 Section 11 of The Golden Vow, Volume 1 Part 1 The Magic Art and the Abolition of Kings, Volume 1, by James Fraser This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on the volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Leon Harvey Chapter 5 Sub-Chapter 2 Magic Control the Rain, Part 2 Rainmaking by Bathing and Sprinkling of Water Bathing is practiced as a rain charm in some parts of southern and western Russia. Sometimes after service in church, the priest in his robes has been thrown down on the ground and drenched with water by his parishioners. Sometimes it is women who, without stripping off their clothes, bathe in crowds on the day of St John the Baptist while they dip in the water a figure made of branches, grass and herbs, which is supposed to represent the saint. Hidden Kursk, a province of southern Russia, when rain is much wanted, the women seize a passing stranger and throw him into the river, or sew him from head to foot. Later on we shall see that a passing stranger is often taken for a daily or the personification of some natural power. It is recorded in official documents that during a drought in 1790 the peasants of Shereltz and Werbelts collected all the women and compelled them to bathe in order that rain might fall. The meaning in rain charm is to throw the wife of a priest into the water and drench her. The Arabs of North Africa, fleeing a holy man, were lived nearly into a spring as a remedy for drought. In Minahasa, a province of north salives, the priest bathes as a rain charm, and central salives, when there has been no rain for a long time, and white stalks begin to shrivel up. Many of the villagers, especially the young folk, go to a neighboring brook and splash each other with water, shouting noisily or squirreled water on one another through bamboo tubes. Sometimes they imitate the plump of rain by smacking the surface of the water with their hands, or by placing an inverted cord right and drumming on the cord with their fingers. The Karobataks of Sumatra have a rainmaking ceremony which lasts a week. The men go about with bamboo squirts, and the women whip bottles of water, and they drench each other or throw the water into the air and cry, the rain has come when it drips down them. In Kumon, a district of northwest India, when rain falls, they sink a Brahmin up to his lips in a tankle pond, where he repeats the name of my god of rain for a day or two. When his right is dully performed, rain is sure to fall. For the same purpose, village girls in the Punjab will pour a solution of cow dung and water upon an old woman who happens to pass, or they will make her sit down under the foot sprout of a house and get a wedding when it rains. In the Salik district of Sumatra, when a drought has lasted a long time, a number of half-naked women take a half-witted man to a river, and there they sprinkle him with water as a means of compelling the rain to fall. In some parts of Bengal, when drought threatens the country, trips of children of all ages go from house to house and roll and tumble in puddles, which have been repaired with purpose by pouring water into the courtyards. This is supposed to bring down rain. Curse is supposed to cause rain. Again, in Dubrajur, a village in the Burukam district of Bengal, when rain has been looked for in vain, people will throw dirt or filth on the houses of their neighbours who abuse them for doing so, or they drench the lane, the hilt, the blind, other infirm persons who are reviled for their pains by the victims. This vital operation is believed to bring about the desired result by drawing down showers on the parts of earth. Similarly, in the Shafua district of the Punjab, it is said to be customary in time of drought to spill a pot of filth on the threshold of a notorious old shrew in order that the fluent stream of foul language in which events or feelings may accelerate the lingering rain. Beneficial effect of curses and abuse In these later customs, the means adopted for bringing about the desired result appear to be not so much imitative magic as a beneficial effect, which, curiously enough, is often attributed to curses and maledictions. Thus, in the Indian district of Bihar, much virtue is described to abuse, which is supposed in some cases to bring good luck. People, for example, who accompany a marriage procession to the bride's house are often fairly abused by the women of the bride's family in the belief that this contributes to the good fortune of the newly married pair. So in Bihar on Jammad Witalyadai, which falls on the second day of the bright period of the moon next to that during which the Desira festival takes place, brothers are reviled by sisters to their hearts content because it is thought that this will prolong the lives of the brothers and bring them good luck. Further in Bihar and Bengal is deemed very unlucky to look at the new moon of Badon, August, whoever does so is sure to meet with some mishab, or to be falsely accused of something. To avert these evils, people are commonly advised to throw stones or brick bats into their neighbour's houses. For if they do so, and are reviled of their pains, they will escape the threatened evils and the neighbours who abuse them will suffer in their stead. Hence the day of the new moon in this month is called the Day of Stones. A Bihar is a regular festival held for the purpose of the fourth day of Badon, which is known as the Cold Festival of the North. On the Koda estate in the Orissa Gardens and fruit trees are conspicuously absent. The peasants explain their absence by saying that from time immemorial they have held it lucky to be annoyed and abused by their neighbours at a certain festival which answers to the Nasti Chandro in Bengal. Hence the order to give ample ground to a fence, they mutilate the fruit trees and trample down the gardens of their neighbours, and so court forging by drawing down on themselves the wrath of the injured owners. At Kuranganur, in the native state of Kuchin, there is a shrine of the Goddess Baqavati, which is much frequented by pilgrims in the month of Minem, March April. From all parts of Kuchin, Malabar, and the Treven Core crowds flock to attend the first fall, and the high roads ring with the shouts of Nara Nara, March March. They desegrate the shrine of the Goddess in every conceivable way, discharge of all his stones and filth and level the most opprovious language at the Goddess herself. These proceedings are supposed to be acceptable to her. The intention of the pilgrimage is to secure immunity from disease during the succeeding year, and in some causes a curse may, like rags and dirt, is supposed to benefit a man by making him appear vile and contemptible, and thus diverting from him the evil eye and other malignant influences which were attracted by beauty and prosperity, but propelled by their opposites. Among the hustles of the Carpathians, if a husband or cattle owner suspects himself of having the evil eye, it would charge one of his household to call him a devil or a robber every time he goes near the cattle, for he thinks that this will undo the effect of the evil eye. Among the champs of Cambodia and Anam, while the corpse has been burned on the pyre, a man who bears a title of the Master of Sorrows remains in the house of the deceased and loads it with curses, out of which he besieges the ghost not to come back and torment his family. These last curses are clearly intended to make his old home unattractive to the spirit of the dead. Estonian fishermen believe that they never have had good luck as when someone is angry with them and curses them, hence before a fisherman goes out to fish, they will play a rough practical joke on a comrade in order to be abused and executed by him. The more his friends storms and curses, the better he is pleased. Every curse brings at least three fish into his net. There is a popular belief in Berlin and the neighborhood that if you wish a huntsman good luck when he is going out to shoot deer, he will be certain never to get a shot at all. To avert the ill luck caused by such a wish, Anam must throw a broomstick at the head of his well-wisher. If he is really to have luck, he must wish that he may break his neck or both his neck and his legs. The wish is expressed with pregnant brevity in the phrase, now then, neck and leg. The intention of such curses may be to put the fish or the deer off the guard, or as we shall see that one and also a comrade supposed to understand him in speech and even to overhear what is said of them many miles off. Accordingly, if they hear a fisherman or a hunter flouted by two paraded, they will think to immediately leave him to go out of his way and will fall an easy prey to his net or his gun. When a Greek sewer sowed come in, he had to curse and swear or the prop would not turn out well. Raman writers mention a similar custom exert by the sewers of Ruh and Basil and hedged doctors in ancient Greece laid it down as a rule that in cutting black hellebore, you should face ace wood and curse. Perhaps the bitter language was supposed to strengthen the bitter taste and hence the medical virtue of these plants. And Lindus, on the island of Rhodes, it was customary to sacrifice one or two plough oxen with the Hercules with curses and recations. And there we are told that the sacrifice was deemed invalid, if a good world fell from anyone's lips during the fight. The custom was explained by a legend that Hercules had laid hands on the oxen of a plough man and cooked and devoured them, while their owner, unable to defend his beasts, stood far off and vetted his anger in a torrent of abuse and execration. Hercules received his maledictions with a roar of laughter, aborted him his priest and bathed him always sacrificed in the very same execrations, for he had never died better in his life. The legend is plainly a fiction devised to explain the ritual. We may conjecture that the curses were intended to palliate the sort of a sacred animal, the subject will be touched on in a later part of this work. Here we must return to rain-making. Rain-making by ploughing Women are sometimes supposed to be able to make rain by ploughing or pretending to plough, thus the ashores and cruisers of the Caucasus have a ceremony called ploughing the rain, which they observe in time or drought. Girls yoke themselves to a plough and drag it to a river, wading in the water up to their girdles. In the same circumstances, Armenian girls and women do the same. The oldest woman or the priest's wife wears the priest's dress, while the others, dressed as men, drag the plough through the water against the stream. In the Caucasian province of Georgia, when a drought has lasted long, marriageable girls are yoked in cobbles with an ox yoke on their shoulders. A priest holds a raise and, thus heinous, they weigh through rivers, pebbles and marshes, praying, screaming, weeping and laughing. In a district of Transylvania, when the ground is pieced with drought, some girls strip themselves naked and led by an older woman who was also naked, they steal a harrow and carry it across the field to a book where they set it afloat. The exes sit in the harrow and keep a tiny flame burning on each corner of it for an hour. Then they leave the harrow in the water and go home. A similar rain charm is resorted to in some parts of India. Naked women drag a plough across the field by night while the men keep carefully out of the way for their presence would break the spell. As performed at Chornar in Bengal on the 24th of July, 1891, the ceremony was this. Between 9 and 10 in the evening, a barber's wife went from door to door and invited the women to engage in ploughing. They all assembled in a field from which the men were excluded. Three women of a husband's family then stripped themselves naked, two of them were yoked like oxen to the plough while the third held handle. The exes began to imitate the operation of ploughing. One of them held the plough and cried out, Oh Mother Earth, bring barged grain, water, and chaff. Thou's stomachs are breaking to pieces from hunger and thirst. Then a landlord and accountant approached them and laid down some grain, water, and chaff in the field and had the women dressed to return home. By the grace of God, it's a gentleman who reports the ceremony. The weather changed almost immediately in a good shower. Sometimes, as they drew the plough, the women singing him to Vishnu in which they seek to enlist his sympathy by emulating the ills which the people are suffering from the want of rain. In some cases, they discharge the volleys of abuse at the village officials and even at the landlord whom they compelled to drag the plough. These ceremonies are all the more remarkable because in ordinary circumstances and to women never engage in agricultural operations like ploughing and harrowing. Yet in drought, it seems to be women over the highest or Brahman caste who were chosen to perform what, at other times, would be regarded as a medial and degrading task. Occasionally, when hesitation is felt at subjecting Brahman ladies to this indignity, they are allowed to get off by merely touching the plough early in the morning before people are astir. The real work is afterwards done by the ploughmen. In Manapur, the prosperity of all classes depends on the abundance and regularity of the rainfall. Hence, the people have many rights and ceremonies for the making of rain. Thus, in times of drought, 108 girls milk 108 cows in the temple of Govindji, the most popular incarnation of Kushni in the country. If this fails, the women throw their darn pounders into the nearest pool. At the dead of night, strip themselves naked and plough. There is a Burmese superstition that if a harrow has a flaw in it, no ram will fall till the faulty harrow has been decked with flowers broken and thrown into the river. However, the owner should have his hair cropped, and being adorned with flowers should dance and carry their harrow to the water. Otherwise, the country is sure to suffer from drought. The Tara, whom I heard of Indians in Mexico, dip the plough in water before they use it. Then it may draw rain, making rain by means of the dead. Sometimes a rain charm operates through the dead. Thus, in New Caledonia, the rain makers blackened themselves all over, dug up a dead body, took the bones to a cave, jointed them, and hung the skeleton over some Tara leaves. Water was poured over the skeleton to run down on the leaves. They believed that the soul that is seized took up the water, converted it into rain, and shelled it down again. In some parts of New Caledonia, the ceremony is somewhat different. A great quantity of provisions is offered to the ancestors, being laid down before their skulls in the sacred place. In front of the skulls, a number of pots full of water is set in a row, and each pot is deposited a sacred stone, which has more or less the shape of a skull. The rain maker then prays to the ancestors to send rain. After that, he climbs a tree with a branch in his hand, which he waves about to hasten the approach to the rain clouds. The ceremony is a mixture of magic and religion. The prayers and offerings to the ancestors are purely religious, while the placing of the skull-like stones in water, and the waving of the branch are magical. In Russia, if common report may be believed, it is not long since the peasants in a district that chance to be afflicted with drought used to dig up the corpse of someone who had drugged himself to death and seeked a new swamp or lake, fully persuaded that this would ensure the fall of the needed rain. In 1868, the prospect of a bad harvest caused by a prolonged drought induced the inhabitants of a village in the Tarashchansk district to dig up the body of a raskolnik, or dissenter, who had died in the preceding December. Some of the party beat the corpse or what was left of it about the head exclaiming, while others poured water at it through the sieve. Either pouring of water through a sieve seems plainly an invitation of a shower and reminds us of the manner in which the strip-seeds in our rooster fangs imagine that rain was made by Zeus. An Armenian rain-shine is to dig up a skull and throw it into running water. At Orpha, for this purpose, they preferred the skull of a Jew which they cast at the pool of Abraham. In Mysore, people think that if a leper is buried instead of being burnt, as you ought to be, rain would not fall, hence they have been known to dissenter buried lepers in time of drought. In Hal-Mahiro, there is a practice of throwing stones on a grave in order that the ghost may fall into a passion and avenge the disturbance as he imagines by sending heavy rain. This may explain a rain charm which seems to have been practiced by the Morotanians in antiquity. A man in the shape of a man lying on his back was pointed out as a grave and if any earth was dug up and removed from it, rain fell to the soil and was replaced. Perhaps the rain was a revenge the Surly Giant took for being weakened from his long sleep. Sometimes in order to procure rain, the Torreges of Central Salaves make an appeal to the pity of the dead. Thus in the village of Kalingoa in Kadonbukul, there is a grave of a famous chief, the grandfather of the present ruler. When the land suffers from unseasonable drought, the people go to this grave, pour water on it and say, oh grandfather pity on us. If it is your will that this year we should eat, then give rain. After that they hang a bamboo full of water of the grave. There is a small hole in the lower end of the bamboo so that the water drips from it continually. The bamboo is always refilled with water until rain drenches the ground. Here as in New Caledonia, we find religion lent with magic for the prayer of the dead chief what is pure religious is egged out with a magical imitation of the rain at his grave. We have seen that the baronca of Delagoa Bay drenched the terms of their ancestors especially the terms of twins as a rain charm. In Zululand the native girls form a precision and carry large pots of water to a certain tree which chances to be on a mission station. When the girls ask why they did this, it says that an old ancestor of theirs had been buried under the tree. And as he was a great brain maker in his life there always came and poured water on his grave in time and drought in order that he might send them rain. This ceremony partakes the nature of religion since it implies an appeal for help to a deceased ancestor. Purely religious on the other hand are some means adopted by the Herero of southwestern Africa to break your rain. If a drought has lasted long the whole tribe goes and is cuddled to the grave of some eminent man and maybe the father or grandfather of the chief they lay offerings of milk and flesh on the grave and out of their plant look oh father upon your beloved cattle and children they suffer distress they are so lean they are dying of hunger give us rain. The ease of this spectator are defined by the lowing and bleating of herds and flocks, the shouts of herdsmen, the barking of dogs and the screams of women among some of the Indian tribes in the region of the Orinoco it was customary for the relations of a deceased person to dissenter his bones a year after burial burn them and scatter the ashes to the winds because they believe that the ashes were changed into rain which the dead man sent in return for his obsequies. The Chinese are convinced that when human bodies remain unburied the souls their late owners fill the discomfort of rain just as living men would do they would expose their shelter to the inclinacy of the weather these rich souls therefore do all in their power to prevent the rain from falling and from their efforts are only too successful. Then drought insurers the most because bad hours, death and famine follow in its train hence it has been a common practice of the Chinese authorities in Tomatrat to inter the dry bones the unburied dead for the purpose of putting an end to the skirt and conjuring down the rain making rain by means of animals animals again often play an important part in these weather charms the annula tribe of northern Australia associate the dollar bird with rain and call the rain bird a man who has the bird for his totem can make rain at a certain pool he catches the snake puts it alive into the pool and after holding it under water for a time exit out kills it and lays it down by the side of the creek then he makes an arched bundle of grass stalks in imitation of a rainbow and sets it up over the snake after that all he does is to sing over the snake and the mimic rainbow sooner or later the rain will fall they explain this procedure by saying that long ago the dollar bird had as mate at this spot a snake who lived in the pool and used to make rain by spitting up into the sky to the rainbow and clouds appeared and rain fell the titan ghillie of northern Australia make rain in an old way one of them will catch a fat bandicoot and carried about singing over it till the animal grows very thin and weak then he lets it go and the rain will follow when some of the black fought Indians were at war in summer and wished to bring on a tempest to make a kid fox skin and rub it with dirt and water which never failed to be followed by a storm of rain the domps and indians of British Columbia think that when the loon calls loud and often it will soon rain and that to mimic the cry of the bird may bring the rain down the fish called the small skullpin which abounds along the rocky shore of northern south is called by the Eskimos the rain maker they say that if a person takes one of these fish in his hand if any of the fishermen desired to bring on rain and wind they pray to the skulls of raccoons and then throw water at each other should they wish the storm to increase they put on gloves and caps of raccoon skin and dance then it blows great guns in Mahalane a district of Upper Burma when rain is scarce the people pray to a certain fish called Nyayan and send it they also catch some fish and put them in a tub while offerings of plantains to the monks in the name of the fish after that the fish let loose in a stream upon where the gold is stuck on their heads if live fish are not to be had wooden ones are used and answered the purpose just as well when they try to some manabora wish to make rain they catch a crab and put it in a pot of water then the head man goes to the gate of the village and keeps lifting the crab out of the water and putting it back into it till he is tied an ancient Indian mode of making rain into an otter into the water if the sky refuses rain and the cattle are perishing an Arab sheik will sometimes stand in the middle of the camp and cry redeem yourselves of people redeem ourselves at these words every family sacrifices their sheep devising it too and hanging the pieces on two poles passes between them children too young to walk are carried by their mother but this custom has rather the appearance of a sacrifice than of a charm when they make rain by carrying a cat tied in a sadane chair throws around the patch fields while they trench it with water from bamboo squirts when the cat begins to mule they say oh lord let rain fall on us a common way of making rain in many parts of Gila is to bait a cat or two cats a male or a female sometimes the animals are carried in procession with music even in Batavia you may from time to time see children going about with the cat for this purpose when they abducted in a pool they let it go often in order to give effect to the rain charm the animal must be black thus an ancient Indian way of bringing it on rain was to set a black horse with his face to the west and rub him with a black cloth till he made in the Benay Chulgrun tribe of Northern Africa women lead a black cow in procession while other women sprinkle the whole group with water as a means of ringing a shower from the sky to procure rain the Peruvian Indians used to set a black sheep in a field pulled Chika over it and give the animal nothing to it until the rain fell once when a drought lasting 5 months set burnt up their pastures and withered the corn the calf-raiser Natal had recourse to a famous witch who promised to have a cure for rain without delay a black sheep having been produced an incision was made in the animal near the shoulder and the gall taken out part of this the witch rubbed over her own person some of the medicine was then rubbed on her body the rest of it attached to a stick was fixed in the fence of a cow's pen the woman next to her rained the clouds when the sheep was to be cooked a new fire was procured by the friction of fire sticks in ordinary circumstances a brand would have been taken from one of the huts among the Wembukwe a Bantu people of western Africa when this also desires to make rain he takes a black sheep and a black calf and bright sheep takes a black sheep and a black calf and bright sunshine and has them placed on the roof of a large common hut in which the people live together then he lets open the stomachs of the animals and scatters their contents in all directions after that he pours water and medicine into a vessel if the charm has succeeded the water boils up and rain follows on the other hand if this also wishes to prevent rain from falling he withdraws into the interior of the hut and there he heats a rock crystal in a calabash in order to procure rain a gogo of Germany's Africa sacrificed black fowls, black sheep and black cattle at the graves of dead ancestors and the rainmaker wears black clothes during the rainy season among them Mattabello the rain charm employed by the sorcerers was made from the blood and coal of a black ox in a district of Sumatra in order to procure rain all the women of the village scantily clad go into the river, wade into it and splat each other with the water a black cat is thrown into the stream and made to swim about for a while been allowed to escape to the pink pursued by the splashing women the Garo of Silver Salmon offer a black goat on the top of a very high mountain in time of drought in all these cases their colour of the animal is part of the charm being black it will darken the sky with rain clouds so that their colonos burn the stomach of an ox at evening because they say the black smoke will gather the clouds and cause the rain to come sacrifice a black pig to the earth goddess for rain a white or red one to the sun god for sunshine the Angoli a tribal Zulu descent to the north of the Zambezi sacrifice a black ox for rain and a white one for fine weather among the high mountains of Japan there is a district in which their rain has not fallen for a long time a party of villagers goes in possession to the bed of a mountain torrent headed by a priest who leads a black dog at the chosen spot they tuff the beast to a stone and they get a target for their bullets in arrows when it's lifeblood miss battles the rocks the peasants throw down their weapons and lift up their voices and supplication to the drab and divinity of the stream exhorting him to send down for with a shower to cleanse the spot from its defilement customers prescribe that on these occasions the colour of the victim's shell be black as an emblem are the wished for rain clouds if fine weather is wanted they must be white without a spot frogs and toads in relation to rain the intimate association of frogs and toads of water is 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 Orinocall 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 the frog was under a pot and to beat them with rods when there was a drought it is said that the Amara 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 in some parts of southeastern Australia where the rainfall is apt to be excessive the natives feared to injure totally the frog or the bull frog because they were said to be full of water instead of intestines and great marines would follow if one of them were killed the frog family was often referred as the banjil or lung 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 reed beds swallowing to enormous size saying, block block in a deep gobbling voice all the other animals wondered about gaping and gasping for a drop of moisture but finding none they agreed they must all die of thirst unless they could make the frog laugh so they tried one after the other but for a long time in vain alas the conger eel and his relations hung around the lake grass and gay seaweed reared themselves on their tails and pranced around the fire this was too much for the frog he hoped his mouth and last to the water ran out and the lakes and streams were full once more we have seen that some of the Queensland aborigines imitate the movements and cries of frogs as part of a range arm Tom Swartie river Indians of British Columbia and some people in Europe think that to kill a frog brings on rain in order to procure a rain paper of low cast in the central provinces of India will tie a frog to a rod covered in green leaves and branches of the nim tree and carry it from door to door seeing then sooner frog the jewel of water and ripen the wheat and mill it in the field in Kumawan a district north western India one way of bringing on rain when it is needed is to hang a frog with his mouth up on a tall bamboo 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 in the district of Muzza Fartpur in India the vulgar believes that the cry of a frog is most readily heard by the god of rain hence in a year throughout the low cast females of a village assemble at evening and put a frog and a small earthen pot together with water taken from five different houses the pot with the frog is in place in the hollow wooden cup into which the lever used for pounding rice falls being raised with a foot and then allowed to drop the lever crushes the frog to death and while the creature emits his dying croak the woman sings songs and a loud voice about the death of water the kapas or redis are a large and prosperous cast of cultivators and landowners in the mattress presidency when rain falls women of the cast will catch a frog and tie it alive to a new winnowing fan made of bamboo on this fan they spread a few magosa leaves and go from door to door seeing lady frog must have a bath O rain god give her 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 in arms convinced that by so doing she will soon bring rain down in torrents again in order to recue a 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 until a yalam hour it then they carry the mortar frog and all in procession singing mother frog playing in water pour rain by pot's pour while the villagers of the cast pour water over them beliefs like these might easily develop into a worship of frogs regarded as personifying the powers of water and rain in the rika veda there is a him about frogs which appears to be substantially a rain charm the new warriors the aboriginal inhabitants of Nepal worship the frog as a creature associated with the demigod nagas in the production a 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 frogs performed on the 7th day of the month of karthik, october usually at a pool which is known to be frequented by frogs otherwise not essential to the efficiency of the right that a frog should be actually singing at the time after carefully washing his face and hands the priest takes 5 brazen bowls and places in them 5 separate offerings namely rice, flowers, milk and vermilion ghee and incense and water lighting the pile of ghee and incense the priest says heyo pariam svada bho menatha I pray you receive these offerings and send us timely rain and bless our crops suggested explanation of connection of frog with rain some of these customs and belief 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 on a jet when seeing a frog emit a gush of water when all the round 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 disgorged as he would store the precious liquid 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 her family where there has been no death for a very long time and there he burns the skin of a cony as it burns he shouts the rabbit is burning and the cry is taken up by the whole crowd who continues shouting until they are exhausted this no doubt is supposed to stop the rain equally effective is a method adopted by gypsies in Australia when the rain has continued to pour steadily for a long time to the great discomfort of the homeless the men of the bad assemble at a river and divide themselves into two bodies 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 wrapped 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 serpent's 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 carcass 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 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 temp is short at such times they will drop the usual hocus pocus of imitated magical together 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 does they cut them off at the main thus in was a faranargar a town of the punjab when the rains are excessive the people draw a figure of a certain money or rishi agastya on a loincloth imported out in the rain or they paint his figure on the outside of the house and let the rain wash it off this money 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 powers as soon as he is thus made to feel in effigy the misery of wet weather on the other hand when rain is wanted at chattapur a native state in bundle kud 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 Mekar Raja the lord of rain they think that in this uncomfortable position these powerful beings will soon be glad to send the much needed showers in a Japanese village when the guardian divinity has long been deaf the peasants pray for rain they at last throw down his image and with curses loud and long hold it, it head foremost into this stinking rice field there they said he may stay yourself for a while and see how you will feel after a few days scorching in this boiling sun that is burning the life from our cracked fields in the light circumstances the phaloops of Senegambia cast down their fetishes and drag them about the fields cursing them till rain falls in Okunomora a Japanese village not far from Tokyo when rain is wanted, an artificial dragon is made out of straw reads bamboos of echinolia leaves preceded by a Shinto priest attended by men carrying paper flags and followed by others, vegging a big drum a dragon is carried in a position from the Buddhist temple and finally thrown into a waterfall when the spirits withhold rain or sunshine the commenters whip the slave if the gods approve obstinate Chinese modes of compelling 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 drag of paper or wood to represent the rain god and carried about in procession but if no rain follows the mocked dragon is executed torn to pieces and other times they threaten and beg the god if it does not give rain sometimes they publicly dispose of him from the rank of deity on the other hand if the wishful rain falls the god is promoted to a higher rank by an imperial decree it is said that in the reign of Kai king 5th emperor of the Manchu dynasty a long drag desolated several provinces of northern China processions were of no avail the rain dragon hardened his heart and would not let a drop fall and thus the emperor lost patience and condemned the recalcitrant deity to perpetual exile on the banks of the river Italy the decree was in process of execution the divine criminal with a touch and resignation was already traversing the deserts of Tartare 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 message was set off at full gall to bear the titans to the executors of the imperial justice the dragon was reinstated in his office and was not performing his duties a little better in future about the year 1710 the island of Songming which belongs to the province of Nanjing was afflicted with a drought the Vosaroid 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 turned out of the deity and his temple raised 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 device of Vosaroid forbade the people to make any more offerings at the shrine of his unfailing deity and commanded that the temple should be shut up and sales placed on the doors 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 in some parts of China the Mandarin's procure rain or fine weather in the southern or the northern gates of the city for the south wind brings drought and north wind brings showers hence by closing the southern opening the northern gates you clearly exclude drought and a mint rain whereas contra-wise by shutting the northern and opening the southern gates you bar out the clouds and the wet and lead in sunshine and genuine warmth in April 1888 the Mandarin's of Canton braided the god Lung Wong to stop the incessant down-bore rain and when he turned a deaf ear to their petitions they put him in a lock-up of five days this had a salutatory effect the rain ceased and the god was restored to liberty some years before in times of drought the same deity had been changed and exposed to the sun for days in the court out of his temple in order that he might feel for himself the urgent need of rain Siamese modes of constraining the gods to give rain 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 their inconvenience to which the gods are thus subjugated will induce them to grant the wishes of their worshipers when the rice crop is endangered by a long drought the governor of Bantamane a province of Siam, goes in great state to a certain begota and prays to Bordeaux for rain then accompanied by his suit and followed by Normans crowd he adjoins to a plane behind the begota here a dummy figure is being made up pressed in bright colours and placed in the middle of the plane a world music begins to play maddened by the din of drums and cymbals and crackers and girded on by the drivers the elephants charge down on the dummy and trample it to pieces after this, Bordeaux will soon give rain compelling the saints to give rain in Sicily the reader may smile at the meteorology of the fire east but precisely similar modes of recurring rain have been resorted to in Christian Europe with our own lifetime in 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 concarte d'horre which surrounded Palermo where magnificent belta verdure were 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 had lain whole nights before the whole images consecrated canals had burned day and night in the churches palm branches, blessed on Palm Sunday had been hung on the trees a solar paruta in accordance with a very old custom the dust swept from the churches on Palm Sunday had been spared on the fields in ordinary years these holy sweepings preserved the crops but that year, if you will believe me they had no effect, whatever at Nacuzia, the inhabitants were barefoot, carried the crucifixes through the wards of the town and scourged each other with iron whips it was all in vain even the great Saint Francis of Payola 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, best burst concerts, illuminations fireworks, nothing could move him at last the peasants began to lose patience most of the saints were banished at Palermo they dumped Saint Joseph in a garden to see the state of things for himself water leaving there in the sun till rain fell other saints were turned like gnaughty children with their faces to the war others again stripped of their beautiful robes were exiled far from their parishes threatened, grossly insulted ducked in horse bones at Col Tannisetha the golden wings of Saint Michael, the other angel were torn from his shoulders and replaced with wings of pasteboard his purple mantle was taken away and a clout wrapped about him instead at Lucata, the patron Saint Angelo, felt even worse for he was left without any garments at all he was reviled, he was put in iron he was threatened with drowning or hanging rain or the rope or the angry crowd of him as they shook their fists in his face disturbing the rain god in his horns another way of constraining the rain god is to disturb him in his horns this seems to be the reason why rain is supposed to follow the troubling of a sacred spring the diodes believe they did a cow skin or anything impure as placed in certain springs storms will follow in the mountains of Vargana there was a place where rain began to fall as soon as anything dirty was thrown into a certain famous well 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 it continued falling till the cave was glensed Gervasius mentions a spring into which if a stone or a stick were thrown rain would have once issue from it and drenched thrower there was a fountain at Munster such that if it were touched or even looked at by a human being it would have once flood the whole province with rain enormity a wizard will sometimes repair to a spring spring will flower it and sprinkle 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 cornfields when rain was long of coming in the canary islands the priestess used to beat the sea with the rods to punish the water of the spirit for his niggardlyz among the natural curiosities of a man are the caves of Chohang 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 ammonites worship the spirit of the cave and offer sacrifices at it's mouth in time a drought from all the villages in the neighborhood come boats the boatmen singing let it rain, let it rain in time to the measured tip of their oars on 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 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 anchor by defying his pure water or he will then send a bun at the reins to sweep far away the carcass of the dead dog which blows the sacred grotto putting compassion on the rain god 200 miles to the east of the land of the Hucho Indians in Mexico there is a sacred spring and a way 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 an equal quantity of seawater from the sea to the spring the two waters thus transferred will 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 Hucho country and meeting there will descend as rain exciting the pity of the beings who control the rain sometimes an appeal is made to the pity of the gods when their corn is being burnt up by the sun the zulu's 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 through it by raining, wailing in zulu land 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 that the 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 Huzondo reigns in times of drought the guanches of Tenor Reef led their sheep to sacred ground and there they separated the lambs from their dams that their plaintive bleeding might touch the heart of the god in Kuamon a way of stopping rain is to pour hot oil in the left ear of a dog the animal howls of pain his howls are heard by Indra and out of pity for the beast suffering the god stops the rain sometimes the grudges of central celebs attempt to procure rain as follows they place the stalks of certain plants in water saying go and ask for rain falls I will not plant you again but there shall you die also they string some fresh water snails on a cord and aim 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 however the foregoing ceremonies are religious rather than magical since they involved an appeal to the compassion of high powers the peculiar mode of making rain was adopted by some of the heathen Arabs they tied two sorts of bushes to the tails and iron legs of their cattle and setting fire to the bushes drove the cattle to the top of a mountain praying for rain this may be, as well Horsens suggests an imitation of lightning on the horizon but it may also be a way of threatening the sky as some West African rainmakers would apply several 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 in time of drought the priests of the Myskass in New Granada ascend the mountain and their burned billets of wood smeared with resin the ashes they scattered in the air thinking thus to condense the clouds and bring rain making rain by means of stones stones are often supposed to possess the property of bringing in on rain provided they be dipped in water or sprinkled with it or traded in some other appropriate manner in Asimowan village a certain stone was carefully housed as representative of the rainmaking god and in time of drought his priests carried the stone in possession and dipped it in a stream among the Tata Thea tribe of New South Wales the rainmaker breaks off a piece of quartz crystal and spits it towards the sky the rest of the chrysalis wraps in emu feathers soaks both crystal and feathers in water and carefully hides them in the Kerriman 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 among some tribes in north-western Australia the rainmaker repairs to a piece of ground which is set apart for the purpose of rainmaking there he builds a heap of stones or sand places on the top of it his magic stone and walks or dances around the pile chanting his incantations for hours feel sheer exhaustion or blight as him too desist the place is taken by his assistant water is speckled on the stone and huge fires are kindled no layman may approach the sacred spot while the mystic ceremony is being performed when the Salka of New Britain wished to procure rain they blacken stones with the ashes of certain fruits and set them out along the other plants and buds in the sun then a handful of twigs is dipped in water and weighed with stones while a spell is chanted after that rain should follow in Manapora on a lofty hill in the east of the capital there is a stone which the popular imagination likens to an umbrella when rain is wanted the raja fetters water from a spring below and sprinkles it on the stone at Sagami in Japan there is a stone which draws down rain whenever water is poured on it when the Wakondyo a tribe of Central Africa desired rain they sent to the Wewamba who dwells at the foot of snowy mountains and are the happy posetters of a rain stone in consideration of a proper payment the Wewamba washed the precious stone anointed it with oil and put it in a pot for the water after the rain cannot fail to come in Bahá'í people think they had to put an antidote by keeping a holy stone named Narayan Chakra in a vessel of water the Turks of Armenia make rain by throwing pebbles into the water at Egin the pebbles are hung in two bags in the Euphets there should be 70,000 and one of them and Mayundas in Asia Minor the number of the stones used for this purpose is 70,000 and each of them should be licked before it is cast into the sea bazoa stones as instruments of rain in some parts of Mongolia when the people desired rain they fastened a bazoa stone to a willow twig and placed it in pure water uttering incantations or prayers at the same time at Yacuch all classes used firmly to believe they could make rain by means of one of these bazoa stones provided it had really been found in the stomach of an animal and the fiercerer the beast the more powerful the charm the rainmaker had to dip the stone in spring water just as the sun rose then holding it between the thumb and the forefinger 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 the bazoa stone lasted only nine days conversely when Dr. Redloff's Mongolian guide wished to stop the rain with a crystal by a short string to a stick held the stone over the fire and swung the stick about in all directions while he chanted an incantation water is scarce with the fierce apaches who roam the arid wastes of Arizona and New Mexico which brings a few and far between in these torrid wildernesses where the intense heat would be unendurable but 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 canyons that worm their way into the heart of the wild and rugged mountains they become in time to a current trickling over the sand and a mile or two more will bring you to a stream of a total size flowing over boulders and screaming from the fierce sun by walls of rock that tower on either hand a thousand feet into the air they part size mattered with the fantastic forms of the prickly cactus and their summons crusted 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 recue a rain by magic they take water from a certain spring and throw it on a particular point high upon a rock the welcome clouds then soon gather and rain begins to fall in the district of Aranda in Armenia there is a rock with a hole in it near a sacred place women like canals on the rock and pour water under a hole in order to bring on rain as in the same district there is another rock which water is poured as offering a time of drought making rain by means of stones in Europe but customs of this sort are not confined to the worlds of Africa and Asia or the torrid deserts of Australia and the New World they have been practised in the cool air and out of the grey skies of Europe there is a fountain called Barenton a romantic fame in those wild woods of Braceliand where if legend be true the wizard Merlin still sleeps his magic slumber in the shade through the Breton peasants used to resolve when they needed rain they caught some of the water in a tanker and threw it on a slab in the spring on Snowdon there was a lonely tyrant called Dunlion or the black lake flying in a dismal stingle surrounded by high and dangerous rocks a row of stepping stones runs out into the lake and if anyone steps in the stones and throws water so as to wet the father stone which is called the red altar get rained before night even when it is hot weather in these cases it appears probable that as in Samoa the stones regard as more or less divine this appears from the customs sometimes reserved in dipping the cross in the fountain of Barenton to break your rain or this is plainly a Christian substitute for the old pagan way of throwing water on the stone dipping images of saints in water as a rain charm at various places in France or lately to be the practice to dip the image of a saint in water as a means of procuring rain thus beside the old priority of Komagui a mile or two on the south west of Mullins Engelbert there is a spring of Sint-Gervais whether the inhabitants go in procession to obtain rain or find 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 from which the fountain flows at Kolo Breyres and Carpentres both in province a similar practice was observed with the images of Sint-Pons and Sint-Genz respectively in several villages in Havéa prayers for rain used to be offered to Saint Peter and by way of enforcing them the villagers carried the image of the saint in procession to the river where they thrice invite him to reconsider his resolution and to grant their prayers then if he was still obstinate despite the remonstrances of the clergy who pleaded with as much truth as petty 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 24 hours Catholic Countries do not enjoy a monopoly of making rain by ducking holly images in water in Minn-Gurrelia when the crops are suffering from water rain they take a particularly holly image of dippeted water every day till the shower falls and in the far east mountains drench the images of Buddha with water when the rice is perishing or drought in all such cases the practice is probably at bottom a sympathetic charm however maybe disguised under the appearance of a punishment or a threat various rain charms by means of stones the application of water to a miraculous stone is not the only way of securing its good officers in the making of rain in the island of Ust one of the outer hybrids which the net is 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 in Aurora one of the new hybrids islands Rainmaker puts the 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 of 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 which goes a whole mess up in time and 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 sometimes a stone derives as magical virtue from its likeness to a real or imaginary animal thus a kota kadang 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 naturally therefore it possesses the property of listing showers from the sky since in Sumatra as we have seen a real black cat plays a part in the ceremonies for the production of rain hence the stone is sometimes smeared with the blood of fowls, rubbed and incensed by the charms added over it Adonete in Washington State there is an irregular basaltic rock on which a face said to be that of the thunderbird has been hammered by the neighborhood long believed that to shake the rock would cause rain by exciting the wrath of the thunderbird rain charms in classical antiquity like other peoples the greeks and romans sought to obtain rain by magic when prios and processions had proved ineffectual for example in Ocadia when the cornentries were passed a drought the priest of Zeus dipped an oak branch in a certain spring on Mount Lesseus thus troubled the water sent over misty cloud on which rain soon fell upon a land a similar mode of making rain is still practiced as we have seen in Helmahere near New Guinea the people of Cranon 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 probably the rattling of the chariot was meant to imitate thunder we have already seen that mock thunder and lightning formed part of the rain charm in Russia and Japan the legendary Salmonius king of Elis made mock thunder by dragging bronze kettles behind his chariot while driving over bronze bridge while he hurt blazing tortoise in imitation of lightning it was his impious wish to mimic the thundering car of Zeus as a roll across the vaults of heaven indeed he declared that he was actually Zeus and caused sacrifices to be offered to himself as such Dereotemple of Mara was outside the walls of Rome there was kept a certain stone known as lapis manalis in times of drought the stone was drowned in the Rome and this was supposed to bring down rain immediately there were Tristan wizards who made rain or discovered springs of water is not certain which they were thought to bring the rain or the water out of their bellies the legendary tellchians in roads are described as magicians who could change their shape and bring clouds, rain and snow the Athenians sacrificed boiled not roast meat to the seasons begging them to avert drought and try heat and to sin do warmth and time in rain 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 in a similar spirit the Prudent Greeks made it as a rule always to bore honey but never whine on the altars of the sun god pointing out with a great show of reason how expedient it was that it got to keep strictly sober End of Section 11 Section 12 of Volume 1 of the Golden Bell by James Fraser Part 1 The Magic Art in the Evolution of Kings Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings in the public domain For more information or volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Leon Harvey Chapter 5 The Magical Control of the Sun Making the sun shine The rule of total abstinence which Greek Prudence and P.T. imposed on the sun god introduces us to a second class natural phenomenon which primitive man commonly supposes to be in some degree under his control independent on his exursions Magical control of the sun Attempts to help the sun at an eclipse As a magician thinks he can make rain so he pairs his eagle and causes the sun to shine and can hasten or stay as it is going down At an eclipse the odd chipway is used to imagine that the sun was being extinguished so they shot fired tipped arrows in the air hoping thus to re-kiddle his expiring light The senses of Eastern Peru also shot burning arrows at the sun doing an eclipse but apparently they did not so much to relight his lamp as to drive away a savage beast with which they supposed him to be struggling Conversely during an eclipse of the moon some Indians of the Orumacal used to bury lot of brands in the ground because said they if the moon were to be extinguished all fire on earth would be extinguished with her except such as was hidden from her sight During an eclipse of the sun the Kamchatkans where want to bring out the fire from the hut and pray the great luminary to shine as before but the prayer addressed to the sun shows that this ceremony was religious rather than magical Purely magical On the other hand it was a ceremony observed on similar occasions by the Chilcotan Indians of north-western Africa Men and women tucked up their rows as they do in travelling and then landing on staves as if they were heavy laden they continued to walk in a circle till the eclipse was over Apparently they thought thus to support the failing steps of the sun as your troddies were around in the sky Similarly the ancient Egypt the king as represented in the sun walked suddenly around the walls of a temple in order to ensure that the sun should perform its daily journeys around the sky without the interruption of an eclipse or other mishap After the autumnal equinox the ancient Egyptians first of all called an activity of the sun's walking stick because as a luminary decline daily in the sky and his light and heat diminished he was supposed to need a staff on which to lean Various charms to cause the sun to shine A new Caledonia desires to make sun shine He takes some plants and corals to the burial ground and fashes them in a bundle and in two locks of hair cut from a living child of his family, also two teeth or an entire jaw bone from the skeleton of an ancestor He then clouds 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 besides them and hangs a bundle of charms over the stone Next morning he returns to the spot and sets fire to the bundle of the moment where the sun rises from the sea As the smoke curls up he rubs a stone with a dry coral Invokes his ancestor and says Son, 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 The new Caledonians also make a trout 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 the burning brand repeatedly into the hole while he says I kill the sun in order that it may dry up a loud so that it may produce nothing When the sun rises by and clouds a rare event in the bright sky of northern Africa the sun clan or the bull cornons say that he is grieving their heart All works stand still and all of the food or the previous day is given to metrons 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 the African room is domestic earth and places 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 to get a light from it A general dance follows In these cases it seems that the lighting of the flame on earth is supposed to rekindle the sort of fire Such a belief comes naturally to people who by the sun clan of the bull cornons den themselves the very cool kinsmen of the sun When the sun is bescured by clouds the lower indians of the grand chakal hold burning sticks towards him to encroach the luminary or rather perhaps to rekindle his similarly expired light The banks islanders make sunshine by means of a mock sun They take a very round stone called a vat lua or sun stone wind red braid about it and stick it with our feathers to represent rays seeing the proper spell in a low voice Then they hang it on some high tree such as a banyan or a coserina in a sacred place where the stone is laid on the ground with white words ready and from it to imitate sunbeams Sometimes the mode of making sunshine is the converse of that of making rain That's what we have seen that a white or red victim is sacrificed for sunshine while a black one is sacrificed for rain Some of the new caledonians dream to skeleton to make rain but burn it to make sunshine Sun jar is among the American Indians When the mist slay thick on the seer as a peru the Indian women used to rattle the silver and copper ornaments which they wore on their breasts and they blew against a 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 The Guarai or Indians also threw ashes in the air for the sake of clearing up the clouded evening sky In Karanikabar, when it has rained for several days without stopping the natives roll long bamboos they call these bamboo rods inviting the sun to shine 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 Human sacrifice offered to the sun by the Mexicans The ancient Mexicans conceived the sun as a source of all vital force and say named him Aipel Nemo Hue He by whom men live But if he bestowed life on the world he needed also to receive life from it And as the heart of the sun and symbol of life, bleeding hearts of men and animals were presented to the sun to maintain him in vigor and enable him to run his course across the sky Thus the Mexicans sacrificed it to the sun were mashcore rather than religious being designed not so much to please him, appropriate him as physically to renew his energies of heat light and motion The 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 Cessus Wars, the Mexicans and their cruel systems of human sacrifices the most monstrous on record spring and 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 era Greek Sacrifice of Horses to the Sun The ancient Greeks believed that the sun drove in a chariot across the sky Hence the Rulians, who worshipped the sun as their chief dirty, angly dedicated chariot and fought horses to him and flung them into the sea for his use doubtless they thought that after a used work his old horses and chariot would be worn out From a like motive probably the idolatrous king of Judah dedicated chariots fought horses to the sun and the Spartans, Persians and Masakite sacrificed horses to him The Spartans performed the sacrifice on the top of Mount Teiketas, 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 their islanders of rose to throw the chariot 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 Staying the sun by means of a net or string As some people think they can light up the sun or speed him on his way so others fancy they can retire to stop him In a pass the Peruvian handy stand to ruin towers in opposite hills Iron hooks are clamped into their walls the birds are stretching a net from one tower to the other The net is intended to catch the sun On a small hill in Fiji grew a patch of reeds and travellers who feared to be belated used to tie the tops of a handful of reeds together to prevent the sun from coming down As to this, my late friend Rev. Larima Fusen wrote to me, I have often seen the reeds tied together to keep the sun from coming down The place is on a hill in La Comba one of the eastern islands of the Fijian group It is on the side, not on the top of the hill The reeds grow to the right side of the path I asked an old man the meaning of the practice and he said, we used to think the sun would see us and no we wanted him not to go down till we got past or on our way home again But perhaps the original intention was to entangle the sun of the reeds just to the Peruvians try to catch him in the net. Stories of men who have caught the sun in a noose are widely spread. When the sun is going southward in the autumn and sinking lower and lower in the Arctic sky, the Eskimos of Oak Leuclick play the game of Catscrate in order to catch him in the meshes of the string and so prevent his disappearance. On the contrary when the sun is moving northward in the spring, they play the game of carbon ball to hasten his return. Mains like those which the Eskimos take to stop the departing sun are adopted by the oonigros of the sleeve coast to catch a runaway sleeve. They take two sticks, unite them by a string and then wind the string round one of them. By the same time, they pronounce and name the fugitive. When the string is quite wound about the stick the runaway will be bound fast and able to stir. In Ugini when a Motto man is hunting or traveling late in the afternoon and fears to be overtaken by darkness, he will sometimes take a piece of twine, loop it and look through the loop of the sun. Then he pulls the loop into a knot and says wait until we get home and we will give you the fat of a pig. After that he passes the string to the man behind him and then it is thrown away. In a similar case a Motto Motto, a man of new Ugini says, son do not be in a hurry just wait until I get to the end and the sun waits. The Motto Motto do not like to eat in the dark so if the food is not yet ready and the sun is sinking, they say son stop, my food is not ready but I want to eat by you. Either looking at the sinking sun through a loop and then drawing the loop into a knot appears to be a purely magical ceremony designed to catch the sun in a mesh but the request that the luminary would kindly stand still till home is reached or the dinner cooked coupled with the offer of a slice of fat bacon as an inducement to him to comply with the request is thoroughly religious. Jerome of Praeg, travelling among the heathen Lithuanians early in the 15th century fed a tribe who worshiped the sun and venerated large iron hammer the priests told him that once the sun had been invisible for several months because the powerful king had shut it up in a strong tower but the signs of the Zodiac had broke out of the tower with this very hammer and released the sun. Therefore they adored the hammer. Staying the sun by putting a stone or a clod in the fork of a tree. When the Australian blackfellow wishes to stay the sun from going down till he gets home he puts a salt in the fork of a tree exactly facing the sinking sun. For the same purpose Nadine of Yquitan, journeying westward places a stone in a tree or pulls out some of his eyelashes and blows them towards the sun. When the goblers a tribe of the Bar El Ghazal are on the march they will sometimes take a stone or a small ant heap at the size of man's head and place in the fork of a tree in order to retard the sunset. South African natives in travelling will put a stone in a fork of a tree or place some grass on the path with a stone over it believing that this will cause their friends to keep the male waiting till their arrival in this as in previous examples. The purpose apparently is to retard the sun. But why should the act of putting a stone or a salt in a tree be supposed to affect this? A partial explanation is suggested by another Australian custom. In their journeys the natives are accustomed to place stones and trees at various heights from the ground in order to indicate the height of the sun in the sky at the moment when they pass the particular tree. Those who follow are thus made aware of the time of day when their friends in advance pass the spot. Possibly the natives are so accustomed to mark the sun's progress may have slipped into confusion of imagining that to mark the sun's progress was to arrest it at the point marked. On the other hand to make it go down faster the Australians throw sand in the air and blur with their mouths towards the sun perhaps to wash the lingering all westward and bury it under the sands into which it appears to sink at night. Accelerating the moon As some people imagine they can hasten the sun so others fancy they can job the tidy moon. The natives of German New Guinea reckon months by the moon as some of them have been known to throw stones and spews at the moon in order to accelerate its progress as they do hasten the return of their friends who were away from home for 12 months working on co-plantation. Demolages think that a bright glow at sunset may throw a weak person into a fever and say attempt to extinguish the glow by spitting out water and throwing ashes at it. The Shuswap Indians of British Columbia believe that they can bring on cold weather by burning the wood of a tree that has been struck by lightning. The belief may be based on the observation that in their country cold follows a thunderstorm and since spring when these Indians are traveling over the snow on high ground they burn splinters of such wood in the fire in order that the crust of the snow may not melt. Sub Chapter 4 The magical control of the wind Making the wind to blow or be still Once more the savage things they can make the wind to blow or to be still. When the day is hot at a yakut has a long way to go he takes a stone which he has chance to find in an animal or fish winds a horsehair several times around it and ties it to a stick. Then he wears a stick about uttering a spell Soon a cool breeze begins to blow In order to procure a cool wind for nine days the stone should first be dipped in the blood of a bird or beast and then present to the sun while the sorcerer makes three turns contrary to the course of the luminary. The wind clanned at the Omaha's flap their blankets to start a breeze which will drive away the mosquitoes. When a hater Indian wishes to obtain a fair wind he fasts shoots a raven, cinches it in the fire and then goes to the edges of the sea sweeps it over the surface of the water four times in the direction in which he wishes the wind to blow he then throws the raven behind him but afterwards picks it up and sets it in a sitting posture at the foot of a spruce tree facing towards the required wind propping its beak open with a stick he requests a fair wind for a certain number of days then going away he lies covered up in his metal till another Indian asks for how many days he has desired the wind which question he answers When a sorcerer near Britain wishes to make a wind blow in a certain direction he throws burnt lime in the air chanting a song all the time then he waves spreeks of ginger and other plants about throwing them up and catching them Next he makes a small fire with the spreeks on the spot where the lime is formed thickest and walks around the fires chanting Lastly he takes the ashes and throws them on the water If a hotentot desires the wind to drop he takes one of his fattest skins and hangs it on the end of a pole in the belief that by lowering the skin it will lose all its force and must itself fall If you again wizards throw shells against the wind to make a drop On the other hand when a Persian peasant desires a strong wind to winow his corn he wraps a kind of bastard saffron and throws it up into the air After that the breeze soon begins the blow Suddenly Indians on Canada believe that the winds were caused by a fish like lizard When one of these fish had been caught the Indians advised the Jesuit missionaries to put it back into the river as fast as possible in order to calm the wind which was contrary If a Cherokee wizard desires to turn aside an approaching storm he faces it and recites a spell with outstretched hand Then he gently blows towards the quarter to which he wizards it to go waving his hand in the same direction as if he were pushing away the storm The Ottawa Indians fancied they could calm a tempest by relating the dreams they had dreamed during their fast or by throwing tobacco on the troubled water The Jesuits wish to obtain a favourable wind for their friends at sea They dance in a ring, both men and women swaying their bodies to and fro while the men hold anchor chiefs in their hands In Melanesia there are everywhere, whether doctors who can control the powers of the air and are willing to supply wind or calm in return for a proper rumouration For instance, in Santa Cruz the wizard makes wind by waving the branch of a tree and chatting the appropriate charm In another Melanesian island there is a large shell filled with earth in which an oblong stone covered with red ochre was set up while the hole was surrounded by a fence stick strengthened by a creeper which was twined in and out the uprights On asking our native what these things meant he learned that the wind was here fenced or bound round at least it should blow hard The imprisoned wind should not be able to blow again to the fence they kept it in should have rotted away In South Africa, when the kafers wish to stop there upon a wind doctor who takes a pot with a spout and points the spout towards the quarter from which the wind is blowing he then places medicines and some of the dust blown by the wind in the vessel and seals up every opening on the pot with damp clay There upon the doctor declares the head of the wind is now in my pot and the wind will cease to blow The natives of the island of Bibili of German New Guinea are reputed to make wind by blowing with their mouths In stormy weather the Bibili folk are at it again blowing away Another way of making wind which is practiced in New Guinea is to strike the wind stone lightly with a stick to strike it hard would bring on a hurricane so in Scotland which is used to raise the wind by dipping a rag in water and beating it thrice on a stone saying I knock this rag upon this stone to raise the wind in the devil's name he shall not lie till I please again raising the wind At Victoria the capital of Vancouver's island there are a number of large stones not far from what is called the battery each of them represents a certain wind When an Indian wants any particular wind he goes and moves the corresponding stone a little where he didn't move it too much the wind would blow very hard The natives of Murray Island and Torres Strait used to make a great wind blow from the south east by pointing coconut leaves and other plants had two gigantic boulders on the shore So long as the leaves remained there the winds sat in the quarter by significantly enough the ceremony was only performed during the provisions of the southeast monsoon The natives knew better than to try to raise the southeast wind while the northwest monsoon was blowing On the altar of Flutter's Chapel in the island of Flutterhorn one of the Hebrides lay a round bluish stone which was always moist Wind-bound fishermen walked sun-wise around the chapel in the water on the stone where upon a favorable breeze was shorter spring up In Geiger an island off the western coast of Iroga La Shire there is a well named Tulpa Wrath Both Thaig or the Lucky Well of Pethag which used to be famous for its power overraising the wind and lies at the Vodiver Hill facing the northeast near an isthmus called Tarbat 6 feet above where the water cutters out there is an heap of stones which forms a cover for the sacred spring when a person wished for a fair wind either to leave the island or to bring home his absent friends this part was open with great salinity the stones were carefully removed and the well cleaned with a wooden dish or a clam shell this being done the water was thrown several times in the direction the wishful wind was blow this action was accompanied by a certain form of words which the person repeated every tiny through the water when the ceremony was over the well was again carefully shut up to prevent fatal consequences it had been firmly believed that if the place left open a storm would arise which would overwhelm the whole island the Astonians have various odd ways of raising a wind they scratch their fingers or hang up a serpent or strike an axe into a house of being in the direction from which they wish the wind to blow by the same time they will see the notion is that the gentle wind will not let an innocent being or even a being suffer without coming or breathing softly to the sword, pain winds raised by wizards and witches in my borough, an island between New Guinea and Australia, there were men whose business was to make wind such as it wanted it when engaged in his professional duties the wizard painted himself black behind and red on his face chest, red in front to provide the red cloud of mourning the black represent of the dark blue sky of night thus arrayed he took some bushes that was low, fastened them at the edge of the reef so that the flowing tide made them sway backwards and forwards but if only a gentle breeze was needed he fastened them nearer to the shore to stop the wind he again paid himself red and black the latter in imitation of the clear blue sky and then removing the bushes from the reef he tried and hurt them the smoke as it curled up was believed to stop the wind smoke he go up and him clear up on top in some islands of Torres Straits the wizard made wind by whirling a bull roar the booming sound of the instrument probably seemed to him like a roar or the whistling of the wind amongst the coronary tribe of Gippsland of Etorio there used to be a noted razor of storms who went by the name of Bunjil Crora, or Great West Wind this wind makes the tall sanitary of the Gippsland forest rock and sway so their natives could not climb them in search of opossums hence the people were forced to propitiate Bunjil Crora by liberal offerings of weapons and rugs whenever the treetops bent before a gale having received their gifts Bunjil Crora would bind his head with swaves of stringy bark and the other stormed to rest with a song which consist of the words where string west wind repeated again and again apparently the wizard identified himself with the wind and fancied that he would bind it by tying string around his known head the guacoto Indians of British Columbia as we have seen believe that twins can summon any wind by milling moving their hands in Greenland a woman in child bed and for some time after deliveries was to possess the power of laying a storm she is only to go out of doors fill her mouth with air and coming back into the house blow it out again in antiquity there was a family a Corinth which enjoyed the reputation of being able to still the regent wind but we do not know in what manner its members exercise useful function which probably earned for them a more solid recompense winds than mere repute among the seafaring population of the insinuance even in Christian times under the reign of Constantine a certain sobeto suffered death at Constantinople on a charge of binding the winds by magic because it happened that the corn ships of Egypt and Syria were detained afar off by calms or headwinds now the rage and disappointment of the hungry bison time rabble an ancient charm to keep stores from damning the crops was to bury a toad a new earthen vessel in the middle of the field Finnish wizards used to sell wind to storm-stayed mariners the wind was enclosed in three knots if they undid the first knot a moderate wind sprang up if the second blew off a gale if the third a hurricane indeed the Estonians, whose country is divided from Finland only by an arm of the sea still believe in the magical powers of their northern neighbors the bitter winds blow in spring from the north northeast bringing fog and rheumatic inflamations in their train are set down by the simple Estonian peasantry to the machinations of the Finnish wizards and witches in particular their regard we have special dread three days in spring to which they give the name of days of the cross one of them falls on the eve of ascension day the people in the neighborhood have fell in fear to go out on these days lest the cruel winds from Lapland shoot smite and dead a popular Estonian song runs wind of the cross rushing and muddy heavy blow of the winds sweeping past wild wailing wind of misfortune and sorrow wizards of Finland ride by on the blast it is said too that sailors bedding up against the wind in the Gulf of Finland sometimes see a strange sail have in sight a stone and overhaul them hand over hand on she comes with a cloud of canvas all her studying sails out in the teeth of the wind forging away through the foaming billows dashing back the spray and sheaves from her cut water every sail swollen to bursting every rope strained to cracking then the sailors know that she hails from Finland enclosing the winds in knots, bags and pots the art of tying up the wind in three knots so that the more knots are loosed the stronger will blow the wind has been attributed to wizards in Lapland and to witches in Shetland, Lewis and the Isle of Man Shetland seem instilled by winds in the shape and knotted handkerchiefs or threads from all women who claim to rule the storms there are said to be ancient crones in the Lerawik now who live by selling wind in the early part of the 19th century Sir Walter Scott visited one of these witches at Stormness in the Orkneys he says, be cloned by steep and dirty lanes and eminence rising above the town and commanding a fine view an old hag lives in a wretched cavern on this height and resists by selling winds each captain up a merchant between just and earnest gives the old woman six pence and she boils a kettle to procure a favorable gale she was a miserable figure upwards of 90 she told us and dried up like a mummy a sort of clay-colored cloak folded over her head corresponded in color to her corpse-like complexion fine light blue eyes and nose and chin that almost met and a ghastly expression of cunning gave her quite the effect of her case which has boasted of seeking a ship by opening a bag in which she had shut up a wind Ulysses received the winds in a leather bag from Ayola's King of the Winds the Motamutu in New Guinea think that storms are sent by an old bull sorcerer for each wind he has a bamboo which he opens a pleasure on the top of Mount Agu in Togo a district of German West Africa resides a fetish quarter back bar who is supposed to control the wind and the rain to keep the winds shut up in great pots frightening driving away and killing the spirit of the winds often the stormy wind is regarded as an evil being who may be intimidated, driven away or killed when the darking in the sky indicates the approach of a tornado a South African magician will repair to a height whether he collects as many people as can be hostly summoned to his assistance directed by him they shout and bellow in the imitation of the gust as it swirls roaring about the lots and among the trees in the forest then at a signal they mimic the crash of the thunder out of which there is a dead silence for a few seconds then follows a screech more piercing and prolonged than any that preceded dying away in a tumultuous wail the magician fills his mouth with a foul liquid which he squirts in defiant jets against the approaching storm as a kind of menace or challenge to the spirit of the wind and the shouting and wailing of his assistance is meant to fight in the spirit away the performers last until the tornado either bursts or passes away in another direction if it bursts the reason is that the magician who sent the storm was more powerful than he who endeavored to avert it when storms and bad weather have lasted long and food is scarce with the central skimos they endeavour to conjure the tempest by making a long whip of seaweed and with which they go down to the beach to strike out in the direction of the wind crying Taba, it is enough once when north westerly winds had kept the ice low on the coast and food was becoming scarce the skimos performed a ceremony to make it calm a fire was kindled on the shore and the men gathered round it and chanted an old man then stepped up to the fire had had a coaxing voice and invited the demon of the wind to come under the fire and warm himself when it was supposed to have arrived the man present had contributed was thrown on the flames by an old man and immediately a flight of arrows sped towards the spot where the fire had been they thought that the demon would not stay where he had been so badly treated to complete the effect guns were discharged in various directions and the captain of a European vessel was invited to fire on the wind with cannon on the 21st of February 1883 a similar ceremony was performed by the skimos appoint Barrow Alaska with the intention of killing the spirit of the wind women drove the demon from their houses with clubs and knives with which they made passes in the air and the men gathering round a fire shot him with their rifles and crushed him under heavy stone the moment that steam rose in a cloud from the smoldering embers at which a tub of water had just been thrown confronting the storm with swords and drums in ancient India the priest was directed to confront a storm armed to the teeth with a bludgeon, a sword and a firebrand while he chanted a magical A doing a tremendous hurricane the drums of Kaduma near the victorian Nianza were heard to beat all night when next morning a missionary inquired the cause he was told that the sound of the drums was a charm against storms the sea dyaks and cayans of Borneo beat gongs when a tempest is raging but the dyaks and perhaps the cayans also do this not so much to frighten away the spirit of the storm as to appraise him of their wereabouts at least he should inadvertently knock their houses down heard a night above the helving of the storm the distant boom of the gongs has a weird effect and sometimes before the notes can be distinguished for the wind and rain they strike fear into a neighbouring village lights are distinguished the women are put in a place of safety and the men stand to their arms to resist an attack then with a lull in the wind the true nature of the gong beady is recognised and the alarms subsides attacking the whirlwind with weapons on calm summer days in the Highlands of Scotland eddies will wind someone's go past whirling about dust and stores though not another breath of air is stirring the Highlanders think that the fairies are in these eddies carrying men, women, children or animals and they will fling their lift shoe or their bonnet or a knife or earth or a molehill of the eddie to make the fairies drop their booty when a gust lifts the hay in the meadow the Bregian peasant throws a knife for a fork at it to prevent the devil from carrying off the hay similarly in the Estonian island of Ursel when the reapers abysm on the corn and the wind blows about the years that have not yet been tied to sheaves the reapers slash out at with their sickles the custom of flinging a knife for a hat at a whirlwind observed alike by German, Slovenian and Estonian moustaches they think that a witch or wizard is riding on the blast and that the knife if it hits the witch will be reddened by her blood or disappear altogether sticking the wound it has afflicted sometimes Estonian peasants run shrieking and shouting behind a whirlwind hurling sticks and stones into the flying dust the Lengoi Indians of the Grand Chaco ascribe the rush of the whirlwind to the passage of a spirit and they fling sticks at it to frighten it away when the wind blows down their hearts Paguans of South America snatch up firebrands and run against the wind menacing it with the blazing brands how others beat the air with their fists to frighten the storm when the Koryukuru is threatened by a severe storm the men go out armed and the women and children scream at that as to intimidate the demon during a tempest the inhabitants of the Batta village in Sumatra have been seen to rush from their houses armed with sword and lance the Rajah place themselves at their head and with a shouting hill say hood and hacked at the invisible foe an old woman was observed to be especially active in the defense of her house slashing at the air right and left with a long sabre in a violent thunderstorm sounding very near the Kayans of Borneo have been seen to draw their swords threatening half out of their scabbards as they to frighten away the demons of the storm in Australia the huge columns of red sand that move rapidly across a desert tract are thought by the natives to be spirits passing along once an athletic young black ran after one of these moving columns to kill it with boomerangs he was away two or three hours and came back very weary saying he had killed Kuchi the demon by that Kuchi had grounded him and he must die of the Bedouins of eastern Africa it is said that no whirlwind ever sweeps across the path without being pursued by a dozen savages with drawn creases who stab into the centre of the dusty column in order to drive away the evil spirit that is believed to be riding on the blast fighting the Samoon in the light of these examples a story told by Herodotus which his modern critics have treated as a fable is perfectly credible he says without however vouching for the truth of the tale that once the land of the Vizili, the modern Tripoli the wind blowing from the Sahara had dried up all the water tanks so the people took counsel and marched in a body to make war on the south wind but when they entered the desert the Samoon swept down on them and buried them to a man the story may well have been told by one who watched them disappearing in battle array with drums and symbols beating into the red cloud of whirling sand End of section 12