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

Marie Andree-Eysn, Volkskundliches aus dem bayrisch-österreichischen Alpengebiet (Brunswick, 1910), pp. 1, 9, with the illustrations on pp. 10, 11.

520

F. Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie, ii. 431.

521

J. Theodore Bent, The Cyclades (London, 1885), p. 437.

522

E. H. Carnoy et J. Nicolaides, Traditions populaires de l'Asie Mineure (Paris, 1889), p. 338.

523

Rev. George E. White (of Marsovan, Turkey), Present Day Sacrifices in Asia Minor, p. 3 (reprinted from The Hartford Seminary Record, February 1906).

524

Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey, vii. Draft Articles on Forest Tribes (Allahabad, 1911), p. 46.

525

So my friend Dr. G. W. Prothero informs me in a letter.

526

Census of India, 1911, vol. xiv. Punjab, Part i. Report, by Pandit Harikishan Kaul (Lahore, 1912), p. 302.

527

H. Gaidoz, Un Vieux Rite médical (Paris, 1892), p. 10.

528

H. Gaidoz, op. cit. p. 21.

529

H. Gaidoz, Un Vieux Rite médical (Paris, 1892), p. 21. Compare J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,

ii. 975 sq.

530

H. F. Feilberg, “Zwieselbäume nebst verwandtem Aberglaube in Skandinavien,” Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, vii. (1897) p. 45.

531

H. Gaidoz, Un Vieux Rite médical (Paris, 1892), pp. 22 sq., referring to Nyrop, in Dania, i. No. 1 (Copenhagen, 1890), pp. 5 sqq.

532

Rev. John Campbell, Travels in South Africa, Second Journey (London, 1822), ii. 346. Among the same people “when a person is ill, they bring an ox to the place where he is laid. Two cuts are then made in one of its legs, extending down the whole length of it. The skin in the middle of the leg being raised up, the operator thrusts in his hand, to make way for that of the sick person, whose whole body is afterwards rubbed over with the blood of the animal. The ox after enduring this torment is killed, and those who are married and have children, as in the other case, are the only partakers of the feast.” (J. Campbell, op. cit. ii. 346 sq.). Here the intention seems to be not so much to transfer the disease to the ox, as to transfuse the healthy life of the beast into the veins of the sick man. The same is perhaps true of the Welsh and French cure for whooping-cough, which consists in passing the little sufferer several times under an ass. See J. Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (London, 1882-1883), iii. 288; L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud, in Bulletins de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, Quatrième Série, i. (1890) p. 897; id., Superstitions et Survivances (Paris, 1896), i. 526. The same cure for whooping-cough “is also practised in Ireland; only here the sufferer is passed round, that is, over and under, the body of an ass” (letter of Miss A. H. Singleton to me, dated Rathmagle House, Abbey-Leix, Ireland, 24th February 1904). But perhaps the intention rather is to give the whooping-cough to the animal; for it might reasonably be thought that the feeble whoop of the sick child would neither seriously impair the lungs, nor perceptibly augment the stentorian bray, of the donkey.

533

H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), p. 495. According to a fuller account, Indra drew her through three holes, that of a war-chariot, that of a cart, and that of a yoke. See W. Caland, Altindisches Zauberritual (Amsterdam, 1900), p. 31 note 5.

534

Dr. E. Werner, “Im westlichen Finsterregebirge und an der Nordküste von Deutsch-Neuginea,” Petermanns Mitteilungen, lv. (1909) pp. 74 sq. Among some tribes of South-Eastern Australia it was customary at the ceremonies of initiation to bend growing saplings into arches and compel the novices to pass under them; sometimes the youths had to crawl on the ground to get through. See A. W. Howitt, “On some Australian ceremonies of Initiation,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884) p. 445; id., Native Tribes of South-East Australia (London, 1904), p. 536.

535

Livy iii. 28, ix. 6, x. 36; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquit. Roman. iii. 22. 7. The so-called yoke in this case consisted of two spears or two beams set upright in the ground, with a third spear or beam laid transversely across them. See Livy iii. 28; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, l. c.

536

Livy i. 26: “Itaque, ut caedes manifesta aliquo tamen piaculo lueretur, imperatum patri, ut filium expiaret pecunia publica. Is quibusdam piacularibus sacrificiis factis, quae deinde genti Horatiae tradita sunt, transmisso per viam tigillo capite adoperto velut sub jugum misit juvenem. Id hodie quoque publice semper refectum manet; sororium tigillum vocant;” Festus, s. v. “Sororium Tigillum,” pp. 297, 307, ed. C. O. Müller (Leipsic, 1839); Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquit. Roman. iii. 22. The position of the beam is described exactly by the last of these writers, who had evidently seen it. According to Festus, the yoke under which Horatius passed was composed of three beams, two uprights, and a cross-piece. The similarity of the ceremony to that which was exacted from conquered foes is noted by Dionysius Halicarnasensis as well as by Livy. The tradition of the purification has been rightly explained by Dr. W. H. Roscher with reference to the custom of passing through cleft trees, holed stones, and so on. See W. H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, ii. (Leipsic, 1890-1897) col. 21. Compare G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer

(Munich, 1912), p. 104.

537

Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 165 sqq.

538

Pliny, Natur. Histor. xv. 135: “Quia suffimentum sit caedis hostium et purgatio.”

539

Cicero, In Pisonem, xxiii. 55; Josephus, Bellum Judaicum, vii. 5. 4.

540

It was not till after I had given this conjectural explanation of the “Sister's Beam” and the triumphal arch at Rome that I read the article of Mr. W. Warde Fowler, “Passing under the Yoke” (The Classical Review, March 1913, pp. 48-51), in which he quite independently suggests practically the same explanation of both these Roman structures. I have left my exposition, except for one or two trivial verbal changes, exactly as it stood before I was aware that my friend had anticipated me in both conjectures. The closeness of the coincidence between our views is a welcome confirmation of their truth. As to the Porta Triumphalis, the exact position of which is uncertain, Mr. Warde Fowler thinks that it was not a gate in the walls, but an archway standing by itself in the Campus Martius outside the city walls. He points out that in the oldest existing triumphal arch, that of Augustus at Ariminum, the most striking part of the structure consists of two upright Corinthian pillars with an architrave laid horizontally across them; and he ingeniously conjectures that we have here a reminiscence of the two uprights and the cross-piece, which, if our theory is correct, was the original form both of the triumphal arch and of the yoke.

541

Professor V. M. Mikhailoviskij, “Shamanism in Siberia and European Russia,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv. (1895) pp. 133, 134.

542

Th. Parkinson, Yorkshire Legends and Traditions, Second Series (London, 1889), pp. 160 sq.

543