams and saying, "Let me smell the smoking fat of pigs. So will your
pigs be healthy and your crops will grow." Be that as it may, out it
comes, conducted by the fasting men in their dancing costume; and with
it come in the solemn procession all the pots, spoons, cups and so forth
used by the fasting men during their period of holiness or taboo, also
all the refuse of their food which has been collected for months, and
all the fallen leaves and chips of the mango in their bundles of mats.
These holy relics are carried in front and the mango tree itself brings
up the rear of the procession. While these sacred objects are being
handed out of the house, the men who are present rush up, wipe off the
hallowed dust which has accumulated on them, and smear it over their own
bodies, no doubt in order to steep themselves in their blessed
influence. Thus the tree is carried as before to the centre of the
temporary village, care being again taken not to let it touch the
ground. Then one of the fasting men takes from a basket a number of
young green mangoes, cuts them in pieces, and places them with his own
hands in the mouths of his fellows, the other fasting men, who chew the
pieces small and turning round spit the morsels in the direction of the
setting sun, in order that "the sun should carry the mango bits over the
whole country and everyone should know." A portion of the mango tree is
then broken off and in the evening it is burnt along with the bundles of
leaves, chips, and refuse of food, which have been stored up. What
remains of the tree is taken to the house of the master of the
ceremonies and hung over the fire-place; it will be brought out again at
intervals and burned bit by bit, till all is consumed, whereupon a new
mango will be cut down and treated in like manner. The ashes of the holy
fire on each occasion are gathered by the people and preserved in the
house of the master of the ceremonies.[22]

[The ceremony apparently intended to fertilize the mango trees.]

The meaning of these ceremonies is not explained by the authorities who
describe them; but we may conjecture that they are intended to fertilize
the mango trees and cause them to bear a good crop of fruit. The central
feature of the whole ritual is a wild mango tree, so young that it has
never flowered: the men who cut it down, carry it into the village, and
dance at the festival, are forbidden to eat mangoes: pigs are killed in
order that their dying squeals may move the mango trees to bear fruit:
at the end of the ceremonies pieces of young green mangoes are solemnly
placed in the mouths of the fasting men and are by them spurted out
towards the setting sun in order that the luminary may carry the
fragments to every part of the country; and finally when after a longer
or shorter interval the tree is wholly consumed, its place is supplied
by another. All these circumstances are explained simply and naturally
by the supposition that the young mango tree is taken as a
representative of mangoes generally, that the dances are intended to
quicken it, and that it is preserved, like a May-pole of old in England,
as a sort of general fund of vegetable life, till the fund being
exhausted by the destruction of the tree it is renewed by the
importation of a fresh young tree from the forest. We can therefore
understand why, as a storehouse of vital energy, the tree should be
carefully kept from contact with the ground, lest the pent-up and
concentrated energy should escape and dribbling away into the earth be
dissipated to no purpose.

[Sacred objects of various sorts not allowed to touch the ground.]

To take other instances of what we may call the conservation of energy
in magic or religion by insulating sacred bodies from the ground, the
natives of New Britain have a secret society called the Duk-duk, the
members of which masquerade in petticoats of leaves and tall headdresses
of wickerwork shaped like candle extinguishers, which descend to the
shoulders of the wearers, completely concealing their faces. Thus
disguised they dance about to the awe and terror, real or assumed, of
the women and uninitiated, who take, or pretend to take, them for
spirits. When lads are being initiated into the secrets of this august
society, the adepts cut down some very large and heavy bamboos, one for
each lad, and the novices carry them, carefully wrapt up in leaves, to
the sacred ground, where they arrive very tired and weary, for they may
not let the bamboos touch the ground nor the sun shine on them. Outside
the fence of the enclosure every lad deposits his bamboo on a couple of
forked sticks and covers it up with nut leaves.[23] Among the Carrier
Indians of North-Western America, who burned their dead, the ashes of a
chief used to be placed in a box and set on the top of a pole beside his
hut: the box was never allowed to touch the ground.[24] In the Omaha
tribe of North American Indians the sacred clam shell of the Elk clan
was wrapt up from sight in a mat, placed on a stand, and never suffered
to come in contact with the earth.[25] The Cherokees and kindred Indian
tribes of the United States used to have certain sacred boxes or arks,
which they regularly took with them to war. Such a holy ark consisted of
a square wooden box, which contained "certain consecrated vessels made
by beloved superannuated women, and of such various antiquated forms, as
would have puzzled Adam to have given significant names to each." The
leader of a war party and his attendant bore the ark by turns, but they
never set it on the ground nor would they themselves sit on the bare
earth while they were carrying it against the enemy. Where stones were
plentiful they rested the ark on them; but where no stones were to be
found, they deposited it on short logs. "The Indian ark is deemed so
sacred and dangerous to be touched, either by their own sanctified
warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they durst not touch it upon any
account. It is not to be meddled with by any, except the war chieftain
and his waiter, under the penalty of incurring great evil. Nor would the
most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods, for the very same reason."
After their return home they used to hang the ark on the leader's
red-painted war pole.[26] At Sipi, near Simla, in Northern India, an
annual fair is held, at which men purchase wives. A square box with a
domed top figures prominently at the fair. It is fixed on two poles to
be carried on men's shoulders, and long heavily-plaited petticoats hang
from it nearly to the ground. Three sides of the box are adorned with
the head and shoulders of a female figure and the fourth side with a
black yak's tail. Four men bear the poles, each carrying an axe in his
right hand. They dance round, with a swinging rhythmical step, to the
music of drums and a pipe. The dance goes on for hours and is thought to
avert ill-luck from the fair. It is said that the box is brought to
Simla from a place sixty miles off by relays of men, who may not stop
nor set the box on the ground the whole way.[27] In Scotland, when water
was carried from sacred wells to sick people, the water-vessel might not
touch the earth.[28] In some parts of Aberdeenshire the last bunch of
standing corn, which is commonly viewed as very sacred, being the last
refuge of the corn-spirit retreating before the reapers, is not suffered
to touch the ground; the master or "gueedman" sits down and receives
each handful of corn as it is cut on his lap.[29]

[Sacred food not allowed to touch the earth.]

Again, sacred food may not under certain circumstances be brought into
contact with the earth. Some of the aborigines of Victoria used to
regard the fat of the emu as sacred, believing that it had once been the
fat of the black man. In taking it from the bird or giving it to another
they handled it reverently. Any one who threw away the fat or flesh of
the emu was held accursed. "The late Mr. Thomas observed on one
occasion, at Nerre-nerre-Warreen, a remarkable exhibition of the effects
of this superstition. An aboriginal child--one attending the
school--having eaten some part of the flesh of an emu, threw away the
skin. The skin fell to the ground, and this being observed by his
parents, they showed by their gestures every token of horror. They
looked upon their child as one utterly lost. His desecration of the bird
was regarded as a sin for which there was no atonement."[30] The
Roumanians of Transylvania believe that "every fresh-baked loaf of
wheaten bread is sacred, and should a piece inadvertently fall to the
ground, it is hastily picked up, carefully wiped and kissed, and if
soiled, thrown into the fire--partly as an offering to the dead, and
partly because it were a heavy sin to throw away or tread upon any
particle of it."[31] At certain festivals in south-eastern Borneo the
food which is consumed in the common house may not touch the ground;
hence, a little before the festivals take place, foot-bridges made of
thin poles are constructed from the private dwellings to the common
house.[32] When Hall was living with the Esquimaux and grew tired of
eating walrus, one of the women brought the head and neck of a reindeer
for him to eat. This venison had to be completely wrapt up before it was
brought into the house, and once in the house it could only be placed on
the platform which served as a bed. "To have placed it on the floor or
on the platform behind the fire-lamp, among the walrus, musk-ox, and
polar-bear meat which occupy a goodly portion of both of these places,
would have horrified the whole town, as, according to the actual belief
of the Innuits, not another walrus could be secured this year, and there
would ever be trouble in catching any more."[33] But in this case the
real scruple appears to have been felt not so much at placing the
venison on the ground as at bringing it into contact with walrus
meat.[34]

[Magical implements and remedies thought to lose their virtue by contact
with the ground.]

Sometimes magical implements and remedies are supposed to lose their
virtue by contact with the ground, the volatile essence with which they
are impregnated being no doubt drained off into the earth. Thus in the
Boulia district of Queensland the magical bone, which the native
sorcerer points at his victim as a means of killing him, is never by any
chance allowed to touch the earth.[35] The wives of rajahs in Macassar,
a district of southern Celebes, pride themselves on their luxuriant
tresses and are at great pains to oil and preserve them. Should the hair
begin to grow thin, the lady resorts to many devices to stay the ravages
of time; among other things she applies to her locks a fat extracted
from crocodiles and venomous snakes. The unguent is believed to be very
efficacious, but during its application the woman's feet may not come
into contact with the ground, or all the benefit of the nostrum would be
lost.[36] Some people in antiquity believed that a woman in hard labour
would be delivered if a spear, which had been wrenched from a man's body
without touching the ground, were thrown over the house where the
sufferer lay. Again, according to certain ancient writers, arrows which
had been extracted from a body without coming into contact with the
earth and laid under sleepers, acted as a love-charm.[37] Among the
peasantry of the north-east of Scotland the prehistoric weapons called
celts went by the name of "thunderbolts" and were coveted as the sure
bringers of success, always provided that they were not allowed to fall
to the ground.[38]

[Serpents eggs or Snake Stones.]

In ancient Gaul certain glass or paste beads attained great celebrity as
amulets under the name of serpents' eggs; it was believed that serpents,
coiling together in a wriggling, writhing mass, generated them from
their slaver and shot them into the air from their hissing jaws. If a
man was bold and dexterous enough to catch one of these eggs in his
cloak before it touched the ground, he rode off on horseback with it at
full speed, pursued by the whole pack of serpents, till he was saved by
the interposition of a river, which the snakes could not pass. The proof
of the egg being genuine was that if it were thrown into a stream it
would float up against the current, even though it were hooped in gold.
The Druids held these beads in high esteem; according to them, the
precious objects could only be obtained on a certain day of the moon,
and the peculiar virtue that resided in them was to secure success in
law suits and free access to kings. Pliny knew of a Gaulish knight who
was executed by the emperor Claudius for wearing one of these
amulets.[39] Under the name of Snake Stones (_glain neidr_) or Adder
Stones the beads are still known in those parts of our own country where
the Celtic population has lingered, with its immemorial superstitions,
down to the present or recent times; and the old story of the origin of
the beads from the slaver of serpents was believed by the modern
peasantry of Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland as by the Druids of ancient
Gaul. In Cornwall the time when the serpents united to fashion the beads
was commonly said to be at or about Midsummer Eve; in Wales it was
usually thought to be spring, especially the Eve of May Day, and even
within recent years persons in the Principality have affirmed that they
witnessed the great vernal congress of the snakes and saw the magic
stone in the midst of the froth. The Welsh peasants believe the beads to
possess medicinal virtues of many sorts and to be particularly
efficacious for all maladies of the eyes. In Wales and Ireland the beads
sometimes went by the name of the Magician's or Druid's Glass (_Gleini
na Droedh_ and _Glaine nan Druidhe_). Specimens of them may be seen in
museums; some have been found in British barrows. They are of glass of
various colours, green, blue, pink, red, brown, and so forth, some plain
and some ribbed. Some are streaked with brilliant hues. The beads are
perforated, and in the Highlands of Scotland the hole is explained by
saying that when the bead has just been conflated by the serpents
jointly, one of the reptiles sticks his tail through the still viscous
glass. An Englishman who visited Scotland in 1699 found many of these
beads in use throughout the country. They were hung from children's
necks to protect them from whooping cough and other ailments. Snake
Stones were, moreover, a charm to ensure prosperity in general and to
repel evil spirits. When one of these priceless treasures was not on
active service, the owner kept it in an iron box to guard it against
fairies, who, as is well known, cannot abide iron.[40]

[Medicinal plants, water, are not allowed to touch the earth.]

Pliny mentions several medicinal plants, which, if they were to retain
their healing virtue, ought not to be allowed to touch the earth.[41]
The curious medical treatise of Marcellus, a native of Bordeaux in the
fourth century of our era, abounds with prescriptions of this sort; and
we can well believe the writer when he assures us that he borrowed many
of his quaint remedies from the lips of common folk and peasants rather
than from the books of the learned.[42] Thus he tells us that certain
white stones found in the stomachs of young swallows assuage the most
persistent headache, always provided that their virtue be not impaired
by contact with the ground.[43] Another of his cures for the same malady
is a wreath of fleabane placed on the head, but it must not touch the
earth.[44] On the same condition a decoction of the root of elecampane
in wine kills worms; a fern, found growing on a tree, relieves the
stomach-ache; and the pastern-bone of a hare is an infallible remedy for
colic, provided, first, it be found in the dung of a wolf, second, that
it docs not touch the ground, and, third, that it is not touched by a
woman.[45] Another cure for colic is effected by certain hocus-pocus
with a scrap of wool from the forehead of a first-born lamb, if only the
lamb, instead of being allowed to fall to the ground, has been caught by
hand as it dropped from its dam.[46] In Andjra, a district of Morocco,
the people attribute many magical virtues to rain-water which has fallen
on the twenty-seventh day of April, Old Style; accordingly they collect
it and use it for a variety of purposes. Mixed with tar and sprinkled on
the door-posts it prevents snakes and scorpions from entering the house:
sprinkled on heaps of threshed corn it protects them from the evil eye:
mixed with an egg, henna, and seeds of cress it is an invaluable
medicine for sick cows: poured over a plate, on which a passage of the
Koran has been written, it strengthens the memory of schoolboys who
drink it; and if you mix it with cowdung and red earth and paint rings
with the mixture round the trunks of your fig-trees at sunset on
Midsummer Day, you may depend on it that the trees will bear an
excellent crop and will not shed their fruit untimely on the ground. But
in order to preserve these remarkable properties it is absolutely
essential that the water should on no account be allowed to touch the
ground; some say too that it should not be exposed to the sun nor
breathed upon by anybody.[47] Again, the Moors ascribe great magical
efficacy to what they call "the sultan of the oleander," which is a
stalk of oleander with a cluster of four pairs of leaves springing from
it. They think that the magical virtue is greatest if the stalk has been
cut immediately before midsummer. But when the plant is brought into the
house, the branches may not touch the ground, lest they should lose
their marvellous qualities.[48] In the olden days, before a Lithuanian
or Prussian farmer went forth to plough for the first time in spring, he
called in a wizard to perform a certain ceremony for the good of the
crops. The sage seized a mug of beer with his teeth, quaffed the liquor,
and then tossed the mug over his head. This signified that the corn in
that year should grow taller than a man. But the mug might not fall to
the ground; it had to be caught by somebody stationed at the wizard's
back, for if it fell to the ground the consequence naturally would be
that the corn also would be laid low on the earth.[49]

Sec. 2. _Not to see the Sun_

[Sacred persons not allowed to see the sun.]

The second rule to be here noted is that the sun may not shine upon the
divine person. This rule was observed both by the Mikado and by the
pontiff of the Zapotecs. The latter "was looked upon as a god whom the
earth was not worthy to hold, nor the sun to shine upon."[50] The
Japanese would not allow that the Mikado should expose his sacred person
to the open air, and the sun was not thought worthy to shine on his
head.[51] The Indians of Granada, in South America, "kept those who were
to be rulers or commanders, whether men or women, locked up for several
years when they were children, some of them seven years, and this so
close that they were not to see the sun, for if they should happen to
see it they forfeited their lordship, eating certain sorts of food
appointed; and those who were their keepers at certain times went into
their retreat or prison and scourged them severely."[52] Thus, for
example, the heir to the throne of Bogota, who was not the son but the
sister's son of the king, had to undergo a rigorous training from his
infancy: he lived in complete retirement in a temple, where he might not
see the sun nor eat salt nor converse with a woman: he was surrounded by
guards who observed his conduct and noted all his actions: if he broke a
single one of the rules laid down for him, he was deemed infamous and
forfeited all his rights to the throne.[53] So, too, the heir to the
kingdom of Sogamoso, before succeeding to the crown, had to fast for
seven years in the temple, being shut up in the dark and not allowed to
see the sun or light.[54] The prince who was to become Inca of Peru had
to fast for a month without seeing light.[55] On the day when a Brahman
student of the Veda took a bath, to signify that the time of his
studentship was at an end, he entered a cow-shed before sunrise, hung
over the door a skin with the hair inside, and sat there; on that day
the sun should not shine upon him.[56]

[Tabooed persons not allowed to see the sun; certain persons forbidden
to see fire.]

Again, women after childbirth and their offspring are more or less
tabooed all the world over; hence in Corea the rays of the sun are
rigidly excluded from both mother and child for a period of twenty-one
or a hundred days, according to their rank, after the birth has taken
place.[57] Among some of the tribes on the north-west coast of New
Guinea a woman may not leave the house for months after childbirth. When
she does go out, she must cover her head with a hood or mat; for if the
sun were to shine upon her, it is thought that one of her male relations
would die.[58] Again, mourners are everywhere taboo; accordingly in
mourning the Ainos of Japan wear peculiar caps in order that the sun may
not shine upon their heads.[59] During a solemn fast of three days the
Indians of Costa Rica eat no salt, speak as little as possible, light no
fires, and stay strictly indoors, or if they go out during the day they
carefully cover themselves from the light of the sun, believing that
exposure to the sun's rays would turn them black.[60] On Yule Night it
has been customary in parts of Sweden from time immemorial to go on
pilgrimage, whereby people learn many secret things and know what is to
happen in the coming year. As a preparation for this pilgrimage, "some
secrete themselves for three days previously in a dark cellar, so as to
be shut out altogether from the light of heaven. Others retire at an
early hour of the preceding morning to some out-of-the-way place, such
as a hay-loft, where they bury themselves in the hay, that they may
neither see nor hear any living creature; and here they remain, in
silence and fasting, until after sundown; whilst there are those who
think it sufficient if they rigidly abstain from food on the day before
commencing their wanderings. During this period of probation a man ought
not to see fire, but should this have happened, he must strike a light
with flint and steel, whereby the evil that would otherwise have ensued
will be obviated."[61] During the sixteen days that a Pima Indian is
undergoing purification for killing an Apache he may not see a blazing
fire.[62]

[The story of Prince Sunless.]

Acarnanian peasants tell of a handsome prince called Sunless, who would
die if he saw the sun. So he lived in an underground palace on the site
of the ancient Oeniadae, but at night he came forth and crossed the
river to visit a famous enchantress who dwelt in a castle on the further
bank. She was loth to part with him every night long before the sun was
up, and as he turned a deaf ear to all her entreaties to linger, she hit
upon the device of cutting the throats of all the cocks in the
neighbourhood. So the prince, whose ear had learned to expect the shrill
clarion of the birds as the signal of the growing light, tarried too
long, and hardly had he reached the ford when the sun rose over the
Aetolian mountains, and its fatal beams fell on him before he could
regain his dark abode.[63]

Notes:

[1] _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 44.

[2] H.H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_ (London,
1875-1876), ii. 142; Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des Nations
civilisees du Mexique et de l'Amerique-Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-1859),
iii. 29.

[3] _Manuscrit Ramirez, Histoire de l'origine des Indiens_, publie par
D. Charnay (Paris, 1903), p. 108; J. de Acosta, _The Natural and Moral
History of the Indies_, bk. vii. chap. 22, vol. ii. p. 505 of E.
Grimston's translation, edited by (Sir) Clements R. Markham (Hakluyt
Society, London, 1880).

[4] _Memorials of the Empire of Japon in the XVI. and XVII. Centuries_,
edited by T. Rundall (Hakluyt Society, London, 1850), pp. 14, 141; B.
Varenius, _Descriptio regni Japoniae et Siam_ (Cambridge, 1673), p. 11;
Caron, "Account of Japan," in John Pinkerton's _Voyages and Travels_
(London, 1808-1814), vii. 613; Kaempfer, "History of Japan," in _id._
vii. 716.

[5] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, Second Edition (London,
1832-1836), iii. 102 _sq._; Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to
the Southern Pacific Ocean_ (London, 1799), p. 329.

[6] A. Bastian, _Der Mensch in der Geschichte_ (Leipsic, 1860), iii. 81.

[7] Athenaeus, xii. 8, p. 514 c.

[8] _The Voiages and Travels of John Struys_ (London, 1684), p. 30.

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