has undoubtedly been observed by passers-by in many parts of the world, and that, too, even when the graves are not those of persons who have come to a violent end. Thus we are told that the people of Unalashka, one of the Aleutian Islands, bury their dead on the summits of hills and raise a little hillock over the grave. "In a walk into the country one of the natives who attended me pointed out several of these receptacles of the dead. There was one of them by the side of the road leading from the harbour to the village over which was raised a heap of stones. It was observed that every one who passed it added one to it." The Roumanians of Transylvania think that a dying man should have a burning candle in his hand, and that any one who dies without a light has no right to the ordinary funeral ceremonies. The body of such an unfortunate is not laid in holy ground, but is buried wherever it may be found. His grave is marked only by a heap of dry branches, to which each passer-by is expected to add a handful of twigs or a thorny bough.2 The Hottentot god or hero Heitsi-eibib, as the reader is already aware, died several times and came to life again. When the Hottentots pass one of his numerous graves they throw a stone, a bush, or a fresh branch on it for good luck. Near the former mission-station of Blydeuitzigt in Cape Colony there was a spot called Devil's Neck where, in the opinion of the Bushmen, the devil was interred. To hinder his resurrection stones were piled in heaps about the place. When a Bushman, travelling in the company of a missionary, came in sight of the spot he seized a stone and hurled it at the grave, remarking that if he did not do so his neck would be twisted round so that he would have to look backwards for the term of his natural life. Stones are cast by passers-by on the graves of murderers in some parts of Senegambia.5 In Syria deceased robbers are not buried like 1 Cook, Voyages (London, 1809), vi. 479. 2 E. Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, i. 311, 318. 3 H. Lichtenstein, Reisen im Südlichen Africa, i. 349 sq. ; Sir James E. Alexander, Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa, i. 166; C. J. Anderson, Lake Ngami, p. 327; W. H. I. Bleek, Reynard the Fox in South 4 Th. Hahn, "Die Buschmänner," Globus, xviii. 141. 6 Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, ii. 195, referring to Raffenel, honest folk, but left to rot where they lie; and a pile of stones is raised over the mouldering corpse. Every one who passes such a pile must fling a stone at it, on pain of incurring God's malison.1 Between sixty and seventy years ago an Englishman was travelling from Sidon to Tyre with a couple of Musalmans. When he drew near Tyre his companions picked up some small stones, armed him in the same fashion, and requested him to be so kind as to follow their example. Soon afterwards they came in sight of a conical heap of pebbles and stones standing in the road, at which the two Musalmans hurled stones and curses with great vehemence and remarkable volubility. When they had discharged this pious duty to their satisfaction, they explained that the missiles and maledictions were directed at a celebrated robber and murderer, who had been knocked on the head and buried there some half a century before.2 In these latter cases it may perhaps be thought that the sticks and stones serve no other purpose than to keep off the angry and dangerous ghost who might be supposed to haunt either the place of death or the grave. Yet when we remember that precisely the same customs are practised in circumstances which exclude the supposition of a ghost-for example, on spots defiled by moral turpitude without any shedding of blood, or again by weary travellers whose only thought is of rest-we shall probably incline to reject this obvious explanation and to seek one which will apply to all the cases we have been considering. That explanation appears to be supplied by the primitive view of death and the dead as the sources of a dangerous pollution which infects all who come near them. To rid himself of that pollution, which, as usual, he conceives in a concrete form, the savage seeks to gather it up in a material vehicle and leave it behind him on the hazardous spot, while, having thus cast care away, he hastens forward with a lighter heart. This explanation falls in exactly with the tradition as to the Nouveau Voyage dans le pays des nègres (Paris, 1856), i. 93 sq. 1 Eijūb Abēla, "Beiträge zur Kenntniss abergläubischer Gebräuche in Syrien," Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palaestina-Vereins, vii. (1884), p. 102. 2 Note by G. P. Badger, on The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema, translated by J. W. Jones (Hakluyt Society, 1863), p. 45. origin of those cairns which were to be seen by wayside images of Hermes in ancient Greece, and to which every passer-by added a stone. It was said that when Hermes was tried by the gods for the murder of Argus all the gods flung stones at him as a means of freeing themselves from the pollution contracted by bloodshed; the stones thus thrown made a great heap, and the custom of rearing such heaps at wayside images of Hermes continued ever afterwards.1 At all events this mode of interpreting the custom appears preferable to the one which has generally found favour with European travellers and writers. Imperfectly acquainted for the most part with the notions which underlie primitive magic, but very familiar with the religious conception of a deity who requires sacrifice of his worshippers, they are apt to interpret the missiles in question as cheap and easy offerings presented by pious but frugal worshippers to ghosts or spirits whose favour they desire to win. Whether a likely mode of conciliating a ghost or spirit is to throw sticks and stones at him is a question about which opinions might perhaps differ. It is difficult to speak with confidence about the tastes of spiritual beings, but as a rule they bear a remarkable likeness to those of mere ordinary mortals, and it may be said without fear of contradiction that few of the latter would be gratified by being set up as a common target to be shied at with sticks and stones by everybody who passed within range. Yet it is quite possible that a ceremony, which at first was purely magical, may in time have a religious gloss or interpretation put on it even by those 1 Etymologicum Magnum, S.V. 'Epuaîov, p. 375 sq.; Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey, xvi. 471. As to the heaps of stones see Cornutus, De natura deorum, 16; Babrius, Fabulae, xlviii. 1 sq.; Suidas, s.v. 'Epμaîov; Schol. on Nicander, Ther. 150. The method of execution by stoning may perhaps have been resorted to in order to avoid the pollution which would be entailed by contact with the guilty and dying man. 2 See, for example, O. Baumann, Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle, p. 214; G. M. Dawson, "Notes on the Shuswap People of British Columbia," Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, ix. (1891), section ii. p. 38; F. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, pp. 267 sq., 273 sq., 276, 278 sq.; R. Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche, p. 48. Mr. E. S. Hartland explains the prac tice as an act of ceremonial union with the spirit of the cairn (Legend of Perseus, ii. 228). Some of these writers have made a special study of the practices in question. See F. Liebrecht, "Die geworfenen Steine," Zur Volkskunde, pp. 267-284; R. Andree, "Steinhaufen," Ethnogr. Parallelen und Vergleiche, pp. 46-58. who practise it; and this seems in fact to have sometimes happened to the particular custom under consideration. Certainly some people accompany the throwing of the stone on the pile with the presentation of useful articles, which can hardly serve any other purpose than that of propitiating some local spirits. Thus travellers in Sikhim and Bhootan offer flour and wine, as well as stones, at the cairns; and they also burn incense and recite incantations.1 Indians of Guatemala offered, according to their means, a little cotton, salt, cacao, or chili.2 They now burn copal and sometimes dance on the tops of the passes where the cairns are to be seen, but perhaps these devotions may be paid to the crosses which at the present day are generally set up in such situations. In Bolivia the Indian will squirt out the juice of his coca-quid, or throw the quid itself on the cairn, to which he adds a stone; occasionally he goes so far as to stick feathers or a leathern sandal or two on the pile. In passing the cairns he will sometimes pull a hair or two out of his eyebrows or eyelashes and puff them away towards the sun.* In Sweden a piece of money is sometimes thrown on a cairn instead of a stick or stone.5 In the jungles of Mirzapur the cairn which marks the spot where a man has been killed by a tiger, and to which each passer-by contributes a stone, is commonly in charge of a Baiga or aboriginal priest, who offers upon it a cock, a pig, or some spirits, and occasionally lights a little lamp at the shrine. times offered at these piles. In Laos be seen beside the path, on which the a pebble, a branch, or a leaf, while he the Diamond to bestow on him good luck and long life." Tibetan travellers mutter a prayer at the cairns on the tops 1 J. A. H. Louis, The Gates of Thibet, p. 111 sq. 2 Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de Amérique-Centrale, ii. 564. 3 C. Sapper, "Die Gebräuche und religiösen Anschauungen der KekchiIndianer," Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, viii. (1895), p. 197 sq. 4 D. Forbes, "On the Aymara Indians of Bolivia and Peru," Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, Prayers, too, are someheaps of stones may passenger will deposit beseeches the Lord of of passes to which they add a few stones gathered by them. on the ascent.1 A native of South-Eastern Africa who places a small stone on a cairn is wont to say as he does so, "Cairn, grant me strength and prosperity." " In the same circumstances the Hottentot prays for plenty of cattle,3 and the Caffre that his journey may be prosperous, that he may have strength to accomplish it, and that he may obtain an abundant supply of food by the way. It is said that sick Bushmen used to go on pilgrimage to the cairn called the Devil's Neck and pray to the spirit of the place to heal them, while they rubbed the sick part of their body and cried "Woe ! woe!" On special occasions, too, they resorted thither and implored the spirit's help. Such customs seem to indicate the gradual transformation of an old magical ceremony into a religious rite with its characteristic features of prayer and sacrifice. Yet behind these later accretions, as we may perhaps regard them, it seems possible in many, if not in all, cases to discern the nucleus to which they have attached themselves, the original idea which they tend to conceal, and in time to transmute. That idea is the transference of evil from man to a material substance which he can cast from him like an outworn garment. Animals are often employed as the vehicle for carrying away or transferring the evil. A Guinea negro, who happens to be unwell, will sometimes tie a live chicken round his neck, so that it lies on his breast. 1 T. T. Cooper, Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce (London, 1871), p. 275. 2 J. Macdonald, "Manners, Customs, etc., of South African Tribes," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xx. (1891), p. 126. 3 Sir James E. Alexander, Expedi tion of Discovery into the Interior of Africa, i. 166. 4 S. Kay, Travels and Researches in Caffraria, p. 211 sq. When the Bishop of Capetown once passed a heap of stones on the top of a mountain in the Amapondo country he was told that "it was customary for every traveller to add one to the heap that it might have a favourable influence on his journey, and enable him to arrive When the bird flaps its wings at some kraal while the pot is yet boiling" (J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal, p. 217). Here there is no mention of a prayer. Similarly a Basuto on a journey, when he fears that the friend with whom he is going to stay may have eaten up all the food before his guest's arrival, places a stone on a cairn to avert the danger (Casalis, The Basutos, p. 272). The reason alleged for the practice in these cases is probably equivalent to the one assigned by the Melanesians and others; by ridding the traveller of his fatigue it enables him to journey faster and so to reach his destination before supper is over. 5 Th. Hahn, "Die Buschmänner,” Globus, xviii. 141. As to the cairn in question, see above, p. 9. |